Christianity
through its teachings says that
man has a free will and can thus
choose between belief and
non-belief. Of course with
evangelicals, the only sin that
will keep you out of heaven is
non-belief. That belief is to
believe that Jesus Christ was
God, who came down from heaven,
was crucified, died, and
ascended into heaven.
The
only thing we know about Jesus
Christ comes from the writings
in the New Testament. There was
no contemporary history of
Jesus. So, if you must accept
the doctrines set forth in the
Bible, you are required to
accept all the absurdities,
inconsistencies,
improbabilities, and
contradictions therein.
The
question then is how do the
religionists get people to
believe that which requires the
crushing of one’s intellect?
It is done by extortion. The
Oxford American Dictionary
defines extortion as obtaining
something through the use of
force, threats or intimidation.
We usually think of extortion as
the act of obtaining money or
other valuable things under
false pretenses and deception.
In the case of religion, the
thing extorted is the intellect
of the individual. Religion is a
dumbing-down of the mind.
Early
man could easily see that he was
subject to the elements. He
could not fly like a bird; he
was not as strong as a lion; or
as deadly as a viper. Man had to
exert himself in order to
survive. This realization caused
man to fear the unknown, and
especially death. Man did not
know the meaning of his life or
if life had any meaning.
Man
juxtaposed his fears on various
things which he deemed more
powerful than himself and
considered them gods. Man
worshiped fire, the sun, the
mountain, and even totem poles.
As knowledge grew and science
discovered more things about our
environment, man’s concept of
a more powerful force than
himself kept changing. Today,
religion has evolved into a
God/spirit that is off somewhere
in a place called Heaven. As the
saying goes, the more knowledge
we gain, the further out God is
pushed.
With
all our enlightenment and the
very fine intellect we are given
at birth, how do the
religionists keep us believing? First,
let it be known that all
religion is based on fear of
death and wishful thinking.
As
stated in the first sentence of
this writing, Christians tell
man he has a choice to make,
that is, accept Jesus or burn in
Hell. Is that a choice, and more
importantly, is it a free
choice? A choice to be free must
be absent of force, threats,
coercions or intimations. Can a
person freely choose to believe
or not to believe in Jesus? Not
so long as the threat of Hell is
there. In fact, the choice has
already been made for you. The
choice is now “Jesus or
Hell.”
As
an example, suppose you are
walking down a street on a dark
night and a robber stops you
with a pistol. The robber says,
“Your money or your life!”
Is that a choice? No! if you
choose to keep your money, the
robber shoots you and then you
lose both your life and your
money. The choice becomes one of
choosing between the lesser of
two evils. That is not a free
choice because of the coercion
involved.
As
a milder example, suppose you go
to an appliance store to look at
a washing machine that is on
sale. As you are looking it
over, the salesperson shows you
a few new features and then
informs you you that this is the
last day of the sale and the
price will go up tomorrow. Or,
he tells you that there are only
two models left and they have
been selling briskly. What he is
trying to do is put you in fear
of not getting in on the sale
price. In short, he is trying to
take away your free will and
free choice by using coercive,
high-pressure sales tactics.
Only in Christianity, the threat
is more invidious. There the
threat for not believing is
eternal punishment, i.e. Hell.
In
religious extortion, the
Christian teachings say, “You
will burn in Hell for all
eternity unless you accept Jesus
Christ as your savior.” That
is not a free choice. A free
choice would be to either accept
Jesus or not accept Jesus with
no consequences for
non-acceptance. When
consequences are attached to
one’s choice, it become
extortion because the choice is
coerced. To gain adherents to
the Christian religion,
extortion is the method used.
If
a person grows up without the
childhood influences of
religion, his intellect may grow
to be strong enough to see that
religion takes billions of
dollars from society and gives
nothing in return, with a
promise that is unrealistic,
concocted, and definitely cannot
be proven. This is the reason
churches are so invasive in the
public arena. They want to put
Jesus’ portrait in every
classroom; the Ten Commandments
in every public building; to
open every school class with a
prayer; start every public
meeting with a prayer, etc. They
simply want to dumb-down the
human intellect before it
matures enough to see that all
religious faith, regardless of
what denomination, is false,
invasive, destructive and
harmful to the mind. Religion is
extortion.
posted
by Brian
Worley Ex-Minister.org All
rights reserved