I had an argument with a peck enthusiast the other day. It was about the excess deaths figure which is very high at the moment both within the UK and elsewhere. I asked him if it could be the pecks that were responsible for this. He got very angry and said that this was complete conspiracy theory nonsense. He is triple pecked but has had constant cold-like symptoms for the last 3 months. He says he's never had a cold like that before and doesn't understand what could be causing it. When I questioned the virtues of the peck he got impatient and went on about "the science" and how he trusted doctors rather than weirdos on the internet before asking me what possible reason could the media and the medical establishment and the politicians have for lying to us? Then he said that I should have had enough courage to get pecked myself. I must admit this annoyed me. I said it was precisely a lack of courage, i.e. excessive fear of a disease that a little research would show to be harmless to most people who weren't very old or obese, that prompted people to take an improperly tested procedure based on a completely new technology with no long term data about its safety. I told him the reason I rejected the peck was not fear of its physical effects so much as realising that I did not need it and why would I subject myself to an untested and potentially risky intervention that I did not need? But a much deeper reason was the spiritual one. I said it was obvious that we were being manipulated and cajoled, made to take something unknown because of fear being whipped up, and I had no wish to respond to such patently devious behaviour. The psychological pressure being brought to bear made the whole thing smell bad and it was quite clear that something rotten lay below the surface.
Obviously, this remark fell on deaf ears. To a materialist, as this person is, it just sounds nonsensical. This is the problem. We can only see evil when we understand that evil exists. Otherwise we come up with the feeble why would people do such a wicked thing line. Wickedness exists and if you do not have this spiritual insight you are like a lamb to the slaughter.
The title of this post is intended to be mildly comical but I don't consider the peck to be at all funny. I'm sure its unwitting acceptance has led to many personal tragedies and my heart goes out to people who trusted authority and have suffered a consequence. The foundational medical principle of first do no harm has been cynically betrayed or so it seems to me. I know of students at university who were almost bullied and pressured into taking this thing often under the deeply manipulative pretext of protecting others, and some of these had natural immunity anyway. To abandon responsibility for those in one's care like this because of conformity to the bureaucracy is a terrible sin.
* with apologies to Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen
Well put! My experience tells me that regret on the part of the pecked is mostly limited to having suffered adverse health effects or the possibility of suffering such adverse health effects in the future.
ReplyDeleteBarely any of the pecked I know have expressed any sort of spiritual regret, this includes Christians. There is also near-zero awareness about how their compliance with evil helped support and intensify the pressure, coercion, and manipulation on those who wanted to avoid the peck.
The worst are the excuses, justifications, and tales of heroic personal sacrifice. "I took it to keep my job and feed my family." I sympathize to some degree, but that doesn't make you a hero! On the contrary, you surrendered yourself and your family to evil. You essentially voted "yes" to peck passports and other totalitarian measures. You told evil, "Hey, I'm okay with my kids growing up in a world like that and being subjected to such abuses -- as long as their fed!"
If you took the peck to save your job, fine, I understand, and I won't hold it against you -- but for goodness sake, be sincere about the spiritual dimensions of this whole thing and seek repentance. Bruce Charlton said it best, the biggest problem for Christians is not sinning, but in refusing to repent.
But barely anyone I know has repented. They all act as if there is nothing to repent. The whole birdemic has been a spiritual catastrophe and continues to be so even now.
It is the spiritual dimension that is important in all this as with many of the other issues of the moment. But if you don't recognise a spiritual dimension and see that as paramount you are exposed to evil. But I do feel for people who were pressured into the peck. I was fortunate in that I wasn't other than in a small way by some work colleagues and family members who raised their eyebrows at my stance but I'm used to that!
ReplyDelete"But I do feel for people who were pressured into the peck."
ReplyDeleteGranted, but I feel a bit more for those who acknowledge their choice (because it ultimately was a choice), accept full responsibility for it, and repent it.
