The dark side

Religions promote many fine ideas and virtues. The Wisdom Commons lists perhaps a hundred of them. Click on an item in the list and you get a description of the virtue and many quotes about it. Some virtues shared by many religions are: Acceptance, balance, compassion, contentment, enthusiasm, forgiveness, generosity, honesty, humility, integrity, justice, love, loyalty, mercy, patience, peacemaking, repentance, responsibility, sacrifice, stewardship, trust, and wonder.

But there is a dark side to religion, one that I've experienced and documented in this blog. Valerie Tarico lists a dozen of the worst ideas from religion.

Chosen people: only a claim of superiority.

Heretics: a way to dehumanize as heretics are seen as "a threat that needs to be neutralized by conversion, conquest, isolation, domination, or—in worst cases—mass murder."

Holy War: Declare a holy war and you gain permission to do any vile thing you want.

Blasphemy: Declare an idea is off-limits to criticism or question and when that is violated … see holy war.

Glorified suffering: This is the idea that if one endures suffering (perhaps even inflicting it on oneself) long enough an evil can be undone. Instead, people willing to inflict pain on themselves also inflict it on their enemies and the helpless.

Genital mutilation: In men it is a sign of membership and test of commitment. In women it establishes submission.

Blood sacrifice: Fortunately abandoned by nearly all religions. Even so, Christianity still focuses on Jesus as being the ultimate blood sacrifice.

Hell: a way to satisfy a desire for justice has become a tool to coerce behavior and belief.

Karma: promotes passivity in the face of suffering and also promotes blaming the victim.

Eternal life: I'm reminded of the phrase, "He's so heavenly minded he is no earthly good." A focus on heaven means less effort given to cherishing and taking care of the world we have.

Male ownership of female fertility: women are reduced to their ability to bear children and in this time of overpopulation the quality of a man is still defined by the number of his children.

Book worship: understanding of the world becomes static, and believers of a perfect faith are developmentally arrested in the Iron Age, a time of violence, slavery, and early death.

We must acknowledge religion's worst ideas to be able to fully embrace the best.