DO NOT USE, "I CAN HELP CHANGE IT FROM THE INSIDE" AS AN EXCUSE FOR STAYING IN A HARMING RELIGION

You can see a religion being riddled with corruption despite claiming to be a supernatural force for good.  You can hear the lies.  You can read the violent scriptures.   You can be very disturbed by its messiah and object of worship.  You see women dying from being denied reproductive justice.  You can read the horrific history of the faith.

Yet you stay saying that you can be part of the movement for change.

Now you are ostensibly a member.  You are in fact your own church in your heart.  Your membership is outward.  If you value a religious label more than the religion's content you are divisive period. 

Your money and your children are being given to the Church to harm.

So as for your presence helping progress many who disagree with you and have harmful views are saying the same thing.  Chaos will come.  You have a great opinion of yourself and your wisdom! Chances are you are not doing much to aid this progress.  It won't happen for people see through hypocrites.

Those who know the religion is not the supernaturally revealed or credible faith community that it thinks it is, and who truly respect the religion, will leave it instead of staying inside and pretending to be a help rather than a hindrance.
 
They are a hindrance to what they think is the real truth. You leave one man-made religion for a wiser one. Or one that might actually be from a God.  Or you drop religion.

Some people make huge effort and a huge sacrifice to be a proper faithful and orthodox member of their church. Others who are living without respect for church mores and without ethical concerns will swan up to the communion real.  Even if that person thinks their disobedience is not a sin, communion is only for those who agree to try to believe the teaching even if they do not. It is seen as a medicine for faith problems not a reward for faith.  There is no honesty in them.  It is an insult to the efforts of those who commit.

Those who wish to believe and to those who struggle and need great support to follow the religion. They are doing a disservice to those who wish to leave the religion and who don't want to be identified as members of that particular faith community. And they are doing a disservice to those who want to show their legitimate objection to the religion by leaving. It is harder to leave a religion if people expect you to be a hypocrite and stay.
 
Those who truly respect a religion will not try to make it agree with them simply because religion is not science. Religion is not open to being proven wrong while science is. They will not use the excuse, "But if I stay inside, my voice will be heard and changes might happen." You don't need to be inside to have a voice. What you are talking about is dishonest subversion - you hope that if enough people like you "follow" the religion that the Bible and the popes and the clergy will be forced to change. Every religion has people who make excuse "If I go I am not helping the problem with this religion which is that some of its doctrine is harmful and untrue". Honest people will look for another religion or become their own religion. If you care about truth you will support what is the "truest" religion.

Cherry-pickers like to claim that the religion will improve if they "stay" in the religion and if more members become like them. But that assumes the religion is just a social club. Cherry-pickers speak for themselves and not the religion and every religion has cherry-pickers. So how can they make out that they really are working in the proper manner for change or legitimate change (every religion has its limits on what it considers a legitimate change)? They are not. They hurt the cause of change with their hypocrisy. They antagonise the loyal believers and make them more trenchant by using the religion for their own ends. A person who has the honesty to leave the Church politely and with respect and who dialogues with it if he wants change, is the one to be praised not the cherry-picker.

Staying makes you look like a calculating individual who is undermining the faith from within. Staying in or "in" a religion to defeat it or to ruin its faith is a sneaky tactic. Even if you do not evangelise for cherry-picking you promote it by being yourself. Your beliefs give your life an ethos. That has an impact on others.

Roman Catholicism is riddled with "faithful" and "loyal" Catholics who really want to see an implosion of traditional religion. It is true however that a person who wants to harm the Church can do it best by pretending to be a good Catholic. People are influenced more by those who they consider part of their group than they are by those who they consider to be outsiders.  But sneakiness is not a nice trait.



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