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Young Hillsong Church congregant who mocked vaccine dies of COVID

Clara Tea

Well-Known Member
According to a Daily Beast article, Man Who Tweeted About Having '99 Problems but a Vax Ain't One' Dies of COVID.
Why are so many Evangelicals putting their faith in direct conflict with science? It's not as if science has lost any of these fights, ever.

There are many ways to test faith:

1. Leap off of a 1000 foot building

2. Stand in the middle of a busy freeway

3. Eat poison

It should be obvious that God wants us to look out for ourselves, and not put ourselves in harms way. This includes taking vaccines.

Some cults shun medical procedures vital to sustain life. The fact that one dies is viewed as God's wish.

I suppose that we will all die eventually. It almost makes sense to die a fast and relatively painless death (one quick impact by a freight train and life ends). Look at the alternative, if you have cancer. Body parts amputated....continually recovering from operations.....in constant pain....a constant source of worry and expense to your family and loved ones.

I agree with Oregon's, and, more recently, California's decisions to allow suicide. Even to the extent that a medical facility could assist with the suicide (a quick painless death as long as it isn't caused by some temporary mental slump). California asserts that those with 4th stage cancer, who are not supposed to live more than a certain amount (I think 6 months or less), could have assisted suicide.

So, assisted suicide and shunning urgent medical intervention seem to be two sides of the same coin. One group fell in love with life (preventing another sane person from taking his own life), while the other group chooses what he perceives to be a natural end of life (one that he feels was chosen by God....his time to go).

Who makes the decision? Government? Does it make sense to slap handcuffs on a person thinking of suicide and drag them down to be psychologically evaluated (giving them the choice, perhaps, of checking themselves in voluntarily or being beaten to a bloody pulp by over-zealous cops then having your limp husk strapped down to a gurney in a mental ward? Does it make them feel better to have them survive that ordeal? Will they stop thinking of suicide after that?

Perhaps we all are endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights (hmm....I write very well, don't I)? Okay, I'll admit that this statement was in the Declaration of Independence that gave us our freedom from England. Perhaps part of our rights (aside from life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness) is the right to decide, for ourselves, to end life or have the religious freedom to decide to let life take its course.

In nature, there are at least two ways to end life. One is predation (lion eats human), and the other is starvation. Without predation, starvation is likely the only way to end life (because the population would get out of hand and all food would cease to exist).

What we observe in nature is balance. The white crane is able, with its lanky legs, to fend off the tiger (once again, I am an excellent writer, as long as I can borrow from the Shao Lin (Buddhists of China)). Some species (rabbits) survive by procreating, no matter how many of them are eaten (an interesting martial arts technique).

Our society seems to be in love with life, to the extent that it won't allow others the right to end it. This prolongs life, and puts more people on the already stressed medicare and social security roles. The solution, so far, has been to extend the age of retirement (no longer age 65). We have new machines to view inside the human body (MRI, and better imaging techniques with sonograms that can actually see fine details in unborn fetuses). These allow life to be prolonged (catch cancer early, get all of the cancer out).

Malcolm Ridgeway (father of biomedicine) once told me that such scans are too expensive, and people should just die a natural death. Try telling that to an 80 year old man who doesn't want to leave his 80 year old wife. Perhaps the decision to have scans should be left to the one who has the scans rather than the one paying his bills? Or, do bills matter?

For sure, science has prolonged life and in many ways made life possible (more food from farms). Yet, science also pollutes.

A famous heart surgeon recently wondered why people a couple of generations ago were so hale and hearty though they ate cholesterol, smoked, drank, and didn't exercise. Today, there is a gym on every major corner, yet insulin resistance is on the rise. His solution was that farms are being depleted of minerals. Vegetables are being grown almost year round, and the soil is not amended. Crop rotation and fertilization used to be mandatory. So, eating a lettuce today gives one almost no nutrients. His solution was to replace many of those missing nutrients. Men of WWII had stamina and were trim fighting machines, and these nutrients that made it all possible. Science is responsible for growing crops on depleted soil...so, in some sense, science is killing us.

While we are lucky that scientists, in very little time, came up with a vaccine, we are also struck by the almost inescapable notion that COVID was made in the Wuhan Institute of Virology (see Wikipedia article about a research paper that they wrote about making it in 2015). So, science made it and science cured it (it is hard to credit science with this if they were also the cause).

I realize that idiot experts say that the pandemic was not made in a lab (citing that they would have made it with SARS rather than making it with SARS).....their argument makes no sense. They didn't read that it was made with SARS.

Look at the Amish or Quakers. They are "back to nature" people who live wonderfully pure lives, free of many of the modern diseases that plague the rest of us. Of course, they have hard lives, but the bread that they bake themselves is fresh out of the oven, made with no artificial preservatives, and wholesome and pure. Some don't want modern medicine, or medicines that will prolong life. They live strong and die without much aid.
 

Clara Tea

Well-Known Member
Old people may be in more need for the vaccines as well as sick people. For others it is simply about preference (though it is to the old and the sick as well of course).

I know some people who, when they talk, take the virus and the restrictions very seriously, but they don't walk the talk. They go wherever because at home it's boring and then are shocked to find they're sick or in a precautionary quarantine.

Then a lot of people throw the precautions out of the window after they get the vaccine.

Many COVID victims were on their last legs with other ailments (including old age). To the healthy, COVID was like a mild cold, and once they had it they were considered immune (for a few months, just as a vaccine offers a few months of immunity until the virus mutates).
 
You could point out that you're more likely to be injured driving to the clinic, or to church next Sunday, than from the vaccine.
Well, maybe and the point is there are risks in life for practically everything, so why exploit, use scare tactics and conflicting information? Give the correct info and then people are free to decide whether to take whatever treatment they want like some of the medication that was already available, but they wouldn’t have it and suppressed that information. It’s not one size fits all.
 

