How Religious People Fake Humility
Religious people say that God gives them the gift of humility - of realising how
imperfect they are.
If God is absolute perfection then anything he makes cannot be perfect for it is not him. The idea of God is degrading. A person being their best is what matters not how perfect they are. The idea of God degrades that person because it tells them there is a being who looks down on them. If atheism is true, then that degradation is not entitled to exist.
If you need humility, why would you need the idea of God to rub it in? Why can't you just let yourself see you are imperfect instead of trying to worship a God and end up thinking yourself worse than you are?
Religious faith always thrives on false humility which is
a form of excessive pride for the religious smugly believe that the greatest
being ever is delighted with their faithfulness which is an incredibly brazen
boast.
Humility is a form of pride. It is the healthiest form of pride and self-love.
The humble person will do her or his best and will welcome any mistakes that
happen. They will do this believing that what went wrong in the past or goes
wrong now as a result of their decisions is just perfect the way it is. This
prevents them from being overcome by shame. It prevents them from feeling
guilty. They are able to hold on to their resolve and attain a different kind of
perfection in the future where they do everything "better".
Humility for believers means acknowledging your dependence on God and that
nothing you do is really you. It is dependence on yourself because it is
depending not on God but on the faith in him that you have made. Real humility
is knowing that all of us are dependant on the powers that we are made of and
that we are all equal in value.
Religion condemns pride as a sin so it condemns humility in its true form which
is, rational pride.
Christians say it is humble to insist that God did your good deeds not you. The
implication is that it is arrogance and pride to say they are all down to you.
But if I take all the credit for painting a beautiful picture and that is
arrogance then imagine how arrogant it is to claim that God used me to do it? I
am claiming I know that and have experienced that. But I cannot know what and
have not experienced anything like some being doing it through me. I am parading
my alleged humility and claiming that my human acts are divine acts. There is no
bigger boast than claiming that your paltry deeds are divine!
Christianity commands that you love the sinner and hate the sin. This doctrine
does not help if you have a friend who loves you and who because of that love
takes a little revenge on you.
Love the sinner and hate the sin claims to be a recipe for humility. By loving
the sinner you are supposed to avoid pridefully hating the sinner when you are a
sinner yourself. Curiously, if Jesus has taken over your sins and had them
credited to his account by dying on the cross to be punished for them by God
then it follows that you are no longer really a sinner if you are a Christian
and CAN look down on sinners. For you, your sinful past is now a fiction because
of Jesus. Christians surely must believe that people with mental impairments
that prevent them from sin have the right to hate sinners.
The argument that I cannot chastise sinners when I am a sinner myself looks
humble. But in biblical terms it is not. The Bible God says we must trust in his
grace and his power to soften hard hearts and condemn sin in others despite
being sinners ourselves. The Christian condemns sin not as herself but as the
representative of Christ. So the Christian who does not give tough love to
sinners is arrogantly assuming God is going to let her down and disaster will
happen if she speaks out.
Christian humility is false. It is really pride in disguise. You can't believe
in humility unless you pridefully believe you have the wisdom to see you should
believe. If the humility didn't make you happy in some way you would not be
engaging in it. You believe you are worthy of happiness which is a form of
pride. Christians say it is a great thing to be humble and holy and kind in
private and to hide it from others if possible. So it is bad to be humble for
the sake of wanting others to see it. That is pride. The Church will say that
justifying this on the basis that others need to see your humility is a subtle
form of selfishness and pride. The Church warns that subtle pride is more
dangerous than open brazen pride for it is harder to diagnose and more sneaky
and deceptive. Letting others see you cannot make you proud. It is only what you
think of you that can do that. So there is more pride in YOU seeing your
humility than in others seeing it. And surely God seeing how humble you are can
be more pride for you than others seeing it? Others only see the outside but God
sees the humility you hope is in your heart. Belief in God then is terrific for
those who want to enjoy false humility. It is great if you want the benefits of
pride and being thought and feeling humble while not being really humble. That
way you are getting the best out of pride. Christianity is not based on God. It
is based on self. It is not surprising then that Christians and Jews and Muslims
spew so much hatred against debunkers of their faiths a hatred that does not
exist say in Buddhists or Taoists when their faiths are criticised.
