Pope blames coronavirus on Environmental damage

[HarryStotle]

I think maybe people don’t understand that the pope is just saying something that amounts to common sense, but he says it in a way that escapes most people.

If I eat bad food, my stomach throws a fit. If people mistreat exotic animals in a dirty market place, then that which is being mishandled may “throw a fit”. If chemicals are dumped in a river, the river may throw a fit (catch on fire). I fail to see what is controversial about his comment.

There isn’t anything controversial about the comment, but in order to be helpful it requires more nuance and clarity. Generic and overly broad comments that can be parsed any way the listener chooses to take them are not as helpful as they could be.

According to the view that human beings are separate from nature, human existence is viewed as being in direct conflict with the natural world. The extinction rebellion types would prefer that human beings die off from the face of the earth, so to make broad statements about how nature is convulsed by human activity feeds into the devaluation of human life.

If human life is “foreign” to nature, as some would have us think, then any activities that humans engage in in order to live and flourish are going to have some impact on the “natural” (AKA non-human) world. It is this bifurcation of life into human and natural that creates a false and dangerous chasm between what humans do on earth and what nature does.

If the Pope wants to be helpful in that regard he needs to be far more clear about what human beings can legitimately do to flourish on earth (since human life is precious in God’s eyes), rather than buying into the modern environmentalist dogmas that any human impact on nature is deplorable.

 

[1Lord1Faith]

rather than buying into the modern environmentalist dogmas that any human impact on nature is deplorable.

I don’t where you’re getting this from. Maybe you’re just being hyperbolic.

Generic and overly broad comments that can be parsed any way the listener chooses to take them are not as helpful as they could be.

You know what’s not helpful - knit piking. Why don’t you write a letter to the pope about how his speech is too unclear in its meaning for dummies to figure it out.

 

[Neithan]

The extinction rebellion types would prefer that human beings die off from the face of the earth

Except them, of course, the chosen “woke” ones. Or I dunno, maybe the most radical would include themselves in the end. Cleanse the earth of this “mistake.” Without God we really have no reason to believe that we’re any good at all.

According to virologists a virus is not trying to kill us. It’s not trying to do anything but replicate. Ideally for a virus, it would cause no symptoms at all except insofar as those symptoms help it spread to a new host. So the coronaviruses that cause the common cold are actually more “successful” than this new one, because they are everywhere and no one really cares to stop them. This is unlike bacteria which can feed off corpses (so a zombie apocalypse would have to be started by something bacterial).

 

[HarryStotle]

HarryStotle:

rather than buying into the modern environmentalist dogmas that any human impact on nature is deplorable.

I don’t where you’re getting this from. Maybe you’re just being hyperbolic.

This thinking is more common than you presume.

Example: Patricia MacCormack, philosophy professor at Anglia Ruskin University, wrote a book promoting “ahumanism,” The Ahuman Manifesto: Activism for the End of the Anthropocene.

It is against this context that Patricia McCormack delivers her expert justification for the “ahuman”. An alternative to “posthuman” thought, the term paves the way for thinking that doesn’t dissolve into nihilism and despair, but actively embraces issues like human extinction, vegan abolition, atheist occultism, death studies, a refusal of identity politics, deep ecology, and the apocalypse as an optimistic beginning.

There are many in the climate alarmist business who are openly advocating for population control and reducing the numbers of human beings on earth to 500 000 000. Some of those such as Jeffrey Sachs and Ban Ki-Moon were invited to provide their expertise at recent synods and panels hosted by the Church.

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www.americamagazine.org

 

[DaveBj]

There are many in the climate alarmist business who are openly advocating for population control and reducing the numbers of human beings on earth to 500 000 000.

Speaking to those who would advocate such thinking:

“You first.”

D

 

[stpurl]

Sadly, a not insignificant number of those you would challenge would consent. These are the people who, themselves deeply unhappy, the “I didn’t have a CHOICE to come into this world and I hate life” people, would line up for a ‘painless death’ and a release into nothingness or the void or ‘whatever’. And they would consider this to be a reason for THEIR being alive—to show the way to others to ‘be dead’ for the planet.

In a way, the current COVID19-19 crisis may be a way to spur people OUT of this type of thinking, though. Because instead of society giving them all kinds of publicity and blessings, society is now seeing people who are suffering not a painless, sanitized death but a painful and ‘not chosen’ death. They may then start to rethink the modern idea that one (provided one is fortunate enough to be born in a ‘modern’ first world country with plenty of ‘facilities’) should have the power of ‘choosing’ life or death.

This virus is showing us that we do NOT have the power we imagined. And with that loss of the control we think we have, the other thoughts that we assembled to bolster our beliefs become unglued.

