"What will the next plague bring?" Topic
25 Posts
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24 Sep 2021 9:05 p.m. PST by Editor in Chief Bill
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Tango01 | 24 Sep 2021 2:55 p.m. PST |
"Half a millennium ago, people thought much more about the end of the world than we do. The early 16th century was an age obsessed with eschatology, the branch of theology preoccupied with judgement day. They were convinced they were living in the final throes of humanity, and they had a pretty good idea about what they thought would spell our downfall. It might feel counterintuitive to look to history for insight into the end of the world — because, of course, we're still here and the world clearly didn't end when our ancestors thought it would. But if this past year has shown us anything, it's that certain historic fears — of pestilence and pandemics, for instance — were not misplaced. So, let us turn to Albrecht Dürer's extraordinary woodcut of 1498, which depicts Four Horsemen. They ride with a wild fury. Their weapons are raised, their steeds gallop. Before and beneath them people cower and fall. They trample all in their path. The image is an illustration of the Book of the Revelation of St John, also known as the Apocalypse…" Main page link Armand |
doc mcb | 24 Sep 2021 4:41 p.m. PST |
Depends on whether it is natural or deliberately designed. Our response to COVID, as floundering as it has been, has surely alerted us to some vulnerabilities -- including relying on "experts" who are winging it like the rest of us. Certainly we understand COVID could have been ever so much WORSE, both as regards to its spread and also its lethality. Hopefully we shall not have to face another plague any time soon, but we are fools if we do not prepare for worse. |
etotheipi | 24 Sep 2021 4:53 p.m. PST |
including relying on "experts" who are winging it like the rest of us. Or maybe the lesson is actually read a study before you comment on it. ----- So, who says the world hasn't ended? The world of paleolithic man is long gone. Industiral agriculture has pushed populations to the point that they are not sustainable if it goes … which would kill or modern world and give us another one. [Add as many other examples as you want.] Even the Apocalypse of the Bible isn't the end of the World. It's the end of life the way we know it. |
doc mcb | 24 Sep 2021 5:04 p.m. PST |
Since the OP discusses eschatology and theology, perhaps it is appropriate to mention, for starters, Rodney Stark's work on the spread of Christianity within the Roman empire, one powerful factor being the Church's response to the frequent plagues. Christians actually had a higher survival rate, primarily because they did not flee but stayed to nurse the ill, many of whom thereby survived who would otherwise have perished. This was noticed. My church (a conservative Presbyterian congregation in Chattanooga) has struggled with our own response, as we have cut back on worship services and ministries (including to the poor) -- arguably at a time when people need us MORE rather than less. We are debating present policy but even more trying to discern what we should do NEXT TIME. And we are all very familiar with Durer's horsemen. |
doc mcb | 24 Sep 2021 5:07 p.m. PST |
eto, what makes you think I didn't read it? I agree that the world has changed in fundamental ways, including the changes you mention, as a result of trauma. Of all man's unfounded beliefs, surely the idea of Progress (at least as an inevitability) is most ludicrous. See Kipling's "Gods of the Copybook Headings". We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn: But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind, So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind. We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace, Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place, But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome. |
lkmjbc3 | 24 Sep 2021 6:03 p.m. PST |
Yes John… The joys of Hegel and dialectic… Kipling saw that sophistry for what it was… It unfortunately is now the basis of our governing philosophy. Its usefulness to the ruling class is evident. Joe Collins |
doc mcb | 24 Sep 2021 6:50 p.m. PST |
It is pretty clear that COVID has put great stress on all of our institutions and arrangements, government most of all. In particular, our system is/has been based on trust, with most laws (like the income tax) largely self-enforcing. That trust was already diminishing, eroding, being squandered, but the plague has accelerated the trend. It is, I believe, the disappearance of trust that mostly accounts for our deep division on HOW to respond to a disease that clearly impacts everyone. The NEXT plague MIGHT bring social/political unity if the danger is clear and present and dire enough, but seems to me as likely to exacerbate existing splits. |
vagamer63 | 24 Sep 2021 9:15 p.m. PST |
No need to worry about the next plague! The current COVID plague will likely be the last one mankind will live to see! Just as was planned! |
Thresher01 | 24 Sep 2021 10:30 p.m. PST |
I could provide some answers, but don't want to get DH'd, so if won't. |
John the OFM | 24 Sep 2021 10:43 p.m. PST |
What will the next plague bring? Locusts, boils, rats and bad service at Olive Garden. |
olicana | 25 Sep 2021 11:01 a.m. PST |
Next one? Think outside of the bubble governments are presently snuggling us in. Contemplate Covid mutating into a one in three killer that present vaccines cannot counter. So many people have it, and are catching it worldwide, that mutations are occurring all the time. Personally, I don't think 'being of faith' is going to save you. Given the number and nature of people who have already died, your God doesn't give a ****. And believe me, I've seen plenty of Christians "cross the road to the other side". Remember, the good Samaritan wasn't a Christian, he was just an example of the right thing to do, and the fact he wasn't was an important part of the story. |
olicana | 25 Sep 2021 11:05 a.m. PST |
BTW. I didn't bring God up first, as a possible answer to the crisis, so I figure a considered contrary view shouldn't get me DH. |
