This seems to assume everybody who dislikes wearing masks is a loud obnoxious person. Many will in fact be quiet sensitive people. As for mask wearing, those Scandinavian utopias don't recommend mask wearing, and in fact many recommend against mask wearing, which was Supreme leader Johnson's most noble government's position a few weeks ago. Citing quotes may be the lowest form of wit, but this seems apt: Those who give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. The evidence that mask wearing makes you safer is weak at best. Indeed some of the scandi countries believe mask wearing increases risk. The BBC won't tell you that. Even the WHO didn't recommend people wear masks until they curiously made a U-turn. USA worst rates of covid? They sit at 12th in cases per million.
No, it targets obnoxious persons who happen to be not wearing masks and yet still loudly demanding service from shop keepers and labels them 'obnoxious arseholes'. The quiet people without masks, who don't try to force people to serve them in shops are not even mentioned. They are OK. They can be as bare faced as they prefer but not demand service in a shop where those serving do not want maskless person's covid droplets in their lungs. The point of view of the liberticidal narcisist. The mask is not to protect its wearer, it is to protect the potential reciever of the virus the maskless may be exhaling, coughing or sneezing over them. Selfish people deplore wearing masks, they don't care for others. They think only about themselves and their own protection first and others come a poor second or worse. .
I meant that my wearing a mask will not make you safer. I am no fundemetalist libertarian. I accept many sensible restrictions on liberty. What evidence have you that wearing masks will save anyone's life or reduce the transmission of this virus?
The customer has the choice whether to wear a mask or not. The shopkeeper has the choice whether to serve maskless cusomers or not. I can't see why you have a problem with that. This is about the issue of people's freedom to do things, not about how effective mask wearing may or may not be to those who wear them or those exposed to those who don't wear them. Do you imagine that the surgeons and nursing staff who do open heart surgery wear masks for their own protection? How many of the hygiene regulations in Deuteronomy and Leviticus were optional? The answer would have to be either none or all and I think you really know it must have been none. If it is demonstrable that masks prevent other people from exposure to air bourne droplets from covid infected people, then making the wearing of masks mandatory in certain public places would be equivalent to the imposition of the stringent Leviticus Hygiene rules and forbidden foods by The Law of God. That was either, as you would seem to imagine, a serious infringement of their human rights, or alternatively edicts of God protecting his people from the endemic spread of disease, so in fact ensuring FREEDOM from disease for even the most selfish and ignorant of them. I think FREEDOM from disease for everyone, is a better form of freedom, than a disobedient individual's FREEDOM to irresponsibly spread covid/leprousy/smallpox/cholera/whatever, and liberally disease everyone else, simply because they don't like doing as they are told. I've noticed that just about every objector objects on the grounds that wearing a mask will be ineffective at protecting THEM. It reveals a selfishly narcisistic persona which thinks first and only of how advantageous anything is to ME / moi / no. 1. Empty 'I me me my people'. .
You first need to have a handle on just how small viruses are. A human hair is about a tenth of a millimetre thick. A typical bacterium (such as the human pathogens E. coli or S. aureus) comes in at about one thousandth of a millimetre, so you could line a hundred up across the width of a hair. A coronavirus particle is about 10 times smaller still, so a thousand would fit across a hair. The surgical-type facemasks have pores typically three times larger than the virus particles. What about protecting others? Surgeons wear masks mainly to protect their patients from particulate and potentially infective matter falling out of their noses, mouths, moustaches and beards into a patient’s open wound. We’re talking about big particles here (human hair width) and bacterial infections, not viruses. Even for this situation, which is universally observed, it is surprisingly difficult to generate watertight scientific data about the effectiveness of surgical masks in preventing bacterial infections. For viral infections there is little data, but again, the pores allow viruses through and much of the air you breathe out goes around the side. When a person is infectious with a virus it is estimated that they may shed one hundred billion virus particles a day – that works out at about ten million per breath. A mask won’t stop you putting these particles into the air around you. In fact, with a damp mask you’ll be blowing aerosols and larger particles sideways, directly at your socially distanced colleagues two metres away. And if wearing a mask tempts you to feel that you’re not going to infect anyone else, you may also be less likely to observe the two-metre rule. So does wearing a mask protect others if you’re infectious? There’s little direct evidence to say that it does, and quite a lot of straightforward reasoning to suggest it doesn’t. I will employ the presumption of intelligence test one more time, and if it yields a negative result I will withdraw from this bout of intellectual fencing, as it will be fruitless for both parties: What scientific evidence have you or are you relying on to buttress your apparent support for the mandatory wearing of face masks? Supposition such as the kind you previously provided doesn't count as scientific. (If I am mistaken in my belief that you support mandatory wearing of face masks I apologise. I just noticed a couple of your posts and was looking for a debate). At the risk of being sanctimonious, one thing that I would advise is not forgetting that good people sit on either aisle of this debate.
