Earlier today we learned about the American propensity to see one’s survival of a disease or an accident as a “miracle” produced by God, while ignoring what that means for those who didn’t survive. Logically, you’d see that as a sign of God’s disapprobation.
And, in fact, it once was. In prescientific times, diseases and accidents were often seen as signs of God’s wrath. Smallpox and plague were attributed to God’s displeasure, and some 18th-century American churches even opposed the use of lightning rods since they turned away God’s righteous electrical punishment.
Science dispelled most of this nonsense (although the “thank-God-I-survived” trope is still with us), with a few remaining exceptions that are based on religion. Christian Scientists and some Pentecostal Christians see disease as a sign of faulty thinking, not as an organic ailment, and even today epilepsy and mental illness are viewed by some believers as signs of demonic possession. The Vatican has its own head exorcist, and exorcisms are on the rise in both Catholic and evangelical Christian churches. Who knows how many of those exorcisms damaged directly or by neglect people who should have been treated by mental-health specialists?
At any rate, the imputation of disease, mental or otherwise, to spirits and gods is one sign of the conflict between science and religion. In a world of reason, such views would be far less prominent.
And, sadly, they’re now being now been applied to Ebola, at least in Africa. In a piece in Slate, “Ebola is not God’s wrath,” Joel Baden, a professor of Hebrew Bible at Yale Divinity School, and Candida Moss, professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at the University of Notre Dame, discuss the claims of African Christian pastors that Ebola disease isn’t due to viral infection, but to the anger of God:
As the deadly Ebola virus continues to spread in Liberia, religious leaders there are claiming that “immoral acts” are responsible for the catastrophic outbreak. Christian leaders meeting at the Liberian Council of Churches unanimously agreed: “God is angry with Liberia.” The statement released by the council declared, “Ebola is a plague. Liberians have to pray and seek God’s forgiveness over the corruption and immoral acts (such as homosexualism, etc.) that continue to penetrate our society.” Their recommended solution to the disease ravaging the nation is that everyone should stay indoors for a three-day period of fasting and prayer.
The belief that Ebola is a sign of judgment is shared by some in the evangelical community. “Bring on the Ebola virus,” one website proclaims. “God does not exist to give us what we want, and if killing off our loved ones is going to help us realize this, then this is what He will do.” The Christian radio host Rick Wiles warned that “if Ebola becomes a global plague, you better make sure the blood of Jesus is upon you, you better make sure you have been marked by the angels so that you are protected by God.”
Yeah, it’s all due to “homosexualism.” While a three-day confinement is medically salubrious, this attitude is deadly, and in fact many Africans themselves are beginning to doubt that Ebola has anything to do with microorganisms. Note that the attitude that Ebola comes from God weakens the resolve to cure it, for let no man save whom God has chosen to kill.
Baden and Moss go on to put these events in the context of what they call “the religious model of disability,” and add as well at least one new examples: some Christians blame infertility on impiety. The history is enlightening (if that’s the correct word), but it’s importance is the message to avoid magical thinking. The “religious model” will persist so long as religion does, and Baden and Moss’s real lesson is the danger s of irrationality:
The dehumanizing idea that illness is connected to sin is a common feature of religious thinking about disease and sickness in general. Periods of crisis, like this one, may empower religious leaders to speak openly about the way that their traditions understand disease, but these explanations are not the product only of such exceptional moments of crisis. They are, rather, deep, long-lived, and fundamental aspects of how religious communities think about the sick among them. Both the leaders who present Ebola and other crises as divine punishment and the commentators who attribute this perspective to human nature under stress—and thereby excuse it—are participating in the perpetuation of a dangerous and destructive mode of thinking.
Can I propose an alternative theory?
It’s a verifiable fact that Ebola has only affected countries that have enacted anti-gay legislation.
So if we’re going down that path, I’d argue ‘god’ is against anti-gay laws as a whole 😉
😵
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If only there were some way to co-op religious belief even further:
“The only way to avoid God’s wrath is to avoid touching sinners who have been cursed by God with this plague, and to wash your hands after touching anything unclean so as to purify yourself. Those who have received the curse must present themselves before those clad in white, whom we call ‘doctors’, and must follow their instructions on how to make themselves whole and worthy of the Lord.”
It’s a nice thought…but it would almost certainly backfire, resulting in all those suspected of being impure dying horrific and often violent deaths. And it’s also likely that many would be accused of impurity merely for the excuse to do away with them.
Much more effective would be a good broad-based general Western education available to all, but especially the youth.
b&
And that’s different than the current situation how?
Well, yeah, but that’s a rather long-term project, and of no help in the immediate case, unfortunately.
