Religions are not equals

[Crunchy]

I wrote a long reply in another thread and I felt it deserves its own thread. I’ve amended it here to be a general comment.

There is a theme currently accepted by many that religions are all equally bad and that it is somehow bigoted to think of some as being worse than others. I think that this notion arises from this flawed belief that was given as the explanation for why we should ignore the differences between religious texts. 
 “Religions are the people who claim them”

The fundamental flaw here is the conflation of people and religion.  There is a desire to treat all religions the same.. in the way that we treat all people the same. As equals. It is a desire to grant religions equality so as to head off bigotry against the believers of those religions. While a laudable goal the truth is that ideologies, whether religious or secular vary. They are to be judged on their content not their mere existence.
This conflation error gives rise to the problem of granting religion a special privilege that we don’t grant to secular ideologies. This has been the cause of religion getting a free pass for far too long. 

It is in fact very important to make sure to separate people from ideology and not to lump them together in this careless fashion. For example, while it is OK to hold a belief that communism, and capitalism and fascism etc. are different from one another and to even conclude that one is better/worse, some want religious ideologies (which can be every bit as different from one another) to be treated as equals, the same way we treat people as equals. This puts religious ideologies on an unassailable pedestal. 

It is also very important for anyone to understand that criticism of a religion and its sacred beliefs is NOT a blanket condemnation of all adherents. For example, while it is OK to criticize and condemn communism, it is not OK to conduct communist witch hunts. You can even be friends with communists while viewing communism as a big mistake. Same thing applies to Islam and Muslims for example. It is absolutely bigoted to lump them all together and treat them as a homogeneous group.

Religions are not the people who claim them. Religions are a system of worship, they are not the biological worshippers themselves whose equality must be upheld. 
Thinking this way can only lead to the mistake of equating differentiation between religious ideologies with bigotry and racism and brings any attempt at analysis of these different ideologies to a halt.  

Again, people should be treated as individuals but we must also recognize that the widespread adoption of an ideology will have consequences concurrent with it’s themes and beliefs. 
Islam is different from Christianity which is different from Buddhism which is different from Humanism which is different from Jainism and so on. Religions are not all the same. They are not people.

[Regina]

I agree, religions are not equal.

There's all kinds of factors that play into it - the political presence or status of the religion, what the religion teaches and how that plays out in public life, how many adherents it has, how compatible it is with other beliefs and/or modern life.

Comparing Islam to Jainism, for example, there's no comparison. One has near-two billion followers, preaches distrust of nobelievers and it's leaders are currently vehemently anti-secular and often violent, the other has several million tops and the more extreme you are in it the more peaceful you are. Big difference.

The one thing that should be consistent when discussing any religion though, even the current most dangerous one, is that rights are for people and not for beliefs. Regardless of your religion, I will defend your basic human rights because as a human being you deserve that much. What I won't defend is your beliefs, or entertain the idea that society should change to accommodate your beliefs just because it's "faith" and you consider it noble.

[vorlon13]

. . . as I've noted before, Mormonism is ESPECIALLY FALSE.

[Minimalist]

Equal in what way?

They are equally wrong in ascribing the world to their particular fable.  There's no harm in that, its just silliness.

If you mean some are more dangerous than others I would say that there is no doubt of that.  It is also a factor of time.  Islam is currently far more dangerous than jesusism but the same was not true a thousand years ago.

[Whateverist]

. . . as I've noted before, Mormonism is ESPECIALLY FALSE.

But scientology surely is the falsestmost of all, right?

But I agree with the OP, it hardly seems controversial, even within the same sect different practitioners are still individuals .. some of which will be total assholes while others will be halfwits and so forth.  Some may well be charming, admirable human beings.

[vorlon13]

. . . the Church of England is ESPECIALLY FALSE.

[Little lunch]

'The church of the women who desire the little lunch' is the falsest of all, believe me.
It's an old religion from the eighties but I'm hoping for a revival.

[vorlon13]

I remain a big fan of the Congregation of Jehovah's Presbytery of Zion !!!

Go Conjsespresites !!!!!

The ONE True FAITH !!!!

[Aoi Magi]

bullshit = bullshit

Even if you see one religion as more dangerous than another, there is no reason to be lenient on the milder variant as it will become equally dangerous if not more over time. Heck even the so called peaceful buddhism has seen it's fair share of hate and bigotry among the hinyanas and mahayanas.

Religion, in any form, fosters ignorance and all of it's associated evils. So I believe one should fight against religion in all it's forms, by simply fighting against ignorance.

[vorlon13]

I also note the Mormons have been singularly dense about knowing what and what not to publish about their 'in house' contrivances, perfidy, machinations, and malfeasance. Odd, ain't it God gave a crook like Joe Smith a commandment requiring Joe's church to be compulsive about committing everything to paper, LOL !!