Fear Based Belief

The glaring flaw in fundamentalist belief - is the belief in a God of retribution and in Hell.

If you learn about Cults and cult mind control, you will see that Fundamentalist faith fits the bill, it is a cult, albeit one with many variation's, the RC Church included.

My experience has been with the RC Church, the Jehovah's Witnesses and Born Again Xtians. I was saved by someone knowledgeable in deprogramming.

ALL three taught that to doubt was sin and would land one in Hell. (To be correct here JW's do not believe in Hell but in non existence for non JW's). First cultish statement.

That to question was not intelligence but Satan making one disbelieve. Another mind control answer.

That Satan placed the evidence of Evolution in the ground to fool us and take us to Hell or non existence.(BA's and JW's).

It is not possible to have a logical, intelligent, rational discussion with people who believe like this. Why? Because for them to question or disbelieve means they will burn in Hell for eternity(or cease toe exist). They are terrified of their God. One cannot dare to question for fear of annihilation or eternal suffering.

I know. I have been there. Thank God for my homosexuality. Why? Because without that I might still be in the evil clutches of these cults. My homosexuality was not chosen, it just was and I knew that. This gave me the courage to question. This gave me the courage to learn. This gave me the courage to discover other world views, other ideas. Most of all it led me to the discovery that what I had been taught was not Truth at all but ideas. And the ideas were of terrified minds and of the minds of those who seek to abuse and control.

No matter the evidence, fundamentalists will not believe anything other than what they read in their holy book. Or rather what their elders and pastors tell them the words mean. This is why whenever you go to read their literature, homosexuality is often one of the hot topics for them. Why? Because intelligent, sane people have come to the realisation that it is a natural state, inborn, not chosen. They cannot possibly accept that. If they did, then their whole rotten edifice comes tumbling down. If their book is wrong about that, what else is it wrong about?

The reason you get otherwise intelligent people believing we descend directly from Adam and Eve, that every living thing here now comes form the Ark, that there is a burning Hell, is because of fear and nothing else.

They have also missed something very important: YOU CANNOT LOVE WHAT YOU FEAR. You also clearly don't even know what love is if you believe that it is loving to say: love me or I will destroy you.

I had thought to explain why there is no logic at all in the proscription against homosexuality. I then realised there was no point because it has nothing to do with logic but with the above.

In my best times, I feel nothing but compassion for the adherents of such beliefs. I recall vividly the terror, the confusion, the utter despair one feels when trapped in the belief system. And the denial. The denial is tremendously strong and with nowhere outside of it to go and test out the ideas. The extreme admonishment if one even dared to question. The constant being reminded of the eternal damnation awaiting anyone who drifted away. Imagine how much worse this all is if it is your parents telling you this. (In my case it was not directly my parents but they laid the ground for it by teaching me I was a bad useless person and for sending me to be taught by RC's as my mother was nominally a RC.)

This type of belief does not engender love or growth but stifles and destroys both. It is evil. It is not a harmless belief but an evil one. It is the worst form of child abuse to teach this type of belief to children. It is an abuse of the mind and of the spirit, far worse than any other abuse, imo, having also experienced sexual and physical abuse on a regular basis. It causes far more damage. To be taught that to question is to be evil, to have compassion is to be evil, to have a thirst for knowledge is to be evil, to be different is to be evil, to listen to your own inner voice is to be evil. Yes, this an evil abuse of children.

Those of us free to think have a duty not to proselytise but to speak up whenever we can against such evil, to point out that there is another way and to do so without hatred and with compassion for our fellows who are steeped in fear. Always remember that they are in the grip of fear and as such need our compassion and understanding, but not our acquiescence.