What is the worst religion in existence?

[Hi600]

I'd have to say that Islam is the worst. Worshipping a prophet that is supposed to have married a 9 year old (who he started raping at 6 IIRC) is the absolute lowest of the low. No other religion is that bad.

I have to rank Judaism as worse than Christianity, if only because Judaism gave birth to Christianity as Islam.

I find Buddhism and Hinduism to be somewhat less bad than all three of the Abrahamic religions.

The reality of the matter is that Abraham, Jesus, Muhammad, and the Buddha are all fictional characters who didn't exist at all, but the fictional stories about the Buddha are less bad than the fictional stories about Jesus, which are less bad than the fictional stories about Abraham, which are less bad than the fictional stories about Muhammad.

[Nay_Sayer]

hmmm...

[Belacqua]

I'd have to say that Islam is the worst. Worshipping a prophet that is supposed to have married a 9 year old (who he started raping at 6 IIRC) is the absolute lowest of the low. No other religion is that bad.

I have to rank Judaism as worse than Christianity, if only because Judaism gave birth to Christianity as Islam.

I find Buddhism and Hinduism to be somewhat less bad than all three of the Abrahamic religions.

The reality of the matter is that Abraham, Jesus, Muhammad, and the Buddha are all fictional characters who didn't exist at all, but the fictional stories about the Buddha are less bad than the fictional stories about Jesus, which are less bad than the fictional stories about Abraham, which are less bad than the fictional stories about Muhammad.

All the major world religions have good and bad in them. 

There are some that the world would certainly be better off without. These include the Unification Church, as practiced in Japan. Also Soka Gakkai, which, although it's an offshoot of a respectable branch of Buddhism, has turned into a money-grabbing outfit that preys on vulnerable people. 

There are terrible Christian organizations which serve only to enrich their leaders. There are extremist Muslim and Jewish groups, which the world would be better off without. But overall these major religions, in history, have done enough good for people so that we don't need to damn the whole thing, blanket-wise -- they are diverse. The Unification Church and Soka Gakkai, on the other hand, don't have enough redeeming qualities in their histories to make them even a little bit respectable.

[Anomalocaris]

I'd have to say that Islam is the worst. Worshipping a prophet that is supposed to have married a 9 year old (who he started raping at 6 IIRC) is the absolute lowest of the low. No other religion is that bad.

I have to rank Judaism as worse than Christianity, if only because Judaism gave birth to Christianity as Islam.

I find Buddhism and Hinduism to be somewhat less bad than all three of the Abrahamic religions.

The reality of the matter is that Abraham, Jesus, Muhammad, and the Buddha are all fictional characters who didn't exist at all, but the fictional stories about the Buddha are less bad than the fictional stories about Jesus, which are less bad than the fictional stories about Abraham, which are less bad than the fictional stories about Muhammad.

Define “worst”

Condone or promote practices which offends personal sensibility? In that case marrying a 8 year old hardly holds a candle to promoting human sacrafice on a massive scale, or to calls for mass suicides, or to traffic in slaves on a massive scale

Doing large amount of harm on a per capita basis?  Which religions promotes human sacrifice, call for mass suicide, or demand traffic in slavery most enthusiastically?

Doing large amount Of harm in total?   In that it is hard to argue with Islam and Christianity simply because they are so prevalent and so have the opportunity to spread over so many people, so even if per capita harm is less. Aggregate harm is surely more.

You can surely conceive of other manners of measuring “worst”

[Mister Agenda]

I'd have to say that Islam is the worst. Worshipping a prophet that is supposed to have married a 9 year old (who he started raping at 6 IIRC) is the absolute lowest of the low. No other religion is that bad.

If you're an Ahmadi, Ismaili, Quranic, or Shia Muslim, you don't believe Mohammed married Aisha before she was a teenager, or maybe even don't believe it was before she was twenty. It's hard to understand what Sufis think was really the case, they tend to mystify things and describe them in terms of symbolism.

[Jehanne]

I'd have to say that Islam is the worst. Worshipping a prophet that is supposed to have married a 9 year old (who he started raping at 6 IIRC) is the absolute lowest of the low. No other religion is that bad.

I have to rank Judaism as worse than Christianity, if only because Judaism gave birth to Christianity as Islam.

I find Buddhism and Hinduism to be somewhat less bad than all three of the Abrahamic religions.

The reality of the matter is that Abraham, Jesus, Muhammad, and the Buddha are all fictional characters who didn't exist at all, but the fictional stories about the Buddha are less bad than the fictional stories about Jesus, which are less bad than the fictional stories about Abraham, which are less bad than the fictional stories about Muhammad.

All of them, no exceptions.

[arewethereyet]

I think anything taken to extremes is bad.

I don't see a problem with the person who finds solace in going to church and saying prayers. It's a different thing when people feel scared, threatened, or entitled to hurt others in the name of their beliefs.

[Angrboda]

No religion is evil in and of itself. Religiously based evil depends upon the active complicity of the believer.

[HappySkeptic]

The draw of most religions is that they promise solutions to the ultimate question of life and death. Since they all disagree, at most one can be right. Since these answers are derived from "revelation", it is overwhelmingly likely that all are wrong.

So, what are the redeeming qualities? They provide community. They often teach people to do good to their neighbors. They just might have some general parental-like wisdom for how to live a fulfilling life.

The true believer, however, believes the dogma, cultural baggage and pure ignorance that comes along with ancient writings. "Moderate" religions ignore most of their holy text, and focus only on "nice" stuff. In doing so, they would be considered heretics by the original founders of the religion.

[Jehanne]

I think anything taken to extremes is bad.  

I don't see a problem with the person who finds solace in going to church and saying prayers.  It's a different thing when people feel scared, threatened, or entitled to hurt others in the name of their beliefs.

It's a gateway drug for others.  IMO, they all need to go, peacefully and of their own accord via economic forces and other real estate transactions.