Catholicism is Divisive and Sectarian

Official Catholicism is a conservative religion. It opposes liberalism. Thus it is divisive. Secularism would run smoothly and do great good only for the Church making things awkward for it.

The differences between liberals and conservatives is as follows.

1 - liberals make a priority of subjectivity and conservatives objectivity. Liberals then begin with the heart not the head.

2 - liberals prioritise personal freedom while many so-called conservatives make objective truth more important. The Catholic Church claims to teach that persons and truth are absolute in their value. In other words, one is as important as the other. It says this is true conservatism.

3 - liberals worry more about the global while the conservatives put the family unit first.

4 - liberals love change while conservatives love things to stay the same.

5 - liberals say you are saved by believing whatever you want as long as you are sincere while conservatives say you are only saved by sincerely accepting objective truth.

An example of Catholic intolerance could be read in the 6 June 2010 issue of Catholic Voice page 9. Headlined, Church Must Protest Against Laws Favouring Homosexuality. This was in interview with Cardinal Janis Pujats, Archbishop of Riga, Latvia. He stated that homosexuality was an acquired vice that can be likened to drugs and so on. He said that homosexuality should not be tolerated in the public sphere as it gives bad example to all society. He said that vice must be reined in and treated. He encouraged resistance to homosexuality and gay parades in Latvia. He claimed that if there is violence that it is up to the police to sort it out and added lamely that the Church condemns violence.

The Church says that it is good that we have the power to choose God and his Church or reject him and his Church. The power to choose is not good in itself. It is only good when used correctly. The Church's doctrine implies that we should praise people who give out guns to everybody in sight.

Christians say that if there is a God he will leave clear evidence. It is because of this that they say that the atheist who says he is open-minded and looking at the universe to see if God exists or not is lying. They say he is biased by having made up his mind if the first place that there is no God. Thus they show they judge atheists and condemn them.

The Church says that virtues of compassion and patience etc will not be used in Heaven - we don't need them there for it is perfect. But what is the point of suffering on earth to develop virtues that will be no good to you in Heaven? The Church replies that the virtues are good in themselves. They are not good just because they are good for you or good for others. This implies that you don't need other people to be good - you can be simply good without them. To say that you don't need other people implies that the need you feel for them is an evil. It implies that results don't matter. If say love is not good simply because of its results then what is really good about it? A maths sum done correctly might be said to be good in itself even if it is no good to anybody. But is that goodness really important then? The good is better if it does good for you and other people.

The Church says that if you don't have its view of God then what you worship is an idol. For example, if God is thought to be imperfect or if there is greater power than him then he is unworthy of worship and is an idol. Idolatry is worshiping an unworthy God or a god that is not a god at all.

The Church says that atheists who think this world is so awful that there cannot be a God should wish for a nuclear war. And if they are concerned for example that animals such as cats suffer so much why don't they celebrate the extinction of animals? The Church wants atheists to be evil so that it can promote its own ideology. Atheists believe that the world is awful for many but not all. That is why we don't want extinction. Christianity loves to create straw men to criticise.

The Church says that if you have an illegitimate or unjust government that does grave harm in your nation then you must try to overthrow it provided it will make things better. The Church says that spiritual harm is the worst harm . So logically then all governments that are not wrapped around the little finger of the Church must be unjust and illegitimate.

Hitler was inspired by the Catholic Church's immunity to doctrinal fashion, its dogmatism and its bloodthirsty Bible God (page 95, Sacred Causes). He wanted to create his own Nazi religion (ibid, page 212). The fascists used religious forms derived from Catholicism and made its own version of the creed. The fascists printed a blasphemous fascist creed in the 1925 Balilla Youth Movement (ibid, page 165). The Church never issued a proper condemnation of the activities of the Ustashi who forced conversion to Catholicism on Orthodox Serbs (ibid, page 329).
 
If there were nothing in Northern Ireland but Humanists who believed that state policy should be implemented without any reference to specifically religious doctrine the division that led to the troubles would not existed.
 
