Is the Virus Made by God?

“I will send locusts to eat up the crops or send an epidemic on my people,
if they pray to me and repent and turn away from the evil they have been doing.”

Is the coronavirus an act of God? Some people ask.

Thus saith the LORD: “I will send the sword, famine, and plague against them, until they have perished from the land I gave to them and their fathers.”

Yes, as a matter of fact, God did create this virus epidemic due to the collective sinful activities of the current society, including its killing and eating of millions and millions of animals — like bats, cats, rats, mice, dogs, cows, sheeps, centipedes, turtles, snakes etc. That is not going to end well just from a scientific view — of how virus is spread from animals to people.

Eating animals, especially the cow, is very sinful and it can cause pandemics, never mind eating bats, cats, dogs, goats, snakes, scorpions, centipedes, and assorted other critters will not end well. Either way, its bad news for the world, and ISKCON has not made the rural farm communities we should have had by now, so we would have a shelter from all this disease and economic chaos.

 Bible passage suggesting God would punish evil world with an ‘epidemic’

“Whenever I hold back the rain or send locusts to eat up the crops or send an epidemic on my people, if they pray to me and repent and turn away from the evil they have been doing, then I will hear them in heaven, forgive their sins and make their land prosperous again.” (Cronicles 7.13-14)

God’s punishments also has the goal of repentance and restoration. In 2 Chronicles 7:13–14, God said to Solomon, “When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people, if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”

Here we see God using disaster to draw His people to Himself, to bring about repentance and the desire to come to Him as children to their heavenly Father.

Disease-outbreak-is-punishment-from-god

An article published by journalist A Q Siddiqui on the India Post argued that God sent the virus to Earth to punish humanity for losing its way:

Mr Siddiqui wrote for the India Post: “In modern history, it is the first time that worshipers to God are not allowed where they should be. “The sages among mankind believe that God will be unhappy when justice will be denied, when atrocities against mankind will increase, rulers will usurp their powers and suppress their subjects, courts will shun justice.

MEAT EATERS ARE MURDERERS:
In the Srimad Bhagavatam in a purport to verse number 1.7.37, Srila Prabhupada says: “According to Manu, the great author of civic codes and religious principles, even the killer of an animal is to be considered a murderer because animal food is never meant for the civilized man, whose prime duty is to prepare himself for going back to Godhead. He says that in the act of killing an animal, there is a regular conspiracy by the party of sinners, and all of them are liable to be punished as murderers exactly like a party of conspirators who kill a human being combinedly. The below-mentioned are all murderers, and all of them are liable to be punished by the laws of nature:

–    He who gives permission,
–    he who kills the animal,
–    he who sells the slaughtered animal,
–    he who cooks the animal,
–    he who administers distribution of the foodstuff, and
–    he who eats such cooked animal food.

No one can create a living being despite all advancement of material science, and therefore no one has the right to kill a living being by one’s independent whims. For the animal-eaters, the scriptures have sanctioned restricted animal sacrifices only, and such sanctions are there just to restrict the opening of slaughterhouses and not to encourage animal-killing. The procedure under which animal sacrifice is allowed in the scriptures is good both for the animal sacrificed and the animal-eaters. It is good for the animal in the sense that the sacrificed animal is at once promoted to the human form of life after being sacrificed at the altar, and the animal-eater is saved from grosser types of sins (eating meats supplied by organized slaughterhouses which are ghastly places for breeding all kinds of material afflictions to society, country and the people in general).” Animal killing is always sinful, but the flesh-eaters are allowed to eat meat only after performing restricted animal sacrifice.

Sacrificial offerings to Goddess Kali?

MAMSA: In a Srimad Bhagavatam discourse on verse number 2.9.9, Srila Prabhupada explains “Therefore according to Vedic system, the meat-eater is given chance by sacrificing an animal before some demigod. Not free slaughterhouse. No. That you cannot do. Undergoing that process, some day he will come to his senses that “Meat-eating and killing of animal is not good.” Because there are so many mantras. If you understand mantras, the mantra, when a goat is sacrificed before Goddess Kālī, before the goat being cut by his throat, the priest says that “Because you are sacrificing your life before Goddess Kālī, next life you are going to have human form of body for your, this sacrifice.” Otherwise you have to undergo the process. That is gradual evolutionary process. But because you are forced somehow or other in the presence of mother material energy, she will give you the facility to promote immediately to the human form of life. And as human being, you will have every right to kill this man who is killing you. That is meaning of māṁsa. Mām means me, sa means he. “He will also eat me.” So I will have to take the form of a goat next life. And he will take the form of a human being and he will get the chance of killing me. He can excuse, but he will get the chance. This is the bandhana. Karma-bandhana. So after hearing all these mantras, if one takes the risk of eating meat, let him do that. But who is that sane man who will take this risk? This is the meaning of sacrifice. Not that it is a slaughterhouse substitute. No. They will understand that what kind of risk they are going to take by killing the animal under the name of sacrifice. Another thing is that to sacrifice the goat before the demigod Kālī means it is restricted. Because the prescription is that one can sacrifice a goat before Goddess Kālī on the dark moon night, amāvasyā. That is once in a month. So even the śāstra gives him the facility, the facility is restricted.”

