Religious selectiveness is hypocrisy
Cherry picking is only an issue if a religion claims an infallible source of doctrine or to be that source.
If you believe you will not be picking what suits you out of its doctrines and morals.
If you love its God you will not insult him by acting as if your opinion is more informed than his.
Cherry pickers pose as progressive but they cannot be when they are doing these things.
A religion may ask for you to have faith and trust in terrible doctrines:
The claim to have access to the real truth is a big claim.
The claim human personhood starts at conception is a big claim.
The claim that the right to die is really a right to kill is a big claim.
The claim that Jesus died as a sacrifice for sin is a big claim.
The claim that human nature is inherently sinful from its first moment of existence is a big one.
The claim that human free will has the power to be malicious and deluded enough keep away from God for all eternity in Hell is a big one.
The claim that God allows evil for a good is the biggest claim of all.
These claims demand huge study and explaining so if you want to be part of the religion that is what you do.
Cherry pickers bolster up a bad religion by giving it children and money and letting it have the schools which shows they have no deep loyalty to their own cherry picking principles.
Religion may even want people to be cherry pickers though it condemns the inherent and practical hypocrisy of cherry-picking. It helps confuse people about how the religion does not deserve its place in society when it may teach nasty scriptures and saviours who are bad for children. That is one example.
It is extremist to cherry pick to help a religion that has exercised violence - violence of an exceptional ferocity or violence of a not so usual kind.
And it is extremist to pick one which stands for absurdities for its absurdities that are used to persuade members to be violent or to manipulate them to persuade themselves.
If you can pick and choose you are calling the religion man-made and saying your opinion is as good as God’s or Jesus’ Why are you honouring a man and religion of You can be a member of something but not representative of it and your voice does not count. So when you say, “My religion is wrong about this and that” you are asking not to be listened to. You are indirectly telling people to go to the religion for doctrine and morals.
You don't know what you are praying to if you blind yourself with cherry picking
- to express a dishonest faith and offer that to god is to accuse him of being untrustworthy and possibly dangerous
- it is to ask him to harm if he wants to. It is bad enough to ask that of him if you trust him totally. You would need to know not believe you can trust him
The religious label and the habit of labelling leads to religion being given more power, influence and presence than it has for a religion has to be more than just a word. The Church is not the people. It is something people join.
The religious label is a threat to the person who truly earns the label in belief or trying to believe. Belief is part of obedience and if somebody admits what the standard is for belief and tries but does not manage that person is not a hypocrite but a person making an effort.
The cherry picker insults that person and it is extreme to insult a person of exceptional dedication just because you want to avail of a
The religious teaching that all fall short of the religion's standards asks that cherry pickers be ignored or told their religious opinion cannot deserve a hearing. They only thrive for people who are as dishonest as themselves admire them. Alarmingly it is sure to be a religious cherry picker who is also a politician who gets away with it and gets listened to.
An ad homimen argument is no good for it attacks the person giving the argument not the argument itself. You cannot say some pope or whatever is no good as an authority on God just because he is a tax cheat and a sinner. Is religion to be defined as that which applies the argument to itself? Yes if it says religion is only good and anything that is bad is not religion. Who said that it is only another person can use the argument against you. You can use it on yourself. The religion can use it on itself.
