Swine Flu and Religion: the Hajj
Disease, particularly on an epidemic scale, often affects religion. I might point to what Thucydides, for example, says about religion during the great plague of Athens in the fifth century BCE at the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War. As people died of the plague and the plague spread, all social bonds broke down. He writes: Equally useless were prayers made in the temples, consultation of oracles, and so forth; indeed, in the end people were overcome by their sufferings that they paid no further attention to such things. (Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War 2.47; trans. Rex Warner) The complete abandonment of religion (and all law) is a rather extreme version of how disease affects religious observance. But less extreme but still significant changes, mostly coming from religious authorities have been put into play with multiple religions. A couple weeks ago we heard about changes in Catholic services, when the common cup for Eucharist ceremonies was removed and holy wat...