Many say that religion is good and that those who claim to be religionists and do evil in its name have nothing in reality to do with the religion.
All reasonable people know there is such a thing as corporate blame. If religion is to be blamed as a whole for what some of its members do then it is down to the fact that every organisation can expect that those who it considers its own will sometimes do bad. And additional ways it can be blamed are if it has no real power to help people to become good or has empathy for evil, sympathy for evil or just commands evil. None of the blame justifies punishing the whole religion for having some terrorists in its number but it does justify challenging and reprimanding the religion.
What if religion is good? Does that mean that if it goes violent it does not necessarily lead to violence? The scary thing is it can lead to violence WITHOUT necessarily leading to it. And what is even scarier some hypocrites define religion as good so they refuse to admit that and thus they smear their own hands with the blood spilled because of religion.
Peace is more than just the absence of war. Most people involved in war do not
fight. Thus it is stupid to argue that because a religious entity or
nation is not at war that it is good and practicing a religion of peace.
It is stupid to argue that a religion that has a problem with child sex abuse is
not harmful to children. What are the members of the religion doing about
abuse? The vast majority do nothing active at all. To argue that some not
all are bad or child abusers is to turn the plight of others into a numbers
game. It does not matter if it is one or a million. It is about the suffering.
You know that is going to happen when you set up your religion so your religion
and you are responsible.
The founder of a religion may have a definition of religion and what it is for. Even if the whole religion ends up with a different purpose from his that is still not what it is for. Only the founder can determine what the religion is and what it is for. You may have a purpose for his religion but it remains yours not the religion's. A religion with a bad purpose is bad. A bad religion is bad no matter how many good people are in it. It is the purpose makes it bad. The members degrade themselves if they refuse to do the bad things for they make themselves hypocrites. And goodness is defiled when you let yourself be part of a bad religion. To defile goodness is actually worse than to just be bad.
Christianity indeed is just Christianity. Islam indeed is just Islam. A moderate is just a hypocrite. Every ideology has "supporters" who water it down and lie about it. Truth is narrow so a religion that claims to be the truth has to be necessarily narrow.
Some sycophants make out that religion is by definition and ontologically and in essence good and only good. They are simply using a definition of religion that refuses to take the problem of bad religion as a problem. And it is an insult to the founding fathers who made the Constitution of the United States neutral regarding religion for they had seen the grave hate and division and bloodshed caused by warring Christian faiths. Anybody can play the just good game - maybe Hitler was not a politician for politics is about what is best for the people? They are opening the door to such evil drivel.
A religion can be considered to be compartments. You have the sheep, the educators, the leaders, the nominal, the lukewarm or weak and the stronger and the strong. All of these should be looked at on their own. Then you decide how bad or good the full picture is. Arguments that a religion is good usually only look at one bit of it. The part is greater than the whole for those so-called thinkers!!
Today the whole world is in danger from religious terrorists who blow themselves up to take innocent lives with them. The argument that "they are radicalized to violence first and then use religion to justify it" is totally insulting. First, why does the suicide bomber for Islam always need a religious justification? Surely if he were radicalized to be violent he would not always want or need a religion justification. And second the Bible and Koran do command slaughter in the name of God. They admit religion has a dark side. And third why is the religious justification the main one? It is obvious that when man creates religion he can create ones that are intended to justify some evil.
If deplorable tyrants like Herod think there is a power
in religion that ensures evil will be conquered by good and for good and that
good will even defeat their schemes then why do they build temples and promote
the religion? Why do they attend worship and sometimes lead religion as a
prophet or priest or church official as if they have no fear that it will wean
them away from their sin? Because they are right. They know there is no force in
it that without you knowing it draws you to conversion that little bit day by
day.
Those who do a lot of good often feel it is okay to do one dreadfully evil act.
Do not see them as behaving out of character. They did something terrible which
indicates not that they are having a blip but that they were doing good so as to
get their conscience to let them do the terrible deed. The evil deed is evidence
that evil is in them and did not just appear. To see evil as a blip leads
to being too soft on it and underestimating how it can be a deadly slow burner.
Nobody can change anybody else. The person with the best chance of getting a
person to change by themselves is a God. Religion likes praise for preaching
peace and love and justice but preaching is nothing and has nothing to do with
members doing good or doing bad. Thus a religion when it claims to be good and
that bad members do not represent it then it is saying it has a special power,
perhaps natural or perhaps supernatural, to draw people into goodness or at
least make them better than the norm. If that claim proves to be false the
religion is to be condemned.
If bad people are representative of the religion they are more representative than the good why? Because a good religion should do a good job of ensuring nobody goes too far. And if a religion is represented by the good it has to be represented by the bad AS WELL. You cannot take responsibility for good without risking taking responsibility for bad as well. The two go together.
A religion would say the bad do not represent it or reflect on it. Any crafty organisation can say the same so we do not buy it. Saying it proves that the religion is indeed represented by the bad
Religious people attend worship and are not subject to abuse and ostracism there. If they were they would soon decide their religion is bad and quit it. However when the religion condones its religious terrorists attacking innocents of other religions that is not bad enough for them to consider quitting the religion! How selfish!
A poisonous barrel can have some good apples in it. The good apples have NOTHING to do with making the barrel less bad or okay. They have even less to do with making the barrel good. Prejudiced people do not want to see their religion and sometimes the religion of others as a bad barrel. That is why when one complains about a bad religion they start pointing to the good people in it.
