How Many Unvaccinated Are Religious? What Would Be Your Hope For Religion?

By Donald A. Collins | 16 January 2022
Church and State

(Credit: YouTube / screengrab)

I have no idea about my first question. But a December 21, 2021 Center for Disease Control report said 85 percent of adults over 18 had at least one shot.

No one in the 15 percent unvaccinated that the CDC polled on why they didn’t get a shot cited their religious beliefs as a reason. Read the CDC report here.

The opinions on my 2nd question are obviously too multiple for any definitive final answers.

All of us can make our own judgements, doubtlessly influenced by multiple voices.

Now I leap off that neutral high board just expressed and plunge into my own opinion about religion, certain to anger and alienate many, but in no way do I inhibit those who disagree with me from taking their own plunge into whatever religious beliefs they choose.

Before exposing my specific guru, I hasten to acknowledge the positive power of many like the Dalai Lama or Mahatma Gandhi to bring good vibes to many at crucial times in combating human misbehavior.

Martin Luther King falls into that brave category as one who spoke from his religious pulpit against the human failings that have for so long and still beset African Americans here in the US. And paid the ultimate worldly price for so doing.

Lucky I am to have grown up as a white middle class male who missed combat in our multiple wars and enjoyed many likely undeserved advantages as I got educated and entered my adult working and family life.

I surely understand and can appreciate my good luck. Saying I still feel compassion for those unluckier than myself doesn’t give me any license to dismiss anyone’s religious opinion. But I do have the right to vigorously oppose the use of religious beliefs to impose those beliefs on anyone in a country governed by secular laws.

My adult vocational life was largely about working with other likeminded people to enable full reproductive rights for all women and their families.

You can feel my utter dismay about the likelihood of our Supreme Court killing Roe/Casey and restricting women’s access to safe, convenient, inexpensive abortions.

That religious beliefs should intrude on women’s health and safety is truly infuriating to me.

In the end, and at my age of 91 it can’t be too far away, my take on religion is to laugh at its fantasies and admire it when it sticks to good works. I have no problem with those who belong to religious congregations so long as they stay out of interfering with democratically derived secular law.

Speaking of beliefs, we are all hooked on our own cell phones.

In laughter and in personal pleasure I often resort to the religious take of my own personal religious guru, the late George Carlin. You can read about George’s views right here.

Here are just a few of his many quotes in the attached piece I found funny and enlightening.

We created god in our own image and likeness!

Religion convinced the world that there’s an invisible man in the sky who watches everything you do. And there’s 10 things he doesn’t want you to do or else you’ll go to a burning place with a lake of fire until the end of eternity. But he loves you! …And he needs money! He’s all powerful, but he can’t handle money!

I have as much authority as the pope, I just don’t have as many people who believe it. [George Carlin, Brain Droppings]

Jesus was a cross dresser [George Carlin, Brain Droppings]

I finally accepted Jesus. Not as my personal savior, but as a man I intend to borrow money from. [George Carlin, Brain Droppings]

If you find some of his language offensive, I apologize, but his grasp of religion is very straightforward. You can easily find his TV show monologues on your cell phone.

To believers of all faiths I say, “Stay safe, get vaccinated and don’t be unwilling to change your mind, which is the ultimate freedom, isn’t it??”

Former US Navy officer, banker and venture capitalist, Donald A. Collins, a free lance writer living in Washington, DC, has spent over 50 years working for women’s reproductive health as a board member and/or officer of numerous family planning organizations including Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Guttmacher Institute, Family Health International and Ipas. Yale under graduate, NYU MBA. He is the author of “From the Dissident Left: A Collection of Essays 2004-2013”, “Trump Becoming Macbeth: Will our democracy survive?”, “We Humans Overwhelm Our Earth: 11 or 2 Billion by 2100?” and “What Can Be Done Now to Save Habitable Life on Planet Earth?: Leaders Commit to Reduce Human Population”.

Evangelical Christians More Resistant To Vaccine Than Most Other Groups

Why the Supreme Court may reverse Roe in Mississippi abortion ban case

Supreme Court Appears Poised To Overturn Roe v. Wade

George Carlin – Stand Up About Religion

Be sure to ‘like’ us on Facebook

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here