could live at the expense of parishioners without anybody being able
to question their actions, since they could always threaten them with
“eternal damnation” if they did not comply with “God's plans”, in other
words, if they did not obey the orders of “God's representatives,” in
other words themselves.
And what about the belief that the solution to bad acts needs, and is
resolved by, the confession and absolution of the priest?
It is clear that to improve spiritually the first step is to be conscious of
the wrong that we have done. But repentance is not sufficient,
because in the spiritual world only by repairing the wrong done can
the acts against the law of love be eliminated. Only we ourselves are
able to do it. Nobody, no matter how advanced they may be, will be
able to replace us in that task, although we can receive help to
overcome it. That the priest is attributed the power to eliminate sins
forms part of the strategy to make us believe that the representatives
of the church are indispensable for salvation and that, for this reason, it
is necessary to sustain the church economically. As I said at the
beginning, spiritual evolution is only attained by personal effort and not
by “pulling strings” with some superior being.
So the belief that Jesus redeemed the sins of men with his death on the
Cross and later resurrection?
It is not certain either. It is true that Jesus came to teach the way of
spiritual evolution and that if you decide to follow his example of love
towards one's fellow man, you are making a decisive change to take
the direct path in spiritual evolution, because that same belief will help
you avoid committing many errors from the past, called “sins” in
religious jargon. But this does not exempt you from facing the
atonement for criminal acts committed in other lives.
Jesus did not erase the sins of anybody, but rather he taught each one
how to erase his or her own sins. It would be very unfair if, in the middle
of a university entrance examination, the teacher of some students
came and said: “those who are my students do not need to hand the
examination in, because they have all passed, as I know the members
of the tribunal and I have the influence to obtain this”. This would not
be a fair way of evaluating the effort expended by each student,
since students with little preparation would be awarded without
deserving it, to the detriment of others who had studied for the
examination and were prepared to successfully pass the examinations
on their own merit. What good teachers would do is exert themselves
so that their students were well prepared to sit the examinations. And
this is what Jesus tried to do, to prepare us well in order to successfully