What Does the Science Say about Wearing Masks?

Wearing Masks in Public

For over the past year, from February-March of 2020 to the present, Americans, in “combatting” the coronavirus, especially in being vaccinated and wearing masks, have been told by not a few politicians to “Follow the science;” “Follow the results of science;” “The science says….;” “Trust what the scientists are saying;” and “America is guided by science.” Is science following politics or is politics following science in making such statements?

 

Now, I am not an obscurantist, opposing the value of science. It has brought “great” benefits to humanity and, undoubtedly, will continue to do so for future generations. However, science, being a human discipline and endeavor, like all human disciplines and endeavors, is limited by the finite, fallible nature of human beings, even the best of scientists themselves. Thus, science can and does err, because humans, who observe, measure and calculate in scientific laboratories, can and do err. For that reason, a scientist must be humble about his or her scientific finding and, when wrong, willing to admit it.

 

Keeping the previous paragraph in mind, I would like to return to the current, confusing announcements about “science” and the coronavirus pandemic, especially its aftermath in America. First, the “science tells” Americans to “mask up” in public and in private gatherings, where the virus may spread to others. Then, for Americans that have received both vaccinations against the coronavirus, it is alright, “according to the science,” to relax the mask mandate, so that Americans do not need to wear a mask in public or private gatherings. Now, “the results of science” have changed again, because Americans are being told to “mask up again in public and private settings,” even those that have already been vaccinated both times.

 

The mixed messages about what is and is not “science” and about America’s leaders speaking on behalf of the scientific community, are confusing many Americans about science itself and its reliability. The confusion may even be evoking anxiety and fear in the hearts of many American citizens.

 

Americans, undoubtedly, want to know the truth and science is about finding the truth, objective truth — not about personal feelings, nor beliefs, nor opinions – about public, verifiable facts. Nor does science, rightly understood, align itself with partisan politics, which may jeopardize the objective pursuit of truth. Contradictory statements, resulting in confusion, are not indicative of the truth. Quid est veritas? “What is truth?”

 

 

Minute Meditation on the Book of Ecclesiastes: Just One More Thing

A Minute Meditation on the Book of Ecclesiastes

“If I just get one more thing, Rev., I’ll be happy!” Just one more thing! That is what human beings have been thinking and saying, since they began to inhabit the earth millions of years ago. It is a colossal illusion, a “chasing after the wind.” All the worldly things human beings believe would make them happy “have been tried and found wanting” – wealth, houses, fancy cars, boats, yachts, palaces, vacations, sexual pleasures and partners, degrees, popularity and athletic prowess. You name it, and someone has already tried it. Just one more thing?

 

There is no “thing” in this world that can make human beings really happy. But there is Someone who can do that; a Someone who can only be “seen” and reached by “a leap of faith.” So rest from you search, O weary soul, for only God can make you whole.

 

Minute Meditation: Finding God by Faith

“For we live by faith, not by sight” (II Corinthians 5:7, NIV).

You see with your eyes, yet you don’t see God. You feel with your hands, yet you don’t touch God. You neither see nor touch God, because God is Spirit, a living, real, non-material Being. You will, though, sooner or later, know God by knowing in a different way; one which is different from the material or sensory ways of knowing.

 

How, then, do you see God? With the “eyes” of your heart? How do feel God? With the “hands” of faith! Only those who have faith will “see” such a God. As Francis Thompson (1859 – 1907), in his poem “No Strange Land,” writes,

 

“O world invisible, we view thee,

O world intangible, we touch thee,

O world unknowable, we know thee,

Inapprehensible, we clutch thee!”

 

In other words, God is perceived by the heart, not by human eyes and hands.

 

Thought for the Day: O you, of little faith, why do you only believe what you can see, when you believe your own thoughts, yet cannot see them?

 

Minute Meditation: Remembering Brad Delp (1951 – 2007), the Former Musician and Lead Singer of Boston

Brad Delp, the Former Musician and Lead Singer of Boston

I dedicate my brief meditation on suicide prevention to Brad Delp (1951 – 2007), the former musician and lead singer of the Rock Band Boston. On 9 March 2007, at the relatively young age of 55, he ended his own life with a note clipped to him, which read, “‘I am a lonely soul.’”

 

If you are feeling suicidal, all alone, seeing no way out of your problem, except by ending your life, please “reach out” to someone; don’t “carry the load” by yourself. Allow another trusted person – a friend, confidant or counselor – to help you “shoulder” your burden.

 

You may also call a crisis counselor at the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. The phone number is 1-800-273-8255. Please don’t die before “your time is up;” or, as I tell the students in my university lectures on suicide, ‘Don’t die before you die.’

 

Please live! Live for someone who loves you; someone who needs you in his or her life. Live for a wife or a husband; live for a child who loves and adores you. Live to complete your daily obligations to your family, society or the community to which you belong.

