Some wanting a #childfreemillennial in an ‘overpopulated’ world

In the late 1970s and early ’80s by the central government of China there was an official program initiated to restrict the amount of children, reduce the growth rate of China’s enormous population, making that today there are not enough youngsters to pay for the older generation. There were even forced abortions and sterilizations (the latter primarily of women).

The one-child policy produced consequences beyond the goal of reducing population growth. Most notably, the country’s overall sex ratio became skewed toward males—roughly between 3 and 4 percent more males than females.

It seems now several youngsters also have preference not to have children. They seem to forget that when they would be over 60 there shall be no children able for them to take care. The consequence of not wanting children is not providing a generation who shall be at work whilst the elders would be retired, so that there would not be money to provide for those retired people. Something which has become a huge problem in China.

We wonder if those who now say it will be great to have a child-free life still would say that when they passed the age to have children. shall they still say

“You’ve slept in, woken up to a tidy home, it’s quiet, and you’ve got the rest of the day to potter around, no interruptions. A child-free life is a good life.”

when they find themselves in that quiet home where they are just with themselves and nobody to continue their family generation.

The above message floats over a video that captures a scene of serene domesticity. Posted on TikTok a few days ago, it has already racked up more than 100,000 views.

The video’s creator, “Danni ‘childfree’ Duncan”, who seems mainly to be concerned about his own freedom, is among those who have been able to start a movement under their generation which clearly has decided not to have children. That movement even has its own hashtags (#childfreebychoice and #nothavingkids).

One could easily think that all this is a whim of short duration. But we rather have the impression that these young people do not really realise what their childless life might be in a few years.

However, we obviously cannot ignore or overlook this movement, because it involves not just a few but thousands of women all over the western world.

This craze is just one small part of a wider, and highly significant, demographic issue: across much of the world, birth rates are plummeting.

On Nov 15 this year, the global population is expected to reach eight billion. The United Nations predicts it could grow to about 8.5 billion by 2030 before peaking at 10.4 billion in the 2080s. After that – and some predict it will happen 20 years earlier – the world’s population will start to fall.

Some on the other hand argue that we here in the West should curb births because in the poorer countries, far too many children are coming into this world and thus will overpopulate it. In certain countries they thought lots of children would die because of Covid or because of global warming disasters. In the industrialised countries there was a growth of babies born.

“About nine months after the pandemic, we see what we call a ‘baby bump,’”

said Martha Bailey, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, and one of the authors of a study from the National Bureau of Economic Research.

After more than a year, lots of people having been in lockdown, in those countries with economic unemployment we could notice more children being born than normally in the same period over a year. In several countries, lots of 80+ and 90+ people died from the Coronavirus, but still, we can see that the number of 70-79 year-olds increased a remarkable percentage.

We should be aware that usually in countries where conditions for survival are more difficult that more children will be born there, but also more deaths will occur. In the West, similarly, with improved living conditions and a reduction in child deaths, we have had a reduction in births.

The few decades of projected global population growth that remain will be driven by a small number of undeveloped countries, many in the Sahel region of Africa. In countries like Niger, which has the world’s highest fertility rate, economic conditions remain so harsh that women continue to have an average of six or more children in order to survive.

In contrast, for most of the rest of the world – including Britain – it’s a baby bust. And it’s happening now. According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), women born in 1975 had on average just 1.92 children. This compared with the average 2.08 children produced by their mothers’ generation (taken as women born in 1949) and is far below the 2.1 children needed for the existing population to replace itself. For a country it is accepted that, to maintain stability in a country, an overall total fertility rate of 2.1 is needed, assuming no immigration or emigration occurs. A total fertility rate (TFR) of 2.1 is known as the replacement rate. Generally speaking, when the TFR is greater than 2.1, the population in a given area will increase, and when it is less than 2.1, the population in a given area will eventually decrease, though it may take some time because factors such as age structure, emigration, or immigration must be considered.

Last year, the French were urged to have more children after the number of births in the country slumped to its lowest level since the Second World War, with 1.83 children born per woman, compared with 2.02 more than a decade earlier. The birth rate in Spain also dropped to a historic low last year, hitting just 1.19 children born to every woman – a 29 per cent fall compared with a decade earlier.

And in parts of Asia the situation is even worse. South Korea’s fertility rate sank to its lowest ever in 2020, a meagre 0.84 children per woman, giving the country the lowest birth rate in the world.

If, on average, women give birth to 2.1 children and these children survive to the age of 15, any given woman will have replaced herself and her partner upon death.

If young people have now decided not to have children, it means that in a few years’ time, we will indeed have a reduced number of people in several countries but there will also be a very ageing population for which not enough young people will be able to care, a problem China is now facing.

Europe and the U.S.A are already facing a similar problem too because although fertility rates remain well above the replacement rate in many parts of the world, the global TFR has declined significantly since 1970. The decline may be so drastic that populations are expected to halve by 2100 in more than 20 countries, including Spain, Portugal and Japan.

While some may think that humans will have to move to other planets due to overpopulation, some also realise that there will be an emerging population reduction. Elon Musk, the billionaire Tesla chief executive, has called it

“one of the biggest risks to civilisation”.

But why, when living standards and freedoms have never been higher, are women across the globe having so few children or rejecting the concept of motherhood altogether? And what if anything can policymakers do to reverse the trend?

What we should be concerned about is why young people, if not out of selfishness, do not want to bear children. Is it because those twens consider children an economic drain caused by housing, education cost and other costs.

Economic stresses and spiralling house prices mean more couples will feel they can’t afford children,

explains Lyman Stone, chief information officer at Demographic Intelligence.

To promote “no children” may also just be an excuse to avoid such an obligation to share each other with a third party and if they find they can no longer have children, hide it behind their so-called “no children policy”. It looks like many youngsters do not want to invest time or money in any other beings in their relationship. Most of them want leisure time, and time to focus on their own well-being and development.

