The last couple of posts have been relatively long and taken up more of my time than usual, given that they required me to read and analyze some papers, one of which claimed the discovery of a hitherto unknown “organ,” the others of which abused complexity theory, quantum physics, and evolution to claim “nonduality” and a sentient universe. So it was with amusement and some eagerness that I discovered a video that showed one of the dumbest arguments against vaccines ever. Are you ready for…Brittney Kara?
I’ll start by just saying that I can’t believe I’ve never heard of Brittney Kara. She’s an antivaxer, and I thought I had heard of pretty much every major antivaxer. On the other hand, perhaps she isn’t a major antivaxer, although she does describe herself on her Amazon.com profile thusly:
Brittney Kara is an Author, Certified Master NLP Practitioner, Hypnotherapist, Nutrition Coach and Mother. Her mission is to inspire people to take control of their health, search for truth, live life with passion, and discover the greatness within them. Brittney specializes in teaching people how to detoxify their lives through cleansing and super foods. Brittney lives in Los Angeles with her family and speaks at various Nutrition and Wellness seminars across California.
So many red flags of quackery! “Detox” and “cleansing“? Check. “Superfoods“? Double check. “NLP”? Most definitely. (Neurolinguistic programming is quackery.) And I’m not even counting her speaking appearances at “nutrition and wellness seminars.”
So what did Kara say about vaccines that got my attention? Well, take a look at this video, edited down to the key statements by The Real Truther:
This is the sort of video that makes one’s brain melt from the stupidity flowing from it. Here’s what she said:
I just decided to just google what the bible says about vaccines. There’s nothing in the bible that talks about vaccines. I just want you to think about that. So if God knew in the future that he was going to create these amazing things that were going to be the best scientific advancements, like oh, my God, they’re so great, why isn’t there anything, any inkling of talk about these things called vaccinations coming into being later to save people? If that was really God’s plan and they’re so amazing, then why isn’t it in there at all? Maybe there’s a chapter where they talk about something like an injection, like this health injection, right? Like, why didn’t God talk about that if he knew that it was going to come and save the world?
Wow. Just wow. What else can I say. I could, as The Real Truther does, list a whole lot of amazing scientific discoveries and products of technology that are also not mentioned anywhere in the Bible, but that would be too easy. Actually, no it wouldn’t. Nothing’s ever too easy for Orac, at least not when he feels that he needs a break. I could mention computers, antibiotics, television, automobiles, airplanes, modern pharmaceuticals, the Internet, and more. None of these things are mentioned in the Bible because even the most recent books of the Bible are nearly two thousand years ago.
Besides, there’s so much more to Kara’s antivaccine lunacy than just her statement that there’s nothing in the Bible about vaccines. Behold:
I will admit right here that I didn’t watch the entire video. Rather, I skimmed and stopped at parts that were particularly egregiously stupid. For instance, very early in the video, she says:
Now, I already knew that there’s absolutely nothing in the Bible about vaccinations, but there’s multiple scriptures about honoring the body and keeping the body clean, and in old Biblical times blood is sacred. Blood is sacred throughout the Bible, and there’s so many chapters that talk about…in the first testament people were always cleansing the blood, and there were sacrifices and all sorts of stuff.
She repeatedly asks questions along the lines of:
Like, if that was really God’s plan, and they’re so amazing, then why isn’t it in there at all. I mean, not even close.
Um, perhaps because much of the Bible was written by Bronze Age people, who knew nothing of germ theory and still thought that disease was due to evil spirits or God’s disfavor, maybe. Just sayin’.
Elsewhere in the video she says:
I really believe that believing in vaccines is a mental disorder, and I believe that people are brainwashed with this disorder to believe in vaccines.
I kid you not. That’s what she said. If you don’t believe me, I assure you that you don’t have to listen to more than the first couple of minutes of her video before you find her statement. You’ll find even more than that. For instance:
And I’m also fascinated and sickened by what’s happening in our modern day culture, and I’m constantly bombarded by seeing children who are being abused and murdered by the pharmaceutical industry, and so many people who are being harmed by this industry are Christians, and it blows my mind that we haven’t connected the evilness of the vaccine world to the pureness of God’s world.
At least she’s honest. No “I’m not ‘antivaccine’; I’m a vaccine safety advocate” dodges and equivocating for our Brittney Kara! Oh, no!
Not surprisingly, she pulls the whole “vaccines as religion” gambit. At one point she goes on and on about how you “can’t question vaccines”; “vaccines are good”; and likens questioning vaccines to “blasphemy.” She then goes on:
But it’s so demonic, guys. First of all, when you realize that God said zero about vaccines, he taught about nutrition and our perfectly amazing immune systems, which are our natural vaccine system, which is your best fighting chance against any disease or illness. To think that we are above that is the most ridiculous, disgusting concept, and it’s worshiping false idols, worshiping this thing that is not from God, that God did not create, to somehow heal you or make you better.
