Trumby tells governors to classify houses of worship as essential. States rights?

PRCD

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Participating in religious worship includes a lot of socialization for many people. Gathering with like minded people who share common a common interest. Like sports fans. Or garden clubs.

Take a drive through South Central where there are a lot of little churches. I've interacted with a lot of church people in those areas over the last 30 years and I daresay almost nobody down there is actually doing it for the money.
Right. Statistically, actually poorer people tend to be more religious. As Jesus said to His disciples when the rich young ruler went away sad, "How hard is it for the rich to enter the kingdom of heaven?" Church is essential for a lot of people not only for the social aspects but also because of the need to worship God. We don't live in Carl Sagan's universe but a created kosmos with a visible and invisible realm where we owe worship to a Creator who made us and takes care of us. This is being framed as, "Christians (implicitly indicted) don't care about spreading the pandemic." This is false. The reality is that we do care, particularly because there are a lot of old people in our churches. Being careless about a disease that kills mostly the elderly would be a violation of the fifth and sixth commandments. However, we can't lock the elderly in for the next 3 years because church is what keeps a lot of these old people going. We also have to keep the fourth commandment. Jesus summarized the Law this way,
“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’[a] 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[b] 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” Matthew 22:36-40
As usual, there is a massive gray area here. We can worship outside with masks on and maintain separation and wash our hands. It's no different than going to the grocery store which is deemed essential. This will save the lives of the elderly.

As to whether we should do this against the government's orders, it depends. In general we're supposed to be patient with the magistrate and his failings. I posed a video about that on the previous page.
 

mundus

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What people should do is besides the point. We need to formulate our individual approach based on what we think people actually will and won't do. We had a mask-free culture 3 months ago. It's changed a bit since then and probably will continue to change. Maybe you think calling religious people stupid will do the trick. I think that assumption may be open to debate.
Well there is a documented inverse relationship between religiosity and intelligence.
 
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PRCD

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Well there is a documented inverse relationship between religiosity and intelligence.
Link? Razib Khan over at GNXP found that Christian intelligence in the US was exactly 100: half of us were dumber than average and half of us were smarter. :ROFLMAO:
 

PRCD

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Avg IQ in the US is estimated at 98.
Yeah, we've been getting dumber. This is true throughout the developed world though. They call it the reverse Flynn effect now. If you start talking about IQ and population genetics you'll immediately see the liberals reverse themselves on all their conclusions about evolution. :ROFLMAO:
 

GDaddy

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Well there is a documented inverse relationship between religiosity and intelligence.
One of the practical applications of at least the theistic versions of religiosity is it's focus on the virtues of delayed gratification and the offer of hope that the next life will be more fair to the individual than the current life which is obviously unfair. A poor person who knows they will always struggle in this life will look at a rich person and envy everything about them unless they filter their view through the religious theme that the first shall be last and the last shall be first. The meek shall inherit the earth, or whatever the parallels are in the other theistic religions.

Sadly, I am not among the faithful. But even I can see that the Creation story may not even crack the top 10 reasons why church people value the church. It is these other reasons which you are primarily disparaging when you mischaracterize church people as being driven by fear and ignorance.
 
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Autoprax

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Interesting framing of the situation.
For clarity, here is what I was basing my frame on:

Mr Ocean writes, "Government can’t prevent people from practicing their religions [even if it means spreading a virus during an outbreak]."

The unstated premise added by me.

Not everyone thinks this way but some people do.

Thanks!

And for the record, I agree with Dr. Katz about mitigating harm while maintaining a society.

I also think that is impossible with trump's shitty leadership.

In other words, we're fucked.
 

Billy Ocean

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Banning religious services for months at a time won’t hold up in court

im not religious but I’m aware that most people in America are

many of these people consider their religion to be absolutely essential and the most important thing they do

Freedom of religion is a bedrock foundational principle of the USA
 

Autoprax

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One of the practical applications of at least the theistic versions of religiosity is it's focus on the virtues of delayed gratification and the offer of hope that the next life will be more fair to the individual than the current life which is obviously unfair. A poor person who knows they will always struggle in this life will look at a rich person and envy everything about them unless they filter their view through the religious theme that the first shall be last and the last shall be first. The meek shall inherit the earth, or whatever the parallels are in the other theistic religions.

Sadly, I am not among the faithful. But even I can see that the Creation story may not even crack the top 10 reasons why church people value the church. It is these other reasons which you are primarily disparaging when you mischaracterize church people as being driven by fear and ignorance.
Smart people see religion as a helpful metaphor to create social cohesion and to aid in self regulation.

Dumb people think there is a super dad in the clouds who gives a fuck about them.

Maybe better than saying people believe out of fear, we could say people believe to feel safe,
 

Billy Ocean

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Smart people see religion as a helpful metaphor to create social cohesion and to aid in self regulation.

Dumb people think there is a super dad in the clouds who gives a fook about them.

Maybe better than saying people believe out of fear, we could say people believe to feel safe,

Upaya (Sanskrit: upāya, expedient means, pedagogy) is a term used in Buddhism to refer to an aspect of guidance along the Buddhist paths to liberation where a conscious, voluntary action "is driven by an incomplete reasoning" about its direction. Upaya is often used with kaushalya (कौशल्य, "cleverness"), upaya-kaushalya meaning "skill in means".

Upaya-kaushalya is a concept emphasizing that practitioners may use their own specific methods or techniques that fit the situation in order to gain enlightenment. The implication is that even if a technique, view, etc., is not ultimately "true" in the highest sense, it may still be an expedientpractice to perform or view to hold; i.e., it may bring the practitioner closer to the true realization in a similar way. The exercise of skill to which it refers, the ability to adapt one's message to the audience, is of enormous importance in the Pali Canon.[1]
 

GWS_2

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I have video that has been texted me of a number of local bars that have gone ahead and opened just like they were pre COVID. Nobody seems to care about that. But churches, churches we are freaking out about. 6 of one half a dozen of the other as far as COVID goes. Bars are probably worse than churches because people get stupider with every drink. But drunks are OK. It's the God damned Methodists that are going to kill us all!

The second wave is going to be ugly. I think. I can be a pessimist sometimes, but I think this is going to get worse before it gets better.
 

PRCD

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Feb 25, 2020
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Smart people see religion as a helpful metaphor to create social cohesion and to aid in self regulation.

Dumb people think there is a super dad in the clouds who gives a fook about them.

Maybe better than saying people believe out of fear, we could say people believe to feel safe,
The only good reason to believe anything is because it's true, wouldn't you agree? Why believe things that are false? Every worldview has to be put to a set of tests to see if it's true of false. I won't get into all that here but a local academic has written a good, rigorous explanation of that.

I have video that has been texted me of a number of local bars that have gone ahead and opened just like they were pre COVID. Nobody seems to care about that. But churches, churches we are freaking out about. 6 of one half a dozen of the other as far as COVID goes. Bars are probably worse than churches because people get stupider with every drink. But drunks are OK. It's the God damned Methodists that are going to kill us all!

The second wave is going to be ugly. I think. I can be a pessimist sometimes, but I think this is going to get worse before it gets better.
I think the second wave will be better in states like NY that sent COVID patients to nursing homes and failed to test nursing home workers. They already killed-off their most vulnerable, almost as if it was deliberate.

Other states might be worse in the second round. Either way, we have more rounds until we reach herd immunity or a vaccine is developed.