Whose evidence? And by what standard should I accept it? Bias enters at the moment the phenomenon is observed. The observation itself suffers from perception bias and then the phenomenon is interpreted into fact. A fact is a supposedly falsifiable statement that may either be true or false. Evidence is a collection of facts said to support an end. The choice of evidence is based on value judgements. Should I accept evidence for public health decisions if handed to me by, say, the Third Reich?
If you're just going to ignore the scientific evidence and obfuscate about it, I have no interest in debating that. I see others have had a go overnight (my time) and I don't feel inclined to bang my head against that brick wall any further.
Attached is working paper, take note of the citations which lead to greater detail.
That looks interesting, thank you. At 38 pages it's a bit much to digest over breakfast, but I shall eventually read with interest.
But we are now in a world of fanatical coercion for this vaccine, which is reason enough to refuse the shot. After all, why should I be a party to the system of coercion.
This seems like strange logic to me. We each have a choice to be vaccinated or not. We each should weigh up the reasons - scientific and ethical - for doing so or not and make our own choice. It would be silly and childish to refuse to do something good just because others are urging you to do so!
What has been severed by the entire pandemic response is what is highest and most critical of all.
First: The banning of participation in the divine life, especially in the banning of the public mass, which is the ban of the worship of God itself. For a Catholic cannot worship God outside the temple of God or without ordained priests. They are reduced to only being able to offer God veneration and are specifically cut off from special sources of grace, specifically the sacraments. This is especially true of the denial of baptism and last rites.
While I do agree with you that there are issues with the way lockdowns impacted on religious observance (the refusal of last rites was particularly problematic), this is not an argument against vaccination.
Second: Relationships are severed by lockdowns. Telecommunications can never be a substitute for in person contact and in person contact is a fundamental human right which continues to be denied.
Again, this is not an argument against vaccination. I asked you what you felt was being severed
by vaccination. Conflating vaccination with other public health measures is confusing the issues.
However, all the vaccines made use of fetal tissue either in development or production and that is the grave sin of the desecration of corpses, so perhaps what is severed by the vaccine is human decency.
I am not sure that it is true that all vaccines used foetal tissue in their development, however, even for the ones which did, I saw a very well-written piece months ago (I think Michie posted it over in OBOB, but I might be mistaken) outlining the situations in which use of such a vaccine would still be an ethical choice, within a specifically Catholic moral framework. It's not an absolute argument against use of a vaccine to note that the development of the vaccine may have been less than ideal.
What I do have a problem with is that your suggestion to them that they might be committing a sin by choosing not to take one. I'd say that'd be out of line as it would be seeking to put guilt on the conscience.
Well, as I said, it's not something I've had to say in real life, as all my congregation seem to see the good of vaccines. But that said, if the situation arose, I have no problem saying that in some circumstances vaccine refusal could be sinful, and that one would need to carefully examine one's reasons for refusing.
Sorry that doesn't make sense. So if you doubt the medical advice but you should just throw caution to the wind and just do what they say anyway?
No. Doubt is not a sin. But when we're talking about potential loss of life, doubt cannot be the end of the process. It needs to be worked through.
The heart of my issue is the idea that the government, or anyone, should have a say what I put into my body. I say, if we're going to mandate this vaccine, let's not stop there. Go all in. Mandate what we eat, drink, smoke, inject or otherwise injest.
Nobody here is arguing for forced vaccinations. It is possible to argue that something is good and right, without thinking that others should be forced into it.