That sentence leaves me with the thought that you are not at all patrionising and I am not at all sarcastic. Quite ironic all round! . Have a nice day. .
Recently, a city close to where live enacted an ordinance requiding face masks in all public places, including stores, offices, restaurants, government buildings, hospitals, and churches, and on all public transportation and rideshares. Less than 24 hours' notice was given before it took effect. The board stated it would be providing free masks but that they wouldn't be available until 2 days after the mandate started and could only be received by entering the very public places the mandate restricts people without masks from entering. So, people without the means or access to masks on their own, i.e., the most vulnerable among us, must break the ordinance in order to get the supplies necessary to comply with the ordinance. Further, it is not clear how the mandate will be enforced but because business owners are fined if there is non-compliance found on their property, it is expected they will be the gatekeepers. Of course several exemptions exist under the mandate. Masks are not required for: Children under 6 years old; People with trouble breathing or pre-existing medical conditions that would make it difficult to tolerate a face covering; People in private rooms in a hotel, motel or vacation rental; People exercising while maintaining social distancing; Masks are required in restaurants and bars, just not while eating or drinking; and Employees in a business establishment that is not open to the public as long as they are social distancing. The onus of course is on the person not wearing a mask to convince othersthat they qualify for the exemption in order to get out of a fine or be allowed on or in public places. Most often the people they will have to convince will not public officials or police officers, it will be business owners or more likely their employees, bus and uber drivers, secretaries and receptionists. People without medical or legal experience. Imagine the indignity of having to tell a 14-year-old bagboy your medical status and your PHI just to get access to food and other basic necessities in the grocery store. And what if they say they don't believe you? What if they do the calculus and think that other customers will be so upset by someone not wearing a mask at their store that it would hurt business, so they refuse service regardless of the exemption? Do you go home and starve?Do you risk your health and wear a mask even when you are exempt to avoid harrassment, embarassment, and social stigma? I guess what really upsets me with mask mandates is that they often violate the 14th Amendment's due process requirements. When government restricts an individual's rights, such as the freedom of association, the fundamental freedom of movement, etc, the state must provide, at a minimum, fair notice and fair hearing where it bears the burden of proving probable cause and a rational basis for the restriction. These mandates turn that process on its head. You are guilty until proven innocent,or in this case, sick until proven healthy. Medical tyranny, appears to me, to be the quickest route to despotism. jmo. So, as the thread's title poses, what is the Christian response to this? Of course handing out free masks is a good and noble option. But it does nothing to address or end the inherent injustice of bad laws. To address that, I think we have to look back to Christian responses to injustice in the past. Thoreau recommended nonviolent civil disobedience. MLK used that strategy to great effect during the Civil Rights movement. Should that strategy be applied here?
What does Leviticus Chapter 13 and Romans Chapter 13 say about it? I don't think either of them recommend "civil disobedience", even of the non violent variety. The way you describe this local edict as being enacted and applied certainly sound to me to have been both inept and clumbsy but to brand it as an injustice seems somewhat of an overstatement of the facts and a misuse of the word injustice. If you had described such a law as injustice shortly after the time St Paul wrote Romans chapter 13 he may have, if he had been still alive during the persections, laughed you to scorn and pointed out dozens of crucified 'Christians' who would have quite willingly worn masks if compelled to do so but had resolutely refused to burn incense to the Roman God and the Emperor and so suffered REAL injustice, not just objecting to the slight inconvenience of wearing a face covering in public places, for the supposed protection of others from a plague. I would suggest a law mandating wearing face masks is no injustice compared to a police officer that kneeled on someone's throat and suffocated him to death. Now that WAS truly unjust and people rightly objected with civil disbedience, but many were jailed as a result even though not all protesters were proven to have been violent. I think the lesson to be learned from this is, be careful how you pick your battles with authority and make sure your cause really IS just, not just selfish. .
