How COVID became a religion (and why it’s hard to sway them) [my title]

Twitter (via thread reader) ^ | John Hayward

[ReaganGeneration2]

Every crisis becomes a religion if it lasts long enough.

One factor in that transformation is the Beautiful Theory phenomenon: the power elite insists its remedies are logical and politically correct so they MUST work, even if the actual evidence shows they obviously don't.

When Beautiful Theories crash into hard, cold reality and shatter, faith is the glue used by the elites to put their precious ideas back together. They need MILITANT faith to get the job done: true believers eager to crush doubt and compel obedience by making war on the infidels.

Some are swept into the faith because they desperately crave a sense of control over the crisis. They need to believe Something Can Be Done, and they'd rather invest their faith in debunked Beautiful Theories than have no faith at all. Faith is a coin that demands to be spent.

Some crave social approval, and the purveyors of Beautiful Theories have immense political, economic, and cultural power to make their faith seem fashionable. Virtue signaling is such a plague in modern society because the signals are pre-packaged and made very easy to send.

Some aren't even hoping they can assert control over a crisis by converting to its religion. They'll settle for just having some MEANING, some simplicity, a sense that the righteous will fare better than the unbelievers, that virtue will be rewarded while sin is punished.

That's a very common impulse with the Church of Covid, since the Beautiful Theories were so very obviously wrong. There isn't much left of the faith except the visceral communal satisfaction of hoping unbelievers will be punished for their blasphemies with sickness and death.

That sort of thing happens with all of the crisis religions, although not usually as quickly and obviously as with the Church of Covid. Look at the endless stream of movies about how the world became an apocalyptic hellscape because people didn't believe in global warming.

The last resort of every crisis religion, the last thing that puts asses in the pews, is that addiction to misery porn, the collective hope that unbelievers will suffer someday, and everyone will admit the True Faith was right all along as Judgment Day crashes down upon them.

The elite will never have the humility to admit they were wrong, and they'll never give up on politically or financially profitable "solutions" even when they obviously don't solve the problem. Founding a crisis religion means they never have to say they're sorry.

That applies to some very longstanding crises, like the War on Poverty, whose nostrums long ago transformed into fantastically expensive articles of religious faith even as mountains of data accumulated that proved they were utter failures, and often made the problems WORSE.

You can look for some telltale signs of a crisis transforming into a religion. The most obvious one is when the high priests tell you the "war" you've been drafted into will never end. They become very angry when asked to define success or failure, or lay out exit strategies.

Watch for the moment when you're told "science" means not asking questions, defying dogma, or challenging "consensus." That is the literal definition of faith, not science.

Always keep an eye out for Moving Goalposts, which are the signature miracle of crisis religions, their version of parting the waters or loaves and fishes. Crisis religions work very hard to make their faith unfalsifiable by constantly changing the standards of evidence.

Check to see if certain people are accumulating huge amounts of money and power from a crisis. That's a pretty good sign it's turning into a religion. A crisis should be solved as quickly and efficiently as possible. Don't let it fester long enough to become a special interest.

Above all, look for the whiff of ARROGANCE to develop around a crisis. Wise religions and effective crisis managers have something in common: a sense of humility. Crisis religions are militant faiths that quickly become arrogant, smug, and totalitarian.

Dedicated people who truly want to solve a problem will look for evidence their analysis is wrong, or their policies aren't working, and make adjustments as quickly as possible, no matter the cost or embarrassment to themselves. This is humility.

Crisis religions are arrogant. They reject criticism, insist their Beautiful Theories MUST be right because they're ideologically pure - they fit snugly into a worldview that must not be challenged. Their plans only fail because their commands were disobeyed or sabotaged.

The high priests of a crisis religion see devils everywhere, leering at them from the rubble of every failure. Only sin can explain why their Beautiful Theories are tarnished. Failure never THEIR fault, so it must be YOURS. They find your lack of faith disturbing.

And you know what? A LOT of people want to see the world that way, including a great many self-described atheists. They hunger for the comfort of faith and the vibrant energy of militancy. They want to be right, and they want the wrong to suffer for their folly.

Conservatives think religious faith in the State is terrifying and wonder why so many embrace it. It's because uncertainty is much more frightening. A simple false story is better than a complex true one, and with enough faith, maybe we can force the simple story to be true. /end

[reasonisfaith]

“A bounded uncertainty is better than no number.”

HORSEHONKEY!!!

When the error margins have been set in such a way that they perpetrate fraud, then the bounded uncertainty is equivalent to nothing!

Think of it this way: Sincere inaccuracy = one, but fraud = zero.

[lepton]

The concepts aren’t that difficult.

[reasonisfaith]

No, they’re not difficult.

So why do you appear unable to understand them?

[reasonisfaith]

And why do you not state your opinion with regard to the thread topic?

All you’ve done is passive-aggressively thrown out pedantic but simple phrases like “error margins” and “bounded uncertainty,” though only in order to imply the overall death number is true.

But your implication says nothing whatsoever about whether “covid” is what the media tells us it is.

[reasonisfaith]

But you’ve believed the lie about covid deaths.

The deaths were based on testing people with terminal illnesses using a non-diagnostic and unreliable test which was unrelated to their terminal illness.

[Jotmo]

“And I don’t even notice the lockdowns. I’m perfectly happy with the status quo right now.”

How nice for you. You’re good so screw everyone else eh?

