In ancient times, there was Moloch, reviled by God in the Old Testament for the children who were burned alive as a sacrifice to the idol.  One of the crowning glories of the Jewish faith is the moment when God asks Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac and then orders him to drop the knife.  At that moment, God established for all time that, while His followers were devoted enough to sacrifice their children to Him, He would never want them to do so.  Children were sacred in God's sight and their lives were never to be destroyed.

Now children are being sacrificed again.  Their lives are not being taken — only twisted out of recognition when it comes to normal intellectual and social development.  The method of the sacrifice is something so small that many adults wonder what all the fuss is about.  "It's just a mask," the new devotees of child sacrifice insist.  Never mind that throughout the entire pandemic, children have been at the lowest risk for catching COVID; that youngsters have a lower risk for developing long COVID; and that fatal COVID outcomes in children are linked with severe comorbidities.

Adults are much more at risk, but adults are being allowed to take off their masks.  Children are at very little risk, but they are being forced to remain masked.

Masking children was never a good idea.  Children can't even remember to cover their mouths when they sneeze, or to wash their hands after they go to the bathroom.  There was never a realistic hope that children would wear masks appropriately.

Image: Young child in mask by wirestock.  Freepik license.

On the other hand, there were fears that masks would adversely affect children's intellectual and social development.  The CDC has just confirmed those fears.  More than two years into the pandemic, the CDC has lowered a developmental milestone.

Before the pandemic, the standard for speech in early childhood development was that children should know 50 words by the age of 24 months.  The new milestone is now 50 words at 30 months.  The CDC wants us to believe that all is well.  However, the clinical director at the Speech and Learning Institute in North Palm Beach, Florida, speech-language pathologist Jaclyn Theeck, reports that prior to the pandemic, only 5% of patients were toddlers.  After years of masking children, 20% of patients are now toddlers.  The rate of referrals for toddlers from pediatricians has gone up a whopping 364%.

The practice of throwing living children into a fire to placate a fearsome deity is looked upon today as shocking and primitive.  We look down our noses at those people who acted out of fear and superstition to destroy their children.  I have a feeling that our descendants are going to look down their noses at us and wonder how we could sacrifice the well-being of our children to placate the fear and superstition created by the COVID cult.

Pandra Selivanov is the author of The Pardon, a story of forgiveness based on the thief on the cross in the Bible.