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"For one believes with the heart and so is justified."
That's from the Letter to the Romans in the New Testament. Being justified is a big deal among evangelical and fundamentalist cults of christ, but when I listened to christ cultists talk about it, I experienced a frightening realization. They see their belief as a sort of magic pill that literally justifies whatever behavior they want. I grew up hearing about justification by faith and accepting that so long as I have faith in christ, I am in a continual state of forgiveness for my actions. There is nothing I can do to cause God to condemn me so long as I retain my belief in the philosophical proposition of justification.
"There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in christ Jesus."
The attraction of the christ religions is this assurance of complete forgiveness and continual justification no matter what the believer does. When I was a believer, I attended a wide range of cult assemblies but heard this one consistent message throughout: A believer's behavior is justified because of the death of christ. I have sat in churches in many places and heard exclamations from the congregants such as, "Justify me, Lord!" "I am justified! Amen!" This is the bedrock of the christ religions, but it is also the most sinister aspect of their cult.
If a person can do whatever he likes and be assured of God's favor, based on faith, what moral foundation can they claim? Morality is right action. Of course, there is disagreement about what is "right", but the discussion and debate revolve around the accepted concept that some actions are right and some actions are not right. If someone dismisses this entire concept, morality becomes an esoteric notion rather than a realistic means of keeping the peace.
"All things are permissible, but not all things are beneficial."
The christians have all manner of public caveats to satisfy general society that the cult of christ is not licentious, but it was obviously an important point in the early history of the church. It was put in the bible, so it must have had value and meaning to them. Christians viewed (and mostly still do view) themselves as above man-made rules. (Let's suspend reality for a moment and pretend that the bible isn't a man-made collection of literature.) If you believe that all your actions are justified because of your faith in christ and that all things are technically permissible, you are, strictly speaking, a sociopath. If you look at the way the church is attempting to intimidate government into adopting cult principles, how the cults of christ are forcing public compliance with their rituals, the murders of doctors and gay people with the universal praise of the cult communities, the insertion of bogus and deceitful messages into school textbooks, the glorification of war in the Middle East as anticipatory of christ's coming, the vitriol spat out hourly against the President, against free thinkers, against anyone who isn't in the cults. By faith they claim justification for all these sociopathic actions.
To counter this false philosophy and dangerous cultic dogma, I propose Man stop believing that unright actions are justified. They are not. We are called by the uncountable eons of evolution and the goodness within us to live right without caveats and qualifications, without the flippant excuse of faith to justify us. We are called not to ask a mystical spirit in the sky to forgive us, but to seek forgiveness among ourselves for our human failures. We are called not to expect some inert divinity to justify our actions, but rather we are to control, discipline and govern ourselves so that our actions are right. The way of christ is lazy. No sacrifice is asked or expected, simply the idle assent to a philosophy of unremitting justification. In the real world, human beings must always sacrifice for the good of all and peace among us all. There is no sweet, easy deal with the gods, or even one of them, to get us out of that.
Letter to the Romans 10.10 and 8.1
First Letter to the Corinthians 10.23
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