Letter from Australia 98 – Jesus is not my Vaccine and The Government is not my Saviour
Dear brothers and sisters,
I’ve finally done it. I went this morning to my local GP and got the Astra-Zeneca vaccine. Annabel has been fully vaccinated for a few weeks so why so late for me? Firstly Annabel is much more valuable than me – she is a key health worker (and church worker) and the Australian government need her more. Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose!
But there is also the fact that the situation here in Australia with vaccines has been confused. There was a considerable going to and fro from medical ‘experts’ and political health bureaucrats over the safety of AZ in particular. Including the shameful and irresponsible behaviour of the Queensland Premier and her health officer who actually implied that young people could be more likely to die from the AZ vaccine rather than Covid. It was a well-publicised statement which has done a great deal of harm. As a result those of us under 60 were told to get Pfizer. That advice has changed somewhat.
There were Christians who were advising that you are sinful and selfish if you don’t get the vaccine, and others suggesting that you are sinful and stupid if you do. Of course the extremes in the Christian world, just reflect the extremes in society. There is a hysteria surrounding covid (which I suspect will be mild compared with the ‘it’s the end of the world’ hysteria coming because of climate change), which makes people make extreme statements. For example yesterday I was reported to Twitter by a woman who complained that because I dared to question the efficacy of masks I was encouraging people to commit suicide! There are some crazy right wing conspiracy theorists, but my experience is that there are just as many left wing/progressive crazies who see conspiracies everywhere. A plague on both your houses!
I like to think about things for myself and try to assess and understand what is involved. Being emotionally bullied into taking or refusing something doesn’t work. Persuasion, reason and prayer are big factors. I made my decision about the vaccine the same way I made my decision about masks and lockdowns. I’m not absolute about any of them because my knowledge is limited and changes but in general I am for vaccines, mixed about masks and opposed to lockdowns. Which means I get shot at from all sides!
Reasons Against Taking the Vaccine.
There are good reasons for not taking the vaccine. It is still relatively new and we have yet to see the data for the longer term effects. There are considerable doubts about its efficacy – the data is still coming in. Even if you go to the highest figures it is suggested that they are about 90% effective in preventing you getting covid, and 60% effective in you passing it on. In addition to this we should be cautious about putting strange things into our bodies. There have been several people who have died from taking vaccines – in Australia at the last count I think it was seven from the AZ. If you are young, in an area with little Covid, it may be that you decide not to take the vaccine and I wouldn’t judge you for that. It certainly is wise to get information and find out what you can. And you are right not to just trust Facebook, who have set themselves up as the Vaccine guardians (this post will undoubtedly be flagged when it appears there), or the politicians. Question, find out, think for yourself. Given that I think people should have the freedom to choose for themselves I am utterly opposed to the idea of vaccine passports and especially to the notion that churches would not permit non-vaccinated people to attend. I doubt I could be part of a church which refused entrance to people.
One reason for refusal that is not valid is the one we saw on one of the protest signs at the anti-lockdown rally in Sydney – ‘Jesus blood is my vaccine’. At best that is misguided, poor theology – at worst it is crass blasphemy. Being a Christian does not mean that you will not get sick if you just have enough faith, nor does it mean that you should never use medicine. Paul told Timothy that because of his frequent illnesses he should take a little wine for his stomach’s sake (1 Timothy 5:23). Didn’t Paul know about the blood of Jesus? What kind of Apostle was he?! Why does he advocate taking medicine?
Why did I take the vaccine?
It was with some degree of reluctance. I have had serious blood clots and did have an element of concern. I am not anti-vax and was prepared to wait for Pfizer. But there were several things that swayed me towards phoning up the doctor yesterday – and I got an appointment today. The Australian Health Service is quick and efficient!
What persuaded me to take Astra-Zeneca – apart from my covid nurse doctor and my caring wife! – was reading and listening to my GP – who said that with Pfizer I had a 1 in 100,000 of getting seriously ill, and with AZ it was 2 in 100,000. Hardly a big increase in the odds! Also the fact that covid is now in the community in Sydney and, despite the absurd ‘zero covid’ policy of much of Australia, it is not going to go away. With my particular history from 10 years ago – an overweight man in his 50’s with co-morbidities would be a prime candidate for serious illness from covid (apparently the only thing that would make it even worse were if I were black – which is not a racist statement – just an observable statement about how covid affects different ethnic groups). Also the data is very strong that the vaccines prevent you getting seriously ill if you get covid. So if we were playing the odds – it makes sense to get the vaccine.