The current situation, of course, is very bad in exactly that manner. But I fear your proposal would just take the current situation and make it much worse. At least those suspected of having ebola aren’t being persecuted; if it were thought that they were sick because of divine disapproval, they would be perceived as enemies of the divine and worthy of even worse.
Long-term cures are often the only ones with any demonstrated or theoretical effectiveness. Short-term cures are pretty much guaranteed to be of limited utility (if they don’t actually make things worse) and come at great expense.
When is the best time to plant a tree? A generation ago. When’s the second-best time? Right now.
b&
I agree, why not seize upon an opportunity in which irrational tradition actually works in humanity’s favor. Superstition so thoroughly outstrips rationality in the reaction to the outbreak and the subsequent quarantine that I doubt a rational solution will get much traction with the Liberian public. It might help slow down the spread of the virus and it won’t put a strain on limited resources, I say give it shot. I read an article that reported that it is traditional to wash the deceased by hand or even kiss them in some areas. If co-opting superstition prevents one person from getting infected in this way, I think it is well worth it.
favor? DAMNIT!!!
“Much more effective would be a good broad-based general Western education available to all, but especially the youth.”
As in America where how many still believe god created the world and evolution is a busted faith? Over 60%?
The States has a notoriously problematic and low-performing educational system compared to other Western nations, with the exception of our elite universities.
b&
… and the resulting spreading of blood and gore has a high potential for causing additional cases amongst the … well, I guess “lynch mob” is the appropriate term.
They just need to adapt Leviticus 13:
45 “Now the leper on whom the sore is, his clothes shall be torn and his head bare; and he shall cover his mustache, and cry, ‘Unclean! Unclean!’ 46 He shall be unclean. All the days he has the sore he shall be unclean. He is unclean, and he shall dwell alone; his dwelling shall be outside the camp.
“God’s righteous electrical punishment”…. Christian Rock.
What a perfectly horrific illustration of the lethality of superstition. And, of course, let’s never pass up an opportunity to persecute homosexuals.
I think that Ebola is caused by Christianity.
The only solution is for all Christians to stay indors for an eighteen week period of fasting and prayer.
God has really bad aim, having missed San Francisco by such a wide margin.
He’s revving up an earthquake for them
You know how it is…we all look alike to him….
b&
I resemble that remark!
No, your wrong. As per the Daily Show; god doesn’t hate gays, he hates the gay adjacent. Remember the episode where Jon pointed out the the Parish that was least damaged by hurricane Katrina was the one that has gay pride parades.
The areas around San Francisco are the ones that are going to get hammered.
It’s God’s punishment for being Christian. He wants them to be Jewish.
Having clicked the link from within the article to the Christian website proclaiming ebola is God
putting us in our place….I’m reeling!
Is it possibly a real Christian website. It reads like an Atheist hoax, as if constructed to put Christianity in the worst light. It’s like they are saying “Yeah, we’re gonna admit God is one hell of a nasty bugger and we’re all in a tight spot…what of it?”
Sounds a bit like Sithrak:
http://bit.ly/1lJknhm
(Website very NSFW, but this cartoon is OK).
What a joyous set of thoughts that cartoonist spreads.
Oh, I just LOVE the Sithrak tee-shirt (that offers no protection from Sithrak ! )
The world need more comics like that.
“some 18th-century American churches even opposed the use of lightning rods since they turned away God’s righteous electrical punishment.”
Don’t you mean they opposed the use of lightning rods since it turned away a symbol of the ineffable Ground of Being’s metaphorical righteous punishment? I mean, obviously, taking any of this literally is a 20th century fundamentalist invention so they couldn’t have been concerned about actually turning away righteous electrical punishment, could they?
Seems a tad ignorant of the Bible too. In that story, Job was declared blameless by God himself but then tormented on a dare. In fact, he was tormented because he was righteous. Apparently, avoiding sin doesn’t buy you very much in the avoiding a smiting department.
And now, the American Doctor Kent Brantly has been declared cured of Ebola. He was treated early, given a blood transfusion from a patient who successfully fought the disease, was flown at enormous expense from Liberia to receive the finest care from Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, and given an experimental drug. The drug was less likely the cure than the high quality round-the-clock care, saline solution, and fever reducers unavailable to impoverished victims in Africa.
Today he walked out the hospital, and thanked all of the doctors and nurses who treated him, the researchers that spend countless hours studying treatment and drug options, and the organizations that paid for his expensive emergency flight and hospital care.
Just kidding. He thanked God. “God saved my life.” Then he thanked the thousands who prayed for him.
OK – he gave health workers a little credit …
“Through the care of the Samaritan’s Purse and SIM missionary team in Liberia, the use of an experimental drug, and the expertise and resources of the health care team at Emory University Hospital, God saved my life — a direct answer to thousands and thousands of prayers.”
sigh …
“immoral acts (such as homosexualism, etc.) that continue to penetrate our society.”
