BEING RELIGIOUS HAS ITS HARMS

Religion and being religious are not exactly the same thing.  If by some mishap somebody thought they were Mormon and were never baptised into that faith, that person could pray and go to Church and still not be in a religion.  They are religious not in a religion.  Religion has its harms.  Being religious has its harms too.  There will be many overlaps in those harms.

Knock Ireland and its alleged miracle vision draws the Catholic religion and the religious persons.
 
The Bible complains a lot about bad religion.  The pagans are warned against and bad members of God's people are castigated regularly.  Yet Catholicism calls itself the only religion approved by God though religion is obviously dangerous and not something to be encouraged. Religion pretends that because we need light that its teachings are revealed by God who knows better than us what we should believe and do. Thus he could command us to exterminate modern day "Canaanites" just like he told Joshua in the Bible to destroy the Canaanites.
 
Pagans worshipped men and women as deities in the understanding that those beings could, if they felt like it, help and lend support.  Catholicism has many gods though it pretends to believe in one. If God is perfect then he will always do the perfect thing under the circumstances. He cannot be influenced for he is perfect and yet the Church says the saints can influence him. So they must be more powerful and perfect than God. The doctrine that God tells them to influence him means they do not really influence him after all! The veneration of saints then involves lies.
 
It takes money off people without making any effort to prove that it deserves it. It doesn't do any research to show that its sacraments have supernatural power to make people unusually holy. Should the Church be proven to be a false religion it is not going to do the decent thing and give you a refund.
 
It tells people it has a sacrament just for those in danger of death called the anointing of the sick. This sacrament can take away your sentence to the everlasting solitary confinement of Hell but only a priest can give it. The sacrament has caused untold terror to millions who have found themselves dying alone and without a priest. Because the Church wants people to go to the priest and "learn" from him, it restricts the power to give the sacrament to him though it could be liberal. And this in an age where priests are scarce!
 
The Catholic Bible - which the Church says is true despite philosophy, science, archaeology and common sense saying different - says we are born with a sinful nature. That is to say we are sin - we sin because we are sinners and it is not a case where we are sinners because we sin. So we need to be turned into a holy person by regeneration. God changes our sinful nature. Protestants say this happens when we admit we need Jesus to keep the law of God for us in our place for we can't do any good work that deserves salvation or eternal life in Heaven. Catholics say this happens when the priest splashes a baby during baptism as he says magic words. But both agree that regeneration is needed. So obviously then members of these religions have a right to refuse to marry or to employ anybody who is not regenerated. Yet they don't assert this right - it is a dishonest and deceptive concession to secularism. But they did assert it in the past. Protestant shopkeepers in Northern Ireland often put, "No Roman Catholics need apply", in job adverts.
 
A stern religion that makes very serious claims and allegations needs to live a very seriously good lifestyle - eg giving all away for the poor and working in skid row if there are no planes or ships to the famine zones in Africa. Catholicism has no shame for the vast majority of Catholics do no more good works than atheists do. Such a Church has no right to be called holy.
 
Secularism is being religiously neutral. Christianity and Islam and other religions that think they were set up by God through men but are not man-made say there is no middle ground - you are for God and his ways or you are not. They expressly deny that neutrality is an option. And quite right too. If God reveals truths through and in a religion, then your response can only be for or against. Doing anything that is condemned as sin or as even a little disloyal is a counter-witness. If the religion has the truth then trying to find the middle ground between truth and error is ridiculous for there is no middle. There is only a lie at the middle. A believer who is secularist is being extremely inconsistent and a liar. This creates problems for the integrity of secularism and you wonder if they would be as secular if they had the power to enforce religious decrees on the people through the state.
 
