Are all religions equally harmful? (Islam)

[robvalue]

Here's my analysis.

Religions are comprised of oral myths, and optional objects, mainly books. The oral myths are the most important part. Without them, there is no religion. For example, the bible would be meaningless and harmless without the myth that it is "the word of God". It would just be an extremely weird collection of stories, an obvious distortion of what may have originally been some historical accounts, peppered with allegory/fiction.

The problem is that the oral myths can vary wildly over time, even if the books and such stay mostly the same. So saying what the religion "is" becomes tricky. It's kind of like an organism that mutates over time.

For example, say the oral myths of Christianity changed so that the bible was taught to be entirely allegorical, and not any sort of direct message from "God". Then all the evil stuff within would carry far less weight, and the prejudices it suggests would not be so easily adopted.

So how dangerous a religion is really does change over time. I consider any collection of beliefs that attribute arbitrary characteristics and claim knowledge about a possible creator to be equally stupid and unfounded, and all are possibly dangerous if the oral myths carry enough emotional power. But some seem much more likely to tend towards dangerous states than others. With the big two, we have the huge problem of a combination of a vile, disgusting immoral book coupled with the book having divine authority. That's about as bad as it gets, and it's only sane secularism that holds such insanity in check.

So in general, I criticize all religions equally in that they are all baseless, ridiculous and potentially dangerous. They encourage poor thinking and often twisting of morality. But each one is going to present different problems over time, as its oral traditions develop.

[pocaracas]

The west's failure to acknowledge the fact Islamic terrorism is due to religion and not exceptional mentally handicapped incorrect and twisted ideologies perpetuated by crazy people has to end. If you interview a Jihadist or a guy from Al-Qaeda you'll see that religion is what motivates them, it's all about religion, it's not about excessively violent people - Muslim terrorists rationalize their behaviour and think they are 100% right, and their ideology is based on Islamic holy books (Quran, Sharia and others).

Actually, I think we're talking about a group of people who are "mentally handicapped", but manage to hide that behind a holy book's instructions.
It's the fact that many "normal" people believe in that holy book that lends credence to it and exacerbates the "mentally handicapped" behaviors.
Ultimately, the moderates are to fault - without moderates, the holy book would not be holy... or would be much less regarded, sort of like the book of mormon.

As long as some people believe in holy tales, screwed up people will use them as backing for their screwed up acts.

[Dystopia]

Irrelevant. I do not need to personally know all the world's religions. If it is under the category of religion, then I criticize it for preferring the comfort of fantasy over the harsh truth of reality.

Alright, but you are misinterpreting my question. My question is if the amount of time and intensity of your critics are the same for all religions. Since the answer is "no" because you can't even name all religions on earth then the answer is "no". You can think all of them are bullshit (I think that too) but you don't spend the same energy with all of them. I'm betting you spend more time criticizing Christianity and Islam but you don't criticize Thor and Zeus much. Why? Because few people believe in them and those who do are probably not killing anyone.

I am going to tell you that I to criticize them the same. See how easy that was.

I disagree. I criticize differently. Reincarnation is bullshit and has no proof, but blowing people is both bullshit and harmful to other non-involved people that have no fault. Saying believing in reincarnation is as bad as blowing innocents over cartoons is an irrational statement. I dislike belief in reincarnation just like I dislike people who think dragons are real, but as long as people are not killing over dragons I don't care

Actually, I think we're talking about a group of people who are "mentally handicapped", but manage to hide that behind a holy book's instructions.
It's the fact that many "normal" people believe in that holy book that lends credence to it and exacerbates the "mentally handicapped" behaviors.
Ultimately, the moderates are to fault - without moderates, the holy book would not be holy... or would be much less regarded, sort of like the book of mormon.

As long as some people believe in holy tales, screwed up people will use them as backing for their screwed up acts.

I disagree, terrorists are not mentally ill or psychopaths, they are "normal" people like me and you that happened to be heavily brainwashed. If you analyse the brains of a liberal Muslim and a fundamentalist one you'll probably find no neurological anomaly, just someone who was very brainwashed and someone who was just slightly brainwashed

[pocaracas]

Actually, I think we're talking about a group of people who are "mentally handicapped", but manage to hide that behind a holy book's instructions.
It's the fact that many "normal" people believe in that holy book that lends credence to it and exacerbates the "mentally handicapped" behaviors.
Ultimately, the moderates are to fault - without moderates, the holy book would not be holy... or would be much less regarded, sort of like the book of mormon.

As long as some people believe in holy tales, screwed up people will use them as backing for their screwed up acts.

I disagree, terrorists are not mentally ill or psychopaths, they are "normal" people like me and you that happened to be heavily brainwashed. If you analyse the brains of a liberal Muslim and a fundamentalist one you'll probably find no neurological anomaly, just someone who was very brainwashed and someone who was just slightly brainwashed

I compare them to hooligans - internally unstable, prone to violence.

[vorlon13]

Mormons were bankrolling Prop 8 in California. Not an attack on my personally, but my tribe? Hell yeah.

And I find it particularly galling Mormons, of all groups, with their befuddled and CHANGING beliefs on marriage would want to weigh in on public policy on marriage.

