I have mockingly referred to the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases as "The Holy Prophet Fauci, peace be upon him." I did this partly as a reaction to his own inflated ego, but more because of the ridiculous veneration of the man as some sort of religious icon. COVID-19 has brought new attention to public health and medical professionals who behave like cult leaders, but the cult mentality existed well before that.

A little over four years ago (before anyone heard of COVID-19) a young woman named Bre Payton died of influenza. It was a shocking development, but radical Leftists could not resist dancing on her grave. You see, Payton committed blasphemy by making a joke eight years earlier about vaccines and anti-vaxxers. She deserved to die, according to this pagan logic, by allegedly not taking a Baptism by Needle. She did not believe in Teh Science, so a virus killed her as punishment for her lack of faith.

There was an obvious problem with these ghoulish celebrations: Other than a joke she posted on Twitter eight years before her death when she was 19 years old, there is no actual evidence that Payton was an anti-vaxxer. As is common on social media (and in politics generally) people love to take obvious jokes literally and pretend that the jokes represent someone's real viewpoint. There is a four-letter word that accurately describes a person like that: Liar.

Here is a little test: If your "gods" tell you to dance on the grave of a woman who tragically died in her 20's and proclaim she "deserved" to die because of a joke she made nearly a decade earlier that you clearly did not understand anyway, your "gods" are false gods and you should abandon them. Of course, the ones who are liars are far worse and far more morally abominable than the brainwashed cultists.

Here is the reality: It is incredibly rare for someone in her 20's to die of influenza. And even if you get vaccinated, the influenza shots are basically an educated guess about what strains will be circulating, and that guess sometimes misses the mark. I got influenza twice in 2019 despite getting two different flu vaccines a year apart. Both times, I was very sick for several days. Did the "gods" of Teh Science fail to protect me despite my obedience and faith? Should I now become an apostate from the Holy Religion of Teh Science?

Well, it is pretty difficult to become an apostate from a religion that I never followed and will never follow. In fact, I curse and proudly blaspheme the "gods" of Teh Science. I view science as a normal person who is not a brainwashed cultist: As a way to understand the world and as a tool that God (the real one) has given us to develop medicines and treatments that save lives around the world.

Science is a good thing, and modern medicine is a wonderful gift that God (the real one) has given us through the gifts He has given to our scientific and medical minds. As much as cultists might claim otherwise, though, Teh Science is not and will never be science. The obsession with following every single (often contradictory) word said by the Holy Prophets of Teh Science (peace be upon them) is not science. Treating anyone who dissents or even makes a joke as a heretic who deserves to die is not science. These deranged behaviors are part of a pagan religion that must be rejected.