You can always count on superficial, and therefore stupid, Christians to give yet another reason for smart people not to consider Christ.

Apparently, according to the sort of superficial Christians I'm talking about (source: a caller to Dennis Prager, 1st Hour, KNUS-AM 2 September 2005), what has happened to New Orleans is a judgment of God because of all of the homosexuality and pornography and so forth in that city. When people speak this way, they are tacitly claiming to be prophets; to say that some event constitutes a judgment of God is to claim to be a prophet.

Most non-Christians who come into contact with stupid Christians probably think that the stupidity of stupid Christians is the result of spending too much time reading the Bible. This was my experience when I was a non-Christian. In actual point of fact, this sort of stupidity is really due to not spending enough time studying the Bible. Had stupid Christians spent time studying the Bible instead of trying to prophesy they might know that Jesus taught that not every bad thing that happens is a judgment of God:

Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. Jesus answered, "Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish." (Luke 13:1-5)

How could real, Bible-reading Christians have missed such a passage?

Oh yeah. One more thing. When a Christian says that an event is a judgment of God, he had better not be speculating; he better be right. The reason is simple: the person who says that such and such is a judgment of God is, as I mentioned above, acting the part of a prophet. And the Scriptures provide both a two-fold test and a stiff penalty for false prophets. (And here we come to another evidence that stupid Christians are stupid Christians because they do not know the Scriptures.) The two-fold test is this: (1) the so-called prophet makes a declaration, regarding the future (not the past) which comes to pass; and (2) does not, on the basis of his accurate declaration, attempt to lead people away from the worship of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. (See Deuteronomy 13:1-5) Note that we cannot test what these pretended prophets prophesy: the event about which they offer an interpretation (i.e., prophetic word) comes before they speak. Unless one can find some passage of Scripture which asserts that every natural disaster is a judgment of God upon the people upon whom said disaster falls, one simply has no warrant for the assertion that this or that disaster was a judgment. And the logic of such a position would look something like this:

1. According to the Bible every natural disaster is an act of judgment upon the people who live in that area (cite said passage here).
2. A natural disaster occured in New Orleans (and no where else, apparently).
3. Therefore, the disaster was a judgment of God.

The problem with this sort of argument is that propositions 1 and 2 are false. The Bible makes no such assertion about disasters. And New Orleans was not the only place touched by disaster. Indeed, once the economic implications of all this are truly felt, we shall see that this disaster will affect even those against whom God cannot possibly have intended any judgment.

Silly Christians, prophecy is for prophets!