KALI-PRASAD: There are foolish people who consider meat as “Kali Prasad”. Srila Prabhupada explains the fallacy in this idea: “In Calcutta there are many butcher shops which keep a deity of the goddess Kālī, and animal-eaters think it proper to purchase animal flesh from such shops in hope that they are eating the remnants of food offered to goddess Kālī. They do not know that goddess Kālī never accepts non-vegetarian food because she is the chaste wife of Lord Śiva. Lord Śiva is also a great Vaiṣṇava and never eats nonvegetarian food, and the goddess Kālī accepts the remnants of food left by Lord Śiva. Therefore, there is no possibility of her eating flesh or fish. Such offerings are accepted by the associates of goddess Kālī known as bhūtas, piśācas and Rākṣasas, and those who take the prasāda of goddess Kālī in the shape of flesh or fish are not actually taking the prasāda left by goddess Kālī, but the food left by the bhūtas and piśācas.”

COW-KILLERS: Formerly great sages used to perform sacrifices involving cow-killing. It is explained in the Chaitanya Charitamrita that “In the Vedas and Purāṇas there are injunctions declaring that if one can revive a living being, one can kill it for experimental purposes. Therefore, the great sages sometimes killed old cows, and by chanting Vedic hymns they brought them back to life for perfection. The killing and rejuvenation of such old and invalid cows was not truly killing but an act of great benefit. Formerly there were powerful brāhmaṇas who could make such experiments using Vedic hymns, but now, because of the Kali-yuga, brāhmaṇas are not so powerful. Therefore, the killing of cows and bulls for rejuvenation is forbidden. Since people cannot bring killed cows back to life, they are responsible for killing them. Therefore, they are going to hell; there is no way for their deliverance. Cow-killers are condemned to rot in hellish life for as many thousands of years as there are hairs on the body of the cow.”

ANIMAL KILLERS HAVE TO SUFFER IN A HELL CALLED RAURAVA:
In Kali yuga, animal sacrifices are forbidden because there are no qualified brahmanas to chant the mantras effectively. The only sacrifice recommended in this age is the Sankirtana Yajna. The animal killers are punished in hell according to the Srimad Bhagavatam verse number 5.26.10: “A person who accepts his body as his self works very hard day and night for money to maintain his own body and the bodies of his wife and children. While working to maintain himself and his family, he may commit violence against other living entities. Such a person is forced to give up his body and his family at the time of death, when he suffers the reaction for his envy of other creatures by being thrown into the hell called Raurava.”

The 3 Day Darknes, yet to come
Exodus 10:22 – The Ninth Plague: Darkness
21.) Then the LORD said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand toward heaven, so that darkness may spread over the land of Egypt—a palpable darkness.” 22.) So Moses stretched out his hand toward heaven, and total darkness covered all the land of Egypt for three days. 23.) No one could see each other, and for three days no one left his place.

The wrath of God

• Matthew 24:7-8
  For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of sorrows.
• Revelation 6:8
  So I looked, and behold, a pale horse. And the name of him who sat on it was Death, and Hades followed with him. And power was given to them over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword, with hunger, with death, and by the beasts of the earth.
• Leviticus 26:25
  And I will bring a sword against you that will execute the vengeance of the covenant; when you are gathered together within your cities I will send pestilence among you; and you shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy.
• Deuteronomy 28:58-63
  “If you do not carefully observe all the words of this law that are written in this book, that you may fear this glorious and awesome name, THE LORD YOUR GOD, then the LORD will bring upon you and your descendants extraordinary plagues—great and prolonged plagues—and serious and prolonged sicknesses. Moreover He will bring back on you all the diseases of Egypt, of which you were afraid, and they shall cling to you. Also every sickness and every plague, which is not written in this Book of the Law, will the LORD bring upon you until you are destroyed. You shall be left few in number, whereas you were as the stars of heaven in multitude, because you would not obey the voice of the LORD your God. And it shall be, that just as the LORD rejoiced over you to do you good and multiply you, so the LORD will rejoice over you to destroy you and bring you to nothing; and you shall be plucked from off the land which you go to possess.
• Deuteronomy 32:24
  They shall be wasted with hunger,
  Devoured by pestilence and bitter destruction;
  I will also send against them the teeth of beasts,
  With the poison of serpents of the dust.
• Jeremiah 21:6-9
  I will strike the inhabitants of this city, both man and beast; they shall die of a great pestilence. And afterward,” says the LORD, “I will deliver Zedekiah king of Judah, his servants and the people, and such as are left in this city from the pestilence and the sword and the famine, into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of those who seek their life; and he shall strike them with the edge of the sword. He shall not spare them, or have pity or mercy.”’ “Now you shall say to this people, ‘Thus says the LORD: “Behold, I set before you the way of life and the way of death. He who remains in this city shall die by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence; but he who goes out and defects to the Chaldeans who besiege you, he shall live, and his life shall be as a prize to him.