Why the attacks on religion?

Question

Ok, so i'm not a deeply religious person. I pray, go to church every once in awhile. But why do people feel the need to bash religion, or those who practice it? I mean just because you don't like or agree with something/someone doesn't mean you can't show respect...

...all religions that i've studied are beautiful, and peaceful. The teach tolerance, peace, and understanding. They appeal to the better parts of human nature (from what I've gathered). So I ask again, why the need to attack and/or belittle any established religion?

Answer 1

People attack religions for several reasons, and you get different people attacking in different ways.

Some people like to challenge their own and others beliefs and ask probing questions, or even those designed to point out flaws and inconsistencies. There is nothing wrong with this, and it can be done in a respectful way.

Others are just making a mockery, and have no intention to learn and develop, or indeed to try to develop other people's understanding.

think critisicm & debate around religions is a good thing, and humans should constantly be testing what it is we believe, otherwise you are just accepting it on ... well faith, not out of understanding & knowledge of your religion, and experience of the benefits of attending.

All religions I have studied (almost all of them) do have beautiful parts and all allude to peace. They do appeal to a person's good nature. However, this is not the end of the story and to think otherwise, is quite frankly niave. All religions also have their bad points, and history has shown us this time and time again. With such strong convictions and ideologies sometimes brings stubborness & inflexibiliyt to the point where wars are started, or more mundane you start to pick and choose your friends based on your religion. There are also examples of intolerance, war and ignorance to be found in a lot of holy texts.

Criticism of believes done in a respectful manner is a good thing. Putting someone or a group of people down because of there beliefs is a bad thing...

So people do it because, Fun, Ego Boost, they really are exploring the religion, want agreement, or just simply they are immature and don't know better.

I hope you understand that not every 'attack' on religion is unjustified.

I for one have been accused of being a 'scourge of religious freedom' by a scientologist on this site for openly being critical of scientology. However, I believe I am helping people by letting them know the dark side of scientology, and what it means & entails. Some obviously (scientologists) see me as attacking there religion.

I hope you can see their is an area where people can debate people's beliefs and practises, and there is a way to do it. Normally this means with logic, reason & evidence, pointing to your sources, and not making one or two glib remarks.

Oh and thanks Theta I always like reading your conspiracy story. Now this is a prime example. Theta thinks there is a conspiracy against scientology from the psychiatric world because thats what its former leader told them. I think it is correct for to come out and say that there is no evidence of this, and the thought of it is actually absolutely ludicrous - and the mechanics impossible to go unnoticed. This is seriously incorrect information taught by their religion, and it is important to let people know this. Tom Cruise is prove they teach this in the church, as his rants on psychiatry are well documented. Scientologists like to pretend that the critics of scientology are also against all betterment groups, and prepetrate this lie. The truth is most critics are ex-members or had family involved and live all round the world and are only actively critical of scientology.

Answer 2

Religions in general feel attacked, and they have a right to feel that way because they are and have been under attack for a long time.
The problem is that the real source of this attack is very well hidden so they, religions, end up attacking eachother when they should be defending eachother. This unfortunately is exactly what the real source of the attack intends to create.
What you see everyday on this forum is just a small example
of the fallout from this insidious operation.

Consider this:

A society is capable of surviving for thousands of years unless it is attacked from within or without by hostile forces. Where such an attack occurs, the primary targets are it's religious and national gods and heroes, it's potential of leadership and the self respect and integrity of it's members.
If you look around you , you will find countless examples of these points. They scream at us every day from the newspapers and TV.
Probably the most critical point of attack on a culture is it's religious experience. Where one can destroy or undermine religious institutions then the entire fabiric of the society can be quickly subverted or brought to ruin.
For the last hundred years or so religion has been beset with relentless attack. You have been told it’s the “opiate of the masses “, that it’s unscientific, that it is primitive, in short , that it is a delusion.
The source of this kind of attack is always covert and hidden. It is promoted by a few who have a vested interest in a slave society.
Unfortunately these few rely on creating fear and insecurity in others to forward and promote their enemy propaganda. These others feel correctly they have to defend themselves from an attack, but because the real enemy is hidden, they can be manipulated to attack what they really should be defending as they cannot see the real enemy.

The key here is that underneath all these attacks on organised religion there is one fundemental target:
The spirituality of man, your own basic spiritual nature, self respect and peace of mind.

We need to become more aware, raise our eyes from this pointless conflict and look at what is really going on here.
Sprirtual freedom is what is reallly at stake,

Answer 3

its a culture war

because of leviticus 18.22 a bunch of people want to ban gay marriage
check out leviticus 25.44 where god says go have slaves, so, thats kinda a messed up morality

i know you can go show me romans chapter 1 where paul says being gay sucks whine whine whine, theres parts of matthew where jesus says he comes for the free and the slaves, again a bunk morality

so this is why people bash religion, its really the REligious right trying to push god's morailty into politics,

lets look at intelligent design, another battlefield,

a plain reading of genesis 1.26 and 27 and genesis 2:7 teaches that god made the human in six days,

but they wont allow genesis in the classroom, but there is a big push in courts the last few years for something called intelligent design
the President came out and said he was for this,

This is where the student is taught if its complex it has to have a designer, so DNA is information its blue prints its intelligent it has to have an intelligent designer,

its a way of slipping God into the science room,

what God - why only the judeo christian god,
why not someones belief that a flying spaghetti monster intelligently designed the human race,

thats absurd, of course it is, but its meant to illustrate the point, don't slip religious theories into the science classroom, something the religious right is trying to do.

These are two main political battles going on in America's culture war. Gay marriage and the intelligent design,

Theres also the terri shivo issue about when can someone end their life and I don't want to get into that here.

But I think this is why you see people like me; while I'm not necessarrily an atheist, but I am a non-Christian; on yahoo answers asking questions about the standard of morality and science that is in the Bible.

If we accept that homosexuality is "wrong" as put forth in the Bible, then shouldn't we also accept slavery of persons from foreign lands? That is a response to people who say that we have abonded God's laws because God says it is an abomination to have gay sex. He also says shrimp is an abomination in Leviticus 11:9-12, so, thats kinda absurd. Shouldn't we have been punished for abonding God's laws about eating food? I know there is a Matthew quote somewheres where Jesus gets rid of the dietary laws, but still, I'm just illustrating a point.

Thats pretty much it, people like me who want my son to be taught the tools of science in a science class, and want someone like my gay brother in law to not be denied his right to be with another man in marriage if he wants it with his boyfriend, and I also want to eat shrimp.

So this is not an attack on Jesus or religion, but merely an attack on what I and others feel is faulty logic of using the Bible to get a basis for policy making decisions that affect our Constitution, me going to Long John Silver's, or a local school board.

Yahoo answers is a place where these conversations hopefully go on; but because of immaturity from one side or the other it becomes why do they believe in fairy tales or why arent monkeys still evolving or did jesus have wifes or stupid stuff.

Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed what I typed.

Answer 4

Most people will say that religious people cram their ideas down their throat. They will say they don't bash the religion but just the fundamentalists.
I personally believe it is that they are insecure in their own beliefs and they are afraid they might be wrong. Fear is a strong emotion and it brings out aggression.

Answer 5

I dont know what other Religions say about that but Jesus said in the bible people will hate you for Following Him because they hated him First . some people are just doing to hate God i dont understand why but they do all you can do is pray for them and try to show them though your life that God is love

Answer 6

All because of the word `Ego'