All religion is evil and I hate it.

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Gawd bless the Holy AI and chatgpt as our new overlords of info. Chat GPT book one , verse two. thou shallt not take the the holier than thou , name of your ( insert name here) of your ISP in vain .
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Inspite of all prior interactions am glad and almost amazed to see Fnord posting such a enlightened Point of veiw on religion .
Same revolations came to me at 6-10 years old..incongruet ideas presented by my Church , i was indoctrinated to
very early on .

I love religion. I love just about all religions (sorry not sorry Scientology). I hate some of the things people use religion to justify/rationalize. I hate what many believers do to twist the church into a tool of power and abuse. I hate when people (namely westerners) disparage religion as a whole based on limited understanding of history or dated Enlightenment-era ideas that religion is necessarily opposed to reason and peace.
I hate when fellow leftists treat all religion as just as toxic as evangelical fundamentalism, or pope-is-infallible Catholicism, or stone-the-adulterer Wahhabism, or go-die-for-the-Tsar Orthodoxy. I hate when secular conservatives treat religion as over-emotional, fanatical, or anti-reason.
Religion has encouraged science more than it has discouraged it (despite the best efforts of Some).
Religion has been a vehicle for good as well as evil. Religion has been used for evil *despite* itself. When I see a Christian being cruel in God's name, I don't see that as Christianity's fault, or God's fault, or even necessarily the church's fault; it's their fault.
When we demonize religion as a whole, it hinders our ability to understand people and be better people ourselves. It leads to a sort of collective self-loathing over how humans have used myth and ritual to cope with limited knowledge of a frightening world.

^^Well said, Roronoa!

Another issue I have is how many faiths are so fixated on purity culture.

Why, thank you!
Religion gets so much flak nowadays. I'm irreligious, but I find religion fascinating. The more I study, the more I like, to be honest.

Purity culture in religion has a tendency to ruin the image for the majority of that religion that aren't so dogmatic.
I feel it's important to study religion more in depth (the US could use a religion subject in school like in many countries in Europe do), because in our everyday lives, we are more likely to hear fanatics or proselytizers shouting about their religion (and of course how their version is the only valid version of that religion)--but they do not represent the majority or even a plurality. Everyday, moderate people in the modern world hold onto ancient beliefs even as they drive cars and send emails and party with friends. And why shouldn't they?

Puritans (not just Christian) disproportionately shape public understanding of religion to the point that we think it is rigid, uncompromising, unchanging--when the reality is quite the opposite. Religion changes and adapts. It influences its believers even as its believers influence it. It accepts influence from religions and cultures one might not expect. I imagine Christian Puritans would be uncomfortable to learn how much of their theology they owe to pagan Neo-Platonists, Zoroastrians, and Greco-Roman mystery cults (no not *that* kind of cult).

^
That seems logical to me. The meek, non-judgemental religionists don't get noticed. So the illusion is that they're all totalitarian, loud-mouthed supremacist sociopaths.

Thank you for a balanced, respectful post on the topic of religion.

Very Insightful Rorona....and that comes from my skeptical ,almost Atheistic POV...

Wow, I really appreciate the positive feedback guys.
It's easy to feel negatively towards religion with everything we hear about it from society, and the news, and whichever radical is yelling the loudest.
My advice? Remember that history is your friend. Gain a new perspective! Study a faith you've never heard of! Study how your own faith has changed! Study how distant lands have interpreted your faith! Study faiths and denominations that are no longer with us! Study wars of religion, but also study religions getting along! Re-examine things you already think you know--you might be surprised what you'd learn!

^
This organisation gives me hope, assuming it does what it says on the tin:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coexist_Foundation

This Daily Mail story does the opposite:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... leave.html
You have to look at it carefully to see what the Mail is up to, but a lot of people won't. [Clue: what logo is crossed out on the t-shirt?]

I agree that it's a matter of study. I've long felt that if everybody used robust critical thinking, a lot less harm would be done.