In addition to that I don’t want to pass covid on to anyone else; I would like to see the Ashes in January in Sydney (they are planning to ban anyone who is not vaccinated); and even more importantly I am desperate to get home to see family and friends. That is assuming that Australian politicians eventually wake up to the reality that we can’t cut ourselves off from the rest of the world forever.
Another factor is that I am a lot less certain about Pfizer – not because it is an American vaccine – but because it is a different and new type of RNA vaccine – whereas AZ is more traditional medicine. And this may be a small point, but for me it is an important one. AZ charge $4 per vaccine, Pfizer have just put their prices up to $22.
AZ are basically giving their vaccine at cost price. Pfizer are profiteering. They say they are putting the price up because of demand – in other words they can make more money – so they will. Given this is a war against covid they are the equivalent of war profiteers.
But the other factor is this. I don’t play the odds. Which doesn’t mean that my trust is in the government. My life is not in their hands and whilst I am thankful for our political leaders I don’t trust Gladys, Dr Chant, ScoMo, Boris, Biden or Nicola to preserve my life. It seems that many of our leaders are using Covid as an excuse to bargain away our freedom – the bargain being that they will keep us safe, protect us and give us life. No thanks. I want a better live than just being a citizen in their narrow and limited kingdom. My faith is placed in a much higher power. I trust Jesus. Jesus is not my vaccine. But he gives us vaccines. And it’s because I trust him that I take the vaccine. It has a risk, but so does every time I get on a plane (apparently I have a one in 6,000 chance of getting a blood clot on a flight), drive in a car, or go for a swim. The person who says that Jesus is their vaccine, doesn’t say that Jesus is their chef and then sits waiting at a table for him to send in the ravens to feed them! It is BECAUSE I trust God and his sovereignty that I thank him for medicine, science and all these marvellous gifts he has given us. How ungrateful do I have to be not to use them?
That doesn’t mean I have a guarantee against adverse effects. It does mean that I believe that all the days ordained for me before one of them came to be (Ps 139:16). I have to take care of my life – not seek to shorten or lengthen it. It may be that I could have an adverse reaction (so far, so good!)….it may be that I have a heart attack, cancer, car accident or any one of a thousand ways that people die. But this I know – my times are in His hands, and I trust Him. So I took the gift offered and pray that I will be able to stay on this earth for a while to live for Him and serve family, church, community, country and His world.
See you next week,
Yours in Christ
David
PS. A friend just sent me this!
Letter from Australia 97 – Robertson’s Point, Dad and Cigarettes, and an Unpublished Article on SSA
Astra-Zeneca virus?
covid nurse doctor?
David originally wrote, ” I went this morning to my local GP and got the Astra-Zeneca virus.” Some might consider this to be something of a Freudian slip, and divinely inspired.
Media reporting — which has continued the downward spiral into doomspeak at an accelerating rate — hasn’t helped. That 2-in-100,000 risk ratio your doctor cited for AZ was reported as “up to 1%”, which, as a sketch by The Goodies pointed out in the 70s, includes the number “0”. That said, a problem with AZ is that not all countries accept it as a vaccine. In Canada, a mix-and-match protocol is accepted: I know someone who got AZ for her first shot and Moderna for the second. She won’t be able to go to the US unless she gets yet another shot of Moderna, because the US doesn’t recognize the AZ. (The mix-and-match thing puzzles this non-medical mind, by the way: they’re two different approaches to the vaccine and seems to me like mixing bourbon and gin and expecting it to taste like rum. Which it probably does, but I’m not about to be that guinea pig.) The discussion over masks and vaccinations is almost as divisive and Orwellian in Canada as it is in the USA, even dividing Christians (imagine that!): my way of thinking is this. Jesus has warned us we would see events like the effects of climate change (ahem), bizarre, rampant diseases and (for good measure) kingdom rising against kingdom and nation against nation. Then He returns. OK: we’ve been warned, and we’ve also been told what to do, to wit, obey governing authorities, no matter what we think of their dicta, put everyone else’s interests ahead of our own (like wearing masks where required) and love God above all. And take the opportunity to point others towards Him through Jesus. Simple, right?
