Black Plague and Faith in God
There is a theory that 70 million Europeans immigrated into America for about a century before WWII.
The main reason is that Europeans had destroyed forests and woods in a large scale. To promote civilization, they thought it was good and just to destroy woods and forests for centuries even before the start of the Industrial Revolution. Even those living in woods were sometimes wrongly attacked and accused of being witches. But for people to live, woods and forests were needed. So, many Europeans left Europe for America where a great number of woods existed.
In Europe, after woods destroyed, fields of grass were generated. Wolves and other wild animals were wiped away. But rats and other small animals remained. However black rats became the source of black plague. Plague bacteria were transferred from black rats to fleas. Fleas bit human beings who then fell in black plague.
With expansion of civilization, European forests were changed to fields of grass, which triggered an epidemic of black plague many times.
In Japan, woods and forests were not so drastically destroyed. The traditional Japanese agricultural system based on paddy fields needed mountains behind paddy fields as various resources such as farmyard composts. So, in Japan, black plague has never spread.
In the 14th century, black plague attacked China, killing half of its population. Then plague bacteria were carried to Italy, leading to a great European black plague tragedy where one third of Europeans were killed by this pestilence. Till the 18th century, black plague attacked Europe in a large scale several times. This must be one of reasons for many Europeans immigrated into America.
In Europe, it seems that it was not churches but science that saved people from black plague. So, faith in God must have been doomed to reduce before faith in science. But Europeans who fled to American must have thanked to God for they became safe from black plague, so that their faith in God must have been strengthened in America.
Anyway, black plague must have had a grave influence on the Vatican.
**** **** ****
Mar 6:25 And she came in straightway with haste unto the king, and asked, saying, I will that thou give me by and by in a charger the head of John the Baptist.
Mar 6:26 And the king was exceeding sorry; yet for his oath's sake, and for their sakes which sat with him, he would not reject her.
Mar 6:27 And immediately the king sent an executioner, and commanded his head to be brought: and he went and beheaded him in the prison,
Mar 6:28 And brought his head in a charger, and gave it to the damsel: and the damsel gave it to her mother.
Mar 6:29 And when his disciples heard of it, they came and took up his corpse, and laid it in a tomb.
Mar 6:30 And the apostles gathered themselves together unto Jesus, and told him all things, both what they had done, and what they had taught.
Mar 6:31 And he said unto them, Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest a while: