Otokonoko,

Mat I join Saltpetre in commending you for the clear words you wrote concerning a position that obviously not everybody has to share, only accept as a legitimate one in the family of many world-views that are able to coexist in a civilised and tolerant world.

Otokonoko,

I have several problems with this carrot and stick dogma, ostensibly professed by the universal church as the "Word", prime among them being that it's obviously more in the nature of exerting social control, and fostering compliance to various norms, than it is God's rule.
A problem we have is that as social animals we need norms and even some prohibitions, but that Catholic ones are neither relevant nor adequate to modern conglomerate society. Human societies were of course endlessly diverse, respective norms equally so (Catholicism, in the universal sense, has always been monumental hubris), but modern Western culture has consumed all these and so contains myriad distinctiveness, in diluted form--the melting pot. To make matters worse it's a competitive and opportunistic culture wherein novelty is prized as potential capital, thus all and any form of idiocy or debauch is commodified, either on the legal market or the black market--there's nothing that isn't bought and sold. Meanwhile, because this seething mass culture is both democratic and heterogenous, almost everything is tolerated, what isn't is pushed underground. It's like one massive feed-lot, wherein diverse human societies, no longer ends in themselves, are farmed en masse; the yield, rather than mutual security and solidarity, is profit.
The whole human race is enslave to the same rubric, whether starving or prosperous. But we can only be "enslaved" if our wont is to be free. Even this works against us, as the freedom we are vouchsafed, to compete and to consume, gives sufficient of us the illusion of freedom, or at least "contentment" or "success", to maintain the whole automated enterprise.
The universal Catholic church within this unholy mix is just another means by which compliance is encouraged, or non-compliance is mediated. It's carrot and stick approach, heaven and hell, are patently means of maintaining social equilibrium in this world. Such might be all to the good if universal culture was essentially healthy, sustainable and humane, but it's not and the church effectively helps maintain it, by maintaining norms, tending to the spiritually sick, offering its members hope in the next world etc.

Don't fret, Otokonoko, you're amongst friends.

>>If any readers disagree with what I say, please help me to understand why I am wrong<<

I am sure that some people will disagree with what you say, that is just the way the world is.

But rest easy. That doesn't make their views "right", any more than what they think can make yours "wrong".

You are dealing with your own view of the world, in your own way, with your own standards. It seems fairly clear from what you say here that you mean no-one any harm, you are tolerant and understanding of the views of other people, and you think very deeply about the values by which you live.

Dare I say it, with your attitude to life you'd make a very good atheist.

Well said Otokonoko & Pericles.

>> 2) Those who do not know the Word (atheists) but, unbeknownst to them, lead good lives in accordance with the Word. <<

Nyah, nyah, Saltpetre, Runner.

Jesus would not be very happy with you, if he was real.

Ammonite

you demonstrate my point well

'The words and teachings of Jesus still to this day surpass by miles the teachings of mere man.'

There is a simplicity in the tenets attributed to Jesus.

Every now and then a man is born who seems to stand apart from the fussing and fighting that is part of the human paradigm - and Jesus is the most notable example in the Christian tradition....but others appear every now and then who seem to possess a quality that lifts them beyond the ordinary in a way that inspires the common man.

That these types are often hounded into oblivion by the great hordes is also true.

In opposition to the figure of Christ, the institution of Christianity in its myriad forms at once seeks to complicate the tenets attributed to Jesus. All the dogma associated with Christianity translated through the church and harnessed by humanity often serves to sully the simplicity....and employs the symbolism of Christ to separate rather than unify.