Covidiots - Covid-19 is Killing Fewer Non-Believers

Coronavirus (COVID-19) related deaths by religious group, England and Wales - Office for National Statistics

Despite all the promises that God will protect the righteous from Covid-19, and the forlorn hope that somehow it was going to kill off people with whom the self-righteous fundamentalists disagree, the facts are turning out to be something very different. Covid-19 is killing more religious people than non-believers, according to figures provided by the UK Office of National statistics.

The reasons for this are many and complex and probably more related ethnicity than to religion (and incidentally a reflection of how religion tends to be inherited with ethnicity rather than something arrived at after objective analysis of the evidence) but one thing is certain: there is no evidence that a deity is using the virus to punish non-believers or to reward believers in any one religion. Jews, Muslims and Christians are no safer for their piety whereas non-believers for a number of reasons are being statistically less affected by the virus.

Covidiots - India's Fools' Gold

'Saint' Sobhan Sarker, aka 1008 Viraktanand Saraswati, aka Suryabhan Tiwari
Looked 'beneath the Earth' and saw a thousand tons of magic gold!

Police Book 4,100 Who Crowded Godman’s Funeral in India Despite COVID Rules | Terry Firma | Friendly Atheist | Patheos

Covidiocy appears to be a characteristic of most religions, including Hinduism, if these Hindu Covidiots are anything to go by.

Despite the nationwide lockdown as India battles against Covid-19, thousands of people forced their way past police lines to attend the funeral in Kanpur last Wednesday, of self-styled Godman, Sobhan Saker, aka 1008 Viraktanand Saraswati, aka Suryabhan Tiwari. 4,100 have been charged with lockdown violations. Sakar was regarded by his followers as a sadhu or saint. He claimed he could see "beyond the sky and beneath the Earth".

Lesson From Goa - Temple to Shriva.

Shri Nageshi Temple, Ponda, Goa, India

First a confession; I know very little of the Hindu religion other than that there are multiple gods and that the stories of these gods are contained in the sacred books, the Vedas, Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, and the Agamas. The Bhagavad Gita is itself part of a much larger work, one of two Indian epics, Mahabatha. These books also contain the basic philosophies of Hinduism.

So, all of our guided visit to the temple to Shriva or Shri Nageshi, at Ponda, Panjim, Goa, was new to me and to my partner. Neither of us had been to a Hindu temple before.

The Shri Nageshi temple is reputedly on the site of the oldest Hindu temple in Goa which was destroyed by the Portuguese colonialists who tried to impose Catholicism on the inhabitants. Ironically, we visited the Shri Nageshi temple immediately after visiting the Catholic church of Bom Jesus (Good Jesus) which contains the body of St Francis Xavier, co founder of the Jesuits and responsible for imposing Catholicism on the people of Goa. The church of Bom Jesus proudly boast of being the oldest religious building in Goa. Something it achieved by default when all the older Hindu, Jain and Muslim religious buildings were destroyed.

It's Not Just The Monotheists...

The serial virgin Devaki with her eighth child, Krishna

It's not just the monotheists like Christians, Jews and Muslims who have to believe the nonsensical and the plainly absurd to be 'faithful'.

They might think they have a difficult time having to believe in talking snakes, flying horses, virgin births, men living inside fish and the mountains being pegs to hold the ground down, to name just a few, but just imagine how difficult it must be to be a faithful Hindu.

Apparently, according to one of the Hindu myths, the God Krishna was also born of a virgin, but his mother, Devaki, was no ordinary virgin. She had made something of a habit of it, having given birth to seven children prior to Krishna. A veritable serial virgin.

Her first pregnancy was also special in another way. It was caused by her eating half a mango.

In one of Devaki's other 'manifestations' as Aditi, the goddess of dawn, she is also the 'eternal' or 'celestial virgin', something which didn't stop her also bearing eight children.

Apparently, this is all perfectly simple and easy to understand: she used to be a virgin. Parthenogenetic births or doing unusual things with mangoes don't have any bearing on the matter.

No wonder so many Hindus say they are Atheist.

Slice of mango, anyone?

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