The second thing is that there’s nothing in the Bible, really, about pharmaceuticals, except in the old, old version of the Bible there was a word called “pharmakeia””…it’s the root word of the word today that we have, which is “pharmaceuticals.” And do you know what that was defined as in the Bible? Sorcery. Pharmaceuticals in the Bible, that Greek word, where that Greek word came from, were considered sorcery, and it was not good, and God did not want us to do it.
From there, she goes on to the whole bit about how “you cannot be pro-life and vaccinate” because of the “aborted fetal tissue” in vaccines” nonsense that some antivaxers claim. She even says that they are using “aborted humans” to make vaccines, even referring to them as “little bits of humans.” She even says that “metabolically, this is cannibalism.” This is one of the more ridiculous antivaccine talking points.
I had heard of the claim that “pharmakeia” in the Bible is something that is condemned and that that means that modern pharmaceuticals are evil or even sorcery. It’s a distortion of what’s actually in the Bible that some sects use to justify not using medicine and instead relying on prayer for healing (e.g., this rant and this other rant). Apparently, the word “pharmakeia” actually means potion makers who produced potions used to produce hallucinations to facilitate contacting the spirit world, not physicians using drugs or even herbal medicine to treat disease. If Ms. Kara really believes that pharmacueticals are all evil sorcery because the Bible tells her so (even though it doesn’t), I suggest that she eschew it. The problem is that she’ll also deny it to her children.
I also suggest that, because they aren’t mentioned in the Bible, Ms. Kara stop using computers, smartphones, Facebook, and the Internet, thereby sparing us further examples of her brain dead ignorant rants, like this one that she did for the crew behind the antivaccine propaganda film VAXXED:
Because of course Ms. Kara is with VAXXED. But don’t you dare say that the VAXXED crew is antivaccine!
114 replies on “Quoth antivaccine “warrior mamma” Brittney Kara: If vaccines are so great, why aren’t they mentioned in the Bible?”
Elegant proof that the bible wasn’t produced by an omniscient being, but fallible mortals of their time (Bronze and early iron age).
I like the graphic used for the article. Reminds me of something out of another thing the religious wing-nuts hated, AD&D.
I debated whether to use a photo of the Bible or something like this, and, given my history of being quite into AD&D in my youth, decided to go with a picture related to the sorcery angle.
Not being knowledgeable of AD&D, I thought it illustrated the Red Woman of Game of Thrones**:
red hair, red dress, blood magic
I guess she wouldn’t have pentacles though..( maybe 7-sided ? No, she’d hate those too)
** I am an occasional fan who sometimes scoffs about GoT.
Heck, I’d trust the witch in the graphic more than I’d trust an anti-vaxxer or naturopathic chiro-puncture snake oil peddler. She may not be accredited, but I’m sure that selling your soul to the devil and spending the next couple centuries studying under various high priestesses, undead necromancers, & warty old hags must count for something.
Look you jerks! She’s right! My son just had his first vaccine about two weeks ago and he is about to be three. It messed him up! And we are suffering because of it! Da##**. I never wanted to vaccinate him but keep him very healthy. He has been incredibly intelligent and alert and responsive and full of personality. Never sick either! No lie! A nurse threatened me and forced the vaccine on us and I was over tired and gave in. But the next day he was stuttering!! He lost a piece of himself. I’m not making this up you guys! I’m in tremendous emotional pain and heartbreak over my baby boy. I love him. I also believe in the Bible but only after starting to understand it. Do not harass this woman. She is right! Listen to me. I have witnessed the effects of this poison on my son! It is scary. It hurts the babies. I think it hurts their brains. It’s only been a few weeks so god knows what else will happen to my poor beautiful boy. God help my son. Please get informed on this and don’t be blindly led astray. Don’t let fear and sensationalism make your choices. Be strong in what you feel is right for your families. Please believe me you guys. I’m a very loving, protective, and vigilant mother. And don’t try to disprove what I have said. It is 100% real and it really is a nightmare.
I hadn’t heard of a connection between vaccines and stuttering before, perhaps because stuttering commonly begins about the age of 3, which is after most vaccines have been administered.
I suggest you contact the stuttering foundation for information and advice.
https://www.stutteringhelp.org/qa-dr-drayna
Since you believe this was caused by a vaccine, you should file a report with VAERS and seek compensation through the NVICP.
I don’t recall stuttering being discussed in any of the many studies on vaccine safety that I’ve seen, so perhaps more research is needed?
IIRC, Moses also stuttered. G-d works in mysterious ways.
The voice of Darth Vader, James Earl Jones stuttered. Many very young kids acquiring language will stutter.
I speak as someone whose three year old was non-verbal. The neonatal seizures he had as a newborn are more of a reason than a vaccine. Get over yourself.
