Common Question: Should Christians get vaccinated?

Faith & Science Conversation
43

I have done plenty and I am not going to rehash an exercise in negativity. A dear friend became a 9/11 truther maybe ten years ago and it has destroyed multiple relationships within her family and without.

One thing that conspiracists don’t get is that the dreaded msm, mainstream media outlets, are in effect self-correcting because they are in a competitive commercial market and are not merely monetized blogs and sensationalist tabloids. If they get a story wrong, they have to publish corrections or retractions. They also have investigative reporters that want to get scoops before their competitors do.

The echo chamber pots that truthers have their heads in have no such constraints. That idea that Sandy Hook was a hoax is abhorrent, and the main pusher of that garbage got himself in trouble. And then there was pizzagate and January 6, and yet QAnon persists. Those people really need to get a life. I hope you are not one of them.

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44

Read Charles Colson’s book, Born Again. He was a major player in the Watergate scandal that took down Nixon. If the most powerful men in Washington could not hold together a relatively tiny conspiracy like that, then there is no way that the ridiculously huge conspiracy that 9/11 truthers are pretending exists could not implode.

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45

Since there is so much that’s figurative in Revelation, it seems extremely arbitrary to pick that out and decide that it’s literal.

That we do casual commerce on the Lord’s Day of Rest or allow ourselves to be forced into working in noncritical jobs on Sunday or lose them shows that it’s figuratively on our foreheads, and that we pay with Apple Watches on our wrists says something, too.

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46

You already have a Social Security card, don’t you? That seems much more menacing that getting a shot in the arm.

We don’t have to trust them. We have this thing called science that can tell us if vaccines are efficacious and safe.

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47

If you use a cell phone with location enabled, please do not cite the whole “the government wants to track people through vaccines” nonsense. There are far more effective ways of tracking people for which the infrastructure already exists if the government decides it’s going to violate everyone’s privacy.

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48

And as if the government really gave a hoot where I was. :grin:

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49

What is the first thing that happened at the start of World War II. People were drafted and PROMPTLY given a bunch of shots against various kinds of disease. Why, because disease killed more soldiers in the Civil War than combat, and also killed many in the trenches of Europe in WWI.

Christians could be especially pleased about the Pfizer vaccine which is a completely manufactured chemical, not grown or taken from any life form. Credit that to my fellow Kansan, Barney Graham and his colleagues.

Consider Penicillin, originally discovered as a natural product in mold on bread, but now can be completely manufactured chemically in processes pioneered and developed by my one-time colleague, John Clark Sheehan. A link is pasted below.

Another approach was stated by Mitch Daniels in his address to Purdue graduates, as pasted below from the Wall Street Journal this morning:’

Best of all, though, might have been the speech given down the road at Purdue University by its president, Mitch Daniels. The former Indiana governor excoriated the timorous, risk-averse mindset that captured much of the elite in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. In their caution and diffidence, he told the graduates, they failed this "fundamental test of leadership” by refusing to balance risks and obligations. “Certainty is an illusion,” Mr. Daniels said. “Perfect safety is a mirage. Zero is always unattainable, except in the case of absolute zero where, as you remember, all motion and life itself stop.”

It’s a very American sentiment—one that I suspect will long outlast the spasm of identity-obsessed, self-lacerating, humorless piety imposed on us by our current crop of leaders.

https://news.mit.edu/1992/sheehan-0401

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50

What has Nero got to do it?

51

Nero would have agreed.

52

I am a bit surprised that this string has not included the story in Numbers 21. Or the great old story in the BioLogos humor section. Briefly, that story noted a preacher in a flood “praying for deliverance”, but turning down help from a 4X4, a boat, and a helicopter…and dying. Upon arriving in Heaven, he ask why his prayer was not answered and was told tersely that a 4X4, a boat, and a helicopter has been sent and spurned. So it is with the vaccines. Their availability in 2021 IS A GOD-SENT MIRACLE. Read the NYT article from a year ago stating that no vaccine would be available until 2024.

Now, to numbers, the story is pasted below. Again, GOD offered a miracle…all that required was a “look up” at the snake.

From Numbers chapter 21

5 And the people spake against God, and against Moses, Wherefore have ye brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? for there is no bread, neither is there any water; and our soul loatheth this light bread.

6 And the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died.

7 Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord, and against thee; pray unto the Lord, that he take away the serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people.

8 And the Lord said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live.

9 And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived.

10 And the children of Israel set forward, and pitched in Oboth.

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53

You left out the verses that say, ‘And the people said unto Moses, “Fake news! The fiery serpents are like unto ants and cause no harm, and the serpent of Moses hath no virtue in it, and to make us look upon it is tyranny. Freedom!” And Moses wept.’

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54

When did God do the sending? Except as us? In addition to us?

55

This reply also left our verse 5 that stated WHY the Lord sent the snakes among the people. Perhaps Christians today should be paying as much attention to verse 5 as to the rest of that scripture.

5 And the people spake against God, and against Moses, Wherefore have ye brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? for there is no bread, neither is there any water; and our soul loatheth this light bread.

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Of course, the serpents may have been Guinea worms.

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Whatever they were…they were DEADLY!!!

58

Here is my concern with this thread. It distracts from our call as Christians to salt and light to this world. For Christians to be pointing the finger at other Christians to say “just get the vaccine” will cause division within the church. I personally am vaccinated (and I am still dealing with crappy side effects), but that was my decision alone. To say that those who do not don’t love their neighbor as much as those who do is divisive. We do not know why people are not taking it. Maybe because it is so new. Maybe because they don’t trust Dr. fauci (and more evidence that comes out how he lied, will make that more difficult), maybe because other scientists have come out talking about other data that was silenced by the media or labeled as a conspiracy, or maybe they just want to wait and see what long term effects this has.

I refuse to demonize people who refuse to take the vaccine. I refuse to think of myself as a better Christian because I took it (I will add begrudgingly). If we are Christians who say we need to love our neighbor, does that not include our fellow sisters and brothers who refuse to take it?

59

Absolutely true that we should not condemn and judge our fellow Christians just because we think they are making a bad decision. But also out of love, we are called to not affirm that bad decision, and to also help them understand why it is adverse to their health as well as to the health of others, be it vaccines, or be it other behavior that could prove destructive.

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60

Personally, I am not vaccinated (and I am not enthusiastic about dealing with side effects). I am rather slow to make use of anything medical. It is not that I will not – I am just slow to do so. And if I get COVID and die because of this, then it is nobody’s fault but my own.

I do not have a cell phone. I am increasingly irritated by the way so many services now presume that you have a cell phone and require you to use it – it got a lot worse in this pandemic.

61

You might consider at least getting one Moderna or Pfizer shot, minimal side effects, but still pretty good at preventing severe disease and death.

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62

My husband had moderna and I had pfeizer. Both had crappy side effects with the 2nd shot. I personally have known no one who has had covid. I am really curious if we allowed therapeutics in the beginning if we would have seen a lower death rate. I am leery of listening to Fauci as he has proven to be untrustworthy.