No, not that simple! Jesus tells us, “If you love Me you WILL OBEY MY COMMANDMENTS” and “Render unto Caesar what is Caesars, and unto God what is God’s”!! The whole counsel of God does NOT tell us to obey Governments no matter what – indeed the disciples when instructed to no longer preach in the name of Jesus stated, “You judge for yourselves whether it be right to obey you of God in this matter”!
Also, we have been told by a church leadership to obey all the Government & church restrictions because we must love our neighbour as ourselves & not pass Covid onto them, which is to put the 2nd Commandment before the 1st, namely loving man before loving God. You cannot love man aright if you do not first love God aright, with all your heart mind body & soul. Many of the Government & church commands & restrictions resulted in us having to disobey God’s commands regarding meeting together, ministering to each other, singing, breaking bread, baptisms etc. That is a very dangerous precedent, and Churches or Christians going down that road are on a very slippery slope towards apostacy.
So! NOT THAT SIMPLE!!
David, I think you got the AZ vaccine, not virus!
Hi David. Sorry to hear you were given the virus at the doctors (First line). I know, of course, that you mean the vaccine!
Presumably you got the vaccine not the virus ( paragraph 1)!
A gentleman from the Highlands wishing to see The Ashes……well…..well…..well. May the shinty team in Newtownmore gather to say prayers for the redirection of your poor soul!
I can understand your decision when you need to travel to get back to family in the UK. I decided not to have the jab and everything that has subsequently been revealed has confirmed me in that decision, I believe in freedom of choice and am very concerned about the coercion taking place. I wish you well and hope it works out for you.
Tricia,
Thank you for the illustration. “Everything that has subsequently been revealed has confirmed me in that decision …” Really‽ Everything‽ Should there ever be a coercion board — you know, like the tribunals set up to test the reasons conscientious objectors had for not fighting, your ‘freedom of choice’ challenge will be torn apart. It will be torn apart, by the way, by the sort of clever arguments that are not used to challenge the Pro-choice battlecry of abortionists. There are no doubt better arguments against taking the vaccine just as there are better arguments for taking it but you’ve already ruled yourself out as an advocate against with the claim — preposterous, when you think about it — that everything ‘revealed’ about the virus and the vaccines confirms only one side of the argument.
We have a duty to be concerned about coercion but a duty also to be concerned about rebellion. When the only reason for not taking the vaccine is the principle of the thing, those who can’t take it find it more necessary to keep their distance from everyone else, vaccinated or not. I don’t think that that’s a good thing.
Yours,
John/.
John. I am sorry that you are made to feel angry by my right to choose under the Nuremberg Code. It is nonsense to say those vaccinated will need to keep apart from those not. Are you really advocating health apartheid for a virus that kills 0.05% of the population. You need to inform yourself from those moral scientists who are now speaking out loudly.
Professor MCullough, Dr Mike Yeadon who was Pfizer CEO and research scientist for 30 years before retirement abd another good man who was the previous Head of the French vaccination programme for 15 years prior to being fired for “wrongspeak”. This jab – it is not a vaccination and all previous trials of mRNA technology have failed, has failed. And Professor Peter MCCullough publicly stated 2 weeks ago that the programme should stop. No one has ever found a vaccine for the common cold ie Coronavirus.
My daughter was double jabbed because she works in the care sector and they have been coerced. She, along with 20 residents, went down with COVID two weeks ago. Israel, the most vaccinated country, has the most COVID cases. The Scientists say the roll out should stop because the vaccine is causing the breakouts.
Start asking why all these countries have rolled out a so called vaccine so quickly while it is still under diagnostic testing until 2023. Why is every opposition voice silenced and why are reputable scientists from around the world being shut out of mainstream media. And why is medication, which is known to be very effective, being withheld in all western countries?
Following orders was not a defence in the Nuremberg trials.
Tricia,
I am not at all angry that you have a right to choose, why should I be?
