Friend denies COVID and forces me into her worldview

[The Transcendentian]

Well, she isn't a coward. She's okay in my book. Would prefer 100% over anyone who follows the hitleresque mandates.

Some of the mandates are definitely fascist in essence. Protests against and votes against government overreach are a good idea to me. However, that person should at least have respect for other people to wear a mask and do some things to keep other people safe.

 

[The Transcendentian]

No, they shouldn't. As a great man said, "I'd rather destroy my body and soul than give into your insanity." Similarly, out of respect the insanity of the mask, no one should wear them.

Oh I didn't see this reply before I posted my other reply to your reply.

Wearing a mask does not have to mean supporting the mask mandates.

 

[Xenophon]

Some of the mandates are definitely fascist in essence. Protests against and votes against government overreach are a good idea to me. However, that person should at least have respect for other people to wear a mask and do some things to keep other people safe.

No. Not anymore. The time for such courtesy passed months ago. The thing to do is ask them, "How long are you going to wear face-underwear?" Or similar mocking.

 

[Xenophon]

Oh I didn't see this reply before I posted my other reply to your reply.

Wearing a mask does not have to mean supporting the mask mandates.

That's the same as what Solzhenitsyn called the absurdities which corrupted people. To wear the mask is to assent the will to the mandate.

 

[The Transcendentian]

... To wear the mask is to assent the will to the mandate.

But what if you wear a mask and also wear a t-shirt that has and arrow pointing to your head and that says "I DO NOT SUPPORT THE MANDATE".

 

[Xenophon]

But what if you wear a mask and also wear a t-shirt that has and arrow pointing to your head and that says "I DO NOT SUPPORT THE MANDATE".

No, because my action and my will have already assented through following. The T-shirt becomes meaningless.

And I want them to know that I don't respect them for their morally wrong action because they wear a mask. To wear a mask is to renounce humanity itself.

 

[The Transcendentian]

To wear a mask is to renounce humanity itself.

And why is that?

 

[Xenophon]

And why is that?

The mask is a veil which obscures the image of Christ. As a mask, it has a secondary effect in the same way that a burka does on the psychology of muslim women. Thus, when about, she is anonymized and somewhat dehumanized (as she is restricted into a lack of identity, isolated when in public), yet at home she is freed from restriction and ceases to be anonymous and takes on her personal identity. She is thus conditioned, like with stockhold syndrome, to be only in a certain locale (the home) and with certain people - and again, as she is similarly 'freed' in marriage in that she is able to have an identity, or rather to be a person, with a non-family male for the first time.

With the masks there are no personal relations in public anymore, and none are permitted to be a person outside the home or until a the mask mandate is lifted (if that ever even happens), in which case the person is freed into a new public whatever that new public may have been created into.

 

[nonaeroterraqueous]

Job 14:5

Since his days are determined,
and the number of his months is with you,
and you have appointed his limits that he cannot pass,

I've known of several deaths this year, probably more than any other year in my life. Only one of those deaths might have been from this virus. The others were completely unrelated. The closest one died on the operating table during heart surgery, and he was a dear soul that God must have wanted home with himself.

I don't think that any of us will die until it's our time to die. Conversely, for any whose time has come to die, I don't think a single thing can be done to stop it. Our end is foreordained. We can meddle with the means to the end, but the end comes like Amos 5:19:

as if a man fled from a lion,
and a bear met him,
or went into the house and leaned his hand against the wall,
and a serpent bit him.

Perhaps we are more or less likely to get a virus because we wear a sock over the face, but if many more people die this year, then it was by God's design. The virus was just one of the ways it happened.

It's just a question of whether we die like cowards hiding behind a mask, or whether we face life courageously. For all your fear of the one not wearing a mask, I'm more concerned about the unbridled irrational fear lurking behind each mask that is being worn. Scared people do stupid things.

 

[Cis.jd]

] The most worrying part is she asked me joining a weird "news" channel which she claimed being the uncensored truth, as well as saying she was well-informed after watching several shady YouTube videos (on the other hand there're already lots of mythbuster videos around) which contain crazy conspiracy theories.

Info wars?

 

[The Liturgist]

I emphasise with you, my brother thinks the same as your friend. It is hard to reach people who can no longer distinguish between what is an abuse of power and of when the government is right and acting for the common good. I blame a cult of individualism for the lack of social discipline and cohesion that has so severely impacted the responses of the USA and UK to this crisis.

