Does Deep Faith = Deep Fear?
By Carl S ~
When I was a child in Catholic school, the nun-teacher took offense at the words, “I adore you” in love songs. She told us we should never use that word except when talking about a relationship to God. (At least I'd get some response from a real person if I said “I adore you.”) Compare what she said to what Friedrich Nietzsche said: “There is not sufficient love and goodness in the world to permit us to give some of it to imaginary beings.” How pathetic and unjust, all the emotions wasted on her God, all gods; all the adoration denied to real, caring, lovers. There's no obligation to reciprocate on the part of the god; the obligations are always one-sided. Why? Children are taught the god is worthy of much more love than them and each other. It doesn't matter who the god is, either, whether it's a monotheistic or multiple-personality disordered one demanding human blood sacrifices, or a benign god; that's where the love goes. The God vortex sucks all the love into it, and it's never satiated.
Take the Abrahamic God, for example. Children have been taught forever there's a god who must be worshiped and obeyed. It is pounded into them. What really is adored is not a god, but the faith in a god. Is faith worthy of adoration? Faith has no evidential foundation, no proof for its claims, no compelling arguments for its alleged connection with moral behavior. “Faith” is just another way of saying “opinion.” Simply because faith-opinion represents conflicting claims for God/gods and other imaginary beings, harbors conflicting and unresolvable issues within itself, and demands reverence and exemption from examination, faith does not deserve our respect.
In this 21st century, worshipers of faith in many countries insist on their faith being respected or adored even as they adore it. They demand it take precedence over the love and goodness we need for one another. This is against the compassion we owe one another. No surprises there. The histories of religions have but one goal, and it is not pro compassion: it is forcing some people's opinions on another. This is accomplished via brainwashing, through emotional and political coercion, torture, deprivation of property, but most of all, through fear; all over differences of opinion.
The histories of religions have but one goal: forcing some people's opinions on another.Millions of decent, loving, filled-with-goodness individuals have been wasting their loving potential because they've been taught they're unworthy of love, are inherently bad, and need to worship imaginary beings. It doesn't matter if the beings and opinion-beliefs are against reason and knowledge and their own experiences. The goal is to make them believe. The god and its wishes are implanted in the earliest stages of a child's environment. These doctrines stab them like a super-sharp dagger, so they don't realize they're bleeding from multiple wounds. And the stabbing is done by well-meaning and caring parents, relatives, and friends. Years go by, and the victims can't identify what's causing their suffering. (Can the role models be blamed, since they're victims themselves?)
This is perversion. It begins with the rape of the mind and conscience of an impressionable child. The trusted adult may be likened to a pedophile who rationalizes he is “loving” the child while sodomizing it. The child is taught to conclude faith is essential to life itself. Conformity is the norm, as it is in every cult. Fear prevents a person's conscience from protesting injustice when it's sanctioned by a god's authority figures. The adoration of belief becomes so rooted in each child's unconscious that not believing in something, anything, no matter how nonsensible, is unthinkable and unnatural.
Are all believers, of all faiths, afraid of NOT believing? Were you?
Take the Abrahamic God, for example. Children have been taught forever there's a god who must be worshiped and obeyed. It is pounded into them. What really is adored is not a god, but the faith in a god. Is faith worthy of adoration? Faith has no evidential foundation, no proof for its claims, no compelling arguments for its alleged connection with moral behavior. “Faith” is just another way of saying “opinion.” Simply because faith-opinion represents conflicting claims for God/gods and other imaginary beings, harbors conflicting and unresolvable issues within itself, and demands reverence and exemption from examination, faith does not deserve our respect.
In this 21st century, worshipers of faith in many countries insist on their faith being respected or adored even as they adore it. They demand it take precedence over the love and goodness we need for one another. This is against the compassion we owe one another. No surprises there. The histories of religions have but one goal, and it is not pro compassion: it is forcing some people's opinions on another. This is accomplished via brainwashing, through emotional and political coercion, torture, deprivation of property, but most of all, through fear; all over differences of opinion.
The histories of religions have but one goal: forcing some people's opinions on another.Millions of decent, loving, filled-with-goodness individuals have been wasting their loving potential because they've been taught they're unworthy of love, are inherently bad, and need to worship imaginary beings. It doesn't matter if the beings and opinion-beliefs are against reason and knowledge and their own experiences. The goal is to make them believe. The god and its wishes are implanted in the earliest stages of a child's environment. These doctrines stab them like a super-sharp dagger, so they don't realize they're bleeding from multiple wounds. And the stabbing is done by well-meaning and caring parents, relatives, and friends. Years go by, and the victims can't identify what's causing their suffering. (Can the role models be blamed, since they're victims themselves?)
This is perversion. It begins with the rape of the mind and conscience of an impressionable child. The trusted adult may be likened to a pedophile who rationalizes he is “loving” the child while sodomizing it. The child is taught to conclude faith is essential to life itself. Conformity is the norm, as it is in every cult. Fear prevents a person's conscience from protesting injustice when it's sanctioned by a god's authority figures. The adoration of belief becomes so rooted in each child's unconscious that not believing in something, anything, no matter how nonsensible, is unthinkable and unnatural.
Are all believers, of all faiths, afraid of NOT believing? Were you?