Application for Religious/Secular Exemption from Mask Vaccine & testing Mandates

Forum (Articles)

Offer

Partners

Rules

Tips

FAQ

Begin!

Donate

     This article was started by Dave Leach R-IA Bible Lover-musician-grandpa (talk) 02:25, 1 October 2021 (UTC)
     Please interact! To interact with any particular point made here, simply click "edit", then right after that point, type four dashes (to create a horizontal line), hit "enter" to start on the next line typing your response, then close with four tildes which will leave your real name, time etc.; then on the last line, four more dashes.
     To vote, Like, rate, argue, change your past comment, add a section with a heading that appears in the Table of Contents, start a new article, use colors, write in Greek, etc. find suggestions and codes at Begin!

(These arguments for a religious exemption are longer than most, but they make strong points I have never seen – not just to justify an exemption for the applicant but for everyone else too; and not just for Christians but for everyone who values Truth. Legal arguments included.)

When your employer or school requires a mask or vaccine, and asks why you want an exemption, tell them this:

Overview

Section One of this Application explains (1) my reverence for Truth and evidence, (2) the Bible’s emphasis on Truth and evidence, (3) Bible heroes who resisted health laws not based on reality, (4) why mask and vaccine mandates which cannot rationally claim support from evidence must be classified as “religious”, and are presented as false gods, and (5) what the Bible says about bowing down to false gods, and the importance of openly, decisively disclaiming them. Section One presents legal analysis of the First Amendment prohibition of “establishment of religion”, as well as theological analysis.

Section Two of this Application reviews medical research that shows (1) masks do not slow covid spread with any “statistical significance”, (2) masks cause serious medical and emotional problems, most tragically in children, (3) vaccines cause more deaths than covid, and (4) government blockage of proven covid cures points to some other government purpose than reducing covid.

(Section One also incorporates arguments common in other Applications for Religious Exemption: vaccines are developed from a murdered baby, and the Bible calls us to treat our bodies as the Temple of God.)

Introduction

Bible quotes in Section One of this Application support my reverence for Truth and evidence. These are widely understood as pillars of “secular” America, but their plagiarism into American society without honest attribution does not undermine their deeply religious nature which is unique to the Bible among the world’s religions, and central to Judeo-Christianity.

This application does not object to wearing a mask ever, anywhere, but to a mandate justified not by scientific evidence or any search for Truth (as Section Two establishes) but by considerable fervor of a religious character (as Section One explains).

Mandates are revered like false gods. This application objects to a mandate sustained not by evidence, but by censorship of evidence that mask-wearing not only fails to achieve any “statistically significant” (documentable) reduction of covid, but causes widespread measurable medical harm to wearers, not to mention social, political, and economic harm (which will not be detailed in this Application because it is common knowledge).

The fervor of support for this disruptive mandate, not explainable by any evidence, can only be explained in religious terms. Masks, along with vaccines, are made into idols. Reverence for them is enforced by social pressure as judgmental as reactions to blasphemy. They are made the icons and rituals of government-established religion.

“Blind faith” is what moves humans to censor, or otherwise destroy, any challenge to one’s assumptions. A few Christians ignorantly think the “faith” promoted in the Bible is blind, but the Bible is full of evidence, and challenges humans to test it, and then get in step with reality. But “blind faith” is the faith of other religions which offer no documentable miracles, no fulfilled prophecies, nor any ability to survive scientific scrutiny of those claims which are testable by humans.

The claim of high moral authority, combined with a claim of a strong basis in evidence which is only sustained by censoring opposing evidence since it has zero evidence, identifies government and employer vaccine and mask mandates as the icons and rituals of false gods supported by blind faith.

