Posted on 03/28/2021 7:16:26 AM PDT by 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
“The study concludes that based on data for all recorded deaths in the United States through August 23, 2020, the new CDC system counted 161,392 deaths attributed to the virus. Using the older system, the death total was 9,684.”
See National File, March 20, 2021
If it were truly dangerous you would already be dead. There still hope I suppose.
Great post.
I miss Doc Zero...from his HotAir days.
This is true.
The vaccines would still exist. They would have been tested using a different solution. There are many that are available, but the testers used the one that was easiest to use and the most widely available.
I’m surprised they did not realize how many people would object. Good at science but out of touch with the populations they were trying to serve.
People are afraid of death and seek immortality, so they are primed to believe almost any BS that is fed to them. We are all going to die sooner or later and shouild not pretend that anyone, anything or any particular behavior will save us.
There are reasonable studies e.g. BU, showing about 1/3 of deaths are lockdown measures. Also COVID is a harvester, like heat waves. Old people die in heat waves and then mortality drops right after the heat wave.
I'm not. And they are not vaccines, except maybe J&J.
A mask is more like nothing. I wear one at work because it is required. I wear one in stores because it's nothing.
Members of the Branch Covidian cult may need to be deprogrammed...like members of any other cult. Start with the Karens...
No, I don't agree with that. I think the fetal cell lines just made it easier. But again, no actual fetuses were used in testing these vaccines as you implied. It's another example of the BS that the anti-Covid reality team passes off as a reasonable argument.
If so, you’ll have a hard time finding evidence to conclusively support these tyrannical measures, which will prove this author’s point, that you will resort to pointing to FAITH in this new religion.
I can point to all the times the anti-Covid reality zealot team has been wrong and outright deceptive as in the "fetus tested" comment. You all told us they were inflating the deaths. The reality is the death count is deflated. There were 479,000 excess deaths in 2020. There were 352,000 Covid deaths. That leaves 127,000 deaths unaccounted for. I don't think there's any way a reasonable person can't conclude that MORE people died of Covid in 2020, not less.
You were very wrong. I knew better then. I know better now. I work in a hospital that has treated upwards of a thousand Covid cases. I review the charts and the documentation for a living. I know exactly what the reality of Covid is. You aren't gonna BS me.
For J&J. No fetal cell lines for the others except in early efficacy experiments.
yeah, sure. Let’s just turn that message into our official 2022 election platform. that’s a great idea. “Vote for us, because you’re gonna die anyways”. No thanks. I’m fine with masks. I’m fine with the vaccines. I’m fine with social distancing. I prefer people to stay more than 6 feet away from me anyways even without Covid. And I don’t even notice the lockdowns. I’m perfectly happy with the status quo right now.
It has proven to be deadly to over 548,000 Americans so far so...
I'm fine with social distancing, and I'm fine with wearing a mask which I do to keep my job. I'm not fine with force, nor encouraging people to do stupid things. Children should not wear masks. Nobody should wear one outdoors or when exercising.
But no, wearing one in stores does not mean I am brainwashed or antisocial. It’s because wearing it is nothing. It may do nothing but it also has no negative effect in that case.
Last summer and my wife and I plus most of our adult relatives and friends came to your conclusion.
So we ordered cheap throw away masks to wear to go into stores, banks and our PPO/????.
We keep a supply in the consoles in our vehicles and a couple on our dashboard. We use them and throw them away in our trash cans at home.
“I prefer people to stay more than 6 feet away from me anyways even without Covid.”
Do you work in a hospital or do you prefer not to be around people?
One of our adult DNA pools, prefers not to be around people except a few relatives and friends.
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