The centuries-old struggle of humanism versus traditional religion hasn’t resulted in total victory for humanism, even in thoroughly debauched Western societies. Until March 2020, for example, a lot of Americans would shut down their casual sex apps and drive past the billboards for recreational marijuana on Sunday mornings to attend church.
What if humanists could make traditional religious believers afraid of going to church? Or make churches uncomfortable to attend? Enter the public health battalion in the Army of Humanism!
A friend in Newton, Maskachusetts attends an orthodox synagogue. Attendance In October 2021 was about half what it was pre-coronapanic. “The biggest drop off is among the women,” he said, “for whom going to shul is optional.” Christian churches nationwide seem to have experienced a similar drop in attendance.
Now that most of the COVID-vulnerable are either dead or vaccinated (Maskachusetts would be on page 1 of countries ranked by COVID-19 death rate if it were its own country), why wouldn’t the synagogue be full? Mask-wearing is required by the righteous secular #science-following bureaucrats and politicians who run the City of Newton. This makes sitting together for hours unpleasant for no obvious personal health benefit. If the masks do work their 11 percent magic (closer to 0 percent for cloth masks), all of us remain doomed to eventual infection.
The slave states have managed to shut down churches and other houses of worship entirely and/or make attending uncomfortable via mask orders. What about in the free states, such as Florida and South Dakota? In those places, the national and local media, generally run by non-believers, can work to instill fear of COVID-19 that will keep people away from church.
Regardless of whether the fight is happening in a slave state or a free state, is it fair to say that SARS-CoV-2 is the best thing that ever happened to humanism? Religion relies heavily on in-person gathering, which people will refrain from doing, either voluntarily or involuntarily, once convinced that avoiding COVID-19 should be their primary life goal.
Separately, as long as we’re talking about religion, here’s the curve of deaths, including the summer Delta variant surge, for the infidels following the Church of Sweden:
(Cumulatively, Sweden has suffered about half the COVID-19 death rate compared to Maskachusetts. On the COVID-19 death rate leaderboard, the give-the-finger-to-the-virus country sits right next to Greece, celebrated by technocrats for its victory over the virus: “Greece has responded swiftly and effectively to the Covid-19 pandemic and has so far managed to contain the spread of infections, but the economy has been hit hard, adding to long-standing challenges, according to a new OECD report.” (oecd.org); “The key to Greece’s success, analysts say, was the government’s early steps to contain the virus ahead of most of Europe.” (TIME); “How Greece is beating coronavirus despite a decade of debt” (Guardian))
Traditional religion seems to be only strengthened due to new sense of brotherhood and sisterhood of disregarding repressive governmental orders that connects traditional-religious masses with spirit of glorious times of martyred sages. Fake religions are indeed diminished but even there I see examples where masses of retirees fortified by booster shots defied their virtue signalling priesthood and organized massed gatherings inviting young people as well, with 0 coronavirus infection cases of course.
The separation between church and state is also conveniently removed by converting to the new Corona and DEI religions. Who needs a constitution with individual God given rights?
Another plus of Corona the fake churches outed themselves by closing and the fake faithful outed themselves by staying home.
I do not go to church because the mostly-Republican thinking does not align with my actual religious views. Straight from the Bible:
Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have
For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God
Sell your possessions, and give to the needy
For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs
You cannot serve God and money
Republicans (and “Dr” PhilG) believe taxes on the ultra-wealthy should be lower, more money is not enough (even after accumulating many-multi-generational wealth), poor people are exclusively lazy free-loaders, and the best people are rich people.
If I go down the ten commandments, the absolute best counter example to almost every one is, you guessed it, Donald Trump — Republicans’ God-on-Earth. “He’s a man’s man.”
Mike sounds like you will find yourself most comfortable in Cambodia or similar no-money place.