The reverse of the leisurist coin is the “workist” mindset, in which they value their job very highly as a source of meaning and purpose in their life. Getting higher in work has become a very important factor, and that goal of reaching a high position is considered much more important than having children.

Like leisurism, it is not hugely compatible with parenthood. More than one study has suggested a correlation between workist attitudes – which Stone says are prevalent among a growing share of adults – and lower fertility.

A survey last year by the Pew Research Center in the US found a rising share of childless American adults said they were unlikely to ever start a family. Some 44 per cent of non-parents aged 18 to 49 fell into this category, up from 37 per cent in 2018. While some cited financial reasons, climate change or their lack of a partner as a reason, the majority (56 per cent) said they probably wouldn’t have children because they just didn’t want to.

It’s a group that’s becoming more vocal. In 2015 and 2017, the NotMom Summit – billed as one of the world’s first major conferences for women without children – was held in Cleveland, Ohio. In 2021, Erin Spurling, a British woman in her mid-30s, created the Childfree Lounge, an online community for women without children.

Many of those no-children lovers say they love their freedom, spontaneity and peace and quiet. They often also value time alone or just with a partner or even want to change partners regularly.

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Find also to read

Child-free by choice: The birth rate crisis gripping the West

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Additional reading

1. How the pandemic created an unexpected “baby bump”
2. Welfare state and Poverty in Flanders #4 The Family pact
3. Ecological economics in the stomach #3 Food and Populace
4. How to look back at Cop26
5. What effect does population have on climate change?
6. Overpopulation not the cause of overusing our earth

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Related

1. Boomers miss the boat: Qld population shift leaves two age groups stranded
2. A Small Circle in Asia Contains More Than Half the World’s Population | HowStuffWorks
3. Book review: ‘Letter to the American Church’
4. Sexual Selection In Men
5. Special Release on 2020 CPH, Municipality of Cabusao7
6. Top 10 Most Populated Countries in Europe #shorts #facts – YouTube 채널: Swapna Ideas
7. Is Large Population a Problem?

Passover 7 days of meditation opening a way to conversion

Immanuel Verbondskind looks back at the lockdown period and the impact on the small Jeshuaist community and some Jewish communities. For Jews it has even been more difficult to undergo the lockdown, because many do have no television or internet and have been in a real-time strict isolation, not being able to have worship moments with brethren and sisters.

Those times of seclusion and restriction could be called a ‘reflection time‘ or retreat, where one had enough time to think about faith and religion. On the 15th of April this year (2022) it was 14 Nisan, the evening to remember the liberation of God’s People from the enslavement in Egypt, but also to remember the gathering of Jeshua and his disciples, where at the last supper Jesus talked about the blood being shed for the liberation of all people.

In Wintertime, many Christians celebrate Christmas and have some holiday, where they also can think about the light that came in the darkness. For true Christians and for Jews, 14-22 Nisan is the most sacred period of the religious year, where is remembered how the Elohim brought to light in the dark night by passing over the houses where there was the blood of the lamb, giving the opportunity for the Jews to flee their world of slavery in Egypt.

True Christians with Jeshuaists remember also the Passover lamb Jeshua (Jesus Christ) and show their gratitude for the salvation by the Grace of God, Him accepting that ransom Jesus was willing to pay for all people.

 

Since Friday night Jeshuaists and Christadelphians, like other true Christians, since some long time of isolation because of lockdown, could at some places get together (in restricted form) and make connections with other brothers and sisters, either in place or via the internet streaming. Many, the previous time in isolation got lots of opportunities to think about the value of such a connection or ‘fraternity‘. They had enough time in the lockdown period to think about their religious affiliation, and some also about their need to go over into a conversion. Because the last few months, more signs could be seen that we are entering a new period in the Time of Ages or in God’s Plan.

Because of those “Signs of the Times” there has come a certain pressure to know what to do and which direction to go. Now many more ask themselves who shall be part of the things going to be there after the big battle or great tribullation.

Several people have wondered in those Covid times if it would not be better to become part of a community. There also have been Jews by race or non-believing and non-practising Jews, who started to change ideas about the world and its Creator. The Jews from Middle European origin also started wondering by which denomination of Jews they would best join. Those people living here in Belgium, France, Holland and Germany wonder if they would convert to Judaism, if they then would be accepted as a Jew.

Anti-Zionists often claim that Ashkenazi Jews are white imposters, fake Jews who are entirely descended from European converts to Judaism. This is completely rebutted by genetic studies which have proven a Middle Eastern patrilineal origin for Ashkenazi Jewry. However, when the Anti-Zionists make the Apartheid accusation are Jews suddenly a single racial group. The notion that Jews generally constitute a racial group is Nazi in origin and is at the core of the Anti-Jewish Apartheid libel. {Why Many Ashkenazi Jews “Look” European}

There is a long history of the racialization of Jews. There have also been religious and non-religious Jews in several countries.

Racialization of Jews have a long pedigree in the history of Anti-Semitism. Racialization of Jews was practiced in Spain against the Anusim (“Marranos”), Jews who were involuntarily converted to Christianity during the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492. Racialization of Jews in Germany became prominent already in the second half of the 19th century when religious Anti-Semitism (Anti-Judaism) was increasingly supplanted by racializing Anti-Semitism. The third phase is the current racialization of Jews by the extreme left.

Racialization of Jews is intended to paint Jews as “genetic aliens” in a certain country (e.g. Spain, Germany or Israel). Of course painting any other people as “genetic aliens” is not socially acceptable beyond Nazi circles. But Anti-Semitic opponents of Israel systematically engage in discourse to stigmatize the Jews in the land of Israel as genetic aliens despite Ashkenazim, Sephardim and Mizrahim patrilineally being very very genetically similar to Palestinians due to common historical origin, with the genetic divergence accounted for by historical conversions to Judaism and by immigration to the land of Israel from other parts of the Middle East during the Islamic era.

