sliding scale of the dangers of religion.

Philosophy Forums Religion and Spirituality
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LIST IS CONSTANTLY UPDATED, FROM DEBATE AND FROM CURRENT EVENTS.

I’m starting this as a new topic for the following reasons.

  1. I think this information is important to know.

  2. no one is reading the post where this is coming from.

religions most dangerous to least dangerous, example of why.

Islam - In it’s most literal state resorts to a fascist government that subjugates or kills non believers.

Catholocism - Preaches that condom use doesn’t prevent HIV, has not helped decrease the AIDS problem in Africa. Could possibly have a violent portion within it… the IRA and the Knights Templar are founded in catholicism. now second most dangerous. It’s believed that the Tamil Tigers have ties to the Catholic church… While the Tamil Tigers are not purely religiously motivated, having religion to back you up certainly doesn’t help.

Hinduism - The class system is absolutely one of the worst systems to come out of religion. It keeps you down for your entire life time… because you can only be born into a higher class…

Protestants, Lutherans and Evangelicals - Some of these issue that we should put homosexuals in electric chairs and kill them. Others say that stem cell research is useless. Stem cell research has the potential to treat everything from Alzheimers to paraplegics… After debate with Xunzian about the issue in Sri Lanka this got more points against it thus was moved up the scale.

Extreme Fundamentalist Christians - Thankfully this group is small. The abortion doctor killer, the pastor of westborough baptist… Any christian that propogates extreme hatred and or violence towards people they don’t like. The reason it’s not more dangerous is because right now the amount of people who hold such a belief is very small. After more consideration I think this group is more dangerous than scientology.

Buddhism - one thing bad about buddhism is the subjugation of ego. (not that in moderation it’s a bad thing, the true buddhist believes in absolute subjugation of the ego… there is no “self” identity) Moved up the list because of this. If someone can prove that this isn’t related to buddhism, I will move it back down the scale. the reason it’s still third is this is only one country, In thailand where They are a majority and faced with Muslim violence they don’t act out violently, in china where they are facing political oppression they don’t act out violently. After debate with Xunzian this got moved down the scale. On this note, is it possible the “buddhists” were in fact Tamil Tigers?

Modern “christ cults” - These like protestants could swing to be more dangerous. It depends on who the “christ” is. (manson and koresh both claimed to be “christ”, and their followers believed it.) I can’t think of any modern alive leaders propagating this type of faith.

Scientology - Turns people off to the helpful nature of psychology and preaches a cheesy sci-fi story of mind controlled spirits that got us to believe in ancient religions. (moved because scientologists have yet to act violently)

Mormonism - A business religion, that controls a large portion of media and software companies in the US. Currently they operate tax free under the guise of religion. Like Islam (which I didn’t mention above) they seek to subjugate women. The polygamy cults are more dangerous than the mainstream religion.

Moderates of any religion - As leda said “they turn a sows ear into a silk purse”. They make it impossible to challenge any of the fundamentalist stances as well. Usually these are the relativists who claim that “all truths are equal”, “all paths lead to the same end”, etc.

for those of you who read the list and disagree tell me why. If you think I missed a modern religion that’s different enough from the one’s listed, tell me why.

edit:

Many of you may be wondering why I didn’t call “islam” - “extremist” Islam. The reason why, is because it’s not followed by a small group of people… Also the moderates (that I mentioned) make it impossible to challenge the extremists… they call you Islamophobe for even suggesting such a connection. But when you do so to christianity? hell that’s okay!

Also if you can find an example of why a religion should be moved up or down on the scale post that.

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We are heading towards a new dark ages. Everyone will kill off everyone else because of a religion. It will become very violent, I see no hope at all. 30 years ago most people thought that religions would slowly disappear, the exact opposite happened, the more violent and hateful the religion the more popular it becomes, people just want to hate and kill knowing that they will go to heaven by doing this.

3

thats right,hatred is the cause and effect of religion.
but it is up to the religous to depend on their holy beings.
if you want my quote on this: “nuke em’ all!!” that does include america.
life has got so far ahead of itself that everything is becoming pointless,slowly but still pointless.

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So is the problem with religion…

or is the problem with people?

If we remove religion entirely, do we remove hatred and violence from the world?

I’d be very interested in hearing such an argument.

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your first question is a good one,i cant disagree with it,people are chosen for judgment of leadership (presidency),base this unto religion and you have a large disagreement,and many haters.
The People are the cause and the effect.

if we remove religion entirely,we do in fact remove hatred and violence from the world.killers become religous before put to death or at least given a limited amount of serious punishment.either way religion is involved,and this is a bad infuence on children.

im not arguing so please don’t take my opinion offensive.

