Why is explaining suffering away easier than learning from it?
Unmask the hypocrisy in how we interpret suffering and discover a more mature, responsible spirituality.
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| Why is a disaster a 'test' for us, but 'punishment' for them? |
When disaster happens, many reach for God like a talisman:
“This is a test,” they say, and sleep more easily.
When the same calamity hits “them,” the talisman flips, and suddenly it's punishment. The difference is not heaven’s verdict; it is our hypocrisy. We baptise fear as faith and call it wisdom.
A curious pattern emerges in how people interpret suffering. When disaster strikes “us,” it is called a test; proof of divine love, a path to spiritual elevation.
When it strikes “them,” it becomes punishment; a moral verdict passed from the sky.
The event is the same; only the narrative changes. This inconsistency reveals less about God and more about the human need to protect belief from discomfort.
Consider the earthquake that levels a city. If it strikes a community known for its piety, the narrative is swift: God is testing their faith. We hold prayer vigils and speak of refinement through fire.
But if that same tectonic shift flattens a neighbourhood deemed sinful or other, the verdict is equally swift: It is divine wrath.
The event is identical: a shift in the Earth's crust. But the story we tell ourselves changes completely, shielding us from the uncomfortable truth that tectonic plates, unlike our tribal deities, are utterly indifferent to our moral boundaries.
By framing every tragedy through a theological lens of reward or retribution, critical thinking quietly exits the room. Questions about responsibility, systems, governance, and human error are replaced with metaphysical shortcuts.
Nature is no longer allowed to be nature; it must carry moral intent. Empathy, too, becomes conditional; reserved for those within the approved circle of belief.
This conditional empathy extends beyond tragedy. It builds walls. Our prayers are reserved for our kind. Our donations flow to familiar faces. The suffering of the other becomes a cautionary tale, a distant sermon that reinforces our own sense of spiritual security.
We turn a global catastrophe into a local parable, and in doing so, we fail the most fundamental test of humanity: to see suffering as suffering, regardless of the address it bears.
If divinity is truly just and universal, then earthquakes do not scan identities, floods do not ask for creeds, and viruses do not negotiate theology. The laws of nature operate without ideology. To insist otherwise is to reduce God into a narrative tool, used to console the in-group and condemn the out-group.
Perhaps genuine spirituality does not begin in the thunderous explanation of the storm, but in the humble silence that follows.
It begins when we allow suffering to strip us of our easy answers, to humble us into thinking deeper, feeling wider, and taking responsibility right here, on this earth.
It is the courage to face the chaos without outsourcing our conscience to the heavens.
