Covid-19 An Atheist Perception

      After my parents resumed regular church attendance, life was very different for us all. I was 4 years old and scheduled to begin public kindergarten. School shopping consisted of browsing dozens of stores looking for jean skirts, culots (split skirts), and and long dresses. Sometimes my mother would recruit the help of the older ladies in the church and they would sew these items for me. My hair was completely uncut and hung down my back past my waist. Although these things seem trivial and even vain to mention, they served the purpose of creating an "us vs. them" mentality, not only in my own mind but also to my fellow schoolmates. I remember feeling self conscious at recess when attempts to swing or climb the jungle gym were overshadowed by the possibility of my underpants being exposed. Not only were these restrictions impractical, I feel they were also the root of my lifelong battle with self-consciousness. No child wants to be the odd-man out, and I was no exceptio

     The origins of my journey through Christianity can be found well before my birth in September of 1986. It was the early 1980s and my mother was a teenager who had left her home in Illinois to accompany her boyfriend who had found work in the booming city of Houston Texas. She was a free spirit who had already experienced a lot that life has to offer, the childhood freedom to roam the city with her friends, the hot and crowded rock festivals that reeked of weed and pulsed with sexual energy, the spontaneity to leave her home at the age of 17 and travel halfway across the country in hopes of finding a job and good times. Upon arrival in Houston, my mother found her boyfriend strung out on drugs and living in a small barren apartment. He was an eccentric fellow who had attracted my mother with his carefree ways and charming intelligence. His further descent into addiction was no doubt a turning point in the life of my mother. She was fun and wild, but she was also smart and determi

     Imagine you are a resident of the United States and there has been a deadly outbreak of Ebola with cases popping up in every state. Ebola is a virus whose mortality rate averages around 50%, with rates varying from 25% to 95% in past outbreaks, and for which there is no known cure or licensed treatment for ( https://www.who.int/news- room/fact-sheets/detail/ebola- virus-disease ). Now imagine that scientists and health authorities have come forward with the fact that widespread mask-wearing greatly decreases the rate at which the virus spreads, and that the spread will be over much sooner if people practice well-known methods of disease prevention such as hand-washing and social distancing. They present hundreds of statistics and studies that support the guidelines given. One can strongly imagine that the vast majority of citizens would not only follow these guidelines, but would also quarantine themselves at maximum ability.      But this isn't Ebola. This is Covid19. The mor