Millions of Believers Are Convinced The Pandemic Is "A Message To Humanity" From God To Change Its Ways - Are They Serious?

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:

Virginia pastor died of coronavirus after Facebook post doubting its threat

And:

The Trump Administration | Covid-19 | Religious Right

The CDC’s Dr. Robert Redfield’s "Christianity" Vs. Science Leadership During Coronavirus Pandemic

by Bill Berkowitz | May 19, 2020 - 5:22am | permalink

Why "Miracles" Are A Load Of Malarkey

Carlo, the math -accountant monkey in Barbados. Is he a "miracle"? Hardly! Just well trained with an abacus!



In a would be age of reason and enlightenment it is incredible how many still believe in "miracles" in the most advanced technological nation on Earth. I can understand it a bit better in Barbados, where the local Cable & Wireless Earth station dish is still the biggest scientific advancement in decades - and a monkey on the East coast is supposedly able to do accounting with an abacus for sales of breadfruit. I can't understand it in a nation that's sent men to the Moon, landed specialized craft on the planet Mars and has even flown another craft past Pluto.

The miracle meme is being pushed even harder (despite 80 percent of Americans already believing in them) as we behold a headline article "Do You Believe In Miracles?" in one of the Sunday magazines. The actual article account focuses on one Annabel Beam -  the subject of a new movie (just in time for Easter) entitled "Miracles from Heaven".  Annabel had evidently suffered "from two painful, life threatening digestive diseases requiring a regimen of 10 drugs daily". (One was defined as 'pseudo-obstruction motility disorder'- suggesting the young girl's organs were a bit out of alignment.)

Anyway, "miraculously", the girl fell from a tree one day and lo and behold, instead of suffering serious injury she miraculously recovered - and never again asked for her medications. Her folks and friends immediately concluded it was a "miracle from heaven" but it more likely was just that the fall suddenly re-aligned her displaced digestive organs as they should have been.

Which do you accept?  If you believe it was a genuine miracle, implying some kind of "divine" or supernatural intervention, then you commit the fallacy of ignotum per ignotius. That means using the least well understood explanation to account for a not well understood event.  

Basically, the issue is not about faith or humility, or belief or the lack thereof. It is, rather, whether the concept of "miracle" has validity in the physical world. A serious claim has been made about the nature of the universe and how it is alleged to behave. This claim implies that physical laws can be repealed haphazardly. It further implies that all scientific predictions rest on a wholly uncertain foundation, and that they cannot be trusted to yield reliable information from one era to the next, or one day to the next. (Since at any time, a supernatural intrusion can neutralize the law.)If accepted, the premise of variable physical laws introduces a horrendous set of consequences. For example, it allows for the possibility that all cars on the planet work on gasoline today, but may require water tomorrow. Or, one minute my word processor may be here on the table and the next it may rise up and dissipate into atoms. Or this year I may be able to predict lunar and solar eclipses - or asteroid close approaches - but not next year!

This is not an attempt to be facetious, or to necessarily ridicule religious beliefs. I am illustrating the sort of haphazard universe that results when physical laws are treated frivolously and with disdain for their predictability and repeatability. Hundreds of years of painstaking effort and research have gone into the discovery of these laws. Precisely for this reason it is incumbent on the miracle claimer to shoulder the burden of proof, or at least provide substantial evidence in proportion to the claim made.
Basically when all is said and done, the optimal test for a bona fide miracle remains that provided by philosopher David Hume:

"No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it endeavors to establish."

In his essay collection Unweaving the Rainbow, biologist Richard Dawkins, Britain's most prominent atheist, chose the Fatima miracle of 1917, where 70,000 people reportedly saw the Sun move back and  forth, to apply Hume's principle: As Dawkins observed:

"On the one hand, we are asked to believe in a mass hallucination, a trick of the light, or mass lie involving 70,000 people. This is admittedly improbable. But it is LESS improbable than the alternative: that the sun really did move...If the sun had moved in truth, but the event was seen only by the people of Fatima, an even greater miracle would have been perpetrated: an illusion of NON-movement had to be staged for all the millions of witnesses not in Fatima."

In other words, the aim of the Hume miracle test is - given two equally improbable choices- one always elects the LESS improbable one as the most likely description. For example, consider the claim of Jesus “walking on water”. Prof. Hugh Schonfeld (The Passover Plot) offers a much simpler and more sensible explanation: a mistranslation of the Hebrew word “al” which can mean “by” or “on”. So, when a scribe really wrote “walking by the water” it was translated as “walking on the water”.

Now let us apply the Hume miracle test. Is the Schonfeld claim of mistranslation MORE or LESS miraculous (i.e. improbable) than a man actually violating the law of gravity and walking on water? It doesn’t require a lot of thought or effort to see that the mistranslation of a passage of the New Testament is LESS miraculous (or if you prefer, less improbable) than that a man actually, literally walked on water.

Again, going back to the Annabel Beam case, it makes more sense to accept that her digestive organs were suddenly aligned properly in her fall, than that there was any supernatural intervention.