I haven’t had any negative effects from the lock down either. But then, no one in my family lost their job or had their businesses destroyed by paranoid over reacting government dictates either.

Millions of others have.

The mortality rate of this “pandemic” for average healthy people is far below the levels needed for such drastic measures that have ruined so many peoples businesses and lives.

Big liberal donors Walmart and Amazon sure made out big though. Funny how that works out.

And there have been many other rights trampled on in the name of this exaggerated crises. But hey, if your right to assemble, attend religious services, or just walk down the street doesn’t mean squat for you, why should you care that other people are literally getting arrested for such things. No skin off your nose.

And when those who haven’t allowed someone to inject something into their bodies over their objections are forbidden from traveling, going out, go to public events, or eventually conduct any type of business in public at all, you’ll be cool with that too because you got your shot, so screw those people...right?

Check back with us when it’s a right you care about being taken form you.

Then again, maybe don’t bother. I don’t imagine you’ll find a lot of sympathy here.

[RC one]

You’re lying like a liberal. It’s disgusting.

[RC one]

How nice for you. You’re good so screw everyone else eh?

The people of my state will have an opportunity to judge my governor on his Covid response in 2022. It's really none of anybody else's business. I think he's gonna be OK though.

Ohio's Mike DeWine has highest approval rating of any governor during coronavirus

According to a new poll, 83 percent of voters approve of the job Ohio Governor Mike DeWine has done during the coronavirus pandemic.

Conversely, 51 percent of Ohioans approve of the job President Donald Trump has done responding to the virus, according to the poll.

The mortality rate of this “pandemic” for average healthy people

It has killed over half a million Americans. In reality, it has likely killed closer to 600,000 Americans than 500,000 Americans. But none of that even matters because they weren't in peak health? What you're talking about is called "genocide". You are some evil mofos. And then you have the nerve to accuse me of wanting to "screw everyone ese"? You're content to kill them apparently so you are not going to judge me as selfish and indifferent.

Big liberal donors Walmart and Amazon sure made out big though. Funny how that works out.

I made 16 thousand dollars on Amazon stock in 2020 and Ohio's economy experienced a brief period of unemployment but has since recovered but not quite fully.

Check back with us when it’s a right you care about being taken form you.

Says the genocidal maniac that doesn't give AF about half a million dead Americans because they weren't in peak health and wearing a mask is too much of an inconvenience for him.

[lepton]

And why do you not state your opinion with regard to the thread topic?

---

This is probably a waste of time, but I’ll give it a go:

Here’s the central theme of the article:

“Every crisis becomes a religion if it lasts long enough.”

“One factor in that transformation is the Beautiful Theory phenomenon: the power elite insists its remedies are logical and politically correct so they MUST work, even if the actual evidence shows they obviously don’t.”

While I’ve made pretty clear statements of agreement with that, said remedies aren’t what you and I have been arguing about.

Here are some of the examples of my statements of my opinions supporting the article’s theme:

[…]
That those solutions [mask mandate and lockdowns] are helpful is not clear. The real solutions were keeping the economy going - which they largely failed at by state mandates - and to get a safe-enough vaccine.

****

[...]

The issue here, is whether the mask-mandate and the lockdowns, for example, make an appreciable change compared to the - as you mentioned - increases in suicides and drug overdoses, as well as the effects a crippled economy, depression, and a variety of other ills.

One can still oppose the lockdowns and mask-mandates as each relatively ineffectual - even more so when compared to their costs - and meanwhile be able to do basic math and see that the disease is a substantial killer, as well as leaving several percent with additional longer-term health issues.

And it was a reasonable thing to try the lockdowns and masking last spring in some areas - but that they were ineffectual seems pretty clear since last May and there is no real excuse for them now.

*****

[...]
I’m not going to say that the masks cannot, if worn properly, be at least somewhat effective in certain situations and conditions - but for the most part and for most people it is exactly that: a talisman.

[lepton]

All you’ve done is passive-aggressively thrown out pedantic but simple phrases like “error margins” and “bounded uncertainty,” though only in order to imply the overall death number is true.

---

Hardly. I’ve instead said that even if they are off, and I agree that they are, they are not off far enough to change the arguments - there are bounds to how far off they can be - and gave a specific example of how those limits work even when overly generous with alternate interpretations.

https://freerepublic.com/focus/chat/3945874/posts?page=78#78

But your implication says nothing whatsoever about whether “covid” is what the media tells us it is.

---

The article isn’t about that and doesn’t discuss the number of dead *at all* - but rather whether the solutions they tell us of are based on expectations from reality, or on an untethered ‘beautiful theory’, which I contend is no longer feasibly connected to reality.

[reasonisfaith]

Your post was about the number of dead.

[reasonisfaith]

But liberals believe in covid.

Doesn’t that mean you?

[reasonisfaith]

In other words, your religion is government and your church is the CDC.

This is your great error, unseen by your own eyes.

[RC one]

You appear to be confusing intelligent reasonable people with liberals.

[glennaro]

I didn’t read one word past “your brutal indifference” btw

This could be the reason you did not respond. Another equally valid reason is that you have no response, or no complete response which I, for one, would appreciate the opportunity to considere.

Won't you try again and just ignore the petty torment? Cheers!

[lepton]

He seems confused by his own posts.

[Jotmo]

So I’m a “genocidal maniac”?

You’re thought process on this subject deranged, panic/emotionally driven and irrational.