What does "Act of God" mean?

Some peeps are hyperventilating that Rick said the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster may have been an "act of God" (link).

My immediate reaction was, "what is the big deal?"

Then again, I am a lawyer by schooling at least, and I did stay at Holiday Inn Express last night...

Wikipedia has the answer (link). Excerpt follows...

Act of God is a legal term^[1] for events outside of human control, such as sudden floods or other natural disasters, for which no one can be held responsible.

Chill out peeps... if you are really concerned that this was some kind of gaffe you really need to take a basic course on the English language. Act of God could mean any kind of accident... the pressure in the sea floor got too high and blew the whole thing up... all it means is that sometimes bad things happen that are out of our control.

The thing blew up if you remember... and a dozen people died from it... this was not just some drunk ship captain slowly running his ship into an iceberg... this was a once in a generation fluke accident that apparently happened during a routine and safe procedure and may take a while to get to the bottom of...