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COMPLETE LIST OF ITEMS REFUTING RELIGIOUS ERRORS
ROMAN CATHOLICISM, A WARNING!
Do not let man have you take his word for the word of
God
- rethink being a Roman Catholic
- or is it just a label, a word imposed on you as a child?
Don't let religious opinions of others limit you!
Roman Catholicism is only opinion.
The Roman Catholic Church uses the term anti-Catholic against anybody whose avowed purpose in examining the claims of the Church is pro-truth and pro-history. It is a Catholic attempt to disqualify that person. The Church is on a very uncertain moral ground. If the Church has the truth it cannot be harmed by investigation. The Church claims to be the Church of truth and the one true Church. If it is not then the faith of the Church ought to be undermined and doubt must be encouraged. It is only man-made so why not? Why make an idol out of a religion?
This website has a number of goals -
* Principally to urge people to put secular principles before religious ones -
to keep religious influence out of health services and politics
(religious influence being understood as any suggestion that the reason, part or
full, something should banned is because God says so)
* Secondarily to stop financial donations being made to the Roman Catholic
Church
* Thirdly, to dissuade infant baptism and the exploitive ways children are
converted to the faith not just for the sake of the children but because this
crafty way of getting members gives the Church an unfair influence and power in
the world
* Fourthly to show the world that the faith or Church is a man-made product
* Fifthly, to obey the Church command to serve the truth and the whole truth and nothing but the truth and promote it whether it is popular or not. Truth is not about us. Truth is truth.
The Roman Catholic faith is really self-deception - self-deception is the most
dangerous evil of them all and the fertiliser for further lies, further errors
and further evil. Faith is the reason suicide bombers are blowing up planes
because it is based on the notion that God is speaking to you in your heart and
he knows what is right in the circumstances even if it feels wrong to us. If you
lie to yourself to make yourself imagine that you are a believer, you are also
lying to everybody else. A faith of lies is responsible for all the damaging
activities done in its name - even if its official teaching disapproves of these
activities. Catholic condemnations of Inquisitions and clerical paedophilia ring
hollow. Lies lead to more lies and very harmful ones.
The Church has refused to correct its teachings even when they have been
conclusively refuted. It knowingly teaches doctrines as true that have been
disproven or for which there is no evidence or for which the evidence is
inadequate.
Roman Catholicism teaches harmful doctrine. It encourages people to put their
own spiritual pleasures before those who are tormented by its doctrines so that
they will uphold the doctrines regardless of the suffering that is caused to
others.
Catholicism teaches that God whose existence cannot be proven has to be loved
with all our hearts while our family and neighbours are not to be loved as much
as God but merely as ourselves! Clearly, doctrine comes before people and the
real motive in helping others has to be to keep God happy. It is obvious that if
you love your wife so much that you would be happy for God to just disappear
into non-existence just so that she could live that somebody telling you to stop
that and love her less than God is not much of a person.
The Church says God made the universe out of nothing. Nothing contributed to the
universe. Not even God's power. The Church says God is his power and denies he
made the universe from himself. The universe is not God. So if the universe came
from nothing that is not making. God did not make the universe after all. Thus
the universe popped into existence whether he wanted it to or not. Nothing
becoming something means it popped because there is no real becoming. Period.
Creation is a core Catholic doctrine so if it is wrong the whole religion is in
error. The creation doctrine is even behind the Church notion that bread and
wine can be turned into the body and blood and soul and divinity of Jesus
Christ. Creation is an evil doctrine for to worship a God who does what cannot
be done is dangerous and deranged. He would not be intrinsically good for he can
do any evil and still be good though it is impossible.
Catholicism teaches that the Church represents God on earth and has his
authority to condemn sin and discipline sinners. In fact it is none of God's
business (and therefore not the Church's either) what we do. Rights are based on
need. Sin cannot harm an almighty and all-good God who is perfectly happy. He
does not need to hate sin or oppose it - he has no need for our obedience. Our
disobedience does him no harm. Therefore he has no right to command us. And it
is evil then to say that he commands and that we should obey.
