1. 
   1
   queenstuss
   

   wrote on 11 February 2009 at 12:15

   I’m a mother. Some­times my son thinks I’m evil and nasty. Like right now. I won’t put Nemo on. But I did let him watch bananas in pyja­mas ear­lier, and might even let him watch it again. Mother Nature never seems to do nice things for peo­ple. Just mean things.

   
   
2. 
   2
   Leah
   

   wrote on 11 February 2009 at 15:48

   I don’t think any­one is treat­ing Mother Nature as a being who is respon­si­ble for nat­ural dis­as­ters. It’s just a name they give nat­ural events.

   
   
3. 
   3
   Nathan
   

   wrote on 11 February 2009 at 15:49

   I know that. I just think it’s stupid.

   
   
4. 
   4
   Nathan
   

   wrote on 11 February 2009 at 15:51

   My point is that they should blame God rather than some made up “mother” fig­ure. It’s hardly a moth­erly thing to be killing peo­ple ran­domly. I don’t know why non-Christians are so com­fort­able with that par­tic­u­lar superstition.

   
   
5. 
   5
   queenstuss
   

   wrote on 11 February 2009 at 22:12

   but put the word ‘mother’ in any­thing and it sounds sweet and love­able and nat­ural and right.

   Besides which, if you blame God then you by default have to acknow­eldge his exis­tence. If there is a God then maybe he did cre­ate the world and it didn’t evolve and maybe I really am a sinner.

   So it does make sense to blame mother nature, in a way.

   
   
6. 
   6
   Leah
   

   wrote on 12 February 2009 at 23:28

   “I don’t know why non-Christians are so com­fort­able with that par­tic­u­lar superstition.”

   But that was my point, it’s not a super­sti­tion, just another term for nat­ural events. They’re just say­ing nature has caused it, which is true. God didn’t cause it. They shouldn’t be blam­ing God. And say­ing “It’s hardly a moth­erly thing to be killing peo­ple ran­domly” still sug­gests that they think this “mother nature” is a being actively caus­ing nat­ural disasters.

   
   
7. 
   7
   Nathan
   

   wrote on 12 February 2009 at 23:46

   I dis­agree — I think God is sov­er­eign and these things hap­pened “under his watch” so to speak. They just didn’t hap­pen as a spe­cific pun­ish­ment for any par­tic­u­lar wrong doing. They hap­pened because cre­ation is groan­ing under the curse.

   My point about “mother nature” is that I think it’s a silly thing to say. I don’t think moth­ers wan­tonly kill their chil­dren. I think the ter­mi­nol­ogy is inap­pro­pri­ate. I think invok­ing “mother nature’s” name in times like this either per­son­i­fies “nature” and ascribes cer­tain pow­ers and abil­i­ties to that per­son… and I think the idea of “mother nature” is fairly sim­i­lar to pagan gods and even cer­tain char­ac­ters from the pan­theon and other God based col­lec­tives from mythology.

   The real point was that it’s such a stu­pid thing. I’m a lit­tle over hear­ing peo­ple blame “mother nature” left, right and cen­tre… I would think the fact that peo­ple instinc­tively per­son­ify nature would sug­gest a pretty screwed up world view. Par­tic­u­larly if you’re look­ing at the argu­ment from a Chris­t­ian per­spec­tive. And also if they’re from the atheist/agnostic camp. For exam­ple, Lisa Wilkin­son on the Today pro­gram is mar­ried to Peter Fitzsim­mons — one of Australia’s most mil­i­tant athe­ists. And yet she has men­tioned “mother nature” at least three times this week. That strikes me as being incon­sis­tent with the athe­ist worldview.

   
   

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