Ashkenazim, Sephardim and Mizrahim are more similar to each other than to any other populations and are predominantly of Middle Eastern origin in genetically confirming the historical narrative of ancient Israelite origin. The Anti-Semitic accusation according to which Ashkenazi Jews are exclusively descended from European converts to Judaism despite that part of Ashkenazi ancestry accounting only for only 30% of the Ashkenazi gene pool with the remaining 70% being Middle Eastern in origin is used by Anti-Semites such as Palestinian-American professor of Columbia University Joseph Massad to libelously paint Israeli Jews as “European colonizers” and against the scientific consensus denying that most modern Israeli Jews are Levantine returnees to Israel. The false claim that Ashkenazi Jews are “European colonizers” is in fact one of the main claims involved in the Anti-Semitic racialization of Ashkenazi Jewry. {Jews are a Nation of Color}

After the covid pandemic several feel a greater need to come to connect with one or another Jewish or Jeshuaist denomination. Having been on their own, in their own living room, with nobody else to share the faith, was too lonely. Some, who were previously connected with a shul, lost contact but also interest to go to a prayer and study house. Though others have now, even more than ever before, felt the need to be connected to other fellow believers.

This Passover is for several an essential time to consider the way how God handled His People and how, also today, He is still willing to guide them through the desert of this (non-religious) world.

Some people take time to think about separation and isolation, and look at the lessons we get from the Scrolls that teach that the priests were deliberately separated from everyone else. They even couldn’t go to family funerals, like many could not in the Corona crisis. Their job was to remain separate from the people they served, which may sound strange. But their goal was to maintain their close connection with the Most High in purity or holiness.

To remain separate at all times isn’t healthy for anyone. All over the world many learned that all too well the last two years. this year many felt a great joy they were able again to come together with some friends to do like the apostles did, following up the permanent ordinance… a celebration for all of God’s people throughout all time, remembering Passover.

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Find to read:

Times of seclusion, restriction, liberation, connection, religious affiliation and conversion

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Preceding

Measure of loneliness whilst time drags

Adar 6, Matan Torah remembering the giving of Torah

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Additional reading

1. Jewish diaspora
2. December a joyful time for many
3. Lenten Season and our minds and hearts the spiritual temple in which God seeks to live
4. Remember the day
5. Ransom for all
6. A perfect life, obedient death, and glorious resurrection
7. Redemption #4 The Passover Lamb
8. Redemption #7 Christ alive in the faithful
9. Atonement And Fellowship 8/8
10. A strange thing might happen when you come under Christ
11. Seeing or not seeing and willingness to find God
12. Falling figures for identifying Christians
13. What is happening in America to religion and to the language of faith
14. Who is a Jew?
15. Counting sands and stars
16. We Count. We Just Weren’t Counted.
17. Judaism and Jeshuaism a religion of the future
18. Great tribulation and Armageddon
19. Armageddon or the Great Tribulation
20. Ashkenazi Jews are extremely inbred

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Related

1. Passover Blessings – April 15th through 22nd, 2014
2. Proselytism
3. Jesus Became Our Passover Lamb
4. How Jews look to non-Jews – Part 1
5. Going back to shul
6. Fighting ignorance

Mandatory register of healthcare professionals in Spain who are conscientious objectors

The equalities minister of Spain, Irene Montero, has proposed the creation of a mandatory register of healthcare professionals who are conscientious objectors. This already exists for euthanasia.

The General Council of Official Medical Colleges (CGCOM) has declared that

“Forcing the conscience of physicians in order to expand the number of physicians available in all communities is, in addition to being unconstitutional, a bad solution, which from the perspective of the medical profession would be considered unacceptable, illegal, and unjust.”

Irene Montero, would like to see abortion decriminalised and says that

“the right of physicians to conscientious objection cannot be above women’s right to decide.”

A dangerous turning point – Earth facing the collapse of everything

Despite so much evidence to the contrary, “experts” deny there is any threat to the world’s ecology.
Study Disputes That Earth is in a ‘Climate Emergency’

Brietbart 07-Feb-21 by Delingpole

“There is no “climate emergency”, according to a study for the Global Warming Policy Foundation by independent scientist Dr Indur Goklany.
Dr Goklany concludes:

“While climate may have changed for the warmer:  Most extreme weather phenomena have not become extreme, more deadly, or more destructive.  Empirical evidence directly contradicts claims that increased carbon dioxide has reduced human wellbeing. In fact, human wellbeing has never been higher.

Whatever detrimental effects warming and higher carbon dioxide may have had on terrestrial species and ecosystems, they have been swamped by the contribution of fossil fuels to increased biological activity. This has halted, and turned around, reductions in habitat loss”.

The report would make hugely depressing reading for all environmental activists — even the Pope – if it was
infallibly accurate – which it is not!
Dr Goklany says there is little to scare us:

Yes, there will be more hot days, but fewer cold days. Oh? Where?

In the Arctic and the Antarctic of course – silly!

*There will be less tornados – #in Great Britain?
* There will be less floods, less frequent and smaller!
# Perhaps Goklany slept through last year, but there were half a dozen cyclones causing death by floods, drowning, landslides and inundation from January to December 2020 throughout the Southern Hemisphere!
*There will be less droughts and less wildfires.

# When does this begin? So far so bad in California and many parts of Australia. In October 1917 intense, deadly fires killed 41 people in Spain and Portugal, and in 2020 fires affected Sweden and Northern France as well as Italy and Spain where wildfires are not indigenous!

