CAN FAITH BE FAIR AND AVOID BIAS?
Faith whether bad or good can be anti-bias. The religious version of
faith however demands bias. You are not allowed to give any credence to doubts.
Thus religion is deception.
Want proof? Here it is.
The Catholic Church in A Catechism of Christian Doctrine, Question 177, reveals
that it is your typical religion when it says, “The sins against Faith are all
false religions, wilful doubt, disbelief, or denial of any article of Faith, and
also culpable ignorance of any of the doctrines of the Church”.
Jesus condemned doubt as a sin or act of intentional malignance – so you deserve
to be punished for it. He said that God will only do you the favour of answering
prayer if your faith is unwavering - if you have no doubt.
Cardinal John Henry Newman (1801-1890) spoke for the Church when he wrote, "The
Church does not allow her children to entertain any doubt of her teaching; and
that, first of all, simply for this reason, because they are Catholics only
while they have faith, and faith is incompatible with doubt. No one can be a
Catholic without a simple faith, that what the Church declares in God's name is
God's word, and therefore true. A man must simply believe that the Church is the
oracle of God ... A person who says, "I believe just at this moment; but perhaps
I am excited without knowing it, and I cannot answer for myself that I shall
believe to-morrow", does not believe. A man who says, "I believe as far as I can
tell, but there may be arguments in the background which will change my view",
such a man has not faith at all. When the Protestants quarrel with us for saying
that those who join us must give up all ideas of ever doubting the Church in
time to come, they do nothing else but quarrel with us for insisting on the
necessity of faith in her. Let them speak plainly: our offence is that of
demanding faith in the Holy Catholic Church; it is nothing else. I must insist
upon this: faith implies a confidence in a man's mind, that the thing believed
is really true; but if it is once true, it can never be false."
If you are allowed to doubt and question and have faith only when it suits you
there would be no need for Churches and Bibles - indeed it would be wrong to
support them for they cause hurt and division - eg Roman Catholicism not
allowing Protestants to receive communion. It would be possible to be a Catholic
while denying that the Eucharist is really the body and blood of Christ and
asserting that it should be abolished for it is boring rubbish. It would mean a
Hindu should be called a Catholic if that is what he wants to be called though
he accepts no part of the Catholic faith and has no interest in obeying the
Church. It is obvious that a religion must set limits on what you are to
believe. A person who thinks John the Baptist is the saviour and Messiah and not
Jesus can't be called a Christian!
The Church and the Bible claim that the person who doubts or picks and chooses
what he or she likes out of them and discards the rest is sinning and is calling
God a liar. The fact that the person might not be doing that but merely thinking
that the teachings the Church and the Bible says are God's might not be God's at
all is dishonestly ignored. The person who faced with the prospect of doubting
God's revelations and calling God a liar could simply change the reason for
doubting. He could doubt that the messages are really God's. Then he has a free
rein to doubt! Hinduism and Buddhism have no problem with doubt. It is only
bigoted arrogant faiths such as Christianity and Islam and Judaism and Mormonism
that do.
The Church teaches that faith in God requires that you accept that the Church
has been appointed to speak for God so what it says is correct. It is the word
of God. God gives supernatural light to your mind to help you to believe so the
Church describes faith as a gift from God. It says only supernatural faith is
pleasing to God. So if you doubt then you are indeed calling God a liar. True
faith then is believing without doubting. It is firm.
If faith is a gift then sensing it is a gift is more important than its content.
There is no point in having the truth if it did not come to you from God if
faiths job is to forge a love relationship between yourself and God. The trouble
with sensing that your faith is a gift means the way is opened for you to
imagine that any religious nonsense comes from God. It is hardly a recipe for
religious unity. If religion wants unity, it has to manipulate your imagination
and make you think that its deliberations are God's.
This idea of faith being a revelation to you that God's revelation in the Church
or Bible is true implies that you must know if God is giving you light or not.
Otherwise the whole exercise is useless. Suppose Catholicism is the one true
faith. If you are in a Protestant Church, you may have the gift of faith but it
will tell you only that the Protestant doctrines that match the Catholic
Church's are true. Thus it is your own fault if you adhere to the Protestant
doctrines that contradict the Catholic Church. So you must be damned to Hell.
The Church and its Jesus are being bigoted and sectarian because they ask people
who have different religious beliefs from them to doubt even if their version of
religion commands that they must not doubt on pain of sin. So what they really
think is that everybody should doubt their religion unless it is the Catholic
Church or the revealed religion from Jesus. Their faith is based on a lack of
concern for others and truth disguised as love. If God does miracles to defend
such a faith then God loves control and power more than people. Such religion
can hardly object if somebody becomes a worse bigot.
If you contradict something God supposedly revealed it might be that you don't
doubt him but doubt that the revelation really came from him. The Church says
that we are obligated and expected to believe whatever God has revealed because
God knows the truth and knows things we don't and he would not deceive us. This
idea accuses us of calling God a liar if we start to disbelieve in the teaching
we believed was his teaching or if we started to doubt that God really said such
things. The latter is certainly not calling God a liar but wondering if what you
have been told really came from him. But the Church hates that point being
brought up and ignores it. It slanders doubters.
