The Virus of Faith - Richard Dawkins

The Super Virus Known As Catholicisim.

Don’t blame the Catholic Priest's for spreading the false news of Christ. Nor for the spreading the myth that mankind is depraved and in need of a blood sacrifice for salvation.

No don’t blame the priests for spreading the good word, for passing the torch down to the next generation. For the Priest, is just as much a victim of delusion as the Christian Worshipers who fill the Church pews. The Priest is a patsy, trapped in a web of lies from an organic being, known as Mother Church.

Proposed by Richard Dawkins, The Virus Of Faith, and I am in agreement, that religions can very much be seen as very real viruses, that not only infect individuals, but entire communities. I look upon Catholicism, fundamentalist Islam, Evangelical Christianity and what Dawkins calls, ' Militant Faith', as the ultimate in super Viruses.

I hold in disdain both the institution of the Catholic Church and pillars that keep up right, the insidious spread of evangelical Protestantism. You may wish to conclude that I would automatically hold in disdain, any person working for these places of worship, but you’d be wrong.

There most certainly are good men and women, who dedicate their lives to a religious vocation. Just as there are good and very selfless Priests, there are also Priests who are selfish and could be best described, as downright predatory and evil.

Don’t be alarmed that the Church’s have these evil men in positions of trust, for that is a fact that runs straight across the board of human experience. When you have any organization, no matter it’s raison d’etre, you will have more good people, than bad. The problem with Christianity, is that these evil men, get to enjoy and locate positions within the Church’s, where they are immediately trusted and respected from the Christian worshipers.

Unfortunately, the Catholic Church and all other Christian Church’s give their troubled and untrustworthy Holy men, the same positions of trust and power, that they freely give to the majority of good men.

I will give a Christian Minister the benefit of the doubt, that they are the same as the majority of the population, in that they do not possess any horrific faults or predatory tendencies.

Although I extend the benefit of the doubt to the clergy, like most people I meet, I do not automatically give them my trust.

You see, most Priests are just as much victims of religious fraud, as they are responsible for it’s spread. You see, the Priests have been fed the same Christian myths that the lay worshipers have been given. The Virus of religion has deluded their minds, has weakened their ability to think critically and has persuaded them and to give their entire lives in support of Christianity.

The Roman Catholic Church, should really be seen as a powerful, living, breathing organism, whose very survival depends upon cementing the myths and supernatural events of Christianity within the minds of believers. Of convincing each generation, that the institution of the Catholic Church ( or pick your brand of religion), is necessary for a persons eternal salvation.

The institution of the Catholic Church is the real predator, looking for fresh victims to convince that without the Catholic Church at your side, the lay Christian runs the risk of eternal damnation.

Likewise for Protestant Christianity, only Protestantism is traditionally less organized and lacks the clout of the Catholic Church. What the Catholic Church does at the national and international level, the Protestant denominations are content to infect its population at the local level.

Of course, there are different levels of infection and one need only look at the 75% of Christians who do not go to Church weekly. Liberal western secularism has given them some immunity from the virus of religion, yet the virus of Christianity, still remains within them. This virus lays in wait, for the moments in their lives when they are vulnerable and most susceptible to a full and very viral religious infection.

The virus of religion is a curious beast, not easily beaten back and from what I can tell, the virus’s most formidable enemy is, liberal Western Secularism.

On some strange level, I feel sorry for Catholic Priests, in that they are very lonely men, lacking in genuine human relationships. They give their lives to that which is not even real. They cut themselves off from the real world and are told that their energies are to be focused on the otherworldly.

A good man or woman, who are members of the Christian clergy or any religious vocation, they are not to be despised. For they have the most serious case of religious infection, and their minds have been polluted by the virus of religion.

So, don’t despise them, rather, pity the plight in which they find themselves and hope that they can overcome the delusion which has trapped them.

Richard Dawkins - The Virus Of Faith.

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