Why won't people stop blaming religion for the problems of humanity??

Question

I was just wondering if anyone actually realized that all the "bad" things that have been done in the name of religion was not in the name of religion, but in the name of greedy, hateful PEOPLE (yes, that's right, your species), who chose to bend, and play with the laws of religion to suit there own needs.

Goodness Gracious (great balls of fire) get over it. Should a black man blame the christian religion today, for the whites who thought that inslaving blacks was the will of God back then?(and yes they thought that).

Answer 1

Because people don't have the sense of commitment required to hunt down and confront each individual person, so they just damn the entire system.

Which is half-assed, imho.

You could even go so far as to call it ignorance, if you wanted.

edit to add; lol @ anyone who takes the easy way out.

Answer 2

Educated people don't. It's the uneducated people that do. There was slavery in many parts of the world before there was slavery in America, and none of that had anything to do with the Bible. Osama bin Laden used his religion to justify the need to commit genocide on September 11th, 2001, but Charles Manson has also used religion to justify the need for genocide. It's not guns and religion that kill people. A gun doesn't jump off a table and start killing people. Some nutjob has to pick it up first. And yes, that nutjob can just easily be an atheist. I see people killing and commiting crimes all the time on COPS reality television. None of the people committing those crimes look like religious people to me.

Answer 3

When religions quit claiming responsibility for such things, I will stop blaming them.

"The young man boards the bus as it leaves the terminal. He wears an overcoat. Beneath his overcoat, he is wearing a bomb. His pockets are filled with nails, ball bearings, and rat poison. The bus is crowded and headed for the heart of the city.

The young man takes his seat beside a middle-aged couple. He will wait for the bus to reach its next stop. The couple at his side appears to be shopping for a new refrigerator. The woman has decided on a model, but her husband worries that it will be too expensive. He indicates another one in a brochure that lies open on her lap. The next stop comes into view. The bus doors swing. The woman observes that the model her husband has selected will not fit in the space underneath their cabinets. New passengers have taken the last remaining seats and begun gathering in the aisle. The bus is now full. The young man smiles.With the press of a button he destroys himself, the couple at his side, and twenty others on the bus. The nails, ball bearings, and rat poison ensure further casualties on the street and in the surrounding cars. All has gone according to plan.

The young man's parents soon learn of his fate. Although saddened to have lost a son, they feel tremendous pride at his accomplishment. They know that he has gone to heaven and prepared the way for them to follow. He has also sent his victims to hell for eternity. It is a double victory. The neighbors find the event a great cause for celebration and honor the young man's parents by giving them gifts of food and money.

These are the facts. This is all we know for certain about the young man. Is there anything else that we can infer about him on the basis of his behavior? Was he popular in school? Was he rich or was he poor? Was he of low or high intelligence? His actions leave no clue at all. Did he have a college education? Did he have a bright future as a mechanical engineer? His behavior is simply mute on questions of this sort, and hundreds like them. Why is it so easy, then, so trivially easy, you-could-almost-bet-your-life-on-it easy to guess the young man's religion?"

Answer 4

you miss the point entirely.

religion has been the tool that people have used to start wars, justify slavery and hatred, and cause all sorts of problems. when a tool does more harm than good, it is time for the tool to be remade.

if you had a hammer that had a bend in it - and every time you used the hammer you hit your thumb because of the bend in the handle, would you keep using that bent hammer or get a new one? if religion keeps giving people a way to justify their behavior, then religion must be changed.

it is fairly simple - each of us are entitled to believe what we choose. none of us is entitled to use what we believe to control others. if people of faith - especially Christians and Muslims - would understand that, the world would be a better place for everyone.

i do not have to live under the rules you believe in. stop forcing them on me and i will change my view of religion. until that changes, i will continue to see religion as an evil force.

faith is another matter.

Answer 5

What are the "laws" of religion you speak of? Are they the laws in Deuteronomy, perhaps?

Deuteronomy 22:5 "a woman must not wear men's clothing"?
22:11 "Do not wear clothes of wool and linen mixed together"?
22:12 "Make tassels on the four corners of the cloak you wear"?
22:22, which says that adulterers must die?

Look, I just grabbed some examples at random. Are these the laws you speak of? If so, there's been a heck of a lot of bending. Are we all going to hell because we didn't obey these laws? Oh, wait, Jesus fulfilled the law. So what law are we supposed to follow now? Love thy God with all thy heart, and your neighbor like yourself? Ha! Looks like a lot of people are going to hell...

So, you think it's surprising to anyone that the slaveowners didn't think that slavery was the will of God? Geez, I hope no one seriously thought that slave-owners weren't for the most part regarded as good, upstanding christians citizens in their own time!

So, if people have done bad things, why hasn't religion been able to stop them? Why hasn't God? Why, throughout the history of Christianity, for instance, have bad men been able to do bad things in the name of Jesus? Why have televangelists been able to fleece millions from the faithful?

Christians of every era have used the Bible to justify whatever they wanted to do - why couldn't God have spoken to or inspired or whatever the people who wrote the books that were eventually organized into the Bible to leave absolutely no room for people to justify slavery, or to commit atrocities, or for racism, or for hatred against homosexuality?

That's my beef. The *religion* of christianity is caught up in a book that gives too much latitude to do evil. It seems an awful lot to me like the Bible reflects man a lot more than it reflects God. The spritual nature of the Bible, frankly, is anemic and obscure. I think that the evil that comes from xtianity is a propensity to not see the forest for the trees... "well, let's see what the Bible says... oh look, this obscure mistranslated verse will justify blocking stem cell research that could potentially cure things like Alzheimer's and cancer"

That's what I blame the christian religion for. It's when religion fails to prevent the evil in the human heart from emerging that it has failed.

Now, there's a lot of good out there, but it's not going to be found in a church, it's found in the human heart. If there is a God, you'll find Him in your heart, not in a book, not in the company of others, and certainly not in a building somewhere.


Saul

Answer 6

You sound awfully naive. Man created religion to dominate over the population - what is religion if not a set of rules and laws. And man, throughout history have used the same to do unspeakable acts to his fellow man in the name of religion.

True, if man didn't have religion to hide behind, it would just be something else because that is human nature. If everyone didn't think THEY WERE RIGHT, that THEIR WAY WAS the ONLY WAY - there would be no problems whatsoever.

But that isn't the way it is, we are slaves to our own nature, and religion is feed bucket that fuels it.

Answer 7

Because most people just simply take religion to be a force for only pure good in the world and completely skip over the influence it has had on such behaviors. The truth of the nature of religion is somewhere in between pure, infallible good and deceptive force of destruction. I don't know where, but it is somewhere in that range and more people need to realize that.

As for your last question...yes.

Answer 8

even better, the black tribe leaders who sold the slaves to traders in the first place to placate the gods and bring fortune to the tribe who gave more slaves. I don't even know which God to Blame for that.

Answer 9

It's an easy out. People don't want to take the blame for their own actions. People today need to face reality....we are NOT perfect. We all have faults!

Yep, I agree with you. People today think well "Once saved - always saved" so I can drink, curse, have sex with whom ever/when ever ...do what I want to do...caused I'm already saved....I got news for ya.....it's called backsliding....

Answer 10

The world would not be what it is without religion, and the world has alot of problems.
It's not so much religion, its how people use religion to justify things that they know are wrong.