Thanks for the clarification. I was confused as to how the genomic viral RNA was replicated. Pretty good article I need to study:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41579-020-00468-6
Very good article! Thank you to everyone who put in the effort and time to write it and put it together.
It’s wonderful to see the expressions of love being shown as this epidemic has brought down barriers between people. It’s especially wonderful to see medical and care staff sacrificing their freedom and health to serve those they care for. This is the sort of community I want to be a part of. I don’t want to promote society where I am the most important one, where my desires and beliefs are given priority over others. There are so many stories going round that so many people just go for the easy route and accept what ‘sounds’ right rather than asking the same questions of the skeptics as they have asked of the medical profession. Community means we need to look beyond preconceived opinions and listen to those we mightn’t naturally agree with.
Vaccinations are not primarily for the sake of the individual - they are for the benefit of community. Those most likely to be severely effected by COVID-19 are those with underlying health issues. As a healthy adult, I have a duty to protect them from as much harm as I can and this includes trying to ensure that I don’t (a) catch the virus and (b) unknowingly pass it on to others. Of course, vaccinations have an element of risk but they prevent much more damage than they cause. As the article showed, the risks are tiny compared to the benefits. Life is risky. As a Christian, my desire is to serve Christ first in every facet of my life. This includes his call to love my neighbour as myself. I would rather be hurt because I am serving my God and my community and this includes having a vaccination (and wearing a mask, washing my hands, keeping my distance, etc) than be selfish and ‘safe’ from the dangers of vaccination. Absolutely, we should be vaccinated because we love our neighbour!
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Should Christians get vaccinated?
That depends… are they creationists? republicans? Calvinists?
Then by no means should they do any of these things for their own health and safety.
If they get the virus and spread it to the rest of their unvaccinated group, then the worst that will happen is that God will call them home."
LOL just kidding.
I know you were kidding, but I attended the funeral of a friend a decade younger than me, and heard similar statements expressed at his funeral.
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The virus has an RNA dependent RNA polymerase which is another way of saying that it can copy RNA into RNA. No part of a coronavirus is DNA at any point in its replication cycle.
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Thanks! All clear now. Interesting how viruses are able to hijack things.
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First, how do our cells normally process RNA? We’re finding out that RNA actually does all sorts of things, but the particularly relevant component here is messenger RNA. Messenger RNA is transcribed from the DNA in our cells (and all other living cells on earth). In eukaryotes such as ourselves, it gets some further processing before it gets out of the nucleus into the cell. Ribosomes can then read the messenger RNA and use it as a template to translate the sequence into a polypeptide (which may be a protein or part of a protein).
What does a coronavirus (and similar RNA viruses) do? It gets its RNA into a cell. The ribosomes read that RNA just like they would any other messenger RNA and use it to make proteins, but those proteins direct the cell to make more viral RNA and the proteins that make up the outside of the virus. Thus, the virus is hijacking the normal function of the cell’s processes to make more viruses instead.
What can your body do about this? A key first step is figuring out that there is a problem. Several types of immune system cells have the job of finding and recognizing anything that does not belong in your body. Certain cells basically have the job of saying “I found this protein, does anybody recognize it?” Antibody-producing cells are constantly undergoing a high rate of mutation in the genes for the parts of the antibodies that stick to foreign molecules. Of course, that makes a lot of random antibodies that don’t match anything. But occasionally, one of those antibodies finds a match. This triggers the B cell that made it to multiply. Some of these new cells churn out lots of the antibody to stick onto whatever this invading molecule might be; others go into storage to be ready for the next time it shows up.
But this process takes a while. Thus, you’re much better at fighting off a second infection than the first, in most cases. (There are other slightly different systems of cells that are active as well in the immune system, but this is the type of response that is relevant for vaccines.)
A standard vaccine gives you some variant on the virus that the antibodies can recognize, but that won’t make you sick. For example, it could be pieces of the virus. This allows the B cells to learn to recognize a threat before you face the full-blown wild virus. At that point, you’ll already be prepared with antibodies that will promptly recognize the virus and glop onto it before it can get established.
The RNA vaccine contains a bit of RNA that works as messenger RNA, just like the virus’ RNA does. However, this one only directs the cell to make lots of one of the proteins on the surface of the virus. That protein alone can’t hurt you. But it can be recognized by your immune system, triggering the B cells and others to recognize this particular protein as a threat. Once your system knows to recognize it, if actual COVID-19 viruses show up, your body will be ready to immediately gunk them up and break them down.
I haven’t seen a specific statement as to why they have taken the RNA vaccine approach, but I would expect that it is because it’s far easier to make a specific RNA than a specific protein. Thus, the RNA vaccine approach can be done far quicker.
So the RNA vaccine is a relatively quick way to train your immune system to recognize the threat of COVID-19, not too different from training a police dog to recognize a particular drug smell.
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https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4369385/ has a detailed account of how coronaviruses work. It might be good to use if you have to deal with conspiracy fans, because the article is from before COVID-19.
I believe the correct technical term is glom. Glop is a noun. 
I have decided for myself that I will seek and accept vaccination unless and until I am able to walk on water, turn water into wine, and raise the dead.
- Sirach 38:1-15
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- Honor doctors for their services, since indeed the Lord created them.
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- Healing comes from the Most High, and the king will reward them.
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- The skill of doctors will make them eminent, and they will be admired in the presence of the great.
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- The Lord created medicines out of the earth, and a sensible person won’t ignore them.
