All religions are shit, some are more shit than others. Just depends on the degree to which they impede human progress by imposing arbitrary rules on their followers, offering a haven for abusers within their leadership structures and interfering with politics in general (but particularly where education policy is concerned). Negative value across the board.
100% agree.
Hijacking the top comment to suggest everyone read the book The Dark Side of Christian History by Ellerbe. It’s really good. It’s super short but does a great job highlighting how at every point in the Church’s history, whenever they had to make a decision, they always followed whichever direction led to more political and social power for the church at the expense of spiritual enlightenment, justice, truth (obviously), or human lives.
I read 1984 at the end of last year and man it’s crazy how much Orwell basically described life under the Church during the Dark/Middle Ages at the height of it’s political power.
Christianity is not inherently better than Islam, it just behaves better nowadays.
And the reason it behaves better is not something inherent to christianity, but because it got dragged, kicking and screaming, into the age of enlightenment and beaten up with education, democratisation and secularisation until it had to bend or break and it’s adherents decided to bent.
Islam is still more radical because it faced less opposition to it’s ideas from within. The islamic world needs it’s own age of enlightenment where radical tensions between religion and an educated public reduce the influence of religion on that public.
And I don’t think this has much to do with Islam being younger. Islamic natural philosophers are behind some of the most important discoveries in the sciences and the Islamic Golden Age ended around 200 years, before the Renaissance even started.
If the Islamic Golden Age had not declined, today Christianity might have been the more radical religion and we might have seen a mostly secularized islamic world. It is mostly through chance that history unfolded differently. And with Project 2025 in the US, we might still see a return to barbarism and departure from secular enlightenment in the most powerfull nation puppeteered by christian extremists.
It doesn’t behave better. It’s coerced into being less harmful than it used to be, due to its irrelevance in the daily lives of millions of people coming from places with a Christian history, and more secular legal frameworks, which, you’re right, where fought for tooth and nail.
Give Christianity a finger, and it’ll take the whole arm. It’s still as dangerous as it’s ever been, but it’s more contained than it used to be. Cf Poland, France, the Southern US, Russia on issues like abortion, feminism, LGBT rights, and even geopolitical stuff like the support of Israel thought to be a step towards the apocalypse.
The Southern US Y’all Qaeda types are proof that Christianity is just as backwards as Islam is, when given the opportunity.
Edit: I’m not opposed to you, I’m just adding more thougts to yours. Sorry if this sounded adverserial.
It doesn’t behave better. It’s coerced into being less harmful than it used to be, due to its irrelevance in the daily lives of millions of people coming from places with a Christian history, and more secular legal frameworks
Oh absolutely, that’s how i meant it. 100% agree.
Not the OP, but you’re not coming across as adversarial. Those of us who aren’t wedded to an identity over common sense can disagree without feeling attacked. However, I don’t disagree with you. Everything both of you said is true, with your comment making both more true, if that makes sense.
I took my partner to a catholic church to check out the ceremony (she’s from a non-christian country). We’d toured it before because it’s very grand and impressive from an architectural standpoint. I try to view it through her eyes, as though for the first time (I didn’t grow up catholic, but I’d been to many varied-christian masses). What a bizarre ceremony. Any people consider it completely normal. This reflection has nothing to do with the original topic. It’s just something that crossed my mind as I typed this out.
Islam will be much harder to reform because it claims to be THE FINAL revelation. There is no-one allowed to come with new ideas because of that. Add to it the barbaric penalty for leaving the religion and you’ve got a hot mess.
All religions are shit, but Islam is worse at its present state.
I left the church so i could do shit like this tho
All religions are shit.
What atrocities have mainstream Buddhists participated in? I know there have been Buddhist terror groups but it really doesn’t seem like the norm. Aggressive and greedy people use religion as a tool, some religions are more likely to engage in violence than others though.
I doubt you’ll get a response. You’ve made your position clear in your statement: any actrocities referenced will be declared an act by a terror group outside the norm.
What do you mean, how is that even a position? There have been crusades lead by Christians numerous times though, Islamic conquest, Jewish Zionist terror groups, a lot of history to be referred to, when within Buddhism it is much rarer. One historical tale is of Ashoka, a powerful emperor in the Indian subcontinent who supposedly after converting to Buddhism spent most of his efforts spreading teachings about kindness and non-violence. Buddhist principles of harmony and non-violence helped unite Japan, bringing about relative peace after centuries of conflict.
Buddhism has extremely good PR, but ultimately it is just that: PR. You can find messages of peace, compassion, and violence in plenty of religions to higher or lesser degrees, but as soon as they become large enough to be politically relevant, one leader or another will resort to violence sooner or later, and will take advantage of their followers’ faith to justify it.
As for Buddhism specifically, this is a good start: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism_and_violence#Regional_examples
“Many religions now come before us with ingratiating smirks and outspread hands, like an unctuous merchant in a bazaar. They offer consolation and solidarity and uplift, competing as they do in a marketplace. But we have a right to remember how barbarically they behaved when they were strong and were making an offer that people could not refuse.” - Christopher Hitchens
