Open (More or Less) Post on Covid 66

[ecosophia]

As we proceed through the second year of these open posts, it's pretty clear that the official narrative is cracking as the toll of deaths and injuries from the Covid vaccines rises steadily and the vaccines themselves demonstrate their total uselesness at preventing Covid infection or transmission. It's still important to keep watch over the mis-, mal- and nonfeasance of our self-proclaimed health gruppenfuehrers, and the disastrous results of the Covid mania, but I think it's also time to begin thinking about what might be possible as the existing medical industry reels under the impact of its own self-inflicted injuries. 

So it's time for another open post. The rules are the same as before: 

1. If you plan on parroting the party line of the medical industry and its paid shills, please go away. This is a place for people to talk openly, honestly, and freely about their concerns that the party line in question is dangerously flawed and that actions being pushed by the medical industry et al. are causing injury and death. It is not a place for you to dismiss those concerns. Anyone who wants to hear the official story and the arguments in favor of it can find those on hundreds of thousands of websites.

2. If you plan on insisting that the current situation is the result of a deliberate plot by some villainous group of people or other, please go away. There are tens of thousands of websites currently rehashing various conspiracy theories about the Covid-19 outbreak and the vaccines. This is not one of them. What we're exploring is the likelihood that what's going on is the product of the same arrogance, incompetence, and corruption that the medical industry and its tame politicians have displayed so abundantly in recent decades. That possibility deserves a space of its own for discussion, and that's what we're doing here. 
 
3. If you plan on using rent-a-troll derailing or disruption tactics, please go away. I'm quite familiar with the standard tactics used by troll farms to disrupt online forums, and am ready, willing, and able -- and in fact quite eager -- to ban people permanently for engaging in them here. Oh, and I also lurk on other Covid-19 vaccine skeptic blogs, so I'm likely to notice when the same posts are showing up on more than one venue. 

4. If you don't believe in treating people with common courtesy, please go away. I have, and enforce, a strict courtesy policy on my blogs and online forums, and this is no exception. The sort of schoolyard bullying that takes place on so many other internet forums will get you deleted and banned here. Also, please don't drag in current quarrels about sex, race, religious, etc. No, I don't care if you disagree with that: my journal, my rules. 

With that said, the floor is open for discussion.     

Comments

[stcathalexandria]

I'm not counting on this election moving us towards resolution, justice, or more freedom, but I still seek peaceful place to stand against the government.

It looks like the only relief to be found was in two religions - the Amish and the Rosicrucians. I didn't hear what happened with those who asked for exemption as Druids. Am I missing any others?

If I wanted to create another option, what does it take to found a religion in the US? It looks like to keep the government off of me, I need to formally be a part of one that is against vaccination, digitally stamping me, and whatever other crazy scheme they come up with next from the book of Revelation.

Would love any history of starting a religion or advice or tips. Probably should have started on this earlier, but here we are.

That gives me ideas

[(Anonymous)]

I’ve been receiving a daily Rosicrucian newsletter from AMORC. Perhaps I would do well to join up and become active in the organization; I live within an hour’s drive from the headquarters in San Jose CA, which I’ve visited and found impressive. (Never mind that that’s where the odious Silicon Valley sprawls.)

For some years I participated in the activities of a group of neo-Hellenic pagans. But that movement is too fragmented and lacks the necessary clout to help with exemptions from despotic bureaucratic policies. Also, to my profound disappointment, the membership have all converted to Branch Covidianism.

Re: That gives me ideas

[ecosophia]

As far as I know, AMORC hasn't taken a position on the jabs. The Rosicrucian order that's done so is the Fraternitas Rosae Crucis ( https://soul.org/ ), via their religious arm, the Church of Illumination; they have a longstanding opposition to vaccination. That said, I know plenty of AMORC Rosicrucians who seem to get a lot out of their membership.

The Rosicrucian order I belong to, the Societas Rosicruciana in America ( https://sria.org/ ), hasn't taken a stance on the jabs either, but then it's central to the SRIA approach that individuals get to make their own choices.

[ecosophia]

It's actually very easy to found a religion in the United States. Basically you just do it -- you don't need to incorporate or file with the government or anything. In order to get taken seriously, it helps if you have some organizational presence -- a website and regular services in at least one place is helpful -- and some kind of formal statement of beliefs, which can't just be opposition to jabs or what have you.

