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Religion Perpetuates Disease
How religion promotes preventable death during pandemics
It would be easy to jump straight into things like The Spanish Inquisition or The Crusades to show the millions of people killed directly by religious hands. But, especially now, we need to talk about the less direct ways religion has dealt a deathblow to its faithful followers. During a time when we have access to vast amounts of quality medical information, religious customs and traditions endanger their followers during pandemics.
“Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.”― Seneca
Some quick history
Even during the oldest recorded plague, the Justinian Plague, we see the negative influences of religion. In the book, “Epidemics and Pandemics,” it discusses how religious ideals of the time misinformed its followers. The faithful of the 6th century learned to believe the plague originated as a punishment by God, that the disease wasn’t of natural origins, that demons needed to be excised from the sick. All of these assertions led to increased confusion about the reality of what was happening.
25 million people reportedly died during this plague that continued in different regions for two centuries. Shops were closed, fields remained…