In 2020 for months, Siberia has been experiencing extreme heat due to a combination of persistent sunny weather and human-caused climate change. In addition to producing Arctic temperatures that cracked 100 degrees in June, the heat has fueled an enormous outbreak of wildfires, including fires on Siberia’s tundra……

Breitbart News Desk February 16, 2021:

The deep freeze that knocked out power in Texas spread across the country this week. The agency that manages power in fourteen states from Texas through Oklahoma and all the way up to North Dakota declared a state of emergency and ordered utilities to initiate rolling blackouts to cut electrical demand and stabilize the grid.
Meanwhile, a lot of fracking for oil has been brought to a halt by the freeze. Twenty percent of the U.S. oil production has gone offline, and some of the biggest refineries have been shuttered. The big problem is that the Texas oil kits are not set up for arctic weather. Up in North Dakota the extraction process is winterized, but that’s not the case farther south. Even something as simple as picking up oil in a truck to move to a refinery can become impossible when your roads are iced over, there are no snow ploughs or road salt, and no one has snow tires.
Crude oil production is down by more than four million barrels a day, twice what was reported a day earlier. Prior to the cold crisis, the U.S. was producing around 11 million barrels a day.
The Permian Basin, America’s largest oil field, has been hard hit. Production in the area that straddles western Texas and
New Mexico is down between 65 percent and 80 percent.

The melting Arctic has been watched closely by countries like China and Russia who are looking to take advantage of the increasingly available shipping lanes. But scientists have lamented the latest milestone, and are sounding the alarm about further environmental degradation due to increased shipping activity.

It is a very dangerous turning point

says Associate Professor Nengye Liu, an expert in international polar law at Macquarie University.

In Revelation 6:8-9 we can see that “Global Warming” is the result of the 4th Vial of God’s Wrath –

   8 And the fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun; and power was given unto him to scorch men with fire. 9  And men were scorched with great heat, and blasphemed the name of God, which hath power over these plagues: and they repented not to give him glory.

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‘Too late’:

David Attenborough warns Earth faces ‘total collapse’

Nick Whigham ·Assistant News Editor | Yahoo News| 24.2.20-21

The world’s most famous naturalist has issued a dire proclamation about the state of the planet, warning Earth is facing “the collapse of everything” if we continue on our current path.

94-year-old Sir David Attenborough warned overnight that climate change is the biggest security threat modern humans have ever faced while addressing the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) session on climate, saying it was “already too late” to stem the diabolical impacts of global warming.

   “There is no going back, no matter what we do now, it’s too late to avoid climate change and the poorest, the most vulnerable, those with the least security, are now certain to suffer,”

he said.

“And if the natural world can no longer support the most basic of our needs, then much of the rest of civilisation will quickly break down.”

Arthur Wright, Kallangur, Brisbane

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Related

1. Global Climate Change. Overstated or Understated?
2. Earth Is In Serious Trouble If We Don’t Make Major Changes. Period.
3. Stop the depletion of the earth
4. Earth had its coolest February since 2014
5. Climate Change Responsibility
6. The Triple Crisis: Coronavirus is increasingly linked to global warming and remaking the economy, call it a socialist trifecta
7. Sea-level rise caused by climate change> LTE Under Consideration: Re: March 1 Article, “Was climate change to blame?”
8. Scientists stunned to discover plants beneath mile-deep Greenland ice
9. New Permian Methane Leakage Study Confirms What We Already Knew
10. Routine Gas Flaring Is Wasteful, Polluting and Undermeasured
11. Rare Lizard’s Habitat May Open Up
12. “Arctic air freezes Permian shale fields”… Fake news?
13. Texas Oil Giant ExxonMobil Sells Some North Sea Drilling, Exploration Sites Amid Muted Oil Prices
14. Clean Fuel Opens Door for Sustainability
15. The two gravest threats to humanity
16. 60,000 Belgians take government to court over alleged climate inaction

Coronavirus disinfectant use alarms scientists

Everywhere a lot of people want to use a lot of disinfectants, antibacterial products, Dettol, Alcohol, a.o..

Once people were confronted with the seriousness of the possible spread of the new 6th coronavirus they wanted to disinfect the surroundings. China, South Korea, France, Spain, and several other countries thought they best would be to spray copious amounts of disinfectant throughout densely populated urban areas. Fleets of trucks, drones, and even robots doused streets, parks, playgrounds, and other outdoor public spaces with virus-killing chemicals.

On television, we could see that in several countries government people even went into the houses spraying loads of chemicals.

China was the first country, in January 2020, to start sanitizing its cities — and as soon as it did, reports of poisoned animals started coming in. In February, an investigation by the Chongqing Forestry Bureau in Chongqing, a huge city in southwestern China, found that at least 135 animals across 17 species — including wild boars, Siberian weasels, and blackbirds — had died after exposure to disinfectants, according to Chinese news agency Xinhua.

Disinfectant ingredients, mostly sodium hypochlorite, chlorine, and bleach, are “acutely toxic to both terrestrial and aquatic animals,” says Dongming Li, professor of ecology at Hebei Normal University and co-author of the Environmental Research analysis, which was based solely on the Chongqing Forestry Bureau’s investigation. Li and his colleagues did not personally examine the dead animals to confirm what had killed them.

Even so, the animals’ deaths are concerning evidence, Li believes, that

“the overuse of disinfectants may contaminate the habitats of urban wildlife.” (Read more about how animals are moving into cities.)

Li’s team is now calling on world leaders to regulate the dispersal of disinfectants in urban areas, which they say is being done without input from the scientific community.

Furthermore, we also want to warn people antibacterial products are of no use against viruses, and an overdose of such products kills also the necessary and good bacteria we do need, whilst it makes the bad bacteria resistant. That will give a lot of problems in the treatment and prevention of bacterial infections.

Antibiotics have been used since ancient times, but the last few years there was such an increase that many bacteria managed to resist those articles. The World Health Organization has classified antimicrobial resistance as a widespread

“serious threat [that] is no longer a prediction for the future, it is happening right now in every region of the world and has the potential to affect anyone, of any age, in any country”. {Antimicrobial resistance: global report on surveillance(PDF). The World Health Organization. April 2014. ISBN978-92-4-156474-8. Retrieved 13 June 2016.}

People should be fully aware that chemical disinfectants kill viruses, bacteria, and other microorganisms by destroying their cell walls and damaging their proteins through oxidation. If inhaled or ingested by people or animals, these substances can irritate or corrode the mucous membranes of the respiratory and digestive tracts. In extreme cases, exposure can lead to death.

