It's time for the 22nd Carnival of the Godless; I was inspired to see what the godly are up to, and I assure you, we need more godlessness right now, because the blind and deluded and evil are out in force.

Archbishop Alfred E. Hughes of New Orleans:

"God has brought us to our knees in the face of disaster," he said. "We are so overwhelmed, we do not really know how to respond. Powerlessness leads us to prayer. And we know when we turn to God, God offers us his grace."

God offers you nothing, and accomplishes nothing, and his 'grace' is the squalor of a shattered city. This is the religion of the ineffectual. It's the language we've seen a lot of lately: Pray for New Orleans. Thank you, God, for only destroying my home and not killing me. The dead are in a better place now. God protect the members of my sect. Smite the unbelievers.

LifeSite:

Michael Brown, creator of the immensely popular SpiritDaily.com website - popularly known as the Catholic DrudgeReport, has said that Katrina was "definitely" a purification for New Orleans. Brown points out that the name Katrina itself means "pure". And that, Brown told LifeSiteNews.com, is not a coincidence. "I don't believe in coincidences," said Brown, adding that God has everything in His control and "I think that everything is interwoven."

No, Katrina was a natural disaster that killed thousands and has caused suffering to hundreds of thousands more. It was not the sword of your fictitious lord, and this kind of justification of people's pain as the righteous action of an angry god just leads to the sanctimonious hatred we see below.

Agape Press:

Two Christian leaders in New Orleans are testifying to God's mercy in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. One suggests that the death toll could have been much higher had it not been for God's mercy -- and the other that God may have used the hurricane to purge wickedness from the city.

J. Grant Swank, Jr:

As far as Repent America is concerned, divine judgment has come upon a metropolis that was bent on making its environs open to hell’s demons. Therefore, God intervened. There will be no "Southern Decadence" skipping the light fantastic. Over and out. Done. Gone. Under water.

Repent America:

"Although the loss of lives is deeply saddening, this act of God destroyed a wicked city," stated Repent America director Michael Marcavage. "From 'Girls Gone Wild' to 'Southern Decadence,' New Orleans was a city that had its doors wide open to the public celebration of sin. From the devastation may a city full of righteousness emerge," he continued.

Fred Phelps:

Pray for more dead bodies floating on the fag-semen-rancid waters of New Orleans.

I wish those were only rare and hateful kooks, but religion is the breeding ground of this nonsense, and far too many people wallow in lesser delusions that they will use to justify absurdities.

BeliefNet:

…most polls show that 40% of all U.S. adults believe the physical world will eventually end as a result of a supernatural intervention, perhaps with a literal Rapture, Tribulation, Antichrist, and Battle of Armageddon described in the Book of Revelation. Nearly half of all Americans believe the Middle East will be “heavily involved” in the events surrounding the end of the world. And 40% believe the end of the world will come in their lifetime.

Secularism won't protect us from natural disasters, but it also won't encourage us to savor other people's suffering as a vindication of our own beliefs, and it will provoke more rational responses than begging for help from nonexistent deities.

Stop praying. Get out of the churches. Go do something constructive.