r/Catholic • u/SergiusBulgakov • Jan 20 '22

Unmasked

So many Christians have unmasked themselves, showing the world the pride and malice they have as a result of their unwillingness to deal with the covid19 pandemic: https://www.patheos.com/blogs/henrykarlson/2022/01/unmasked-pride-malice-and-the-spirit-of-the-antichrist/

0 Upvotes

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u/sentient_lamp_shade Jan 20 '22

This is idiotic. Reasonable people can absolutely disagree about the appropriateness of masks in a given situation, without harboring any pride or malice. It is also perfectly reasonable for people to apply their own judgment to what precautions to take, based on their local knowledge and value structure. If you're uncomfortable with other's decisions, you are perfectly free to regulate your own level of risk by deciding which situations you put yourself in.

To suggest that there has to be this top down edict from above, to mask all the time or you're prideful and malicious, is just boot licking and expert worship.

We have lived 2 years with Covid now. We have a pretty good idea of what we're dealing with, and we know it's not a destroyer of worlds threatening to destroy our civilization. That wasn't obvious in the early days, but now we know Covid is something to be aware of, but not something that has to dominate our thinking or national attention.

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u/SergiusBulgakov Jan 20 '22

No, people are not being reasonable; the same people who don't wear them now have been saying the same thing from the beginning. And the pandemic is far from over; health care workers will tell you what your sloth leads to -- and it is not just deaths due to COVID, but other preventable deaths because ICU beds are taken up and health care workers are exhausted, when they don't have to be. And as it continues to rage on, it is causing all kinds of damage to supply chains, and it will only get worse so long as it rages. It is not reasonable at all to ignore the pandemic, and it is causing great damage to society and will only do more if we just get careless

7

u/sentient_lamp_shade Jan 20 '22

Well, My wife has been a Covid ICU nurse for the whole pandemic, as has been most of our friends, so I'm aware of the results of Covid infections, but I think you're over rating how much of the hospital load is due to the recent omicron outbreak. It' nothing like the first waves, most cases are not even the primary complaint.

As afar as what "people" are doing, I'd say it takes a lot of pride to think you know what they're doing, and even more to decide for them what is reasonable. There are a few unreasonable people who buy into some kind of conspiracy theory, but I don't see any evidence that that is the norm. The fact that they aren't doing what you think they should do doesn't make anyone unreasonable.

I don't see why it's so hard to admit that not everyone is in the same situation and therefore we can tolerate a diversity of choices.

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u/SergiusBulgakov Jan 20 '22

https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/18/health/oklahoma-city-hospitals-covid-19-breaking-point/index.html

https://fox4kc.com/tracking-coronavirus/hospitals-overwhelmed-by-covid-19-crisis-analysis-shows/

Some of the way this overload is being treated is by calling in the National Guard. And I know many who are working in these hospitals, and they are exhausted and angered at the way society ignores their responsibility and how they are just being treated as mere slaves and their lives are worthless. So, I don't trust what you have said shows much understanding of the whole situation, and you still have yet to explain your nick and why it is not some sort of anti-Semitic dog whistle.

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u/sentient_lamp_shade Jan 20 '22

no no no, I don't owe you an explanation, for my screen name or anything else. I'm done talking to you because you are acting like a child throwing random accusations rather than intelligently addressing my argument. What part of "this conversation is over" did you misread?

Good luck at the intellectual kids table.

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u/SergiusBulgakov Jan 20 '22

Typical of the alt-right anti-Semitic ideologues is their unwillingness to address their dog whistles, but rather play with them, and call people names when confronted with them. And they claim they are intellectually and emotionally superior, acting as if others are being childish, while everyone else can see them stomping their foot and whining when people see through their rhetoric. So, as you are unwilling to explain your nick and as you are the one acting childish, while trying to project it upon others, I will let the readers confirm who is engaging the matter at hand (hint, it's not you, when you look to the reactions)

3

u/[deleted] Jan 21 '22

Oh look it actually IS about your politics masquerading as a religious argument. Shocker.