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Whoa, you are counting subjugation of the ego as more dangerous than abortion-doctor killing? Holy subjective thought Batman! Compare historical Buddhist theocratic states to Christian ones. They certainly were far from pristine, but I’d rather live under the heel of the Dalai Lama than the Pope. Additionally, most Buddhist countries are presently moving away from the Religion-State union (Thailand being a notable example), while crazy Christians are undermining the secular ideas that America was founded on.

Also, much of the point of this thread is moot. Christians have a nasty history of killing unbelievers. Certain sects of Budhhism did too. So far, nothing really on that list makes me believe that one religion is more dangerous than another other than the scope by which it is practiced. It’s like saying that Islam is more gynophobic than Christianity. As they are practiced now (and portrayed by the media), Islam comes out looking a whole lot worse. But many Muslim countries haven’t really had an Enlightenment. Check out pre-Enlightenment Europe’s view of women: Property, property, property.

Check out the soil the religion is growing in before you say one is more dangerous than another. Fundamentalism of any stripe is a terrible thing.

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No offense taken at all Donnie.

If killers become religious before being put to death (often they also become repentant), and not presumably before they killed, is it possible to conceive of the possibility that had they become religious before they killed (influenced perhaps while they were children), that maybe they wouldn’t have killed?

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No, of course not. No such luck. But we would be removing an unnecessary and poisonous means of identity and division. If we look through history we can see that hysteria and anger has at many points underlined all the major monotheistic religions and still does. Why?Richard Dawkins puts forward, what seems to me, a reasonable answer:

That last paragraph says it all for me. Ludicrously tragic…it’s true.

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Hi, Leda. Richard Dawkins from Hogan’s Heroes and The Family Feud? Hmm. Well, I suppose anybody can have an opinion.

The fact is, I see evidence everywhere. The grand history of philosophy is filled with the discussion of God’s existence or non-existence so I have no interest in replaying it here.

I will say that divisions exist, have always existed, will probably always exist. There will always be the Hatfields and the McCoys. If we eliminate religion, we merely shift the divide to something else, something more suitable, something more convenient.

The problem is never with institutions. The problem is always with those who populate them.

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well when children experience religous events,some feel better off around adults (listening,and talking to them) instead of around others.
as they get older,some will spend less time at church because of some sort of family problem,these problems will eventually perpetuate on the child making a bad influence leading to the “lost memory” of their faith.
as time does its thing the child becomes a teenager and goes on a killing spree with his/her friends thus leading to life in prison,because his/her friends wern’t caught.
so this person is left with a bible,but nothing to stop them from their death sentence.
it all really depends on how the child reacts to religous inviroments (i myself feel better at whatever home im left with my parents and sisters).
i have nothing Against God but sometimes i do go insane,and some nights after my punishment im left reading my bible.
religion plays a large role with a child,hatered can develop from this innocencse maybe because of a misunderstanding,violence happens as this child grows and notices the reality of the world,beyond his/her childhood yard or his/her family.
so many possibilities can come from one infuence,in this case religion.

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Hi Donnie. I understand what you’re saying.

I would just say that, like anything, religion can be presented to somebody in a positive way or a negative way. It can be a good influence or a bad influence. It depends on the people presenting it, in other words, and the people receiving it.

It depends, that is to say, on the people involved and not so much the religion itself.

(Hey, we all go insane sometimes :slight_smile: ).

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clearly it’s a problem of religion.

it’s the problem of a FEW people, the leaders who started the religions. It’s clear that most of them were insecure, hateful bigots. If they aren’t jewish, christian, muslim, damn them to hell, if that doesn’t work… don’t suffer a witch to live.

If anything is going to remove religion it is the blindness of itself. Religion will kill itself. Christians make the mistaken assumption that there god is better than the Islam god, and thus try to convert muslims to christianity. Muslims think the same way, and because the majority of Islam hasn’t yet gone through the wringer of the renassaince like christianity, they are still practicing the barabarisms to convert people.

All I’m trying to do is make people aware of a coming problem I see. Beliefs are a powerful and dangerous thing, whether god is invovled or not.

Leda, I disagree with dawkins. If the pub bombers were Jains’ do you think they would fire bomb still?

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No the reason I moved it up higher on the scale is because of the violence in Sri Lanka towards christians by buddhists.

From the linked article:

Like Japan which made the act of HariKari glorified?

you may have a point there. Just because catholicism is currently below buddhism on the scale doesn’t mean it’s “WAY” below. What would be ideal would be to come up with a point system that changed when events in the world happened. For example, the Sri Lanka violence caused a major spike in the position of Buddhism.

Thailand is a good example, the biggest threat they face is from the growing number of Muslims in the south killing buddhists. Thus far the buddhist reaction has been non-violent in that country.

