Letters to the Editor: Why can’t science and vaccines be gifts from God?

To the editor: A quote from a pastor in Charles S. Pierce’s book “Idiot America” speaks to significant reasons why so many on the religious right are vaccine skeptics: “We’ve been attacked by the intelligent, educated segment of our culture.” (“Why vaccination hesitancy runs deep among the religious — and what we can do to reach them,” Opinion, Aug. 11)

A “healthy skepticism of expertise” might describe scientists who are constantly attempting to prove themselves wrong, reconfiguring “hypotheses” into actual “theory” by correcting missteps.

Those who reject the vaccines are not “freethinkers.” Freethinking does not include being lemmings. Falsely claiming that the vaccine contains fetal tissue is not freethinking; it is coercion through pseudo-moralism.

Perhaps that same god so many people believe created us also imbued us with the ability to solve problems. And this god would ask us to care for each other by educating ourselves about the “signs and wonders” of science — and then getting vaccinated.

Rebecca S. Hertsgaard, Palm Desert

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To the editor: There’s a parable that might be instructive right now. It goes something like this:

A man sits on his roof as flood waters rise. A guy comes by in a rowboat and offers him a lift. The man says, “No, thanks, I have prayed and prayed so God will save me.” As the flood waters continue to rise, another fellow in a rowboat comes along and offers him a ride. He says, “No, thanks, God will will save me.”

The waters continue to rise and the man drowns. When he gets to heaven, he asks God why his prayers were not answered. God replies, “I sent you two rowboats.”

Could the COVID-19 vaccines be our rowboat?

Sunny Beebe, Indian Wells