As an Atheist you are contradicting yoursef to assume that God is choosing tough love. You know nature is a machine that is set in motion. God doesn't create natural disasters, he may have created the machine to makes nature but he is not the lever puller so to speak that spawns tornados. He doesn't whisk the good people away. He sets a world that is imperfect in motion to allow our souls to mature by allowing us to do good when suffering comes up. After Katrina I went and knocked down homes. I helped people in Emergancy shelters in Gonzales the day after and all of this has made me grow and mature. I wouldn't be the awesome person of dominance before you (yes vainity is a sin). Overall, whether a person is sick that you helped or poor that you gave a hand to, you have matured because of "Evil". In darkness God created light and for every yen there is a yang (for my buddhists brethern).