The biblical quotation may appear strangely surrealistic, but “camel” is apparently a mistranslation of “rope” (say, that you might use to support a fishing net) either Aramaic to Greek, or Greek to Latin/English . Nonetheless, camels were known in Palestine by the time of the supposed saying, having been domesticated in the Mediterranean coast of the Near East ca. 900BC for copper mining.
And yet Mike does not advocate selling his possessions and giving proceeds to the needy but taking someone else money, which Bible considers a crime. I am tired of being hassled on the streets for money to unknown places where $5 feeds the village per month as advertised by young political wanna-be do-nothibngs dressed in designer closes that cost 5 times of what I am wearing. They could start shopping in wallmart and save lives of millions.
/df, Abraham’s servant Eleazar was traveling on camels, which was significantly earlier then 900 BC, around 1700 – 1500 BC
Roger: https://philip.greenspun.com/blog/2019/11/08/quality-of-life-in-denver/ makes a related point: [following an image where Patagonia complains about “climate deniers” in the U.S. government] (Wouldn’t the actual “climate deniers” be Patagonia customers themselves? Suppose that someone bought a vest for $30 at Costco or $40 at Uniqlo instead of paying $200 for a Patagonia vest. He/she/ze would then have $160-170 left over with which to plant trees ($1/tree in bulk?) to reduce global warming. What is better evidence of climate denial than conspicuous consumption of luxury goods such as Patagonia clothing?) [apologies to the 2SLGBTQQIA+ community for the preceding; the pronoun list should have been “he/she/ze/they”]
The missing link: https://stantlitore.com/2018/06/01/a-camel-through-the-eye-of-a-needle-and-other-wild-tales-of-translation/
@Roger, whoever wrote down the stories of the patriarchs (later than 900BC) may not have known that domesticated camels were a relative innovation. If the story to which you refer has a factual basis, according to this https://english.tau.ac.il/news/first_camels, mules or donkeys could have been involved, or not in Palestine (eg, in the Arabian peninsula).
/df, in few past decades stone and clay fragments with Hebrew bible verses that match modern Hebrew Bible texts were found and dated to about 900 BCE; archaeological discoveries were made following geographic descriptions in Hebrew Bible that matched described buildings; even before that rational Bible denialists considered the book of Genesis the oldest book written well before 600 BCE. Also, Palestine is Roman name from Judea after Judean Wars, pre – Israel place was called Canaan, “Philistines” is Hebrew name from Bible for people settled on a slice of south Canaan coastline, Egyptians had another similar sounding name for them and no doubt that “Philistines” had their own name for themselves that we do not know.
Eleazar was from Damascus. Hebrew Bible had the strictest standards for preservation, not a single letter can be changed by scribes who write scrolls over the millennia, not really “Dr.” Fauci standard, and should be taken as the most trusted available source of history. Camels also mentioned circa 1000 – 900 BCE in Samuel II, references form which check out. I am going to take preserved ancient text over modern musings what could happen 900 BCE and 1700 BCE. And yes, donkeys and mules are mentioned in Genesis and Samuel too.
Attendance has been down in the RC churches I’ve visited recently, one in Boston and one elsewhere in Massachusetts, due to people fearful of the virus according to my contact. I think the main impetus behind “Test to Stay” in Massachusetts is to make sure that health decisions for kids are permanently and completely placed in the hands of Randi Weingarten and the various teacher’s unions. Every time there is an opportunity to put a crowbar in the gap between children and their parents and start pulling, that’s what they do. This time it’s in the name of permanent pandemic response, and of course all the women on NPR agree that it’s an idea that needs the imprimatur of the CDC and as much funding as possible, as quickly as possible.
https://www.statnews.com/2021/10/28/as-test-to-stay-gears-up-nationwide-massachusetts-rocky-rollout-raises-questions/
Not just vaccines for everyone, not just the (eventual) booster shots, not just the universal masking, but daily or several-times-weekly rapid testing followed by 10 days of virtual or remote learning or “rapid antigen testing” for everyone.
