12 Worst Ideas Religion Has Unleashed On The World

[stromboli]

http://www.alternet.org/belief/12-worst-ideas-religion-has-unleashed-world

Chosen People â€"The term “Chosen People” typically refers to the Hebrew Bible and the ugly idea that God has given certain tribes a Promised Land (even though it is already occupied by other people). But in reality many sects endorse some version of this concept. The New Testament identifies Christians as the chosen ones. Calvinists talk about “God’s elect,” believing that they themselves are the special few who were chosen before the beginning of time. Jehovah’s witnesses believe that 144,000 souls will get a special place in the afterlife. In many cultures certain privileged and powerful bloodlines were thought to be descended directly from gods (in contrast to everyone else).

Religious sects are inherently tribal and divisive because they compete by making mutually exclusive truth claims and by promising blessings or afterlife rewards that no competing sect can offer. “Gang symbols” like special haircuts, attire, hand signals and jargon differentiate insiders from outsiders and subtly (or not so subtly) convey to both that insiders are inherently superior.

Heretics â€" Heretics, kafir, or infidels (to use the medieval Catholic term) are not just outsiders, they are morally suspect and often seen as less than fully human. In the Torah, slaves taken from among outsiders don’t merit the same protections as Hebrew slaves. Those who don’t believe in a god are corrupt, doers of abominable deeds. “There is none [among them] who does good,” says the Psalmist.

Islam teaches the concept of “dhimmitude” and provides special rules for the subjugation of religious minorities, with monotheists getting better treatment than polytheists. Christianity blurs together the concepts of unbeliever and evildoer. Ultimately, heretics are a threat that needs to be neutralized by conversion, conquest, isolation, domination, orâ€"in worst casesâ€"mass murder.

Holy War â€" If war can be holy, anything goes. The medieval Roman Catholic Church conducted a twenty year campaign of extermination against heretical Cathar Christians in the south of France, promising their land and possessions to real Christians who signed on as crusaders. Sunni and Shia Muslims have slaughtered each other for centuries. The Hebrew scriptures recount battle after battle in which their war God, Yahweh, helps them to not only defeat but also exterminate the shepherding cultures that occupy their “Promised Land.” As in later holy wars, like the modern rise of ISIS, divine sanction let them kill the elderly and children, burn orchards, and take virgin females as sexual slavesâ€"all while retaining a sense of moral superiority.

Blasphemy â€" Blasphemy is the notion that some ideas are inviolable, off limits to criticism, satire, debate, or even question. By definition, criticism of these ideas is an outrage, and it is precisely this emotionâ€"outrageâ€"that the crime of blasphemy evokes in believers. The Bible prescribes death for blasphemers; the Quran does not, but death-to-blasphemers became part of Shariah during medieval times.

The idea that blasphemy must be prevented or avenged has caused millions of murders over the centuries and countless other horrors. As I write, blogger Raif Badawi awaits round after round of flogging in Saudi Arabiaâ€"1000 lashes in batches of 50â€"while his wife and children plead from Canada for the international community to do something.

Glorified suffering â€" Picture secret societies of monks flogging their own backs. The image that comes to mind is probably from Dan Brown’s novel, The Da Vinci Code, but the idea isn’t one he made up. A core premise of Christianity is that righteous tortureâ€"if it’s just intense and prolonged enoughâ€"can somehow fix the damage done by evil, sinful behavior. Millions of crucifixes litter the world as testaments to this belief. Shia Muslims beat themselves with lashes and chains during Aashura, a form of sanctified suffering called Matam that commemorates the death of the martyr Hussein. Self-denial in the form of asceticism and fasting is a part of both Eastern and Western religions, not only because deprivation induces altered states but also because people believe suffering somehow brings us closer to divinity.

Genital mutilation â€" Primitive people have used scarification and other body modifications to define tribal membership for as long as history records. But genital mutilation allowed our ancestors several additional perksâ€"if you want to call them that. Infant circumcision in Judaism serves as a sign of tribal membership, but circumcision also serves to test the commitment of adult converts. In one Bible story, a chieftain agrees to convert and submit his clan to the procedure as a show of commitment to a peace treaty. (While the men lie incapacitated, the whole town is then slain by the Israelites.)

In Islam, painful male circumcision serves as a rite of passage into manhood, initiation into a powerful club. By contrast, in some Muslim cultures cutting away or burning the female clitoris and labia ritually establishes the submission of women by reducing sexual arousal and agency. An estimated 2 million girls annually are subjected to the procedure, with consequences including hemorrhage, infection, painful urination and death.

Blood sacrifice â€" In the list of religion’s worst ideas, this is the only one that appears to be in its final stages. Only Hindus continue to ritually hack and slaughter sacrificial animals on a mass scale.

When our ancient ancestors slit the throats on humans and animals or cut out their hearts or sent the smoke of sacrifices heavenward, many believed that they were literally feeding supernatural beings. In time, in most religions, the rationale changedâ€"the gods didn’t need feeding so much as they needed signs of devotion and penance. The residual child sacrifice in the Hebrew Bible (yes it is there) typically has this function. Christianity’s persistent focus on blood atonementâ€"the notion of Jesus as the be-all-end-all lamb without blemish, the final “propitiation” for human sinâ€"is hopefully the last iteration of humanity’s long fascination with blood sacrifice.

Hell â€" Whether we are talking about Christianity, Islam or Buddhism, an afterlife filled with demons, monsters, and eternal torture was the worst suffering the Iron Age minds could conceive and medieval minds could elaborate. Invented, perhaps, as a means to satisfy the human desire for justice, the concept of Hell quickly devolved into a tool for coercing behavior and belief.