Please don’t act like you know my son more than I do. You are speaking as if you’re ignoring most of what I said. It is an obvious change in my son that even his pediatrician noticed. He NEVER stuttered and was very articulate. Now he draws out the first letter of words and he slurs his words when he talks. My son used to speak so easily. In sentences and five syllable words. He used to blow complete strangers away and I’m not making any of this up. We have questioned whether he was borderline genius. So we see a clear difference in his mental clarity and intelligence. It is sad and scary. If you want to act like I’m lying or try to act like I’m stupid than you are a blind, ignorant jerk. This vaccine stuff is serious and if you don’t want to accept it because you don’t want to feel guilty about vaccinating your own children then get over it and see through all the lies.we are suffering over here. I feel terrible about letting this happen to my poor baby.
Actually, Sara, I was trying to respond substantively to your statements and offer you some useful advice. I don’t know your son and you don’t know my sons and daughters either. But they all got the standard U.S. vaccines on schedule and none of them developed stuttering and they are all alive and well, or reasonably so.
Thus, if vaccines cause stuttering, they don’t do it very consistently nor are they a very effective poison.
What is very clear is that they save lives. Only 30 years ago, measles alone was killing 2.6 million people every year worldwide. In 2016 that figure dropped below 100,000 for the first time on record. And the incidence of stuttering worldwide hasn’t changed as far as I have been able to find. So there doesn’t appear to be a correlation either.
Although your starting out by calling the commenters here “jerks” seldom helps start a productive discussion or interchange of information, let’s try to do so anyway.
About what? That we shouldn’t do anything that wasn’t mentioned in the Bible? She isn’t very consistent in that herself. If she were, she would writing her comments on parchment or papyrus with a quill pen and distributing copies of them by messengers traveling by horseback, not using a computer and the internet.
He probably still is intelligent. He just has problems stating his thoughts because of his stuttering. Although the cause of stuttering is unclear, it may be related to differences in brain structure. But I haven’t seen any indications that it is correlated with a reduction in intelligence.
And many people outgrow stuttering or can learn to cope with it. Have you starting getting him speech and language therapy?
Receiving an injection can be a bit scary, especially if the parent is also nervous. But none of my kids seemed to have a big fear of shots. The biggest harm from a shot is acute anaphylactic shock. And that is so rare that the nurse who gave me my last vaccine said he had never seen a case in 25 years of administering vaccines. Any serious permanent effects are about a 1 in a million risk. And deaths from vaccines are even more rare.
What does hurt their brains is diseases like fetal rubella syndrome, meningitis, and side effects of diseases like subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (SSPE). So please vaccinate your son to protect him against those.
We have informed ourselves by reading the serious research literature by people who investigate claims such as yours. That is why we don’t simply accept your claim that vaccines cause stuttering just on your say-so.
So please, Sara. Don’t play the blame game. Look for help for your son through your doctor or school system. And try to support him and relate to him as a real human being in spite of his stuttering.
Who is this shouty person who has suddenly popped up on a month-old thread with strong opinions? She seems to be simultaneously looking for an argument, insistent that people “don’t try to disprove what I have said”, and demanding admiration for being “a very loving, protective, and vigilant mother”.
If Sara was already so anti-vax that she left her son completely unimmunized until age three, it is unsurprising that she is now determined to see some grave damage from the immunization she felt pressured into permitting.
It is truly hard to sympathetic when my first born was actually nonverbal as a three year old. He is almost thirty and does speak, but it is not fluid.
Plus she is stigmatizing a very common speech issue which has nothing to do with intelligence. It is actually quite common in children under the age of five or so to go through a stuttering stage.
Then, again, others do not lose the stutter. When I worked there was a brilliant applied mathematician who wrote the software we used for Fourier transform analysis, and other things. He had a severe stutter. One thing we learned was to listen to him carefully because all the words will come out, and we would actually learn something.
Mangling the alleged (likely false) Churchill quote: The best argument against religion is a five-minute conversation with the average believer.
In contrast, lunatics like described here are a good argument for a hard antitheism.
Brittany Kara isn’t mentioned in the bible either. Therefore she must not exist (following her form of logic).
Wow, that’s high quality irrational craziness.
I was impressed by the claim that on his death bed Edward Jenner confessed that he did not use cow pus, rather he used horse pus. Another death bed confession to add to all the others. His brave example must have been what inspired Darwin and Einstein to confess.
I guess she missed Galileo’s death bed confession that the world really was flat.
However she also claims the US Government is a satanic cult. Hmm, she may be on to something here.
Forget the Internet. SOAP isn’t mentioned in the Bible. Just revealing soap to the faithful would have been a huge sign of God’s favor. I’ll lay odds that she uses shampoo on that lustrous hair.
Oh man, I was going to say this too! Hey bible lady, did you know that in biblical times they used stale urine to clean clothes? Something tells me she doesn’t use that method.