We also may not forget that using all those disinfectants, also by washing our hands with such products they all come into our water system. Christopher J. Schell, professor of urban ecology at the University of Washington, in Tacoma, ways:

“If you put toxicants into a system, they are going to travel through the food web,”

While sanitizing frequently touched surfaces can help reduce the spread of the coronavirus, scientists now know that most people get the disease by breathing in droplets in the air from an infected person and not so much by coming into contact with a contaminated surface.

That’s why, in May, the World Health Organization advised against using disinfectants outdoors, both because streets and sidewalks

“are not considered as routes of infection for COVID-19”

and because spraying such chemicals

“can be noxious for people’s health and cause eye, respiratory or skin irritation or damage.”

The WHO didn’t mention the harm to wildlife as well, but many wildlife rangers and animal scientists warn people of the danger of those products contaminating the environment and endangering wildlife. Though with that knowledge there are still several countries which continue to spray disinfectants in public areas.

“The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has caused public fear in many countries. Many health agencies around the world may spray more disinfectants to ensure the virus is fully killed and to alleviate their worries of viral infection,”

Li says.

Politicians who dare to take the right measures, demanding restrictions to where people go, are not risking their popularity and therefore ordered going on the streets with spraying trucks or spraying agents, or drones, and even robots dousing streets, parks, playgrounds, and other outdoor public spaces with virus-killing chemicals, is more visible for many, who then would think their government does it best. Though it would be much better and safer for the environment if people would be encouraged to stay home.

“Rather than indiscriminately spraying high volumes of disinfectants in biodiversity-rich areas such as urban parks, wetlands, and green spaces,”

Dongming Li says,

“it would be preferable to suspend human activities in such places.”

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Please find also to read:

1. Why antibodies may not be the key to beating coronavirus
2. Why COVID-19 will end up harming the environment
3. Antarctica is the last continent without COVID-19. Scientists want to keep it that way.
4. How Wild Animals Are Hacking Life in the City

When 1 699 676 people worldwide are infected and the number of deaths had totalled 102 734 in 210 countries or territories

Thirty years old Gordon Bland who is a seminary student at Regent University, in his second year has a website called Agape Ministry on which he writes in his blogarticle Pandemic: Be Calm During the Storm:

We are living in a time that is certainly not the norm that we are used to, but is this unprecedented? If it is unprecedented, then is it totally unique or should our actions and emotions be similar to any other catastrophic event? The new Coronavirus that has spread globally, Covid-19, has caused over 13,000 deaths and over 300,000 illnesses. This is something that is affecting nearly every person in some manner, but is fear appropriate? Perhaps more importantly, is fear ever appropriate?

As of April 11, 2020, the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) had been confirmed in around 210 countries or territories. The virus had infected 1,699,676 people worldwide, and the number of deaths had totalled 102,734. The most severely affected countries include the U.S., Italy, and Spain.

Lots of people have signs of anxiety and fear that unseen enemy that had not previously been identified in humans. In February 2020, the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses and the World Health Organization announced official names for both the virus and the disease it causes: SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19, respectively. The name of the disease is derived from the words corona, virus, and disease, while the number 19 represents the year that it emerged.

There have been leaders of states who first downplayed or minimalised this virus as an ordinary virus resembling that of the common cold, with those infected often experiencing fever, coughing, and shortness of breath, and called it a “Chinese disease”, wanting to have people to believe it was the Chinese infecting others.

Soon that horrible virus infected the USA, where there are still people not wanting to see the importance of staying at home and when coming into public to stay far away enough from each other, on the 11th of April there were already 502 876 cases, leaving Spain far behind with its 158 273 registered infected people.
On the 11th of April over 376,339 people had recovered from the disease, while there had been 102,734 deaths.

Gordon Bland wonders:

We are living in a time that is certainly not the norm that we are used to, but is this unprecedented? If it is unprecedented, then is it totally unique or should our actions and emotions be similar to any other catastrophic event? {Pandemic: Be Calm During the Storm}

The world has had more very dangerous diseases bringing fear over this globe. One of the most devastating pandemics was the Black Death (also known as The Plague or Black Plague), which killed an estimated 75–200 million people in the 14th century. Other notable pandemics include the 1918 influenza pandemic (Spanish flu). Among the ten major virus outbreaks in the last 50 years, the Marburgvirus, genus of viruses in family Filovirida, caused severe disease in humans and other primates. One species has been described, Marburg marburgvirus (formerly Lake Victoria marburgvirus), which is represented by two viruses, Ravn virus (RAVV) and Marburg virus (MARV). The zoonotic disease that is characterized by high fever known as Marburg virus disease (MVD), with a malaise, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, skin rash, and hemorrhage (bleeding) gave a fatality rate as high as 80 to 90 percent.

How the Nipah virus spreads

Nipah, a type of RNA virus in the genus Henipavirus, followed in 1986 with a fatality percentage of 77,6.

Ebola, in full Ebola virus disease, formerly called Ebola hemorrhagic fever, contagious disease caused by a virus of the family Filoviridae that is responsible for a severe and often fatal viral hemorrhagic fever.

In comparison, the recent novel coronavirus, originating from the Chinese city of Wuhan, had a fatality rate of 2.2 percent as of January 31, 2020, whilst the so much feared Ebola in 1976 had ‘only’ a fatality rate of 40,4%.  As of early February 2020, the virus has spread to 24 countries with over 40 thousand confirmed cases.

