Even though I consider myself a free-thinker, that doesn’t mean I’m an atheist. I’ve been brought up in a Roman Catholic environment, even getting my degree from a Catholic college run by monks. So, yeah, I’ve been schooled in the Bible.
And with all the BS surrounding the global pandemic and all the people refusing to take precautions last year and refusing to take the vaccine this year, I had a certain story from the Old Testament that popped into my head that would best suit the red-hat anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers.
This goes back to the Book of Exodus, when the followers of God (the Hebrews) were enslaved by the Egyptians and had not yet had a home all their own.
Now the Egyptians were not godless. They had their own pantheon of deities they worshiped and gave prayers and sacrifices to, and they believed that their gods and the faith in their gods made them superior over others. They believed that their Pharaoh was chosen by the gods to rule all they survey, not unlike a certain segment of Americans today.
So one day a guy named Moses, Pharaoh’s adopted brother previously exiled, strolled into Egypt and told Pharaoh to “let my people go”. “His people” being the Hebrews that were enslaved by the Egyptians, and Moses supposedly wasn’t speaking on his own behalf, but on behalf of his singular God. Pharaoh, of course, was unimpressed and unmoved. So Moses tells Pharaoh his God will inflict ten plagues on the land, each getting worse and worse.
And there were a series of plagues, each one worse than the other as the days went by. The waters turned to blood, the infestations of frogs and locusts, the boils, the blotting out of the sun and the lightning and rain and hail that burned. And while Pharaoh’s sorcerers and advisors could explain all of those, they would not be able to explain the last and most deadly plague.
The tenth plague is, of course, the worst. It is the sudden death of all first-born sons in Egypt. Noble or slave, human or beast, the first-born sons will die all in one night.
Now religious accounts vary on whether or not God would carry out this tenth plague himself or an angel of death would descend down and snuff out those lives. But that’s neither here nor there when it comes to the story. The first-born sons, man and beast, will still all die overnight.
Unless… someone spread lamb’s blood over their doorway. Then the plague will pass over that house and everyone inside will live to see the morning.
Of course, the Egyptians were in denial of this kind of plague. What sort of plague affects only a portion of the population and does so lethally? First-born sons may be significant to society, but they’re still just a fraction of the population. What about first-born girls? What about the rest of the children? Why not second-born sons? Plus, their gods were obviously stronger than any plague. Just ask them; they’d say so! Anything some no-name God could whip up could be countered by their own pantheon of gods.
And the lamb’s blood? Seriously? How could something so flimsy as lamb’s blood hold off a supposed plague? It just seemed like too much “fake prophecy” to them.
Then it happened. The tenth plague descended on Egypt, killing every first-born son, man and beast, noble or slave, Egyptian or otherwise, all on that night, except for those whose home entrances were marked with lamb’s blood. No Egyptian deity prevented it. No Egyptian deity saved any first-born son slain by the plague, including the Pharaoh’s own son. Egypt’s gods were not stronger. Egypt’s beliefs were impotent in the face of this lethal plague.
Comparisons can be made about the tenth plague of Egypt and our current coronavirus global pandemic. While it doesn’t specifically target first-borns, it does kill just a portion of the populace. Sure, it incapacitates a lot more; but, in terms of deaths, it’s just a fraction. It doesn’t happen overnight, though. It takes a few days for this plague to work its course.
We have denials from those who believe that “their god” is stronger than the virus, just like the collective denial of the Egyptians who believed that their gods were stronger than the tenth plague. There is a sick sense of irony to see news reports of ministers and another pious people who proclaimed “our god is stronger than the virus” suddenly be stricken by it. It’s almost as if a certain deity was telling them something.
And then there is our version of lamb’s blood in the form of masks and social distancing, and now with vaccines. While not as guaranteed as lamb’s blood against the tenth plague, the masks and social distancing and now the vaccines have kept this plague from affecting as many people as it could have. Indeed, it could be said that once fully vaccinated, our plague simply “passes over” us. Too bad the same can’t be said for those who think it’s just “fake news”.
Let’s get brutally honest here… those who live in ignorance and pious arrogance regarding our current plague and how to deal with it should learn the lessons from biblical Egypt. Yes, the original tenth plague only lasted one night, as opposed to the years our current plagues last. In a way, the Egyptians of the biblical story were lucky. They didn’t have to deal with drawn-out misery and death. Nevertheless, their pious self-righteous arrogance and ignorance allowed that plague to hit them. Their beliefs did not stop the plague any more than they could stop the other nine. Nor should our modern-day believers think their beliefs could stop this plague on humanity.
Those who still think that their belief is greater than any virus denies the obvious truth… that this plague, like others before it, is still made of the world, and therefore comes from God. It doesn’t matter if it originated in a cave, in an illegal market, or in a lab, it’s still comes from this world. To claim that your belief is superior over that and therefore you would be immune to it is just superciliousness.
The original story of Exodus was a test of whose beliefs were superior. But the remedy to our current plague is not limited to followers of one belief. The virus is of this world, and so are the vaccines.
It’s simple… take the vaccine, and, like the lamb’s blood, the plague will pass over you. And then you can be free to be ignorant about something else.
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