Let’s think! Thoughts are only ours. I wonder how people who don’t accept the existence of God feel when they think that no one really knows what they feel and think, I mean no one. Even if they talk about their feelings and thoughts to people, no one really knows what’s inside their head and their heart. Only God can really know what we are feeling and thinking. It must feel lonely somehow to not have this belief...
Why people choose to be good if they don’t have the belief that there is a God? I asked myself this question many times. How can we have consciousness then? How can we distinguish between right and wrong and care about it if there’s no God? Do we learn it from society? Why do men still choose to do what’s wrong?
Everybody has free will. Mentally ill or sensible people have as much freedom to choose their actions and their beliefs as each other. Who is to say if there’s anyone not disturbed in this world if not God? Who never made a mistake? For example, society can choose to ban the use of cigarettes and alcohol forever by simply not producing them anymore since they’re considered bad for everybody’s body. Close all the factories that produce these two things would not be simple, but definitely possible. Why doesn’t it happen?
I try to put myself in people’s shoes (hard though!), especially the ones who don’t believe in God, to try to imagine what they are thinking while they are reading this post. I bet they will think things like: this is non-sense, why this people who believe in God are so fanatic and keep talking about it all the time, why they waste their time thinking about these things, too much time available to waste and that’s why she writes about this religious stuff, or a classical one is the argument that religion is the reason of almost all wars in History...There are also some religious people who fight against each other trying to prove that their religion is the only way to be “saved” and the only possible truth.
I am always puzzled by the way human minds work and I am always curious to know how people get to their own conclusions. Not that I care necessarily about what they think, but I am curious about their train of thoughts. I wonder if people who don’t believe in God ever thought about why other people believe in God without ever dismissing the thought that there’s a possibility their belief can actually be true. I also wonder why certain religious groups fight against each other without ever considering that the truth as a whole can be made of different parts from different sources. I also wonder why people classify God as religion.
I personally think that I have nothing to lose by believing in God and Spiritism. If I’m wrong, death will bring me nothing, only darkness, nothing to lose. But if I’m right, death will bring me spiritual life and consequences to face. How idiotic would I feel to not have believed in that possibility and be dragged into it after death? It’s always better to be prepared for all possibilities!!! I say God AND Spiritism because it’s the only line of thought I see myself following to understand God. I agree with our friend Chico Xavier who said once: “If Allan Kardec had written that without Spiritism there’s no salvation, I would have looked for another path. Thank God he wrote that “Without charity, there’s no salvation.”
With all this in mind, I decided to put more questions from The Spirit’s Book here. They talk about Freedom of Thought and freedom of Conscience from Chapter X of the book entitled “The law of Liberty”.
Mrs. P
Freedom of Thought.
833. Is there in man something that escapes constraint, and in regard to which he enjoys
absolute liberty?
"Yes, in his thought man enjoys unlimited freedom, for thought knows no obstacles. The
action of thought may be hindered, but not annihilated."
834. Is man responsible for his thoughts?
"He is responsible for them to God. God alone can take cognisance of thought, and condemns or absolves it according to His justice."
Freedom of Conscience.
835. Is freedom of conscience the natural consequence of freedom of thought?
"Conscience is an inner thought that belongs to man, like all his other thoughts."
836. Has man tile right to set up barriers against freedom of conscience?
"No more than against freedom of thought, for God alone has the right to judge the conscience. If man, by his laws, regulates the relations between men and men, God, by the laws of nature, regulates the relations between men and God."
837. What is the effect of the hindrances opposed to freedom of conscience?
"To constrain men to act otherwise than as they think, and thus to make hypocrites of them.
Freedom of conscience is one of the characteristics of true civilisation and of progress."
838. Is every honest belief to be respected, even when completely false?
"Every belief is worthy of respect when it is sincere, and when it leads to the practice of goodness. Blameable beliefs are those which lead to the practice of evil."
839. Is it wrong to scandalise those whose belief is not the same as our own?
"To do so is to fail in charity, and to infringe on freedom of thought."
840. Is it an infringement of the freedom of conscience to place hindrances in the way of beliefs that are of a nature to cause social disturbance?
"You can only repress action; belief is inaccessible."
The repression of the external acts of a belief, when those acts are injurious to others is not an infringement of the freedom of conscience, for such repression leaves the belief itself entirely free.
841. Ought we, out of respect for freedom of conscience, to allow of the propagation of pernicious doctrines, or may we, without infringing upon that freedom, endeavour to bring back into the path of truth those who are led astray by false principles?
"Most certainly you not only may, but should, do so; but only by following the example of Jesus, by employing gentleness and persuasion, and not by resorting to force, which would be
worse than the false belief of those whom you desire to convince. Conviction cannot be imposed by violence."
842. All doctrines claiming to be the sole expression of the truth, by what signs can we recognise the one which has the best right to call itself such?
"The truest doctrine will be the one which makes the fewest hypocrites and the greatest number of really virtuous people, that is to say, of people practising the law of charity in its greatest purity and in its widest application. It is by this sign that you may recognise a doctrine as true; for no doctrine, of which the tendency to make divisions and demarcations among the children of God, can be anything but false and pernicious."
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