I have been writing books and essays for 16 years. I write about current events, historical events, and anything that interests me. All the ten books that I have written are available on Amazon. Amazon has this system of allowing readers to comment on the books and rate the book on a five-star scale. I have gotten five stars, occasionally four and once in a while just three, but my first one-star review was on my most recent book, Covid-19, a collection of 28 essays over the course of the last year and a half on the various facets of this monumental human tragedy.
I want to comment on my one-star review because it is such a clear example of the line of the logic of the anti-vaxxers. I suggest you read it yourself. Go to Amazon.com, select Books, and type in my name, iwasiuk. Go to the book cover Covid-19 in the Kindle block and click on the one-star that will get you to the comment section. The reason to read the entire comment is to follow the thought process of many anti-vaxxers. It will make it quite clear to you that logic is not an option. Mark Twain’s comments regarding such logic is not very kind, but I leave it to you to read those for yourself.
Evangelicals will frequently bring up similar arguments that vaccination was not used in the Bible and Jesus never got vaccinated. They forget that Jesus also never drove a car or flew in an airplane. That is because modernity was bestowed on man by God as a blessing. I would be more than surprised if God would need a vaccine. Franklin Graham, the son of Billy Graham, expressed the opinion that Jesus would have supported taking the vaccine based on the parable of The Good Samaritan and further felt that the vaccine was a blessing sent by God, like the many other vaccines, such as for polio, smallpox, measles, and the flu. If anyone has thought through the Evangelical mindset, it certainly would be Franklin Graham. Pope Francis stated that getting vaccinated is “An Act of Love… a simple but profound way of promoting the common good and caring for each other, especially the most vulnerable.” The LDS faith is strongly supportive of the vaccine to limit the spread of Covid-19 and assure the faithful that the vaccines are safe and effective, and to prove it, all the church elders got their vaccine. The Jewish tradition obligates its members to be vaccinated. The Torah (which is the first five books of the Old Testament) commands to guard yourself and your soul to protect yourself and those around you.
One of my favorite jokes is the one about the man who refused help during an epic rainstorm. People came to his house and urged him to leave the house as it was going to be inundated with water, and he would drown. The man refused. “I believe in the power of the Lord, and I have prayed to him!” The water rose, and soon the man had to go to the second floor of the house. A boat came by, and the people urged him to step in the boat and save himself. Again he invoked the name of the Lord. “He will save me!” he said. Now he was on the roof when a helicopter lowered a rope ladder. But the man would not climb it. Soon he drowned. At the pearly gates, Saint Peter met him. The man was angry. “I trusted in the Lord to save me, yet I drowned!” Saint Peter said, “We sent people, then a boat, and finally a helicopter. You refused all the help! What else are we to do?” Sort of reminiscent of the anti-vaxxers. “God helps those that help themselves!”
Jesus getting the vaccine conjured up in my mind a vision that is demonstrated above. My father was an artist, mostly working with oil. I wrote a book with a collection of all of his paintings that I could find to photograph of his life’s work, also available on Amazon, Vladimir’s Visions. I took one of his paintings called Supper at Emmaus that depicts the realization of the Disciples of the resurrection of Jesus and photoshopped it. My father is no longer with us, but I am sure he will laugh at the joke, using his painting to demonstrate a point that it is impossible to convince the un-convincables.