Reverence for God is intrinsically and necessarily intolerant. Instead of developing your love for yourself and others you make the effort to love him instead. That is discrimination - turning away from humanity to favour a being of faith. As God is supposed to be pure goodness, it follows he deserves all love and you should only serve others and yourself for his sake which means you really serve only him. Your motive is to please him.

For the vast majority of Catholics, their religion is about taking a label, Catholic. Most Catholics are really Protestants. They do what they want, they neglect confession and Mass and they think for themselves. The Church says that all people join it through baptism meaning that even Protestant baptism makes you a Catholic until you are led astray to adopt the Protestant faith. Whoever says they do not believe the popes teaching is denying papal authority and not really recognising the pope. That person is a Protestant, if they believe in Christ, and they are deceiving themselves if they call themselves Catholic. To be a Protestant in your belief is to be a proper Protestant. Protestant Churches are not really Churches but collections of individuals. This is because of the doctrine that every person must stand alone before God and judge for themselves what the truth is.

Richard Dawkins is right about labelling children as Muslim, Jewish, Catholic or Protestant or whatever children is child abuse. Is abuse too strong of a word? No - any maltreatment or advantage taking is abuse. It is abuse when no harm can ensue for it is still taking advantage of the child. If a witch believed that a spell could stop say a baby's baptism into Catholic membership from working there is as much evidence that she is a wacko as there is that the Church can really make the baby a member of God's family. So labels are only nonsense. If a baby is circumcised into Judaism and baptised into Catholicism at the one time, what label should it have? It can't have both. Perhaps the faith that has the best evidence for its claims should be considered to be the one that can put the label on? But there is no evidence that we should believe either religion. Any evidence they present is biased and contradicted by other evidence. And besides, since belief is based on what you believe the evidence is saying is probably true, nobody has the right to ask you to believe anything.

In places like Northern Ireland, to have your baby baptised as a Catholic is making that baby a future hate target of Protestants. It's evil.

The Catholic Church used to forbid Catholics to attend Protestant worship.

The 1917 Code of Canon Law says:

It is not licit for the faithful by any manner to assist actively or have a part in the sacred [rites] of non-Catholics. 

Passive or merely material presence can be tolerated for the sake of honour or civil office, for grave reason approved by the bishop in case of doubt, at the funerals, weddings, and similar solemnities of non-Catholics, provided danger of perversion and scandal is absent (canon 1258).

Whoever in any manner willingly and knowingly helps in the promulgation of heresy, or who communicates in things divine with heretics against the prescription of canon 1258, is suspected of heresy (canon 2316).

Basically, if a Catholic had a serious reason to attend a non-Catholic service (e.g., he was a convert whose non-Catholic relative had died), he could attend the service as a guest, not taking part in the service but merely observing it. For him to attend such a service without serious reason was considered grave matter because it was believed to jeopardize his Catholic faith.

Today, it is said that these laws were made because people at the time had strong ideas of Catholic identity so Catholics had to behave differently to and have no religious association with Protestantism. Also, Protestantism in those days was more likely to debunk the Catholic faith so a Catholic endangered his or her faith by attending Protestant services.

It is stupid to think that the Church would really have set out laws to protect Catholic identity as it was understood at the time. That implies the Church went to all that trouble and imposed all that trouble on bishops to make laws to sanction the fashion of the time! Why trouble bishops instead of decreeing that the person considering attending could talk it over with their priest? The decree denies it exists just to support culture because it says that the reason for the rule is to avoid perversion - ie conversion to Protestant belief - and scandal - laying down bad example for others. Going to a Protestant Church could not corrupt others if culture was against it. Instead of giving scandal the person would be spat on. Also, in most parts of the world Catholics and Protestants got along fine and Catholics would have wanted to attend their churches and there was no cultural impediment.