Is good good whether God commands it or not? If it is good merely because he
says so then clearly the believer is admitting that he will regard murdering
prostitutes as holy and good if God says so. If God has to consult a standard of
right and wrong that is independent of him and autonomous then we have the right
to disagree with his interpretation and doing good would matter not God or
religion. The standard matters above all things not him and he is not really the
only thing that matters though he says he is. God either makes good good or he
doesn't. Those who say there is a third option are clearly lying. They say that
God's goodness is his nature and that is the solution. So God did not cause
himself to be good but he just is good which is why it really is wrong not to be
good like him. But a God who is good without being responsible for it is even
worse than one that makes good up out of thin air. And what standard says that
God's goodness is really good though he had nothing to do with being naturally
good?
They simply rephrase the notion that good is only what God wants it to be and is
not really good. They rephrase it thus as, something is good only when God's
character wants it to be. And God does not make his own goodness so how do we
know by what standard it really is goodness. That is really rewording the two
problems and pretending that a solution has been found. This deception is what
they offer you as the third option. There is no third option.
Imagine you are forced to make a choice between doing good for person because it
makes God happy and doing it only for the person. It has to be one or the other.
A baby is sick and needs help. Do you give it the medicine because it will help?
Or because God wants you to? Choose the first. Thus you see what matters. God is
not God for God cannot matter. Christianity commits an extreme evil as regards
principle in standing by Jesus' teaching that we must give all to God 100%.
We do not need God's forgiveness for our sins are none of his business. We just
need to forgive ourselves and to ask forgiveness of others. Going to God for
forgiveness in the Catholic confessional where sins are whispered to the priest
is considered more important than going to those who you hurt. A horrible
teaching like that is only appealing to people who need it to feel good about
themselves. That can only happen if they have less sorrow for hurting people
than displeasing God! The confessional is a violation of the privacy of the
conscience. And even more so when the Church warns that telling lies to the
priest in confession is a very serious sin and needs to be repented before death
or the person will rot in Hell forever.
It urges people to imagine that their power to believe all the Church teaches is
unnatural and is actually miraculous - that is God gives you light to show you
that his gospel is true. This leads to a disturbing arrogance - often dressed in
the robes of humility - and a detestation of anybody who says there are errors
in the faith. It is a delusion and an illness to convince yourself that the
faith you build yourself is not your work but merely looks as if it is.
It is more concerned about its religious teachings such as the sinless life of
Jesus' mother being believed than in people doing good. Canon Law says you leave
the Church if you contradict its clear teaching on religion but those who break
or disbelieve most ethical precepts of the Church are still considered members.
It claims to be infallible. That is a dangerous example for other religions many
of which are openly vicious.
It keeps many worrying doctrines away from the people.
It has one doctrine contradicting the other.
It pretends that absurd doctrines are true and without error!
It condemns its critics and the faith it seeks to put in us is intrinsically
bigoted. Supernatural claims naturally require exceptionally good evidence and
the Church urges people to obey its will without providing this evidence. It is
cheating the people. If we start making very serious religious claims on flimsy
evidence then why should we restrict ourselves to religious claims?
It claims to know what is best for people.
The religion says that some actions are objectively wrong. That means that even
if you mean well by them they are still bad - you are still doing bad. The
loving gay couple next door are still doing bad and are possibly worse than
people who deliberately do bad.
Sin by definition is doing an act against God's will that should be punished and
which deserves ill-feeling and condemnation. The Church says we must hate and
detest sins but love the doer of the sins. This is a thinly disguised cover for
hating the guts of those who disobey the Church or who stay in other religions
instead of abjuring them and joining the Church. To hate sin is to have a
personal ill-feeling for the sinner. You can't really hate sin if you see it as
a thing. Hating it would be as much a sign of mental illness was would wanting
to murder a chandelier that fell on top of you. It feels personal and no amount
of self-deception will hide that from you. You can only camouflage it with
hypocrisy. The teaching of the Church implies that we can be ungrateful to our
benefactor but grateful to their good deeds. It is self-deception, delusion and
hypocrisy. Believers pretend that God loves them and hates their sins - this is
impossible so it follows their whole religion is a trick.
