Opinion: Victims aren't villains

Brian Tamaki. Photo/File

As if there's not enough to worry about these days, Destiny Church co-founder Brian Tamaki has reminded us the end is nigh.

Tamaki recently tweeted "Earthquakes..Floods..Famines..Diseases..Wars and Widespread Deception are just few of the end time signs..th end comes wen Kingdom is Preached (sic)".

Earthquakes..Floods..Famines..Diseases..Wars nd Widespread Deception are just few of th end time signs..th end comes wen Kingdom is Preached

— Bishop Brian Tamaki (@BishopTamaki) August 30, 2017

This piece of wisdom was shared as the bodies were still being counted from the devastation of Hurricane Harvey in the southern states of the US.

Of course it would suit many of those who deny the existence of climate change (but believe in a vengeful god) to place the blame for extreme weather on something else, something less inconvenient.

Hurricane Harvey has killed at least 50 people, and its floods have displaced tens of thousands and destroyed thousands of homes.

How crass is it to use this tragedy to push your own barrow? To suggest the victims are being punished for their sins.

Not that long ago Tamaki blamed earthquakes on gays, sinners and murderers. He blamed a gay priest and the people of Christchurch for the earthquakes in 2010 and 2011 which killed 185 people.

"Leviticus says that the earth convulses under the weight of certain human sin," he said. "It spews itself up after a while - that's natural disasters."

Rubbish like this certainly does induce spewing.

I suppose it's a lot easier to ignore scientific fact and come up with these grand hypotheses about death, misfortune and tragedy.

What compounds the tragedy is that people could buy in to what he's saying.