Catholics still endanger their faith by going to Protestant services - even if the minister does not explicitly mention Catholicism. By attending, the Catholic is one of many people giving a reason for Protestant preaching and worship to happen. It implies approval for the service taking place and the heresy taught in it. It implies other Catholics should follow their example. Also, if they don't attend they are testifying by their actions that they don't believe in Protestantism and they are giving Protestants a witness that they should check out their religion to see if it is of God. Attending implies that they approve of the Protestants being in error. If they do that then they are hypocrites. Then they cannot say they attend Protestant services in order to love Protestants better.

The canon law said that the person can go with the bishops permission to a Protestant service only for a grave reason and when there is no danger that his beliefs will be affected. This tells us that the person is being asked to avoid paying any attention to the service. The Church ordered that if you go to a Protestant service you go as a guest and keep your attention deflected from what is being taught there. Yet it still forbade attendance despite this safety measure. This indicates that merely attending the service is normally a sin - even if one will not listen to anything that is said.

The Catholic Church forbids receiving of Protestant communion as it implies an approval of their erroneous theology on the Eucharist and encourages them to persist in error. This is correct logic. But if that is so, then one's mere presence at the Protestant service having the Lord's Supper celebrated also would imply an approval of their theology of the Eucharist. The Church forbids attendance at marriages of Catholics who wed in violation of Church law. It says that this is consistent with its view that even if the couple are sincere and well-meaning, what they are doing is objectively very seriously wrong.

Humanists can attend religious services to please people and instead of worrying about how God feels. The Catholic Churchs' nasty teaching is an advertisement for humanism.

The Church would refuse you permission to attend the funeral of your Protestant father if there was a risk of scandal or you accepting Protestant beliefs because of the service. This says that faith comes before human relationships. It reflects Jesus' teaching that God is to be loved totally and obeyed with all your heart and that neighbour comes second and only to be assisted because it pleases God.

But if God is that important, then it is wrong for a Catholic to attend a Protestant service for any reason. Nothing excuses it.

The Church says we must hate the sin and love the sinner. This is absurd as I love you but not what you are. Or I love bastards but hate their bastard origins or bastardry. To love the sinner and hate the sin would mean, "I accept you as a person but I reject you as a sinner." That is contradictory - it implies you at least partly hate the person. The Christians are lying when they say they are against hate.


The Church advocates a needless hatred of sin.

A person who says they do not judge others but themselves and then says all people, like Christianity says, are sinners is lying. To say a person is a sinner is to condemn their character not their behaviour. It is condemning the person.

The doctrine that if you have sex outside marriage or hit someone you will go to suffer everlasting separation from God in Hell if you die unrepentant implies that if you sin you do serious damage to yourself and become so vile that you would spend eternity hating God and everyone. It is impossible to love sinners if you really believe this about them.

If you really believe that prostitutes and heretics and fortune tellers etc put people at risk of going to Hell through availing of their services and through their sinful example then hating them is unavoidable. You cannot be held responsible for your actions say if you shoot them.

If a person does harm, the harm is done. Reparation cannot alter the fact that the harm still happened. Condemning the action is a waste of time and energy. What needs to be done is to encourage the person to change. Who cares if the person abhors his action or not as long as he changes? Trying to make him feel bad is vindictive. His feelings are not under your control and are none of your business. Hating the sin is hating the sinner.

The condemnation of the sin is irrational intellectually. It is also stirring up feelings of hate. Irrational feelings can lead to anything.

People who don't believe in God condemn acts based on the harm intended or caused - they look at it on the human level only. They will see hitting somebody as bad, for example. But the believer in God sees it as far worse. It offends God who deserves all our love not some of it. Religionists accuse wrongdoers of being worse than they actually are. They should be more liable to hate people than unbelievers. And their hate of wrongdoers should be stronger.

Catholicism does not recognised the difference between responsibility and blame.

Don't be sweetened up by Catholicism. It does not have your best interests at heart.

Sacred Causes, Michael Burleigh, Harper Perennial, London, 2007