We are all guilty of damning a whole group, usually a church or religion, for what some people in the group do. We do not argue, “Right once you lot do that, you are no longer part of that group.” It is not up to us to declare them excommunicated or expelled from their group. And even if it were we would not class them as outside the group. And we tend to ignore how the group itself still treats them as brethren. That means the group itself is asking for assessment as a group for what harm SOME of its members do. Those who would condemn say a religion if ALL were bad in it are making no sense. It is not a numbers game. The SOME count too albeit less. But you cannot keep saying the religion is totally safe when the some show that it is not. And as evil is supposed to look smarter and smaller to be tactical than it actually is then the situation with the SOME is worse than you think.
The fact is that if a person acts and does unimaginable harm in the name of their religion, the damage may be such as would be done by all of them. A religion should be condemned for the amount of damage it does not for the extent to which its members participate. And you see with Christianity, people keep baptising their children into that faith despite there being faiths with more integrity and no blood-soaked history out there.
Figureheads and clerics and celebrities in a religion are made by us to reflect badly on it if their grave misdemeanors are found out. Those who say that a religion is good despite all the bad behaviour and clerical child abuse are being fake. Or they are just looking at the figureheads and clerics and celebrities that suit their narrative that it is a good religion. Jesus as the focus of Christianity and Joseph Smith as the focus of Mormonism mean that the whole tree is sullied if they are malign and dangerous roots. And they are and were but that is a conversation for another time. The members should walk away and are to be challenged and criticised if they do not.
If the evil is done by some in your religious group then what? You should be blamed for your influence on those persons or lack of it. Some in the group do the evil yes but you are not guilt-free. This is true even if you do not know. Influence carries wider than you can imagine. It is deceptive then to point to some in a religion and say they are evil and that that is enough. It is not. The some make bad energy for the whole. And allies who are not in the religion have some damning questions to answer too.
You might think, "It is no wonder we develop a prejudice against a group for what a few within it does because we tend to remember the bad a person has done against us and forget the good. Once you have that prejudice you are asking for people to grant you the same condemnation in return. Or worse. You cannot talk if you are on the receiving end when you dish it out to others."
Why do we remember the bad so well? Why do we let it sully our relationship with a person who is heroically good to us but who has done a few wrongs?
It is because we sense there is more to bad and bad people than meets the eye. It is also because our gratitude tends to be very fragile. It may be because we see evil as part of a cosmic supernatural force, a power greater than us and as an enemy of God who alone truly loves us and works for us. You may not even realise you see evil that way. Your actions give you away. Atheists as well may not realise that they treat evil as some occult magical or even conscious force. So it is directly supernatural and also indirectly tied to the supernatural for God responds to it.
It is because of our pride where we just want our own way all the time and the person harming us has damaged our ego. And it does not have to be directed at a person. We can feel that way about a group that has made harmful mistakes or exhibited malice on occasion where we are concerned.
It is also because we know fine well that forgiveness keeps changing for the better or worse and may be cancelled altogether or is a cover for lies you are telling yourself that you accept the person who wronged you. Forgiveness the supposed solution for the onslaught of evil is not great. Failing to forgive but refusing to let the wrong done against you make you feel bad any more is fine. It is that moving on that brings good results not forgiveness which too often leads to the victim hating herself - "O I am so bad for I cannot forgive and don't want to" - and becoming re-victimised.
Religion tells us if we forgive we will be free of the cycle of evil and not become any more distrusting than we are. It says human mercy is flawed but if it is a gift from God then it can only heal if we let it. If forgiveness is a gift from God to you the victim and your attacker then you must also be rewarded for granting it and the other for taking it. One reward is that you are open to feeling good and probably will. Religion says that you won't even see most of the rewards right now and many are waiting for you in Heaven. The notion that forgiveness is a gift leads directly to a dangerous sense of security, essentially a placebo. You deal with the threat of harm by dismissing it.
Forgiveness is simply letting the past go and saying it does not matter anymore and things can get better. So to forgive somebody taking a sip from your beer is just as much forgiving as forgiving a cruel vicious massacre where your people are tortured to death. We want to believe that forgiving the latter is something amazing and noble while the former is a trifle. Forgiveness is forgiveness because evil is evil. Evil can be compared to making a crack in the bathtub. Small or big does not really matter. Letting a small crack appear can be very destructive over time. The big one is more obviously destructive. But it is about principle and nothing else.
Religious faith goes hand in hand with unfair thinking and has the diabolical Law of Attraction in one form or other. It is no wonder many oppose your own religious setup and your church.
The Law of Attraction is a form of mind over matter. It is rife in spiritual circles and is a form of victim-blaming. A person may help you yes but they want to deep down suggest to themselves that you do the damage to yourself with bad attitudes or neglecting to do something. That way if they feel they fall short they console themselves by blaming you. They may not even realise that is what is happening.
The Law says good thoughts become good things and unpleasant or negative thoughts become bad things. The person is accused of causing their own cancer and wasting the hospital's resources. They did this by not praying, or obeying God or by thinking fearful thoughts. The religious person modifies this a bit by saying that prayer only guarantees God will be with you not that you will never contract the terrible illness you pray against. But they admit that they cannot be sure or give evidence that any particular person has not asked for their cancer by failing to pray correctly. They teach that human sin shuts God out so cancers come not as a strict punishment but because you have excluded the one being whose love helps. This is just the Law of Attraction changed in some details to disguise its utter stupidity and toxicity. A roundabout Law of Attraction is worse than a blunt one. The latter shows what you are dealing with.
If we need God and are made for God and suffer for we feel he is not there, then that is an illness, a real illness, and the worst illness of all. It may or may not be accompanied by terrible pain but pain is not the sole way to tell how well or well somebody is. If there is no God then the victim is being blamed. You are accusing them of abandoning a God who is not there. You are an abuser.
We must admit that atheists are underhandedly accusing them of creating a need they should not have and suffering.
If atheists and religionists both downgraded the alleged importance of the God question it might be kinder.
The Law of Attraction proponents claim that the searcher who finds nothing where they are supposed to maybe find God is deluded or blind. That tells you you are sick. One Law of Attraction that is true is that if you are called insane or damaged you will believe it and you will make it true. That is a clear example of a Law of Attraction doctrine, "If you pray correctly you will have God and you have him no matter if evidence and/or experience is saying you do not." It bullies the person and refuses to hear them. It is serious for it says that once you decide God is not there, that bad things come to you for you are outside his protection and blocking it. This is as very bit as vicious as the version of the Law that we all know and hate.
We conclude that there are many inherent harms in religion that justify and demand that you run for the door. The good people who claim membership are not the point then. And as harmers use good to get inroads they irrelevant. And religion also causes separations in society despite knowing that we need to have tribal instincts and don't need anything that makes them worse or becomes an occasion for sectarianism.