tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36914026.post4965605050033722141..comments2023-10-10T11:18:58.072-05:00Comments on The Krum Church: Let's Shut the World DownChristy Thomashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16264749319255974812noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36914026.post-38978228936813772542009-05-05T20:28:00.000-05:002009-05-05T20:28:00.000-05:00Ok don't blame the school districts. They are jus...Ok don't blame the school districts. They are just following the orders of the Health Department that told them what they should do. And then there is the TEA or Texas Education Agency that the school's answer to as well. They said OK close so they closed. No penalties for the schools so they closed.<br /><br />You say fear has won. I say no not yet. Are all the closings necessary? The so called experts say yes because they just don't know how deadly this new flu is. You compare it all to things that we understand and can put numbers to and say this is just nuts they are just as important and just as deadly if not more so. All true. <br /><br />But isn't that more the point? Aren't we always most afraid of the unknown and what our mind manufactures as a possible future? We know that children die of starvation, but does that touch us directly? No most of the time it does not. Do deaths occur in the kitchen? Yes everyday, but again do they touch us directly? Not unless it is our kitchen.<br /><br />Have people banned the Bible? Yes. And did that touch us directly? Most of us no, but indirectly it touched us all.<br /><br />So the swine flu is it a threat? Maybe. Do we really know the whole answer yet? I say no we do not. <br />Is it right to shut down schools and events? You say no it is just crazy. You didn't say it in these words, but your examples say it.<br /><br />I disagree with your view on the whole shutting school issue. While it may seem extreme measures to close schools for such a virus that so far as of my post has killed only 2 in the US. I think that the closings are more like an ounce of prevention instead of the pound of cure.<br /><br />Not prevention of the flu itself, but more likely the easiest ,and least likely to upset the economy, way of saying that the CDC is doing all it can to prevent the possibility of a pandemic like that of 1918 or the Hong Kong flu as a couple of recent examples.<br /><br />It is not the flu itself that we are afraid of, it is instead the bogeyman as you put it of what might be if it is deadly. It is more the destruction of our world and economy as we know it that is at stake. Not just the lives of maybe thousands or gasp hundreds of thousands.<br /><br />I'll say one other thing in defense of those who say close the schools and cancel some events. Remember Katrina. No one listened then and they could have done something. No one knew how bad things would be, but they had models that told them what might happen if a Katrina hit. Yes a big bogeyman in a city that has lots of them. And yet no one listened. Then Katrina came and changed things forever. And now in New Orleans they listen, because they've seen the bogeyman and he is real to them.<br /><br />So are we reacting to fear? Yes. Is it justified? I believe that it is. Does it seem ridiculous? Yes.<br />Only because we haven't experienced the worst that was planned for. Will people complain? Of course because it seemed ridiculous and few have died. <br /><br />Finally you say that those of us focused on saving our own lives are doomed to lose them. Of that I agree with you. But I ask you this question: Would you consider it possible that some who work to stop the spread of viruses such as the swine flu are not trying to save their own lives, but instead trying to offer life instead of death to the least of God's children around the world?<br /><br />Are these doctors and lab technicians any different than those who give their lives to feed the hungry children? I say no, they endure suffering and ridicule when what they do seems crazy to us.<br /><br />In the big picture the real questions that I feel must be answered are: Do we offer those in the CDC and the WHO the same love of Christ that we offer to those we call our neighbors ?<br />Or do we shut down because of what might happen if we did?Angie Hammondhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10064017427849522392noreply@blogger.com