Liver and Fava Beans: A Collection of Church Collapses

“Evil's just destructive? Then storms are evil, if it's that simple. And we have fire, and then there's hail. Underwriters lump it all under 'Acts of God'… I collect church collapses, recreationally. Did you see the recent one in Sicily? Marvelous! The facade fell on sixty-five grandmothers at a special mass. Was that evil? If so, who did it? If he's up there, he just loves it, Officer Starling. Typhoid and swans - it all comes from the same place.”
~ Hannibal Lecter, "The Silence of the Lambs", Chapter 3

I, like Dr. Lecter, collect church collapses recreationally. In the interest of full disclosure, I'm not the sort of person who cheers for the death of religious people; nevertheless I find church collapses - especially the very deadly ones - to be immensely fascinating. It honestly boggles my mind that so many people can be presented with such blatant evidence that Yhwh either doesn't exist, or clearly has no concern for the lives of his "flock" and his houses of worship, and yet (despite the evidence) Christians will still claim that Yhwh is a "good shepherd" and a "loving father" who craves a relationship with them, hears their prayers, and cares about them individually. Every week these people gather into buildings dedicated to the praise and worship of some supposed almighty father figure. Then one day the building collapses on top of them as they grovel through a hymn to his majesty. To top it all off, those who are not killed in these tragedies will go back to church the very next week and sing their praises all the more loudly; seemingly oblivious to the butchery that their deity supposedly carried out against his own worshippers only a week prior.

By request, I am turning my collection into a blog post and making it publicly available. So pour yourself a glass of your finest Chianti (or perhaps a big Amarone) as we take a stroll through my humble collection of church collapses. If you happen to know of a church collapse that I've missed, please let me know so I improve my collection.