Blind Faith in idols is mocked by God in several passages. For example:

Isaiah 44:  (CEV) 12  A metalworker shapes an idol by using a hammer and heat from the fire. In his powerful hand he holds a hammer, as he pounds the metal into the proper shape. But he gets hungry and thirsty and loses his strength. 13  Some woodcarver measures a piece of wood, then draws an outline. The idol is carefully carved with each detail exact. At last it looks like a person and is placed in a temple. 14  Either cedar, cypress, oak, or any tree from the forest may be chosen. Or even a pine tree planted by the woodcarver and watered by the rain. 15  Some of the wood is used to make a fire for heating or for cooking. One piece is made into an idol, then the woodcarver bows down and worships it. 16  He enjoys the warm fire and the meat that was roasted over the burning coals. 17  Afterwards, he bows down to worship the wooden idol. “Protect me!” he says. “You are my god.”18  Those who worship idols are stupid and blind! 19  They don't have enough sense to say to themselves, “I made a fire with half of the wood and cooked my bread and meat on it. Then I made something worthless with the other half. Why worship a block of wood?” 20  How can anyone be stupid enough to trust something that can be burned to ashes? No one can save themselves like that. Don't they realize that the idols they hold in their hands are not really gods? 

Jeremiah 10:3  For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe.  4  They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not. 5  They are upright as the palm tree, but speak not: they must needs be borne, because they cannot go. Be not afraid of them; for they cannot do evil, neither also is it in them to do good. 

God contrasts how He has carried us from our birth, with how idols can’t even carry themselves and must be carried, which does nothing for their worshippers except make them tired.

Isaiah 46:1 (BBE) The Lord says, "Bel has fallen to the ground. Nebo is kneeling before me. "Men put those idols on the backs of animals. They are only heavy burdens that must be carried. They do nothing but make people tired. ...3  "Family of Jacob, listen to me! You who are left from the family of Israel, listen! I have carried you since you left your mother's womb. I carried you when you were born, 4  and I will still be carrying you when you are old. Your hair will turn gray, and I will still carry you. I made you, and I will carry you to safety. ...6  Some people are rich with gold and silver. Gold falls from their purses, and they weigh their silver on scales. They pay an artist to make a false god from wood. Then they bow down and worship that false god. 7  They put their false god on their shoulders and carry it. That false god is useless; people have to carry it! People set the statue on the ground, and it cannot move. That false god never walks away from its place. People can yell at it, but it will not answer. That false god is only a statue; it cannot save people from their troubles. 8  Sinners, change your heart and mind. Think about this again. Remember it and be strong. 9  Remember what happened long ago. [The miracles that prove my power, and what they accomplished that proves my love.] Remember, I am God and there is no other God. There is no other like me.

Blind faith in a lie won’t make it true. Government pressure on citizens to physically, visibly, and perpetually participate in a man-made charade imbued with elevated moral authority fulfills every element of a “government-established religion” that I can think of. It is as stupid as our ancestors were, bowing down to carved trees.

Not every stupid thing governent does qualifies as establishing religion. Evolution instruction rulings came close, in which laws were struck down requiring opposing evidence to be taught, while those citing the opposing evidence are ridiculed and dismissed as putting religion above “science”.

“Climate Change” political movements come close, in which those citing the opposing evidence are not heard, and are labeled “anti-science”.

They do not come as close as mask and vaccine mandates which require citizens to physically, VISIBLY, PERPETUALLY participate in the charade that these icons and rituals will save us, equipping the forces of social ostracization to see at a glance who to target.

Not the only example of government treatment of its covid policies in a religious manner is when the Governor of New York literally delivered a covid sermon 9/26/2021 in which she said those who resist vaccines are “not listening to God”, and she wants her “apostles” to go out and spread the message of being safe.

“Yes, I know you (in this audience) are vaccinated. You’re the smart ones. But you know there are people out there who aren’t listening to God. What God wants. You know this. You know who they are. I need you to be my apostles. I need you to go out and talk about it. Say ‘we owe this to each other. We love each other. Jesus taught us to love one another. How do you show that love? Do you care enough about each other to say ‘Please get that vaccine because I love you, I want you to live. I want our kids to be safe when they go to their schools. I want you to be safe when you go to your doctor’s office and are treated by somebody. You don’t want to get the virus from them.” Youtube

This application is secular and religious

It is secular in the sense that it seeks an exemption from worshiping a government religion which has been established in violation of the First Amendment. It uses secular arguments useful in American courts. The ACLU is regarded as secular yet initiates cases on this basis perpetually.

They are religious in the sense that these “secular” values came to American life from the Bible, are not honored in other religions uninfluenced by the Bible, and do not lose their imperitives upon the behavior of Christians by having been adopted in the “secular” world. This application is religious also in that the Bible is quoted estensively here to prove that not only is Truth a pillar of Judeo-Christianity in general, but there are examples in the Bible of Bible heroes specifically applying their reverence for Truth to resisting government mandates that are harmful to health.