Are cosmetics mentioned in the Bible?
Yes, they are. Jezebel painted her eyes black (one assumes they mean something akin to eye shadow), and harlots painted their faces to attract men. The passages are actually used by some fundamentalist sects to forbid cosmetic use. Didn’t stop our charming anti-vaxxer here, though. I guess she missed those parts when she was Googling for “vaccines in the Bible.”
Leviticus 18:5, “You shall therefore keep my statutes and my rules; if a person does them, he shall live by them: I am the LORD.”
Jews traditionally interpret this that the rule to preserve life is more important than any other rule, which is the answer to silly comments about concentration camps and sausage. It also answers silly questions about vaccines in the Bible.
Does she alse eschew shatnez? And seriously, G–le? Get a Bible with a concordance.
They knew enough in Old Testament times to have screenings for skin disease (Leviticus chapters 13 and 14) including (harsh as it may seem) casting out people with certain skin conditions. So, I would argue the Bible is pro-public health.
I don’t think the Bible predicted books, printing presses and digital content, so this Brittney Kara needs to–in the interest of consistency– do her Bible “searches” using only scroll/parchment editions of the Bible, meaning she’ll actually have to read the Bible and not just pick and choose based on internet searches.
Bible predicted books, printing presses and digital content
“But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.” Clearly an admonition to use binary.
She better learn ancient Hebrew then. Greek, if she plans to include the New Testament. Though it seems the real nuts always seem to focus on the Old Testament, and casting it in the worst light possible (and not always the way it was meant to be taken).
They do that except for the little passage about men taking their suspected unfaithful wives to the priest to drink poison to cause an abortion. They do not focus on that part.
I was actually thinking that. I studied the Bible in Hebrew. And the Talmud with a mix of Hebrew and Aramaic. I don’t remember any Pharma word in Hebrew.
Don’t forget Aramaic.
Papyri. Might’ve been codices, especially the New Testament, not necessarily scrolls, and papyrus was the most widespread writing material in Eastern Mediterranean in the late BCand early AD.
(Once in a blue moon, there’s something to say about things I know…)
Gee, the (not) holy babble doesn’t mention such things as quantum mechanics and relativity either. Therefore, they must be fake news.
I always wonder what people like this think of the endless horrible rituals and such just in Leviticus, let alone the rest of the bible. My precocious son, at age eight or so began mining the bible for quotes and the one he liked best was one about smashing the heads of babies on rocks. This stopped many a believer in their tracks, especially coming from an eight year old.
My neighbor would probably like Kara. She is deep into woo and serious orthorexia. She thought the cure to all her ills was to only eat foods mentioned in the Bible, that these had God’s stamp of approval. She and her husband are otherwise well-educated electrical engineers…
BTW, I tried watching the video link at work here and my coworkers thought I was having some kind of attack.
Must be a fantastic Thanksgiving.
Does she cook them the way the Bible mentions? Not letting dairy and meat touch each other, for example?
I was a bit concerned when my shrink, after I mentioned that I had made Reuben sandwiches for a friend, let on that he was doing this. Still works during Shabbat, though. No kippah. Collects Canadian art. Whatever.
My initial reaction was to see Ms. Kara’s Bible and raise her some William Shakespeare:
As other commenters have mentioned, there are lots of things in the modern world that aren’t mentioned in the Bible. Furthermore, quote-mining the Bible is a favorite trick of fundamentalist pseudo-Christian charlatans. To take a basic example: I am often struck by the remarkably lax attitude these self-described Christians take toward bearing false witness. The rule against that isn’t even one of the obscure rules that these folks like to trot out; it’s one of the Big Ten.
I’ve read the Bible; but, perhaps I missed it, no mention of:
Internal combustion engines. Does she drive places?
Airplanes
Electricity and, of course, all electrical appliances and almost everything else in modern society based on electricity.
And, many of the foods we eat did not exist in Middle East, found in Americas. If not mentioned in Bible, should we eat things like potatoes and corn?
And on and on it goes. I do agree that our pharmaceutical industry pushes overuse and misuse of medications; but that is a different story.
Well bless Brittany’s heart.
A southerner once translated “Bless your heart” for me.
It means “Just what kind of a f**king moron are you?”
Having some familiarity with the Bible, at least what I remember after my largish collection of birthdays, I can confidently say that it does not mention Blake’s 7 or its star, a nearly omniscient perspex box of blinking lights. With a failing such as that, how reliable can it be?
To mis-quote a favourite band of mine.. “I’m never bored, when I’m quote mining for the Lord. Quote mining for Jesus.”
Nothing like a book that you can use to justify anything you want. Anti-LGBTQ.. There’s a quote for that. Pro-LGBTQ.. There’s a quote for that as well. Anti-Vax.. Here’s a quote. Pro-Vax.. I’m sure someone can find a quote that can be made to fix. Someday people will become rational and this silliness will go away.
