From an excerpt of another conversation that I didn’t want to derail or take attention from, but that I do want to address. @ball-cockk
So as a recovering Evangelical Christian and someone who reads a lot about cult studies... I have to disagree here. I tried for years after leaving the Evangelical church to convince myself that "Christianity isn’t the problem, it’s the people who turn it to hate and intolerance.” But that’s because I hadn’t started researching religious cults and I hadn’t begun to address the problematic things I had been taught by religions under this umbrella.
Here’s the thing that many don’t get until they’ve worked in religious fields or religious studies: each and every religion is an entity that defines a set of beliefs, how those beliefs are put into practice, and a has a culture that is built around them. When a religion’s set of beliefs includes obedience to its holy text as the literal instructions of their deity and those instructions are objectively harmful then YES, that religion and its beliefs are harmful. There may be people a part of that religion that don’t uphold or demonstrate those defined set of beliefs and follow better ethics, but they are outliers. They’re also not an accurate representation of the religion if they practice fundamentally different beliefs than defined by that religion. (Now, remember Christianity has hundreds of religions under its umbrella. Not all Christian religions define their set of beliefs the same).
In Summary
Religions can absolutely be harmful. Healthy and loving people can follow a harmful religion but refuse to practice the harmful parts. Just as someone can be a part of a healthy religion and practice it in harmful ways. But I can no longer say that there aren’t any harmful religions. There are, and I’ve seen the result of what can happen when those beliefs are expressed or enforced. I will always support loving practitioners, but I will not support the religion that they follow just because they deviate from an objectively harmful religion’s set of beliefs.