If you sincerely think God is a liar then you are not sinning by doubting. You
are just making a mistake. If you call God a liar you are not necessarily
doubting him but you could be blaspheming him. This would not be the sin of
doubt but of mere blasphemy. Thus the ban on questioning if something really is
from God is about control and you are being exploited.
No matter what way you look at it, doubt cannot be a sin. The Church has to
slander doubters to justify its power and its alleged right to tell people what
they must believe. The whole faith is built on a vicious and cruel and cynical
lie.
Doubt may do harm like when you doubt your friend who says that there is a bomb
in the building and get blown up but it is never wilfully harmful. Doubt is
sincerely questioning the truth of what you are told for insincere doubt is not
doubt. To condemn doubt as sinful is to condemn honest thinking, integrity and
sincerity and to incite slander and hatred against anybody that does doubt. To
condemn doubt is to encourage arrogance, it is wanting people to regard their
faith as truth itself and refuse to change their minds for they know it all.
The evidence that God has spoken is the miracles he reportedly does to verify
that it is he who has spoken. For example, he supposedly raised Jesus from the
dead to vindicate Jesus as his infallible prophet and Son. Suppose miracles are
signs. Miracles then imply that doubting your faith is a sin. How? Because if
miracles are evidence, then you are indeed calling God a liar if you ignore what
they seem to imply. The Church says that the simplest soul can sin through
doubting the teaching God has entrusted to the Church which implies that the
faith is so obviously true and the miracles so marvellous that nobody has any
excuse for not believing firmly in it not even the uneducated and naive person.
The doctrine that God guides people to the truth he has revealed logically
implies that if you find your faith is weakening then you are calling God a liar
so doubting even a bit is a grave sin. Mormons and Catholics have two
incompatible faiths and both insist strongly that their faith has been revealed
to them personally by God which shows that the doctrine is a deliberate lie. You
would be need to be as smart and virtuous as God to know if a communication you
thought was divine inspiration really was that so the arrogance and false
humility of religion is undeniable.
When religion tells you that it has the word of God it is telling you that it is
your duty to listen to this word and you are calling God a liar if you ignore it
or disbelieve it. It can’t be a duty if you are entitled to doubt it as you see
fit and should be free to! Face it, if religion were not after power it would
focus on what people needed and what was right for them rather than on dogmas
and saviours and things like the existence of God. Who cares what kind of God
you believe in, be it a force like psychic power, a weak old man in the clouds
or that God is just a metaphor for an ideal of goodness, as long as goodness is
engendered and encouraged?
Even if faith is good religious faith is not good.
Faith can be open to new evidence.
Religious faith because it claims to be given to you by God cannot be for it
asks that you take his word for it that what he communicates is true. That
involves ignoring evidence against your belief.
The goodness of religious faith is the basic doctrine of each religion but faith
is not good for it detests the doubting of the creed that it expresses itself in
and when the foundation is bad so is the structure built on it. If God does
miracles to guide you to a faith he is doing you no favours nor is he being
honest! Miracles are blasphemy and religion cannot exist without hypocrisy so it
is evil and to blame for all the wickedness worked in its name for if it didn’t
exist the wickedness might not have happened. The only faith that is good is
faith in yourself for if you believe you can succeed and be happy your life will
be less stressful and you will find that you improve in every way. Faith in God
is no substitute for this. God can inflict depression on you and take away what
he gave you to test you. It is a sin to believe that God will build up your
self-esteem for it mightn’t be his will. And those who like God the best are
guilty of that sin. They are the proof that they don’t need God and are foisting
an unnecessary belief on the world and asking for it to be taken seriously. What
is unnecessary should not be taken seriously. Look at the deaths and suicides
and people crippled with guilt over the god belief.
Christians follow Jesus who said that the most important commandment is that the
Lord your God is one and you must love God with all your heart, soul, strength
and mind (Mark 12:29-34). For Jews and Muslims this commandment is binding as
well as it originated with the prophet Moses who got it from God. This
commandment has a hidden teaching. Part of it declares that there is only one
God. So believing in God is far more important than loving him because you can’t
love him that much unless you believe in him first. To love God with all your
heart means you must also believe in him with all your heart. You cannot love
him fully if there is part of you having doubts that he exists.
Jesus then sanctioned the evil of dogmatism and narrowmindedness – that is why
Catholics are expelled from the Church for saying Mary wasn’t sinless all her
days and if they advocate and believe in murdering they will not be expelled.
Dogmatism is refusing to look honestly at anything that contradicts your
opinion. It is making a god of your opinion. It is glorifying the evil of bias.
How much better it is to unpeel your eyes and go where the truth and facts lead
you!
Let people guide you but you remember you don’t have to agree with anybody, pope
or prophet or Jesus, for all alleged revelations from God are just human opinion
and thinking and there is nothing intrinsically sacred about them!
Living without God is the key to self-esteem for the only reason a person does
anything is for some kind of gratification for herself or himself meaning you
are your own God and that you love yourself alone and this self-love benefits
those you meet and makes you a worthwhile person. When you say you love others
you simply mean that you cherish the happiness they bring you. It is that
simple. The God belief or religion then are unnecessary for you can satisfy
yourself if you know how and what is unnecessary is to blame for any evil that
follows it and it gives people an extra excuse for causing trouble. Accordingly
we have the right to condemn it and deny that any good it does justifies its
existence. We must hate the dogmas but not the people that hold them. We want to
help them.