Mother Nature

In the past year or so I've some to realize that Mother Nature is a formidable foe. She does as she pleases and is by far the strongest of all. I really get tired of hearing people cry that hurricanes, wildfires, earthquakes, tornados, floods, etc is god's way of punishing us. Bull Shit.

I just finished reading the book "Pompeii" by Robert Harris. At the end of the book, Pliny the Elder is facing the wrath of Vesuvius. He is intrigued. Knowing he is about to meet his end, these were his thoughts:

"Men mistook measurement for understanding. And they always had to put themselves at the center of everything. That was their greatest conceit. The earth is becoming warmer -- it must be our fault! The mountain is destroying us -- we have not propitated the gods! It rains too much, it rains too little -- a comfort to think that these things are somehow connected to our behavior, that if only we lived a little better, a little more frugally, our virtue would be rewarded. But here was nature, sweeping toward him -- unknowable, all-conquering, indifferent -- and he saw in her fires the futility of human pretensions." (Pompeii, 344)

Of course this is a fiction book. Pliny the Elder died alone so no one knows what he was thinking. But I believe the author it the nail on the head. What do you think?