According to Danny Tio, it was God's prerogative not to stop the tsunami disaster for reasons unknown to humans ( Tsunami is God's prerogative ).

I come from a religious background. I was taught to pray for safety and protection precisely from calamities such as the tsunami. What is the point of prayers for safety when they need not be answered because, according to the writer, it was God's prerogative to not stop the natural disaster? It is also my prerogative not to pray.

It is well to say that God's designs are beyond human's comprehension.

This appears to be the classic rationalisation, which in psychological parlance, is a defence mechanism by which one's true motivation (of preserving, at all costs, belief in the Creator's for one's emotional benefit) is concealed by brushing aside blatant logical inconsistencies under the excuse of non-understanding of the Creator's designs.

Calamities have also traditionally been rationalised away by humans having free will and in exercising that free will had deviated from the path of the Almighty and hence should be punished.

Tell that to the young children, who have been made orphans by the tsunami and who have not even lived long enough to have sinned to be responsible for it.

Today, the relief and donations for the tsusami victims come from the compassion of the human heart than the largesse from the heavens above.

Disasters can be averted if there were a more sophisticated warning system from our understanding and utilisation of technology rather than warning from above.

The path to human salvation lies in control of our own destiny through the rational application of our given intellect. To seek refuge from prayers in denigration of our intellect has time and again proven futile.

If, in the face of calamities, we brush aside the rational process to continually seek refuge and sanctuary under faith, it is to tempt the recurrence of such sufferings, and another round of rationalisation of the Creator's benevolence and our non-understanding of His designs.

That to me is the ultimate abdication of the exercise of free will, and intellect that we have. If there is anything to be learned from this great calamity of the tsunami, it is this.