ROMAN CATHOLICISM AND WHY WE MUST ASSUME IT DECEIVES ITSELF
GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS
Most people are irrational. This causes problems for the right of freedom of
speech. In principle, we should be allowed to say what we want, even if it is
hate speech, as long as the other side can be presented. But too many people
will not think rationally about it. Religion does not emphasise reason which
means it encourages this problem. It does not help people to reason.
Religion is an education in rationalising. There are plenty of other elements in
life that lead to rationalisations. But that does not mean we should have an
extra one. Religion is the main force in training people to rationalise. Women
who become battered wives use the rationalising skills to endanger themselves
and even justify their husband's behaviour. They do this because they care what
others think about them and feel they will blame them. They also blame
themselves. Religion certainly will improve their powers of rationalisation.
People who depend on their own self-deception get angry and hateful when that
deception risks being exposed. That is why Muslims get so angry when Muhammad is
criticised. If they really trusted in God and his power they would feel the
anger is pointless for God can take care of things himself. They would work more
peacefully to check criticism of the Prophet.
Self-deception is not letting yourself remember that you know or believe that
something is wrong so that you can support and seemingly accept it as true.
We engage in self-deception for the following reasons.
We know that liars often give themselves away. They may contradict themselves.
They may have emotions or lack of emotions that are a tell-tale sign that they
do not believe what they are saying and are intending to fool.
We know that if liars practice self-deception the give-aways will not happen.
Self-deception helps you to hide your giveaways.
Self-deception then is all about fooling others.
Suppose a person self-deceives herself that she is a good singer. She is lying
to others when she is making that claim. That is direct lying. She is also
indirectly lying when they see her going about with her musical equipment as if
she were a professional singer. When she does anything non-verbal that conveys,
"I am a talented singer," that is indirectly lying. Indirectly lying makes it no
less lying. In fact indirect lying is far worse than telling a bare-faced lie.
It is more manipulative and trying to give out falsified hard evidence instead
of asking people to merely take your word for it. Self-deception is only about
deceiving others. You have to deceive yourself so that you can be a convincing
fraud. The good singer does not lie to herself just to make herself feel good or
to feel that she is a good singer but to get others to think she is a good
singer. Why would you want to believe you are a fabulous singer if it is not
about wanting others to believe it? Because self-deception is about fooling
others it is always intentional. If a religion is based on self-deception then
it follows that the more the members go on missions, pray and do pilgrimages
then the greater their self-deception is. They nurture it. The more they at
least indirectly lie to non-members. They more they work against the
non-member's right to the truth about them and their religion.
Self-deception is of little or no value to yourself. You only need it to deceive
others. That is what it is chiefly about. Some would say that is what it is ALL
about. If I am a useless accountant for I have no head for it and cheated in my
accountancy exams, I may persuade myself that I still have potential. I may do
this to feel good. Why does it make me feel good? Only because of other people.
So strictly speaking I do it to please others
So it is proven that self-deception is all about impressing others. It takes
concentration and skill to be able to deceive yourself. You know you are a fraud
but you just put it out of your mind. Good con-artists can get people to deceive
themselves. They make the aging woman for example tell herself that - though
there is no evidence - that this miracle cream will make her look 25 again.
If God and religion are as important as Christianity and Islam say, then it
follows that we will deploy the strongest and craftiest forms of self-deception
in their name. If we deceive ourselves so much with family and money and
business which are less important than God and religion then imagine how much we
will do it in relation to God and religion!
We cannot pervert our reason unless we reason right first. We have to realise
what reason says before we can distort it. The one who self-deceives in matters
of sense perception is worse off and more stubborn and perhaps more dangerous
than one who self-deceives with logic.
Self-deception is necessarily uncontrollable for every person will do it
differently and do it for different reasons. A religion that trains in
self-deception is therefore to be blamed if some members go out and kill
heretics or those who refuse to convert to the religion. Each religion sets
certain major goals. Only those whose self-deceptive "beliefs" coincide will
adopt and serve those goals.
Self-deception arises from our love of control. We like to think we are in
control. We fear not being in control. The self-deceiver can turn very vicious
if his facade is caused to crumble thanks to you. The religious believer who
realises that he cannot control everything - finds a new way to remain feeling
in control. He hands it all over to God. He gives God permission to let whatever
is going to happen happen. Thus he still feels in control and is as good as
being in control.
