RELIGION IS NOT FOR YOU

We know religion should exist for people and not people for religion. The Catholic teachings such as that God and the faith come first before all things are misanthropic. They say that religion should exist for God.  Jesus said that the greatest commandment was to love God with all ones powers and heart. The people we see come before a God we cannot see. If God comes first then hurting another person is not so bad as offending God. A religion with such teachings should not be encouraged. Show your disapproval when someone reveals they want to become a priest. Do not contribute to Church collections. Do not attend Church.

We should be looking for a beggar to give money to instead of looking for a Church to light a candle in. There are no such things as innocuous religious practices. The person who prays for the sick instead of doing something for them is really trying to get God to do the work so that they can relax. Such prayer is a crafty form of selfishness. In Christianity, it is common for selfishness to appear in the guise of virtue and holiness. If we are mostly selfish or if our main motive behind all that we do is selfish or if all our motives are selfish, then perhaps the selfish nature needs the Christian religion to indulge itself? Christianity promises a reward for belief and good deeds. It promises that sinners who die unreconciled to God will suffer for it. That appeals to the vindictive side of human nature.

For the atheist, there may be good results from doing good but they are not rewards. For the atheist, bad people can and do get away with the evil they do. The atheist is not encouraged by his belief to look forward to seeing evil people get their just deserts.

Who then is the most likely to be selfish? The atheist or the Christian? The Christian no doubt.

Even if there is a lot of evidence that something is the case there is still no obligation on a person to believe. Catholics say the whole world is obligated to belong to the Catholic Church. Catholicism then is opposed to the right to ignore evidence or regard it as insufficient. Nobody has the right to ask you to believe anything no matter what it is. Real belief is caused by the evidence. It is perceiving that based on the evidence you have, something is probably true. Thus belief is personal. It is your own business.

Jesus asked for faith and belief. In many places he did more than ask but he also commanded. This showed his true colours. It shows what his Church is really like too. You can't ask people to believe - they either do or they don't.

If belief is not just your own business, then it must be the Church's business. It is this idea that was and is behind Church campaigns in favour of censorship. It is in favour of the Church's attempts to condition children which are a form of censorship. It is in favour of the Church baptising babies into Church membership. If you have no right to ask anybody to believe, you have even less right to try and make Catholics of your children.

Freud said that all belief is anti-intellectual. It must have been Catholicism gave him that impression! Even if your belief is based on reasoning and evidence, you could still be anti-thinking. For example, if you decide that the evidence shows there is a God and you refuse to reconsider that evidence you are being anti-intellectual. To use the intellect a bit does not make you pro-intellectual. It is what you want to believe that matters to you not the evidence that got you to believe.  Belief even if not always anti-intellectual and anti-truth risks being those things which is why evidence and careful thought is necessary when forming beliefs.

In a democracy, if most of the people want things done a certain way that is the way they should be done. If a state is made up of mostly conservative Catholics, then they have the right to see to it that the state outlaws homosexuality for example on pain of incarceration in jail. Whoever does anything that encourages religious belief is helping the religion to get power. That was how religion got into a position to take away civil liberties before - and it can and will again.

Catholic doctrine is so serious that nobody should be allowed to enter the Church as a member without being informed of it. The Church for example teaches that an accident that destroys the universe is better than a single little sin. The teaching that sin is the greatest evil of all implies that having the intention to do wrong is worse than any disaster that happens as a result of chance no matter how horrific it is. Nearly all Catholics have been manipulated.

Some people might say that it is a sin to prefer that the world will perish in a nuclear holocaust by accident than that someone commit any deliberate sin. But that contradicts the notion of sin being the worst evil of all. It is not a sin. It means that if the Catholic had the power to cause the holocaust without sin and if it was allowed by God he or she would. This shows that Catholics have beliefs that are so serious and important that absolute proof would be necessary to justify believing them. They don't have them so they are mere fanatics.

Catholicism is fundamentalist though it pretends to oppose religious extremism.

Catholicism desensitises one to the awfulness of hurting another person by putting so much focus on God. Its teaching that loving God is the greatest commandment implies that if you have only a little love to give then give it to God and let your neighbour do without it because there isn't enough to share. No wonder Mother Teresa despite hoarding millions didn't make much of an effort to make sure the sick she helped were getting disinfected needles.

The best definition of a fundamentalist is somebody who makes an extraordinary claim though unable to back it up with hard evidence though it plainly needs it. If I make a big claim, I should have evidence for it that is just as big. Catholics cannot prove their extraordinary doctrines.

Even if the Church has extraordinary evidence for its extraordinary claims, the vast majority of the people don't have it or know of it and it's no good to children. The Church would still be thriving on fundamentalism.

Religion would still be a bad thing.

Promoting superstition to children is child-abuse because superstition cannot "take" without fear.

To say a gay man should go to Hell forever for a once-off sexual act is hatred not to mention harsh. The Church will retort that it does not say he should go to Hell for he should repent and thereby avoid Hell. But if he doesn't get the chance it is saying he should go. It is saying he should go as long as he hasn't repented.

To say a man in Africa who has sex will go to Hell for using a condom to protect his girlfriend from AIDS is hatred.

The Vatican believes that love and morality and law are three different things.

Love is working for God's happiness by caring for him and looking after people.

Morality is about doing the action that causes the least possible damage.

Law is about regulating and protecting a society. Law is about implementing the will of the people expressed during referendums (they don't happen much) but principally about allowing a political and judicial elite to force their beliefs on the people. Laws can be bad or good but the Church says they have to be obeyed except when they contradict the Catholic faith. The Church says you must pay unfair taxes to obey the law but you must not obey if the Law forbids you to be in communion with the pope. Law is about rules we may not fully understand or even agree with. But normally we have to obey.

The same is said to be true of God's law. The Church teaches that as God knows the future consequences of making laws and knows everything, nobody is in a better position to make laws than he is. This idea has led to much religious extremism.

The concept of sin implies approval for retribution. The two ideas go together.  Retribution is alleged to be about balancing the scales, if a person hurts another they must suffer for it in return - the debt they owe for the wrong they did involves suffering.  Religions such as Christianity advocate it in the name of justice.  But today such ideas are seen as evil and hateful and when you commit a crime these days it is reform and rehabilitation that matter.

To say you are bound to do something makes no sense unless you will have to face punishment for doing something different. Without the punishment you are not bound at all. And the fact that a threat is made is still nasty.

The Catholic teaching that we must try to bring good out of evil suggests that evil is to be condoned and praised but only when it is coupled with the idea that we need people to help so that we can grow. In other words, you wish evil on people so that you can help them!

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