By Carl S ~
Shortly before I quit going to church with my wife, I found myself after one service, alone with her pastor. He took the opportunity to ask me if I had “issues.” I told him I didn't. (But later I asked my wife what “issues” meant.) Of course I have issues. For years now. Looking back at his question, I suspect he was planning on setting up an intervention with him and other church members to “explain to a wanderer from the faith,” just to keep him in the herd. Little did he know I never was part of his flock. If he did, he might have agreed with actor Strother Martin in the movie “Cool Hand Luke,” who said, “What we have here is failure to communicate.” But then, problems all believers deal with stem from the fact “God” fails to communicate, don't they? So, “his” delegates must speak for “him.”
Maybe the “calling” to preach is only a social construct, to enable liars to have a livelihood. I suspect “lying for Jesus” or God has been so successful for the clergy it's a pleasure-giving habit, and because their unvalidated claims go unchallenged, so too must the deceptions multiply. When habitual lying becomes an addiction, won't it become self-deception? Isn't this combination similar to a gambling addiction? Probing doubt is needed to peel away religion's veneer.
Things are not what they're loudly proclaimed to be when it comes to religions:
1. Their scriptures are written with constant changing of subjects to dissuade us from investigating their claims. Ask yourself why couldn't Christianity continue as an oral tradition; why wasn't there any resurrection account written until at least thirty-plus years later? I came to this conclusion: The gospels had to be written in order to keep people from asking questions. And they were not checked for errors or veracity. Early Christianity was replete with scattered beliefs and dogmas about the nature of Jesus alone. A solution was concocted for a monopoly of power: a convention of church elders got together and voted in which “alternative facts” texts were to be “true,” and every other opinion became “heresy.” After that, anyone caught teaching anything differing from them would be punished, banished, or executed. “Alternative truth” by vote?
2. Our disagreements with clergy about their god's personal morality might arise from the same kinds of “disagreements” we have with psychopaths. Unless we are psychopaths ourselves, we can't relate to Klaus Barbie, Ted Bundy or the Inquisitors, either. Neither can we imagine what it's like to be a bishop, rabbi, pope, priest, pastor, or imam, etc., having to cover up crimes of fellow clergy, to justify physical and psychological child abuse, or the deaths of women due to denied or botched abortions. Maybe, for the same reasons, we don't see their reasons for their indifference to giving us information, or their refusals to justify their decisions. We're looking at things from a moral and ethical position and making a mistake in thinking religious authorities are also.
3. Organized religions, because they are founded and dominated by males, are all about Power. Moral sincerity is a facade. Does the Vatican, Russian Orthodox Church, Islamic religion, or any other belief system sincerely care about moral/ethical, behavior? Hasn't morality been a successful facade for all religious claims to authority? While clergy preach each believer has moral obligations, they practice a double standard for their own behavior.
4. All known dictatorial systems followed the blueprint laid down by Christianity: claims to own absolute truths and authority, suppression of facts, a strict structure of hierarchies, degradation or persecution of dissidents, absolute loyalty, and promises of rewards to those who obey. No surprise the Mafia is an outgrowth of the Catholic Church. What clergy are loyal to, answerable to, and uphold, is not to any higher power they preach, but The System. All other considerations, such as compassion, honesty, justice for those the system harms, are all collateral damage for the sake of preserving it forever. And it gets worse with each stretch of privilege giving the clergy a free pass. Unopposed, they'll grab all they can. The holiness, reverence for life, claims to moral superiority because of asserted, (not necessarily) seriously believed beliefs, is so much bullshit. Even the Mafia can relate to that. Even gang members know; it's all about power.
5. Those within the grasp of religion's power are indoctrinated to believe in a man who is invisible, but feared. Nobody has seen him, heard him, and yet he has to be constantly praised and begged for favors. As a righteous god, he is unsympathetic and cruel. We see his image when soberly reflecting on the indifference of psychopathic torturers and murderers, this fictitious god who creates a facility where he can watch humans being tortured, eternally. (Eat your heart out, Klaus Barbie.) What they share is absence of remorse, empathy for their victims, with no sense of evil in following their desires to the maximum.
