How come Republicans hide being gay?

[Dare2Dream]

You are right Dutchie, technically, there is nothing "wrong" with religion. The teachings of most religions are meant to foster kindness, acceptance, forgiveness, love, and etc.

The problem, which you aptly put, is that humans have become "religious polluters". People take the teachings of their respective religions and twist them and manipulate them for their own purposes, and take them much too literally, getting away from everything these lessons were meant to be.

And this is the reason why people like me, and obviously people like Wasabi, understand that religion is one of the top driving forces behind the opposite of kindness, acceptance, forgiveness, love and etc. Religion only serves to foster hate, extremism, non-acceptance and inevitably war, death and destruction. This is the way it has been since the start of recorded history. So why then do sooooo many people, still adhere to something that is so obviously the cause of such worldwide chaos?

Bart

One cannot judge religion by the worst of it's adherents who follow a perverted and twisted form of faith, but rather judge a person's actions by the ideals of the faith they adhere to. Nut jobs like those from al-Qaeda represent Islam as much as Hitler or Timmothy Mcvey may represent Christianity. But the point is that you cannot look at the worst and judge all religion by it. People like Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, who were motivated by religion, made incredible achievements, the fruits of which we still enjoy even today. So while religion can be hijacked by extremists, the vast majority of Muslims, Jews, Chrisitians and people of other faiths have made great achievements while drawing inspiration from their faith.

Similarly, remember that hundreds of millions who died in the past century died because of wars fought over secular idealogies such as nationalism (WWI), fascism (WWII), Communism, Imperialism, and Colonialism, all of which have nothing to do with religion. So looking only at religious extremism while ignoring everything else is unfair.