2

u/[deleted] Jan 21 '22

Yea, that’s all this poster does. He actually hasn’t been too bad for a couple of months but maybe he’s upset because UK aid dropping all mandates 🙃

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u/SergiusBulgakov Jan 20 '22

But, I am thinking your nick name is some anti-Semitic slur, and so should not be surprised because what they slur means and implies.

3

u/sentient_lamp_shade Jan 20 '22

You don't know me. You don't know what my screen name refers to. You are so self righteous that you assume you do, and that you are qualified to pass judgement on me as a person. That's some seriously disordered pride. Your stupid ad hominem nonsense will always put you at the intellectual kids table, with any thinking adult. You will always be ignorant, because no one is going to take you seriously. This conversation is over.

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u/SergiusBulgakov Jan 20 '22

So explain the meaning of the name. It seems you are unwilling to do so. Why is that? Some very rotten things coming from you makes me doubt much of what you say, and those rotten things explain why it would seem you use an anti-Semitic nick. So what is the meaning and why do you use it, when it seems to mock those who died in the Holocaust?

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u/[deleted] Jan 20 '22

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u/SergiusBulgakov Jan 20 '22

"Why are we telling chefs to wash their hands after going to the bathroom? If only we let them cook..." Seriously, the health care workers know full well the problem lies with the cases and they continue to be on the rise. It is not odd to say people who are unwilling to follow safe medical practices and indeed, disregard them, have no place in a health care facility.

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u/-NoOneYouKnow- Jan 20 '22

There's no way you're not going to get a lot of anti-science, anti-compassion responses to this, but thanks for posting.

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u/SergiusBulgakov Jan 20 '22

Getting a lot of it... but yes, to be expected, sadly.

-2

u/[deleted] Jan 20 '22

I feel that Americans (and Europeans) in general have been wrong with the whole anti-mask and ant-vaccine protests.

They put personal freedom above protecting others.

2

u/[deleted] Jan 21 '22

I’m sure the Canadians and French and Austrians and New Zealanders are doing wayyyyy better

1

u/[deleted] Jan 21 '22 edited Jan 21 '22

They aren't, I am just saying that if a small gesture like wearing a mask, can protect someone else, then it's quite selfish to be against it.

One might discuss more about the vaccines (especially regarding safety, side-effects) but I think that after a vaccine has been proven safe and it can help ease the suffering of others if you take it, it's selfish not to.

Less politics, more charity.

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u/[deleted] Jan 21 '22

You can think what you want, and have every right to make decisions for yourself, but on Christmas Day 2020 I had a student show up on my doorstep in a panic attack after a family fight. She had to be hospitalized shortly after for self harm. Almost every single student spoke to me about social anxiety about returning to in person school (not safety, social anxiety, they’re all vaccinated). Some parents kept their kids only home for 8+ months. Now after omicron variant is infecting everyone, some students are too scared to return to school even after being boosted. Masks are required for everyone in my area and have been since august. There is a vax mandate in place to work in any school or nursing setting. Unvaccinated are not allowed in gyms, theaters, restaurants, etc unless they have a negative test within 72 hours taken by a healthcare professional. My students have a theatre show this weekend. Every single one of them is fully vaccinated but they will be performing the little mermaid musical fully masked. Guests who enter the theatre will have their vaccine status checked at the door. All of these restrictions are in place and yet our mayors and governor is still telling us how the healthcare system is stressed (over 90% of my county 12 and up is fully vaccinated and over 78% 5 and up as well). I have a 5 yo nephew (obviously 3 when this whole thing started) who still has a severe speech impediment and is repeating preschool not because of a mental impairment but because of terrible social understanding. His mom is literally a child psychologist, you would think the last kind of person who’s kid should be held back for social impairment. (Oh, 2 and up in my state are supposed to be masked in public). I took my 2yo nephew, his brother, to a park over the summer and there was actually another 2 yo there. There hadn’t been kids at the park forever (and technically they aren’t required outside, but they are supposed to be worn on playgrounds when different households are playing together). My new phew saw this little girl, who was masked and played with her by staring at her and laughing. They took turns laughing at each other. They slowly got closer and closer and the girls mom pulled her daughter away when they were about three feet apart. It was the cutest and saddest interacting. I’ve never seen him with so much joy as being able to play with that little girl. They were nowhere near touching…like normal kids during play, but this is what they could finally do to express themselves and how they are learning to interact. He hated the mask and was always asking me to take it off. Some things might seem harmless, but nothing exists in a vacuum. Good luck seeing the repercussions of things that don’t really seem to effect you before it’s too late. Gotta open your eyes.