 

If none of those reasons work for you, then live to help others, to “reach out” to them in acts of service. Live to find new projects to complete and new “dreams” to achieve. If all those things I mentioned still don’t work for you, then find your own worthwhile reasons to live. Choose life, not death!

Wonder at Yourself: A Paraphrase and Meditation on the Confessions of St. Augustine of Hippo, 10, 8, 15

St. Augustine of Hippo

Paraphrase

 

Human beings go abroad to admire the heights of mountains, the mighty billows of the sea, the broad tides of rivers, the compass of the ocean, and the circuits of the stars and pass themselves by; nor wonder that when I spoke of all these things, I did not see them with my eyes, but I saw them inwardly, in my memory.

 

Meditation

 

We human beings see so many things in life that inspire awe in us and rightly so, for the world is filled with wonder. Yet we often pass by, without the slightest sense of wonder, the most glorious part in all of creation, namely, ourselves.

 

You, O human being,

do you not see yourself?

Do you not realize how wonderful you are?

Have you thought, even for a moment, how great, how highly exalted, is your dignity!

You are not only human but also divine, “the image of God.”

Indeed, you are

“fearfully and wonderfully made.”

You are not merely a little higher than the animals.

Rather, you are “a little lower than the angels”!

O human being, remember your dignity

and live accordingly.

Amen.

Some Thoughts on Grief

Grief

To live is to suffer loss. There is no way of getting around it: In this earthly, mortal life, there will come a time – sooner or later, or both sooner and later – when a person loses something and someone dear to him or her. It is the emotional cost of love and, oftentimes, it hurts beyond all words. It is, unfortunately, “bound up” with being human.

 

Perhaps the only way to avoid the “pain” that comes with loss is to avoid love altogether. But, I ask: ‘Is that really living a fully human life?’ I think not! Rather, it is existing on the level of a rock or clod of dirt, which feels no pain. As the “old” song by Nazareth puts it: “Love hurts!” But the pain of love is worth it! As Alfred Lord Tennyson writes, “Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.” There is a great deal of joy and meaning to life in having loved someone. But the alternative to that is one of the greatest sources of pain, the pain of a self-enclosed, isolated, non-attached, lonely, loveless existence.

The Philosophical Ethics of Why I Disagree with “Defund the Police”

A 2020 Slogan of the Cities and Streets of America

“Defund the police.” My immediate response to that plea, with little or no rational reflection, is that it would not be a bad idea, and use the money allotted to police departments throughout America for some other worthwhile human projects, whatever the respective legislators of a city or town deem to be “worthwhile projects.”

 

But upon further reflection, there is something wrong with the idea. First, the assumption of the plea to “Defund the police” has a rather simplistic notion about human nature. America’s police departments might be defunded, were it not for the fact of the finite, fallible nature of human beings. “To err is human.” Human beings, left to themselves, are inclined to commit moral errors, to “transgress” on the rights of other human beings. That is why there are “checks and balances” in the Constitution of the United States of America. Where one “branch” of government goes wrong, hopefully, another branch will challenge and correct it.

 

Second, “To err is human” also applies to errors in human judgments, that is, in thinking about right and wrong. To “Defund the police” would be right, if human beings were always morally upright or, even better, morally prefect. But the fact of the matter is that they are not. Hence, to “Defund the police” is not a good idea. It is, quite simply, wrong.

 

Third, “Defund the police” is not practical. In other words, it does not work in the “real world,” – the space-time world in which human beings, creatures of common sense – live. For example, in 2021, almost a year after the “chant” “Defund the police,” in not a few American cities and towns, crime is on the rise and there are even “calls” from mayors to the federal government to help fight crime in their cities. Why? The reason is rooted in common sense and is obvious: Americans need the police. They need the many good and courageous men and women in America’s police departments. The police are needed to enforce the law, arrest and apprehend criminals, protect the human rights of American citizens and to restore order in public.

 

Fourth, there is one final reason, a logical one, that “Defund the police” is a bad idea. Let me explain: Abusing something good is not a “valid” reason for rejecting the good itself. For instance, abuse in the practice of medicine is not a good reason for rejecting medicine; nor is abuse in positions of government a proper reason for rejecting government itself; nor, still less, is abuse in the practice of the law a good reason for rejecting the law itself. In the words of a Latin saying, Abusus non tollit usum, which may be translated, “Abuse does not remove use.”

 

Therefore, abuse in power, such as instances of police brutality, is not a good reason for rejecting and defunding the proper power that the police exercise for the common good, the good of a human community.

 

 

Life and Death Begin in a Person’s Mouth

Hungarian Jews before “Selection” in the Birkenau Death Camp, Circa Summer 1944.