I’m no scholar, but I’m guessing that the supplements and “nutritional shakes” she sells through Isagenix are also NOT part of any biblical text . . .
Yah, I just noticed the MLM scamming.
That’s always the question when medscammers and supplement pimps go all Christianist. They may really believe it, or maybe they know that they are targetting a market of gullible fools who also identify as christian, so the Affinity Fraud requires a thick layer of sanctimony.
Isagenix MLM is generally a Mormon grift, so Brittney will have to double down on the piety and the Holy Bibble if she wants to target christianist suckers.
“metabolically, this is cannibalism” Isn’t christianity one of the only religions to turn cannibalism into a sacrament?
I can’t speak to the uniqueness, but yes, communion is ritualistic cannibalism. The bread[1] and the wine[2] symbolize the body and blood, respectively, of Jesus. The United Methodist Church, among others, is explicit on this point of doctrine.
[1]Usually it’s a cracker of some kind, but at least in English translations of the Bible it is invariably called bread.
[2]Some of the particularly alcohol-averse sects substitute fruit juice for wine, but this view is ahistorical. There is a reason turning water into wine was considered a miracle: water wasn’t safe to drink unless ethanol-fortified (whence the custom of drinking wine and beer in the West) or boiled (whence the custom of drinking coffee in the Middle East and tea in southern and eastern Asia).
Meh. Kedem et al. make kasher l’pesach grape juice for a reason.
The Catholic Church is even more literal and firm on this: the bread and wine LITERALLY turn into the Body and Blood of Jesus. Not symbolically. Literally. That is the core of the Eucharist.
Wine must be used. Never fruit juice. There are even some bishops who won’t allow gluten free wafers for Catholics with celiac disease, because there were no gluten free breads in the time of Jesus.
Yah, the Gospel of St. John is a pain in the ass all around.
Of course ancient people drank the water, even(!) in the Middle East. There were and are plenty of springs, wells, rainwater cisterns, and clean streams. People generally weren’t falling over dead after drinking from them.
Why is it (rhetorical question) that people keep insisting on using “Mother” (with a capital M, no less!) as some sort of a qualification? It’s not as though it takes a particular amount of skill to reproduce.
I am reminded of Werner Von Braun’s remark on why it was important to have human astronauts: “‘Man is the best computer we can put aboard a spacecraft, and it’s the only one that can be mass-produced by unskilled labor.”
I found it handy to put a small “s” in front of the name of a certain anti-science parent magazine: sMothering
I know, not quite a direct response to your comment, but it always amused me to use as a description of the overbearing type of parenting that rag promoted.
Remember that they shut down the magazine proper years ago.
Their forum, the “Commune”, still exists. Much of the sMothering behavior I saw was online with sMothers trying to out compete on how natural they were. I am quite convinced they would tell horrifying birth stories that end with: “without any drugs.”
There is, of course, a TV Tropes page for that.
Wait, really, “The Commune?” It’s been a long time since I’ve been over there. Yes, I once actually sustained a long effort to insinuate camouflaged reason into MDC.
It still exists. I only checked to check that it was still alive, but not its heart rate. It is a suffering vile place of putrid “I am a better parent than you place.”
It is best to stay away.
Eric: 😀
I have just binge watched the first season of HBO’s “Big Little Lies.”
I checked it out of the library because the most I spent in one place in my Army brat youth was around the Monterey Bay area. First in Pacific Grove while my dad attended the Navy Language School for French (his major in college, so the easiest six months he ever had in his career) and his year in Vietnam. Then the remaining two years in Ft. Ord, where we actually had a view of the bay… and I thought the land across it was China (it was Santa Cruz).
Wow… that series really took liberties with the geography.
But it did kind of remind me of my time in PTA in an elementary school located in a better neighborhood than I lived in. It just happened to be the one that had the special ed. services for my oldest.
Oh, the special ed. is what rankled some parents. They did not like it… until a few had to obtain the services.
I remember going to the ocean as a very young child and looking out and saying I could see “China.” It was around sunset, and I think I was seeing some pink clouds perking up above the water that looked like castles or something. (Because China has castles or something? I dunno, I was like three years old at the most.)
I was eight years old.
What drove me crazy was that they kept showing the actors driving over the Bixby Creek Bridge like they were going to another place around Monterey Bay. That bridge is located over a dozen miles south of Carmel:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bixby_Creek_Bridge
And Carmel is actually south of both Monterey City and Pacific Grove. Yeah, I remember lots of long car trips down there.
@ Chris:
re “China”: ha ha. I can see why you were impressed- it’s quite a view
I too had great memories when I watched that show ( despite the bridge issue which you discuss).
But they left out lots of things I loved: surfers, otters, the tiny maze-like streets of Carmel, exotic vegetation, historical buildings, the lighthouse, art galleries.. I remember a handmade bilingual sign warning of mountain lions.
