How significant were religious affiliations to the daily experiences of Ottoman urbanites? Most historians agree that religion was the main social divider in Ottoman society, and that people's status, as well as the set of choices that guided them throughout their lifetimes were much influenced by whether they were Muslim or dhimmi. In this paper, I look at a set of documented natural disasters (plague epidemics, earthquakes, and famines) that took place in the Ottoman Empire in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and study people's behavioral patterns while responding to these calamities. Such an analysis is made through employing a combination of sources: Ottoman, British, and French archival documents, as well as more recent studies in sociology and psychology. I argue that since natural catastrophes occurred so often during this period - most people experienced such misfortunes at least once a decade - they became an inseparable part of people's lifetime experiences. Knowing more about people's responses to these disasters may broaden our understanding of the set of values and priorities that guided them in making choices for themselves and their families. Examining numerous cases of reactions to disasters, I found that people's responses did not always correspond to what one might expect according to their religious affiliation. Thus during plague epidemics, many Muslims fled their cities despite a popular belief that they didn't; and a great number of non-Muslims stayed put even though their religious leaders encouraged them to seek refuge elsewhere. It appears that various social and economic considerations rather than confessional attachment determined people's actions during times of crisis, and that in such cases communal authority weakened considerably. This finding is in line with a number of recent studies that have suggested that religious communities within Ottoman society, and especially non-Muslim ones, were not rigid and isolated bodies that had only minimal relations with the surrounding population. Instead, we need to consider the community and its guiding religious principles as one attribute among many that determined people's actions and behaviors. The various levels of mutual help and cooperation between members of different groups during crises indicate that business, social, and even familial bonds that breached religious boundaries affected people's choices considerably more than certain traditional stipulations. This paper, therefore, provides further evidence that Ottoman urban society should be understood as consisting of a web of interlacing and overlapping circles rather than as characterized by a Muslim-dhimmi dichotomy.