God, cosmos, Katrina and Rita

USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), Nov, 2005

The desire to assign cosmic significance to hurricanes Katrina and Rita is an example of humankind's ages-old need to find reason within chaos, according to University at Buffalo (N.Y.) anthropologist Phillips Stevens Jr.

Stevens is not surprised by Internet postings that say Katrina and Rita are "punishments from God," nor does it come as a shock that people want to extract meaning from the fact that the same letters used to spell "Rita" are contained in the word "Katrina"

"People are looking for this kind of thing all the time," he states. "The idea that we are pawns in a cosmic plan, this is a widespread mode of thinking."

Many people sought the same sort of cosmic meaning behind the numbers 9 and 11 after the World Trade Center was attacked on 9/11 and the Madrid train bombings occurred 911 days later, Stevens points out. Moreover, some individuals claimed God's retribution was behind the horrible AIDS epidemic of the 1980s as well as the devastating earthquakes in California and Japan.

"It's a reaction to our discomfort with lack of understanding, with a lack of explanation," he says. "Any explanation, even a supernatural one, can be not only comforting but also stabilizing for people."