"Religion can be positive."
That's where you're fundamentally wrong, unless you want to talk about prehistoric times and even then the practices religion came up with to persuade the gods to have mercy with the harsh nature people lived in were unimaginably cruel.
In old Egypt religion was already used by the pharaohs to make the people build all kind of temples, monuments and stuff that the rulers wanted for themselves and had the people build by making up stories that their gods wanted a place of worship. They even went as far as declaring the pharaoh to be a literal son of the gods.
On the other side of the world, the Aztecs and Maja were even worse with demanding human sacrifices to put the gods into a good mood so they would let it rain.
The Romans had public bathrooms where they pretended that would be holy places where taking a bath would wash away sins and of course the entry fee to get into these bathrooms was quite high.
Jews believe just in the old testament, where their god is totally full of wrath, revenge, genocide, etc., there's even Deuteronomy 22:28-29 explaining that if a man desires a girl who isn't already promised to another man, all he has to do is rape her and pay her father 50 shekels to own her for life.
Rape an underage girl to make her your slave so you can rape her on a daily basis for the rest of your life, it doesn't get much worse than that.
From earliest times on literally ALL religions have been extremely cruel, with human sacrifices, slavery, genocide on groups with a different belief and all the rest.
Any kind of morality came into religion only when society had developped outside of religion a moral thinking that didn't align with religion and the amount of people protesting against the cruelty of religion became so large that the religious oranisations had no other choice but give in.
In the US it took a whole war of the progressive north against the conservative south before religion was willing to give up slavery and to this day there are people in the south of the US who believe it should be reinstated.
Only AFTER religion was forced to give in they rerererereinterpreted their holy books and then claimed that the new morality would have been their idea.
There are no "Christian values" other than cruelty and unspeakable horrors, absolutly everything that can be considered moral from todays point of view was forced into religion by people no longer willing to accept all the immoral teachings of religion.
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Keelai (36125)
12 days ago
Ancient Egypt, Rome, Mayan and Aztec had the most progressive and advanced civilizations whose buildings still stand today many millenia later. Quite an accomplishment!
Sad that you believe Mother Theresa was evil.
Ditto Rev. Fred Rogers. I read how little abused kids found solace in watching his shows. A ray of sunshine for them.
Jesus was Jewish. Christianity is Jewish values and principles. Ditto Islam. You're confusing the religion with slimy leaders who don't follow the religion, but distort it for their own nefarious goals.
I don't get the impression you know any Jewish people. They're among the kindest, coolest people I met. I've had plenty of interesting conversations about Judaism and learned plenty.
Islam has a strong respect for science, medicine and education. You should read about their contributions. They saved and translated works while Europe was in the Dark Ages.
The Civil Rights Movement was lead by ministers like MLK Jr, Rev. Ralph Abernathy, Malcolm X and abolitionists Rev Brown, Soujourner Truth, William Lloyd Garrison, etc..
The Progressive North was lead by religious communities that immigrated together. Quakers were cool. They believed in equality and were the earliest abolitionists. Influences like sharing power and equality lead to townhalls, public education, and charities.
The South was lead by younger sons from aristocratic families trying to recreate their feudalism with slavery. They wanted to eventually enslave poor whites.
You should read about the many benefits of Asian philosophies and practices like Yoga and meditation.
Nothing wrong with the Golden Rule when actually followed.
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MarkPh (1026)
12 days ago
Oh boy, I need a superlative of TFG (too far gone).
You just now easily captured the top spot on my ignore list.
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Keelai (36125)
12 days ago
You can't disagree with anything I wrote. Instead, you'll run off. Too bad since that's a Trumpite move. I expected better from you.
Anyway, the moment you say ALL "fill-in the blank" is bad, then you're stereotyping. Not cool.
The real problem isn't religion. It's people choosing sociopaths and narcissists as their leaders. A group of social scientists studied this phenomena after living through Hitler and Stalin's regimes. No one has learned anything.
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