I am grateful that you are now revealing the sources of your certainty. I have taken your advice and ‘informed myself’ from Peter McCullogh and Mike Yeadon. I see no reason to believe that their stance is a particularly moral one. In fact inducing fear over a possibility of a vaccine causing infertility in women should be construed as an immoral act; but some of the blame must fall on the (mainstream media) journalists who chose to sensationalise D. Yeadon’s claims. Prof. McCullogh’s continued advocacy of a medication shown in trials to be ineffective against Covid should cause some concern for those who want to use him as an anti-vax advocate. Truth is that his credibility is undermined by the failure by those who quote him favourably to point out the elephant in the room. Of course having survived the viral infection provides better immunity than being vaccinated does, it has always been so; but when you take the people who have not survived into account …
I am not angry but I am concerned that people who play silly games over what constitutes coercion and freedom of choice are liable to provoke the very draconian measures they say they are protesting. You are free to choose not to do it.
Yours,
John/.
John, are you saying that I made a decision purely on making a stand against the jab?
I made a decision after research into the jab, which is a novel mRNA technology and is in no way a vaccine. There have been over 1500 deaths caused by the Jab as shown in the I
UK Government stats and now over a million serious adverse reactions, some life changing.
I stopped listening to the UK media in Oct 2020 when I realised it was propaganda and fear techniques.
Tricia,
not denying that there are arguments to be made about the efficacy (and origin) of the Astra Zenica vaccine also but it is not an mRNA vaccine! David gave his reasons for choosing to take the AZ vaccine rather than an mRNA alternative. He did his research (if not his proof reading.) Did you even re-read his post before commenting on it?
What I see — based purely on what you have said in these comments — is that having decided not to be vaccinated, you have subsequently confirmed your bias; making your own judgements about the meaning of released statistics; and ceasing to listen to anything that does not confirm it.
It is not sufficient just to dismiss a news source as “propaganda”; you need to be able to say for whose benefit it is propagandising. Similarly, we don’t stop telling children not to play with fire on the grounds that it might make them afraid to play with fire. That something is fear-inducing is good grounds for using it cautiously but as long as there are children (and irresponsible adults) in the world deterrents will be needed. It would not be good to refrain from saying something isn’t safe because it makes some people feel unsafe. Please use the better arguments and don’t pretend to have all the answers.
Yours,
John/.
The Astra Zeneca is the one most used in the UK. We have had over a 1000 deaths and rising due to the jab and over 809,00 adverse reactions – and this information is from a Government scheme that has been very lax about reporting. They now want to move on to children even though there have been cases of myocarditis among the younger vaccinated. The long term repercussions from this worldwide crass stupidity or evil, whichever it is, will become visible over the next few years.
I consider those in the research industry and others like the American Front Line Doctors, who have spoken out, to be moral because they have been shunned, ostracised and some have lost their jobs. Unlike those who keep on doing something they know is dangerous.
Tricia,
You cannot possibly be in a position to state categorically that “We have had over a 1000 deaths and rising due to the jab …” For one thing, there has not been time to investigate the reports of vaccine-caused mortality and the irresponsible sensationalising of this figure — sometimes in ‘mainstream media’, need I add — has done much to increase the atmosphere of fear that you claim to be reacting to.
Since vaccination has been around for centuries now, and is almost universally practiced, various reasons for vaccine-caused mortality — all very rare — have been identified.
and it would be foolhardy to predict that no new examples will be forthcoming from the current massive vaccination effort.
Be that as it may, the fact remains that vaccination has led to the eradication of Smallpox and a global vaccination drive such as we have seen with Covid would doubtless eradicate a few more of our perpetual scourges. Of course our inability to find a cure for the Common Cold should warn us against predicting the eradication of Covid but who could argue that the vaccines have not prevented very large numbers of Covid-caused deaths?
Just because someone has been dealt with harshly for saying something you are minded to agree with does not say anything about their motives or relative morality.
Yours,
John/.
John Kilpatrick
John, you say I am not in a position to report these numbers. Well, I am quoting from the UK Government MHRA Yellow Card reporting system. It reports 1553 deaths – 1,000 from AZ and around 500 to Pfizer (the UK used Pfizer in the early days, but then moved on to mainly AZ. The reporting system has been under reporting rather than over, as doctors don’t want to report unless pushed. You can check on line for the validity of these figures. Other rollouts have been stopped after even 50 deaths.I am not anti vaccination – I have vaccinations myself and for my children. I am against rolling out untried and insufficiently insufficientlyynovel so called vaccines to the whole world.