Is it just me or does the concept of our society being penetrated by homosexualism bring up some weird images in anyone else’s mind?
I’d have thought penetrate was not the best word unless it is some kind of satirical hoax. In which case quite amusing.
I bet his recovery would have been identical had he not bothered “god” and had all those prayers said for him and just relied on modern medicine. Can the same be said if there had been no such medical intervention? I somehow doubt it.
ladyatheist said:
“It’s God’s punishment for being Christian. He wants them to be Jewish.”
Actually, it is a trivial exercise to find a Christian claiming just the opposite. But then the lack of any consistency is why there are hundreds of thousands of differing religions (over 42,000 Christian sects alone – although apologists try to downplay this number).
Several years ago a religionist at a company where I was working was passing around a book titled “None of these Diseases[*]” which he claimed proved the bible true and the Jews were god’s chosen race. I simply pointed out that since Jews are also subject to diseases that are very rare or non-existent in other groups and that obviously does not fit his (idiotic) claims. His immediate response was that the Jews get those diseases because that was their punishment for turning their backs on god. Now, of course. Christians (like him) are the chosen people. He eventually became the editor of a pseudo scientific Christian publication. No surprise there, his truly profound level of scientific illiteracy was both self-caused and self-reinforced. He literally refused to read any “scientific” literature unless it was written by a “true” Christian because all non and false Christians are “biased”.
My point being that religionists have long ago developed their “heads I win, tails you lose” form of argumentation for pretty much everything. Ebola is god’s curse while being medically saved from Ebola is a miracle from the same god. Of course such a god is obviously just a malicious jackass – the gods habitually exhibit exactly the same traits as their inventors.
Also note how well this fits Christianity itself – invent a disease that everyone is born into (original sin) and only converting to Christianity can cure this (imaginary) disease. And the entire scenario is caused by a “merciful” god. Redefining words like “science”, “biased”, “merciful”, and “true” are common tools of the trade for these incurably religious obscurantists.
*Note: A scientifically illiterate MD writing religious apologetics. Check out the almost entirely glowing reviews on Amazon (even endorsed by a chiropractor, only one reviewer recognized the book as trash). It has been my personal observation that doctors and engineers are the most prevalent professions of creationists. I have already subtracted out the idiot clergy, but I suspect that the former groups outnumber the latter group by a rather large margin anyway.
With 42,000 diffferent Xtian sects, septs and cults to choose from, at most one of which can be correct, then he’s might be able to keep up to date with his field’s literature.
The “gods look like the people” thing has been noted for several thousand years, too – from Xenophanes to Feuerbach. You’d think some more people would get it by now …
How do exorcisms comport with the Ground of Being notion? Presumably, Satan must represent the anti-Ground of Being, the nonbeing without which nothing could not exist. (Hopefully I got the number of negatives right there, obfuscated sophistication can be taxing).
The Sky of Being?
/@
Hey, can we get some love for the Fire of Being and Water of Being, too?
b&
Elementary, my dear Goren!
/@
As we used to say in da ‘hood, “No shit, Sherlock!”
b&
>
That just went right over my head…
So- if Ebola is God’s punishment for “sinful acts”, then why aren’t there outbreaks in San Francisco and New York? God certainly is inconsistent!
Well thank you, certain denominations of Christianity. You’ve taken countries that could really do with modern care and progress, and proceeded to drag them back to the Dark Ages. Truly, you represent the best of human endeavour.
The day religions, superstitions, mysticism, and other bits of supernatural garbage all die off will be a good day for humanity.
I’m morbidly curious to see how the radical anti-vaccers will react when a vaccine for Ebola is widely available.
Will they shun it as just another part of the massive gubmint conspiracy to poison us all with a devil’s brew of scary Thimerosal, or succumb to hypocrisy when Faux news spreads their fear of Africans?
There was an absolutely must see (must listen to?) programme on BBC Radio 4 at the weekend
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04dqx48
It’s the story of a documentary crew that chose to film the treatment of an ebola outbreak. It brings to light some interesting and horrifying problems with treating ebola.
First off, when the particular outbreak in the programme started, all the hospital staff died because they didn’t realise it was ebola that they were treating. Later, medical staff were treated with suspicion because of confusion of cause and effect i.e. medical people visited ebola sufferers and people started to believe they were causing the outbreak. This was a problem to the extent that one medical worker was murdered.
White people were treated with great suspicion, since they only ever appeared when there were nasty disease outbreaks. In the minds of the locals, white people actually caused ebola, which led to serious danger of violence.
I won’t say any more about the programme because the story took a sudden and frightening turn and everybody should listen to it.