Agnostic.com

19 1

What’s the world’s worst religion? These are the ones I found on Wikipedia:

Christianity
Judaism
Islam
Hinduism
Buddhism
Sikhism
Jainism
Mormonism
Paganism
Candomblé
Rastafari
Santeria
Zoroastrianism
Taoism
Shinto
Bahá'í
Cheondoism
Caodaism
Falun Gong
Spiritism
Tenrikyo
Scientology
Confucianism
Druze
Gnosticism
Traditional African Religions
Indigenous American Religions
Juche

My vote is Christianity. Judaism doesn’t seem like all that but at least it was a tiny, harmless sect. Christianity spread all over the earth thanks to war and colonialism and caused a surfeit of suffering. If it wasn’t for Christinaity, Islam wouldn’t exist.

altschmerz 9 Mar 26
Share

Enjoy being online again!

Welcome to the community of good people who base their values on evidence and appreciate civil discourse - the social network you will enjoy.

Create your free account

19 comments

Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.

0

Alcoholics Anonymous should be on the list.

0

Currently the worst set of practicing ideas is called "islam."
An average of 4 attacks PER DAY since 9-11 in the name of a dude dead for 1400 years. A true mental illness.

@Closeted we cannot afford to wait 500 years for them to "catch-up." We are at war with the darkess. Very sad so many who should be supporting us are allies of the evil.

0

Religion, any religion, is a system of empty signifiers, and its definition/identity depends solely on interpretation, who does that interpretation and for what purpose(s). Therefore there are as many Christianities as there are many interpreters and the same applies to Islam, Judaism, etc. Thus it is just impossible to label one religion "bad" or "good" without putting into consideration that very specific interpretation.

@Closeted the bible, the koran,etc are deaf and mute. It is we who read, reread and always invent and reivent what we want them to tell us. Worst, they tell nothing about the historical, power relations context in which specific text (idea) is incorporated into these books and for what purpose. Indeed, dashing babies heads is gruesome irrespective of the context. However those who might want to interpret it would describe it as a metaphor. This is one of the methods often used by religious clerks to invent and reinvent meanings. And because we don't have access to when, where and who produced the text and for what purpose in the first place we just can't say anything beyond cursing the clerk and move on.

0

I would like to add another one to your list if I may, though it is not usually thought of as a religion which is perhaps why it is not on Wiki as such. And that is Art especially with a capital "A", because it is the enabler in manipulating human minds which spans all of the religions. It has a so called spiritual worth for which there is no evidence. And that spiritual worth leads to the idea of "artistic truth" which is not connected to any objective truth but carries great prestige and can be used to validate any lies that any other religion wishes to sell. I know this this will not be popular with some even here who worship it though, tough.

@Closeted Yep, of course for some art you really do have to be a believer, to think that there is something specially which makes any painting, even one that seems to say little, art with a capital "A" and a pair of shoes however well made, carefully designed, and crafted with however much creativity, only a work of craft. This is the sort of thing, not possible to define, that you encounter with that other meaningless word "spiritual", which is what makes it religion.

And the way it feeds the other religions. Walk into a church and it feels like a special holy place, in a way that impresses the easily fooled, and what makes it so is the art and architecture. Read a good religious poem, and do you not feel that a poet who wrote so well must have a special understanding and is therefore surely right. Even though the craft of putting words together does not enable you to see god, any more than anyone else.

1

I was raised as a Buddhist and I loathe it. I wish westerners would stop thinking that Buddism is a philosophy. Of course there is some good philosophy in Buddism- same as other religions. The fact is that Buddism is definitely not a philosophy, it’s a religion full of Fear and BS- hell, heaven, merit, sin, karma, reincarnation etc. Though Buddism doesn’t talk about God, it uses karma and reincarnation as a moral cause and effect- just like God watching/judging/calculating how much merit and how much sin we bank into our accounts before sending us to hell (yes there is hell in Buddism and people are very much afraid of it) and then rebirth as a human or an animal.
There are a lot of misogynistic beliefs in Buddhism. Women are viewed as lustful temptresses- evil and dirty.
Buddism is an offshoot of Huduism. Buddha was raised as a Hindu and he was obsessed with Nirvana/Moksha. However, only the top caste could achieve Moksha in Hinduism. He found “Buddism” so that every caste could achieve the idea of “Nirvana/Moksha” He was a revolutionary and a philosopher, but that doesn’t mean his beliefs were true. He wouldn’t believe in reincarnation, hell, karma, Nirvana if he wasn’t raised as a Hindi.
I believe Buddha suffered from an anxiety disorder. His obsession in Nirvana made his anxiety worse. He then discovered deep breathing could calm his CNS and get rid of the anxiety. He also discovered that staying away from too much stimulations (love, greed, hate, lust) could help with his overactive nervous system. He declared that he achieved Nirvana= the anxiety is gone.
Buddhism is not the same as cherry picking philosophical aspects in Buddhism. Buddism is full of BS and it’s definitely not better than other religions.

0

Islam is a bigger threat to the world than Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot and all of them put together.

I can tell you were clearly not raised correctly, as Islam is a religion of peace ya kaffir. Hitler, stalin, and pol pot is way worse then islam. Do some research dick.

0

All religions, regardless of beliefs, are terrible. Religions divide us and attempt to control us by guilt. I don’t know of a benign religion. They all foster them v. is. Some espouse peace and non violence but they still divide and attempt to control thought and actions.

0

Evolution being my one passion, I tend look at religions in a different way. Intelligent life needs purpose survive; it is the food on which an intelligent species feeds. Instead of asking which is the worst religion, I put them all on the same level, because when looking at the big picture, though they appear be segregated, this is an illusion. In the grand scheme of things they are acting as one, it is what is needed by nature. (Evolution) This is why there will always be different religions, that is until the time comes when we will realize this and maybe then it will begin its decline, which I think has maybe already begun. This proves that religion is man-made.

dodin Level 4 Mar 27, 2019
0

Funny. Luciferianism is not on there. Think about it...