The present virus came for many as a surprise. People should know it is because so many countries took such drastic measures there are no more casualties. Looking at the many deaths and so many illnesses. Bland wonders if this:

is something that is affecting nearly every person in some manner, but is fear appropriate? Perhaps more importantly, is fear ever appropriate? {Pandemic: Be Calm During the Storm}

It can be said it is normal that people are afraid for something they can not control; This time the world faces a pandemic they have a lot of difficulties to keep under control. Dangerous leaders of States, like Donald Trump and Boris Johnson, brought their own population in danger and made that we now can see more deaths than there should have been with the knowledge scientists have to battle this disease.

we should not disregard actions to preserve life such as “social distancing.” We can learn from Jesus’ concern in the boat that He knew there was no reason to fear the storm for He was aware of the Father’s plan for His life. He knew it was not the time for His death. Instead, we can see that the storm was a trial for the disciples so that their faith may be tested. Jesus, with His sovereign control over all, controlled the storm and used it as a teaching moment regarding faith. {Pandemic: Be Calm During the Storm}

We all should know that it is God Who decides when our time to go comes. But we should not tempt Him by shouting we should not fear this diseases because we have God on our side. The Adonai has given the world people with brains, who can study diseases and can warn and help others to stay safe. I other people shall ignore those warnings and think all those scientists are fools they shall have to bear the consequences.

Bland urges you to

not sin through disregarding the life the Lord has given us. Do not take actions that cause you to endanger others, but instead, do what you can to ensure others are safe and provided for. We are to love our neighbor (Mark 12:31), so live your lives as such. It is not loving to needlessly risk other’s health for the sake of vain pleasure. Similarly, to disregard your own health is to sin against the Lord. If God gave us the gift of life, how foolish are we to live in a way to put it in danger? If a child is given a gift, is it not disrespectful to the giver of the gift to destroy it? How much more disrespect do we show to the Creator of life if we treat it as something to disregard. {Pandemic: Be Calm During the Storm}

Two days ago we could see how in White Rusland (White Russia) or Belarus, formerly known by its Russian name Byelorussia or Belorussia, for Good Friday people all gathered in churches and came to kiss a grand cross lying in the aisle. An ideal way for the virus to transmit from one person to another. Other pictures also entered in our living room from the United States of America, where so-called Christians said they had nothing to worry because they are Christians and God is with them, protecting them, and if their time would be there to die than it would be so. According to Pew Most White Evangelicals Don’t Think COVID-19 is a Medical Crisis. Several Protestants and Roman Catholics were calling their members to ignore the request for distancing and to come to the Easter celebrations. Also in Europe there are people who find the Easter egg hunt such an important family tradition that families should come together with their children in the houses of their grandparents to search for eggs. (Naturally one can wonder what eggs have to do with the death and resurrection of Christ!?!)
Such people ignoring the scientists their advice to stay at home and to avoid contact with others, are bringing other people in danger, but also themselves.

Many people are indeed showing respect for life by taking measures to protect the elderly and immune-compromised. This type of concern is something demonstrating how to love our neighbor, but how much more important that we show the same love for the unborn, who are but at the beginning of life. {Pandemic: Be Calm During the Storm}

We should not forget

The church has survived many pandemics like Covid-19. In fact, some were much worse, like the Black Death that killed 75 million deaths in Europe in the 14th Century. In 1918, the church saw the Spanish Flu ravage the world population, yet we are still here today. I will not say we should not have some concern, because we have a duty to both ourselves and others, but we shall not live in fear. Trust upon the Lord for his provision and protection. We will get through this together, all the whilst praising the Lord. If not, I’ll see you in Heaven, and we will praise the Lord! No matter what happens, we can have everlasting joy because of Jesus Christ, so that we may praise the Lord. I pray everybody will remain in good health, or recover quickly. God bless you all. {Pandemic: Be Calm During the Storm}

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Preceding

CoViD-19 warnings

Anxiety Management During Pandemic Days~

Hope on the Horizon: Pandemic Anxiety Management II~

Pandemic Anxiety Busters~

Mel Brooks saying “go home” to Max Brooks

Christian Response to the Covid-19 Pandemic

So many being afraid – reason enough to step in the boat with Christ

“In The Midst Of The Storm”

Love in the Time of Corona

Why are you afraid?

Fear in your own heart or outside of it

Our life depending on faith

If you keep your faith and trust in God

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Find also to read

1. 2014 Health and welfare
2. 2015 Health and Welfare
3. The unseen enemy
4. Making deeper cuts than some terrorist attacks of the near past
5. Under-reporting the total number of coronavirus cases
6. In denial, Donald Trump continues to insist that nothing serious is at hand and everything is in control
7. India affected by Corona
8. Coronavirus on March 11 declared a global pandemic on March 31 affecting more than 177 countries
9. José Antonio Vergara talking in Esperanto about the outbreak of the epidemic
10. Margaret Zaleski-Zamenho from Paris telling in Esperanto about the situation in France
11. Using fears of the deadly coronavirus
12. Europe in Chaos for a Pandemic
13. Only a few days left before 14 Nisan
14. Today’s thought “A night of watching” (February 5)
15. Catholics facing a totally different Holy Week
16. According to Pew Most White Evangelicals Don’t Think COVID-19 is a Medical Crisis
17. Not able to see Jesus working wonders
18. Observance of the Lord’s Evening Meal
19. Christian values, traditions, real or false stories, pure and upright belief
20. When Belonging to the escaped ones gathering in Jesus name