doc mcb | 25 Sep 2021 2:53 p.m. PST |
olican, you are right about the Good Samaritan, but maybe missed my point about Christianity. Go back, please, and reread what I posted. The church is, of course, a human institution, though not JUST a human institution, and put under stress by the plague like all the others. I'd say, but you need not agree, that it is a TEST of faith, one which we perhaps have not passed very well. |
machinehead | 25 Sep 2021 3:28 p.m. PST |
"What will the next plague bring?" Death probably. |
Tango01 | 25 Sep 2021 3:44 p.m. PST |
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olicana | 25 Sep 2021 3:47 p.m. PST |
With respect doc mcb, you said Christians actually had a higher survival rate, Given the historical reference to this assertion, exactly who collected this data, and how? Rodney Stark. You present him like he could actually have the raw data to work from. It doesn't exist and therefore his assertion is mere hearsay: inadmissible. Your Honour. It sounds more like propoganda than fact. Given the lack of data that exists from those times he is just talking out of his big fat prejudiced bottom hole. Or, are you going to tell me that God told Rodney Stark the facts in a dream. |
olicana | 25 Sep 2021 4:00 p.m. PST |
My assertion is this. It doesn't matter what God you believe in or don't. At the end of the day, it's simple: there are good people and bad people. Some good and bad people believe in God. Some good and bad people don't. Give me the good people every time, keep your God to yourself. |
doc mcb | 25 Sep 2021 6:55 p.m. PST |
There ARE no good people. There are only degrees of bad. Those who imagine themselves good are fooling themselves. |
doc mcb | 25 Sep 2021 6:57 p.m. PST |
Rodney Stark is one of the leading authorities on the sociology of religion. He grew up in Jamestown, North Dakota, where he began his career as a newspaper reporter. Following a tour of duty in the US Army, Stark received his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, where he held appointments as a research sociologist at the Survey Research Center and at the Center for the Study of Law and Society. For many years, the Pulitzer Prize nominee was professor of sociology and professor of comparative religion at the University of Washington. In 2004 he became Distinguished Professor of the Social Sciences and co-director of the Institute for Studies of Religion at Baylor University. Stark has authored more than 150 scholarly articles and 32 books in 17 different languages, including several widely used sociology textbooks and best-selling titles like The Rise of Christianity: How the Obscure, Marginal Jesus Movement Became the Dominant Religious Force in the Western World in a Few Centuries; The Triumph of Faith: Why the World is More Religious Than Ever; The Triumph of Christianity: How the Jesus Movement Became the World's Largest Religion; God's Battalions: The Case for the Crusades; A Star in the East: The Rise of Christianity ion China; and The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success. |
John the OFM | 25 Sep 2021 11:40 p.m. PST |
"The Case for the Crusades". That seems like a pretty hard sell. |
doc mcb | 26 Sep 2021 5:17 a.m. PST |
Have you read it, John? Not a hard sell at all; it was a necessary counter-attack. Yes, some of the Crusaders behaved badly, being, you know, humans and sinners and such. It was pretty widely reviewed, with the usual mixture of favorable and unfavorable. Here's a good summary: This book matters because it is a search for the truth about a controversial topic in history—the Crusades. In recent years, leaders of the West have vied with one another to see who could offer the most abject apology for the Crusades. How very grand and self-important, to "apologize" for something that happened a thousand years ago! But it is told, virtually without dissent, that the Crusades were an altogether wicked enterprise, a senseless aggression against innocent and inoffensive people, and that the whole Muslim world has been stewing over it ever since: and that this justified grievance of theirs excuses any Muslim violence against the West today. It is further suggested that the Crusades is the reason why Islam fell so very far behind the West culturally, technologically, politically, and economically (p. 4). All of this, says Rodney Stark, is balderdash. Stark's argument is so clear and cogent that he can sum it up in one paragraph. And here it is: "The Crusades were not unprovoked. They were not the first round of European colonialism. They were not conducted for land, loot, or converts. The Crusaders were not barbarians who victimized the cultivated Muslims. They sincerely believed that they served in God's battalions." (p. 248) Truth matters, in and of itself. History matters, too. No one in the West today seems angry that waves of Muslim invaders attacked and conquered Christian lands, subjecting the inhabitants to centuries of assorted persecutions, to this day. The first wave consumed the Middle East, Persia, Egypt and North Africa, and Spain. The second engulfed Anatolia and Constantinople, and the third crashed against the walls of Vienna in the very heart of Europe. It wasn't for want of trying that Muslims failed to conquer all of Europe and the entire Mediterranean. That's history, and the background against which the Crusades must be considered. (The whole story is given in Chapter One, "Muslim Invaders.") A public school teacher-in-training once said to me, "It's okay to teach the kids things that aren't true, as long as it makes them feel good about themselves." In the case of the Crusades, Westerners are taught things that aren't true to make them feel bad about themselves. |
Howler | 26 Sep 2021 5:00 p.m. PST |
Au contraire. My God does care. He cares for me and for you |
BaldLea | 27 Sep 2021 11:13 a.m. PST |
There ARE no good people. There are only degrees of bad. Get a grip. |
Tango01 | 27 Sep 2021 3:26 p.m. PST |
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Tango01 | 18 Oct 2021 4:32 p.m. PST |
SURVIVOR – YOUR GUIDE TO SURVIVING THE APOCALYPSE link
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