In the PARADE piece, spiritual guru and author of "A Course In Miracles", Marianne Williamson insists that "people are evolving beyond a purely rationalistic world view to a more holistic perspective" and part of this is due to "quantum physics".  But while, quantum mechanics does support a nonlocal cosmos, as I showed in my recent book, Beyond Atheism, Beyond God, that doesn't meant it supports miracles.

Much of the over extension is predicated on physicist David Bohm's development of the quantum potential, in a number of his papers (published in Foundations Of Physics) and in his books, especially 'Wholeness and the Implicate Order'.   Bohm is also the author of one of the most trenchant textbooks, Quantum Theory (Dover, 1951) Below the quantum potential is depicted by Bohm for a pair of Gaussian slits:




















Bohm is also credited with first pointing out (op. cit., p. 169), the very precise analogy of quantum processes to thought. In particular, the quantum "wave packet collapse" (e.g. to a single eigenstate, from a superposition of eigenstates) is exactly analogous to the phenomenon of trying to pinpoint what one is thinking about at the instant he is doing such thinking. More often than not, when one does this, as Bohm notes: "uncontrollable and unpredictable changes" are introduced into the thought process or train.

Recall as I noted from earlier blogs (See: 'A Material Model of Consciousness', Parts I-III), that Bohm also provided a putative basis for a "quantum mind" which he referred to as the Holomovement. This was done by positing a hyper-dimensional reality (e.g. 5- dimensional) in which mind was enfolded as part of an "implicate order".  A lot of this was based on his postulate of "hidden variables".

While all this looks fascinating, even Bohm admitted the plausible acceptance of his conjecture rested on the outcome of a particular experiment. The experiment he proposed was actually designed by Rapisarda and Gozzini and became known as the "Gozzini experiment". It was originally to be conducted near Pisa, Italy ca. 1995. Alas, up to now - so far as I know- it hasn't been carried out. But if it had, and real de Broglie waves had been detected then this would be at least an indirect basis for Bohm's claims, as well as a feather in the hat for the claim of "quantum mind". Without it, we have no valid basis to assert such a claim, and can only adopt Bohm's vision as "inspiration".

So long as this vast gulf exists, there is no plausible basis for invoking quantum mechanics (QM)  as a handmaiden to either the world view promoted by Williamson, or Deepak Chopra or author Michael Talbot (The Holographic Universe) among others. If there isn't one can't press QM into service to support miracles either.

One of the most compelling reasons to consider miracles as rubbish was revealed in the same article, based on research by Kate Fowler of Duke University Divinity School. She found that "religious people are convinced God makes targeted or random choices on whom he will heal or save at any given time over another".

Which is pure poppycock.  If really believed it means a person who survives an airplane crash, where all others have perished,  can claim some special divine dispensation. Based on what? She read her Bible or said her rosary more times than the others? Or, noting Aurora victim Bonnie Kate Pourciau - who claimed "God was holding us in His hands" as the Aurora massacre unfolded-  was one of the chosen few spared- while a six year old (Veronica Moser) had to lose her life. Because ...what? She didn't say her prayers before bedtime? Give me a break! But when gullible people embrace special instances of LUCK as divine intervention, this is what you get: bare bollocks.

In the end, belief in miracles is a waste of mental capital, as bad as investment in crank scientific theories like the "Reciprocal system" (which also carries supernatural overtones in some of its presentations), and the "natural cycles" alternative to anthropogenic  global warming. Contrary to Williamson's argument that we can "either believe in an  age of miracles or violence" I say we have a third: we can believe and promote an age of genuine reason, and that must include critical thinking!

See also:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/07/god-was-holding-you-in-his-hands-dont.html

Details of Aurora Massacre Show the Huge Role Blind Chance Played

WIth the details of the Aurora Theater massacre released last week during James Holmes' preliminary hearing, we are now aware of the enormous role blind chance played in determining who lived and who died.  This is important because in the immediate aftermath there were a number of victims who felt they had special protection from God. For example,  a Denver Post piece by Lynn Bartels, recounted how survivor Bonnie Kate Pourciau proclaimed "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 Kate only having one gunshot in her leg.


Much of this egoistic foolishness can be forgiven or overlooked either out of youthful folly (Bonnie Kate was only 18) or because too many people inhabit a mythical world of their own confabulation where a 'Daddy God' watches over everything and knows when every sparrow falls or when every rose bud blossoms. A lot is also engendered because of the U.S. of A's hyper religious culture and enabling media which pays more attention to religious nonsense than anything else. I already noted a lot of this and how the American press enables it in an earlier blog, e.g. http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/12/idiocy-beyond-belief-charles-pierce.html

Anyway, let's look at the findings to see the extent to which people were affected based on totally chance contingency as opposed to any "divine intervention". In other words, it was basically the movie goers' chance decisions which put them in the brunt of harm's way or not.

Some of the chance components of good fortune - which otherwise meant many more killed:

-Investigators found 76 used casings and 224 live rounds, with unused magazines picked up outside as the suspect was searched.  They also found evidence that Holmes' high capacity magazine had jammed, otherwsie perhaps three times more would have been killed. Blind chance!

-Of the total of 375 move goers in Theater 9, 12 were killed, and 58 others injured, including three in the adjacent theater (Theater 8).