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Further Related

1. Holy Lament, Holy Suffering
2. The Planet is On Fire and We’re Chilling Out — Mental Illness and the COVID-19 Crisis
3. Is this over yet?
4. Social Distancing Works, But What’s Next?
5. Can COVID-19 Be Our Catalyst to a More Equitable Future?
6. COVID-19 Journal (Entry 12)
7. The Stir Crazy Files – Episode 19
8. 20,000: US death toll overtakes Italy’s as Midwest braces
9. ‘Do not take this virus as a joke’: 25-year-old L.A. COVID-19 survivor shares warning after brush with death
10. A Thought for Easter Sunday
11. Epictetus: What is in our control?
12. Facing the Coronavirus
13. We’re All Behind Together
14. It’s senseless to attack the people who are protecting us from COVID-19: López-Gatell
15. Crazed Corona Chatter 2: Survival Mode, Disengage!
16. Quarantine YA Recommendations
17. On Easter
18. The Wind of Prayer in Battle
19. Let Us See the Light
20. ‘We’re Catching It Double.’ Amid Coronavirus Lockdowns, Gun Violence Continues to Plague Chicago
21. Coronavirus: contain and delay phases Explained – BBC News
22. #trumpcovidfails more bedbuggery than features, Bret Stephens decides bigly government sucks
23. kids and coronavirus, three weeks in
24. COVID-19 Chronicles: Day 26
25. Pope: Easter gives hope in our ‘darkest hour,’ despite fear
26. Headlines promise Australia’s on the ‘cusp’ of defeating coronavirus. We’re not and it’s too soon to relax restrictions
27. Easter is coming
28. Isolation
29. Gorgeous Rendition of Rise Again by the Choir of Women Physicians
30. The Grim Reaper
31. Today was full of panic
32. staying connected during quarantine
33. Update: Wilmington Now Has 155 Active Positive COVID-19 Cases — 65 In Community, 73 At Advinia, 17 At CareOne
34. Couple celebrates milestone anniversary while keeping social distancing in mind
35. The Cottages, Fayetteville PD enforce social distancing
36. S . O . S . ~ Move Your Body
37. Today I am going for a walk
38. Words for the Way IV: Pastoral Notes for locked down times. Easter Sunday Who will Roll the Stone Away?
39. Covid
40. Draw in & Breathe – For me
41. Easter 2020
42. Easter Greetings from Mrs Daffodil
43. Sew it Begins….Sew It is Finished
44. ‘Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread’
45. Easter Vigil
46. The Longest Night of My Life
47. Dak Prescott And Zeke Need To Be Suspended Until (At Least) 2022 For Violating Social Distancing Laws
48. Dispatches from Covid-ville: Sunday is Coming
49. Easter is coming

Inquisition also bad for Jews

A Catholic bishop granting plenary indulgences for the public during times of calamity. Note the almsgiving in the background. Wall Fresco by Italian Artist Lorenzo Lotto, Suardi, Italy, circa 1524.

The Roman Catholic Pope in the 1200s was annoyed that there where people who called themselves Christians but did not want to worship Jesus as their god. Those true Christians said there was only One God, Who is one, and which was not the god of the Catholic Church but the God of Israel. This was a blow in the face of the Roman Catholic Church which also could see a lot of money not coming in their hands because those Christians who refused to worship the Trinity also said that people paid for their sins by their death and not by ecclesiastical indulgences.

The Pope not pleased with those lay preachers who could undermine his establishment got enough clergy interested to battle those who had other thoughts than they. He established the “Holy Inquisition Against Depraved Heresy” to deal with breakaway ‘Christian sects’. At first it was a judicial procedure set to be able to judge all sorts of people who did not want to go with the Roman Catholic Church. But later an institution was established by the papacy and, sometimes, by secular governments to combat heresy and to act like we now see Al Qaeda, ISIS/ISIL or Daesh, Boko Haram and other fundamentalist Islamic groups to press what they believe would be the only true faith everybody had to have.

First being relatively powerless, as secular rulers, suspicious of Papal meddling in their own internal affairs, did not allow it access to their countries, in a period of more than 200 years, very few heretics were burned at the stake. In 1481, at the peak of the Ottoman power, however, after extracting a promise from the Pope that the Inquisition would remain under the Crown’s control, thus ensuring that confiscated assets of heretics would revert to the throne, Ferdinand and Isabella established the Inquisition in Seville (Reconquista). While it is commonly assumed that the Inquisition was brought to Spain out of a concern that Jews were trying to influence conversos to leave the Christian fold, one prominent historian is of the opinion that by 1481 Jewish consciousness was virtually nonexistent among the conversos, and that Jews did not attempt any such outreach. Rather, he believes, the Inquisition was an outgrowth of the attitudes of Spain’s Old Christian population. In the words of one Spanish historian,

“The Inquisition was a genuine expression of the soul of the Spanish people.”

When we hear about the Inquisition we most often do not think of the Jews, with good reason, because most damage was done to sincere godly people who had taken Jesus as the son of God and their saviour and not as their god. Though the horrible action taken by the Roman Catholics, undertaken in the twelfth century and following centuries to find “Christian heretics” who would be punished or killed, had her eyes also set on the Jewish community. Eventually, Jews too were open to such charges of heresy, simply for being Jewish; and torture was routinely used to extract “confessions.”

These coming weeks we also remember how this coming up time to Pesach was a very dangerous time for Jews, because they could be caught cleaning their houses and linen and buying vegetables before Pesach, blessing children without making the sign of the cross, fasting on Yom Kippur, and refraining from work on the Sabbath.

Interestingly enough, Jews who never converted to Christianity were not under the jurisdiction of the Inquisition, and could practice their religion freely and openly. It was only conversos who were considered heretics for forsaking the Christian creed and practising Judaism. Worse for the Catholic Church was that some of those converts did not become a Catholic but accepted rabbi Jeshua as the Messiah, the son of God but not a god son, like the Roman Catholics did. Those having gone in the water to become a Baptist, became with that group a target for prosecution, according to the Roman Catholics being a dangerous ‘cult’ and with other protestants to be removed from this earth.

Marranos: Secret Seder in Spain during the times of inquisition, an 1892 painting by Moshe Maimon

Mainly because of persecution, Muslims and Jews in Spain at that time found it socially, politically, and economically expedient to convert to Catholicism, but where not really practising that faith and at home kept their ow practice of faith. In 1481 the Inquisition began to function in Spain to expose the secret Jews, known as the Anusim (who were forced to abandon Judaism against their will) or Marranos, who converted to the Christian faith to escape persecution but who continued to practice Judaism secretly, but over the years spread to many countries. The Spanish Inquisition was anti-Jewish more than in any previous countries. The first public sentencing and burning alive of six marrano men and one woman by the Spanish Inquisition was held on this date in Sevilla in Southern Spain.