I actually went in the water … briefly. I didn’t do any of the touristy stuff in Cannery Row, only drove through. I liked the wharf though. Monterrey has one of the most scenic parking lots I’ve ever encountered ( Carl’s Junior) **.
** the other I know is Whole Foods of Edgewater ( NY skyline, bridge)
BTW, while doing some research for a translation, I stumbled upon an anti-vaccine trope that I hadn’t met before, which is also connected with religion. Namely – vaccines are evil, because they contain viruses aimed at blocking the expression of so-called “God gene” (VMAT2). It all seems to stem from a piece of fake news about “FunVax” produced by the US Army and aimed at islamists, but has been generalised to all religions. So, in short, vaccines are an evil plot to make us all atheists.
Thanks for sharing my video! Surprised you hadn’t heard of her yet. She does have a quite a following of brainwashed fellow “warriors.” What sets her slightly apart from the others is how crazy her ideas are. (Okay, maybe that doesn’t really set her apart.) She is a true believer in the “homeopathic doctors getting murdered” insane conspiracy theory. Just today she went live on Facebook to claim the CDC scientist whose body was found was “murdered” because he spoke out against the Flu vaccines. Yes, seriously.
And then of course we have the previous video I did of her insanity where she claims she can see “vaccine-injured” children just by looking at their eyes. And claims to go up to parents at parks and tell them if she sees this! Seriously.
https://www.facebook.com/therealtruther/posts/2046051072280163
If she did that to my kid, I’d be calling the cops and demanding she be 5150’d to the nearest nuthouse.
I actually thought I’d seen the stupidest “arguments” the anti-vaxxers could come up with, and then there was this. It’s like watching someone divide by zero.
Someone should ask her if she’s checked the original Aramaic, you know just to be sure she’s getting the most accurate information possible.
The bible was written in English. The King James Version is the sole authoritative version of the HOLY BIBLE. All others editions including ones such as the Codex Vaticanus or Codex Sinaticus are translated from the authoritative KJV.
Unfortunately, I am not making this insanity up.
Well, it’s almost that loony, but not quite; the KJV was translated from the Textus Receptus, but is superior to the original languages and constitutes a new revelation. And this view is a minority even among KJV-onliests. Pretty nuts, though.
I think all societies that regularly practice cannibalism ritualize it.
Like, I’m pretty sure vaccines are in Revelations somewhere. And would God really say, Oh, my God”?
“Revelation”. No “s”.
So she used Google to see what the Bible says about vaccines.
Ow. Ow. Ow.
In a way, it’s too bad Google isn’t yet sentient enough to ban really really really stupid searches.
Sunscreen is not mentioned in the Bible, so Mommy Warriors should send the little ones out to play all day in full sun unprotected. UV rays burn out devils as a secondary benefit.
Cringeworthy moment at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Garden today: a medicinal native plant exhibit with a plaque saying that before there were pharmacies, Nature took care of us with plant remedies. True, if by “taking care”, they meant that Nature helped us die premature deaths from sepsis, perforated diverticulitis, heart disease, diabetes etc.
I had a friend say (in response to a Facebook question about which are you more afraid of, the sun or sunscreen) that since God made the sun, but man made sunscreen she’d trust the sun. I honestly cried, because 1) she wasn’t alone in this opinion and 2) most of the people responding have little kids.
Skin cancer is no joke, people!
Doesn’t she know that the sun is emitting RADIATION!!!!!!
since God made the sun, but man made sunscreen she’d trust the sun.
Since God made the sea, but man made lifejackets she’d prefer to drown.
Oh, I like this game. Since God made the bear, but man made the gun, being mauled is better. Wait, does that mean she is against the expansive interpretation of the second amendment, unlike some other anti-vaccine activists?
Did anyone point out to her that the constitutional rights are not in the Bible, either?
Really, the surprising thing isn’t that a young woman who does not appear to be very knowledgeable about vaccines is also not knowledgeable about how religious texts are interpreted and religious law developed. The surprising thing is that with this low level of information and obvious lack of understanding, anyone sees her as an authority on anything.
I don’t know how you do it Orac. I know you took one for the team, and watched this video for the rest of us. But how you don’t become a madman screaming at your computer is beyond me. But really, thanks for taking one for the team
@ Skeptical Raptor:
This is purely speculation BUT I suspect that Orac, like myself, is either constitutionally immune to processing vast amounts of insanely mindless drivel, such as woo / conspiracy mongering, OR else, he has gradually de-sensitvised himself to the horrors which he witnesses on a near daily basis by steeping himself in the BS regularly .For YEARS.
As for the latter, it is possible and quite do-able. Thus, newbies should take comfort In the fact that if you read/ hear this garbage frequently enough, eventually you will become accustomed to it and may even be entertained by it. I mostly have fun and never, never pull out my hair or throw expensive vases/ pottery against walls. Not once.
