Governor Reeves (R-MI) has chosen to follow Governor Stitt (R-OK) when it comes to the pandemic, and Hemant Mehta has a partial transcript of the announcement:
… we have more trials that will bring us together, and we must come together. Regardless of our backgrounds, regardless of our geography, regardless of our political views, we must come together. As we close out this year, I felt the need to go to God in prayer for our state. Ever since the beginning of this pandemic, we’ve tried to hold opportunities for our fellow Mississippians to pray. To pray together so we can be together. We know that there is power in prayer. In fact, it is what God commands us to do… Today I will sign a proclamation to declare a Day of Prayer, Humility, and Fasting on this upcoming Sunday, December the 20.
As we’ve done throughout the history of this country, we will go to the Lord and ask for His protective hand over us as we conclude the year 2020 and as we enter the year 2021. [Friendly Atheist]
Mehta is fairly angry, but I see this as an opportunity to run an experiment in the wild, as they say. That is, we can measure natural behaviors.
Let’s divide the population of Mississippi into groups:
- Those who choose to follow Reeve’s lead and pray for help in lieu of taking any vaccinations.
- Those who choose to follow Reeve’s lead and pray for help but take a vaccination.
- Those who choose not to indulge in prayer but also do not take a vaccination.
- Those who choose not to indulge in prayer and take a vaccination.
The hypothesis behind the experiment can be stated in a couple of different ways, so let’s look at them.
- God’s protection will be extended to the prayerful. If this hypothesis is substantiated, populations [1] and [2] should be the best protected and have roughly equal levels of protection. We may have some variance in that the weakly faithful may be less well protected than the strongly faithful, although one must admit that the existence of such a phenomenon would reflect poorly on God’s character. Still, those best protected make take advantage of those less well protected to accuse them of being apostates, and then burn them at the stake, which would reflect poorly on the strongly faithful’s character as well. Populations [3] and [4] should suffer the most sickness and death.
- God doesn’t exist, or doesn’t care about Mississippi. In this case, the two populations accepting vaccinations, [2] and [4], should fare the best, with little difference between them, while [1] and [3], not having accepted the vaccinations, should see woe and disillusionment in their future.
- God exists, but Science is more powerful. In this case, [2], being both prayerful and having accepted a vaccination, should do best, followed by [4] and then [1]. [3] would be shit out of luck, having a lack of faith in all the Gods of the Universe.
The results of this experiment should be illuminating to the disinterested scientists running it, and infuriating to, well, whoever ends up the losers. I look forward to Gov. Reeves’ reaction to this idea!