Religious believers when they learn that some of their number would warmonger for they are religiously prejudiced against another nation or group if they had the political power to do so or become religious terrorists point to themselves and others as the good ones. They are suggesting that no matter how much harm the bad ones do the good ones are so special that the harm hardly counts. That needs to be seen for what it is: callous arrogant priggishness.
The religion gives the bad ones a weak punishment or forgiveness which is just a way of being okay with what they have done while pretending to be opposed to it. Giving somebody a weak punishment is a form of condoning. And telling somebody God has forgiven them when it is up to God to communicate that even if he does not amounts to trying to get them forgiveness and not caring if it is real or not is also a form of condoning. Forgiveness to believers is the supreme good work and supreme message meaning that their goodness is really largely goodishness and hypocrisy.
Those who argue that religion can be used for violence usually deny that religion is for being used that way. Then why do they say used and not abused? Religion is dangerous even if not positively bad if it can be used for violence.
To say religion is only good is risky at best. If religion can be used for violence then to attract people it needs people to think it is about goodness not violence.
We cannot define religion as goodness for what if it is not? Is it not better to blame the faith and the scriptures when religious people do terrible things? It is an evidence question not a theory question. Theorising that religion is good without letting the evidence decide is just lazy and just not caring enough about the problem and shows bias in favour of religion.
Evil and hate and violence that are fed by religion can be tempered by our natural instincts of tolerance and love of happiness but this has nothing to do with the religion being good. It in fact confirms that it is bad. It confirms that you are in no position to feel superior to the co-religionist who is a religious monster. To praise the religion is to insult tolerance and the crave for happiness which temper it.
Unrealistic to say religion is good
People tend to be okay with a dangerous religion if the members disobey it or claim it can or will be reformed. But it is obvious is that we should pay no heed to lovely and peaceful interpretations for every bad entity has stupid or dishonest people who devise them. They are their interpretations and not the religion’s. The fact is that every religion knows that no member wants to obey it fully or will obey it fully. Knowing that means it has to take responsibility as a religion for the consequences.
If human beings are not all good then how can they assess that religion is all good and so good that the bad done does not count or reflect on the religion? And especially when they say it about a religion they are not and have never been part of? Saying that you know the religion is good proves that you know it is not. It needs you to lie for it. To ignore the evil it does makes you evil. To say the good compensates for the evil makes you evil. To be called good it has to get you to lie to yourself that you are in a position to assess for you are so good and thus see the good. It rings hollow when they want even the likes of murderers to agree with you!
Finally
A man-made religion by default is a subtle perhaps unknowing cause of moral corruption of the members or some of them. One member being corrupted is too many. But what about the good ones? The problem is with being in a corrupt and corrupting entity nobody really knows for sure if they can or should trust you.
Religion defining itself as only good defies the evidence and the stark contradictions between the religions.
Nothing is really good but grey.
The definition is manipulative.
It would say it is good for it is too crafty to admit the truth and lose people.
It implies it has a monopoly on good which is an insult to non-religious entities that do great work.
The religious message of love and kindness is to blame for any harm done when not enough members care or listen for the message is not so much about what people need but about the authority - religion says it speaks for God with his authority - who commands them.
Religion is not good in itself for it cannot be.
The moral person finds it hard to be moral when society manages to invest morality with religious superstition. Religion does not damage just its own - the wrongs done by religion affect outsiders too. The best way to passively aggressively get people to self-destruct or wreck their lives is to make it look like morality goes along with inanities such as baptism forgiving sins and men becoming Gods or the writings of men being declared to be also the writings of God.
Religion is not really good when it does a Pontius Pilate and just washes its hands of any guilt for the terrible and irresponsible things it does. To say a religion is all good no matter how bad its members behave or how many do is just delusional. It is enabling the problem of religion. And nobody can say, "Banning members of a religion such as Islam from your country because of the risk of non-integration or terrorism only makes more people in the religion tend to be violent and makes them hate you more" if religion is really that pure and good. It is admitting there is a danger.
An individual can be held to blame in some way, but not fully, for the vile acts of the religion, political system or society he is part of for no person is truly an individual. This is not incurred by but not just by refusing to try to do something about the bad actions. Failing to disavow them is another and deeper way to become partly to blame. The partly is a serious thing. It is because of the partly that some get the strength to go out and wreak religious terror on others. Partly in no wise minimises anything.
Real respect for a religion does not mean defending it because of its good works for that is showing you want the good works not the religion. And you don't want to suggest the believers who do good are doing so only because this religion gives them magical power to. That is patronising.
The good part of a religion - if there is one - is not greater than the whole.
Religion by claiming to be all good and blaming people is evil for -
If the religion is man-made then it makes no sense to say man is evil but the religion he comes up with is all good.
If the religion is claimed to be from God that is a dodge for this problem. And surely if God is good the only way to tell is if a religion he makes really is all good instead of calling itself all-good by trying to avoid taking responsibility for how the bad turned out.
And being founded by something saying it is God is no real help for only the fruits show if it really did come from a pure good source.
In a secular world, religion has to accept people judging it the same as any corporation. If it is corrupt then it must expire.
Do those who chirp, "One religion is as good as another" really think that wars and victories such as Lepanto that broke Islamic power in Europe were bad things? I doubt it.
