Einstein's Mistake

Two recent revelations:

1. Despite Einstein, God DOES play dice with the universe. Einstein had it exactly wrong.

2. The residents of Sodom and Gemorrah were honest, pious, God-fearing people. They despised sin in all its forms.

The calumnies circulated about them were sordid attempts to justify the ways of God to man.

I came to these conclusions after reading a book about the Johnstown flood -- and learning that several ministers had maintained that the residents of Johnstown had brought it on themselves by their errant ways. Of course, several prominent religious people blamed the sinful ways of Americans for 9/11 and for Katrina.

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Comment from anonymous:

there is something wrong with the human brain (and as so often the case, what's wrong is also what's right with it).

we seek connections, and when we don't find them, we invent them. this is one reason why we can be so creative -- and also why we can be just plain wrong.

there are actually pious jews who believe that we brought the holocaust down on ourselves for -- of all things -- not keeping the sabbath.

and they even believe that if everyone kept the sabbath, the messiah would come -- so it's all our fault that he is tarrying.

the theologican richard rubenstein wrote, in "after auschwitz," that this kind of quid pro quo is not tenable -- there are connections to be made, to be sure -- the centuries of christian "contempt teaching," the scapegoating of the jews, etc. -- but the sins of the victims did not create the holocaust -- rather the sins of the perpetrators did.