EXAMPLES OF RELIGIOUS SELF-DECEPTION
Religion engages in the same charm and exploitation and skin-deep peace loving
as politicians. Both religion and politics get people's devotion and attention
through religionists and politicians using self-deception to come across and
caring and sincere and inspirational.
The Church picks out the nice bits of the Bible to give the misleading
impression that it is the good book. It knows Catholics will find it as
abhorrent as atheists do. Self-deceivers easily proceed to deceive others.
There is a Catholic traditionalist group called the Society of St Pius X. SSPX.
It was excommunicated from the Catholic Church by John Paul II in the eighties
for the consecration of bishops without papal permission. A Church split
resulted. The SSPX continually maintains that it is in communion with the pope
and the Catholic Church and is not a separate Church even though it is
excommunicated for schism. They say the excommunication is unfair and therefore
null and void. The concept of invalid excommunication doesn’t solve any problems
for the pope and the Church are separating themselves from some person or group
and vice versa. There is still a split, casting-out, separation and division
even if the decree is invalid. The decree might be invalid but it is still
effective. If you give John a vodka but not knowing it is a synthetic copy of
vodka you have given John an invalid vodka but it still makes him drunk and has
consequences. It’s real in its effects.
They cannot seriously believe that they are part of the Catholic Church.
The SSPX priesthood is trained according to the stern and austere and dogmatic
ways that priests were trained before Vatican II. They go out into a hostile
world and fear the Catholic Church headed by Rome as an enemy of the true
Catholic faith. They make huge sacrifices. They say they adore and revere the
pope. But their sect behaves as if it were the Vatican and the Pope and does not
take orders from them. All this shows that you can suffer greatly for what you
know to be untrue. They commit grave sacrifices for their self-deception that
they are better Roman Catholics than the pope! Yet their devotion to him and the
duty of obedience to him is lip-service. Protestant psychologists argue that
some ascetic Christians who sacrifice a lot are doing so not for God but from
pride. The lesson is that self-deception must never be underestimated.
The power of the SSPX to forgive sins in confession has been taken away by papal
authority. They ignore this and dishonestly pretend to be true papists and to
forgive sins. The fact that they are so self-sacrificing and dedicated in the
confessional only highlights how powerful self-deception is. It can mask itself
as sincerity and devotion.
Catholics think priests forgive sins as if they were God. They give God's
forgiveness. And Catholics who feel comforted when the priest forgives their
sins in confession are strange. If God forgives you, he will not wait until a
priest forgives you until he forgives you. Would you feel forgiven by a man who
will not forgive you until his mother permits him to? Forgiveness is not real if
its tied to conditions. Either you have a loving attitude that wants to forgive
or you do not. Anything else is irrelevant.
Most people who imagine they are Roman Catholic are really agnostics. They have
a vague sense of a higher power, a benevolent reality, and that is what they
really worship when they worship Jesus and God and so on. Just like a man can
end up saying to his wife that he loves her it might be merely words that he
thinks he means, so too religious language can just become a thing of habit. We
can think we mean to talk to Jesus when we talk to the vague higher power.
Christians have noticed how a tendency can arise that turns religion into mere
words and doctrines. Vatican II said the Catholic Church must be careful that it
gives a person a personal encounter with God instead of dogmas and religious
language becoming almost a substitute for God. The Catholic can feel a vague
presence while praying to the wafer god. It is quite easy to feel a presence. It
stands for nothing.
Catholics believe in venial sin. That is sin that is not too bad and they will
get to Heaven once it is purified. They may reason like most people in different
religions, "I'm okay. I will not go to a Hell forever if I were to die now."
Catholics tend to see as venial sins what the pope sees as grave sins. They
cannot deal with the feeling that they have done something really bad so they
underestimate the seriousness of their sin.
The Catholics often misinterpret their agnosticism and their feeling that they
are okay as part of the Roman Catholic faith.
Human nature is so adept at self-deception that there are people out there who
are innocent of murder and who believe they murdered people they never even met.
