I’ve read a couple of articles recently that say that when there is a recession or lack of jobs or general poverty that is when people turn to religion and to God or some sort of spirituality. To trust in God in hard times is obviously a thing to be encouraged but that is when people are more open to being conned or swindled.
Does anyone here have any opinions or experiences of this type?
With regards to being conned or swindled:
As a secularist, I used to almost wholeheartedly believe that religion was a reminant of a system of thought control (via fear of hell) that was instituted by those in power during the middle ages to control a society. On the flip side, I also believed that heaven was a concept sold to those who were afraid of death. In both cases, I believed that religion was primarily a mechanism with which to control people (aka. to con or swindle).
The important thing to realize about this secularist outlook is that it percieves the Church as being an entirely human-established institution. If one looks at the Church without a faith in God, then one will see a large (and probably dysfunctional) beurocracy that appears to be built by man and that could be used to control a population in the same way that communism and fascism once did in the past. What lends even more credence to the skepticism of non-believers is when they see abusive, power hungry priests and clergy who take advantage their positions the same way that many politicians abuse their own offices (such are the horrors of the sex-abuse scandal).
How, then, did I convert? Well, it was a matter of God coming to me first and then religion as an extension of that belief in God. In my case, God came to me through a very personal and miraculous realization that if I didn’t stop having pre-marital sex, then I wouldn’t be going to heaven when I died. During this time, I came to understand that the concept of love is the full and absolute giving of oneself to God (not romantic or nostalgic feelings that our society likes to pretend is love). I also came to realize that there was something gravely wrong with our society’s current values, especially in the area of sexuality. These experiences quickly drove home the reality that God very much existed. Once I was certain in my belief that God existed, the question then became: how does God want me to worship Him? When I looked at the Church through this lense, it became very obvious to me that the Catholic Church was the only institution that fulfilled God’s Word on this earth and that the many human failings that go on within the Church were just that… human failings that did not take anything away from the correctness or completeness of the Church’s divinely established teachings (that no person, even the pope, is able to change).
So, please try to focus on God and don’t let yourself get wrapped up in the many human aspects of religion and the Church. Rather then entertaining thoughts about being swindled, try to focus on this question: “am I open to believing in God?” When you are, then merely say “Lord I want to believe, help my unbelief” and He will take care of the rest!
God bless!
