annatar1914 wrote:Not so. Christ Himself said that many ''Christians'' would not follow Christian belief and practice; ''Many are called, but few are chosen''.
It is an act of social love for one's neighbor to do what has to be done to contain a plague killing many thousands of people; this Satanism of refusing to do what is right for one's neighbor is not supported by Scripture or by the Fathers in any way, shape, or form. It is rather an Anti-Christian sentiment that would seem to come more from the selfishness of an Ayn Rand or some form of eugenicist social darwinism than anything else.
But there's the question of what must be done to contain the plague. If public officials are unwilling to live by the rules they demand everyone else follow, then
they clearly don't believe that obedience to those rules is necessary. And if they don't believe their own rhetoric, why should we?
I'm sure by now everyone's heard about the Supreme Court's ruling on New York's restrictions on church attendance.
Sean Trend points out that the ruling isn't as new or expansive as some (on both sides) have said. Check out the column for more details, but this is the nub:
As others have pointed out, houses of worship have been the locus of multiple superspreading events, although, the court notes, not with Catholic congregations in New York City. But what the court is saying at this point is emphatically not that public health officials must overlook this danger in churches. Instead, the court essentially says, because of the First Amendment concerns, churches are essential businesses. Therefore, to be a neutral law the state much treat churches in the same way as were other essential businesses, especially when other essential businesses that are allowed to set their own occupancy rates have been the sites of COVID outbreaks.
And in other news, the Resistance continues to build:
Beverly Hills City Council Votes to Oppose LA County's Outdoor Dining BanColorado Merchants Defy COVID-Closure OrderEdited to add: For those that didn't bother to look, here's the chart of the percentages by age of the total death rate from February to September:
Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without.
—Edmund Burke