DON'T BE MANIPULATED BY THOSE WHO OPPOSE YOU HELPING A PERSON LOOK CRITICALLY AT THEIR RELIGION'S TEACHING

Some say that if you criticise religious believers it says more about you than them. This could be part of a wider stupidity where every problem with another person is blamed on the person suffering at their hands. Or it could be about protecting religious beliefs from examination by the adept. Either way they are bullies. So they should worry more about what their “tolerance” and “acceptance” says about themselves.

One can deal with religious belief as they would any other with gentleness and firmness.  Believers themselves mostly do not want their beliefs to be a problem and just need to be helped discern things a bit better.  We all do.

As for religious organisation builders, the fact is that their parents, their school, their community, are a legacy from those who did criticise existing faiths.  You cannot pretend to be so tolerant that you would not take benefits as a result of the labours of those who built churches and families by criticising.  And Jesus said Christianity must be self-critical so it should welcome criticism.

Atheism is regarded as idolatry by the Church. Pagans are blamed for adoring false gods and incompetent saviours. To say there is one true God of pure love is to say these groups are inherently wrong and their beliefs are inherently evil.

Religion will say that it does not regard those people as inherently wrong as people but says their beliefs are where the wrongness lies.  But ask them if misguided truth-harmer a and truth affirmer b were in the firing line and it had to be one or the other who they would choose? They may be forced to be a threat to the former but they cannot pretend to be willing to treat all as equally valuable.

Those who say, “Telling a religious person they might be wrong says more about you than them” will not say that the same is true of the person in the religion that works against atheism or paganism and refutes them. The hypocrisy is appalling.

If people are comforted by faith in what is not looking after them then silence is harming them. Plus if you are going to wrap them up in cotton wool what happens when they have faith positions that are against their own religion and the religion itself has to challenge and refute them and tell them they are wrong?

All faiths are not the same anyway. Muhammad fed and raised money for the poor and Jesus did nothing like it. The miracles of multiplying loaves are make-believe to compensate for his neglect. A sane sensible messiah that can raise money will do that instead of just snapping his fingers or waving his magic wand. The example for others is priority.

We conclude that we need to be self-correcting people and as we are not living on a desert island we need to build up a self-correcting society too.  Don't force but just guide.



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