It is quite popular to condemn religion of every stripe. It is not just that religions are false, they are actually dangerous. It is an emotional argument against religion as people just sense how bad religion must be. I will say that there are examples of religious people doing bad things. That is horrible and I do not condone it. But before condemning religion on this basis, I would like to offer a few things to keep in mind.
1. Religious organizations are at the forefront of charitable and relief work. If you look at the relief organizations out there, by far the majority have some sort of religious connection. On a smaller scale, many local churches are also actively involved in working with the poor and the hungry. Just keep this in mind.
2. Religious people have been extremely active in scientific and other scholarly advancements. People keep bringing up Galileo as if he was typical of the relationship between the church and science. He was not and even in his case, he was a devout Christian and so he is not very useful in condemning religion. Just keep this in mind.
3. There are many religious people involved in terrible crimes and wars throughout history. But before the last couple of centuries, almost every person was connected with some religious group. By default, a person doing something horrible had to be connected to a religion (even if they didn’t practice it). Just keep this in mind.
4. When atheism has had the opportunity to be the official world view of a country, it has not worked out so well. I don’t see many atheists flocking to North Korea, China or the Soviet Union (when it was around). Just keep this in mind.
5. When the numbers are counted, more people have died in non-religious wars than in religious wars. Just keep this in mind.
None of this proves Christianity is true. But it may give people something to think about when it comes to the danger of religion.