The secularist might put restrictions on the availability of contraception but only because the evidence seems to indicate that this is the right course. She will not do it because her religion, if she has one, or her God frowns on contraception. Secularism puts people first and does not give a damn about what a God says or wants. It keeps its eye on the natural and puts the supernatural out of its mind. It is not against religion in doing this - it simply pays no attention to religion. Secularism does not fear religious faith or superstition. It only fears turning religious or superstitious principles into legislation or policy. Secularism then is not intolerance but the only true form of tolerance. Secularism is virtue - religion is not. Religion is a danger to tolerance no matter how liberal it claims to be. Whether extremist or liberal, religion is still based on a lack of respect for tolerance. The outlook is the same - it is just the packaging and the results of its thinking that differences may appear in. The liberal cannot condemn the fundamentalist. Both do not consider intolerance wrong in itself. No miracle however convincing can really be from a loving God when it promotes religion. So do not be swayed by signs and wonders. Assume they are hoaxes or somehow natural after all or that they are from some otherworldly power that deserves no allegiance.
 
The government that governs least governs best. The government does not need religious and spiritual demands complicating things.
 
Religionists in the secular world say they keep their religion out of their politics or career etc. For example, the Roman Catholic nurse may pray ten times a day and go to Mass but when she goes to the hospital to assist in an abortion she says she keeps her religion out of it and ignores it when it says her assistance is immoral. In fact, she is against her religion. She is not an advertisement for it. If you can stop being Catholic for your job then why not stop being Catholic for anything? Why not stop being Catholic, why not stop going to Mass, for it means you can sleep longer on a Sunday morning? If she tries to be a Catholic example for her children she will have no credibility so she might as well leave it up to the children to decide if they want to be Catholic when they get old enough. The point is: the secularist who claims active religious membership is against religion necessarily. The secularist who separates from religion is not necessarily.
 
Many religions are suppressed up to a point by secularism and they give in to it. For example, even the Church would fire a counsellor who told a client: "Loving God with my entire being is what matters. Jesus said it was the main commandment. I am only helping you for him and not for you." Yet obviously a genuine Christian would have to say just that. Religion is virtually identical with self-deception and hypocrisy.
 
Whoever says secularism should not interfere with Christian doctrine fails to admit that it happens already and indeed if Christians were consistent secularism in Christian countries would collapse. One can only admire the Muslims for at least making an effort to be consistent with their faith and to eschew hypocrisy which means they have no allegiance to secularist principles.
 
Religion is about revelation that is at least partly beyond human understanding. It says that our understanding of right and wrong and of religious truth is faulty so we need God to lay down laws about how we should behave and we need God to reveal truths to us. So if God commands us to exterminate black people then it is our duty to obey. If religion says God would never command such a thing then it is contradicting its doctrine that God knows best and sees the full picture. It is deciding what God can and can't command so it is behaving as if it is independent of God. So we have to wonder does it really believe in his authority or not? There is implicit nastiness and danger in religion. Religion is replete with self-deceit and pretence. Religion is based on supernatural morals and doctrines. Thus though secularism may ignore religion without opposing it, religion certainly opposes and works against secularism.
 
Religion might say child abuse is wrong just as secularism does. But this is only superficial agreement for the motivation is different. Religion says it is wrong because God decrees that it is unlawful while secularism says that hurting a baby is wrong even if God says it is justifiable in the overall scheme of things. Religion only looks as if it cares about the baby. It does not. Only secularism is really on the baby's side.
 
If religionists give free rein to drop and accept as much of the religion as a member wants then what is the point of having a religion? What you have then is not a religion - religion means to bind and to obligate people to supernatural doctrines and moral teachings allegedly revealed by a divine source - but a pick and mix sweet shelf. Your prayers to God would be false for you really think the only God in your life is yourself. Even if there is a God, what you are praying to is a fantasy playmate. You must be cleverer than God when you expect favours from him as if he can't tell you are only using him. If you can pick and choose from your religion then you have no right to insist that others do it the way you do it. For example, if a priest decides to organise nude masses in the name of a pagan God in the name of honouring the body and religious inclusion then you cannot object. And if you are wiser than your religion then what are you doing in it?
 
The Church has to pretend to be innocuous in the current climate which is hostile to its ethos - this is only a strategy. Deep down it is as intolerant and arrogant as it ever was in the past. None of the unsavoury doctrines of the past have been officially and definitively renounced. The best way to help people see the light is to ask them questions and encourage them to investigate. They will uncover subconscious doubts and the truth will set them free.