After the earthquake and then Hurricane Irene, many (including several facebook friends) wondered whether plagues of locusts or frogs were next.

Never fear, writes Stephen Prothero. We Americans rely on science, not the Book of Revelation, for our interpretation of natural disaster:

When it comes to earthquakes and hurricanes, however, our authorities are geologists and meteorologists. Most of us interpret these events not through the rumblings of the biblical prophet Jeremiah or the poetry of the Book of Revelation but through the scientific truths of air pressure and tectonic plates.

Well, some of us do. And then there’s Michele Bachmann. Her campaign says she was just joking.

A sermon from Mark Harris on the hurricane.