The Church gets away with its lie for a lot of people confuse wanting a person
to stop doing things that harm them with hating sin. Sin means a crime against
God and the Church accuses you of sin when it is enough to accuse you of
wrongdoing and when in fact nobody has the right to be accused of sin when there
is a chance that there is no God to sin against. You have to assume a person is
innocent of a crime until proven guilty. And religion says that sin is a grave
insult to the perfect love of God. That doctrine adds insult to injury.
It claims that its faith is not a form of belief but a form of knowledge. Its a
way of knowing. Thus they end up saying they know Jesus was God himself and that
priests turn bread into Jesus on the altar. Again, this is fundamentalism and
the arrogance is a lethal example for other religions.
It accuses people of having the potential to be evil enough to choose to spend
all eternity cursing God and love and everybody else there is in Hell. That is a
very serious allegation and where is the proof? Without proof their assertion
that people have gone to Hell and can go and that we need the Church and God to
keep us out of this danger is mere slander.
A miracle is a supernatural event and distinguished from a paranormal one. Only
a power outside nature can do the supernatural. A power within nature can do the
paranormal. The Church says only God is truly outside nature. Satan may be able
to do paranormal things but he will be within nature in the sense that God made
him. The Church's miracles are hostile to science. Only God can create (assuming
creation is possible which it is not) thus you cannot be sure a miracle is from
God unless it involves creation. A miracle such as a communion wafer bleeding
cannot be verified because you cannot show that the blood was created from
nothing there and then. What if some paranormal force did some trick and the
blood was not miraculously created? If you have to assume the blood was created
then the miracle is is not about giving evidence for God. It is no good and it
is insulting to God to say he does miracles to show off. The advantage of
limiting miracles to acts of creation is that it weeds out a lot of fraudulent
and ignorant claims. However, only God can know if an example of a creation
miracle really happened. It is no good to us.
It is no trouble to the Church to approve of different apparitions of Jesus and
Mary though they are clearly dubious. For example, they don't have tests done on
the messages to show that it must have been the same entity giving the messages.
It doesn't bother them that Jesus and Mary never look the same when they appear
to someone new. Every vision of Mary seems to have its own personality and
habits. Every apparition report is accompanied by a different description. The
Church may use science to show that the visionaries are not mad but that is only
a cover to make the Church look professional. The most important science -
checking that it is really the same Jesus for example who has appeared to
different people in different places - is left out. Plus the apostles made no
effort to be verified sane or truthful after they reported the resurrection of
Jesus Christ. They all expected people just to take their word for it. What if a
visionary says Jesus told him the resurrection was a mistake or hoax? Why not
just take his word for it?
It claims that babies are not the children of God but need to be turned into the
children of God by baptism which takes away original sin, reduces their desire
to sin when they get bigger and makes them members of the Church and obligated
to obey the Church and believe what it believes. To say that one baby is better
or even potentially better than another just because of a splash of water is to
imply that racism isn't wrong. What's the difference? Racists could take
encouragement and consolation from the Church. Society needs to react with
revulsion towards infant baptism. And the Church needs to be forced to change
its racist teaching. And it is racism. The whites were usually Christians and in
the past treated blacks like rubbish because the blacks usually were not
baptised.
Catholicism takes unfair advantage of children to indoctrinate them to program
them to believe in Roman Catholicism and need it. Education should be about
teaching a child verified material not religious fantasy. Children should be
informed about religion in a neutral way and be left free to decide and to
choose only what is relevant to them forming healthy relationships with others.
If they want to choose any religious teachings they like let them but don't try
to make sure it is just Catholic teachings they have. No belief or religion can
be right for everybody. Schooling has to be about the child and her friends not
God. A child needs to be motivated to be kind to other children. Stuff like
prayers to Mary and Holy Communion only waste time that should be spent on
helping a child to use psychological techniques to become a happy child who
benefits all who he or she meets.
If people raised in religion were really free, conversions from one religion to
another would be a lot more common.
It 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.
It 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.
Do not be silent. Silence allows Roman Catholicism to harm and trick innocent
people. To cover for it is going to help no one in the long run. As with
everything that others do, if it is wrong you cannot be neutral or encourage it
for it is your right to do good as you see fit. In this sense, their religion is
your business.
Quit Catholicism!