THE GOD CONCEPT AS AN INGREDIENT OF VIOLENCE
GOD AND VIOLENCE
A religion that teaches that you are free to do evil not in spite of God but
because of him is telling you that in reality all your acts are done by God not
you. It denies that you have any moral responsibility. You are not free for you
are doing what God has decided you will do. Such a religion should be deserted.
If it condemns violence it refutes that condemnation for it says man's evil acts
are acts of God. Its belief shows its true colours.
A religion that sees suffering as a gift from God is twisted.
A religion that sees suffering as terrible but as a tool used by God through
which he does a greater good is refusing to say, "This baby's terrible death is
100% terrible." They are saying, "It is terrible but is part of a lovely plan."
Man does not really want a perfect God. And man knows that in theory it should
be possible to enjoy the perfect life even if God is imperfect. Man fears God’s
perfection and Christianity says it is man running from God that is the problem
in the universe. So what we are saying agrees with Christianity. Could it be
that Christians are Christian because of this God who they see does nothing to
help suffering babies and who writes terrible brutal blood-soaked scriptures and
who sends a saviour who condones the evil? People prefer others to do the evil
they want for them.
All terrorists imagine they are doing what they are doing in a hostile universe
for the sake of humanity. They feel they have no option but to be blood letters
for the universe and humanity are ruthless anyway. They would still do what they
do if there was a God. So even atheist terrorists are hypothetically acting for
God in that sense.
IS RELIGION REALLY MORAL?
A religion that tells you to love your neighbour as yourself when it is in fact
impossible to do so (which it is and nobody really does it - some neighbours are
loved but the commandment demands more than that!) is not a good religion. A
religion that gives you commands you cannot keep is to blame for the
consequences.
A religion can use teachings about not judging and teachings about forgiving as
a cover for being soft on evil and religious terrorism. Such a religion is
silent on evil when it suits it and its leaders should be condemned loudly for
their silence says yes to the evil. The softness by Catholic and Muslim clerics
on the likes of the IRA and the Taliban respectively is well noted.
A religion can claim to be about moral facts but in fact be morally relativist.
Relativism means you cannot say that killing the innocent is absolutely wrong.
It calls it a mere opinion. A relativist religion shows its true nature not in
what it says but in what it does. Actions speak the loudest.
A religion claims to be about transforming you into a better person though it
knows in practice what will usually happen is that it ends up being principally
about belonging to the religion as a group. The Catholics in Northern Ireland
supported their own and had no respect for the good Christians who were not
Catholic. Catholicism became a way of social cohesion and national identity that
was intolerant of other faiths and religious communities.
Religious doctrines such as that evil tyrants and killers damage and hurt
themselves more than their victims (bunkum taught by Socrates) are not helpful
for they are clearly lies and nonsensical. A religion that goes that far to look
good is trying too hard. It is not convinced that it really is a good force. And
it probably has reason to be so uncertain.
Religion offers you a perfect God as if that is something for you to emulate. If
we will never be the best all the time, what do we need God for? We need
realistic role models. A perfect role model only discourages you.
A religion that tells you its teaching cannot err is not the first religion or
only one to make such a claim. It leads to arrogance and anger against those who
do not think the religion is error-free. They are seen as enemies the way you
would see anybody who opposes facts as an enemy.
RELIGION IS A CON
A religion that tells you that it is based on what God has said is necessarily
untestable and safe from disproof. You cannot know if God really spoke to it or
if some magical entity people thought was God did it. If I say x and there there
is no test then I am virtually asking others to assert things contrary to it
that are not testable either. But religion never accepts that you can treat its
teaching like that. That in itself is hypocritical and oppressive. And as God is
given supreme importance that makes that oppression violent in spirit even if
does not seem to translate into actual violence. It implies that violence
towards others is okay in principle because if you engage with people at all you
reveal something of you to them and if your faith in God is your biggest thing
then you are revealing God as you see God.
A religion that teaches things that there is no way of refuting gives you no way
to work out if violent revelations are from God or not. It is very dangerous
when one claims to be getting messages from a God who has done the thinking and
who sees why terrible things need to be done even if we can't see it.
WHAT THE TERM MODERATE SAYS
People believe that most religion is moderate religion. Moderate religion means
a religion can be extremist. The way is open for that to happen. Otherwise the
word moderate means nothing. Sometimes a person described as a moderate
religionist is just an extremist who just never got the right chance.
Not all religious believers are terrorists but all religious terrorists are
religious believers. All believers hold the key to terrorism.
Now you know that religion is an excuse for violence.
HERESY?
Catholic, Blaise Pascal — 'Men never commit evil so fully and joyfully as when
they do it for religious convictions.' Christ said his religion can produce
weeds or wheat (Matthew 13:29-30). By blaming religion for violence, we are not
necessarily being heretical! Some religions agree with the atheists that
religion leads to the spilling of blood. The Old Testament never hid the badness
that can exist in a religion be it pagan or Jewish or whatever.
RELIGIOUS FREEDOM
Statements such as "Violence has no religion" or
"Religion is only good so those who use it for violence are abusing it" do
religion no favours. Take Catholicism. It leads to people arguing
say it is not truly Catholic to not let priests marry, or for a priest to not
report a paedophile who has confessed to him about his plans to abuse children
further and before you know laws come in that tamper with the freedom of
religion. They can say any teaching that is politically incorrect or that they
do not like is not in the spirit of the religion and thus can be suppressed
without violating religious freedom. That is not respect for religious freedom
but hypocrisy.
FINALLY
Those who make excuses for violence will tend to do it more for religion than
anything else. They blame boredom or the economy and thus feed a rationale
to the violent and in that way encourage them.
Religion based on God and on nasty scriptures and
unedifying spiritual writings that are penned in blood and the example of evil
religious heroes is inherently prone to violence even if it does not cause all
members to be violent. A religion made up by man is bad by default for
what right has man to control your religious beliefs and religious morals?
Why is any doctrine you make up not as good as what the Church makes up?
If a religion is man-made then it will be in error for it thinks it is divinely
inspired. A true system can become corrupt but a false one or misguided one is
far more likely to become corrupt. You have to leave for you cannot be so
arrogant as to assume that you can remain immune. If enough arrogant
people think the way you do then the religion will get drunk on arrogance and
you know what will happen! Violence.