Rubbish. As I explained previously, you took my question (asking "right?" was meant to determine if I correctly understood your position) and treated it as if I were asserting my own belief. I attempted to disabuse you of that erroneous notion, but you seem to have missed the point. And it is not my definition of universalism that I'm asserting. Rather, it is a (dare I say it?) universally accepted definition. From Wikipedia: "Christian universalism refers to the idea that every human will be saved in a religious or spiritual sense. This specific idea being called universal reconciliation." From learnreligions.com: "Universalism is a doctrine that teaches all people will be saved. Other names for this doctrine are universal restoration, universal reconciliation, universal restitution, and universal salvation. The main argument for universalism is that a good and loving God would not condemn people to eternal torment in hell." From Merriam-Webster: "a theological doctrine that all human beings will eventually be saved" From Britannica: "Universalism, belief in the salvation of all souls." From Theopedia.com: "Universalism is the theological view arguing that all persons will ultimately be saved. Some also teach that there is no such thing as a literal hell or eternal punishment...Belief in universal salvation is at least as old as Christianity itself and may be associated with early Gnostic teachers." I could introduce many more references, but fundamentally they all say the same. If you really are a universalist, then (by definition) you must believe that all people will be saved. All Christians understand salvation to include eternal life with our Creator in His eternal Kingdom. But perhaps you don't believe that all people will be saved. Perhaps you mistakenly identify with universalism. Or perhaps you just wanted to liven things up around here? If I understand correctly, you're saying that the preaching of the Gospel is still relevant as it counsels us on how to act and behave during our mortal lives. This is true, but the Gospel is so much more than that! While it is true that life with God and a loving relationship with Him begin in the 'here and now,' we know from Scripture that this pales in comparison and extent to the life and relationship we will have with Him in the hereafter. When God gives us our incorruptible 'resurrection' bodies and we dwell with Him in the 'new heavens and new earth' ad infinitum, there will be no sorrow, no pain, no sickness, no lack, and no doubt. Far better to be absent from the body and present with the Lord than to concentrate on maximizing life here on earth. If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works. (Matt. 16) We all have a tendency to want to maximize our lives here on earth; it's a natural desire. Jesus would have like to maximize His mortal life, too, but instead He laid it down for our sake out of love for us. He beckons us to live with a similar mindset, to be willing to make sacrifices in personal desires for the sake of others. He counsels us to not cling tightly to this world, which is passing away, but to live with a brighter future in mind... a future which we should want to share with as many of our fellow humans as possible.
I suppose the anwer to your rather leading question would be "what". The other two options you allowed me are both scandalously uncharacteristic of my Lord and Master. Do you imagine that all flesh shall not enter heaven, when 'we shuffle off this mortal coil'? Where do you get that idea? Not from scripture. Probably just what you have been programmed to believe. Rom.14:9-12 seems to indicate that St Paul was convinced that everybody alive and dead have but one Lord and He is Jesus Christ. We will all stand before the Judgment seat of God. Where does God reside in judgment? Heaven of course. Where will Christ's and therefore God's servants be rewarded or beaten? Heaven of course. Who will give an account of themselves to God, in heaven? All of us, each of us, every one of us, no exception except Jesus Christ Himself who has no need to give account of himself. Everyone will bow the knee and finally acknowledge him Lord of all. .
Forgive me then. I mistakenly got the impression that you were convinced that the judgment of all the nations of the earth would be taking place somewhere else, and only proper 'believers' actually get to heaven. I'm pleased to be mistaken in my assumption. Now our only bone of contetion would seem to be the likelihood of everyone who was wickedly unbelieving on earth changing their minds and receiving forgiveness from their victims and a pardon from God when they issue a similar avowed intent to be a pilgrim, to the one that you and I have made, this side of death. Jesus Christ certainly recommended we get that 'death to self' over with and well behind us before we slough off this mortal coil and arrive trembling at the judgment seat of God. Hopefully for we two it will be a "Well done thou good and faithful servant" greeting rather than a "Depart from me I never knew you" dismissal from the Lord of the living and the dead. .
