Editor:
In the debate over vaccinations (“‘Felt Severely,'” Aug. 26), I’ve read quotes from people declining to be vaccinated because “they believe in God.”
Which makes me wonder, to which God are they referring?
I know that, during the early months of the pandemic, millions of people around the world prayed that a vaccine would be developed. I know many, if not all, scientists and researchers of faith prayed that God would guide their hand as they devoted countless hours, days, months to develop a vaccine. I know that even non-believers would agree that the successful development of the vaccines in record time was nothing short of miraculous!
So, I have to ask: Why would any pious person decline a vaccine that is clearly a godsend?
Richard Salzman, Arcata
Related Stories
‘Felt Severely’
This article appears in The State of Covid-19.
A lot of people are unaware that it was Odin that actually developed the Moderna vaccine and that the other vaccines were never claimed by any god. So it may be that Matt Stone and Trey Parker got it wrong.
Perhaps even more dangerous are the theologically inclined who get into high office with their problematic disregard — or even contempt — for the natural environment.
For instance, many of Canada’s Conservative party politicians — not to mention our thinly veiled theocratic previous prime minister — are/were ideologically aligned with the pro-fossil-fuel mainstream American Evangelical community and Republican Party. They generally share the belief that to defend the natural environment from the planet’s greatest polluters, notably big fossil fuel, is to go against God’s will and therefore is inherently evil. (No wonder they hate any carbon tax. And for conservatives they sure pollute the planet most liberally.)
Equally worrisome is the evangelical Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, who theocratically declared two summers ago that his presidency (and, I presume, all of the environmental damage he did while in office) was “fulfilling a mission from God”. http://www.reuters.com/article/brazil-religion-id…
Although the Amazonian rainforest is home to a third of all known terrestrial plant, animal and insect species, and our planet’s natural environment does not honor any international boundary, he told the rest of the rightfully concerned world, “You have to understand that the Amazon is Brazil’s, not yours”. He also advised France’s president to “mind your own business”. If only it were true the environmental damage done by morally and ethically corrupt governments and corporate puppet-masters was all somehow poetically miraculously confined strictly to the owners’ territory!
Among them all may be those who credit the bone-dry-vegetation areas uncontrollably burning, notably California, global warming and pollution to God’s supposed wrath upon collective humankind’s ‘sinfulness’.
If God is burning us up maybe it is so we will beg him to flood us again. He swore on a stack of Bibles to never again flood us out, but possibly he is looking for a loop hole. He is a water sign you know.
I am sorry but there were no miracles involved. Once again science made a large contribution to the betterment of humanity. Once again, religious ignorance has largely stood in the way of that progress. Most of the degenerates spreading misinformation and refusing to get vaccinated are also religious wackos who are certain they picked the one right god among the hundreds of proposed gods.
Skip the prayers and go spend some more time convincing people that, like the 20 other vaccines we have all been administered, this one is safe for most people. Like the other vaccines, there is NO evidence it causes Alzheimer’s, mind control or the growth of additional body parts.