Religion Poisons Everything: Coronavirus Edition

The coronavirus pandemic is rightfully dominating the news at the moment. Stores and restaurants are being told to close and even in some areas civilians are being told to stay at home by the government. However, there are a few people that are defying the recommendations from health organizations and they are doing so in vast numbers. That would be the fanatical religious. This isn’t meant to pick on any one religion either. I can probably find at least one story for most common world religions where this is true, but due to my own biases in my news feed it will probably consist mostly of stories from Christians and Muslims. This widespread stupidity makes the subtitle of Christopher Hitchens’s famous book ever more literal, Religion Poisons Everything.

There is something about the strongly religious which makes them think they are exempt from the regular rules of the world through their faith. To best illustrate this I think an anecdote I was given recently from the grocery store from my father. He saw a local church pastor whom was also shopping and they discussed the pandemic and how stores were closing and we would have to practice social distancing and avoid large gatherings. The conversation then went to whether the church would be closed this Sunday. The pastor very quickly showed that he did not consider that to be the same as other gatherings. He explained how church would go on as usual and that they had taken all the necessary safety precautions. This of course seems extremely unlikely as the CDC does not recommend such large gatherings. It instead seems the pastor finds church to be an acceptable exception to this rule because of course people have to pray to god.

There are dozens of examples of this same kind of behavior, so let’s go through some of them I have seen online.

Greg Locke is a ChristiCan Pastor from Mount Juliet, Tennessee whom is determined to defy the CDC recommendations. He made this Facebook post which was taken down. Most humorously he states that he doesn’t have to close because American is not a communist country. This doesn’t consider that at best only China and Cuba could be consider communist. China that’s questionable as the Dengist reforms have made them largely economically capitalist. Russia has not been part of the Communist Soviet Union since the early 90s, and I have absolutely no idea why he thinks Iraq is a communist state. Locke claims that the government is exaggerating how bad it is and he cites how businesses are remaining open. He clearly doesn’t respect the CDC or other health organizations, nor does he respect the health of the people that attend his church.

Christian billionaire and CEO of Hobby Lobby , David Green, has announced that he plans on keeping all hobby lobby stores open because his wife heard a message from god. Now, I have absolutely no idea what this message from god was or why I haven’t received any similar messages, but I also don’t think god is qualified to assess what is safe during a global pandemic.

Christian Televangelist, Jim Bakker, recently tried to sell a fake cure for the coronavirus. On his show he told people that a liquid could kill any pathogen including the coronavirus. This is of course just blatantly false and he is one of many charlatans selling snake oil to his gullible followers.

As always religious bigots can never miss an opportunity to blame a crisis or a disaster on the LGBT Community. Rabbi Meir Mazuz(left) and Pastor Steven Andrew(right) both made such accusations. Both of which were claiming that the coronavirus is punishment from god for such behavior. This blatant bigotry is not only false, but it is just detestable in every way. It is one of the more clear ways that religion is shown not to just worry about what its followers do, but it demands even those which don’t follow the religion to live by their rules.

The Iraqi cleri Muqtada al-Sadr recently made the statement that he would not accept a coronavirus vaccine from the infidel United States government. This is of course one of the most ridiculous reasons to reject a vaccine, and it shows he is willing to put his religion over the safety of his followers. It is however even more ironic since the current Trump administration has its own religious silliness when it comes to combatting the coronavirus.

The Trump administration relied heavy on the Evangelical right wing to win the 2016 election and Trump’s Vice President Mike Pence is among the worst Christian conservatives in the American government. He is known for the fact that he does not accept the Darwinian theory of evolution because it does not fit with the Christian doctrine he believes. Do we really want people like this leading the effort during a pandemic?

Now, maybe some of the most disturbing things I have seen have come out of the Islamic Republic of Iran. This is of course an absolute theocracy in which Shia Islam is part of every aspect of government. Iranian journalist, Masih Alinejad, has been doing an outstanding job at documenting the regime’s handling of the crisis. In a disturbing video she posted it showed religious leaders licking a shrine to prove it was safe and that god would protect them from the coronavirus. This is probably horribly unsanitary in non-pandemic settings, but it is absolutely horrible during a pandemic.

Another ridiculous theory coming out of Iran by Ayatollah Tabrizian is that the coronavirus can be cured by applying essential oils to the anus. He also denounces western medicine as being un-Islamic.

Now, we cannot mention this without considering the actions of the regime itself which is murderous in non-pandemic times as well. The problems started with the fact that the regime hid the outbreak from the public initially to go on with an election. They were desperate to get a good turnout to provide legitimacy to the regime, and they knew that announcing that the coronavirus was present would make that impossible. They decided to hide it from the public and encourage people to go to the polls. This undoubtedly allowed the virus to spread at a faster rate and infecting more people.

As of now the Iranian people are facing an absolute crisis in which thousands have died. They have allowed this to spiral out of control, and this is made worse by the fact that the American government has enforced strong sanctions against them, largely due to the regime’s expansionist foreign policy in the region. However, to make matters even worse Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei took to Twitter to say this:

The Supreme Leader of Iran has stated that they would decline aide from the US government. Not only that, but he is claiming that the virus was created by the US government as a form of biological warfare against the Iranian people. This man’s religious delusions will allow him to let the Iranian people suffer before he will call for any real help.

This concludes this quick essay on the topic, and I could probably have provided dozens more examples. I may in the future do so again on other topics. I will admit that there are plenty of religious people and maybe even a strong majority of which are not doing such stupid things. Plenty of them will listen to the medical and health experts. The problem is that even with this there are still far too many extremists that hold positions of power that do not. The most unfortunate part of all of this is there are millions of victims, both religious and non-religious which will be put at risk for their behavior. It’s unacceptable, but it absolutely does prove Christopher Hitchens’s point once again, “Religion Poisons Everything”.