I noted a few days ago that even a few rogue heretic epidemiologists at Johns Hopkins had started wondering why a masking policy that was supposed to be temporary, emergency measure had no “off-ramp” criteria built in, even to speculate about.
Well, NPR Now! on Satellite Radio two nights ago convened a big all-woman team of Experts and that question got served up by the host, with one of those vocal inflections that indicated:
Host: “Here’s an idea we’ve got to kill quick, what do you think, Ms. Expert?”
Ms. Expert: “I think we shouldn’t be asking about things like off-ramps and instead should be thinking about what we need to accomplish so that every child is safe.”
You can’t see anyone nod in agreement on satellite radio like you can watching the View, but I’ll bet if everyone on the Zoom call could be seen by the audience, they were all nodding in agreement.
BTW the only thing better than the Nodding-In-Agreement Network on “Test To Stay” on NPR the other night was the Nodding-In-Agreement Network that every single child over the age of five – even those who *have COVID right now* should be vaccinated, as soon as they recover from COVID. To further cement the “vox populi” side of that idea, they brought in some women who sounded really scared but really relieved that the FDA had finally approved the vaccines for kids.
One started off: “My son has COVID right now, the symptoms aren’t too bad but it’s been scary. I’m SOOoooooo glad the FDA approved the vaccines, but how long should I wait before I take him to be vaccinated?”
“Oh, that’s a GREAT question and it looks like the best recomendation is to wait until all his symptoms have gone away and then consult with your pediatrician…”
This was all premised on the idea that the vaccine will further boost his natural immunity and extend it (when the booster shots arrive) so it will prevent him from getting sick again, and possibly spreading the virus to adults, TEACHERS, the elderly, etc.
Everybody nodded in agreement and then it was on to the next caller.
So in conclusion, I don’t know how much of a boost SARS-CoV2 has been for secular humanism pe se, but it’s been a bigger shot in the arm for technocratic statism than anyone could have asked for. There is no end game or “off ramp” that I can see except for a permanent state of pandemic emergency. Once again, MIT from March 2020 was right: We are never going back to normal.
And you were right to move to Florida, because the people who enjoy living in that permanent state of pandemic emergency are even more determined than ever to see it continue.
Wonder why they put heart attack medicine in the kids version of C19 vaxx.
Someday people will start noticing, might take a lot of kids dying.
On the other hand no one seems to have noticed all the athletes dying.
https://www.notonthebeeb.co.uk/post/surge-of-sports-people-worldwide-suffering-unexpected-ill-health
Germany is a virtuous country with many lockdowns, mask mandates, 67% fully vaccinated and strict entry rules for indoor spaces: one has to be either vaccinated, recovered in the past 6 months or tested less than 24 hours ago (being vaccinated is of course useless for #StopTheSpread, but that is the doctrine).
Is the virus impressed? No, Germany has the highest case rate ever:
https://www.deutschland.de/en/news/coronavirus-in-germany-informations
“Berlin (dpa) – The number of new daily infections with the corona virus has risen to a record level in Germany. Health authorities reported a total of 33,949 new corona infections to the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) within one day, as the RKI announced on Thursday. A week ago, the figure was 28,037 infections. The previous record was 33,777 cases on 18 December 2020. The nationwide seven-day incidence – the number of new infections per 100,000 inhabitants within one week – is now 154.5.”
What is the answer? A philosopher (whatever that is) weighs in:
“In view of rising corona infection figures, the deputy head of the German Ethics Council, Julian Nida-Rümelin, has spoken out in favour of introducing compulsory vaccination for certain groups. For example, for medical staff and teachers, or from a certain age, compulsory vaccinations would be “ethically justified in view of the numbers”, Nida-Rümelin said in a podcast of the “Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger” and the Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland (RND). Nida-Rümelin is a German philosopher. Under Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, he was Minister of State for Culture.”