Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Catholic
Politics and Religion
So why do you think God is punishing us?

So why do you think God is punishing us?

Last updated on: November 12, 2024 at 2:06 pm by Rebecca Hamilton

So why do you think God is punishing us? 2024-11-12T14:06:38-07:00 Rebecca Hamilton

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Photo Source: Wikimedia Commons by Bobo Boom https://www.flickr.com/people/66926737@N08

So why do you think God is punishing us?

I’m reading more and more commentary from professional religios who seem certain that they know what has caused this pandemic. They don’t think it has anything to do with a virus. According to them, COVID-19 is God’s punishment on us all.

Every one of these spiritual whiz kids agrees with every other spiritual whiz kid that the pandemic we are going through is the handiwork of a vengeful god who has had it with us humans and decided to slap us around with an illness. Why this god of theirs — and I posit that he is a god of their devising and not the Almighty God the rest of us follow — decided to smite us varies from one religio to the next.

For instance, a former executive of a Catholic television network who is a survivor of a nasty bout with COVID-19 that landed him in the ICU, seems convinced that we brought this on ourselves by taking communion in the hand instead of on the tongue. So far as I know, he hasn’t explained why his god saw fit to smite Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists, et al, who take their grape juice (no wine for them) in tiny cups, or why the Buddhists, atheists, Muslims and various animists around the globe got smitted along with us communion-in-the-hand-taking Catholics. So far as I know, he didn’t even explain why good, “orthodox” Catholics who insist on sticking out their tongue at the priest and probably drop to their knees in front of him when they take communion also come down with the virus.

God, in this Catholic television executive’s world, is awfully indiscriminate in his smiting. For instance, I’ve never once taken communion on the tongue and I do not intend to. In some circles, that makes me a pretty lousy Catholic. Yet the virus has — so far at least — passed me by.

Go figure.

There are, of course, other explanations for god’s smiting. I wrote a earlier about priests who’ve been out there claiming that God decided to slam us with COVID-19 because indigenous art from the Amazon was brought to the Vatican, and, something else. I forget.

I imagine quite a few protestants would tell you that COVID-19 is god’s revenge on Catholics for worshipping Mary, and then there are the evangelical atheists who seem certain that all evils of every type are caused by Christians.

Whew.

You need a spreadsheet to keep up with this stuff. Uggidty boogiddity does come out when people are scared.

The dangerous underbelly to this is that it’s not religion. It’s superstition.

The Eucharist is real. Absolutely real.

It’s not some hocus-pocus magical rite that if you don’t do it exactly correctly will bring the devil down on your head. That’s not faith. It’s magic. It’s superstition.

Ditto for all the other bizarre reasons the uggiddity boogiddity crowd is giving for god’s smiting us. None of it is faith or even faith-based. It’s superstition that goes back to the cave and the swamps we crawled out of at the beginning of human civilization. These are stories told around the campfire to explain the scary darkness out there beyond the flickering light.

Superstition is an attempt to control that which you cannot control and which scares you. It moves in one step from trying to exercise control over the things that go bump in the night to controlling other people.

That leads inevitably to some sort of sacrificing of those other people, their comfort, their freedom, their dignity as human beings, or maybe, (calls to kill Granny for the DOW are an example) to killing them on the altar of our superstition to appease our false god. Propitiation to our superstitions doesn’t so much become destructive as it is destructive, right out of the box.

I think that’s because it is turning away from God. It is also, as turning away from God always is, a lie. It is a lie and a manipulation. It is crazy-making self-deceit that rapidly turns into deceit of others.

We can be amused by the stupidity of these oogiddity boogiddity folks. But we shouldn’t take them too lightly. There’s a streak of mean that runs through their superstitious manipulations that can cut and tear at anyone who comes too near.

So I ask you, why do you think god has smitten us with COVID-19? It’s no fair, saying that this is a virus, not a demon, that it behaves according to the same rules of nature that govern all that lives.

Rationality is not currency in the twilight world of oogiddity boogiddity. It has no value.

You must come up with something that the human race has done, some one thing that has offended God so thoroughly that He has fashioned a virus to use as a cane to flog us.

Or, you could just refuse to play the game. You could get up and walk out of the asylum and let yourself think free, like a full human being who was created with a mind that can unravel the mysteries of time and space, and know the God Who created everything, everywhere on a personal level.

If you are truly made in the Image and Likeness of the Living God, you don’t need oogiddity boogiddity to deal with life’s challenges. You have been given everything — every single thing — that you need to conquer whatever comes.

COVID-19 is not God’s punishment. It is a virus. We are backing it down by self-isolating. If we yield to the yammerers who want to let this thing out of the box, it’ll turn and back us down instead. That isn’t oogiddity boogiddity. That’s our own stupidity.

Maybe — hopefully — warm weather will slow the virus and give us time to develop a vaccine. If we develop a vaccine, we’ll bring it to a hard stop.

If that happens God — the real God — will be in it every step of the way.

He gave us our minds. He gave us our immune systems. He gave us the ability to work together and stand against it. He gave us the Gospels which teach us to stand for the common good.

God made us so that we can do this.

If the devil is at work in this, he’s in the superstition and lies. The devil is out there driving the idiots who are waving Nazi flags and carrying guns and demanding the right to infect themselves and others. The devil is behind the stories of unsubstantiated cures and the deliberate lies saying that we should ignore the virus.

