Sunday Thoughts – Thanking God when a cure for coronavirus is found
There is a Conspiracy Theory circulating in Social Media with the claim that Bill Gates bioengineered coronavirus. The Theory is based on the 2016 TED Talk delivered by Bill Gates that was intended to urge humans to prepare to deal with a contiguous respiratory viral infection that could kill millions if the said preparedness wasn’t in place.
Bill Gates’ talk was inspired by the experience we got from Ebola, where he imagined a virus as deadly as ebolavirus but as infectious as coronavirus. Definitely coronavirus is not the virus Bill Gates imagined, but the lack of preparedness we have showcased while trying to deal with coronavirus still validates Bill Gates talk.
Back to the Conspiracy Theory, the conspirators allege that Bill Gates’ intention for bioengineering coronavirus could be two fold:
- He intended to run down global stocks so that he can buy them while at their cheapest rates.
- He has an antidote that he will release at the appropriate time thereby making a kill from selling the antidote.
- Or both.
I want to make three assumptions:
- That the conspiracy theory is true,
- What Bill Gates intends to achieve from bioengineering coronavirus is to provide an antidote at the appropriate time, and
- That he won’t sell the antidote, but distribute it for free so that he is thanked as the most philanthropic human that has ever lived.
If my assumptions be correct, would it be appropriate to treat Bill Gates as good? Would it be moral to give him an award?
What if the coin is flipped? Will arresting him and jailing him for life be the most just act to do? Maybe executing him in the public?
Which side of the moral coin do you lean? Thanking Bill Gates for bioengineering the virus then distributing a free antidote? Or rounding him up and throwing him to rot in the most dilapidated jail cell?
Almost no one believes the Bill Gates Conspiracy Theory on Coronavirus, but there are at least some 5 billion humans who believe in a similar conspiracy theory, but now instead of Bill Gates being the one that bioengineered coronavirus, God is. One such person who believes that God orchestrated coronavirus is Ezekiel Mutua, Kenya’s chief moral police. In a tweet published on March 30th 2020, Ezekiel wrote,
“God has shut the world like a little village. No planes in the sky. No traffic on the road and no crowds in the streets or market place. The mighty are even more scared than the low and for once we are enjoying quality and quantity time with families. The earth is under repairs!”
That is, God, intending to shut down human activities on earth, in all his wisdom, saw it fit to send a deadly virus that tortures then kills his beloved creatures, sending over 60,000 of them to a painful death. That a loving all knowing all powerful God could not find a better way to achieve his objects except to orchestrate a shutdown that will lead to millions of job losses, hunger, stress, depression, lawlessness, and a million other ills associated with economic downturns.
No matter God’s objective, the point here is that God in all his wisdom engineered a virus to teach humans a lesson. Then the same God will let humans spend months or years to work hard in an attempt to find a cure – then after the cure is found, billions of humans will throng churches, mosques, shrines, temples to thank this very God for inspiring a cure for a virus that would have already killed hundreds of thousands and tortured million plus others.
My question to you who plans to thank God when a cure is found – why would it be appalling if we gave the same praise and worship to Bill Gates if he indeed bioengineered the virus then released an antidote after enough people have suffered and died? What informs the double standards?
