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It all comes back to the old omnimax refutation of god. If god was powerful and had knowledge of the suffering caused by natural evil (assuming he did not cause it), as a benevolent being he should intervene to save people. Let's create a human example: I see a bleeding person on the street, and as a doctor I know how to save him from dieing, but instead walk away, then a court of law could find me guilty of negligience if not worse. Even without the threat of fines we could reasonably expect a doctor to take care of the person though. Thus the conclusion must be that this god who is all-knowing and even mildly powerful apparently is of lesser virtue than a human doctor

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What's that? God acting as a social servant ? ;-)

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No, you have to go half-way with prayer, you cant just expect God to do everything.

The parallel is an umbrella someone gives you to protect you from the rain. If you dont use the umbrella (through prayer and faith) it is no good to just carry it around with you, if you dont believe in the umbrella then it certainly does no good for you, if you stomp on the umrella and dare the world to rain on you you will definately get wet.

So the umbrella is there, but God isnt running around holding it over everyone's head.

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Are you claiming that devout Protestants are not killed in natural disasters ?

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You might be familiar with the forum "Rapture Ready" which can be rather entertaining to read. Shortly after the mining disaster last year when the false news were broadcast that a large number of miners had been saved, the people over on these forums started praising god for this miracle. Eventually the statement was revised that they were not saved, but oddly enough nobody decided to blame god for his negligience. The same kind of selective perception is going on here.

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