	Location	Date	Dead	Injured
1	San Juan Capistrano, CA	1812, Dec 8	42	0
2	Leeward Islands	1843, Feb 8	0*	0*
3	Syracuse, NY	1874, Jun 23	13	200+
4	Reading, PA	1888, Oct 8	0	100+
5	New York, NY	1905, Feb 27	11	22+
6	San Jose, CA (Five Churches)	1906, Apr 18	0*	0*
7	Baltimore, MD	1967, Feb 9	0	30
8	Leeward Islands	1974, Oct 8	0*	0*
9	Garland, TX	1978, May 23	1	57
10	Popayan, Colombia	1983, Mar 31	2+	0*
11	New York, NY	1993, Dec 10	0	0
12	Piedmont, AL	1994, Mar 27 (Palm Sunday)	18	90
13	New York, NY	1996, Jan 13	0	0
14	New York, NY	1997, Jul 12	0	0
15	Osasco, Brazil	1998, Sep 5	30+	538
16	New York, NY	2001, Sep 11	0	0
17	Memphis, TN	2002, Jul 21	4	0
18	Gondar, Ethiopia	2004, Jan 3	15+	20
19	Pittsburgh, PA	2004, Mar 13	2	29
20	Boston, MA	2004, Sep 4	0	0
21	Kalerwe, Uganda	2006, Mar 8	27+	86+
22	London, England	2007, Aug 13	0	0
23	Abbotsford, B.C.	2008, Apr 25	0	42
24	Bistrita, Romania	2008, Jun 12	0	0
25	Rajahmundry, India	2008, Aug 28	0	40
26	Sao Paulo, Brazil	2009, Jan 18	9	100+
27	Dharan, Nepal	2009, Sep 30	24	62
28	Washington D.C.	2010, Feb 6	0	0
29	Memphis, NY	2010, Feb 17	0	0
30	Clinton, NC	2010, Feb 18	1	2
31	Oswego, NY	2010, Jul 25	0	0
32	Christchurch, New Zealand	2011, Feb 22	3	0
33	Indianapolis, IN	2011, Jul 12	0	0
34	Paris, France	2012, Apr 09 (Easter Sunday)	1	30
35	Benue State, Nigeria	2012, Apr 09 (Easter Sunday)	22	31
36	Bushenyi district, Uganda	2012, Apr 23	1	8
37	Tbilisi, Georgia	2012, May 14	0	0
38	Modena province, Italy (Two Churches)	2012, May 29	1	0*
39	Lagos, Nigeria	2013, May 08	1	4
40	Jethro, AR	2013, May 09	0	6
41	Sakaman, Ghana	2013, Jul 22	0	1
42	Swoyersville, PA	2013, Sep 09	1	0
43	Monterrey, Mexico	2013, Sep 29	1	24
44	Bohol island, Philippines ("Dozens of Churches")**	2013, Oct 17	0*	0*
45	Charlotte, NC	2014, Feb 12	0	0
46	Laurel, MS	2014, Feb 20	0	35
47	Harrisburg, PA	2014, Feb 21	9 left homeless
48	New York, NY	2014, Mar 12	0*	0*
49	St. Louis, MO	2014, Apr 14	0	0
50	Cevo, Italy	2014, May 14	1	0
51	Yenagoa, Nigeria	2014, May 20	0	20+
52	Steelton, PA	2014, Jun 21	0	0
53	Kansas City, MO	2014, Aug 7	0	0
54	Umuahia, Nigeria	2014, Aug 26	0	0
55	Lagos, Nigeria	2014, Sep 12	115	25
56	Cumru, PA	2014, Sep 25	0	0
57	Philadelphia, PA	2015, Feb 15	0	0
58	Springfield, TN	2015, Feb 20	0	0
59	South Weymore, MA	2015, Feb 22	0	0
60	Indianapolis, IN	2015, Mar 17	0	0
61	Melbourne, FL	2015, Mar 29	0	0
62	Rahway, NJ	2015, Apr 5 (Easter Sunday)	0	15
63	Oduma, Nigeria	2015, Apr 9	5	0*
64	Kathmandu, Nepal (47+ Churches)†	2015, Apr 25	500+	0*
65	Diboll, TX	2015, May 3	0	0
66	Arbor Hill, NY	2015, May 4	0	0
67	Vancouver, B.C.	2015, May 6	0	0
67	Smyrna, GA	2015, May 14	0	0
68	Kansas City, MO	2015, May 26	0	0
69	Tirunelveli, India	2015, May 27	3	14
70	Montpelier, VT	2015, June 8	0	0
71	Denmark, TN	2015, June 10	0	0
72	Haymarket, VA	2015, June 19	0	2
73	Lokoja, Nigeria	2015, July 9	0	5
74	Anderson, SC	2015, July 10	0	0
	Totals	137+ Churches	854+	1,634+
*  No specific number was given in the cited source. ** This collapse is counted as 12+ churches in the final tally. † As the cleanup from the Nepal Earthquake is ongoing, these numbers are subject to change.

Right here, in this modest collection alone, we have at least 137 collapsed churches, and over 2,488 people injured or killed for the heinous crime of attempting to worship their supposed creator, who supposedly made the entire universe just so he could have a relationship with them. What then should we conclude from this? Is Yhwh a sadist? Or is it that there is no god, and therefore no one is to blame because accidents happen and ultimately no one is in control? (Hint: This last option is correct.) Regardless, his utter disregard for those whom he claims to want a relationship with, shows - at a minimum - that Yhwh is not the "loving father figure" that Christians imagine that they are following, but is (if anything) a hideous sadist who slaughters the faithful and unfaithful alike, without a second thought.

"God is beyond measure in wanton malice and matchless in his irony." ~ Hannibal Lecter
~ "Hannibal" NBC, Season 2, Ep. 11.

"I don't pray. I've not been bothered by any considerations of deity. Other than to recognize how my own modest actions pale beside those of God." ~ Hannibal Lecter
~ "Hannibal" NBC, Season 2, Ep. 11.