RELIGION and how it leads to a RATIONALE OF FORCED CONVERSION
Human nature is confusingly inconsistent. People who have no problem with babies
being slaughtered may hate to see rabbits being killed by dogs. They may cry.
This inconsistency is the reason why religions that endorse violence find it
hard to get everybody to obey its warmongering dictates. Christianity has
virtually given up because of the high level of apathy among Christians and many
Christians have passion for some doctrines of the faith and hate or are
indifferent towards the rest.
The Bible God endorses violence. The Christian cannot deny that people sincerely
believe that God claims to bring good out of our mistakes meaning that if we do
violence in his name he will understand and make it right. The Christian cannot
deny that those who put the Bible together and who proclaimed it to be the work
of God, the divine author, believed God has the right to command violence. He
has this right in principle if not in practice. A God that lets sickness happen
for a good reason is a God who can command you to kill for him for a good
reason.
People liking God with all the dangers of belief in God proves that they are
worshipping the version of him that they want to believe in. Some may say that
those who kill in the name of God know it is wrong. But who are they to say what
others know? Also, they are violent themselves because they argue, "We force our
rules on those people for they know fine well we are right. We are not forcing
belief in morality on them for they know what morality is anyway." It is violent
to treat people as if they know something and treat them roughly because of
that. It is running a risk of attempting forced conversion.
Forced conversion is a form of religious persecution. A religion can persecute
by forced conversion. Or it might be opposed to forced conversion and instead
persecute and imprison those who try to form new religions or get converts.
I argue that religion must believe that it should force people to join it when
it is able, regardless of its utterances in favour of religious liberty, if it
is being true to itself. I am not saying religious people will necessarily want
to force people for most do not, but I am saying religion is dangerous for some
people will want to force because of it. It is still a bad influence that the
world could do without. I am saying the consistent and strong believer in
religion - who takes its revelations seriously will develop a desire to see
people forced to comply with religion.
St Augustine speaking for the Catholic Church hundreds of years ago said that
forced conversion is good for it paves the way to real conversion. "It is indeed
better (as no one ever could deny) that men should be led to worship God by
teaching, than that they should be driven to it by fear of punishment or pain;
but it does not follow that because the former course produces the better men,
therefore those who do not yield to it should be neglected. For many have found
advantage (as we have proved, and are daily proving by actual experiment), in
being first compelled by fear or pain, so that they might afterwards be
influenced by teaching, or might follow out in act what they had already learned
in word." --Saint Augustine, Treatise on the Correction of the Donatists.
Augustine as a major father of the Church is studied by clerics and theology
courses are created around him. He remains a father and inspiration in
good standing. Because of St Augustine, the Catholic Church endorsed
forced conversion of unbelievers into the Church. The last time that was done
was under the Ustashi in Yugoslavia in the twentieth century.
Augustine's view that forced conversion is a great thing could be an
embarrassment to the Church today. People have been excommunicated from the
Church for dissenting from the teachings of the Church such as the bread being
the body of Jesus at Mass. But nobody has ever been disciplined or
excommunicated for teaching like Augustine that forced conversion is good
because eventually the person should believe. And Augustine is a saint and a
doctor (ie main teacher) of the Church. Actions speak louder than words - the
Church still would like to force people.
The Catholic Church today claims that it is the one true Church so it has the
right to make babies members of the Church and obligated to believe its
doctrines when it baptises them. But the religion is not clearly the one true
Church and the vast majority of students of religion find serious errors in the
Church's doctrine and science is against the faith. Thus the baptisms are
clearly forced conversion. Priests who cannot give a convincing case for
Catholicism being all true have no business baptising babies and thereby
degrading them.
Today the Catholic religion seems to back up the ideal of religious liberty. But
it’s not that simple as we shall soon see and we still have reason to worry. The
best Catholic theologians teach that Vatican II only taught that nobody can be
converted to Catholicism by force not that religious liberty for non-Catholics
is acceptable. And Augustine himself agreed that nobody can be forced but argued
that the value of forcing is that they will soon freely give in. Vatican II did
nothing to change that teaching or repudiate it.
HOW MUCH OF MORALITY IS ABOUT RESIGNATION?
How much of morality is about resignation? A lot.
Everybody feels they are forced in so many ways. The husband and wife in a
dead marriage struggle day by day. And they feel that in a religious
community they cannot be themselves. Religion can say morality should be
free and uncompelled but that is thin when it knows what kind of culture we have
and always will have.