For every ‘theist’ who is struggling with the idea of a just God when they have lost a loved one to this virus, there are countless numbers of ‘spiritual’ and ‘nones’ who were going along comfortably in a world that (without that silly ‘god’) was governed by rational humanity and its virtually unlimited power who are finding out that the ‘power’ is gone and they are just as much at the mercy of the unknown as anybody else.

Science is still seen as powerful, as the answer, for much. God, for too many, has been ‘locked away’ as inessential.

But I think that this crisis is somehow going to bring us , if we choose to listen, to a proper balance of Science and God that might not have had without it.

In a world where everything we ‘chose to do’ we COULD do, Science was all and God was nothing.

In a world where Science can suddenly ‘turn on us’ and things are no longer possible, and may never fully ‘cure’ this new virus, Science can be seen as what it is: A TOOL, not a God. And with it being seen as such, and humanity being what it is, there will be a search for God. Since He has already manifested Himself, instead of having to hunt out all sorts of different ‘things’ we will get the opportunity of getting to know Him without the presumption of Him no longer being ‘relevant’. And that may be the necessary next step for humanity’s salvation.

 

[Trying2overcome]

I disagree with him. But we can all have our own opinions on these things, right?

 

[Johann_du_Toit]

Nature is not sentient. It does not have a conscience or feelings of anger. It is completely indifferent to us, to how we think and feel.

I think it is better to see this as a chastisement willed or permitted by God for the various sins of mankind to help purify us–I don’t see much of this directly linked to pollution or whatnot, as if this virus is a natural result. And it would be certainly wrong to ascribe agency to “nature” to punish us.

That being said, in general, introducing disorder in the natural order–which might include disordinate exploitation of natural resources–can lead to misery or punishment from God–but there tends to be a more direct relationship (e.g. air being good for us to breathe, while polluted air harms us to breathe)

I’m beginning to believe that too.

 

[Minks]

I’m not convinced that any of the coronaviruses are not biowarfare. This particular virus, COVID-19, became rampant in the vicinity of a biowarfare lab. When Hunan individuals in positions of medical responsibility wanted to protect others by cautioning others and limiting contact, they were actually arrested. The woman physician who first tried to sound the alarm, still in 2019, has “mysteriously” disappeared. One physician, instrumental in saving many lives, died of the illness while jailed. May God have mercy upon the two of them and upon all the beleaguered in China.

Hunan governing officials tried to hush word of magnitude of the disease. They downplayed it until the spread was obvious to the rest of the world. At about that time, mainline China arrested those same Hunan officials and began their whitewash of responsibility. None of the coronaviruses have characteristics in total agreement with the normal development of a virus. They all have characteristics indicating that they’ve been manipulated.

Time will tell, but because this actually could occur, it has changed the way mankind will live, forever forward. The way the movements of Chinese people are monitored and punished are reprehensible and unconscionable, but a fact of life for them since 2010. I shudder to think what it may portend for other countries, including the US.

 

[Edmundus1581]

I want to respond to Pope Francis’ Spanish aphorism: “God always forgives, we forgive sometimes, but nature never forgives.”

It sounds impressive, but is quite wrong. On the contrary nature is highly resilient, as we see over and over in the way she recovers from serious damage, both natural and man mad, and flourishes again.

Here in Australia we’ve seen a beautiful autumn after the devastating bushfires of summer (which were referenced by Pp Francis as examples of his maxim). All the damaged regions will recover in just a few years to be healthier than they were before - as has happened many times in this country as part of the cycle of Australian ecology.

Our bodies are the similar. They tend to recover from damage, both external and self-inflicted.

Nature, as with our bodies, does deteriorate under sustained abuse, eg. air pollution, but that is almost the opposite of “never forgiving”. In recent weeks we’ve seen photos of skies clearing after just a few weeks of coronavirus lockdown.

The English poet Gerard Manly Hopkins (a Catholic priest) said it most eloquently, even relating it to God’s mercy:

God’s Grandeur​

BY GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.

It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;

It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil

Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?

Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;

And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;

And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil

Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;

There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;

And though the last lights off the black West went

Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —

Because the Holy Ghost over the bent

World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

[Credit]

If Pp Francis’ comment had come from anyone but the Holy Father or a bishop, I would have been more directly critical.

As to the aphorism itself, I suggest it may have its origins in farm life to remind farmers and workers that nature won’t “forgive” mistakes, and especially won’t forgive idleness. But even there “never forgive” is just hyperbole to exhort action, rather than any reliable rule.

 

[stpurl]

It reminds me of something my mother frequently says, “God helps those who help themselves”. . .and which SHE thought was from the Bible. It isn’t. It’s from Aesop’s Fables.

