LEARNING FROM THE PAST - A RELIGION'S PAST SHOWS WHAT IS IN ITS FAITH DNA

 
When a religion has power you see what it is really capable of. A really good religion is still good when it has all power.
 
A violent past shows a religion's true face.  A religion's capability is more important than anything else and you only see that capability if it was put into action.

The Catholic Church recently repented a lot of its hideous crimes of the past.  The Church cannot really repent for what Christians did decades or centuries ago. Only the agent can repent.  It is virtue-signalling hypocrisy.
 
Some say, "The bad things my faith has done and which its Bible says God did are in the past. We have moved on and learned from all that." They are implying that if they were alive then and not today they would not condone or participate. But they probably would. It is very likely that they would for those Christians in the past who opposed slavery for example were very few in number. The chance that you would live in 1300 and not want to see heretics burned to death and witches murdered would be so statistically small that it is virtually certain you would be as bad as the Church that destroyed them. The chance that you would want them murdered by the Church is statistically huge. It is smug and arrogant to say you would not kill or enable the killing if you were alive then. You cannot know that and you are using the deaths of those people as an excuse to boast that you would have nothing to do with it. If you say your religion knows better now, you cannot say it did in 1300. If you were in the religion and leave then you would be as bad as the rest. Indeed you are in your heart for you should not be in a religion that has done such great evil even if it has changed.
 
The evil proves that the religion is not immune to doing it - you are encouraging a religion and serving it when it has no intrinsic power to avoid evil to a reasonable degree at least. What if there is something subtle in the religious doctrines or some supernatural force supporting the religion that leads you to execute evil when the time is right? What if it promises to bring you to God and give you grace through its sacraments when in fact what is happening is occult or magical and immaculately disguised? What if the evil, be it natural or supernatural, is intrinsic to the religion?
 
A religion can be bad or look good but somehow sow badness in people subtly - if some respond but not all that is no defence of the religion at all. The “some are good” excuse is just irrelevant. Using it is bad in itself.

Time Honoured Evil and Lies
 
A religion that has been around for centuries is going to be more credible than one started recently. And that will be the case even if it is complete nonsense. People can end up believing in religious truth just because it is time-honoured and not because it is the truth. People can also believe in religious lies for the same reason!
 
When people think others believe rubbish, it makes them feel able to to support that rubbish. It helps them feel that it is the truth. You can feel something is true or a fact when you are looking at it in the face and seeing that it is not. If you are told a lie often enough you can treat it like the possible truth or you can go the whole way and end up certain that it is the truth in your brainwashed way. A lying religion will make sure that there is plenty happening to reinforce its lies. The religious con always starts off by seeing how nonsense gets respect if enough people commit to it. That is where he gets the guts.