Religion is Pro-Censorship or Should be and is Probably Pretending to be Anti!
If people want you to respect their beliefs and opinions,
they must do nothing to censor you - if they really respect belief and opinion,
they will respect your opinion and belief that you should gently and kindly
guide them to guide themselves into the light. In fact censorship does not lead
to any belief being respected, it only leads to fake respect that is just a
cover for resentment.
It is pointed out that when religion causes a lot of unrest and bloodshed in a
nation that censoring it makes it far more virulent. This is surely a sign that
religion in times of peace does not really respect the state or the people and
shows its true colours when it gets the chance. An entity that shows no respect
for the law when censored even for the sake of the people never had genuine
respect in the first place.
“Did not the Pope forbid the liberty of the Press? He
condemned the doctrine that the Press is quite free to propagate pernicious
doctrine. Any sane man would admit that no one has liberty before God to
propagate error and iniquity. There is no such thing as moral freedom to do what
one likes whether God forbids it or not. And this the Pope clearly stated” (page
215, Question 1049, Radio Replies, Volume One).
“The moment a Catholic perceives a book to be dangerous
to his faith or morals he knows from the doctrine concerning occasions of sin
that he is obliged to cease reading it. Each is his own censor to a certain
extent. In doubt, a book could be given to a Priest to read. The moment the
Priest finds that the book is undoubtedly evil in itself, he closes it and
forbids it. If it needs reading right through for the purpose of refutation, he
secures permission from the Bishop and does it as a duty” (ibid, page 216,
Question 1061).
A religionist is forbidden to harm her own faith and if
she lets another err when she can prevent it she is doing the same as sinning
against her own faith for she is willing error to happen. So the religionists
will censor and snip and edit the works of heretics to protect their cult. It is
indeed a duty to protect people from being sucked in by error. Error removes the
freedom to be right which is more important than the freedom to be wrong.
So each religion had to fight the other’s power to spread
what it considers to be error. Given that religion admits to being sinful,
bigotry and violence are inevitable. Religion would not exist if people felt
that it was better to let error thrive than to risk violence, the growth of
prejudice and bloodshed. Every time it opens its mouth there is that risk. For
example, few Catholic kids have not been hit or devoured for missing Mass. Error
will lead to people suffering for lies.
Humanists will NOT censor error when they come to power
but they will let religion publish and decree that books must be accompanied by
comments from Atheism or direct people to where they can hear the other side.
That is the only possible compromise for a person of integrity. Freedom of
speech and thought must never be hindered - censorship is wrong and wholly
unnecessary.
Civil law decrees that nobody has the right to command
murder for murder is a great and intolerable wrong. Jesus said that the greatest
commandment was not to avoid murder but to love God alone and do it with all
your heart and soul and mind. So nobody has the right to say there is no God or
to criticise this commandment meaning the law should not tolerate it. The Law of
Moses was perfectly logical in trying to set up a religious dictatorship in
which religion and civil law were fused. This commandment was the reason why
Moses’ law ruled Palestine and to say God’s law today should not control the
state is to oppose the commandment.
God wills all to believe so his family has a duty to
suppress Atheism and anybody who criticises theism for they hinder God’s will
and God comes first and the risk that something may be done that will lead one
more person to rot in Hell forever has to be eliminated. Each religion says that
the reasonable person will believe in it. That means that anybody that does not
will not search and research is sinning. It is a sin for reasonableness requires
one to be open-minded so to be consistent. To claim the right to be believed,
religion simply has to use censorship for its evidence is so flimsy and totally
diabolical when traced back to the roots. If people have free will, stamping
out bad influence is still required for there are ways to arrange that most
people will freely go a certain path. The critics would have to be thrown in
jail to keep them quiet. Only the ultra-naive argue that it is all right to let
Atheists proselytise for it is up to God to deal with them. This is a dangerous
argument too. It justifies doing nothing at all for anything.