Marriage for time, marriages for eternity, claiming Old Testament justification for polygamy, not engaging in polygamy according to Old Testament strictures, wife coveting, not recognizing 'gentile' marriages, Book of Mormon prohibiting polygamy and Doctrines and Covenants in different editions disallowing and then allowing and then disallowing polygamy while the church hierarchy denies the D&C has ever been changed, marriages performed for dead people with stand-ins, pedo-marriages, claiming polygamy only allowed with consent of the first wife yet allowing it when she doesn't, and allowing divorce and remarriage while claiming adherence to the King James Bible.


Does this sound like an organization anyone would want involved in setting public policy regarding marriage ????

[xr34p3rx]

Sometimes this question bugs my mind. Atheists criticize religion, but we don't criticize all religion equally. If you asked me which is the most criticized religion by atheists I would answer (without a fucking doubt) Islam. For American atheists criticizing Christianity seems like a civil rights necessity and I completely understand the cause. But let's get the facts straight:

- If we simply look at the wikipedia page about terrorist groups and organizations we will see that the majority of them are Islamic based (there are also separatist, communist and white supremacist ones). Islam is undoubtedly the most harmful religion in the world nowadays. You don't need to be a genius to realize this, if someone decided to claim today that Mohammed spoke to him that person would be labelled as clinically insane

Answer to my own question:
- I don't think all religions are equally harmful - I recognize some cause more harm and need larger criticism or counter-attacks. My priority is to criticize Islam since in my country the number of Catholics is progressively decreasing and I don't have to deal with many religious nuts in positions of power.

I think atheists can and should criticize all religions, and every individual person can set up his/her own priorities. But make no mistake, some religions are way worse. Islam, at least Islamic terrorism, is our higher priority right now.

The west's failure to acknowledge the fact Islamic terrorism is due to religion and not exceptional mentally handicapped incorrect and twisted ideologies perpetuated by crazy people has to end. If you interview a Jihadist or a guy from Al-Qaeda you'll see that religion is what motivates them, it's all about religion, it's not about excessively violent people - Muslim terrorists rationalize their behaviour and think they are 100% right, and their ideology is based on Islamic holy books (Quran, Sharia and others).

Don't bring the argument that Christianity was bad with the crusades and the inquisition - I don't care about the past right now, we have managed to domesticate Christianity (Catholicism at least, and Anglicanism, Lutheranism and Calvinism) and even if we compared the Christian theocracies with the average Muslim country, the latter still wins the contest of Who's more harmful?. I know that in the US there are problems with Christianity that should be actively fought, and it's a pressing concern. But do you want to compare the Westboro Baptist Church with Islamic terrorists? Shit, even the KKK and the European Hammerskins/Aryan Brotherhood seem weak. This isn't meant to imply you can't solve problems in the US related to a lack of secularism but Islam is still the world's most harmful religion and it's something that can be objectively measured.

What do you think? Is my reasoning correct? If you answered no (Like I'm doing), then what are your priorities? Which religion is worse and which is more harmful to you?

Final thoughts - I think all religions are equally false and I can't stress this one enough, but there are so many false claims in the world to fight against that we ought to worry about harmful false viewpoints. Islam is one example, but I don't allow Christianity to get a pass. Buddhism also gets the occasional criticism when shit happens. Judaism goes unnoticed and should get a bit more of criticism, particularly in Israel. (I'm not talking about Jewish culture and ethnicities, only about Judaism as a religion regardless of the practitioner's race)

As a former christian (or as some would say "not a real christian"). All religions are equally harmful... in the sense that they harm one or more things to a person.

Lets take Christianity for example.
What i have noticed over the time i have been an atheist, Christianity tends to KEEP people dumb. Some atheists argue that it makes them dumb but i disagree. When a christian doesn't know how or why something occurred they simply think God did it. So they stay in the dark of the real cause of whatever occurred.

You may wonder, why would they say or think that it was some god? Well, its quite simple. Atheists are programmed/reprogrammed to think outside the box where as a christian is programmed/reprogrammed to have all the questions answered with one answer, God. Its mind boggling!

Now if we take Islam, what is harmful is the violence it promotes.
I know you didn't want this info brought up again but like the crusades and Salem witch trials, yes Christians were violent but i completely threw this argument out the window. And for fellow atheists reading this post, this is why.

The whole idea that Christians did such and such in the past in the name of religion doesn't differentiate the violence there was at the birth of the Olympics. Men training for 40 years just to die at the end in a death match. This tells me that there was always violence in the past and is no different from being in the name of religion or in the name of whoever king ruled at the time. We were savages! BIG time savages. Id say that since we have gotten more civilized, there is actually less death than before.

However... In today's world it is widely accepted (for the most part) that killing is not a good thing, whether we reason it secular or some book says so. So i think that most people should know better by now... In that case, Islam is still living in the dark ages (in a way) and must be taught to think like a progressive, 21st century human being who has a brain and knows how to use it.

So they all are equally as harmful but in their own way. Which is worse? Whats the ratio of stupid to violent people? about the same, give or take from both sides.

[psychoslice]

Any religion, ideology, or belief system has the potential to be harmful.