What religion or belief system scares you the most?

Question

It seems that so many people are "afraid" of voodoo, wicca, and paganism - mostly due to lack of knowledge and stereotypes that are wrongly perpetuated by the media - including a recent Tyra Banks Show. What religion do you fear the most, and why? Be specific as to why. What exactly cause you to fear?

Answer 1

For me it is the belief-system that says that other belief-systems are something to be feared. I totally agree with you regarding ignorance and stereotyping. By selecting a religion to fear the most, however, one would be guilty of perpetuating ignorance and intolerance, and considering the millions of exceptions to all the religious stereotypes, I am loathe to do it.

Answer 2

I am not particularly afraid of any belief system although I am very cautious of those who practice them.

But I think that belief system which is the one most find scary is atheism. Some people are very much afraid of the idea that we are alone (in the sense of not having a divine guide). Moreover (and this is demonstrated nicely by those on R&S), many believers seem to be incapable of understanding what drives atheists, and inevitably lack of understanding leads to fear.

Answer 3

I fear Christanity because these Christian folks are not the church that Christ built, I feel. From everything that I've heard about Christ from my Ancestors, Christ is love. Pure 100% love. Christ did not "lay down religion" when it benefited him, like so many so called Christians. Christ did not smash the skulls of little Indian babies in the name of the Lord, like Christians did. Ok, some may say I'm bitter and that stuff is in the past but I'm not bitter and that stuff is not in the past. Even today, some so called Christians will do all sorts of evil in the name of the Lord. They want to be at the top and don't care who they hurt or step on to make it.

Answer 4

i see where you're coming from, and i have wondered about the same kinds of things you mention. first off, people fear what they do not understand. this is very true when it comes to religion/cultures/ethnicities/sexual orientation.

i am not scared of belief systems - it is no threat to me. institutionalized religion is actually frightening, and even worse is any kind of fundamentalism/extremism. be it christian, catholic, muslim, etc. when people start killing other human beings in the name of god - when presidents claim that god is telling them to go to war - when people strap bombs to their bodies and hijack planes because of their beliefs/religion -- that's what i am afraid of. the pat robertson, james dobson, fred phelps, osama bin laden type people that influence others to be just as hateful and violent. it shakes me to the core, sometimes.
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"the Church", centuries ago, was able to turn things around so that a patriarchical chuch could be formed, that was mono-theistic, and to do this, a lot of effort was put forth to do some serious Public Relations work. by convincing people over time that paganism and its facets were wrong and evil, later on supporting witch hunts and the like, turning people away from believing in multiple gods/nature/female diety or dieties... even affecting language by attributing new meanings to words. controlling people by distorting things to the point that they were able to convince (through any means necessary, i.e. Inquisition) to convert to their brand of truth. old school marketing, if you will.

as for tyra - sometimes i think she means well, and is trying to get a better understanding of things and people, and other times i am blown away by how ignorant and even offensive she can be. who really knows, and i really shouldn't care... ;)

Answer 5

I'm terrified of all religions. The minute we start to exclusively define what we're going to believe, we limit ourselves to free consideration of all knowledge. Not only so, but many people will not look for truth outside of their definition, and thus consider that all they need to know they know already because they've defined it; the more strict the definition, the more regimented the ability to think for oneself becomes. Religion is a thing of intelligence, just like science, and true understanding and knowledge of God rests in wisdom. Intelligence is the beginning of wisdom, but wisdom is not limited to intelligence.

Answer 6

Frankly, all religions that worship imaginary deities terrify me. The very theory that folk want imaginary motives to fairly information certainty fills me with worry for humanity's destiny. How will we make smart judgements if we intentionally forget approximately certainty and act on our superstitions? we can't, and it is the reason faith maintains to be a continual danger to human civilization.

Answer 7

The belief that dying for your God and taking as many infidel lives as you can in the process is the freeway to heaven.

Because someone like that has obviously not a shred of respect for human life.

Answer 8

Not so much a specific religion, but anyone who is of the mindset that non-believers who don't follow their beliefs should be punished or forced to follow their beliefs anyway.

On the relatively minor end of things, this equates to me being wary and contemptuous of people who want to legislate their religious views in the form of science curriculum at schools; mention of a god in national mottos and pledges; forcing particular types of clothing on non-members, denying gays the right to marry or women the right to abortion; and so on.

At the other extreme, I am flat out afraid of people who are willing to kill to promote those ideals, whether that's in beating gays to death, bombing abortion clinics, assaulting women who show some skin, and, of course, killing non-believers for their lack of belief.

In my mind, any belief system that is not able to rest on it's own laurels, but instead requires human intervention to force belief in it on others is obviously flawed. And people who follow those flawed religions and try to force others to obey it are who scares me.

Answer 9

Two I can think of off-hand.
1. Extreme islam, which leads adherents to kill.
2. Re-incarnation. (imagine a country that the vast majority believes it, then give them nuclear war capabilities. What would they care? They're coming back! Right?)

Answer 10

The violent brand of Islam that wants to kill everybody who's not them. Admittedly a minority among Muslims but they do a lot of damage.