Recognizing that serious pandemics call forth explanations which go to the heart of beliefs about why natural disasters occur, this article examines three pandemics over the last 200 years (cholera from 1817, Spanish influenza in 1918–19, and COVID-19) to establish whether such explanations have changed significantly over time and, if so, why. What it finds is that this period saw a watershed in which the dominance of traditional religious explanations declined in many parts of the world in the face of the ascent of explanations based on biomedical science. Tracking this momentous change across several faiths and regions globally makes it possible to put into telling historical perspective the stances taken by faith-based communities in response to the current COVID-19 pandemic.

中文翻译：

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'17、'18、'19：1817、1918 和 2019 年三种流行病中的宗教和科学

认识到严重的流行病需要对自然灾害发生原因的信念的核心做出解释，本文研究了过去 200 年中的三种流行病（1817 年的霍乱、1918-19 年的西班牙流感和 COVID-19），以确定是否随着时间的推移，这种解释发生了显着变化，如果是，原因是什么。它发现这一时期是一个分水岭，面对基于生物医学科学的解释的兴起，传统宗教解释的主导地位在世界许多地方下降。跟踪全球多个信仰和地区的这一重大变化，可以从历史的角度了解信仰社区为应对当前的 COVID-19 大流行而采取的立场。