Oh, now I see where you're going with that. Well, let's see what scripture says. Rev 20:1-21:5 -- And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season. And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years. And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea. And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them. And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever. And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea. And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful. To summarize: an angel comes down from heaven, to earth. Thrones are set up. The people who've died in Christ as martyrs live and reign with Christ on earth for 1,000 years. At the end of this 1,000 year period, Satan is loosed and deceives many, so there is a great battle and the evil ones are defeated and cast into the lake of fire for eternity. The judgment of all remaining people then takes place, quite possibly on earth but scripture is not completely specific of the location. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. Then God obliterates the old universe and creates a new one that is unblemished, free of corruption and sin, and those whose names were in the book of life live in immortal, recreated, physical bodies in this new, physical world. What does it take to have one's name in the book of life? It takes God's grace, which is received through faith in Him. The proof of this can be found in the words of Jesus Christ. He who believes shall be saved, but he who believes not shall be damned; he is condemned because he has not believed (Mark 16:16; John 3:18). Since Jesus is not a liar or deceiver, nor was He mistaken, I take Him at His word. That is what I believe.
Lol, spoken like a true Englishman. With all due respect, neither Leviticus nor Romans contemplates a constitutionally limited republican form of government. And it should be pointed out that Moses rebelled against the Egyptian rulers of the children of Israel God's help rather than His condemnation, numerous judges throughout Israel's long history rebelled against the empirial rulers, and Christ and the Apostles disobeyed their lawful rulers when they were told to stop preaching the Gospel. Did they commit sin? Do you imply that African Americans' struggle during the civil rights for dignity and equality was sinful? I can't believe that. Clumsy or not, if the local mandate runs afoul of the Constitution's protections, it is unjust. Moreover given the propensity for COVID requirements to ever expand I have little doubt this will be the last liberty we'll be told to sacrifice on the altar of public safety. Best to nip it in the bud. IMHO, a christian's duty when he sees injustice, is to do all he can to right it, not queue up and follow the orders of his betters nomatter how draconian or irrational they may be. There's nothing selfish about that.
https://www.nourishingplot.com/2020...reat-the-current-virus-with-shocking-results/ This Michigan (US) doctor has had good success in treating the virus. I'll pass it along in case it is of some value to an ill person. Forewarned is forearmed.
US citizens may want to 0ppose this so-called "Equality Act" by writing to their US Senators: https://www.breakingchristiannews.com/articles/display_art.html?ID=30706 'H.R. 5 — 116th Congress: Equality Act' passed the House last year and awaits potential action by the Senate. It was brought up in a request for unanimous consent (to hear the bill on the Senate floor) but Sen. Lankford blocked it. There remains the possibility that a majority of Senators may vote for a "motion to proceed" and bring it to the floor. If this became law it would greatly expand LGBTQ rights and reduce Christians' rights. Also, the adversary and evil seem to be advancing worldwide. I think all people everywhere have much to be concerned about. This is a good time to heed the advice of God: 2Ch 7:14 If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.
Why is it that that phrase is usually immediately followed by a disrespectful rebuff of some kind? Have you ever noticed that phenomenon? I notice you prefer a Republican form of government rather than a Democratic form of government. Of course you are right the Theocracy was governed by God himself in those days, nothing 'democratic' about it. The One, and Only, Nation under God, you might say. Sin? I don't ever remember using the word, did I? There is when it is you who defines what is irrational or labels sensible measures 'draconian'. Selfish means decided entirely in one's own interests according to one's own desires. Such selfish behaviour would certainly have been frowned upon and swiftly punished if you exhibited it in Aaron's tent while being examined for a skin disease and you disgreed with his diagnosis. I think perhaps the average sword carrying Roman soldier wouldn't have put up with you being lippy about how he chose to enforce the Roman law on you either buddy, draconian or not. You are being required to put a piece of cloth over your mouth and nose. Anyone would think you had been ordered to torture your grannie or kiss the presidents boots. On second thoughts, perhaps there are droves of bare faced maskless Americans queueing up to do that. You might have a long wait. .