I saw this post that I snipped, this morning. Some idiot conspiracy theorist saying they won't get the COVID-19 vaccine because "Biblical reasons" and imploring readers to "Read Revelations."
I've read Revelation, many times. More times than I should have, honestly. Almost certainly more times than this stupid idiot has. I used to be a member of the End Times Prophecy Movement, and I took it seriously, it's impossible to overstate the fact that "Yes, I have read Revelations."
Vaccines are not described or mentioned in Revelation, nor anywhere else in the Bible. Understanding of the concept simply did not exist at the time this stuff was written down or compiled into what we know today as the Bible. There was no understanding of Germs and Viruses in the modern sense.
The Romans did develop some idea of how to avoid disease in large populations, the basics of modern sanitation, the first sewers and such, were developed by the Romans. In their legionary camps they had the sense to pipe clean water in from upstream, and the wastewater that was piped out was piped downstream so that it wouldn't pollute the camp's water supply. This is the backdrop against which Revelation was written in the First Century.
Pliny the Elder did, in fact, understand that disease could be transmitted by insects, such as Mosquitoes, the groundwork had been laid, but the modern level of understanding of such things would be many centuries in coming, yet, and vaccines, still longer.
Therefore, in Biblical terms, these concepts simply do not exist. You need science for that. This is why the Christianity that I was taught never claimed that all Truth was found in the Bible.
This is why "Believe it harder" and more religiosity being the answer to everything was never allowed to enter my thought process, and by the time people pushed that shit on me I was old enough to know better.
The reason that Christianity took root in ancient Rome, to be quite honest, has nothing to do with Jesus Christ or Paul the Apostle. It has everything to do with the fact that the people who wrote this stuff down did so in Classical Greek and Latin, and they did use common stories and such as a guideline. In so doing, these people repackaged the philosophy of Plato, who was then still wildly popular, into a format that the common person of the time could understand more easily.
The central basis of much Platonic philosophy is that ideas are what's real, and the physical world is an illusion. Humans are but shadows on the wall of a cave. All we are is shadows and dust.
In our modern era this was very well shown in the film Gladiator, and it's absolutely not a coincidence that this movie was massively popular among conservatives and the conservative-adjacent.
Ideas are real, you are not. Think about that for a second. Think about how that relates to the conduct of these people that you know. And then consider that while all this stuff is part of their philosophical and spiritual DNA, the average conservative (and the more "Movement" conservatives even more so) these days, along with Evangelicals and Fundamentalists, is simply too damned ignorant to know all this stuff.
And thus, in their lack of knowledge, of care for their own history or roots, they are unable to control for the biases that such things will generate.
This, and not a little of the Gnostic heresies that competed with what became the basis of modern Christianity at the time, also feeds into the popularity of conspiracy theories like Q-Anon, which simply repackage all of that shit...and not a little Nazism with the serial numbers filed off...into a format that these people can understand.
Sound familiar?
This is why I keep saying if we're not careful "Q" is going to turn into a new religious movement of its own accord.
Naturally, however, as regards the virus and real-world threats none of this shit is any good. It's not working, and anybody who's paying the least bit of attention can see it.
But the fool's answer is simply "Believe in it even harder."
These people end up like that overstressed baby ferret that is bitey and mean at the pet store and doesn't stop trying to rip your fingers off until you take it home, feed it, and give it some kind of decent social environment.
And it's impossible to overstate yet again how much pure meanness is central to the modern conservative mentality. After decades of authoritarianism, Calvinistic heresy, closeted Gnosticism and just plain shitty behavior, the central focus of modern conservatism is little more than trying to cause aggravation and stress in other people, or to outright hurt them if possible, because that's the only way these fools even know.
And centuries of organized Christianity, particularly the American kind, portraying God as some kind of murderous asshole for the purposes of intimidation don't help, either.
Any religion where harshness equals holiness is going to create evil.
When all you have is teeth, sooner or later you're going to want to bite somebody.
If we want this crap to stop, we have to find a way to change the rules of the game, to change the environment on these people and defang those who keep using this crap to manipulate the masses.
Why? Because the truth is, factually, even Biblically, conservatism and Christianity have stripped themselves of any other moral basis for existing besides falling all the way back on Plato's cave and the old Gnostic ideal that some people are simply entitled to more of the divine conversation, to more of God, than others are.
Have ye offered unto me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel?
But ye have borne the tabernacle of your Moloch and Chiun your images, the star of your god, which ye made to yourselves.
Therefore will I cause you to go into captivity beyond Damascus, Saith the Lord, whose name is The God of hosts. ~Amos 5:25-27
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