Evangelicalhumanist

"Truth" isn't a thing...
Premium Member
Old people may be in more need for the vaccines as well as sick people. For others it is simply about preference (though it is to the old and the sick as well of course).

I know some people who, when they talk, take the virus and the restrictions very seriously, but they don't walk the talk. They go wherever because at home it's boring and then are shocked to find they're sick or in a precautionary quarantine.

Then a lot of people throw the precautions out of the window after they get the vaccine.
We must never forget -- as many seem to -- that it's not just about not getting sick ourselves, it's also about whether we bring sickness to someone else. Someone who health may already be compromised, and might face much, much worse outcomes than we ourselves.
 
There are many ways to test faith:

1. Leap off of a 1000 foot building

2. Stand in the middle of a busy freeway

3. Eat poison
This isn’t testing your faith, this would be presumption and testing God.
Faith comes by hearing God and hearing by the Word of God. Then believing what God said by acting on His Word.
 

Shakeel

Well-Known Member
We must never forget -- as many seem to -- that it's not just about not getting sick ourselves, it's also about whether we bring sickness to someone else. Someone who health may already be compromised, and might face much, much worse outcomes than we ourselves.
That's pretty much all I "worry" about.
 

Shakeel

Well-Known Member
Many COVID victims were on their last legs with other ailments (including old age). To the healthy, COVID was like a mild cold, and once they had it they were considered immune (for a few months, just as a vaccine offers a few months of immunity until the virus mutates).
I heard the vaccine protects from the mutations as well.
 

PruePhillip

Well-Known Member
What's the solution?

The solution is to be subtle and persistent. People were opposed to Small Pox and Polion vaccines.
Small Pox is now gone and Polio is on its way.
Forcing people to be vacinated becomes counter productive. I suggest you start with schools - no
children can attend public schools without vaccinations. Every international traveller must be vaccinated.
That kind of thing.
 

Unveiled Artist

Veteran Member
The solution is to be subtle and persistent. People were opposed to Small Pox and Polion vaccines.
Small Pox is now gone and Polio is on its way.
Forcing people to be vacinated becomes counter productive. I suggest you start with schools - no
children can attend public schools without vaccinations. Every international traveller must be vaccinated.
That kind of thing.

(I read) what I mean is, how do you (or provaxxer) solve where to put the unvaccinated so we won't potentially infect other unvaccinated people?

How do you deal with the unvaccinated? (Or what people call antivaxxers)?

I've never got a direct answer. It's one thing to complain about antivaxxers but it's another to form some sort of solution or its just making noise as a group.
 

Twilight Hue

Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
The solution is to be subtle and persistent. People were opposed to Small Pox and Polion vaccines.
Small Pox is now gone and Polio is on its way.
Forcing people to be vacinated becomes counter productive. I suggest you start with schools - no
children can attend public schools without vaccinations. Every international traveller must be vaccinated.
That kind of thing.
That's the best route to take. Worked then, it can work now.

At least until covid mutates into a less harmful virus.
 

Left Coast

This Is Water
Staff member
Premium Member
After the unvaccinated have died off to COVID, then what?

After they find the perfect vaccine we would be potentionally killing off each other while provaxxers laugh in our face.

I'm actually serious, though with this comment. That, or set us in our own island.

I read a lot against antivaxxers but the only thing you guys wish is that the unvaccinated get sick. Instead of wishing us sick, is there a much more humane way to handle us so we may not possibly affect others?

What's provaxxers solution to this without pinning people down and holding a needle to their face?

Personally I don't wish for anyone to die, whether they're vaccinated or not. I find the social darwinist "let the weak/stupid die" stuff to be incredibly callous and unwise. The most humane thing to do, IMHO, is to continue insisting that people wear masks and social distance and provide them accurate medical information to encourage them to get vaccinated.
 

Katzpur

Not your average Mormon
After the unvaccinated have died off to COVID, then what?

After they find the perfect vaccine we would be potentionally killing off each other while provaxxers laugh in our face.

I'm actually serious, though with this comment. That, or set us in our own island.
Basically, yes. All of the above.

I read a lot against antivaxxers but the only thing you guys wish is that the unvaccinated get sick. Instead of wishing us sick, is there a much more humane way to handle us so we may not possibly affect others?
I can't think of one. There's already a humane way to handle the whole pandemic, but you've chosen to reject it. What more are we supposed to to?

What's provaxxers solution to this without pinning people down and holding a needle to their face?
I never suggested that. If you guys are okay with dying a horrible death, be my guest.
 

Unveiled Artist

Veteran Member
Basically, yes. All of the above.

I can't think of one. There's already a humane way to handle the whole pandemic, but you've chosen to reject it. What more are we supposed to to?

I never suggested that. If you guys are okay with dying a horrible death, be my guest.

I was just curious. No one actually answered the question, so I assume either they wish us to drop off the cliff or they have some human in them regardless who they disagree with and people they hate. I personally can't wish people ill or death or to get sick (From COVID, lung cancer, or the common cold) but with all this complaining, there is no really talk about solutions. I read that, during the mask crisis, it was compared to unvaccinated being Jews (the unvaccinated in comparison) in a Nazi concentration camp. Now wishing people ill is horrible but I don't know if I'd be surprised....

That and since the vaccinated are protected, why would vaccinated people care if the unvaccinated may potentially kill each other off other unvaccinated people.

Do they care about unvaccinated insofar that they don't want us to die of COVID and spread to each other while at the same time want us to die because we're not vaccinated? Which is it?
 
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