Things are not what they're loudly proclaimed to be when it comes to religions6. Go behind the facade. Religions are not about morality and ethical behavior, but Power over minds, emotions, and women. Christianity sells a trade-off: forgiveness as a substitute for personal responsibility. Unlike prisons built to constrain the guilty, religions are prisons where power and control are exercised over the innocent, good, caring, humans, who don't need them. Creationism, miracles, the immovable belief in the magical power of words and manifestations are all of the same non substance: wishful appearances. Believers are not purchasing the steak, but the sizzle. Clergy are holy vacuum cleaner salesmen who tell you their product will cleanse your soul, but all they're selling is the vacuum.
7. Why do even intelligent humans buy into the facade, stay in it, even to the point of being most fearful of losing it? When we talk about common human traumas, we consider death, destruction, divorce, health crisis, betrayals, etc. But maybe the worst of all is disillusionment. This explains a lot. I say this because, of all of them, disillusionment has the longest lasting effects. The more a person commits in love, passion, time, money, and in setting aside all other things that mean the most to him or her, so much the more devastating will be the result of finding out one has been deceived all along. It's inconceivable. The most natural reaction is rejecting this could happen, this could be true. And to reach the end of one's life realizing one has been conned, has to be the greatest disillusionment. No wonder it would be avoided as exposure to the most toxic of plagues. Denying the finality of death is one of the most powerful illusions humans cling to. Hope is the very last thing to die, as the saying goes, but even at death, the believer hopes. When thinking about the persistency and defensive power of faith (which is only another word for nothing more than gambling), make note of how terrified humans can be whenever they are faced with being disillusioned. Therefore, religion thrives.
8. Religious teachings and scriptural writings exemplify what “moral” means to all those fictitious male deities, and the sellers who promote them as their profitable products, as compared to the rest of humanity. It's not realistic to agree to disagree with those whose purpose is to dominate you. Confrontation is necessary. Religious spokesmen should be revealed to have “failure to communicate,” because they only want their words heard, and avoid these facts.
“A mass grave containing about 800 human remains ranging in age from 35 weeks to 3 years was discovered at the former Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home in Tuam, Ireland, a Catholic orphanage that closed in 1961.” - Associated Press, March 3, 2017.
Maybe the “calling” to preach is only a social construct, to enable liars to have a livelihood. I suspect “lying for Jesus” or God has been so successful for the clergy it's a pleasure-giving habit, and because their unvalidated claims go unchallenged, so too must the deceptions multiply. When habitual lying becomes an addiction, won't it become self-deception? Isn't this combination similar to a gambling addiction? Probing doubt is needed to peel away religion's veneer.
Things are not what they're loudly proclaimed to be when it comes to religions:
1. Their scriptures are written with constant changing of subjects to dissuade us from investigating their claims. Ask yourself why couldn't Christianity continue as an oral tradition; why wasn't there any resurrection account written until at least thirty-plus years later? I came to this conclusion: The gospels had to be written in order to keep people from asking questions. And they were not checked for errors or veracity. Early Christianity was replete with scattered beliefs and dogmas about the nature of Jesus alone. A solution was concocted for a monopoly of power: a convention of church elders got together and voted in which “alternative facts” texts were to be “true,” and every other opinion became “heresy.” After that, anyone caught teaching anything differing from them would be punished, banished, or executed. “Alternative truth” by vote?
2. Our disagreements with clergy about their god's personal morality might arise from the same kinds of “disagreements” we have with psychopaths. Unless we are psychopaths ourselves, we can't relate to Klaus Barbie, Ted Bundy or the Inquisitors, either. Neither can we imagine what it's like to be a bishop, rabbi, pope, priest, pastor, or imam, etc., having to cover up crimes of fellow clergy, to justify physical and psychological child abuse, or the deaths of women due to denied or botched abortions. Maybe, for the same reasons, we don't see their reasons for their indifference to giving us information, or their refusals to justify their decisions. We're looking at things from a moral and ethical position and making a mistake in thinking religious authorities are also.
