Religions of love soon start letting blood

People say you should not "other" another person by seeing them as evil. It is divisive and implies you and your existence right now is more valuable than that person's.  If there is a choice then she is the one who should be burnt to death by an alien death ray.  But even if you see them as damaging you will be othering them as well.  I am saying it is not enough to claim that you don't see the person as evil but merely their actions as evil.  Morality is simply pretending that you are not endorsing and helping evil to thrive.

The solution to this problem is forgiveness.  Or is it?  Forgiveness is judgemental.  Not acting as if you judge does not mean you are therefore non-judgemental.  Unless you judge somebody as a source of evil you cannot let it go and forgive them.  So as you forgive you judge.  It is simply about giving the evil act and its results less or no power by moving on.  It is still calling the person evil if they maintain the harm they do.  It calls the person evil retrospectively if the person has desisted. Forgiving is you claiming that you have the power by this act of forgiveness to stop the evil from growing and continuing.  You know fine well it is not up to you.  So you patronise the evil person, "I forgive you and that weakens and kills your evil.  How great am I?"  What kind of magical thinking rubbish is that?  It is asking the other person to go along with a charade.  It is asking for the yes-men and yes-women around you to affirm you.  It is asking for the evil to be protected while pretending that all that matters is feeling that it is over.  It is no wonder that forgiving societies still have their fair share of crime and violence.

Religion thinks that if it preaches good works that it cannot be blamed no matter how many of its people do evil.  It is using the good works to stop you wondering if there are evil seeds sown that it is a watering can for.

Religion boasts commands from God that tell us to love and what love entails.  The thought that you do something because God commanded it and just because he said it is your duty and it does not matter if you understand it or not leads to pride and is a form of legalism.  The New Testament has much to say about the fake humility and virtue-signalling that religions about rules produce.

You only ever know what love is not -  not what it is. That actually makes love dangerous at least for some.  A religion of love then by definition cannot know what it is talking about.  And if it ends up being a list of don'ts it turns people bad by putting them off doing good and discouraging them.  The other problem is that you only sometimes know what love is not.  Otherwise you make do with assuming or believing and that carries a huge risk of getting it too wrong.

The reason why Christianity is to blame for so much suffering is the teaching of love. Love is risky in the sense that it demands too much of the person and has them acting as if they know what is best for others. The Eastern teaching of compassion is vastly superior. Compassion insists that you do your best to dialogue with the other person so that you can put yourself in their place. Love has a patronising and therefore controlling side while compassion recognises that risk and does all it can to avert it.

Love for Christians is not about feelings but about action.  But do we really want to be loved in action with nobody adoring us?  That is not love at all.  It is dangerous for it depersonalises.

And if feelings are put first what then?  Feelings cause a bias.  If I treat others the way I feel I want to be treated that is just me imposing what I feel on them.

Christians are supposed to find joy in God but as they say you cannot love God no matter if you get martyred ten times in the one day every day if you are unloving to one person.  Thus failing to find joy in God's child is failing to find joy in God.  When you forget the person and concentrate on God and get joy that is a bad sign.

And love is sacrificial or believers think they sacrifice when they love when they actually do not.  There is a huge risk of hate and resentment if your love is unappreciated and does not have the desired effect which for a religious person will be to see a person coming to Jesus or God.  It is a short step from trying to make yourself suffer as a sacrifice to making others suffer.

Christians want their love to be eternally significant.  They want God to cherish it for all eternity.  Resentment will appear if this want is defeated or if the Christian begins to suspect that Christianity is not really from God.  A truly good person does good whether it it important for a few seconds or forever.  It is about the good not how significant it is going to be. 

Lots of sane people have all or nothing attitudes at some point in life.  Do not dismiss fanatical Christians as lunatics.  They think in a Christian way even if it is misguided and they are not nihilists.  Love smoothes their regress.  Love is not a path of flowers but requires damn hard work and pain and suffering which is why religions of love fail to see that the harm they do is inexcusable.  For example, Catholicism applauds Mother Teresa who lived by the principle, "I would not clean out the sores of this dying person for a million dollars but I would do it for Jesus."  There is no true mercy in a person who helps you for somebody else or some faith figure. The bigger and the more important the help you need the bigger the insult.  At least she admitted her reluctance to help the person as a person.

It is dangerous to glorify love that you fail to see its collateral damage and the risk love poses.