(no subject)

[sophiaserpentia]

Crossposting to challenging_god.

Is it fair to judge a religion on the basis of actions done by its followers? By this I mean of course weighing the good deeds as well as the bad ones. Or should this judgment be made simply on the basis of the teachings themselves?

Underlying this question is another one: to what extent is a religion defined by the people that make it up?

Comments

[rmwilliamsjr.livejournal.com]

I'm particularly concerned with the possibility of using scripture to justify deeds both good and bad.

Slavery is an excellent topic to work on with this desire. The big problem in my mind is that justification seems oftentimes as you put it after the fact. With slavery in the US the problem is complex and i for one have put a lot of time into it without coming to any firm conclusions.

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

With slavery in the US the problem is complex and i for one have put a lot of time into it without coming to any firm conclusions.

People on both sides of the debate made considerable appeals to scripture in support of their position. One could even, with strategic selection of passages, make a case that scripture opposes economic exploitation in all forms. An interesting example here might be the OT prohibition of usury, or rules regarding forgiveness of debts when suing poor people.

But, that just highlights one of the things that makes examination of scripture so difficult for me. The fact that Biblical scripture can be used to support just about any position one takes is to my mind a knock against it. One cannot make a similar claim about, say, Buddhist or Taoist scripture.