0

Any religion is peace and love while minority, and as soon as it gains majority and access to law enforcement/army it turns into a weapon.
Christianity is not more evil by itself, it was just the religion with access to bigger guns.
The same happened with other religions that in their region achieved hegemony and inside its borders or to the people around them they were as bad as we see Christianity. Judaism did pretty nasty things given it's limited power, there are many genocides in their sacred books (and in the bible by consequence), so give them more power and imagine what could happen (and what Israel is doing now).
Point is that most of those religions never achieved an hegemonic region or time , or we do not have registers of it to see what they would be like.
It is easy to be peace and love when you would turn to be the weak side of a religious war.
Even in Christianity, the reform and the division between protestants and roman catholics only happened because big leaders with access to armies changed sides, before that the proto-reformists were just praticants of heresy.

@Closeted Every religion will incur in some punishment or bad consequence if you do not follow it.
Sometimes they translate this punishment as a natural consequence (comparing as if you do not eat or shower properly) so it is "not punishment but only consequence".

Even Christianity can be interpreted like this, because you are separated from god you became impure and impure souls cannot go to heaven, what god gives to you is the chance of being "cleaned" by his grace, reconnecting to him and thus being able to go to heaven, thus he does not condemn you to hell, hell would be the natural state of which god is trying to save you from...

Religion becomes evil because when it is big, political power can be harnessed from it, and slowly the average charlatan and true believer is substituted by the very rational hungry power men in the leadership, same with ideologies, political parties, book clubs, charity etc,

Any group that becomes big enough to have political influence will eng up attacked by hungry power people that wants its leadership to self promotion. Religion has no special status on it or maybe it is just easier to take over.

@Closeted Religion claim that the cosmic nannys will punish you, but just in case "we the correct people" will do the same, when in real they are punishing you because you threaten their power
At this point ideologies are not more honest because they say "we are punishing you because you are against our idealistic view of the world" but in reality they mean "you are threatening our power"

Same thing, every kind of idea used for political power will end in the same end: Destroy who do not conform because he is against the world vision that will lead to the big good.

0

Atheism for sure. It’s not a religion so it’s a terrible pick as far as religions go.

0

They are all bad in some form or other.

0

Islamic justice is brutal in keeping with the period and location where it was developed. Judaism is almost as bad and maybe worse, except that modern Jews don't follow the really cruel injunctions. Christianity, like Judaism and Islam has a horrific blood-soaked history, which they hypocritically blame on atheists! Most strong Christians are still Nazi-wanna-be s, as has been made clear by the evangelical support of Trump. It would be nice to point to Christians evolving their sensibilities, but clearly that is limited. And those carrying water for the Saudis make the same claim about the Israelis. Except that the Israelis do go to great lengths to moderate and target the killing of Hamas fanatics.

Christians also commonly call out atheism as being responsible for the millions killed by Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot. The problem is that the victims weren't killed for refusing to believers in atheism, but rather, for refusing to adopt Communism (or refusing to kowtow to the communist leader). That is a huge difference, and is not easy explained to the common idiot.

On occasion, Christians are happy to confabulate the Nazis as being atheists too. Yeah, I wonder what percent atheists were present in Nazi Germany - - even one percent?

0

No way to define "best" or "worst".

@Closeted there's no way I could even begin to understand the religions of Asia, or understand any history anywhere before a few hundred years ago . The victor writes history, and in many cases that means we will never know who was "worse", e.g. the Incas with their genocide and human sacrifice, or the Spanish conquistadors with their brutal colonialization and slavery. We might have some guesses about "best" but I'm still skeptical there's any real answer.

Or look at Jim Jones. His religion was small, but murdered ed a huge percentage of his own followers. The Catholic church actually murders very few, compared to how huge it is..,, but it's still a mind blowing number.

0

judaism is dangerous b/c of their fanaticism & belief that they are the chosen.
they have fucked up the world more that all the other religions combined.
now control the US financial system, therefore the world.

No Evangelicals are working on that distinction.

@t1nick
evangelicals don't have anywhere near the money, power & influence that AIPAC has. not even close.
evangelicals are just considered useful idiots.

@callmedubious. i do not know if I agree with that. I would need to do more research. A lot of money flows into Evangelical coffers.

1

Any that believe in a "god" that needs them to tell you about it.

1

Judaism invented monotheism (one true god), spawned Islam, Christianity, and all their offshoots, so that gets my vote.

1of5 Level 8 Mar 26, 2019

Um sorry it was Zoroastrianism

This is an easy read, but you can find tons of more detailed and credentialed sources for the same info [history.com]

No they didn't. Zoroastrianism possibly predates Judaism and it is possible that they adopted monotheism from there. From the first books of the old testament is apparent that the Jews were originally polytheist and gradually adopted monotheism.

2

Any that evangelize, indoctrinate, or kill people who do not believe it.

@Closeted most do.I don't mind if they believe nonsense, just don't hate me if I don't believe. And don't try to convince me to believe.

1

How are we measuring "worst"? Amount stolen? People killed? Lies told? Knowledge destroyed? Views on women? Ignorance spread? Hatred fostered?

Good point. I think in terms of people murdered (often in horrific ways), and the degradation of women, Christianity and islam are vying for the top spot. And I don’t think Buddhism is actually a religion.

Write Comment
You can include a link to this post in your posts and comments by including the text q:318922
Agnostic does not evaluate or guarantee the accuracy of any content. Read full disclaimer.