The devil’s there. But neither he nor God is punishing us.

We’re punishing ourselves and each other with our lies, greed and lack of concern for other people.

Coronavirus

Previous Post

April 21, 2020

Standing Before God: There I Was.

Next Post

April 21, 2020 Will the Supremes Overturn Roe?

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category 10 Commandments 2012 Election 2016 Election 2020 Election 2022 Election 2024 Election Abortion Addiction Adult Day Care Advent Africa AI Alcoholism Alex Pretti Renee Good America American Citizenship American Fascism Announcement Anti Semitism Anti-Semitism Apologetics Archbishop Coakley Argentina Armenian Genocide Ash Wednesday Ballot Box Salvation Biden Big Beautiful Bill Bishop Black Mass Blasphemy Boko Haram Book Review Brainwashing Breast Cancer Bribery Calling Evil Good calling good evil Cancer Canonize Caregiving Catholic Catholic Vote Cause for Sainthood Chaos child abuse Child Labor Child Rearing Child Sacrifice Christian Bashers Christian Leadership Christian Persecution Christian Solidarity Christianity Christmas clergy Clergy Sex Abuse Scandal Climate Coakley Common Good Communion Communism Computers concentration camps Conclave Confession Consecration to Our Lady Conversion Coptic Christians Coronavirus Corporatism Corruption COVID Crisis Pregnancy Centers Culture D Day Death Death Penalty Dementia Democracy Designer Baby Destruction of the Family Dictator Dignity of Work Divine Mercy Novena Divine Mercy Sunday Divorce Doubt Drug Addiction easter Ebola Economics Education Egg Harvesting El Salvador Elderly Epiphany Epstein eternal life Eternal Life Eucharist Eugenics Euthanizing Children Euthansia evangelization Excommunicate Biden Extraterrestrial Life Failed Clergy Faith False Gods Family Fascism Fatherhood Feast of the Assumption First Amendment Flood the Zone Following Christ forced conversion Forgiveness Fortnight4Freedom fourth amendment Fr James Altman Fr Stanley Rother free press Freedom Freedom of Conscience freedom of religion Freedom of Speech Freedom of Worship vs Religious Freedom Geek Stuff Gender Theory Genocide God the Father Good Friday Gossip GQP Greenland Grief Gun Control Gun Violence Hate Blogs Health Health Care Heart Attack Heaven Hell Herod HHS Mandate History of the Crusades Holy Father Holy Father' Holy Father's Tweets Holy Matrimony Holy Saturday Holy Spirit Holy Thursday Holy Week Home Homeschooling homosexual Hospice Human Dignity Human Rights human trafficking Humor ICE Idolatry Immaculate Conception Immigration Incest Infertility Inspiration Iran War ISIS Islam Islamic Brotherhood Israel JD Vance Jesus Jobs Jordan Judas Judicial and Legislative Murder Judicial Murder July 4 Just War Justice Kavanaugh Ketanji Jackson Brown Laity Latin Mass Leadership Lent Less of Me Lying Lying for Trump Mad King MAGA Magnifica humanitas Mama Marriage Marriage Protection Amendment Martyr Media Bias Medicaid Men and Abortion Mercy Military Dictatorship Misogyny Motherhood Movie Review Murder Music National Catholic Register Nazi Clergy Neo Nazis New Category New Evangelism New Evangelization News Headlines Nigeria No Kings Novena for the Persecuted Church Nuns Obama Oklahoma Oscar Romero Our Lady Our National Embarrassment Pakistan Palm Sunday Papal Conclave Papal G8 Pedophile piano political priests Political Whore Clergy Politics Polygamy Pope Francis Pope Francis Visit United States Pope Leo XIV Pope's Prayer Intentions Pornography Post Christian West Poverty Prayer Prayers for the Persecuted Church Pro Life Prophecy Prostitution Purgatory Putin Quack Medicine Racism Rape Religious Freedom Renee Good Republican Republican priests Rerum Novarum Retirement Risen Lord Roe v Wade Rosary Sacrament Sacred Heart Sacrilege Saints Salvation Same Sex Marriage Sanctity of Human Life Satan Save Our Democracy scandal Scripture Shroud of Turin Sisters Slavery Social Justice Social Security Solidarity Cross St Michael the Archangel stations of the cross Stop Late Term Abortion Stroke Suicide Supreme Court Surrogacy Surveillance State Synod Syria Taliban Tariffs Taxes Technology Thanksgiving The Ascension The Cross The Locust Class The Political Heresy The Resurrection The Tomb The Transfiguration The Trinity The War on Girls Tornado Trauma Trump Trump Coup Trump Destroying America Trump's Coup Trump's War on the Rule of Law Trumpism Ukraine Uncategorized USAID USCCB Vatican Vatican Reform Violence Against Women Violence in America Vocation Voting Rights Wages Walk for Life War Weight Loss White House Why Aren't You a Feminist Too? Woke Women Leaders Women's Rights Worker's Rights World Hunger World War I World War III World Youth Day Worship Writing Year of Faith

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 March 2024 February 2024 November 2023 October 2023 August 2023 July 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 October 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 August 2016 May 2016 April 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 January 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What was the name of the river where Ezekiel saw his vision?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Euphrates River Nile River River Chebar Jordan River