Is it not fair to judge a religion based on the actions of its members?

Question

The terrorist attacks on 9/11 were carried out by Islamic extremists, yet people who are Muslim will say that those people were NOT "true" Muslims. On the other hand, David Koresh and his followers that had a shoot out with the FBI also claimed to be Christian. Yet most Christians would say that he was perverting their faith for his own motivation and therefore not really Christian.
SO WHERE IS THE LINE? AT WHAT POINT DOES AN ACTION NO LONGER CONSTITUTE AN ACT DONE BY A PERSON OF A CERTAIN FAITH?
Both of these groups thought they were carrying out a religiously based act. In their minds, they were "fighting for their religions". So is it unfair to say "Muslims blew up those buildings on 9/11", or "Christians under the leadership of Koresh fought the FBI in Waco"?
Why marginalize these people when their actions are negative? These same religions will ALWAYS point to positive actions of members, yet throw out those who are negative in order to remove any responsibility. FAIR?

...and if you say "the terrorist attacks on 9/11 were carried out by the US government"...then you have proved you are a moron that will accept any piece of worthless propaganda that you want to believe. THUMBS DOWN FOR YOU.

....OK, THEN IF IT IS THE "CONTEXT" OF THE ACT. Then no religion would ever be responsible for ANY crime, yet ALWAYS be responsible for anything positive that happens. For example let us pretend that I donate $1 million to the Catholic Church. Well the Catholic Church would call me a "great Christian". But what if I gave the money for a selfish reason (ie: in my mind I'm buying salvation). The Catholic Church would still call me a "great Christian" AND TAKE MY MONEY, even though I wasn't doing the act TO BE a good Christian....So religions should just get off the hook for everything negative they produce?

and always get teh credit for the positive things they produce????
I'm not buying that, they should also be responsible for the negative things people do "for" their religion.

...you people aren't getting it. This isn't about "JUDGIING AN ENTIRE GROUP BASED ON THE ACTIONS OF A FEW". I am not saying asking if all Muslims are terrorists because a few are terrorists, that would be stupid. I am saying:

DO RELIGIONS HAVE A RIGHT TO DISOWN MEMBERS BECAUSE THEY DO NOT AGREE WITH THEIR ACTS?

Answer 1

Nice one!

your worlds are of gold!

my answer would be is people love to hate! and they hate however is different from them and people love to make judgments about those who are different and compare to thier selfs and say that they are better!

its sad

Answer 2

Every religion in the world has had/does have it's extremists who believe they are acting in the interest of their religion. The question is best answered by looking at the main tenats of their proclaimed belief system and seeing if their acions meet up to the behavior that is supposed to be followed by those of thier faith. When the actions of these extremists no longer meet the concepts of kindness, compassion, and tolerance that almost all religions dictate as a part of their requirements for their followers then they can be labeled as hypocrites - at the very least - if not diluded.

There are always those who aren't willing to take personal responsibility for their actions, and will justify those actions with quotes from religious texts, taken out of context, and/or warped into a twisted version of itself through a very different interpretation than most other followers of their belief would agree with.

Justifying acts of cruelty, intolerance, and hatred - no matter what religion is supposedly at the core - is NEVER something to be condoned. However holding an entire faith at fault, or the other members of a faith at fault, for the actions of a few who are oviously unbalanced extremists seems to be very unfair in my view.

Answer 3

Excellent question!

I don't think an entire religion should be judged by the actions of a few individuals. Every group of people (religion, race, ethnicity, sex etc.) has its good and bad apples. Of course nobody likes a bad apple and some people are quick to disown them. Ironically, the same people as disown the bad apples in their own group are the ones who are the quickest to judge other groups for their bad apples. You mentioned an interesting example in your question. Many Christians were quick to judge all Muslims as terrorists and bad people after 9/11, but when a Christian does something horrible they claim "he's not a real Christian". What makes them think the terrorists are "real Muslims" then?

I think people should judge less and stop judging entire groups for a few bad apples.

Answer 4

Christians are told not to keep company with fornicators, not the fornicators of the world because then they would have to leave the world but with any man that is called a brother who is "a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat." We are to judge them that are within the body of the Lord and to put them away that do these things.

This isn't done today because the church has accepted division by denomination, etc., and has become a corrupt religious system and those who adhere to the true gospel are spread out, but they are told to come out of the false churches anyway. There are still true believers who have godly pastors but they are the few.

But yes, it is fair to put those away because of the effect that their actions have on the body, and so that they might repent.

