“Vaccination is a simple but profound way of promoting the common good and caring for each other, especially the most vulnerable.”
30 Likes
It’s kind of on a cline though. It might seem reasonable for health reasons to demand that Christian Scientists get vaccinated the same as anyone, but it also might seem reasonable to draft Quakers in the event of an invasion just the same as anyone who didn’t want to go to war and then at the very weak end of the cline, you could argue that it was a public good to make prison meals consistent (or some other bs argument) for Muslims and for people who just don’t like pork. My problem is lumping all the arguments together.
Except one is saving lives and the other is killing people. Not the same at all.
11 Likes
Exactly. But I am also sure that there are people out there who view “defense of the nation” i.e. killing people as more important than defending the nation from a health crisis that’s killing hundreds of thousands of us.
3 Likes
Not all opinions or worldviews are equally valid. I’d have hoped that these past few year had taught us THAT much at least. Apparently not… so, both sides it fucking is, I guess, until we’re all dead.
9 Likes
I’m not arguing that both sides are valid. I’m arguing that there are some circumstance in which it makes sense to consider religious sensibilities of individuals and some circumstances in which it does not. I think religious objection to participation in war makes some sense, whereas religious rejection to vaccines does not. If we say that religious considerations never make sense then at least in this dimension all these things look the same.
1 Like
Sure. This is not one of them.
7 Likes
I think they’re both irrelevant because we have reality based ways of figuring out that both war and sickness are wrong.
11 Likes
And how do the Christian Scientists feel about horse paste?
5 Likes
I think prisons should reasonably accommodate dietary needs and restrictions whether personal, medical, or religious, but should not necessarily give special attention to the religious justifications. Regardless of the reason, there are reasonable and unreasonable demands. I think it is reasonable to provide vegetarian and vegan food to anyone who wants it (which conveniently covers pretty much all major religious dietary laws). But if I tried to pull the “church of the filet minion” line in prison it would go over as well as you might expect, probably even if I showed it was my profoundly held belief.
I would prefer nobody was forced to participate in warfare, conscripting anyone is cruel. But if you are going there, then you have decided that societies desire to wage war is more important than the individual choice. I’m not sure I have a good reason why some religions should be exempt. Also, conscientious objector status is not actually tied to any particular religion, and athiests can be COs as well as quakers. On the reverse, being a member of a religious group specific religious group does not make you automatically a CO.
But even if you want to give deference to religious beliefs, then it is worth looking at how conscientious objector status works. In order to have your CO status, you need to explain and present evidence for your beliefs, as well as how they affect the way you have lived your life. The reasons also cannot be “based on politics, expediency, or self-interest” – you can’t object to the draft because you object to a particular war. The beliefs have to be pre-existing, not appearing the moment you are drafted and you basically have to have lived your life in accordance with those beliefs.
By this standard, people who have received other vaccines, used other medications where fetal stem cells were used in the development, or who are just worried about potential risks and side effects would not qualify. Same with those that make political justifications. Oh, and like the CO status (which is voted on by the local draft board), let the local public health officials decide if you have presented sufficient evidence, not a random preacher or even doctor.
9 Likes
You can be a Conscientious Objector and still help your fellow man in war.
9 Likes
I really hate the fact that Mel Gibson directed that film – which is so evident with all the toxic masculinity and deification of Christian belief – because despite all that it’s a really compelling and worthwhile watch.
11 Likes
I know that at least some of them reject antibiotics so I assume ivermectin would go in the same category. They probably don’t object to it for horses?
Guy can make an interesting and compelling film… he’s just a white Christian supremacist asshole.
17 Likes
That or “Who do you think sent the flood? You were supposed to die. It’d be a grave sin if you’d survived.”
Who the fuck knows or cares what people’s imaginary friends want.
4 Likes
I recommend the book which I believe Desmond Doss wrote (with another author). It gives much more about his religious faith and the commitment to that faith that led him to CO status and his subsequent heroism.
1 Like
Dorit Reiss wrote a paper long time ago that pointed this out on school vaccinations. People LIE to get religious exemptions, it’s IMPOSSIBLE to verify, and thus, why have it around at all?
7 Likes
Some members of the Dutch Reformed Church decline vaccines because it “interferes with divine providence,”
The Dutch Bible Belt does have noticeably lower vaccination rates than the rest of the Netherlands. Most of the churches there aren’t part of the mainstream Protestant Church in the Netherlands (formed from a merger of the Dutch Reformed Church with various other denominations in 2004)- they’re members of conservative splinter groups.
The former island of Urk is a particularly conservative area, which hit the national news when a coronavirus testing centre was set on fire. At recent elections, the majority of voters there cast their ballots for the Christian-right SGP, whose stated policies include bringing back the death penalty and restricting the franchise to male heads of households.
Antivaccination and the SGP have gone hand in hand for a while- its founder, G.H. Kersten wanted “a Netherlands without cinema, sports, vaccination or social security”. Both of the last two are opposed by Calvinists because of their ideas of predestination- members of orthodox-Calvinist churches make up most of the people who claim religious exemptions from the legal requirement to purchase health insurance.
8 Likes
Well, they are, anyway, but I would bet these same people have been vaccinated against other diseases, and have had their children vaccinated, as well; I would also bet they didn’t raise a peep about doing so.
Don’t see how they can be against vaccinations now. That ship done sailed…
