Blogtrek

How traditional religious beliefs can be destructive.

Lately I have been thinking aboiut religious beliefs and how they are a personal matter and that these beliefs are essentially positive. But then I realized that some religious beliefs can be downright dangerous. Here are some examples from Christianity and Islam:

Christian belief: The world was created by God only 10,000 years ago or so.
The danger: Failure to realize the magnitude of the running out of oil problem; it takes millions of years to create oil.

Christian belief: Jesus Christ is God.
The danger: Demeaning everyone else. We are all born equal. We are all God or none of us are.

Christian belief: Jesus will save you from your sins.
The danger: Encourages crime, as if Jesus saves you it won't matter in the long run.

Christian belief: The Bible is truth; it is literal truth.
The danger: One can then believe in anything, as since the Bible contains contradictions, one can use it to prove anything. Hence this belief promotes charlatanism and extremist groups.

Christian belief: Jesus was crucified because he ran afoul of Jewish laws and customs.
The danger: Anti-Semitism, and we have had many examples of that in history.

Christian belief: Creation, not evolution.
The danger: Failure to realize the dangers of evolution in our society today; for example, of antibiotic-resistant microbes.

Islamic belief: The laws of a country must be Islamic.
The danger: Persecution of religious minorities. Barbaric punishments.

Christian and Islamic belief: There is evil.
The danger: Believing that the other guys are the ones that are evil.

Catholic belief: Birth control methods are not to be used.
The danger: Catastrophic population explosion.