3. Organized religions, because they are founded and dominated by males, are all about Power. Moral sincerity is a facade. Does the Vatican, Russian Orthodox Church, Islamic religion, or any other belief system sincerely care about moral/ethical, behavior? Hasn't morality been a successful facade for all religious claims to authority? While clergy preach each believer has moral obligations, they practice a double standard for their own behavior.
4. All known dictatorial systems followed the blueprint laid down by Christianity: claims to own absolute truths and authority, suppression of facts, a strict structure of hierarchies, degradation or persecution of dissidents, absolute loyalty, and promises of rewards to those who obey. No surprise the Mafia is an outgrowth of the Catholic Church. What clergy are loyal to, answerable to, and uphold, is not to any higher power they preach, but The System. All other considerations, such as compassion, honesty, justice for those the system harms, are all collateral damage for the sake of preserving it forever. And it gets worse with each stretch of privilege giving the clergy a free pass. Unopposed, they'll grab all they can. The holiness, reverence for life, claims to moral superiority because of asserted, (not necessarily) seriously believed beliefs, is so much bullshit. Even the Mafia can relate to that. Even gang members know; it's all about power.
5. Those within the grasp of religion's power are indoctrinated to believe in a man who is invisible, but feared. Nobody has seen him, heard him, and yet he has to be constantly praised and begged for favors. As a righteous god, he is unsympathetic and cruel. We see his image when soberly reflecting on the indifference of psychopathic torturers and murderers, this fictitious god who creates a facility where he can watch humans being tortured, eternally. (Eat your heart out, Klaus Barbie.) What they share is absence of remorse, empathy for their victims, with no sense of evil in following their desires to the maximum.
Things are not what they're loudly proclaimed to be when it comes to religions6. Go behind the facade. Religions are not about morality and ethical behavior, but Power over minds, emotions, and women. Christianity sells a trade-off: forgiveness as a substitute for personal responsibility. Unlike prisons built to constrain the guilty, religions are prisons where power and control are exercised over the innocent, good, caring, humans, who don't need them. Creationism, miracles, the immovable belief in the magical power of words and manifestations are all of the same non substance: wishful appearances. Believers are not purchasing the steak, but the sizzle. Clergy are holy vacuum cleaner salesmen who tell you their product will cleanse your soul, but all they're selling is the vacuum.
7. Why do even intelligent humans buy into the facade, stay in it, even to the point of being most fearful of losing it? When we talk about common human traumas, we consider death, destruction, divorce, health crisis, betrayals, etc. But maybe the worst of all is disillusionment. This explains a lot. I say this because, of all of them, disillusionment has the longest lasting effects. The more a person commits in love, passion, time, money, and in setting aside all other things that mean the most to him or her, so much the more devastating will be the result of finding out one has been deceived all along. It's inconceivable. The most natural reaction is rejecting this could happen, this could be true. And to reach the end of one's life realizing one has been conned, has to be the greatest disillusionment. No wonder it would be avoided as exposure to the most toxic of plagues. Denying the finality of death is one of the most powerful illusions humans cling to. Hope is the very last thing to die, as the saying goes, but even at death, the believer hopes. When thinking about the persistency and defensive power of faith (which is only another word for nothing more than gambling), make note of how terrified humans can be whenever they are faced with being disillusioned. Therefore, religion thrives.
8. Religious teachings and scriptural writings exemplify what “moral” means to all those fictitious male deities, and the sellers who promote them as their profitable products, as compared to the rest of humanity. It's not realistic to agree to disagree with those whose purpose is to dominate you. Confrontation is necessary. Religious spokesmen should be revealed to have “failure to communicate,” because they only want their words heard, and avoid these facts.
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