Christians and secularists are at war. The reason for the war all comes down to
something very simple. Christians claim that God created them and revealed their
religion. Secularists claim that Christians created their version of God and
their religion. The Christians say that they are right for God told them what is
right and he knows best. The secularists are saying that Christians are
inventing their faith and should not be permitted to enforce their ideas on
society not even legally. Secularism should listen to religion but as one thing
among many things that should be given a hearing. Secularism is not perfect and
nobody should claim that it is. But to try and judge what should be allowed or
not allowed without religious prejudices and taboos is better than letting
religions rule the day with all their different rules and lies and infighting
and confusion. For example, if a secularist has to work out if contraception is
good or bad or neutral he or she should do it on earthly grounds and not be
worrying about the command of a religion requiring her or him to forbid
contraception. Nothing will get done if we start complicating things with
religion. It is not intolerance but necessity that requires the secular voice to
be the loud voice and the voice that is heard. We need to forget about God and
religious taboos and work out what is best for society.
Religion is not humble when men make it and claim that God revealed it.
Remember, the following is hypothetical: If there was any hope of loving the
sinner and hating the sin, it would follow that the more certain you are that an
act in question is sinful then the more you can love the sinner. That is because
the more you doubt or are unsure that the act is sinful, the more you intend an
injustice and intend hatred for the person. Nobody would believe you if you
accused somebody of a sin on very little evidence and maintained that you loved
that person. So the person who has strong evidence that x is doing wrong loves x
more than the person who has less evidence that x is doing wrong. The love would
only be complete if there was absolute proof that x was doing wrong. Love the
sinner and hate the sin is based then on self-righteousness and the imaginary
superiority of those who preach it.
Religion is full of rules it cannot prove. Who can prove that it is wrong to
miss Mass on Sunday? Who can prove that it is wrong to let a day pass by without
praying? Who can prove that artificial birth control is a sin? Who can prove
that it is sinful to believe that a freshly fertilised egg is not a human person
with as many rights as a grown up human person? Who can prove that it is sinful
to disagree with Jesus who said that whoever doesn't believe in him and all he
says is condemned by God? The more rules there are, the more the claim to love
the sinner can be doubted. Against psychology, Roman Catholicism says that if
you commit a mortal sin you are completely opposing God - if that were true such
sinners would not be praying for the grace of repentance! And it is said to be
immoral to disagree with the Church! It is best to have as few rules as possible
and to have only well-authenticated ones. Religion puts more blocks in the way
of loving the sinner as if there are not enough already. A faith that condemns
actions, and therefore people, when it can't prove its message is not humble.
Far from it.
Christianity gives no proof that its faith is the true faith. It says God does
miracles to verify the faith. But if the faith was good and was sensible and the
alternatives bad then God doing miracles is really a sign of his failure to
teach it properly and provide for its accurate dissemination. Those who speak of
miracles happening are not being humble simply because God can't be doing the
miracles. They must be deceived or lying.
Real humility is not starving yourself or fasting or flaggellating yourself.
Thank you is the only true and loving and kind way to express humility. It
would be odd if somebody did good for you and you hurt yourself or try to do
good in a way that is painful to you in response. Doing penance for God,
particularly as Catholics do it, is just a scam that plays on people's wish to
hurt themselves for real or imagined wrongs. Thank you means that you
accept the good should have been done to you which means you consider yourself
worthy enough of it. Thank you indirectly means that you honour yourself
by wanting to and letting yourself enjoy.
Religion counsels us to hate the sin but love the sinner. This is absurd as
saying, "I disapprove of the sin but not the sinner". It is as absurd as saying,
"I disapprove of the sin but not the action." And as absurd and two-faced as,
"Hate the sinner and love the person". The counsel is a sign of religion's lack
of humility.
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