END HEREDITORY RELIGION, DISCUSSIONS OF THIS TOPIC FROM THE CATHOLIC BACKGROUND ANGLE
The Catholic Church obligates Catholic parents to make Catholic believers of
their children. It uses Catholic schools to help in this process. Children are
forced to learn religion at school and to pray.
Young children are taken to Church to pray and be indoctrinated. Wafers said to
be the flesh of Christ are thrust into the mouths of seven-year-olds in
Catholicism. Children are expected despite their naivety and inexperience to
believe and are treated as true believers. This is a prime example of
manipulation on the part of the Church. The evil of blind faith and blind
obedience is demanded of the children, degrading them, debasing them, abusing
them. The evil is applauded. Blind faith is treacherous and the priests and
other clergy know it so don’t believe their explanation that their having taken
advantage of children is about instilling good habits. You don’t need to instil
blind faith in a child to instil good habits. Childlike faith, though praised
by Christ, is harmful and gives the clergy an unfair advantage. Children may
believe lots of things on blind faith but that is necessary unlike religious
belief. There is nothing we can do but tell them that the sea exists even if
they have never seen the sea or pictures of it. But that is nothing like telling
them that their parents’ religion is true for when there are so many different
religions it follows that all you can do is tell them what different ones teach
and guide them to make their own choice when they grow up. We have to tell what
is proven but it is wrong to tell them what is not proven. Nobody can prove
their religion - and it is exceptionally hard work if they can - therefore
nobody has their right to indoctrinate their children. Education is to be
fact-based. Otherwise it's not education. Religion does not give evidence for
religion to children to help them make up their own minds. Religion is
manipulative.
Ideas, like actions, have consequences, regardless of what we might think. This
is true. And so the Church argues, "The child not having a Catholic education
makes an negative impact on his or her life." But that assumes that the religion
is best for them. It also assumes that the religion has occult power to heal
sinners. It assumes that Catholicism is the true religion. If the child knows
that Catholicism is not the true religion then it would be wrong to apply any
kind of pressure on her or him to believe or worship. It is intolerant to argue
that it will make her or him bad or badder if you respect her or his right. It is
denying that Catholics are no more holier than say Protestants.
Children should be taught and encouraged to think. They should not be told what
to think. So it is none of the Church’s business what they believe. It is none
of the parents' business. And it is not the business of the state.
The Church knows that children are easily conditioned and manipulated. The
Church does not teach the faith to children out of respect for the child but out
of disrespect.
Some say that it is not the Church’s fault that we are so easily conditioned as
children. But this misses the point. The Church knows that children are
vulnerable and exploits that. The result of conditioning is that children think
they have faith when they do not. If you really believe something you don’t need
to be virtually hypnotised to accept it.
The example of children being indoctrinated because of their naivety and
vulnerability is followed by Muslims and fanatics with disastrous and tragic
results. It has turned children into killers and suicide bombers.
Even if it is conditioning and not religion in itself that causes the trouble in
the world that is, on the surface, attributable to religion. Religion is the
most dangerous conditioner out there. If it is a government that does it at
least its claims can be falsified or verified. With religion there is no
adequate or rational evidence. To claim you believe something without proper
evidence shows incredible arrogance. It can only lead to hatred against those
who dissent from your faith.
Religious preachers show little concern for what a person has to go through when
they find out that their religion is wrong or absurd. A Catholic can suffer
guilt and fear for years after realising the faith is wrong. They are
conditioned to feel bad and evil for changing their minds about the veracity and
correctness of the religion. They have an addiction they are resisting.
Secularists should promote secularism. If it upsets believers it is better
doing it now than later. What if a person who needs comfort from their religion
discovers it's a trick while they are fighting cancer? What about vulnerable
children? A person who uses faith as a crutch has not dealt with the reason
they need a crutch. It would be better for them if they were helped to throw
the crutch away and deal with their issues without it steaming up their
glasses.
Religious faith is an addiction to some degree. This is easily seen from the
theologians who when confronted with proof that their faith is wrong absorb it
and seem to keep believing. If there was real sincerity there, if there was no
fear, if there was no psychological problem they would give honour to the truth.
They would exorcise the curse of self-deception.
If theologians were really open to the truth there would be little difference
between them. For example, Catholic and Evangelical theologians would have few
theological differences because they would really be listening and really
learning and really thinking. But they differ greatly and many Evangelical
theologians do not consider Catholics to be Christians.
THE CRIME OF RELIGIOUS FAITH IS: PEOPLE ARE LEFT WITH A WAY TO COPE WITH THE
HARSH REALITIES AND FEARS OF LIFE BUT NOT WITH A WAY TO CHANGE THEM.
Take the cancer patient. He or she might feel some relief when praying. But soon
he will feel all the despair and fear again.
Those who promote religious faith to people who are troubled do not have those
people's true concerns at heart. The person who tells a person with commitment
issues and who has promiscuous sex to pray instead of seeing a therapist is
cheating that person. They are manipulating that person to dull pain with
rationalisations. If they tell the person to prayerfully go and see a therapist
they are encouraging that person to believe that prayer is only using the
therapist as a tool to heal and that the therapist in herself or himself is
useless. That is dangerous if prayer does not work. It is making the progress
less effectual. Christianity's scriptures teach that suffering is something to
be boasting about (Romans 5:1-5) for sufferings bring patience etc. The
scriptures forbid us to boast about our good deeds (Ephesians 2: 8 - 10) so
nobody can pretend that it means that we are to boast about how we handle
suffering. It means we are to boast about suffering but not boast about the
good results it brings.
This is masochism.
People say, “A Catholic priest is appointed to teach and support the Catholic
faith. It is crazy to ask a priest to teach Catholics to question that the faith
is true.” To that I have to reply that they don’t just teach the Catholic faith
at all. They teach the Catholic faith as true. That is a different thing. They
intend to teach truth. If so they should advocate truth even if they find it
contradicts the faith. The priest claims to be in the job of teaching truth so
we can indeed expect him to be honest - even if it gets him in trouble.
Suppose the power of choice exists and you are given a choice between being
tortured to death and dying your hair green. You choose to dye your hair green.
You choose it freely. You were forced into making the choice but it was still a
choice because you could have chosen to be tortured to death. It's a lie to say
you had no choice. The Catholic teachings that we are born in original sin and
are obligated to obey the pope by baptism into the Church and to become saints
who have a life of misery and who will go to Hell forever if we die in
unrepented serious sin say something about the believer. And it is this. The
believer wants these horrible teachings to be true deep down even if he feels
revulsion for them. The atheist does not acquiesce to evil to that degree.
Miracles in Christianity no matter what laudable purpose they seem to have are
used to encourage these evil ideas.
Our reason belongs to God if he exists. Thus we should only read books that
defend what he has revealed - if anything. It is still the law of the Catholic
Church that you are not allowed to read any books condemning Church teaching
unless you are insulated against being influenced by these books. You insulate
yourself by knowing the refutations given of them by the Church. It follows that
if there are books that the Church and its theologians cannot answer, these
should not be read. This is really the Church trying to protect itself from the
truth or possible truth.
The believers say that the truth does not need people to lie and use threats to
promote it. They also say that of original sin - the sin or bias against God
that we are born with - our vision is clouded and we can’t see the truth and
prefer error to what God has revealed. Even if they condemn aggressive and
dishonest attempts to get people to believe, they are paving the way for them.
They are forcing them to be necessary.
Religious indoctrination of children is wrong.