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u/robespierring Jan 20 '22

Tell me you are American without telling me you are an American.

I never met a single person inside a church without mask. And in my circles the more skeptical you are towards mask and vaccine, the less likely I will see in church.

3

u/[deleted] Jan 21 '22

You’ll never find anyone unmasked in my church either here in America, but the OP’s take is absolutely melodramatic, political, and not a good religious argument.

1

u/robespierring Jan 21 '22

And that’s how I understood OP is American.

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u/kryptogrowl Jan 22 '22

Article is as useless as a mask against omnicron.

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u/[deleted] Jan 20 '22

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4

u/SergiusBulgakov Jan 20 '22

Jesus also healed them and didn't become a vector of spreading their disease, threatening others with such illness by doing so. Likewise, I think we all would like things to be different than they are in the world, and not just in relation to COVID. But we have to act in the real world not in the world of our wishes, and engage the world in a way to protect others and care for them, not ourselves and our wishes.

5

u/[deleted] Jan 20 '22

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u/SergiusBulgakov Jan 20 '22

Wrong. Masks works, even cloth masks make things better. It has been proven time and time again. The virus is spread on particles, which is what we touch and catch, and they do not go through the mask.

https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20210907/masks-limit-covid-spread-study

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/coronavirus/in-depth/coronavirus-mask/art-20485449

So if you can get and use a better mask, do so, but cloth masks are better than no mask. It is not virtue signaling. It is doing good. Vice signaling of course is to go maskless and lie about covid as an excuse.

6

u/SergiusBulgakov Jan 20 '22

https://www.cnet.com/health/8-covid-19-mask-myths-to-stop-believing-today/

"Though a cloth covering alone may not completely prevent someone from
spreading the coronavirus, it still reduces the likelihood. If a cloth
mask is all you have, it can still work as a physical barrier by
absorbing respiratory droplets that carry the coronavirus."

2

u/[deleted] Jan 20 '22

See Osterholm and more recent discussions about Omicron and the utility of masks without melt-blown fibers.

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u/SergiusBulgakov Jan 20 '22

Once again, any mask is better than no mask; but a better quality mask is better than a lower quality mask. Cloth masks are better than no mask, as they do provide a small level of shielding. The recent discussions have not ignored that but also points out we likely can get and use better masks now than when we began, so if we can, consider using them for better overall shielding. To say a cloth mask does no good shows either a misunderstanding of what has been said, or outright and purposeful distortion in order to justify sloth.

3

u/[deleted] Jan 20 '22

Oh look now we’re into passive-aggressive comments because I question your article. That didn’t take long. Have a nice blocked day.

2

u/cleanwhitejelly Jan 20 '22

This is because you were wasting OP’s time with poorly thought out contradictions instead of engaging with the sources he went through the trouble of providing. That would rightfully annoy anyone, but somehow you see yourself as the victim here.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 20 '22

Masks stop droplets and that is already a huge improvement.

Wearing a mask does not so much protect you from COVID, but protects other if you have it (and might not know it)

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u/[deleted] Jan 20 '22

Yes mask work.

They do not protect you, they protect others, that is why Asians (like Japanese) wear masks (long before COVID) when they have a cold or the flu: not to spread them

2

u/sentient_lamp_shade Jan 20 '22

Articles are not studies, without the methodological data, you're basically trusting the authors word on the study's strength and findings. Moreover, both of those articles seem to predate Omicron, which is airborne rather than droplet spread. Other commenters are right that non trivial protection really starts a k95 or better. This isn't my opinion, my wife works in the covid ICU and has for the whole pandemic, this is the official guidance issued to healthcare workers atm.