Look at the important word there. HISTORY. This is about MODERN, CURRENT problems.

again I’m not dealing with the issues of the past in this thread. yes christianity in the past was disgusting. this is about today.

Some Islam countries have been forced into enlightenment. It’s a step in the right direction, but they are still far more oppressive than other societies.

Do you want to deal with the religious problems of today or continue the same tired routine that all religions are equally bad because of the past?

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Of course I want to relate the past to the present. Those who forget history and all that. Because it has happened in the past with Christianity and every other religion stands as a powerful example that it can happen again. Don’t tell me that the current war(s) that America is fighting in Muslim countries doesn’t have more than a small hint of religious motivation to them.

Whenever you have a leader who believes that he is doing the work of the Divine, you get major major problems. The religion doesn’t matter, it is the idea of infallibility and morality of those commiting crimes. Does it matter if I kill you because Jesus told me to, or because Allah told me to, or because life is impermenant and by killing you I am correctly readjusting your karmic allotment? The end result is the same in all cases. So, it becomes necessary to transform the motivations behind religious though in toto, rather than nitpicking out a few faiths.

If you have cancer, morphine will make the pain go away. You might even forget that you have it for a while, but the cancer remains and it will kill you. As they stand currently, all religions are raging proto-oncogenes. Chosing one fatal mutation over another is no choice at all.

Let’s address the problems behind the conflict, rather than the conflict.

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That’s my goal. Again by being lower on the scale it doesn’t mean it’s “better”, it just means in the modern current events terms it’s less dangerous to the world.

Absolutely. But not all religious ideals are equally dangerous in the modern sense. (hell even in the historical sense.)

Look at the history of churches… Islam was spread as a pure political idealogy of world domination. Had it not been for two key battles, tours and constantinople, we may very well not be holding this conversation today.

Christianity did have violence… after this time frame, I think it was a response to the muslims wiping out christians and jews. The crusades were a natural reaction to the muslim invaders.

Here’s another thing to consider… during the height of the inquisition, more people were being slaughtered under Islam rule. For the same reasons, just many more of them. And the slaughters haven’t ended. To question the quran and the prophet is death.

The western world escaped such violence through the ability of reason.

It is possible that we can influence Islam in such a way. once can only hope.

It’s a bit naive to not see that some sort of violent clash with Islam is once again inevitable. As a secularist or atheist this is of course a clash of religious idealogues. The difference is that the christians tolerate the atheist whereas the Muslims will not.

Just something to think about, and to understand that not all idealogues are equally bad.

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To state that the Crusades were a reaction to Arab expansionism is pretty ahistorical. Additionally, Arab countries were considerably more tolerant of other religions (well, Christians and Jews) until relatively recently than their European counterparts. I mean, the history of European Jewery is getting pushed progressively towards central Europe due to getting kicked out/pogroms by Christian countries. Germany came close to completing a long cycle of what’d be going on for centuries in Europe, but they were only unique in the scale which was made possible by modern technology.

Also, re-read the article you posted on Sri Lanka and make sure Protestantism isn’t more dangerous. Protestants are the ones trying to force conversion by denying resources to those who fail to. I’d say that a violent nationalistic response is going to be pretty common if you attack the fundamentals of any culture.

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Did anyone know easter islander’s are growing christianity alongside the statues of their God’s from their ancestors?.
someone explain why these people aren’t aware of the mistakes their making by putting diffrent idols alongside eachother.

(i got this info from the discovery channel)

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that’s certainly revisionist.

some more revisionist! Under the Islamic rule they were oppressed and had to pay the Jizya. It’s also illegal to display any signs from said religions (historically speaking).

fsmitha.com/h3/h03is.htm

here’s some of the expansionist history of Islam.

I’m not going to argue against that… the aryan christian nazi movement of anti jew-ry is rooted in anti semitism throughout Europe. That is no longer a threat… the new threat is the old threat renewed and re-envigored with more power. Power that we’ve given it through our need to drive our economies on oil.

If we were alive in the 40’s nazism would definately be at the top of the sliding scale.

I’m not forgiving the protestants… but they (the buddhists) have a majority and the protestants haven’t yet acted violently. But that is definately a consideration I didn’t consider.

imagine a point system (which I really need to come up with for this scale.) if Islam has 500 points, Buddhism would have 495 and Catholicism 494. With the information you stated I think a nationalistic urge to protect one’s identity is certainly acceptable. That’s what I’m saying the crusades were, so if that’s an acceptable counter clash, than this buddhist response is right?

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buddhism is the most peaceful way of life… period therefor it is not dangerous in any way

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buddhism is the most peaceful way of life… period therefor it is not dangerous in any way