Mind you, I’m not saying that the quote is wrong or stupid exactly, but it isn’t Biblical and, in fact, if one ponders it, it’s actually in a way distinctly UN Biblical. Because the whole point of Jesus’ suffering, death, and resurrection was that He did it for us when we could NOT help ourselves.

My mom, when I asked her, stated that she thought the quote meant that we need to cooperate with God (which actually does make sense) but then she said, “But it’s not like that ‘earns’ heaven’.

So perhaps the Holy Father has a perfectly reasonable orthodox view of the whole ‘Nature quote’ like my mom does with the Aesop fable moral, but it’s just that like so many things which aren’t directly Biblical or from the deposit of faith, it’s easy to tease out a ‘not-so-good’ or not orthodox view and then think the other view ‘came later’. Maybe it did, maybe it didn’t. But just like, “It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature’, the whole “Nature doesn’t forgive’ isn’t really for a Christian a deification of Nature or a dig at God; I think it’s just one of those ‘morals’ meant for an ‘orthodox’ interpretation from the start to actually show God’s love and mercy even when ‘nature’ goes wrong.

 

[Irishmom2]

“God helps those who help themselves”.

My mom used to say that a lot also. But she meant it as if you are trying to do something, God will help you. If you are in need of something, God will bring it to you, if you are trying to do something about it. As opposed to just expecting God to fix everything for us.

 

[Michaelangelo]

I never think of a virus as being a part of “nature.” A virus is not like an earthquake or a tidal wave.

And what is your definition of something “being part of nature”?
A virus will, given a chance, replicate itself. That is what it does. The same thing goes for bacteria. A major difference between those two is that a virus needs a host for the replication process because the virus lacks both the machinery, components and the energy required. While a bacteria can do it on its own because it has the machinery required and can get the energy and components from the outside.

Under certain cirumstances a human will serve as the “machinery and battery” for the virus. And some bacteria finds humans very useful as a place to live on or in. Sort of convenient warehouse for bacteria.

Animals needs energy and components in order to replicate themselves, because they have the machinery just like bactera. So they acquire the energy and components from their surroundings. And just like bacteria an animal tends to live where energy and components can be found.

Humans needs energy and components only for replication because we carry the machinery, just any other animal or bacteria.

The issue lies in the acquisition of energy and components. In many cases, but far from all, that involves killing another living organism. Now, no matter if it is a human, a lion, a bacteria or a virus, if the organism kills everything around it in order to acquire the components and energy, it will ultimately kill itself. This is why the common cold viruses are so successful. They are effective in finding suitable hosts but does not do any significant damage to most hosts. The lions kills enough pray to survive and target the weakest mostly, which does not disrupt the success for the pray animals as a whole.

Do you see the resemblance?

Now, why wouldn’t you think of viruses being part of nature?

 

[Irishmom2]

Post 15. Sorry you took the time to post so in depth, but I already explained what I meant earlier.

 

[Michaelangelo]

Post 15. Sorry you took the time to post so in depth, but I already explained what I meant earlier.

I saw that too late…

 

[Irishmom2]

It happens!

 

[HarryStotle]

Tis_Bearself:

Other than that I don’t see how this virus is being caused by a disregard of nature though. It’s not like we all caught it by deforesting the Amazon or something.

That is actually what I meant when I said not a part of nature, but I did not make it as clear as you did. I didn’t go far enough with what I meant by my comment. I meant I don’t think of it as an event of nature like an earthquake etc.

The jury is still out regarding the origins of this particular virus. If it was diced and spliced in a lab then the blame for the damage from the virus isn’t the environment but, rather, human will and action.

In any case, the CCP still needs to explain why it shut down the city of Wuhan for travellers to and from other parts of China on January 23rd (I think), but continued to allow travel to and from other countries for at least another eight days. So Chinese citizens were to be protected from the virus, but the rest of the world was not?

It isn’t clear to me how that kind of action can be blamed on “environmental damage” when the harm to people all around the globe could have been prevented by human action.

 

[HarryStotle]

The slicing and dicing of a virus to “artfully” create one that can both attach to the receptor and “cleave” its entry path into host cells is explained here…

This particular coronavirus has some suspicious properties given that the furin cleavage site (RRAR) is unique within the Spike sequence homology. There are NO close “family members” to this virus in the evolutionary sense that could have permitted any of those close relatives to have developed the cleavage site by mutation.

If the above claims are true, then coronavirus is definitely not the result of the actions of nature, but of human beings manipulating nature.

 

[RidgeSprinter]

In a nutshell? Covid-19 is ordained by God.

 

[RidgeSprinter]

Are you saying God could not have created it or even allowed it?