Cafeteria Religion is not religion but an attempt to gain from feigning a religious identity
If you are a true servant or worshipper of God you will let God tell you how to approach him. Religion is God reaching down to you not you up to him as if you are as good as he is. Thus cherry-picking is thoroughly irreligious. Jesus called it a form of godliness but having no real godliness. Don'’t follow anyone that is messing around with religious labels that don’t really describe them. If you are in religion then be sincere and cut no corners. Cheap religion is freeloader religion. If you treat your religion as something that is about taking you may tell yourself it is no different than enjoying the shade under your neighbour's tree in his garden and does no harm. You may do no harm but it remains his garden and you harm your power to respect the property and privacy of others. You potentially harm him for your attitude opens up the chance that further abuses will come.
Why you must either believe all of a religion that
claims to be revealed by a God of truth or none of it:
#It is said that real faith means you act like you
believe, and if so, more than that, real faith means you believe the details
that your faith asks you to believe - a cherrypicker is not a real believer and
thus not entitled to be respected as a believer for she is not.
Saying you have faith while you ignore the details of the faith content is to
try and hide something. You are a hypocrite.
#The cherrypicker is not a friend to religious freedom. A
religion cannot function if everybody starts going their own way. Real religious
freedom is honouring and availing of the right to be in a religion that best
fits your faith.
#It is outrageous when the Catholic cherrypicker takes
communion and has no problem with the Protestant being barred from Catholic
communion for having his religious views that differ from the Church and despite
the fact that he wants spiritual help from that communion to serve God and
goodness better.
#You are your own authority when you cherry-pick and it
is about you and not God and not about truth.
#You put converts off. Why trouble yourself converting to
a religion if you can trim it to suit yourself?
#You are a hypocrite claiming to be a faithful member
when you are not.
#You are a hypocrite if you celebrate somebody making
huge sacrifices to be a priest or minister or missionary for your religion. In
fact you should be challenging them and discouraging them. You may say, "Okay,
he has sacrificed years of his life to preach this erroneous or suspect message
but it made a good man of him." But if he does good it is for the wrong reason -
error. He is doing good out of loyalty to doctrinal error and not because it is
good. (Think of the Mormon missionary. If he cuts grass for old people when he
is on a mission - it is to help them become attracted to his religion not to
goodness as such.) Part of his life is wasted and it is possibly your fault. You
wouldn't like it if people let you sacrifice for this religion if you didn't
cherry pick it but assimilated it hook and line and sinker.
#You are dishonest for you are saying the faith is true
while you laugh at some of its teachings.
#You insult the truly faithful members of the religion by
looking for the same rights and treatment as them from the religion.
#If you are right and you know your religion is wrong
then you should not be in it both for the sake of the truth and for the sake of
honesty and also for the sake of those who will be influenced by you. The
religion is a man-made set-up pretending to be taught by God. It is idolatry not
to put God first and join the religion he has founded and authorised to speak in
his name. Idolatry offends many religions and offends atheism for it is
degrading and deluded and carries in it the seeds of stupidity and danger.
#Why do even insincere people make huge effort to
evangelise others? Because there is a massive buzz when people accept your
testimony to the truth of absurdities and superstitions. People like to feel
they have great control over others. If you are a religious cherry-picker you
will be seen just as another of them. Members of a religion who suspect it is
nonsense will evangelise others for it seems to validate the faith they want to
believe in. It helps them think they believe or not notice that they don't. It
makes them hope that their doubts are wrong when others seem to believe and
convert to the religion.
#Cherry-pickers think religion is a bad thing but if
taken seriously - they only feel safe in a religion because they think enough
people in it cherry-pick so as to keep the religion from doing much harm.
#Cherry-pickers think religion is not the servant of
truth it says it is so they think they know better.
#Calling yourself a good Catholic when you are really
just picking and choosing what you want, is enabling (promoting by example and
perhaps by word) religious hypocrisy and religious relativism - it encourages
others to do the same as you and worse. It leads to religious relativists
promoting intolerance towards those who eschew religious relativism and claim to
follow the truth.
#To contradict yourself is to be against yourself - it is to oppose your reason. Your reason is a tool to help you discover truth. Truth does not care what you feel or need. But you become dangerous the moment you disparage truth. To be against yourself impacts on others for you cannot avoid being connected to others.
#When a religion looks big in size - through real committed members or
superficial nominal members - it gives it a veneer of credence. The size of the
Catholic Church is the main reason it is good at getting converts without doing
much to look for them. A Catholic Church in the neighbourhood is all it takes to
advertise the religion. If Catholicism starts off as a tiny sect today, and the
whole world gets a free choice to join it or not, there will be very few new
Catholics at the end of the day. Size could be better at getting converts than
truth.
#Enabling corruption and error and lies is the greatest
evil. Hitler was not the most evil person in World War 2. Those who enabled him
by saying nothing were more to blame than he was.
#Our programming makes us look to the future to the
extent that the evil the religion we are in has done in the past does not make
us consider leaving the religion or drive us out. We are engaging in
rationalisation - we do not know the future and the past should be a warning
about the future. We just don't care enough that we might be enabling.
#In 2014, the European Court stated that the right to
freedom of religion does not guarantee a “right to dissent” from religion. Thus,
in the case of a disagreement between a religious community and one of its
members, the individual’s freedom of religion is exercised by his ability to
freely leave the community. In addition, the principle of religious autonomy
forbids the State to force a religious community to accept or exclude an
individual or to entrust the individual with any religious responsibility.
#All evil organisations such as the Orange Order in
Ireland get supporters who reason that there are some good people in them so
membership isn't so bad. The supporters are enablers who trivialise the evil in
this way. They stay in the organisation despite the fact that the organisation
might be condemned for being too far short of goodness. Don't be in an
organisation because it is good when it is not good enough. That makes you a
cherry-picker when it comes to corruption and honesty.
#Some say that principles do not come first and practice is what matters. But to celebrate the rejection of principles or violence against principles mean you cannot object if people decide to put their bad principles into practice. You don't say that the principle of paedophilia being bad is unimportant as long as people don't carry out acts of child sexual abuse. Your condemnation of their actions only makes you a hypocrite who tolerates their evil. Principles are not just rules but about people. For example, if you value truth you automatically value people's need for the truth and their right to it. Principles consider the bigger picture and look beyond pleasing some people to what is best for as many people as possible in the long-term. If you suffer for the truth it will pass and it is worse to give in to those who hate the truth.