The message of the Bible is that man is pig-headed and
hates doing the will of God. The New Testament elaborated on this and developed
the doctrine of original sin that says we are biased towards going our own way
since Adam sinned on our behalf and we inherit bad blood against God (page 20,
Christianity). Romans 3 says that all are sinners and deserve the wrath of God
and that nobody does good - nobody.
Since in any situation there are many ways to do the
wrong thing and only one to do the right thing a doubling of this cynicism is
inevitable. This suggests that people should be forced to believe or go along
with the same doctrines for if they are allowed to think for themselves and
express what they think only chaos will ensue for they will let their evil
satanic and godless desires colour their thinking and hide it well. Nobody can
make everybody think the same way but they can make sure it looks as if they do
think alike.
Original sin implies that that we are biased towards
Atheism both in our thinking and in the way we live. Original sin implies that
Atheists and agnostics should be persecuted and not be given freedom of speech
for they do the most work for making original sin have more influence. They
regard original sin as the worst sin in the sense that it is the cause of all
others. They say that Adam committed the greatest sin ever when he ate the
forbidden fruit for he made us inherit sin from him and so he is partly to blame
for all the murders and terrible things we have done. So when we become an
Atheist or agnostic we are supporting his sin as far as possible and becoming as
bad as him in malice though not in consequences. Anybody that sins then is being
glad Adam sinned – and being glad that it led to what it led to - so the
doctrine of original sin implies that sin is totally intolerable for it is so
evil.
Paul definitely taught that we were punished for Adam’s
sin with weakness towards sin and that our individual sins are products of this
original sin, this opposition to God that we are born with. This implies that in
case the faith is wrong, Christians should persecute Atheists so that they will
not destroy the faith when there might be no God that is interested in
preserving it. Faith is not total certainty so God can’t complain about them
doing this. It has to be done whether belief in God is true or not if it is a
good belief that opposes original sin and puts a curb on it. Every religion that
claims to be true is claiming to be the best and so it must have the right to
preserve itself by persecuting rivals in case there is no God to do the
preserving. Humanists despise this attitude because Atheism is just each person
being his own master and decision-maker that goes to a group of Atheists for
help but is not part of a one true faith. It’s individualistic.
Christians if they understand their religion will say,
"We have duty to worship God according to the method he has revealed. A duty is
something you have to do and if you don’t do it you must suffer for it – one way
or another there is something you are compelled to do. From all this it follows
that we have a duty to believe in Christianity the one true religion. Those who
do not believe are neglecting their duty. They must be silenced as should be a
person who advocates stealing for everybody has a duty to forbid stealing. Duty
does not presuppose understanding what you have to do. You can be punished for
doing something you didn't know was wrong. You can be punished for something you
heard was wrong even though you don't understand why it is wrong." The doctrine
of God then presupposes that it is a duty to honour God and that you are
breaking your duty if you don't believe. It would be a duty for believers to
silence unbelievers and use the law to stop them publishing anything in defence
of unbelief or anything critical of the predominant religion.
People should be allowed to say what they like and if it
is anything dangerous there should be somebody there to correct them. Censorship
is just fundamentalism. It is part of the scheme to stop free thought and once
that is stopped other human rights abuses will soon follow.
Religion stresses that you should care about only what
God thinks and not other people. That is stressed because it knows that most of
its own followers are not that bothered about morality. The true Christian will
be hurt by his own religious brethren more than by anybody else. Christianity is
famous for ignoring the parts of Jesus’ teaching that it does not like. To urge
a person to forget about what others say and think will often lead to that
person not caring about breaking the law and who knows it. Worrying about the
neighbours can be taken too far but it can put some restraint on a person.
If you really believe your religion is the best thing for
the world or your country, if you really believe God comes first, then the only
time you can countenance democracy is when you urge people to democratically
elect that God and the Church rule over them. There can be no doubt that if a
religion is pro-democracy it must want that. The members of the Church and the
clergy have to command that people do whatever it takes to do that.
No religion can accept democracy and be true to itself.