All sorts of torture where good for the unsparing cruel fanatics, of which many also set their eyes on the Jews and certain Christian groups or monasteries their assets.

Differently with the present day inquisition groups of Islam the Roman Catholic Church did not want to spill blood, but only “save souls”. For not having their clergy to become accused for having blood on their hands they made use of civilians and secular authorities for the many executions, whereby they found it was best to use bloodless deaths, such as strangling and burning alive.

For ISIS the colour today is orange, but at that time the condemned people wore yellow sanbenitos, cloaks, with red crosses and the letter X painted on them. Those given the death penalty wore tunics with paintings of flames and devils. The procession marched through the town to the burning area where the judges sat. The cases involving lesser penalties were judged first, then those receiving strangulation before burning, and finally those condemned to be burned alive.

The first auto-de-fe was held in 1481, and the last in 1731, an old woman who was accused of

“being influenced by the Devil, after which she laid eggs with prophecies written on them.”

Tomás de Torquemada (Thomas of Torquemada) Castilian Dominican friar, and the first Grand Inquisitor in Spain’s movement to homogenize religious practices with those of the Catholic Church in the late 15th century, otherwise known as “The Spanish Inquisition.” (Wikipedia)

In 1483, Queen Isabella’s personal confessor, the Dominican priest Tomas de Torquemada, was appointed head of the Inquisition. Of converso origin, Torquemada was a fanatic Jew-hater who was wholly incorruptible. He was convinced that only the total expulsion of the Jews from Spain could end Jewish influence in the national life.

Torquemada did not cut the grass from under the Jews’ feet and quickly began taking steps to weaken the unconverted Jewish community and eventually expel it from Spain. In 1485, he forced all rabbis, under pain of death, to report conversos who were practising Judaism, and to pronounce a rabbinic curse on any Jew who failed to notify the Inquisition of such behaviour. This cruel edict badly split the Jews of Spain. Alarmed by the greatly increasing power of the Inquisition, that year a group of conversos plotted to kill the inquisitor of Saragossa, Pedro de Arbues, hoping to begin a popular uprising against the Inquisition. However, the assassination had the opposite effect. The townspeople were enraged, rampaging through the streets, killing many conversos. All the conspirators were caught and executed, and the Inquisition grew even stronger.

Purity of faith became the national policy of the Catholic sovereigns, and thus came about the final tragedy, the edict of expulsion of all the Jews from Spain on March 31, 1492. Portugal promulgated an edict of expulsion in 1497 and Navarre in 1498. It was under de Torquemada his guidance that the Inquisition became such a terrifying institution, amassing enormous assets confiscated from its victims, much of it used to finance the war to conquer the last Muslim stronghold of Granada.

In 1680, the most spectacular of all autos-de-fe was held to celebrate the wedding of King Carlos and his bride. At that time, the Inquisition spread to Spanish and Portuguese colonies in the New and Old Worlds, with victims burned in Havana, Cuba; Mexico City, Mexico; Buenos Aires, Argentina; and Goa, India. After 350 years, the Inquisition was finally abolished in 1834, the year the Liberal Wars ended in Portugal and pro-republic uprising fails in Piedmont. In all, more than 400,000 people were accused of heresy, with 30,000 of those put to death.

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Please do read:

The Spanish Inquisition by Yosef Eisen

Books on Conversos a listing by Rabbi Juan Bejarano-Gutierrez the director of the B’nei Anusim Center for Education

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Additional reading

1. Priest, scribes and others with authority
2. A dialogue about the earth moving and spinning around the sun
3. Anti-church movements and Humanism
4. Built on or Belonging to Jewish tradition #1 Christian Reform

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Further reading

1. Individuality in the Age of Heresy
2. Say it in Latin, Mortui Vivos Docent
3. A Jolly Old Pope
4. Moors in the Occitan
5. Inquisitively Questioning Inquisition
6. The Papacy: Inception to Inquisitions End
7. Does torture work
8. A Tribute to Galileo
9. The Memoirs of Luis Carvajal
10. Millions Executed During The Inquisition?
11. The Spanish Inquisition According to Mel Brooks
12. Silence (Scorsese; 2016)
13. And of These Chains
14. Anti Hindu Laws in the Christian State set up by the Portuguese in Goa
15. Anne Brenon: Les Cathares
16. Basque Country – Following The Converso Escape Route
17. Secret Jews: The Complex Identity of Crypto-Jews and Crypto-Judaism
18. Granada, Spain – The End of Sephardic Jewry
19. Returning to Egypt: Conversos who Returned to Spain and Portugal
20. Books on Conversos
21. A Conversation between the Spice Trader’s Daughter and her Lover, a Fortnight after She Burned at the Stake
22. When will the Catholic Church apologise for the Goa Inquisition? – Shefali Vaidya
23. Vatican has never apologised for its crimes, and will not apologise for the Goa Inquisition – Aravindan Neelakandan
24. Books on the Inquisition
25. Another book about the Inquisition in France…imagine!
26. Book Review: The Shadow of the Cross
27. The Ancien Régime was Less Bloody than the Enlightened World
28. Inquisition 2015
29. Going Back in Time
30. Inquisition: la torture
31. Spare a prayer
32. Inquisition 
33. Plausible Deniability, the Jesuits and Citizen Cain – Missionaries of The Anti-Christ
34. The 2nd Amendment and The Inquisition
35. The Elder
36. The world order inquisition
37. Jihad in the cause of Allah – Maria Wirth
38. Benjamin Netanyahu and his Sephardic Roots
39. Feelings in a nutshell
40. Who we are (Inq worldpeace)

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