ESSENTIAL INTOLERANCE IN COMMAND TO LOVE GOD ONLY OR MOST
The doctrine of God implies that since God is the law and is not subject to the
law that people must agree with him. They must not divorce goodness from God but
fuse the two. Since God is supreme there can be no law over him to punish him or
reward him for what he does which raises the problem of how we know we can trust
him. Christianity says just trust him. But it is unfair and bigoted just trust a
being that makes such serious and heavy demands on us: love me with all your
heart and do what I say and condemn what I condemn even if my rules make no
sense to anybody and put yourself and your neighbour in second place to me. It
is like marrying somebody within seconds of meeting them. The God concept then
is inherently violent and intolerant and bloody.
DOES RELIGION MEAN THE HYPOCRISY OBJECTION?
Religion claims to be opposed to compulsion in religion for that produces
hypocrites. In other words, if it didn't make hypocrites they would be happy to
do it. The underlying attitude is that they still want to force.
Also, to say that it produces hypocrites contradicts the doctrine that it is
really God's intervention and attractiveness and his power to enlighten the mind
that gets converts. It follows that though we force, God could be using our evil
to help the person convert freely. This derives from the Christian belief in the
power of God to turn evil into good. If the Christians really believe in God's
intervening grace they do not really believe the hypocrisy objection and are
lying that they do.
The doctrine that God knows what is best over all and we don't for we don't even
know the future or how our plans will turn out implies that he could command us
to use forced conversion but perhaps carefully and with a view to inspiring the
victims to convert in reality and in their hearts. If you believe in God,
logically you cannot say that forced conversion is automatically and undeniably
wrong. You are making God's opinion your own. If your faith tells you that God
does not sanction forced conversion, you mean that you only believe that it is
wrong not that you know it is wrong. You are saying you are not sure on
religious grounds that forced conversion is wrong because belief is not
certainty. It is taking a small step towards approval for forced conversion for
you are declining to condemn it outright. Your opposition is weakened because it
is based on belief. Believing that forced conversion is wrong implies that you
are open to changing your mind. Also you are saying that what matters is what
God wants so if he wanted forced conversion you would believe in it and help
people to be forced into your religion. To say such a thing implies that if you
have the right to decide what God has revealed then others have this right too
and can believe that God demands forced conversion and the persecution of
heretics and those who belong to religions different from your own.
Religion cannot say that it is wrong to take away a person’s freedom for you
always have a choice. When a priest puts a gun to your head saying, “Convert or
die”, you can either convert sincerely or insincerely or get shot. If you
believe in religion then why fear death? If you feel you had no choice because
of the fear that is your fault and not the priest's.
Religion does not mind forcing faith on children for they are easy targets
though that results in hypocrisy. It would do the same to everybody else if it
had the resources and society's permission. It is no objection to say that the
child has to be forced for she or he does not understand what she or he is doing
or how to approach life. Surely the unbeliever child does not understand either
and religion certainly doesn’t agree with children being raised as humanists. If
religion is consistent and honest it will see that as child abuse. Taking
advantage of a child to get him to accept a religion is worse than doing it to
an adult.
Forced conversions will produce some or mostly hypocrites yes but it will fairly
ensure that their children and their children’s children will truly believe in
the religion. Better to force some than to force error on more by doing nothing
especially when God's grace and power is infinite. Forcing the hypocrites to
practice and defend it will be a powerful inspiration that will make others
closer to it. Furthermore, it is not sinful to be a hypocrite when you are
forced to be one. The religion, however, cannot be satisfied with a false
commitment and will prefer sincere devotion. It would be affirming belief in
magic to say that God would be pleased with play-acting.
Forced conversion is one of those things that eventually become unnecessary.
The hypocrites will come to reason that God will not reject them for sincerely
believing in a false religion that they might as well believe. They can be told
this so that compulsion will do them no spiritual harm through it being the
fault of the religion that forces them.
God may want them to commit the sin of hypocrisy in order to bestow on them the
knowledge that will draw them to drop it and be holy. God permits temptation to
being good out of it even if it succeeds. God uses sin for a greater good. Those
beliefs give a confidence that forced conversion will be a good thing
ultimately.
Faith in God undermines problems with forced religion or forced spirituality and forcing religion on children as the Church does amounts to forcing it on society and that affects people who don't want to be drawn in.