Sunday, 6 March 2016

What Would Happen to Faith Clergy If What They Preach Were to be Subjected to Trade Description Act?





Today, millions of Christians will be going to their places of worship to sing and praise their god and have fellowship with their brethren.

In doing so, at their forefront will be the hierarchy of their respective churches' clergy; the leaders of their churches, faiths, denomination, etc, who profess to be the experts on the doctrine which they are feeding to the faithful.  For the more orthodox faiths, such as Anglicans, Catholics and the Pentecostalists, their preaching will tend to follow a set format, whereas the independent churches and the the more 'religion is a money making business' orientated  TV evangelists, their preaching might take a more 'celebrity' form, such as the Joseph Princes, Deflo Dollars, et al.

Each religion is selling its flocks a way of perceiving and living their lives. Like the American Constitution, they are declaring certain things - such as the existence of their god, their version of how the world and human beings came to exist, how people, especially the faithful, should live and conduct their lives, and even what will happen after death - to be self-evident truths.

It is probably not surprising that, like some of the articles of the American Constitution - let us say, for example, that all men are born equal - many of the things that Christians - and Muslims, Jews and other faiths - do not add up and cannot be and/or have not been proven.  It is a brave or foolish person who would seek to defend or prove that 'all men and women are born equal', which is clearly not the case, with some being born into slavery, poverty, etc.  

Similarly, there has never been any verified evidence that the dead can or will be resurrected, or that the omnipotent and omniscient god which Christians - and others - worship, really exist.

What would happen, then, if Christianity - and yes, Islam, Judaism, and other theistic religions - had to prove in a court of law, that what it is preaching is accurate, and is therefore not misleading and impugning the health of those consuming it?  In the absence of any proof of the god which Christianity has described, is the religion encouraging people to become delusional and mentally unhealthy, by encouraging them to continue to believe in such an existence?  



Would the resort to the defence of 'it has been our custom to believe this to be true', and ignoring all subsequent and continuing evidence which contradict the existence of such a god, be sufficient to avoid the Christian clergy not being found guilty of gross deception of the faithful?

This, of course, does not mean that Christianity should cease to exist, just that it needs to reposition and reform itself so that it is no longer chained to the uninformed and unproven precepts of the past, but more on the proven facts which have since been revealed. 

It means that a reformed Christianity which places human beings at the heart and head of the Christian - and, yes, Islamic and Jewish - Churches, instead of a mute god or a god for whom human beings - usually oppressive man - has to continue to act as interpretors, would be a better way forward.

This, it seems, would be a more honest, healthy and rational way forward.





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