It's generally easier to get taken seriously if your church is at least nominally Christian, but that's not a firm requirement. On the other hand, it's best to avoid getting ordained by one of the standard online ordination mills, such as the Universal Life Church -- those are treated as fraudulent in many jurisdictions.

I'd say pray about it, see how serious you are about the project, and if you feel it's the right thing to do, proceed.

[temporaryreality]

I'd like to point out that just being "in" a religion does not guarantee that the rights you deem to be religiously motivated will be guarded by the state.

I recommend a look at the volume edited by Donald Kraybill, The Amish and the State, which I just read for this very reason. The Amish have won some pertinent concessions from state and fed governments, but while those cases are often cited to support non-participation in certain state or socially required activities on religious grounds (or participation in other activities that challenge state/federal law), somewhere in Kraybill's volume, one author points out that the wording of an opinion of one of the justices from one landmark case (possibly Wisconsin v. Yoder) was very clear in marking the distinguishing factors of Amish religious precedent (it's longevity, namely) as being part of the reason their rights were upheld. His opinion is not law, but it suggests that the Supreme Court decided the way they did in large part because the Amish religion dates back to the 1600s and they have continuously upheld the same principles.

A newly-founded religion will likely not be so easily grandfathered in on Amish coattails without establishing ... not exactly a pedigree or lineage, but a very strongly-anchored faith-based set of beliefs and practices founded on something recognizably historical and not an obvious reaction to gov't overreach.

I see that this is something that's going to need deep and dedicated thought and conversation (akin to a religious version of a Second Continental Congress to hammer out religious, social, cultural, legal details that can stand in a court of law as well as nurture a religious community). A community of practitioners will carry weight that an individual with their own idiosyncratic religion can't.

[stcathalexandria]

I've read that book and own a copy and while your point is correct, that wasn't my take away from it. Mine was they've constructed a spiritual reality that is untouchable by the legal system in terms of application of force. The Amish win if the state forces them to do things (the state looks like bullies and loses legitimacy every time they go after them) and the Amish win when the state leaves them alone.

But it requires a distinct religious practice in order to win. It's not the legal system that gives the wins.

And your overall negative response now makes me what to start a religion out of spite. But doing so on that basis is so splinter Protestant and has been done a hundred times before. It bores me to think about that approach.

[temporaryreality]

"Your overall negative response..."

I wasn't intending to posit something overall negative (nor trying to dissuade you from or persuade you to do anything), but I see I should've followed through on my second post, that I only thought about, so as to make clear that this is a dialogue..

I was going to say that the Amish have absolutely benefitted by having every aspect of their lives being somehow connected to religious conviction, that then plays well with constitutionally-protected freedom of religion. I don't know if they always win when the state forces them to do something - they have so far because outsiders have objected and defended them, or because they're a cohesive enough group that they're willing to accept punishment rather than budging (fines/jail time, etc.) if it goes against their group mores. They're not exactly untouchable... perhaps they are immovable, which is something (for me) worth reflecting on.

My biggest takeaways from this book (read in this context), then: 1) in order to achieve "being left alone" or "ungoverned-ness," reverse engineering something based extremely closely on the constitution will get us closer to success. Expect no quarter to be given by the state except what they HAVE to give; 2) the Amish, contrary to "English" conceptions of them, are not unchangingly or cultural-change rigid. They have integrated a practice of evaluating proposed influences into their socio-cultural-religious matrix and make changes on a community by community basis. Everyone thinks of them as unthinkingly archaic, when in fact they are deliberate. That they deliberate on what they will allow or disallow to influence them makes them fluid and flexible compared to the Whale, which I think is very Sun Tzu of them.

I probably picked up the book from a comment you left here? I wouldn't have heard of it otherwise. If so, thanks for giving me good food for thought.

[stcathalexandria]

I appreciate the thoughtful response. I interpreted something that wasn't there in what you posted before. All the takeaways you posted are key. Fwiw I think the likelihood is high of a Waco-type response to any separation of religious group these days. I was throwing something out there in an effort to think of something.

A somewhat amusing story to show that there is no winning with everyone - my neighbors went to Ohio and saw Amish on electric bikes and couldn't help but social media post about how wrong it was of them to use electric bikes. You see, Amish are supposed to use regular pedal bikes.

I'm beginning to understand why "gossiping" was a criminal offense in the colonial period.