Verily I say unto thee, Orac is the humble milkmaid, protected from the greater stupidity by his many exposures to more minor stupidities.
funny, I’ve read the whole bible, and contrary to what she says, it doesn’t mention “our perfectly amazing immune systems” either. Not a single mention of the complement system or cd4 cells.
it also doesn’t mention eyeglasses. So, since I have 20/800 vision, apparently God wants me to walk into stuff all the time.
No mention of the Internet in the Bible. Antivaxxers should discontinue its use immediately.
With regard to Panacea’s comment about Transubstantiation I’m reminded of a comment made by a comedian this side of the Pond.
How many times would you have to attend Communion before you’ve eaten a whole Jesus”?
What do you mean? Aramaic or European Jesus?
What is the air-speed velocity of an unladen Jesus?
I’m pretty sure that might actually some group of people who still practise strict Second Temple-era Judaism of the sort practised in the 1st and 2nd centuries, without any technology or innovations that would haven’t been available to the ancient Jews and early Christians (who were initially Jews who still practised all the old laws and set themselves apart only by recognising Jesus as the messiah) who lived in that era. They would make the strictest Orthodox Jews of today look like wanton libertines by comparison. If you really want to use the argument that vaccines are evil because the Bible doesn’t mention them, please move to such a place if you can find one, or found some place like that in the wilderness somewhere and stop bothering the rest of us.
The closest thing I can think of would be the Karaites, Jews who believed in Torah literalism and rejected Talmudic interpretations to the point that on Shabbat they would freeze in the dark, rather than build fires or leave lights lit from before sundown, as even the most orthodox of mainstream Jewish orthodox. They split off about a thousand years ago, although a certain amount of dialogue continued for some centuries.
Surprisingly, they are still around, albeit in much smaller numbers than in centuries past. Some still live in Russia. Others are in Israel, where they were welcomed as Jews under the Law of Return. They do use modern technology and the like, but if you were to read all the 613 mitzvot (things that are right to do, not so much commandments as obligations) in the Torah you can see that their lives must be pretty constricted.
The 613 are both positive and negative, mind you. But the Schneersonites are notoriously lax on vaccination; I haven’t looked at all the poskim to see if any root it in religious grounds.
As a child I was dragged kicking and screaming to church and Sunday School and had to read The Bible quite a lot (King James and more modern versions), but I cannot at all remember any mention of NLP nor anything resembling it. I would be most grateful if one of the more learned minions could point me in the direction of the relevant passages, otherwise I will have to conclude that Ms Kara is a massive hypocrite and not very bright either. Which can’t be true, can it?
I’m surprised no one’s pointed out that Ms. Kara breaks the Third Commandment; saying “Oh my God” is taking the Lord’s name in vain.
It’s not. I’ll explain later. Just waking up, on a tablet, and have to start manual labor soon.
Sorry, forgot about this; Saturday was a long one. One may first note that “G-d” isn’t really Hashem’s name, but that’s a quibble. The real question is the meaning of lashav (לשווא). I suppose “take” is another issue, but I’ll stick with this one. I think there’s a solid argument that the Third Commandment applies largely to oaths and malice. “Oh my G-d” as a
verbalwritten ejaculation doesn’t strike me as particularly serious defamation of G-d. Christian prayer, on the other hand, seems much more problematic. He’s not your servant, he’s ineffable.^ Then again, I may be giving Philo more credit than he deserves.
In other anti-vax news ( quacky device division)…
TMR will highlight the AmpCoil which is supposed to vibrate various bio hazards away with a webinar on the 11th.
It helps people with Lyme, ASDs, etc.
You hold the coil and it does its magic.. or something.
Oh, dear:
And what is a blob of confusion without a doubly botched fake quote?
Imagine my surprise to encounter a fraudster misplagiarising from another fraudster.
I’m reminded of my grandma. In the early days of manned space flight, she declared,”if God wanted men on the moon, he would have put them there.”
Ergo NASA is god.
Dumb-squared, because she used Google to search the Bible instead of searching an on-line Bible. This is the sort of incompetence that seems subtle until you think about it for 10 seconds or so. Like most people, she thinks Internet information is a consumer product; she doesn’t really understand what information is. Unlike most people, she thinks she is possessed of great knowledge and judgement.
Forget the stuff about vaccines not being in her book of lies – America isn’t in there! Therefore she can’t exist !
Even the humour websites are pointing and laughing at her. She’s #29 on this list.
http://www.ebaumsworld.com/pictures/35-pics-that-will-make-you-cringe-your-pants/85621950/?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=CrossPost
The fact that this woman is in her childbearing years is what really disturbs me. If she could go back in time and spend a few days in one of those wards with crippled polio victims it might teach her a thing or two. On the other hand, some people cling to their ignorance like a raft..