The US and UK have taken radically different approaches, and furthermore Sweden has generally been the most lax, so I have no idea what your point is.

 

[WDSobieski]

Info wars?

Something similar but more like from a group of hippies, the issue is, in Germany these obscure Telegram channels often have extremist/ anti-Semitic folks lurking around or having them as admins.

 

[WDSobieski]

It's probably not useful to engage on Covid. I would politely refuse to discuss it. There's been some work done on the psychology of vaccine opposition. Supplying more facts just makes them dig in. I'd assume the same would be true here. The problem with conspiracy theory is that every attempt to deal is interpreted as part of the conspiracy, and reinforces it. About all you can do is remain a friend and do your best to provide sanity.

I wish we had an answer to this. In many ways the rejection of evidence-based beliefs is our biggest national problem.

Agree totally and fear/uncertainties really bring irrational fears, and conspiracy theories are like a cocoon for them- once got into them they'll get too comfortable with them. This troubles everyone and even Christians (the lady I know is Catholic, but both of us are frankly not really religious people) are tempted into them.

 

[ChristianK]

I live in NYC and that’s not true . We had bodies stacked in tractor trailers outside of all hospitals and a field hospital in Central Park . Hospitals were overwhelmed.

with the lockdown NYC went from about 800 fatalities a day to about 10. NYC is Queens, Kings( Brooklyn) , the Bronx, Manhattan and Richmond ( Staten Island) . Nassau and Suffolk are Long Island . Our numbers are way down and these are from October 23, 2020

The supposed "epicenter" of NYC's pandemic, Elmhurst hospital did not reflect what you or the Main Stream Media has said. Here is a compilation of independent citizens recording the hospital in question with the supposed "tractor trailers" full of bodies. (make one word, its youtube like site)

https://www.bit-----------------chute.com/video/Livwo2XDBoHZ/

There are many such recordings of Elmhurst hospital by independent reporters/citizens. Jason Goodman on YT has one here livestreamed and timestamped here

Remember the NYT video by Dr. Colleen Smith? Turns out she was a simulations expert. Perhaps she was running a simulation. Elmhurst hospital empty, youtube it for more independent citizens recording the hospital being empty.

 

[UnpopularOpinion]

A close friend of mine is living in one of the riskiest areas (also very densely populated) where there's already a curfew during night hours. However even as late as September and as of today she still doesn't take the pandemic seriously and still insists the virus being fake. The most worrying part is she asked me joining a weird "news" channel which she claimed being the uncensored truth, as well as saying she was well-informed after watching several shady YouTube videos (on the other hand there're already lots of mythbuster videos around) which contain crazy conspiracy theories. As we often meet due to work or studies, it's indeed (even virtually) inevitable interacting her. Now I'm rather conflicted about how to deal with these relationships without being a jerk and also her mindset of her feeling entitled or superior for holding fringe (and potentially dangerous) views? While we know our mutual friends well and they're all rational, careful folks, I just don't know what kind of people she hangs out with, and where she got these views from.

The worst part of people breeching these rules or not wearing masks is not only they're risking themselves, they're also very selfish folks using freedom as their excuses.

Edit and PS: To prevent misunderstandings I didn't got persuaded and dare clicking into these links, as they're literally gateway drugs to even more dangerous things. We used to get along very well and many of our mutual friends knew nothing about her, and she literally became another person after COVID.

You're brainwashed sheep and she is right tbh.

 

[ViaCrucis]

A close friend of mine is living in one of the riskiest areas (also very densely populated) where there's already a curfew during night hours. However even as late as September and as of today she still doesn't take the pandemic seriously and still insists the virus being fake. The most worrying part is she asked me joining a weird "news" channel which she claimed being the uncensored truth, as well as saying she was well-informed after watching several shady YouTube videos (on the other hand there're already lots of mythbuster videos around) which contain crazy conspiracy theories. As we often meet due to work or studies, it's indeed (even virtually) inevitable interacting her. Now I'm rather conflicted about how to deal with these relationships without being a jerk and also her mindset of her feeling entitled or superior for holding fringe (and potentially dangerous) views? While we know our mutual friends well and they're all rational, careful folks, I just don't know what kind of people she hangs out with, and where she got these views from.

The worst part of people breeching these rules or not wearing masks is not only they're risking themselves, they're also very selfish folks using freedom as their excuses.

