Coping: A Big Tool for Religions

[Angrboda]

I was thinking this myself. What bothers me about religions like Christianity is people think they can avoid hell by following the scriptures as opposed to being a good person. Similarly, they think that other people are condemned to hell for not following the scriptures regardless of if they're a good person. 

"If you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” Romans 10:9"

Also the concept of penance: You're assigned to say a prayer after confession and that magically makes the sin better. But that's not actually fixing whatever problem you caused. Often times there is no fix to problems. It's a way for people to feel better about themselves without really addressing the issues.

Of course they can avoid hell by following the scriptures. While some bits of scripture indicate you should strive to be good (the beatitudes, for example), God is more concerned with compliance than with goodness. Criticizing Christianity for this is rather silly. It’s like criticizing a dog for barking.

Saying a prayer after confession isn’t what makes the sin forgiven. It’s an act of contrition meant to show that you’re serious about regretting what you’ve done (and penance doesn’t always take the form of a prayer). You’re actually forgiven the instant the priest says Te absolvo (‘I absolve you’), before you perform the assigned penance.

Boru

I wasn't aware there was a problem with this.