Many people have now had COVID. If you are not in the at risk category you will survive this illness. I know many people who have, even people in their 80’s.
Also there are safe and effective medicines as we know from use in poorer countries – but of course they do not make big money for Big Pharma. Our wonderful NHS refuses to dispense these. If these medicines are used in the early stages, people recover rapidly.
Tricia,
I’ve looked where you told me to: 73 fatalities as of the fourth of August. I don’t understand the discrepancy. You point out the rather obvious fact that many people have survived Covid while seeming to be oblivious to the fact that many have not. You are not scoring very well in this exchange so far but perhaps you can redeem yourself by listing these recovery-aiding medicines that we ought to be using and are not?
Yours,
John/.
John Kilpatrick
This will be my last post on this.
UKColumn carries an easy to read chart on the yellow card scheme, which is where I quoted from.
The deaths from COVID are questionable as the Government stated that any death within 28 days of a positive test should be recorded COVID on the death certificate and no autopsies we’re carried out. So we have no idea of the real number. Many families argued that their loved one had died of a heart attack or accident – but were discounted.
As a mother I am worried that both my children are double jabbed and the long term effects are not known. I will fight to stop my grandchildren being jabbed. Pat Cash, the tennis player, has written an open letter today about young tennis players being coerced to take this jab. He says they are at no risk as they are young and fit – I concur.
I wish you well.
Tricia,
thank you for sending your source of information — https://yellowcard.ukcolumn.org/yellow-card-reports —which I was able to access and you are right enough about the figures they quote but obviously wrong about their meaning. At the bottom of the page UKColumn helpfully provides a link — source data — that leads to: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-vaccine-adverse-reactions/coronavirus-vaccine-summary-of-yellow-card-reporting#annex-1-vaccine-analysis-profile which still, stubbornly, only reports 73 Astra Zenica caused fatalities.
Before using the kinds of argument you have provided here to ‘protect’ your grandchildren you must fact-check your sources. If you don’t, two disastrous things might well happen as a result of your carelessness. 1. Officials who have already fact-checked your sources will not be able to give as much attention as they should to dissident voices drowned out by social-mediastorm noise. 2. You will definitely be heard by the substantial number of parents who — perhaps to cover-up deficiencies in their own parenting — will do things like abuse hospital staff and put up a bouncy castle in the central reservation of a dual-carriageway to ‘support’ grieving parents desperate to save the life of their son. When it’s about children and officials who are portrayed as wanting to harm them a red mist seems to cloud the thinking and nothing seems to make them see reason.
These side effects are not the intention of the people who first make heard their cries on behalf of the children. When the News of the World started ‘outing’ paedophiles they had no idea that it would lead to the persecution of a paediatrician but it did. I’ll leave it to you to decide whether or not your campaign is wrongheaded; but if you do it you’d better make sure that you get better arguments than you’ve used so far.
Yours,
John/.
Is the vaccone really a gift to the one (and family) who dies, or is injured as a result? Savation is a free gift, with no side effects, only benefits. Agree with the poor theplogy ‘Jesus is my vaccine.’. But faith trusts on God’s promises. (Psalm 91)
The state’s different treatment of different people in otherwise identical circumstances, because one is jabbed and the other isn’t, amounts to coercion to consent to become jabbed, for anyone one might be affected by such discrimination. That you cite freedom to travel as one of your reasons you consenting to be jabbed after all, demonstrates that your consent was coerced.
But coercion invalidates consent. So your purported consent to be jabbed was invalid.
I hope you didn’t tell whoever jabbed you know that your consent had been coerced. If so, you were the instrument of temptation to that health professional, not only to sin, but also to commit a criminal offence.
Those of us who have thought this through, and concluded that we are now unable to give valid consent to be jabbed, and decided that we ought not to tempt or to deceive health professionals into jabbing us in these circumstances, will be disappointed that with your compliance, we are fewer. I hope you will defend us still, even though you are no longer one of us.
To John Allman
It was heartening to see On Twitter this week, Italian citizens burning their Vaccine identity passes in solidarity with the unvaccinated. France is in turmoil, although you wouldn’t know it from mainstream media. Cafe and bar owners and the people are rejecting the idea of health passes.
