Throughout the coronavirus hysteria of 2020, policymakers and their designees spoke incessantly of “following the science.” The word science comes from Latin, scire, meaning knowledge. When academics speak of science they usually intend it to mean “scientific method” which is the use of empirical (i.e. “observable”) evidence to confirm or refute a hypothesis. However, being that COVID-19 was the first-ever global epidemic, there was nothing upon which or by which to assess the efficacy of countermeasures. As invoked, “follow the science” meant “trust the experts” which, in turn, conveyed an expectation to have faith in the speculative opinions of credentialed humans.
People found comfort in the idea of science because it left them with a sense of control over the uncontrollable. Just as Marx said of religion, Science became “the opiate of the masses.” Though it was unseeable and unprovable, people’s feelings made it real to them and they were able to accept Science solely on having read it or heard it. That realness increased as they heard it affirmed and reaffirmed by more and more people. The more it was repeated around them, the more true it seemed.
There are billions of believers in the one and only God of Abraham who sustain even stronger and more intense feelings of God’s realness. How is it then that those who trust in unprovable corona science should look upon Abrahamic theists with indulgent pity for their feebleness of mind!? These billions pray to God and receive miracles. These billions observe miraculous recovery that medical science cannot duplicate. Would Dr. Faucci ever speak of an observable “miracle” recovery? Nope, he would say that there are things which Science still does not fully understand about corona. Should one conclude that faith in a mute Science is more credible than faith in an invisible God? Isn’t that Science just as fickle as atheists would allege of God?
Until corona, countless learned minds would have refused to put faith in anything so ethereal. But call it ‘science’ and a concept suddenly takes on a reassuring character. If feeling is believing, what makes the feelings of the relatively fewer secularists more compelling than the feelings of the incomparably greater theists?
Psalm 14:1
“The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God.’ They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that does good.”
The probability of God’s existence is vastly and unquantifiably greater than the probability of cosmic happenstance. The second law of thermodynamics accounts only for a progressingly disordered universe—never an increasingly superior state of existence. Even the incomparable Stephen Hawking came to admit that the universe required a supernatural kickstart in order for every theory of space-time to stand. (see comments in his revised A Briefer History of Time).
I am not convinced that the God-averse actually belief their rhetoric if they did, they would not fight corona. If they truly believed in survival-of-the-fittest, they would stand back and marvel at the power of their god Natural Selection. But no, they live in fear of their own beliefs! They maintain that one science can battle with another science. They are science polytheists believing that this science will save them from that science.
1 Kings 20:23-25
“And the servants of the king of Syria said unto him, ‘Their gods are gods of the hills therefore they were stronger than we but let us fight against them in the plain, and surely we shall be stronger than they.'”
But let everyone not forget the showdown on Mount Carmel:
1 Kings 18:24-30, 37-39
“‘Call ye on the name of your gods, and I will call on the name of the Lord: and the God that answereth by fire, let him be God.’ And all the people answered and said, ‘It is well spoken.’ And Elijah said unto the prophets of Baal, ‘Choose you one bullock for yourselves, and dress it first; for ye are many; and call on the name of your gods, but put no fire under.’ And they took the bullock which was given them, and they dressed it, and called on the name of Baal from morning even until noon, saying, ‘O Baal, hear us.’ But there was no voice, nor any that answered. And they leaped upon the altar which was made. And it came to pass at noon, that Elijah mocked them, and said, ‘Cry aloud: for he is a god; either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth, and must be awaked.’ And they cried aloud, and cut themselves after their manner with knives and lancets, till the blood gushed out upon them. And it came to pass, when midday was past, and they prophesied until the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice, that there was neither voice, nor any to answer, nor any that regarded. And Elijah said unto all the people, ‘Come near unto me.’ And all the people came near unto him. And he repaired the altar of the Lord that was broken down. ‘Hear me, O Lord, hear me, that this people may know that thou art the Lord God, and that thou hast turned their heart back again.’ Then the fire of the Lord fell, and consumed the burnt sacrifice, and the wood, and the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench. And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces: and they said, ‘The Lord, he is the God; the Lord, he is the God’.”
So it is that…
Psalm 16:8
“I know the LORD is always with me. I will not be shaken, for he is right beside me.”
Proverbs 29:25
“Fear of man will prove to be a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is kept safe.”