GOD BELIEF IMPLICITLY TRIGGERS MORAL BULLYING

People fear losing a moral compass should faith in God be ignored or abandoned. You do not need to believe in God to believe in good because sheer evil is impossible. Sheer evil is as logically impossible as a non-existent dog eating your dinner. Your starting point can only be the fact that what we call evil is a falling short of good. It is distorted good or good that is in the wrong place. This principle is more important than God and even God if he exists cannot change it.

The principle has to be valued above God and all else. Even God cannot be valued without it. But it shows that God is an incoherent concept. God by definition is that which is all-good and deserves all our devotion but we see that God is nothing in comparison to the principle.

God is the creation of man when man tries to worship a good being instead of goodness. It is a form of idolatry for we must serve goodness.

"Love the Sinner, Hate the Sin" exploits others and yourself by making judgement look like love.

Never condemn or hate anybody's so-called sins - and especially not your own.

People say you must disapprove of a person’s wrong action but that does not mean you disapprove of the person. But surely this means one way you do and another way you do not? What if they somehow identify with the sin? Billy the Kid would not like his sin condemned for he saw being a knave as what he was about! Hate his sin then is clearly hating the sinner.

The more natural our sins are - eg we habitually think and do unkind things every day - the more they are us. Loving the sinner is indirectly attacking the sinner.

If I really thought people judge my sin and not me I would not care what sins they say I have. If you must love the sinner and hate the sin it follows that it does not matter if you think that person is worse than what they are. The bigger the sin the more love is needed. Jesus as good as said that when he said he came to the worst of sinners - the ones who needed the most help. The doctrine is just full of contradictions.

If you love the sinner because he is not completely bad that means you are saying, “If you were completely bad I would not love you.”

The notion that I owe somebody love is contradictory. Owing means I am being commanded to love. But commanding to love is a contradiction.

It is hard enough to love somebody on the basis of a command to love. But it is ten times harder if you see the person as a sinner.

To say you cannot hate a sinner for she is not totally bad is to say that you would hate her if she was.

The sin would be part of the person for sin only shows what a person is like. Love the sinner and hate the sin really means love the sinner in spite of the sin! You have to force yourself!

Loving the sinner in spite of the sin implies this love is not good but is a mere necessary evil.

Loving the sinner because of the sin is saying you must prefer sinners to the good person!

Loving the sinner and hating the sin is impossible for it calls for the sinner to be punished and punishment is not about what is good for the sinner. It is about hurting the sinner.

If you believe in sin or morality, then it is the immoral person who is the problem not their action.

When we do evil we don’t necessarily become evil. It is evil in its results but the intention was to do good and the reason evil happened was because we did the wrong kind of good. This is true even when we do what we call sin or deliberate evil. Strictly speaking there is no deliberate evil. What we call evil is less bad than what we think.

The teaching of sin is to be undermined and rejected at all costs. To say nothing is to become part of the problem.

What do I do then? Each person must realise, "People never attack me personally. Ever. People only attack what they perceive me to be. It is not because of me that they attack me. It is because of the way they let themselves feel about me. If they attack me, the only person they succeed in demeaning is themselves." I do not hate the sin and love the doer of the sin. Instead I refuse to call what another person does a sin. I may call it a mistake. I hope I can give light to the doer to make them see they want to be good and can do it better. Love the wrongdoer and see the good in the wrong and discourage the part of it that is wrong. This is very difficult because we tend to deny there is any good in evil actions that upset us. This is feelings taking over.

Sin is based on the idea of commands from God. You break the commands and that is sin. The suggestion that God gives commands is a form of violence.

God cannot command you to do right. If anything should command, then right commands itself. But right only suggests and does not coerce or demand.

Gods, Bibles, prophets and popes commanding people to do this and not to do that are making it a duty to do what they say. Commands are violent for they try to overpower the will of another. But what if the person who is commanded wants to and chooses to obey? That does not change the fact that the Gods, Bibles, prophets and popes are trying to make their will greater than theirs. Commands are attacks on another person's self-esteem. I build up my sense of self-value. I will then never need to be commanded. I will help others build up their own. So then I will never need to command them but to simply ask.

Commands say I must say certain acts are despicable instead of saying I feel they are despicable. Just because I don't like a painting does not mean it is a bad painting. I notice that I can't totally dislike it. Never say, "I hate it" or "I don't like it." That is too black and white. It's too simplistic.

Commands and negativity are close friends. Commands imply I should be forced to do what I don't want to do. If there was no interest in forcing, then asking would suffice. Commands cause me to break them by affirming that I are dangerous and need a bit of forcing. They do not help as they stir up the rebel in me.

My self-esteem will grow if I try to stop categorising my judgements as black and white. It's never that simple. My self-esteem will grow if I stop value judging. When I experience myself as a judgemental person, I fear being judged and I become more prone to mistakes. I fear what I have learned to fear through experience.

Belief in God is not necessary if commands are to be opposed. If people want comfort they can find comfort in an idol if they wish. Whatever works for them would be what matters. Belief in God implies that judgement and unhappiness are desirable.

You have to judge yourself. Nobody can tell you have really done wrong but you. God or the law judging you when you don’t fully agree with them is simply a form of oppression.

I am free. I will remain free. And peace will flow to me and from me. I am free from the forcefulness of commands which at best is a tacit form of violence. I am free.

The sick are vulnerable to the exploits of people of faith and to faith which is exploitative.

When you suffer or see another suffer, do not say this is permitted by a good God for it is in his plan. Unless you see the plan in detail you have no right to saying it is a plan. It is only a guess to make yourself feel better. When others suffer, it is not about you. It is not up to you to feel better about it. It is about them.

When you suffer tell yourself repeatedly - I am bigger than this. I will do good in spite of it. At the end of the day, that is the only thing that can help you.

I have such compassion for you.

Compassion means I see no good in or justification for what is happening to you.

If I fail in compassion towards you at least I know I’m wrong. At least the door to doing something about it is being opened.

Compassion entails ignoring, and better still, rejecting God.

We hope that this essay gives some help towards linking God and the abuse of the vulnerable and addressing it.