Today’s Jesus and Mo strip, called “Gates”, came with an email message, to wit:
Today’s J&M was prompted by the article below which says, among many other things, that some radical Muslims and fundamentalist Christians do still think that way (but we probably knew that, right?):
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The article, from the Economist (and, unusually, free), discusses how religions are grappling with the demands of science, which for the moment requires the suspension of group worship, with their need for group worship as dictated by their faith. A short excerpt:
Covid-19 has not generally widened fissures between faiths. Rather, it has widened those within the ranks of all great religions. They were already squabbling over how far old beliefs could live with modern views of Earth’s origin. The pandemic exacerbates the rift between science-defiers and those who respect the laboratory.
. . . In the end, the survival of religions may depend on their finding a way of explaining to followers, in their own terms, why their spiritual duty now lies in suspending rites hitherto regarded as vital. As Shadi Hamid of the Brookings Institution, a think-tank, notes, Muslim jurisprudence has accepted that human survival can trump other norms: a Muslim can eat forbidden pork rather than starve. For liberal-minded Jews, the ideal of tikkun olam, or repairing the world, is higher than rules governing prayer or diet.
It’s a good summary of faith versus fact, and fact—in the form of the virus—will win. As Feynman said, Mother Nature can’t be fooled.
In fact, the article doesn’t say anything about the virus being man-made or a product of Bill Gates’s scheme, but the “explanation” offered by the boys below is just as ridiculous. (Note that Mo is halfway to wearing a burqa and is already effectively in niquab.
I think most responsible publications are providing coronavirus content free as a public service. That’s certainly true of the NYT and WaPo and The Atlantic and many others that exempt COVID-19 coverage from their limits on free access (though not so for Rupert Murdoch’s publications, like The Wall Street Journal, which never provides squat gratis).
That’s just as well since coronavirus is transmitted fecally.
On this side of the pond, at least, that fissure has long existed between the ever-shrinking mainline Protestant denominations and the ever-growing Evangelicals.
>> “old beliefs ”
No, old knowledge (based on being closer to the events, like Noah Flood) vs modern philosophical myths about origins.
Modern stratigraphy, based entirely on observations of nature in the light of the Biblical historical accounts of creation and the global flood, was founded by a Christian creationist Nicolaus Steno.
The deepest sedimentary layers having no fossils was explained, not by nature itself, but by the Bible (receding waters at the creation from continents lacking any plants and animals to become fossils and layers with fossils stemming from the time of Noah’s flood when the earth was full of plants and animals, explaining the so called “cambrian explosion”).
It all makes sense. While large scale evolution makes no sense at all given the fossil record.
Religion may survive in the face of reality, but it can’t survive without scapegoats.
I wonder if the suspension of church/mosque/temple/synagogue going might result in fewer attending post Coronavirus, since regular attendance is needed to strengthen the habit. Gyms too for that matter.
“In the end, the survival of religions may depend on their finding a way of explaining to followers” – why their all powerful fairy-thing is trying to kill them?
rz
== ISIS 1.0 vs 2.0 ==
Explaining the killing doesn’t take much effort for any of us. For example, there’s an explanation for trying to root out ISIS 2.0, which I don’t have any serious problem with.
And if we knew the exact atrocities practiced by the people before the Noah flood (ISIS 1.0) then we probably wouldn’t have any problem with that either:
Gen 6:5 And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
6 And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.
7 And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.
(PS: “But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD.” Gen 6:8)
It’s more ridiculous isn’t it? I mean, I think it is just about within our grasp to manufacture this virus and I could imagine a state trying to do it to create a weapon, although, if it was either China or the USA, it backfired spectacularly.But the creator of the Universe punishing one species on one planet for a trait that affects an small percentage of them and that arises entirely naturally and doesn’t do anybody any harm, seems totally laughable.