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- Wasn’t water made sweet by means of wood so that the Lord’s strength might be known?
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- And he endowed human beings with skill so that he would be glorified through his marvelous deeds.
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- With those medicines, the doctor cures and takes away pain.
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- Those who prepare ointments will make a compound out of them, and their work will never be finished, and well-being spreads over the whole world from them.
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- My child, when you are sick, don’t look around elsewhere, but pray to the Lord, and he will heal you.
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- Stay far from error, direct your hands rightly, and cleanse your heart from all sin.
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- Offer a sweet-smelling sacrifice and a memorial of fine flour, and pour an offering of oil, using what you can afford.
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- And give doctors a place, because the Lord created them also, and don’t let them leave you, because you indeed need them.
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- There’s a time when success is in their hands as well.
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- They will also ask the Lord so that he might grant them rest and healing in order to preserve life.
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- May those who sin against their creator fall into the hands of a doctor.
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That is mighty Christian of you, Terry. Just got back from driving my wife to get her second jab. Now we’re both good to go, though both Pfizer and Moderna are supposed to be 60% less effective on the South African variant. So it isn’t time for wild celebration yet.
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Those vaccines are 60% effective against the SA variant, not 40% effective. Small difference, but worth mentioning. This is about what you get with flu vaccines, as a comparison. I’m hoping that even at 60% efficacy it is enough to drastically reduce the spread of the virus, and I am quite confident they are already working on mRNA boosters that incorporate the SA variant. The one good thing about the mRNA vaccines is that they have quick turnaround.
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Thanks. I just repeated exactly what I heard but I was wondering exactly what they meant. Whether it was about transmitting it to others or contracting it oneself, and if it is about contracting it I wonder if it would limit the effects of that virus or if it one would be just as vulnerable to as an unvaccinated person.
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The current vaccine is expected to reduce hospitalizations from the new variants, but I haven’t seen any solid numbers to back it up. Will let you know if I see anything.
Luckily, the turnaround on the mRNA vaccines can be quite rapid. They are already testing boosters for the new variants and the results are looking good:
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Maybe I’m confused, but I don’t think that report says anything about results for a new booster. It talks about testing both a third dose of the existing vaccine and about a new booster they’re targeting against mutant viral strains, but not about results of testing. (And I haven’t seen anything since that report.) This study showed a more alarming decrease in neutralizing antibodies with the B.1.351 strain, by the way.
I was surprised not to find any comment in the published article on the side of this whole topic that deals with Revelations 13:16 and similar passages:
“And he causes all, the small and the great, the rich and the poor, and the free and the slaves, to be given a mark on their right hands or on their foreheads, and he decrees that no one will be able to buy or to sell, except the one who has the mark, either the name of the beast or the number of his name.”
Mind explaining why not? Is it not relevant?
Welcome to the forum, Marty. That has been thrown around for decades with some saying it refers to credit cards, social security numbers, tax returns, and now vaccinations. Not that John had any idea of what those things were when he wrote it. Jesus said it was what comes out of a man that defiles him, not what goes into him, which I think applies to us today as well.
As to the meaning of those verses, I would think that the mark is an indication of ownership, much like a brand on cattle in the old West was used to prevent rustlers from selling your cows. If you are belong to Rome or whatever worldly authority you are under rather than God, you are not part of God’s kingdom but rather the kingdom of man. Rome and Caesar to John, or secular nationalism in whatever form you wish to hold to today.
It is a real stretch to tie it to vaccination, or any specific material mark for that matter, as what matters is in the heart.
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There is so much that is obviously figurative in Revelation that to pick out pieces here and there and then say dogmatically, “This absolutely needs to be taken literally!”, that is going way beyond scripture.
Charles Colson of Watergate infamy, in his book, Born Again, points out as a counterargument to the suggestion that if our Lord’s resurrection was a conspiracy to fool the masses, Christianity wouldn’t have happened. The few Watergate conspirators couldn’t even hold that little conspiracy together, let alone if a large number had been involved in perpetuating the plot. The same is true for today’s conspiracists. If all that they imagine is conspiracy, and with the huge numbers of people that would have to be involved with these imagined plots – hoaxes, false flag operations, yada yada including 9-11, Sandy Hook and the Boston Marathon, then we would have had more than a few honest whistleblowers come forward by now.
Likewise with COVID vaccination conspiracists. Consider the huge numbers of scientists and technicians and pharmaceutical manufacturing plant employees, and from not just one company in one country! Are they all part of the conspiracy? Of course, for the imagined conspiracy, you would have to add multiple scores of engineers and technicians to design and process and include whatever imagined nano-device in the vaccine. And all this is being done in secret except for the enlightened few conspiracists in front of their screens that really know what is going on. Please.
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Here is a nice piece by the SBC ERLC’s Russell Moore and NAE president, Walter Kim.
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Hmm, I agree that Jesus believes in the intentions of the heart - but I don’t find the vaccine a far-fetched comparison for the mark of the beast at all. Or at the least, a precursor for it…
If the US government (like many others already are experimenting) decides that you can only purchase something at a local store if you’ve been vaccinated, aren’t you exactly that - the government’s property? How can you not see all of this leading to a tracking system for widescale global use? How can you flat-out trust that the government and the ‘Gates’ of this world have your best interest in mind?
There’s an agenda, and they’ll follow it. The powerful doing whatever Godless things they want to do - doesn’t seem like a bold claim at all. Sounds like all of human history: abuse of power.