This is nothing other than divide and rule and is a way of giving away all our health information to a worldwide database.
It is indeed encouraging that there is opposition to the new, almost worldwide, co-ordinated authoritarianism of which we are witnessing the unfolding.
Whether humanity will have freedom again, or the end really is nigh this time, we shall discover. The Secret Power of Lawlessness (SPL) mentioned in 2 Thess 2 has tried and failed often in history to bring about what it nowadays openly markets often as “global governance”, or “a new world order” (not “The New World Order” as the conspiracy theorists – put it). Will they succeed this time, or have to retreat yet again? 2 Thess 2 mentions a restrainer holding the SPL/NWO back, whom I suspect is the Archangel Michael, based on Daniel, where it is predicted that Michael will one day “arise” (possibly meaning go off duty). Are we witnessing this final withdrawal of God’s restraint of the SPL now? I certainly don’t know!
I take heart from the single word I have believed God gave me about 20 years ago – “sundials” (plural). There have been multiple times in history when God has turned the clock back (so-to-speak), averting the apparently imminent fulfillment of prophecy, bringing to an end a crisis that looked awfully like the end, as he did in the time of Hezekiah, performing the miracle of the biblical sundial that symbolised this turning back of the clock, the postponement of the end.
God is in control.
David, you say you would like to see the Ashes in January and that they are planning to ban anyone who is not vaccinated. Do you not think that is a form of coercion, that we really shouldn’t go along with? (I write that as a Scotsman who has gone to test matches in England, and very much enjoyed them.) It will all contribute to a two-tier society – if you’ve had a vaccine you can do most of what you want to, if not you can do so much less.
The other issue from a Christian perspective is the use of cell lines developed from an aborted baby in the testing or development of (at least) the main vaccines. What effect does that have on our voice for the unborn?
@Douglas
I tweeted as follows on 19th July 2021:
When will HMG authorise a vaccine that
(1) wasn’t brought to the market using fetal cell lines
(2) isn’t mRNA-based
(3) prevents infection, rather than allowing the vaccinated to become infected, but causing many not to realise they’ve been infected, so they know to stay home?
John
Archbishop Vigano has called good catholic priests to prayer in a piece I read on Lifesite News. He talks of the New World Order which is pushing forward – he considers this to be a battle in the heavenly places and we must join in. I have printed it out for a group of us to use as a base for our prayers.
I also consider this (and several other modern developments) to be a battle in the heavenly places, in which believers should join, in prayer and sometimes in activism, as the Holy Spirit leads them.
The conspiracy theory in which I believe was published by the apostle Paul nearly 2,000 years ago and is now set out in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 and is still afoot now, and will be until Christ returns, according to Paul. What others today call the New World Order, Paul referred to (I think) as τὸ μυστήριον τῆς ἀνομίας (in verse 7) . This phrase is variously translated into English as the mystery of iniquity (AV) and the secret power of lawlessness (NIV).
We forget how much our lives are bathed in fantasy.
Movies, TV dramas, Comedy shows, advertising, politics…
Somehow we expect the news to tell us the truth and never mislead us.
It is easy to be lulled into faith in the Mainstream Media’s persistent and contrived world view.
Unfortunately those smiling newsreaders lead us down the Highway to Hell.
And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.
Maybe I am wrong. Maybe St Paul really was urging Timothy to take Astra Zeneca.
Since Jesus gave us rat poison we should probably take that too!
I do not criticise those, who like David now, take the vaccines, for their personal decisions of conscience. “Do not pass judgment on disputable matters”, wrote the apostle.
As the fictionalised Thomas Moore character of A Man For All Seasons put it, I don’t want to give in to the tyrant, following their consciences rather than my own, to keep them company, since they won’t want to come to hell with me, to keep me company, for disobeying my conscience by doing what they have done when obeying their own consciences, earning their reward.
I take my medical advice from my doctor, not from politicians and civil servants. Now that they have started to try to coerce me into consenting to be vaccinated, I am no longer able to give valid consent to my doctor to vaccinate me anyway, since my doctor’s own ethics should (I believe) inform him that the coercion I’m under to consent invalidates any consent I might purport to give.