Roman Catholics pray the following at Mass: "Glory to God...I adore you." That
prayer is a lie. They do not adore God. If they did they would be inclined to
thump whoever ridicules God.
The Catholic Mass is a good proof of the power of self-deception. The communion
wafer has none of the characteristics of living things. It doesn't excrete or
breath etc. Yet it's alive according to the Church. The Mass makes nonsense of
science.
The Islamic and Jewish and Christian sects and denominations claim to be about
helping people to enjoy a relationship with God. If that is true, then why do
they catch each other out in lying so much? Even within a religion there are
factions. Liberal Catholics lie that abortion for rape for example is in
agreement with the Catholic faith. Some in the Anglican Church claim you can be
a good Anglican and not believe in God. Some breakaway Mormons see nothing wrong
with having sex with underage wives. Post something negative about the Queen of
Peace of Medjugorje - even if it is the truth - and you will see how much the
Catholics who follow her love you! Why is there so much lying and bitterness
among people who claim to be servants of love? Self-deception is not an
ingredient of love and respect and honesty.
Religion that likes to hide or simply not mention its worst doctrines knows fine
well they are nonsense. Their self-deception develops cracks when they think of
these doctrines. Mormonism does not tell new converts many things. The Catholic
Church hides vicious doctrines. The excuse is that they can't tell new converts
everything! Then why is it the charming doctrines that are selected? Hell is
even made to look like God is doing us a favour if we go there. It is said we
won't go to him so it is all our fault. Interesting spin!
Religion is not happy with the fact that we are all a family anyway and it tries
to make a religious family and cause a division and create difference. It is
said that it is how people use religion that makes it bad or good. It is not the
religion then itself that is bad. But we don't need religion. What is wrong with
working out a faith of your own that is consistent and healthy and accepting is
not your business what your wife or child or parent or friend believes? Thus
when religion is not necessary it follows that people using religion at all is
bad. It is how people use religion that makes it bad or badder.
The majority of those who are baptised into the Roman Catholic Church as adults
lie to themselves and everybody else that they have enough knowledge of
Catholicism to justify such a huge step. They break the promise to spread the
faith. They do not tell people that their faith is a joy and that they would
love it for others to have that joy too. The majority of Catholics who are
confirmed take a promise to do these things. They promise in vain.
Confirmation is about reinforcing your membership of the Church - becoming a
full member and membership entails a will to promote the faith and membership to
others. The confirmed Catholic in theory has the right to refuse the full
membership of the Church that it confers. The confirmed Catholics do not keep
their promise to be soldiers of Christ and promote the faith either.
Judge means to condemn a sin in the sense that you regard it as bad and wish
punishment on it. The fact that you may not be able to punish it does not mean
you don't agree with it being punished if the circumstances are right. If you
forbid the punishment it is not because you think the punishment is wrong.
Some say that judging the sin is wrong for we are all sinners. The world will
make no progress if we don't speak out even if we are hypocrites. Some say that
judging the sin means you take it on yourself to punish it instead of leaving it
to God. Then why bother having a state punishment system? And the Bible does say
we must judge. The apostles put curses on people to punish them.
The doctrine that we must not judge sinners is all over the Church. In practice
it means treating the person as if she or he has done nothing wrong. Why bother
opposing abortion for example if you are going to treat the person who has one
as if it does not matter and she is forgiven?
People lie so much in religion that when they report miracles - even if they are
honest people - they are probably not very honest on the religious level. And a
miracle story is the one lie anybody can get away with. If you say you saw Jesus
in a vision nobody can prove that you didn't.
If prayer is about changing yourself into a more helpful caring person, you can
do that merely by thinking about the suffering in the world and arousing a wish
to relieve some of it. Many people confuse doing that with prayer. It is not
prayer. It is about you trying to find your goodness. Prayer for many is about
wishing God would do something about it. That is actually atheistic in the sense
that it denies that God should let people suffer. Prayer for Christians is
essentially, "God I submit to your will be it good or bad for me. Do what you
will."
Prayer proves only how good we are at fooling ourselves. That is a bad trait to
encourage. We fool ourselves that the harm we do is justifiable. Prayer is
effective training in the art of self-deception.
Religion more than anything proves the omnipotence of self-deception.