Written for the thread Another atheist returning to Christianity, Post 47.

The "holy elements of the faith"--well, that's a fancy way of saying you're eating Jesus. It's cannibalism, pure and simple. Baptizing infants--making lifetime vows for people who are incapable of speaking for themselves due to their young age--if that is not violating human rights I don't know what it is. The other great evil of the Catholic Church--and a number of churches--is using military power to exercise its will.

This being the case, it seems the horse and buggy Mennonites have it all. They are the direct off-spring of the sixteenth-century RCC and retain many of its positive aspects such as peasant society including the accompanying dress code and church legislation over the laity. Bring in Victorian carriages with the accompanying woolen over-coats and felt hats of the nineteenth century and freeze the frame.

Speak of nostalgia. No music or church-bells can rival the Gregorian chants sung with the spring sunshine streaming through the open windows onto the black-garbed horse and buggy people praising their Creator, secure in the knowledge that as sure as day follows night and spring follows winter, so sure will crops grow again this summer and fill their barns and cellars with supplies for another year.

Let twenty-first-century traffic roar by on the highway outside. In their hearts they know whom they have believed and they know that he is able who hath promised. One feels very safe inside the bosom of such security and assurance. The Catholic Church itself cannot be better. In fact, it is The Enemy.

It persecuted our ancestors and burned them at the stake. We must love our enemies and bless them that persecute us for righteousness sake, as did the Catholics, Lutherans, Calvinists, and Zwinglians. We are thankful that those times of persecution are past in this land of freedom of religion.

The Mennonites improved over the RCC by baptizing only adults on confession of faith, by forbidding the taking up of arms, and by refuting transubstantiation; their Communion Service is "In remembrance of Jesus' sacrifice," and not in consuming the "actual flesh and blood of Jesus," which is unutterably gross and abhorrent. The bread represents his body "which was given for you," and the wine represents his blood "which was shed for you." There is no cannibalism.

In later years I have discovered a mysticism in Catholicism that I appreciate. However, no Christians of any stripe have yet provided evidence of their God. Without evidence of this God whom they serve--or of the existence of the supernatural--there is no point is any religion whatsoever. It's all a lie and wasted labour. Worse yet, imposing it on others and making laws to enforce it on the public, deteriorates social progress for which we have striven FIVE CENTURIES.

That, my friends, is the real issue. You can be Christians if you like so long as you live and let live. But be sure you don't forget about the "let live" part.