I also feel for the people who lost jobs, livelihoods, businesses, relationships, and reputations for refusing to be pressured into the peck.
Both of you (and Charlton) provided some clarity that helped me not taking the peck, but the main reason I did not take it is because I don´t like being manipulated.
ReplyDeleteThe most difficult thing for me is to understand how so few people, Christian or not, resisted a campaign that was so clearly manipulative and coercive. A whole battery of scare tactics, emotional blackmail, shifting goal posts and gaslightning were employed but few seemed to care or even register that something was out of place.
Here in Sweden people were not even at the risk of losing their jobs but people went along anyways, though it would not have cost them much to refuse.
I think it's hard to resist something when everyone you know is saying and and doing it and all the supposed authorities tell you it's the right thing to do unless you have recourse to a higher authority which in this case is spiritual. I know there were many people who did resist without a spiritual belief to support them but that makes it much easier.
ReplyDeletePeople are sheep. That's it. This is why they need a Good Shepherd
ReplyDeleteI agree with your wonderful essay.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I think there is a certain % of any population that hates being manipulated, and I'm not sure if this is purely spiritual, purely psychological, or both. Of course, there is no hard line between the two. We are spiritual beings, whether we want to admit it or not, and even those who are not actively spiritual or religious are of course influenced by their underlying metaphysical and spiritual beliefs.
For myself, I was already no longer a believer in the "system" for many reasons, partly discernment from years of observation and disappointment. I think that was party of the journey that brought me back to a belief in God: the obviousness of the lies.
I think you are right. Some people are just suspicious of anything any authority says but we have to doubt false authority whilst always being respectful of the true.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is a fish doesn't know water is wet because he is submerged in it. The sad truth is that medical totalitarianism has been centuries in the making. Read up on the history of the smallpox vaccine. Health authorities in certain cities literally forced people to be vaccinated or pay a fine. There were even cases of babies being taken from their parents. The 1927 United States Supreme Court case Buck v. Bell used forced vaccination as a justification for forced sterilization of state eugenics programs. The US Supreme Court has also ruled that states can force vaccination for school children even against religious objections. During the anthrax scare, a lot of military personnel were forced to take an anthrax vaccine or face dishonorable discharge. There have been cases of medical personnel forced to take flu shots even while being pregnant.
ReplyDeleteI myself was forced to take a flu shot in order to do volunteer work at a military base daycare. I've never been comfortable with these types of mandates, but I didn't know what else to do but just go along. Yes, it's wrong. However, we have been so used to this type of totalitarianism that we were unprepared for the birdemic abuse of power. A lot of people justified the forced pecks since schools have long required them. The peck shot was just one more of the many forced pecks that most people have received.
Apocalypse means "unveiling". The hard truth is that we have given modern medicine and "science" too much power. They have become the idols of our era. I don't deny that there are benefits to vaccination. However, one size fits all mandates are the very definition of evil. A lot of people still don't understand that. They think that the only problem w/ the birdemic peck is potential side effects.
I have started to notice how much power modern states have over our lives in ways the Louis XIV of France would have found shocking. There were Christians who objected to social security numbers as it was a national ID. Today, it's nearly impossible to do anything in the United States w/o this government ID number. Many developing nations like China and India forced abortions and sterilizations on their populations to manage their numbers. While I cannot fully condemn science (I'm typing on a computer), I believe it has become a form of witchcraft. Instead of mastering chaos in alignment w/ God's will, we have decided to become sorcerers trying to remake the world in our own image. A lot of repentance is going to be needed to move past the state of the modern world.
The same objections that were made against sorcery can be made against science. If you use knowledge and power you had better make sure you use them in alignment with God's creation and not against it or for yourself.
ReplyDeleteThe chaff is truly getting separated from the wheat now.
ReplyDeleteIt seems that is the process at work, a spiritual winnowing. There will be more tests to come as the ore of humanity is refined.
ReplyDelete