Answer 5

I dont think that its fair to judge a religion based on the actions of its members. The fair thing is to read what the religion is and what it stands for and then make your determination. There are muslims that arent terrorist, there are Christians that try to be at peace with all men, and there are Catholics that find raping young boys appauling. Dont get me wrong I do beleive that people should be a reflection of what they beleive, but to throw a blanket judgement on the whole of a religion based on what a few have done I dont think is fair or wise.

Answer 6

You have to look at context. i.e. if a religion says "love your enemies" and someone claiming to be a member of that religion beheads their enemies, obviously the person, and not the religion, is the one who committed the action. Also you have to see if the person was inspired more by political influences instead of piety, or were they seeking power or wealth? Such things would be contrary to most religious beliefs. The act of one person, or even a group, does not apply to the entire religion. For instance you don't blame every German of all time for what the Nazis did, you just blame the Nazis who did it, and you keep a keen eye on modern Nazis who do not condemn was the historical Nazis did.

The Crusades for example, you don't blame every Catholic, let alone every Christian, and when you consider that many of the Crusaders did not ever get to read the Bible on their own, you can see how people were mislead by corrupt people.

Power corrupts people, and religion is particularly prone to being abused when power and religion mix.

Answer 7

It is definitely wrong to judge a religion based on the actions or virtues of the believers.
In the first place, nobody has sufficient knowledge to judge any religions or any men, theists or atheists.
With his limited rationality, man can only seek for truth under the guidance of the Messengers of God. If he can find a true Educator, he may conduct a better life; if he fails, he will keep on falsely judging the world and ends his life in regrettable darkness.

Answer 8

The HUGE difference between those two situations that you are either not realizing or purposely choosing to leave out is the very clear distinction that mainstream christians made between themselves and any christian extremist and the fact that those extremist separated themselves and where not practicing in your backyard pretending to be good mainstream chrisitians.

and after both those tragedies, which of those religions had crowds of despicable people pouring into the streets cheering and laughing? ooh yea it was in another country ... save it brother!

how many mainstream/moderate muslims or muslims organizations did you hear denouncing the terrorist and rallying against the supposed hijacking of their religion.

are we to believe that they are just all cowards who will allow anyone to pretend to be Muslims and pervert their glorious and wonderful religion? How am I to know which muslim is actually a terrorist in moderates clothing!

What does a sheep in sheep's clothing have to do so we can tell the difference between them and the wolves in sheep's clothing?

Maybe the sheep in sheep's clothing have a responsibility to help us figure it out.

Answer 9

It is not fair to judge an entire people because of the actions of a few. If we were to judge an entire people for a few then shouldn't we all really hate each other because of what one person did to us. We need to realize that just because they people that attacked on 9/11 were Muslims, it does not make them all evil/bad whatever you want to call it.

Answer 10

Desires are at the source of the problem. Before any morality or religion is made and before any action is done, we have our desires which surface in us, and force us to carry out these things. And the way they do it is by the calculation “What will give me more pleasure than where I am now?”

So before we start pointing at this religion, and at that action, and labeling murder as “bad” and giving money to charities as “good,” there are our desires which emerge in us, negotiating with our mind as to “What is more desirable for me to think of as being good or bad?”

Eventually this process leads to a person becoming a Muslim, and another becoming a Christian, and then the Muslim decides within his faith what is good and what is bad for him, and the Christian likewise, and eventually we have a Muslim with the desire to kill in the name of his faith, and a Muslim with the desire to give to charities in the name of his faith; and likewise with Christians…

The problem is, now that we are evolving and discovering laws in biology that define the earth as a single organism, and laws in physics that state that we are all interconnected at a fundamental level of existence... after all this, we still don’t know the law where we can identify humanity as one body. If we knew this law, saw it and worked in accordance with it, then we would not fall into the traps of our desires: We would know where our desires come from, how they come to us, and we could then respond to that source in the same way that it gives to us—by always wanting to give pleasure.

This is the opposite of what we currently are. Now we always want to receive pleasure, and each one has his own method of how to do that.

So the solution isn’t working out, within our corrupted state, what is fair or unfair, because it will always be based on the calculation of “What is more or less pleasurable according to the way I see it?” The solution is working out this law that stands behind our desires, learning how it works on them, and through this, changing ourselves at the level of our desires—transforming them from receiving into giving.

The only question is, since there’s no religion for that, how do we do it?
http://www.kabbalah.info

Answer 11

NICE ONE..

Simple answer: No , not always it is fair to judge a religion based on a number of its followers.

Religion is more or less a set of ethical and spiritual codes ,

Two people can choose the same set of codes but implement it in different ways, so there are always factors that you should reconsider when you judge a religion , in addition to its followers' attitudes.