Religion during coronavirus: It is time we came to our senses.

Religion During Coronavirus.

It is time we came to our senses.

My views on religion are well known to those who know me and who also read my work. I often flitter between agnostic, atheist and anti-theist. I believe that everyone is agnostic whether they like it or not; nobody has proof of any gods, yet nobody can disprove them either (although it isn’t our job to do so). However, I do strongly believe that they do not exist, in which I usually take my seat in the atheistic group. Recently though, my anti-theist thoughts and feelings have been growing, a few of which I thought I would share with you.

During the weird and wonderful times of the Coronavirus pandemic, I saw a power shift between the scientific community paired with government officials, and religion as a whole. Witnessing such a change sparked a great interest in me. With Easter essentially cancelled, places of worship closed to members of their congregations, and the elderly forced to listen to their priest and parish via Zoom, the usual battle of reason vs. religion was flipped on its head.

This is a very different attitude when compared to past pandemics and plagues alike. It would not seem an unlikely scenario if I were to say to you that churches had refused to shut their doors during the Covid-19 outbreak, and instead were urging their churchgoers to flock towards them to pray the disease away and repent for their sins that were in fact the true cause behind the high numbers of deaths. Yet what actually happened could not be further from that. Places where large numbers of members of the public congregate are deemed unsafe and have the potential to cause further spreading of the virus. The decision was therefore made that the health and wellbeing of the nation is more important than the spiritual needs of those attending a religious service, and places of worship were shut, followed by a later re-opening with strict in place.

Of all the madness, mayhem, and moronic behaviours I have witnessed during this pandemic-led life, this change to daily life is one that has resonated with me most. I am forever trying to push for new ways in which a secular society can be fully achieved, and the way in which religion took a backseat when science and reason took charge is striking. There are countless ways in which I feel that religious belief as a protected characteristic is ludicrous and down-right dangerous. Why then, has it been so easy for places of worship to be closed as well as the wishes and desires of the religious community to be ignored in this example, yet the rest of the time, we grant these evil systems the freedom and protection they do not deserve? Why is it that a Jehovah’s Witnesses can be blackmailed by their social circle and support network into refusing blood transfusions, even at the cost of a life, all in the name of upholding God’s Law? Why is it that we allow the genitals of children, no matter their gender, to be slashed at, sliced off and sewn up, all to appease the whacky spiritual views of an elder? Why are innocent men and women fined, imprisoned, tortured and murdered, all because they speak up and against what are effectively delirious cults based on false scriptures and made up characters?

It is time this nonsense ended. Why are blasphemy laws still permitted to exist in countries without human rights activists more aggressively rallying against them? If I were to kidnap someone, hold them hostage, and have in mind a plan to kill them off, no sane person would deem my actions morally acceptable, let alone legal. Yet this is exactly what has happened in Nigeria this year. Mubarak Bala, the head of the Humanists Association in Nigeria, has continuously spoken out against Islam and Christianity in his country. He was arrested in April for blasphemy - a ‘crime’ punishable with the death sentence - yet never properly charged, denied access to any lawyers, and more worryingly, has been declared missing since being in custody. He has not been seen since this arrest in April, and not a thing has been done about it by any country’s government or even the United Nations. Furthermore, the law is not in his favour, with the actions committed against him deemed legal, and worst still morally justified! This poor man, a husband and a father to a baby boy aged six weeks old at the time of the arrest, if even still alive, has undergone and probably still undergoing, the most disgusting and inhumane treatment, all for sharing the same belief as 52% of the UK: not having a religion.

This is one prominent example, that no-doubt occurs frequently across a high number of countries. Sixty-nine countries still have active blasphemy laws as of 2019. In six of these, it is punishable by death. Apostasy is illegal in eighteen countries, twelve of which the sentence is death. A report by the National Secular Society explained that expressing atheism, the disbelief in a god or gods, is punishable by death in thirteen countries. It is time that religion is stripped of its protection, and human rights deemed more important. It is time for reason to take over and a global effort to begin moving towards secularism.