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sphagnumThe most popular justification for the absurd Covid measures brandished about by its adherents is that it is about solidarity. It is all wrong, of course, but we seem to have a very difficult time to argue against it or find the exact reason that it is wrong.
The best argument against this crooked and evil concept of solidarity I have ever read was uttered by an Imam in either Pakistan or Afghanistan. Alas, I lost the link to the story, so I don't know which it was. This was very early on and it was in the Russian news outlet rt.com, but I never found it again. This Imam rejected all Coronavirus containment measures in his community with the following justification: We live like Allah wants us to live. People that die as a result have risked their lives to enable us to live like Allah wants and are thus martyrs.
Again, I don't have the source, so nuances may have been lost but that was the argument: God expects us to live in certain ways, and if this implies risk, then so be it. It absolutely is worth it. It is simply an absolute truth that living as God wants us to live is worth any risk. Christians certainly lived by such a principle in Rome, at the very beginning, when the Romans really tried to kill them all. And the most powerful army in the whole history of the world couldn't win over the Afghans who, it seems lived and died by this principle.
So solidarity, in a community with God, is about the individual engaging in deeds and taking risks to ensure that the community can continue living the way God wants. Living the way God wants is the focus of such a community. It is pure blasphemy to cancel Christmas because of the concerns of some Virologists that not doing so risks lives. The actions and experiences that lead to a live that pleases God derive their value from the Supreme being, not from some statistics calculation. Following the latter is clearly sin in this arrangement.
We currently live in an bizarre inversion of that. We put on the community burdens that imply they cannot live as God (any God) wanted, we put risks of destitution, depression, etc. and induce unhappiness, all in favor of a mythical abstract individual of whom no contribution in terms of personal risk can be expected (except, absurdly, risks of destitution, depression, etc.). The value tradeoff behind this concept of solidarity implies that nothing an individual does or experiences (besides being alive) has any value at all.
So it is as clear as the sun in a sunny day to the atheist writing these lines that the only real way out of this terrible, ongoing disaster is to return to God, so that He gives our lives value, and then insist to live as God wants. For some a longer road than for others. Here I sit, really wondering how to go about it, or where to even start.
The best argument against this crooked and evil concept of solidarity I have ever read was uttered by an Imam in either Pakistan or Afghanistan. Alas, I lost the link to the story, so I don't know which it was. This was very early on and it was in the Russian news outlet rt.com, but I never found it again. This Imam rejected all Coronavirus containment measures in his community with the following justification: We live like Allah wants us to live. People that die as a result have risked their lives to enable us to live like Allah wants and are thus martyrs.
Again, I don't have the source, so nuances may have been lost but that was the argument: God expects us to live in certain ways, and if this implies risk, then so be it. It absolutely is worth it. It is simply an absolute truth that living as God wants us to live is worth any risk. Christians certainly lived by such a principle in Rome, at the very beginning, when the Romans really tried to kill them all. And the most powerful army in the whole history of the world couldn't win over the Afghans who, it seems lived and died by this principle.
So solidarity, in a community with God, is about the individual engaging in deeds and taking risks to ensure that the community can continue living the way God wants. Living the way God wants is the focus of such a community. It is pure blasphemy to cancel Christmas because of the concerns of some Virologists that not doing so risks lives. The actions and experiences that lead to a live that pleases God derive their value from the Supreme being, not from some statistics calculation. Following the latter is clearly sin in this arrangement.
We currently live in an bizarre inversion of that. We put on the community burdens that imply they cannot live as God (any God) wanted, we put risks of destitution, depression, etc. and induce unhappiness, all in favor of a mythical abstract individual of whom no contribution in terms of personal risk can be expected (except, absurdly, risks of destitution, depression, etc.). The value tradeoff behind this concept of solidarity implies that nothing an individual does or experiences (besides being alive) has any value at all.
So it is as clear as the sun in a sunny day to the atheist writing these lines that the only real way out of this terrible, ongoing disaster is to return to God, so that He gives our lives value, and then insist to live as God wants. For some a longer road than for others. Here I sit, really wondering how to go about it, or where to even start.