Purgatory : Divine punishment and the Coronavirus
Anglican Brat
Shipmate
One of my eco-theology friends is discussing of whether or not coronavirus is a punishment from our dear mother earth for our long devastation and abuse of her creation.
Is that fair, I'm a bit uncomfortable with how he frames it, because I don't see consequence as exactly the same as punishment.
Is that fair, I'm a bit uncomfortable with how he frames it, because I don't see consequence as exactly the same as punishment.
Comments
The first I can handle. There seems to be something in nature which looks for a healthy balance. Human beings have been going against what's good for us and the world for a long time, and we'll probably try to carry on doing so.
The other I shake my head at.
I do think a lot of the reason for the suffering from the world is the consequence of bad decisions by our political and economic elites.
But I chafe at equating consequence with punishment from a deity, whether it is YHWH or Gaia;.
Which is why Gaia goes on doing what she does, perhaps giving a shake of her tail, or scratching her skin, because of a passing itch or irritation.
Us.
On the other hand, if I perceive God as loving and forgiving, a caring Father, then the idea that God sends any natural disaster/plague/disease as punishment is ridiculous. I tend to that view, so I find appealing Woody Guthrie's verse "God's Promise":
{Technical Note: Guthrie never recorded the song. When he died, his notebooks were filled with lyrics--often without any tune attached to them. Guthrie's heirs have since approached various folk singers to put the lyrics to music. Considering Woody's habit of tweaking his lyrics over time (even of songs previously recorded), I find it highly doubtful that any of these lyrics were what Woody would have considered as a "final" version.}
I'm going to cheer-lead (again) for @JBohn 's .sig line from the old ship - 'we are punished by our sins, not for them' - Elbert Hubbard
"The secret things are the Lord's"
Yes, huge self-inflation by humans. Even viruses revolve round us! Face palm.
Face palms are a really bad idea at the moment
Viruses that target our immune system do, in fact, revolve around us. Without us they can't reproduce.
If one assumes an infinite God--infinitely able to pay attention, infinitely interested, infinitely capable of intervening if he chooses--then it is NOT a stretch of the imagination by any means to think he has reactions to human behavior. For that matter, it's not a stretch of the imagination to think he has reactions to virus behavior, or to that of geese or mongeese (?) or supernovae. After all, he doesn't have a bandwidth problem, and he doesn't have any memory storage or access issues either. He can do just as he pleases.
With such a God, I would think it odder for him to NOT be interested in some part of his creation--to deliberately turn off his interest level--to ignore that bit, while not ignoring others. Why should he? He is not busy in the sense that we are, where priorities crowd others out. He does not suffer from ennui. Those are human problems. He doesn't run up against those kinds of limits.
So anybody (anyThing) living in a universe created by such a God would be wholly justified in supposing that he/she/it/they were the center of his attention at all times, regardless of their level of importance in the eyes of others. Indeed, EVERYBODY and everything would be the center of his attention at all times. And so there is no need to presuppose massive ego.
That's how I square that circle. I do think God pays close, minute attention to what I do--to what you do--to what the mouse in my kitchen (gulp!) does--because he's that kind of God. Not because we are in ourselves so awesome, that has nothing to do with it.
Now add in the postulate that God is a moral God and cares about moral, ethical, compassionate, sensible behavior on the part of his creatures (including us), and suddenly you have grounds for believing in the possibility of divine punishment. Or reward, of course, but nobody complains about THAT!
So no, it is not necessarily egotistical to look at some event and wonder if it is divine punishment. It is unwise to jump to those conclusions without a damn good reason (such as divine revelation), especially when the folks getting punished are people you don't much like. That would be uncharitable. But it would not necessarily be either illogical or egotistical.
And now I'm going to go do the Thing I'm avoiding, because whether God ordains consequences for not doing it or not, I would still feel like a putz if I didn't.
But this is not unique to humans. Many animals, birds and plants suffer from viruses.
The evidence seems to indicate that Covid jumped from bats via an intermediary species (pangolins have been suggested) into humans, so far from revolving around us, Covid appears to see humans as just so much Lebensraum.
But yes, I imagine some viruses are unique to humans, as are some other varieties of parasitic animals, so some of them do revolve around us. But equally, given eight percent of our genome is made up of viral dna, you could say humans revolve around viruses.
Sin away, ladies and gents. Now is the time to change the rules!!!!
Okay, viruses that ONLY reproduce in humans revolve around us.
Foreshadowing the NT where Jesus overturns the tables of the bat meat sellers right after the money tables.
Faith beliefs have totally failed to adapt to every other thing that's ever happened (Holocaust, perhaps different?).
The Black Death didn't alter faith.
Look up "reverse zoonosis". Lots of hits.
(Waves)
Really?
Over the last few thousand years - featuring plagues, wars killing million upon million, the Shoah, sytematic oppression and misery across nations - has no-one has speculated on where God is in all of it, or worked out how their faith continues through it?
In contrast - and to return to the actual subject of the OP - the secular world with its value-free commitment to economic growth, global trade and travel and unlimited consumption and exploitation of the environment should have to adapt to the realisation that we are on the road to more disasters. I wonder if they will do so.
I have some difficulty getting my mind about why He doesn't like them.
I disagree. The dominance of amoral global capitalism, and its deleterious effects, are obvious.
Yes, but the OP uses the word "punishment". Well, no doubt there are people who think it's a punishment from God, but a punishment from the earth? That just seems to be stretching the idea of Gaia to breaking point. There is some merit in the idea that humans are pushing into areas of nature which bite back, but is this intentional on the part of nature?
I was mainly addressing a diversion from another poster; but I agree that current crises (for there are many) are more to do with the feedback consequences of a human societal system and attributing them to Gaia takes the theory too far. Possibly, as the bus veers off the cliff edge, it also distances us from our responsibilities as drivers rather than passengers.
Thank you, @Lamb Chopped. "Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered.", as somebody-or-other once said.
It certainly currently appears to have the blessing promised to Abraham...
Sisonooz?
Presumably so, yes. And, shockingly, not in a way that mimics human interest in it.
I'm not sure of the thrust of the question.
I tend not to think of viruses as having 'interests'. Or, if I remember my high-school biology classes correctly, even as 'alive', really.
"Are viruses alive?" is a tricky question with no established answer. There are good biological justifications both ways.
I too distinguish between consequence and punishment.
I am sure that God is and has been with us throughout all of the pains as well as the joys of life, of which consequences are a part.
As God is the creator of nature, I suppose that the natural consequences of all we do feed back to God, whether or not we care to see them as punishment.
It does mutate: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2020/03/05/live-coronavirus-qa-covid-19-has-mutated-happens-now-put-questions/amp/
How would being manmade stop it from mutating? Any DNA or RNA replication will introduce mutations.
Actual science on COVID19 origin: https://www.livescience.com/coronavirus-not-human-made-in-lab.html
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/03/how-coronavirus-mutations-can-track-its-spread-and-disprove-conspiracies/
Sorry. Mustn't keep on about Gaia.
TIACW.
Source? For this risible garbage?