Last Wednesday, I wrote about the unscientific obsession with sanitization we are seeing in — what the media in now calling — the “pandemic era.” It reminded me of views Jordan Henderson, the artist behind the Sanity and Her Son painting, shared with me recently:

“I do concede that Christianity, for better and for worse, is arguably the parent of the so called ‘scientific’ world view (due to the church being the parent of universities, and thereby patron of what became the modern scientific disciplines). The idea that microbes lie in wait to attack our helpless bodies sounds a lot like Christian teachings about sin and demons.

“The supposed conflict between science and religion is only possible because science has become a highly intolerant religion in its own right. (When people say “science says” they actually mean “the establishment approves of,” so science worship is just a cleverly designed form of establishment worship; but since they will swear up and down that all things establishment approved are ‘scientific’ I am going to let them win the name game and just call it science worship, even though statism would be closer to the mark.)

“Even as the new religion of science attempts to exclude all other religions and philosophical standpoints, it is adopting remarkably familiar doctrines from Christianity; no, none of Jesus’ wise teachings on forgiveness and spiritual growth, but instead all the crudest church doctrines and admonitions that were clearly attempts to control people.”

Oddly enough, a few days after hearing this artist’s philosophical views on a pseudo-religious origin to present-day germaphobia, I came across a description of a 1960’s Catholic residential school in Canada (for kidnapped aboriginal children). The description comes from Richard Wagamese’s book,  Indian Horse, whereupon entering the school “the smell of bleach and disinfectant, so strong it seemed to peel the skin off the inside of my nose.”

Notwithstanding such extreme sanitization, thousands of children held in those schools died of tubercular lung infections. Likewise, this winter, I have little hope that absorbing hand sanitizer chemicals and inhaling fumes from disinfected floors will have any positive impact on respiratory ailments. All that such rituals will do is help give the false impression that we live in the “pandemic era” with COVID demons ready to possess our pulmonary tract.