Secular Features of this Application

This application is secular in the sense that this application incorporates a reverence for truth, facts, evidence, science – which are widely assumed to be entirely secular values. They are the pillars of American life, economics, science, politics, and justice.

These values are thought to be pillars of secular America, not because they are not deeply religious, but only because they are plagiarized from the Bible without honest attribution.

The ACLU, a quintessentially “secular” legal institution, explains below the four times the Supreme Court ruled that a state law favored a religion. The mandates from which I apply for an exemption are not laws, directly, but are encouraged by, if not required by, and protected by a mixture of laws, governors’ emergency rulings, rules of bureaucracies, and the “guidance” of government bodies which somehow acquire mandatory powers. The laws holding together this web of powers which, combined, acquire the force of law, merits the same courtroom scrutiny as laws whose effects are direct and honest. The web of powers they enable lays burdens upon me which can only be explained as religious, and compel me to bow down or lose (my job/education/right to travel). These “secular” legal arguments are part of the basis of my application.

Epperson v. Arkansas, 393 U.S. 97 (1968) said a state couldn’t outlaw the teaching of evolution; that law had no “secular purpose” but only a religious purpose. Stone v.Graham, 449 U.S. 39 (1980) said law couldn’t require every school to post the 10 Commandments in every school room, because the principal purpose of the law was ‘‘plainly religious.’’ Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U.S. 38 (1985) ruled against a “minute of silence” during which school children might, at their option, pray. (Unfortunately, according to the ACLU article, “The statute’s principal sponsor had said that the bill’s only purpose was religious, and no evidence to the contrary had been offered by the state.” v. Aguillard, 482 U.S. 578 (1987) shot down a law that a teacher teaching evolution must give equal attention to “creation science”, which the Court considered “a particular religious doctrine”.

If a woman has a “fundamental right” to murder a baby growing inside her, [as Roe ruled in 1973; Hellerstedt, 2016, leaves its status unclear] I must have a fundamental right to refuse threats to my health such as masks and vaccines, whose alleged harm to others has no basis in fact, as Section Two establishes. Courts review restrictions of “fundamental rights” by a standard they call “strict scrutiny”. It says any legally enforceable restriction of my fundamental rights must have a “legitimate secular government purpose” and must achieve that purpose by “the least restrictive means possible”.

The restriction must effectively achieve its purpose. It is not enough to merely allege that the “government purpose” is legitimate, is secular, is the least restrictive means possible to achieve its purpose, and is effective. All these must be proved in court under the scrutiny of any opposing expert testimony.

This application shows that mask and vaccine mandates:

Mandates Lack a Legitimate Government Purpose.

Reducing covid would be a legitimate government purpose, and that is its stated purpose, but a number of actions deliberately taken by government that actually make covid worse rule that out as its purpose, beginning with (1) housing covid patients in nursing homes(!), (2) blocking proven early treatment protocols, not based on a fair assessment of evidence, but with a mixture of censorship and wilful ignorance, and (3) grossly inflating covid death statistics which should be legally recognizable as a concession that the true figures cannot justify its mandates. (See Section Two.) Imposition of government religion – requiring citizens to bow down to and live by government mythology, is not a legitimate government purpose in America.

Mandates Are Not Secular.

These mandates have no basis in science, facts, evidence, etc., (see Section Two), yet are imbued with moral authority greater than that enjoyed by many churches. Therefore they do not fit the “secular” category claimed for them. The only category they fit is “religious”.

Mandates Are Not the least restrictive means...

...to achieve their purpose. Proven early treatment protocols are a zero restrictive means to control covid, yet government steps in to block those remedies, not with a fair assessment of evidence, but with a mixture of censorship and willful ignorance. “Herd immunity”, which has already been achieved by pre-covid standards, should be accepted as justifying no further government or employer intervention. (See Section Two.)

Mandates Are Not Effective.

Well, not in reducing covid. They are extremely effective in furthering government-established religion. (See Section Two.)

Mandates Are not proved.

(See Section Two.)

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.... - The First Amendment