Are there any religions or cults that you just do not understand? With in reason.

[sapphi_snake]

padib said:

Sorry to cut out the top part as it was a good post, but I wanted to focus on this last paragraph. I agree that belief is best left to the individual for the most part, I also believe people help each other understand things as we're doing together right now. The one thing I would say here is that the dangers of organization or unified thought is that it transcends religion, and my example of Nazist germany is the hallmark of it. The whole country was in awe of this one leader and his great vision for Germany, so much so that they were blinded to the massive killings that this glorious vision involved. To even suggest that catholicism caused this is totally ignorant of what actually happened. If anything, Hitler created the adoration of himself, which Christianity in any form would consider idolatry.

My point is it's unfair to limit this issue to religion, it applies to ideology as a whole. The best solution to this is as you said critical thinking, thinking for oneself, and refusing to accept the most popular notion only because it's popular. Sadly with Facebook and all this thumbs up nonesense that direction is going more the way of the shits. Then again, forums like this are a good place to generate new thoughts and challenges to established ideas, which is a great thing.

Catholics are responsable for the anit-jewish sentiment that existed in Germany and Europe as a whole. The Holocaust is basically the the culmination of the persecution of Jews that the Pope ordered in the Middle Ages.