Karma â€" Like hell, the concept of karma offers a selfish incentive for good behaviorâ€"it’ll come back at you laterâ€"but it has enormous costs. Chief among these is a tremendous weight of cultural passivity in the face of harm and suffering. Secondarily, the idea of karmasanctifies the broad human practice of blaming the victim. If what goes around comes around, then the disabled child or cancer patient or untouchable poor (or the hungry rabbit or mangy dog) must have done something in either this life or a past one to bring their position on themselves.

Eternal Life â€" To our weary and unwashed ancestors, the idea of gem encrusted walls, streets of gold, the fountain of youth, or an eternity of angelic chorus (or sex with virgins) may have seemed like sheer bliss. But it doesn’t take much analysis to realize how quickly eternal paradise would become hellishâ€"an endless repetition of never changing groundhog days (because how could they change if they were perfect).

Male Ownership of Female Fertility â€" The notion of women as brood mares or children as assets likely didn’t originate with religion, but the idea that women were created for this purpose, that if a woman should die of childbearing “she was made to do it,” most certainly did. Traditional religions variously assert that men have a god-ordained right to give women in marriage, take them in war, exclude them from heaven, and kill them if the origins of their offspring can’t be assured. Hence Catholicism’s maniacal obsession with the virginity of Mary and female martyrs.

Bibliolatry (aka Book Worship) â€" Preliterate people handed down their best guesses about gods and goodness by way of oral tradition, and they made objects of stone and wood, idols, to channel their devotion. Their notions of what was good and what was Real and how to live in moral community with each other were free to evolve as culture and technology changed. But the advent of the written word changed that. As our Iron Age ancestors recorded and compiled their ideas into sacred texts, these texts allowed their understanding of gods and goodness to become static. The sacred texts of Judaism, Christianity and Islam forbid idol worship, but over time the texts themselves became idols, and many modern believers practiceâ€"essentiallyâ€"book worship, also known as bibliolatry.

PLEASE READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE! Obviously I had to leave stuff out to fit this on here. The order of these from first to last is not grouped by importance, at least to me. I would arrange them differently. Karma, for example, would probably be at the bottom on my list. Nonetheless it is evocative of how concepts created by religion are so invasive in our world and do so much harm.

[Solitary]

It is amazing to me that I was an atheist since I was six years old, and was still influenced by Catholic friends I had and other Christians, in my behavior and value judgments, until I was around 28 and became a hedonist, and never been happier, falling in love with an androgynous young lady when I was 38 who saved me from cocaine and other addictive drugs, even though I was married to the love of my life with two children. I'm glad that most of what I was influenced by was the good things in Christianity, like unconditional love that is suppose to be its message.  Solitary

[stromboli]

There is another list I'm going to post on here of human virtues. I saw the list and realized how many we have. Human beings are capable of great and beautiful things. I really believe that religion brings out the worst in man.

[Solitary]

I think the worst thing is to teach children to never question authority or they will go to hell. This is why politicians, police, supervisors, and teachers, have so much power also, you're never suppose to question any of them, even when they are wrong. 

[GrinningYMIR]

Its amazing how frightened people are of the idea that after death there is nothing. No afterlife, no rebirth, no heaven or hell, just: nothing.

Honestly, even if I wasn't an atheist, I would probably still err on one of the other theories (simulation, look back on life, life repeats, etc) before believing in an afterlife. It just seems like a child's comfort to believe in it. Maybe that's why its so appealing to the people. The idea that life continues to go on after death. "Refuse to believe that it ends here, can redo what happened after death, fix mistakes, make things better"

Good article as always Strom

[stromboli]

Reading that list you see it is about uplifting specific groups and subordinating others. It is also punitive and judgmental to the extreme. Very much in keeping with religion as a whole.

[Solomon Zorn]

Bibliolatry (aka Book Worship) â€" Preliterate people handed down their best guesses about gods and goodness by way of oral tradition, and they made objects of stone and wood, idols, to channel their devotion. Their notions of what was good and what was Real and how to live in moral community with each other were free to evolve as culture and technology changed. But the advent of the written word changed that. As our Iron Age ancestors recorded and compiled their ideas into sacred texts, these texts allowed their understanding of gods and goodness to become static. The sacred texts of Judaism, Christianity and Islam forbid idol worship, but over time the texts themselves became idols, and many modern believers practiceâ€"essentiallyâ€"book worship, also known as bibliolatry.

This section articulates a lot of what I've been thinking, about the various holy books making moral evolution stagnate. But I never saw the Bible itself as an Idol before!  I have to use that one!

[stromboli]

Yeah, the big irony of xtianity is that they teach against worshiping graven images while wearing the symbol of a Roman torture device around their neck, and holding up bibles like they can ward off evil with one. Really silly.

[Jason78]

Karma â€" Like hell, the concept of karma offers a selfish incentive for good behaviorâ€"it’ll come back at you laterâ€"but it has enormous costs. Chief among these is a tremendous weight of cultural passivity in the face of harm and suffering. Secondarily, the idea of karmasanctifies the broad human practice of blaming the victim. If what goes around comes around, then the disabled child or cancer patient or untouchable poor (or the hungry rabbit or mangy dog) must have done something in either this life or a past one to bring their position on themselves.

I never thought of it that way before.   I always used to just consider it from a personal perspective.

[Hydra009]

The concept of karma also cements the existing social order.  If you're a pariah, you're meant to be a pariah.  Be a good little pariah and you might get rewarded for it in the next life, probably.  And wouldn't ya know it, the priestly class is the highest rung.  What a coincidence.  Hey, if you you were meant to live in luxury, you would've been born into it.  Now go clean some latrines.