Can religions be bad? Or can any religion be horrific depending on how people choose to use the religion to interpret the world.
One of the reasons I don't believe in any omnipotent deity is that the 'holy' books are so open to 'interpretation'. A true deity could get their points across in about 4 pages (arbitrary yes - short is the point) of text easily and clearly translatable to any language - past, present, or future - in the world.

Yup. It's all just mind control, body control, denial of joy and pleasure. How do I spend my Sunday mornings? Usually hungover after a night with my buds. That's my church.

What makes some of them worse is determined by the proportion of violent lunatics to the merely well meaning deluded. Almost all of them are breeding grounds for their respective lunatic fringes. They all also share androcentrism. Even the most peaceful sects practice keeping women out of leadership roles. This form of destructiveness is more subtle than violence but still keeps females in subjection.

I vehemently oppose oppressive religious/cultural practices such female genital mutilation, lashings, honor killings, wife beating, halal slaughter and all human rights violations in the name of religion. We all know which religions are the worst perpetrators.

I don't mind religions that are culture-based. The ones that seem to feel that they need to convert everyone via either harassment and guilt, or by the sword and the gun, or by the ballot box are the ones I don't respect as much.

I rather think its legitamite to use anything in your power to get through a life without a breakdown - any crutch will do so I don't get annoyed with people who are using something to keep themselves O.K. with themselves; t

he only religious I can't stand are those who try to convert me - but I am just rude adn walk away whilst they are saying theyll proay for me and cry for me - doh! I think mind your own business and I'll mind mine!

I choose to not dislike people because they belong to a group, like black, white, christian, jewish, etc., but based on the individual. I believe they have a term for that. Some groups are very specific in their own prejudisms, so those I do not like (white power, westboro baptists, etc.), but I do not dislike things in a general way.

What is "religion" ? If "religion" is nothing more than words in a book or on a wall then I cannot fathom like or dislike. If its ideology and dogma that we want to focus in on then I can get on board. PEOPLE can twist any word or group of phrases to suit their needs, I, in turn can turn them off or away. Religion is akin to comic books to me. I don't take archie, thor or spider man as truth anymore than I take the Quran, bible or Torah. Ideology and dogma and PEOPLE who enforce them are DANGEROUS if allowed to run uninhibited. I dislike that very much.

I guess I'm in the minority here but as long as someone doesn't try to jam something down my throat I'm not anti-religion, however I am vs Church vs State actions so I guess Christianity is the offending religion. Any fundamendalist sect or religion is harmul.

They're all equally lame excuses for not thinking..

Taoism is a reasonable idea. No central diety but a belief we are one with the universe. I posted here elsewhere a link to Carl Sagen's Cosmos about being made of the stuff of stars, part of the universe is all existance.

Religions are a distasteful and historically damaging idea. disliking religion isn't enough. no matter the religion or cult, they are all just as guilty as the last in terms of the damage they cause. all religions require 2 things; ignorance and cooperation. religions demand you to accept without good reason, and those who are unlucky enough to be indoctrinated will not know they can live life without it. you can have your own personal deity for all I care, but once you begin dictating how others follow your example via scripture, commandments, structure or rules, then you open the floor to those who can and will abuse the weak and vulnerable.

personal gods are just simple, basic admissions of a fear of death and termination. fear of death is sensible, it's a once in a lifetime experience and you can't look back once you've fully gone through it. as we're practically the only species or living thing which can contemplate our own mortality, communicate our fear of it and infer our own desires of what happens after life, it only makes sense that on a personal level, we'd want something more. it should stop now. we have gotten too far now to be held back by such barbaric beliefs. humans are so selfish, they want to think they're special and important. they want to think they're special enough to live forever, when in reality, that's never going to happen.

when I die, I want it to be over. an eternity of the same monotonous nonsense and blind ignorance of eternity in bliss is no better than being alive in pain. if there is an eternal anything, what's the point in being here? why should being here matter at all? why should anybody get an eternity of anything for a finite existence which came about by pure chance?

there isn't a religion I can think of which has never been the cause of another human to die. not a single one. those who try to claim that non believers are just as toxic are merely passing the blame when the fact is, every human being is responsible for every other human being and their wellbeing. religion is just a tool which is used to permit idiocy and allow the ideology to be abused. there isn't a god in history which has been strong enough to not be beaten by knowledge and information. every god that has ever been proposed has been forgotten or shifted into the realm of legend or myth. we are left with a small handful of deities now, and those are dying quite fast. they are only allowed to be worshipped due to the need for emotional security and mental stability. Jedi is not an acceptable religion but Scientology is. one is belief that we're all controlled by something microscopic in nature and has been widely respected as the cause and glue which binds us all together and controls the will of the galaxy, the other is the assertion of alien spirits controlling our bodies and we must use human money to purge our darkness in order to free these spirits back to the god of volcano or something on a different planet somewhere else for some reason. one tells you you're sick and in need of help to be well again, the other is reassuring of your place in the universe and the connection you have with all life in it. which one do you think is which? the clue here is, the nice one, isn't a religion despite the efforts to have it be recognised as one.

religion is nothing but a ticking timebomb every time it rolls around.

