IF YOU DON'T BELIEVE YOUR RELIGION
THEN YOU ARE NOT A TRUE MEMBER
What matters if a person uses a religious label is if they are representative of
it, ie have a belief or opinion about what they say is their religion that
carries some weight. They need to be informed and admit if they are falling
below standard - if they are. They can say how dedicated and pious they are. But
they cannot ask you to take their word for it or agree. You must let the
evidence speak for how authentic, or not, they are. Whoever is not informed has
definitely no right to give you their opinion and ask you to give it weight.
That is cheating. They are trying to influence you with their religious opinions
so that you will treat them as speaking for the religion.
Part of what religion is, is that it offers membership. Membership is not about mere enrolling but about keeping the membership alive. It’s a process not an event. A cherry-picker obviously cannot be a real member but an actor. Religions that deny these things are about nominal members and about labels and should be called pseudo-religions.
Roman Catholic Canon Law is clear that the Catholic Church is a visible tangible organisation governed by the successor of Peter, the pope and by the bishops in communion with him. Full members are those persons "who are joined with Christ in its visible structure by the bonds of profession of faith, the sacraments and ecclesiastical governance."
Pope Leo XIII : "The practice of the Church has always
been the same, as is shown by the unanimous teaching of the Fathers, who were
wont to hold as outside Catholic communion, and alien to the Church, whoever
would recede in the least degree from any point of doctrine proposed by her
authoritative Magisterium." (Satis Cognitum, 30).
A religion cannot be a religion unless it has doctrines that are required to be
believed.
If a person loses their faith and it is not their fault, they can still hold that
the teachings they disbelieve are essentials and they must wholeheartedly try to
accept them again. They could still be true members for they do not deny that
they should believe certain things and are obligated to.
It would be okay for such a person to say in public, "I am struggling with such
and such a doctrine required by the Church." But for them to say publicly, "That
teaching is rubbish" would be an entirely different matter. If you know your
religion claims to teach the truth infallibly and that it teaches error then
your membership is a mere label. To call yourself a member is honouring a
religion of error and perhaps lies. If the religion is wrong, its claim that you
are a member means nothing. You may as well claim to belong to somebody you sell
your soul to on ebay.
If the religion merely asks that its teachings be believed, that is not
requiring. Roman Catholicism makes adoption of all its beliefs obligatory. There
must be a punishment decreed for those who believe and then wilfully stop
believing. Those who refuse to believe or who wilfully abandon belief need to
receive retribution of some kind. Why? Because a law that does not punish is not
a law at all.
The minimal punishment has to be the loss of authentic membership in the
religion.
If a teaching is required and if you can be a true member and reject the
teaching then it is not a required teaching at all. Then a religion is just a body
of opinion - opinion cannot be taken very seriously. If the Catholic Church
allowed or permitted Catholics to deny that Jesus was God, it would no longer be
a Church. It would have to say to the person who say elects himself pope, "You
have the right to do so and we welcome your belief." Discipline and Catholic
identity would be under threat of extinction. The Church organisational
structure would come apart.
Catholics today tend to hold that if somebody is Catholic and is cherry-picking
what doctrines and rules they like, rather than encourage them to officially
leave the Church and get a new religion, they should try and engage with them.
The cherry-pickers have left the Church in their hearts and want to see the
Church become a social body that goes with the fashions and that takes its rules
from humanistic and secular ideologies.
The Catholics would certainly have to hold that some of them should just leave
officially. The Catholics would also have to hold that some of them are just
confused and could be good Catholics if they got the right help and support.
The Catholics will not want to drive people out but will have to help a person
decide if they should stay or not. Any other approach would be manipulative
unfair and unhelpful.
If Catholics could be sure that those who claim to stay will never have any
intention of considering acceptance of the real Catholic faith they would then
feel it is right to push them out.
None of this undermines the fact that a Catholic who invents his own version of
Catholicism must be honest and admit they are not Roman Catholics and not in
full communion with the Church.
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Never pretend
Sometimes the person who has renounced membership of the Christian
faith in their hearts will still behave outwardly as a believer to
placate relatives and friends who believe that ex-Christians are
damned to Hell forever. That is a mistake. First of all, you have
the right to ask your relatives and friends to respect your
sincerity as a virtue not as a vice that you will be punished for.
If their doctrine is about love they must be asked to respect their
own doctrine by loving you. If anybody wants to claim that they have
the right to have their beliefs respected, then we have the right to
expect them and ask them to be consistent with these beliefs.
Secondly, you have a right to be you. It is your life. Thirdly, just
because they think you are a Christian does not mean that what they
think is helping them. They might still be worried sick that you may
go to Hell. They might be better helped to leave the faith. And you
can't be an inspiration to them unless you yourself leave and show
an example of good and happy living that impresses them. Doing that
is helping them to think about quitting.
If you are forced to keep up religious
observance then keep looking for an opportunity to escape. At least
get your name removed from the membership records if this can be
done discreetly.
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Religion is a thing. It has to be. You cannot call just anything a religion. A
religion will have characteristics.
Religion is not a gathering of individuals. It is not a social club for
individuals. In fact, you have to give up at least some of your liberties to be
part of the religion. But you may say that say Mormons and Catholics for example
have a lot of freedom to do what they want. Yes but they are doing these things
primarily because they are permitted so they are still not free. The only
freedom the religious person has is the freedom to obey.
A club bases its rules on what suits the members best. Catholicism for example
cannot be considered a club for the pope and the bishops decide doctrine and say
they do it primarily for God and not for people. It is not a democracy and so it
is not a club.
You are not in truth a member of any organisation or religion unless you are at
least trying to believe what its authorities say you must believe.
Some religions teach that though you must believe to be a member, you will be
considered a true member if you are trying to believe. This is believing in the
sense that you believe it is possible you can believe. Even then belief in a
religion's teachings is making you a member.
There are so many hypocrites who claim to be Mormon, Catholic, Muslim or
whatever when they don't believe all they are expected to believe. They dissent
from the official standard of belief. The hypocrites would be best asked, "Are
you a believing Mormon (or whatever)?" They will waste your time with excuses if
you try to make them see that they are not Mormon or whatever. They fail to see
themselves for the play actors they are.
It is said that baptism makes one a member of the Christian Church. The Church
claims it does not have membership lists but merely records the fact that a
ceremony of baptism was undergone. It admits the possibility that a baptism may
not have been real or valid. So it follows then that the nominal Catholic is not
a Catholic. He cannot argue that he is a Catholic because a list says so. So it
his Catholic faith that determines what he is.
Authority is the right to delegate duties and to command others. A baby or child
can't be a Catholic or a Muslim or an Atheist or anything else. The baby does
not know what these faiths or whatever are or what they entail. False religions
cannot really have the authority to make a baby a member even if a baby can
become a member of the true faith. Having a child initiated into a religion, is
simply declaring the child what he or she is not. It is implying that the child
is somehow defective until this initiation takes place. If you thought your baby
was perfect you would not need to have a religious label pinned on to her or to
him. If this was done to you then now that you are older you can do something
about it. And you need to honour yourself by reversing or nullifying that
initiation.
It is obvious that the Catholic who is trying to accept and understand Church
teaching but who does not believe cannot be Catholic to the extent that a
believing Catholic is. Membership of the belief community is not the same as
having your name in the registry of members. It is even more important than the
registry or being socially accepted as a member of the religion. It is the basic
thing. It is not negotiable.