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.