In recent months, it seems like there’s been story after story about some major earthquake hitting somewhere in the world. Now scientists have reassured us that this is perfectly normal: the amount of earthquakes we’re experiencing is about average; it’s just that they happen to be occurring in more populated areas as opposed to out at sea where many of them usually strike. But what do those eggheads know anyway? If they were really all that, they would’ve invented some machine that could predict and stop earthquakes by now.

Nope, I think there’s something else going on. Something more sinister. But I had no proof of it…until recently. Iran’s Ayatollah Kazem Sedighi told worshippers last week that there was indeed another reason for the rise in earthquakes in that country: sex.

Specifically extramarital sex and, more specifically, extramarital sex caused by women who lead men to sin with their slutty ways. Here’s what the Iranian senior cleric said:

“Many women who dress inappropriately … cause youths to go astray, taint their chastity and incite extramarital sex in society, which increases earthquakes. Calamities are the result of people’s deeds. We have no way but conform to Islam to ward off dangers.”

So if this is true, then it naturally makes sense that the countries with the highest rates of infidelity should also have the highest rates of earthquakes. Unfortunately, there aren’t any really accurate statistics on what nations have the highest rates of adultery, but according to a very informal poll on this site, the United States comes out on top followed by Canada and the Russian Federation. And are those the countries that have the most earthquakes? Nope, that would be Japan, Indonesia, Tonga, Fiji, China, Turkey and/or Iran depending on how you define the criteria for “most” earthquakes (see here).

So can we agree that the Ayatollah is just a nut? Maybe, but before we dismiss him as just another crazy religious figure from a backwards country, let’s not forget that we have just as equally nutty guys right here in our own backyard. For example, remember this exchange between the Rev. Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson on the 700 Club just days after the 9/11 attacks:

Falwell: “The ACLU has got to take a lot of blame for this. And I know I’ll hear from them for this, but throwing God…successfully with the help of the federal court system…throwing God out of the public square, out of the schools, the abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked and when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad…I really believe that the pagans and the abortionists and the feminists and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way, all of them who try to secularize America…I point the finger in their face and say you helped this happen.”

Robertson: “I totally concur, and the problem is we’ve adopted that agenda at the highest levels of our government, and so we’re responsible as a free society for what the top people do, and the top people, of course, is the court system.”

Falwell: “Pat, did you notice yesterday that the ACLU and all the Christ-haters, the People for the American Way, NOW, etc., were totally disregarded by the Democrats and the Republicans in both houses of Congress, as they went out on the steps and called out to God in prayer and sang ‘God bless America’ and said, let the ACLU be hanged. In other words, when the nation is on its knees, the only normal and natural and spiritual thing to do is what we ought to be doing all the time, calling on God.”

And is the idea of sex/hedonism leading to destruction really that out there? Remember the story of Sodom and Gomorrah from the Bible? What does God do after Sodomites try to have their way sexually with two visiting male angels? He destroys them with a catastrophic earthquake.

Hey, if it could happen then, it could happen now.