ARROGANCE OF AN ORGANISATION CLAIMING TO BE THE TRUE CHURCH AND ASKING PEOPLE OF POWER TO RESPECT AND GO ALONG WITH THIS CLAIM

The Roman Catholic Church claims to be the largest Christian Church in the world. It also claims to be the only right religion on the face of the earth. The Roman Catholic Church claims to be the one true Church and that this is proven by the Church being one, holy, Catholic and apostolic. The word Catholic conveys all time, all teachings, all nations, all eternity.  It is a way of saying, "The Church has the unchangeable truth".  Its boast that it is Catholic or Universal is a boast that it is not only the right religion but that it is the religion everybody should join. This is astounding in that no religion can be right for everybody. Already we have a proof that the vice of arrogance is behind the existence of the Church.

Catholicism claims not to be the only true religion but the only real religion. Religion is what binds you to God thus if God starts a religion anything else is not a religion but a counterfeit.  Religion comes from the word to bind.  Thus we must recognise that if the Church gets enough power through politics it will agree with the secularist opposition to religion as long as it is not its own.  But it will fuse itself with the state.

A religion being very believable or plausible still does not necessarily make it the true religion.  To claim to be the true religion is always a mark of the vice of pride and arrogance.  You can have strong evidence that X killed Jane though it may be the case that X never did it. You cannot say it is the truth that X killed Jane only that all indications are that it is. That is less strong.

The Catholics like to say, "People who hate the Church hate what they think the Church is. They would love it if they understood it." This is arrogant for several reasons.

One, it implies that the person saying this has a monopoly on interpreting Catholicism.

Two, it implies that the person has the vast knowledge necessary to know if a religion really is good or at least the best.

Three, it judges critics as being in error or perhaps speaking in bad faith.

Four, every religion claims that its critics don't understand it. That is really just a cynical trick to take away the credibility of the critics and to keep members inside.

Five, the Church claims to be a hospital for sinners so how are we supposed to be sure that it is even worthwhile to consider joining it for its battle against sin is a feeble and hypocritical one?

Six, their saying actually is a way of saying that the Church is the religion approved of by God for teaching doctrine and morals. In other words, they are claiming to be the true Church.

GOD IS THE CHURCH’S TRICK

You cannot believe in God without believing you have no right to judge God or criticise what God does. If you could judge God then you would be the real God. Your feelings and beliefs would be what is important and not God. When the Church tells you not to judge God it is really telling you not to judge its take on God. The Church pretends to be concerned about God when its true concern is itself. The Church is a deceitful self serving outfit.

Even if Catholicism is the religion with the best evidence it is still arrogant of it to claim that it is the true Church.

The Catholic Church says the only reason it is the best religion is because it is the only true religion. Many would see that as unhelpful for it is only a claim. There is a difference between being the best and claiming to be. If Catholicism is indeed the best that does not imply that it is divine or all true. A man-made religion can be the best religion. And being the best might mean it still does not amount to very much!

The teaching that all who are sincere and good are unknowingly members of the Catholic Church treats Catholicism as some kind of default from which anything else is an aberration. This is arrogance.

FAITH AND REASON

Christianity often says it does not oppose reason. It says faith and reason are not in conflict. It alleges that faith tells us what reason cannot tell us. Let us pretend that no rational objection to Christianity has been found. (Maybe one hasn't been found yet.) That still does not mean the religion is true.

Are faith and reason equal?

The Church says that faith and reason are good friends. We get the faith and we test it with reason and see that it is rational. The Church denies that reason alone is any good. This says that faith and reason are compatible and they complement each other.

But you can never know if faith and reason are really compatible. Anybody who knows science thoroughly can invent a faith that slots into the gaps and claim that the faith and science are complimentary. Just because something can be put into the holes does not mean it belongs there.

Religion tends to say that there is an all-good and all-powerful God. The existence of evil contradicts that. Religion says it does not and only looks as if it does. Religion says that evil then is a mystery. If evil disproves God then we can tell ourselves it is a mystery how one can be reconciled to the other. The mystery theory is only a guess. Nobody has the right to use guesses to make faith and reason fit together.

Theologians who are not experts in science claim the right to declare that science and religion are compatible. The audacity! And they are selective of what scientists they want to listen to. There are exceptions but most scientists do not see the religious view of things as remotely plausible.

Here is an example of faith and reason conflicting. The Church says that God is right to let us come into existence biased against him and that this defect is remedied in our baby baptism. But reason says that God should remove the bias in babies when he is going to do it anyway if they are baptised.

The religions that say they are the one true faith or religion or divine family are claiming to have a monopoly on truth or getting truth unless they are claiming to have the entire truth.

We conclude that Catholicism is arrogant. As it claims to have all the truth, it is therefore more arrogant than say Anglicanism could ever be.




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