Religion Gone Mad

People's Crusade of 1096
(Public Domain)

People who say, “You can’t live with it,” often forget to add “but you can’t live without it.”  This can be true for many of life’s essentials: water can flood homes as well as quench thirst, air can hurl trees as well as fill lungs, and religion can help to sin as well as help to save.

The kind of religion that helps to sin is the kind that falls very far from its holy roots.  It’s the kind that human history has borne way too often.  It’s the kind that has fostered the Salem Witch Trials, the (so-called) Holy Crusades, the Branch Davidian Disaster, the Thirty Years War, the Mass Deaths of Jonestown, and many other such tragic events.

Yet the misuse of religion does not mean that religion itself is no good.  Much like water and air, religion can be essentially life affirming when not tainted by humans gone mad.

Resources

https://www.msn.com/en-us/video/peopleandplaces/10-worst-things-religions-have-ever-done/vi-AA1FKd6K?ocid=winp2fptaskbar&cvid=8853bb290dca43bfb6619593424fe482&ei=31