WHY PERSECUTION IS WRONG

John Stuart Mill in his On Liberty declared that being intolerant is sadly a normal and natural thing. He noticed that people in religion only became tolerant because they did not care much about the faith. They were more or less indifferent. So when a religion is tolerant it has nothing to do with its reverence for tolerance as a principle. His writings are a warning about the dangers of encouraging people to have a very strong faith.
 
Religion is harmful. Should we atheists and non-religious persecute it?
 
No. Violence and hatred are hopeless weapons for constructing social change. They just breed more trouble and bring out the poisonous snakes. Religion thrives best when it is maltreated.
 
Tolerance means refusing to persecute/discriminate against people because of their beliefs, the only way we should be intolerant of their beliefs is to try and wean them away from them by gentle and kindly means. That way we are still tolerant of the person.
 
If all who contradict the truth are silenced there will be no prospect of growth in wisdom. Also, there will be bloodshed, there will be a suspicion that they are silenced because they have the truth and because none of us are infallible. People have are right to speak in their own defence.

Not all who are attached to religion are evil for some just don’t think and don’t mean to propagate harm. They need enlightenment. But all who know their dogma very well know the sinister truth about religion - the facts are clear enough. We will concentrate on stealing the clergy from their religions and then on their congregations. It will make our job easier.

People say it is not right to refute a person’s religion when that person needs it as a crutch but that person should be looking for a crutch that is neither harmful or potentially harmful. Moreover, the person derives security not from their creed but from forgetting that it is not believable. It is right to discredit religion.

Information is the best antidote to religion. People like us are to blame when religion thrives so we cannot punish anybody for being wrong.
 
All error is just crying out for refutation. It is our duty to grant it its wish.

Religion says that its opponents like us Atheists are making the world worse for it says it is right and they are wrong so we have to respond in self-defence and bare her evil black insides for all to see.

Anything like religion that has bad implications is dangerous no matter how nice most of its members are. Upsetting today’s religionists by showing them how wrong they are is a small and regrettable price to pay for rescuing far more and doing the greater good. Never upset a religionist unduly.

The philanthropy of religion does not imply that it should be let alone by debunkers for it is only natural to want to do some good. The good works of the knowledgeable religionist cannot be performed with laudable motives. The Roman Church says that you can do good real good while being a sinner. But that good is an insult to God for it is you saying, “I will do good when it suits me so I am not doing this because it is good but because I feel like it”. Thus, Catholicism is all self-deception. The humanitarian Catholics are really defying their faith. Their faith cannot make them good and luckily their own natural goodness shone through the darkness.
 
When religion could lead to harm that is a sufficient reason for becoming an evangelist for unbelief.
 
BOOKS CONSULTED
 
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A Thief in the Night, John Cornwell, Penguin, London, 1990
A Woman Rides the Beast, Dave Hunt, Harvest House, Eugene, Oregon, 1994
All Roads Lead to Rome, Michael de Semlyen, Dorchester House Publications, Bucks, 1993 (page 120 recounts Cardinal Konig of Vienna’s testimony that the Vatican helped Nazi war criminals to escape)
Apologetics and Catholic Doctrine, Part 1, Most Rev M Sheehan DD, M H Gill & Son, Dublin 1954
Apologetics for the Pulpit, Aloysius Roche Burns Oates & Washbourne Ltd, London, 1950
Blind Alley Beliefs, David Cook, Pickering & Inglis, Glasgow, 1979
Catholicism and Fundamentalism, Karl Keating, Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 1988
Christianity, David Albert Jones, OP, Family Publications, Oxford, 1999
Convert or Die, Edmond Paris, Chick Publications, Chino, California, undated
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Crisis of Moral Authority, Don Cupitt, SCM Press, London, 1985
Documents of the Christian Church, edited by Henry Bettenson, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1979
Does America Need the Moral Majority? William Willoughby, Haven Books, New Jersey, 1981
Does Conscience Decide? Bishop William J Philbin, Catholic Truth Society of Ireland, Dublin
Ecumenical Jihad, Peter Kreeft, Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 1996
European Union and Roman Catholic Influence In Britain, David N Samuel, The Harrison Trust, Kent, 1995
Fascism in the English Church, A London Journalist, Henry E Walter, London, 1938
Fifty Years in the “Church” of Rome, Charles Chiniquy, Chick Publications, Chino, California, 1985
God and the Gun, The Church and Irish Terrorism, Martin Dillon, Orion, London, 1998
God Is Not Great, The Case Against Religion, Christopher Hitchens, Atlantic Books, London, 2007
‘God, That’s not fair!’ Dick Dowsett, OMF Books, Overseas Missionary Fellowship, Belmont, The Vine, Sevenoaks, Kent TN13 3TZ] Kent, 1982
Handbook of Christian Apologetics, Peter Kreeft and Ronald Tacelli, Monarch, East Sussex, 1995
Human Rights, Michael Bertram Crowe Veritas, Dublin, 1978
In God’s Name, David Yallop, Corgi, London, 1987
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Is There Salvation Outside The Catholic Church? Fr J Bainvel SJ, TAN, Illinois, 1979
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Radio Replies, Vol 1, Frs Rumble and Carty, Radio Replies Press, St Paul, Minnesota, 1938
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The Case for Faith, Lee Strobel, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2000
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The Church of Rome, Wilson Ewin, Bible Baptist Church, Nashua NH USA
The Encyclopaedia of Heresies and Heretics, Leonard George, Robson Books, London, 1995
The End Of Faith, Religion, Terror And The Future Of Reason, Sam Harris, Free Press, London, 2005
The Inquisition of the Middle Ages, Henry Charles Lea, Citadel, New York, 1963
The Last Temptation of Christ, Its Deception and What you Should Do About it, Erwin T Lutzer, Moody Press, Chicago, 1988
The Pestilence of AIDS, Hugh Pyle, Sword of the Lord, Murfreesboro, Tennessee, 1987
The Rise of the Spanish Inquisition, Jean Plaidy, Star, London, 1978
The Sacred Executioner Human Sacrifice and the Legacy of Guilt Hyam Maccoby Thames and Hudson, London, 1982
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The Truth About the Homosexuals, Dr Hugh F Pyle, Sword of the Lord, Murfreesboro, Tennessee, 1978
The Truth that Leads to Eternal Life, Watchtower, New York, 1968
The Unequal Yoke, John R Rice, Sword of the Lord, Murfreesboro, Tennessee, 1946
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The Vatican Connection, The Explosive Expose of a Billion-Dollar Counterfeit Stock Deal Between the Mafia the Church, Richard Hammers Penguin, Middlesex, 1982
Their Kingdom Come, Robert Hutchison, Corgi, London, 1997
Unholy Sacrifices of the New Age, Paul de Parrie and Mary Pride, Crossway Books, Westchester, Illinois 1988
Vatican USA, Nino LoBello, Trident Press, New York, 1972
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THE WWW

www.infidels.org/library/historical/joseph_mccabe/big_blue_books/book_10.html
Fascist Romanism Defies Civilisation by Joseph McCabe

www.hom.net/~angels/democracy.html
Democracy is not a good form of Government by Citizens for the Ten Commandments

www.mindspring.com/~bab5/BIB/lessons.htm
Is Christianity a Cult?