Posted 12 января 2021, 11:52
Published 12 января 2021, 11:52
Modified 24 декабря 2022, 22:37
Updated 24 декабря 2022, 22:37
The publicist Igor Eydman asked this question on his blog, tried to answer it himself, and also urged his readers to do this:
I have many believing friends, and even here they often desperately argue with me. I wonder how the situation with the coronavirus pandemic looks in their picture of the world. For an unbeliever (if he is not a crazy conspiracy theorist), everything is simple: one natural phenomenon (Covid), spreading, destroys another natural phenomenon (people). People, of course, do not want to die and are trying to protect themselves from the virus, prevent it from spreading, and destroy it.
If we introduce a new entity called “god” into this scheme, there can be several hypotheses of his participation in the process.
1. A tough fight between man and God
God, the supreme experimenter who created man, continues to experiment with him. Maybe God thought that there were too many old people in the world and decided to cut their livestock. Maybe he just wanted to test his new invention (this virus) on humans. Maybe the experiment has other goals - the ways of the Lord, as you know, are inscrutable. But people - byaki such - do not want to die as guinea pigs (like a couple of hundred years ago) and resist fiercely, introduce quarantines, invent vaccines and medicines.
2. Sadomasochistic love between God and man
God sent a pandemic test to people to test the strength of their faith (I heard this from some priests). Believers, dying in torment with God's name on their lips, demonstrate their love to God. God loves them too for that.
The question is, why then do believers actively struggle with God's sent down test, are treated, are vaccinated?
3. God, the judge, and Covid, the executioner, punish the person
God punishes people for their sins.
Everything seems to be simple, but it is not clear then why there are so many priests of all confessions among the victims, why old people die much more often (did they manage to sin more? :); and, in general, the righteousness and sinfulness of patients clearly do not correlate with the likelihood of their death from Covid.
4. God gives the righteous Covid
The righteous who died from Covid will go to heaven, but sinners should.
It is logical in its own way, but then why are believers fighting the epidemic along with unbelievers, because by doing so they impede the implementation of "divine providence"?
As you can see, only the first version is internally consistent. I like it more. I would believe in God, I would consider the situation just like that.
Maybe you, believing friends, have other versions?
***
As you might expect, this post has generated a lot of responses. Here are just a few of them:
- There is an absolutely canonical logical approach... It is expressed in axioms.
1) “Everything is from God”... That is, any phenomena that we perceive as harmful and useful have one source .. In gematria, one of the meanings of God is exactly the word Nature, Teva.
2) Since the covid is from God, like everything else, what is the purpose? If we take it as an axiom that “God is good and bears good”, then the covid is useful in some form and should move us to something.
3) Since God has a goal in each of its manifestations, then our mission is to comprehend this goal, and the sooner we comprehend it, the sooner the harmful turns into useful for us.
4) This point is the most difficult, since comprehension depends on the dogmas that have been introduced into a person by various branches of monotheism. We do not take into account other religions and beliefs, since monotheism is closer and more understandable to us... I, for example, study Kabbalah and look at this phenomenon from this point of view... I will not describe it... Because for this you need to know the basics.. But these 4 points themselves are the basis in the concept of spiritual logic.
- It's funny when a certain god is endowed with anthropomorphic features, using verbs such as "protect", "punish", and like this...
This is not a belief in God, but a belief in an invisible powerful person.
This is essentially idolatry.
And to be honest, this is an extreme degree of servility.
Belief in the invisible ideal boss.
Well, what freedoms do these people need if they are sincerely not free within themselves?
- Unfortunately, many people identify religion with God. These two things of course overlap, but only by 20 percent.
- Do not confuse religion and faith. God - he (or she) is not a person, not even a humanoid, a human weak brain cannot understand this, but how aggressively it tries! So, this is probably a clot of energy - physics does not contradict, for almost everything on earth is different types of energy, so call it what you want - God, or the Universe, or Universal Energy, or Mother Nature itself - but the balance must be in Nature, then that is, on Earth, so she / he regulates as much as possible so that life remains on the planet. And if people understand and accept this, that is, that life and death are the main values, and the presidency is transient, and if you got hit by a car and survived - and someone else did not survive - is that pure luck? why would you? didn’t think about it? Maybe a search for a destination? Strugatskys, if you read...
- It's simple. God, creating the world, created laws, both physical and spiritual. People, violating these laws, themselves bring problems to their heads, and it is not God who pounds them with a slipper like cockroaches.
God is good (absolutely good). He did absolutely everything so that people would be saved and receive the gift of eternal life, giving up His sinless Son - the Lord Jesus Christ for the sins of mankind.
And now, for a Christian, death is not scary - it doesn't matter - from the coronavirus or other diseases, because he goes to another, better world, where there are no diseases at all.
And for the unbeliever, death is a tragedy, but he himself, voluntarily chose life without God, so everyone will receive what he chose.
- God created everything, including viruses, but also gave a person immunity, the immunity of people is weak (alcohol, cigarettes, low-quality food, poor physical activity, sinful passions of drugs, debauchery) ... another thing is "laboratory, artificial viruses"... So what should God do against "scientists" who create biological weapons? What to do with evil people?
For all the time? God is love but also a righteous judge! Everyone will get what they deserve...