if you have a god you want to talk to in your own home, go ahead. don't tell anybody else about your supernatural belief, and you'll soon see that you're all alone in your specific god belief and hopefully it will help you realise you don't need a god to be a good person. sure we all do shitty things. plenty of you decided to create life and hope that you do a good job, yet never considered how that life would feel when it realises the world is disturbing, life is painful and existence is a chore. you can have children all you want, but as intelligent beings, you should know you're 100% responsible for that life until it dies. pretending your god makes you a better person only deminishes your actual accomplishments and it degrades the accomplishments of those who are genuinely amazing humans. if you have a personal god, more power to you, if you define yourself via religion, then you're no better than the history that religion represents. drop religion, ignore this tribal need for repetitive structure. I don't have an imaginary friend, I don't need one.

disliking religion is for those who have a grudge against it. I despise the entire notion of religion. anti-theism is the only battle which is worth anything. religion fights knowledge, record keeping, information sharing, communication and it does everything possible to alienate someone somewhere for some reason every single time. it annoys me when someone says they're an "atheist jew" or some nonsense like that. your heritage does not define your title. I don't run around saying i'm a weak viking. I don't run around saying i'm an intelligent neanderthal. i'm a human who does not accept the current proposals for religions or gods, or to put it into one word which is only needed because of these claims, i'm an atheist / nonebeliever. nothing special there.

religion should not be a foundation for anything. disliking it will never be enough. if you are just letting religion pretend it's a passive ideology, you're contributing to the downfall of humanity. no religion is worse or better. the moment you start drawing lines between individual religions and then eventually the denominations of religions, you will just be ranking from worst to the least worse religions. there is no "better than" in religion. there is just "more acceptable than" and that isn't something I will ignore when it's brought up. I don't care how little damage a religion has caused, the fact is, every single religion harms some people, ostricises others, descriminates the rest and dismisses everybody else.

before responding with your religion of choice to tell me "this religion hasn't hurt anybody" or "this religion doesn't [insert something] to other people" I highly suggest you know 100% that you're right. and even then, you have to be certain it can't be corrupted and it can't be abused to harm others via trickery of language or can have alternate interpretations. and even then, it still doesn't give that religion a good reason to be followed or to be acceptable.

arguing from authority against me won't work. don't quote someone to prove me wrong, don't pretend that you're right just because someone else said what you're saying. unless you're talking to me with your own mind, I have no interest in replying. I haven't done that here, and I will not do it. the only times I use quotes is if i'm talking about science and someone said it better because it was their expert opinion or expert demonstration or even their wisdom on the subject which helped them simplify a thought so well, it's best to share that wisdom than it is to butcher the same sentiment in a bullshit attempt to seem somewhat intelligent on the subject when in fact it's been made worse by the futile attempt. I look forward to replies. this website does surprise me sometimes.

long post short, it didn't have my option of "religion is toxic, no matter what" so I just typed until I felt like stopping or continuing to watch a movie. which is round about now.

Do you like some lies better than others, or do you simply prefer the truth?

I dislike Christianity the most only because that’s the most common one in my culture/country. Door knockers have to chug a beer in front of me if they want to continue the conversation.

I don’t have a problem with most religions when they are a personal journey as opposed to a political tool used by powerful people to suppress others. I vehemently believe that politics and religion should always be separate and that NO religion should be given a platform if ALL religions are not given an equal platform. I personally have a harder time with Evangelical Christianity because that is what I was raised and it is so overwhelmingly present that I get annoyed with having to actively seek religion free zones. I tend to be fairly neutral towards other religions though.

I think Hindu is irredeemable. But I could be wrong, since there's a lot of "pick and choose" there, as with every religion.

Some religions are mostly benign. I tend to dislike those that are agressive, or take it upon themselves to try to beign thier beliefs to my door which really annoys me.

I especially dispise religions that get involved in politics.

All religions are a waste of time, money, energy, and emotion. But I particularly dislike Christianity. I escaped ....but I wasted so much of my life resources believing in Jesus.

Don't hate them as much as some of their adherents. I mean xianity had some good stuff until Xians got hold of it.

I voted that some are worse than others, but that needs to be clarified. The immediate harm done by some is certainly worse than others, and I include all forms of harm. So, all religions engage in some harmful practice(s), but they vary in degree. Supernatural woo and woofull thinking is low on the list and actual decapitation/stoning/throwing off high places is at the high end.

They're all equally bad. Religion offers nothing beneficial.

”Less annoyed with modern Judaism” is that like being a semi-committed antisemite?

I feel like I have to be fair so, yes I am not interested in any of them all the same...

Religions, at their core, are designed to control at worst, and provide ritual and comfort at best. This is not to say that there is not great wisdom involved, but following the history, that wisdom was used to frighten, rather than enlighten. Buddhism, to which I most closely align philosophically, took on the trappings of religion over the centuries, and some "sects" are violent towards outsiders (such as in Myanmar). To be kind, and offer help and compassion to others, "should" be the goal of religion. It goes without saying that this does not happen enough. I'd agree that evangelical Xians and radical Muslims make up the core of the news cycle about religion, and would also argue that many great things are done by religious people (Jimmy Carter building homes, for example). We can't paint with such a broad brush that we miss the nuances of thinking. Don't cut off one's nose to spite one's face.

There all make believe and "MAN" made so you bet. really you got to believe in them all or not as the evidence is very similar for all ie there isn't any. I have seen films on the HULK though so just maybe lol.