Do you think anybody does anything because they actually believe

[Promethean]

8. This can go different ways depending on the individual.

There are the people who just use god as a justification for their own desires. Hey I found this holy scripture which can be interpreted to mean what I want it to mean.

There are also true believers and people who live in a society where the dogma is literally law. Then the misdeeds can be attributed to a plain reading of the dogma. The thing is the people with power in these societies usually show signs of being in the previous category. They manipulate the true believers for their own ends.


Another factor is what you mention in post #2. There is a religion right now with a huge number of true believers (over a billion in number). There are several countries where this religion's dogma is law. These dogmas directly and unambiguously command what we see as atrocity. However a certain ideology in our society have labeled members of this religion as victims that must be protected.

This ideology has complete control over our universities. Has huge influence in our media. Yet claims to powerless and victimized and is thus immune from its own definition of wrongdoing. It does this while defending the religion of atrocity as hard as it can because: victim status. To the point where it is taboo in our media to attribute any wrongdoing to the dogmas of the religion.

I must be obscure. This "powerless and oppressed" ideology has so little power it definitely cannot get me banned from this forum for speaking against it...