John, you have got yourself into a pickle haven’t you?
Maybe, in this case, ‘conscience’ isn’t the issue. Do you need to take more responsibility for your own implicatures — the conclusions you inferred from health advice from ‘civil servants’ (some of whom are doctors!) based on the assumptions you brought to hearing/reading what they said?
@ Bruce Symons
I don’t understand what point you are trying to make.
Come on, John,
you are cutting off your nose to spite your face in front of all of us and the least you could do is acknowledge it, then we could laugh with you and not squirm for you.
Join the club: I’m missing out on my favourite cup of coffee because there’s a sign in the window asking me to Please use an app to sign in and I don’t have a smartphone. Worse than that I haven’t changed my dual fuel supplier or the tariff I pay on the ridiculous grounds that I do not trust the supplier’s administrative incompetence not to land me with impenetrable bills for services not received.
I’m pathetic; what’s your excuse?
Yours,
John/.
I still don’t understand what point you are trying to make.
John, OK to clarify, you said:
‘Now that they have started to try to coerce me into consenting to be vaccinated, I am no longer able to give valid consent to my doctor to vaccinate me anyway’
My point is that it is you who have read (interpreted) what ‘they’ are doing/saying as ‘trying to coerce’. Maybe you have inferred more into what ‘they’ said than they intended?
@Bruce Symons
“you … have read (interpreted) what ‘they’ are doing/saying as ‘trying to coerce”
No, I haven’t.
Initially, I observed, without any need for what you call “interpretation”, and without any guesswork on my part as to their motives – what they were “trying” to accomplish, that government had begun, de facto, coercing everybody who still hasn’t been vaccinated to consent to become vaccinated, in that they were introducing rules that certainly amount to incentives to consent to vaccination and/or disincentives against contiunuing to withhold consent. This coercion is directly observable, regardless of whether coercing consent is what they are “trying” to do.
Since making this initial observation, I have also observed that the government has openly admitted that they’d like to increase the uptake of the vaccines. I have also noticed rhetoric on the part of certain politicians that strongly suggests that coercing consent is indeed what those particular politicians would like to accomplish with the coercive measures I had initially noticed, but my initial observation of de facto coercion did not require those telling give-aways as to what at least a part of their agenda was likely to be in introducing the directly observable de facto coercion.
I must apologise. I did say, “they have started to try to coerce me into consenting to be vaccinated”. I didn’t mean to say that. What I meant to say was that they had announced measures, the effect of which would be to use coercion upon me to become vaccinated, though, so far, that coercion hadn’t procured my consent. They were “trying” to coerce me in the sense that their coercion was unsuccessful, rather than intentional.
In trying to abbreviate that, I expressed myself clumsily, giving the impression that I thought their *intention* was to coerce me. Although I do think that, that the coercion should be intentional is not necessary in order to ensure that any consent coerced should be invalidated by the coercion of the consent.
I hope that that is now clear.
John, your attempt to formalise your language is noble, but doomed to fail because human communication is not achieved by simply encoding and decoding thoughts. Your claim: ‘I observed, without any need for what you call “interpretation”, and without any guesswork on my part as to their motives …’ does not describe how we operate as human beings.
Data is always processed, i.e. interpreted, otherwise our brains would go into meltdown. Look out the window and tell me what you see–if you actually did that, David would reach his data limit before you got through one hundredth of what you would be saying. And human communication is not achieved without ‘guesswork’ on the part of both speaker and hearer, otherwise any one sentence would need to be much much longer than any you have written so far. ‘Motives’, also, are not often visible or stated but inferred by the hearer/reader.
You have misquoted me and misrepresent my position, by removing the part of my sentence in which I stated *what* it was that I had observed directly.
One of the greatest sadnesses of recent days is how divisive an issue covid and jabs have become among Christians – sadly evidenced in many of these posts. If a brother or sister chooses, for whatever reason, in good faith and good conscience, not to get a jab then they are not accountable to anyone other than God and it is none of our business. And vice versa, of course.
“they are not accountable to anyone other than God and it is none of our business”
It is exactly that former consensus within the church and society that governments and media sources have forsaken and are busy preaching against, whipping up an irrational fear of those who stubbornly remain independently-minded.