Edit and PS: To prevent misunderstandings I didn't got persuaded and dare clicking into these links, as they're literally gateway drugs to even more dangerous things. We used to get along very well and many of our mutual friends knew nothing about her, and she literally became another person after COVID.

Sometimes it is important to communicate clearly that you need to put your foot down, and draw a line in the sand. Even when it comes to really close friends. That you respect her as a person, you treasure your friendship, but that she's going down a path that you cannot go down with her. It may cause problems in your friendship, but you need to stick to your guns on this--hold fast to truth, keep using your critical thinking skills, and that you aren't going to deny science and reality because of crackpots on the internet calling a deadly pandemic a hoax.

Not all crackpot theories are dangerous, but when it is literally a matter of life and death, it becomes deathly serious, and it is absolutely something to stand firm about.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[lismore]

However even as late as September and as of today she still doesn't take the pandemic seriously and still insists the virus being fake.

Hello Sobieski. Perhaps your friend is mentally ill? Sometimes the Lord bring people across our path so that we can help them, unless of course they're a danger to you. Maybe the best thing is to be a friend, within parameters, to bring sanity to your friend's life?

Everyone I think now knows someone who has had the virus and can testify that it is real. I know someone who completely lost their sense of taste and smell as one of the symptoms.

Having said that I think there are many people in the world with odd and irrational beliefs. I used to work with a lady who was an atheist and believed that dinosaurs were a conspiracy, they had never existed. God Bless

 

[Xenophon]

Hello Sobieski. Perhaps your friend is mentally ill?

Or perhaps now has come the day when soon the asylums will be the only place to find the sane. For I declare all you who follow the mandates to be the 'mentally ill' ones and say, "I would rather give my body and soul over to destruction than submit to your insanity."

 

[WDSobieski]

Hello Sobieski. Perhaps your friend is mentally ill? Sometimes the Lord bring people across our path so that we can help them, unless of course they're a danger to you. Maybe the best thing is to be a friend, within parameters, to bring sanity to your friend's life?

Everyone I think now knows someone who has had the virus and can testify that it is real. I know someone who completely lost their sense of taste and smell as one of the symptoms.

Having said that I think there are many people in the world with odd and irrational beliefs. I used to work with a lady who was an atheist and believed that dinosaurs were a conspiracy, they had never existed. God Bless

She is a cheerful girl as long as I've known her, yet I thought of what kind of influence she had, probably it comes from her own family, friends and just her fear. Yet it might be loneliness or lack of connection, as most of our mutual friends and I are living in another city. Probably she needs support and some companion, which include phone calls, Skype meetups or playing games on Whatsapp/ Telegram. Instead of using Whatsapp and Telegram for spreading dangerous (which might cost people's lives) ideas, it'd be great using them for support, prayer requests, playing games (like Roleplaying), so that she'll feel less lonely.

 

[WDSobieski]

Sometimes it is important to communicate clearly that you need to put your foot down, and draw a line in the sand. Even when it comes to really close friends. That you respect her as a person, you treasure your friendship, but that she's going down a path that you cannot go down with her. It may cause problems in your friendship, but you need to stick to your guns on this--hold fast to truth, keep using your critical thinking skills, and that you aren't going to deny science and reality because of crackpots on the internet calling a deadly pandemic a hoax.

Not all crackpot theories are dangerous, but when it is literally a matter of life and death, it becomes deathly serious, and it is absolutely something to stand firm about.

-CryptoLutheran

Agree and it's really important supporting friends in difficult situations like this. In the last months I have attempted reconciling relationships of people I cut off because of politics or religious views, admit my political views aren't really welcomed here but as I mature, I realised the importance of respect even we don't necessary share the same views. I have a friend who is on the opposite side of the spectrum, yet we get along very well as we both share quite a number of hobbies and he's indeed quite a chill person. We've found a middle ground. Despite disagreeing we still have respect to each other and learning understanding the opposite views. It is quite difficult but this doesn't determine everything, as in my experience reconciling a person whom I sneered as a "smug boomer", yet it's absolutely inspiring having friends across generations and views. Also as a friend it's also important bringing them to the right track, in this case I'm worried about her beliefs might put risk on her health, as well as her family and friends around.

However, I'm not ready (and won't be) making friends with extremists, let's say Neonazis and Tankies, or people having downright dangerous views of all forms.