- Holmes' actual movie ticket was punched for Theater 8, not Theater 9. Had he followed the information the  killings would have been in Theater 8, not 9. All the victims' names would have been different.

- By happenstance, at the time of the shootings two Aurora police shifts overlapped, allowing 129 officers to respond in 5 minutes to 911 calls, and help ferry the wounded to hospitals. If only one shift had been available many more victims would have died with barely half the number of officers available.

- At least a couple of victims, including Jesse Childress, chose to go into Theater 9 when they had friends who invited them into Theater 8. Others, like Jordan Crofter, had sneaked into Theater 9 to sit with friends. Choices!

- The most lethal area of the Theater was in rows 8- 12 where six were killed.

- A number of victims wouldn't have been in the Theater at all had they followed their usual norms, routines. Jansen Young and friend, for example, noted how tired they were and that "maybe we shouldn't go tonight". They did anyway.  Two bikers were headed for San Francisco and weren't Batman fans at all. They just happened to pull up near the Aurora 16 Cinemark  when they were tired and decided to take in the film.

Each of the above, and more, discloses the extent to which chance decisions and happenstance intervened on that July night. Meanwhile, diehard religionists like Bonnie Kate Pourciau will continue to believe they were spared by some divine intervention - never mind not far from them a 6-year old (Veronica Moser) died a brutal death.

We know the human brain is prey to these exceptionalist fantasies, and we also know there is no way they will ever stop. They are part and parcel of the religious exceptionalism that threads its way through our culture, culminating in the skewed belief that only a chosen select are "saved", who happen to "believe on the Lord Jesus Christ". Never mind, 'Jesus' was a god-man fable stolen from the Mithra template, e.g. http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/12/more-on-mithraic-god-man-mythooogy.html

At some time, however, most humans will grow up and finally put away their childish things, including immature beliefs and acknowledge their lives are more hinged to the vagaries of blind chance than they'd like to think!

God was "Holding You In His Hands?" Don't Think So!

Nearly twenty years ago, after a US Air (Flight 405) crash in New York, where there were a number of survivors (27) - but many died (24) - I wrote an article that appeared in the (then ) Baltimore Evening Sun warning of "survivor hubris" and "beliefs in divine exceptionalism",  after a number of the survivors appeared in the media bragging that 'God saved me!' or "God heard my prayers!' or some such rot. While it is understandable that in the wake of a major trauma and near escape with one's life (I had my own in May, 1971, from a head on car collision near Avon Park, FL) people would believe they are special on account of having lived, they need to process that this take essentially spits on the lives of those who didn't make it - and may have prayed just as hard!

So, I make some allowances for harried or traumatized brains that have 'run off the rails' (such as those of 18-year old, home-schooled Southern girls)  who may have expressed such misbegotten beliefs personally and "off the record". Where I take objection is when such wayward beliefs are given major press space such as in today's 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. 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. Now, maybe as my wife has opined, she -  like some others spouting special divine dispensation -  are "brainwashed" and hence their only recourse is to barf up the sort of specialized pap they've been fed over the years by their Sunday Schools,  ministers or padres. Fair enough. That still doesn't mean The Post has to print it and thereby give wide circulation and credence to such whacked out beliefs.

A question here for Bonnie Kate and other Personal Divine Exceptionalists: How is it that you couldn't have extended your God's power (in your prayers beseeching His Presence) to the others under fire or running for their lives? How is it that He would have allowed little 6-year old Veronica Moser-Sullivan to die? Didn't that child deserve life, survival as much as you did? Didn't Caleb Medley, husband and father, who now is in an induced coma because of a shot to the head - and facing $2 million in hospital bills - merit a better outcome? Inquiring minds want to know!

Could you not, in your desperate moments, have tried to extend the 'umbrella' of (presumably) infinite divine power and protection to all and sundry - instead of only you and your friend?

In the end it really matters not, except again, the Post giving credence to such shallow views and beliefs by their publication. The truth is those like Bonnie Kate and her friend simply lucked out. There was no real "divinity" clasping her hand except in her mind. It was a case of pure dumb luck that her seat wasn't more directly in the gunman's line of fire.

Just as in the case of those US Air Flt. 405 survivors back in March, 1992, who survived simply by the good fortune of being in the right seats. No divine intervention, no individual specialness.

And if survivors, whether of that crash, or the Aurora theater massacre, insist it was divine intervention that spared them, then they need to cut the crap - come clean- and explain logically and completely why a little innocent 6 year old wasn't also spared, or the other 11 now dead victims who might also have been praying as fervently as Bonnie Kate, and have believed just as intensely that their lives were in "His hands" until the last fatal gunshot.

In the meantime, it's best that major news organs,  if they run stories of human interest on the survivors, stick to the facts as opposed to wishful thinking "divine saving" fantasies that indirectly smear and demean the lives of those who perished - implying that they were not good enough, or devout enough to make it!  For myself, as a non-theist, I am at least glad I can provide a rational response to people who ask: "Why was I saved and not  (fill in name)?

Basically, pure dumb luck! Much preferable to a misbegotten species of personal idolatry!