Speaking of faith from American public media is supported by faith and values media,

presenting Patrick a new look at a misunderstood saint available on DVD.

Support is also provided by the Pew Charitable Trusts,

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the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and the John Templeton Foundation.

This is speaking of faith conversation about belief, meaning, ethics, and ideas.

I'm Krista Tippet.

Today, as aftershocks continue in the Indian Ocean, we'll explore the morality of nature.

In Indonesia, aftershocks have been a daily occurrence since December's deadly earthquake

and tsunami. Today was different. Today's quake was huge. It registered a magnitude 8.0.

Theologians refer to catastrophic natural disasters as natural evil.

Insurers call them acts of God. In the wake of December's devastation,

even the op-ed page of the New York Times raised the classic theological question,

where is God when nature destroys human lives and livelihood?

This hour, we'll approach that question from another angle.

We won't look to religion for answers. We'll look at Earth Sciences and

tectonic plates and see how they might illuminate religious questions.

We'll also trace how earthquakes have often fueled religious agendas and movements

throughout history and how they influence religious and secular thinking to this day.

Later, we'll speak with cell biologist Ursula Goodenough of Washington University in Saint

Louis. She takes her sense of the sacred directly from her knowledge of the natural world.

My first guest, geologist Yelda De Boer, is a leading expert on volcanoes and earthquakes.

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