As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to wreak economic havoc and mass death, it is natural for a certain segment of humanity to ascribe supernatural dimensions to its manifestation. So it wasn't surprising to read in the May 16 Denver Post (p. 5A) that:
"Two-thirds of American believers of all faiths feel that God is telling humanity to change how it lives"
This according to a poll carried out by the University of Chicago Divinity School and the Associated Press- NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. The poll creators suggest that "people may be searching for deeper meaning in the pandemic."
However, this is magical thinking, though understandable in parlous times defined by major crises. Indeed, through history, humans have sought deeper meaning in horrific events - whether during the Black Death of the Middle Ages- or the Spanish Flu, or during the World Wars. However, just as human life has no meaning or ultimate purpose, e.g
Has the Universe a purpose?
It is certainly true by extension that neither has this pandemic, irrespective of its origin, conferred any kind of meaning on human lives. Nor does this offshoot of Darwinian evolution embody any kind of supernatural "message". As I noted in an April post on Humanist Materialism, as rationalists and scientists we are much more inclined to see this virus (or any virus) as merely another example of evolution in action. Everything about its biology, from its infective rate, to fatality rate to potential for mutation, screams this at us = and we'd be fools to dismiss or minimize it.
Hence, we are not seeing any "divine" message but rather an impersonal biological agent manifesting in an interactive process with susceptible humans. Humans that are also risen apes, not fallen angels. Once we disavow humanity as some kind of higher order angel this fact is easier to assimilate, and any "mystery" vanishes. But it is apparently difficult to assimilate even for those "who don't affiliate with organized religion" according to the article. As an example, one Lance Dejesus is mentioned. According to Lance:
"It could be a sign like 'Hey get your act together!' It just seems like everything was going in an OK direction and all of a sudden you got this corona virus thing that pops out of nowhere."
But perhaps Lance can be forgiven for his lack of attention to ongoing events the past few years. Or perhaps he is one of the millions information-challenged or unable to keep up with the 24/7 news cycle. But in truth, we've been on a colossal downward spiral for the last three plus years, certainly since Trump was shoehorned in as president. Homelessness has soared to record levels, millions more kids are food -deprived, thanks to Republican austerity policies including cutting food stamps or making people work for them. And even the Fed found in a study last year that 40 percent of middle class Americans have only $400 savings. Not nearly enough to get through an extended lock down in a pandemic. And hey, we won't even go near the climate change catastrophes that have erupted, from 1,000 year floods in the south and east, to monster tornado strikes and Hurricane Maria - which pulverized Puerto Rico. See also:
"The World Is Quietly Getting Better"? The Facts...
So maybe in Lance's bubble everything was "going ok" but few other places.
The same poll found that 31 percent of Americans who believe in God feel strongly that the virus is a sign of God telling humanity to change. Evangelical protestants were most likely to believe that strongly, at 48 percent, compared to 28 percent for Catholics.
More incredibly, from the same Post piece, "fifty -five percent of American believers feel at least somewhat that God will protect them from being infected." Well, we actually saw how that played out a month or so ago when some evangelical pastor opened his church up and proclaimed loudly he had a special dispensation from the Almighty. Not long after he contracted the Covid and croaked/ So what gives?
What gives is too many American believers have a childish, immature conception of the deity. I wrote about this before in a July 26, 2012 post in the wake of the horrific Aurora theater mass shooting. I cited a Denver Post piece by a Lynn Bartels, recounting how survivor shooting victim Bonnie Kate Pourciau claimed "God was holding us in His hands" as the shooting unfolded - and hence, she and her friend (Elizabeth) managed to walk out of the Century 16 cinema with Bonnie only having one gunshot in her leg.
One wonders, of course, if God really was holding her so fast, how in His infinite power he could have allowed that stray gunshot to hit her at all. But again, we must bear in mind this is a home-schooled 18 year old from the Deep South - and yeah, I have been to Baton Rouge, so am aware of the culture there. My point is that such publicized blarney essentially disrespects, albeit indirectly, the lives of those who didn't make it and who had every right to have lived - just as much as Bonnie Kate Pourciau. But see in these immature conceptions one has a basic solipsistic view of the universe, imagining it to totally revolve around oneself. This same exceptionalist syndrome likely affects those who believe they are under some special divine protection from the virus.
The problem with all that? The virus doesn't know that there is or isn't a God, nor does it care. It only operates according to its own impersonal biology which is to basically infect as many humans as possible - making them its viral hosts- and using their "legs" to multiply infections. This is given, as one epidemiologist from Brigham & Women's Hospital in Massachusetts put it, "it lacks any legs of its own".
An extension of this childish belief system, mostly peculiar to Americans, was also voiced by one Marcia Howl, quoted in the piece. That is, in her own words:
"I believe he has protected me in the past and that he has a plan for us"
Of course, there is no plan other than in her own mind and imagination. In the same way, Bonnie Kate's imagination led her to believe she was under a special divine umbrella at that Aurora theater. One odd, dare I say cognitively dissonant, offering from the piece was this:
"Americans who believe in God were more likely than others to say they have felt doubts about God's existence because of the virus. ...But the virus still prompted negligible change in Americans' belief in God, including 2 percent who say they now believe but didn't before."
As I noted, weird. But perhaps consistent with the fact too many retain unformed, immature and personalized conceptions of a deity. These as opposed to an impersonal, nonlocal force that very well could be at work in the cosmos.
See Also:
And:
by Bill Berkowitz | May 19, 2020 - 5:22am
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