"He is good at that."

I know what you mean and respect the man's gratitude to God for his family's salvation, but my first response to the above line was: "I guess the 150,000 others didn't merit salvation."

The tragedy reminds me of Ecclesiastes: "Time and chance happen to them all."

...my first response to the above line was: "I guess the 150,000 others didn't merit salvation."

Depends on what you mean by "salvation," I guess. God's interest is in our souls, not our bodies.

</religious soapbox>

...so it follows that God was interested in the bodies of the saved and not interested in the bodies of the dead.

For a person to give thanks to providence when he is saved from physical destruction is a noble thing. But the onlooker who comments "God is good at" saving one individual, while hundreds of thousands lie dead all around, is revealing a rather limited view of God's relationship with humanity. Such a view is merely the inverse of the commonly heard mantra of the unbeliever who says, when confronted with the capriciousness of death: "How can God let bad things happen."

Ecclesiastes is in the same Bible you seem to be reading. Look it up - Chapter 9:11. It is silly to blame a natural disaster on God. But it's also silly to single out individual survivors as somehow receiving God's protection over those who die. And you can be a follower of the Good Book, and not have to believe such nonsense.

...so it follows that God was interested in the bodies of the saved and not interested in the bodies of the dead.

How so? What did I say that leads to this assertion?

So God only deigns to save our souls, not our bodies? Now we're getting somewhere. Whether you drown in a tsunami or land in a tree and survive, has got very little to do with God. Therefore, to say that God is good at saving people from natural disasters is similar to saying that Santa Claus is good at delivering presents. It's a nice idea, but it doesn't survive as a serious notion past the age of about eight.