Please don’t act like you know my son more than I do. You are speaking as if you’re ignoring most of what I said. It is an obvious change in my son that even his pediatrician noticed. He NEVER stuttered and was very articulate. Now he draws out the first letter of words and he slurs his words when he talks. My son used to speak so easily. In sentences and five syllable words. He used to blow complete strangers away and I’m not making any of this up. We have questioned whether he was borderline genius. So we see a clear difference in his mental clarity and intelligence. It is sad and scary. If you want to act like I’m lying or try to act like I’m stupid than you are a blind, ignorant jerk. This vaccine stuff is serious and if you don’t want to accept it because you don’t want to feel guilty about vaccinating your own children then get over it and see through all the lies.we are suffering over here. I feel terrible about letting this happen to my poor baby.
What was the feedback from the speech therapist? I assume you got a referral to a speech/language pathologist. I don’t think they would first send your child to an audiologist, which is the first step when one has a nonverbal preschooler like my oldest.
If you have not been sent to a one, then ask for a referral to a speech therapist.
“This vaccine stuff is serious and if you don’t want to accept it because you don’t want to feel guilty about vaccinating your own children then get over it and see through all the lies.we are suffering over here.”
At point I would ask you to provide PubMed indexed studies by reputable qualified researchers that any vaccine on the present American pediatric schedule causes more harm than the disease.
“I feel terrible about letting this happen to my poor baby.”
Would you fell better if your child had seizures from a vaccine preventable disease? It happened to my oldest when he was just weaned off the phenobarbitol a few months after his first birthday (remember he had had neonatal seizures). It was due to the dehydration from rotavirus. A disease that causes rivers of poo, and is very miserable.
Would you feel better if a few years from now your child comes down with chicken pox with a high fever and in pain from dozens of itchy open wounds (pox)? Would you feel better if your child infected a baby under a year old with chicken pox? Twenty three years I had to take care of three very sick kids, including a six month old with chicken pox. No one got much sleep for over two weeks.
Seriously, would you feel better if your child infected a baby?
Actually, I hope you do not. You are being made to feel guilty because things happen. Your child is still very young and is developing language. If his speech development is a bothering you, then get him to a speech therapist. Stop playing the blame game.
Listen to the first story in this link, because you need to hear this young woman’s story:
https://www.storycollider.org/stories/2018/5/9/different-stories-about-standing-out-in-a-crowd
Sara, “Please don’t act like you know my son more than I do. It is an obvious change in my son that even his pediatrician noticed.”
I’m sorry, but your story doesn’t add up. I searched for your earlier post and found it:
“My son just had his first vaccine about two weeks ago and he is about to be three. It messed him up! And we are suffering because of it!”
So you’ve been suffering and feeling guilty for . . . two weeks. Has your pediatrician given you a referral for an electroencephalogram or to neurologist or speech pathologist? Have you see any of the specialists yet?
Please take a step back and think about things. It isn’t easy to assess your own children’s abilities without overestimating them. Both of my kids are geniuses and have been athletically gifted since birth. Really! I’m not making any of this up. It’s obvious to me.
Taking your posts at face value: you have a toddler. Who is growing and changing, a lot, by the nature of his current age. You seem to be panicking over a change you perceive, and you are attributing it to an event (child received vaccines) that you found scary.
Like Chris who also responded to you, I’ve been through health crises with my children. Unlike Chris, my children’s issues so far have had no long term consequences. But they did teach me that as parents we are biased and our memories are fallible.
In your earlier post, your wrote: “Don’t let fear and sensationalism make your choices.” Do you not see the irony in your own words?
“But they did teach me that as parents we are biased and our memories are fallible.”
Funny how when you go back in the records and find actual evidence that things did not happen as you remember them! And it is not just medical stuff.
I have personalized my computer background to get stuff from my photo albums which are in directories based on year. It is now set to the photos from 2009, Occasionally I get a photo of something I totally forgot about!
Sara, I get that you are suffering and I’m very sorry to hear it.
But this blog is a science based project of our host. The discussion forum is also science based. Therefore, you cannot expect people here to ignore statements that cannot be defended scientifically simply to spare your feelings. If you wanted to bash vaccines while garnering sympathy, this isn’t the place for that.
Correlation is not causation. Whatever is going on with your son, there is no evidence vaccines are the cause and plenty of evidence they aren’t since no connection between vaccination and autism has ever been found.
I can’t say what is the cause for your son’s symptoms. I see no proof it is vaccination, and that you think you noticed it started when he got vaccines is not evidence of any kind.
Chris is right: you should see a speech therapist.
Let’s (tinu) not get carried away.
Don’t know how I missed your blog for so long. I think I’m in love. Anti-vaxxers in general give me migraines, but this lady takes woo to a whole new level of unbelievability. I look forward to going back and reading your archives.
Welcome to this little slice of sanity on teh interwebs. If you like it here, you may also like this other blog:
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/