At the end of the day, a religion supplies the views that people can use to justify acts, whether before or after the actions.Caodemarte wrote: ↑Thu Jul 04, 2019 12:50 amA religion cannot act. Specific people do specific acts. Sometimes because of their beliefs. More often, their beliefs are used to justify the acts after they have occurred.Sherab wrote: ↑Wed Jul 03, 2019 11:31 pm It is the views that a religion propagates that will determine whether it is peaceful or not.
I think in general, humans are generally good. But they are also easily subjected to group-think. In that sense, nobel laurette Steven Weinbeg was correct to say that:
“With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil - that takes religion.”
For the justification to hold, there must be group-think.
A person or a small group must propagate that group-think.