The above-photo is of Hungarian Jews before “selection” in the Birkenau death camp, circa summer 1944. After the photo was taken, they were murdered, being gassed and sent directly to the crematorium. Anyone who says that there is nothing wrong with spreading false words and ideas about people needs to be reminded of the Holocaust. Adolf Hitler began with constantly calling the Jews “an inferior race,” describing them in less-than-human terms. Eventually, the Nazis believed him, taking part in the murder of millions of human beings. Indeed,

 

Words heal,

Words cleanse,

Words give life,

Words encourage,

Words discourage,

Words wound,

Words defile,

Words abuse,

Words torture and

Words kill.

 

Life and death begin in a person’s mouth. Death starts there by using the wrong words and labels to describe human beings, to dehumanize them. Then words, eventually, lead to actions, resulting in the persecution and murder of innocent people.

 

Words really do matter, leading to life or death. Use them wisely and carefully!

 

 

 

The Virtue of Single-Mindedness

Single-Mindedness

Focusing on What Really Matters

In an ethics course, I frequently asked my students, ‘What do you want to do with your life?’ ‘What really matters to you?’ After the questions, there would be a brief moment of silence, followed by the lecture for the day. I use those brief periods as a teaching device, an occasion for the students’ introspection, getting them to reflect on their lives.

Of course, I cannot answer the questions — “What do you want to do with your life?” “What really matters to you?” — for my students.  By now, each student knows that only he or she is responsible for answering such questions. However, I meant for the questions to be thought-provoking, motivating my students to pursue concrete, worthwhile goals, to direct their lives in meaningful paths. Since the course I am teaching is about “the good life, a life well- lived,” I want each student in the class, in his or her own way, to have a good life; one that is filled with meaning and purpose.

The Difficulties in Pursuing Worthwhile Goals

Toward the end of the course, I discuss the lives of Elie Wiesel, Mother Teresa, Nelson Mandela, Viktor Frankl and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn; all of whom encountered seemingly insurmountable obstacles, even tragedies, in the pursuit of a good life. However, ultimately, none of them lost sight on what really mattered to him or her. Each was uncompromisingly single-minded and, thus, firmly determined to make something meaningful out of his or her life by “standing up” for a worthwhile cause.

What is my main point? Precisely this: If you are pursuing a worthwhile goal, then know and take this to heart: There will be obstacles in your way of achieving it. Those obstacles may be by well-meaning or, perhaps, negative people, attempting to sway you from focusing on your goal. So here are two principles for pursuing a meaningful goal. First, in your heart, you must believe, and even feel, that what you are doing is right. Without that passion, you cannot move forward meaningfully with your life.

Staying Focused in the Midst of the Difficulties

Second, you must single-mindedly pursue the good, despite all the adversities you are encountering. To paraphrase Friedrich Nietzsche: To have a why to live for is to endure almost any how. The why is your aim, purpose or goal and your motivation to pursue it. The how is the obstacle that stands in the way of achieving the goal.

Keep on Hoping

Of course, like most meaningful achievements, what I am saying is easier said than done, requiring many set-backs and even long periods of discouragement. That is why I take to heart — and I hope you will — the advice of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who was arrested for criticizing Communism in the former Soviet Union and sentenced to eight years of imprisonment in the Soviet concentration camps:

“All that the downtrodden can do is go on hoping. After every disappointment, they must find fresh reason for hope.”

Keep on hoping, aiming at the worthwhile goals you set for yourself! Keep on moving forward, going after them, even if you might seem to be moving backward! That requires the mental and moral courage to pursue your dreams, which is unlike those timid souls who fear that their dreams are too difficult to achieve and give up on pursuing them.

Endnote

Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago, Vol. 3: An Experiment in Literary Investigation, Parts V – VII, trans Harry Willetts (New York, N.Y.: Harper and Row Publishers, Inc., 1978), p. 298.

 

You Can’t “Make” People Happy

The “Key” to Happiness

You can’t “make” people happy, no matter how hard you try. Even if you gave them everything they wanted, they would still have something about which to complain. They may go from one “love”-relationship to another; you may buy them one house after another; and they still will not be satisfied. Buy them roses or diamonds or Jaguars, and such people will, for a while, be comfortable, but they will not be happy.

All the things I have mentioned are external to human beings. Not only will trying to “make” people happy “wear you out,” frustrating you “to no end,” but such attempts are “exercises in futility.” Nothing is really gained from them, except, perhaps, proving that you cannot make other people happy.

Therefore, you are not responsible for making other people happy, because “happiness is an inside job.” You will never, ever be able to make people happy! Happiness is something they must discover for themselves. They must do something about their unhappiness, in order to become happy. And they start that by taking a look inside their lives, within themselves, especially caring about the condition of their souls and their relationship with God.

The “key” to happiness, then, is not outside you. Rather, it is inside you, waiting to be discovered!