Absolutely, but the problem lies not so much with religions but in certain types of people who use and pervert religions for the purpose of hurting or controlling others.
When you’re talking about “Christians” like the Donald Trump types, Westboro Baptist “God Hates fags” types, the Margarita Taylor Greene types I consider to be enemies… much like Jesus did in the Gospels. Jesus considered these types sanctimonious, hypocritical, ignoramuses whose damnation would be greatest, so he wouldn’t have liked them either.
Anyone who doesn’t like those sorts of Christians, but feels that respecting religion is a good thing, should read the gospels. They’re not very long - Mark being about 11,000 words, Matthew and Luke being about 20,000 each, and John around 16,000 - these are the core texts of Christian scripture - the ones with the messages of Jesus. They also happen to be the ones those Televangelists, judgment politicians, and judgmental hate groups always seem to conveniently forget or will cherry pick out of context for their usage—something Jesus also said was a bad thing, and accused his enemies of. Should we respect these sorts of Christians when even their own religious founder clearly would not?
I’m sure Jesus would say respect goes two ways. If these hateful sorts judge you and therefore aren’t respecting you, you are under no obligation to respect them back; Jesus would agree with you.
Also, while Matthew is generally placed first in the Gospels, IMO, Mark is the best paced and sharpest of the bunch and the one I’d recommend reading first.
The Gospel of Matthew is a similar story to Mark, but has the infancy narrative (you know, three wisemen and baby Jesus), and is much more comparative/conflict based, this is the one where Jesus is harshest toward Republican-type religious sorts.
The Gospel of John is different from the others, it focuses much more heavily on theology, and isn’t as morally strong IMO. If you’re interested in Gnosticism and Hellenistic Judaism, the Gospel of John is a must-read.
The Gospel of Luke comes last, it is most like Mark, and it also contains the infancy narrative. It’s the most developed of the Gospels, and maybe the most enjoyable version of the story. It is also probably by the same writer who wrote The Book of Acts, so it feels most natural.
Acts is like the sequel to the Gospels, and the fifth book of the Christian Bible. It covers the story of Jesus’s followers after his death.
The Epistles suck, they’re very preachy.
The book of Revelation is kind of nonsense to most people. Unless you’re interested in historical metaphors, just avoid this one. There are parallels with the Gospels as well, but that’s (again) for people with a much deeper scholarly interest.
The Old Testament has some interesting books too, but IMO they’re kind of Monty Python level. The books of Kings, Samuel, and some of the others are great, Song of Songs.
Avoid Genesis, Exodus, Numbers and others - instead read other books about these ones as IMO they’re very very very dry. The Book of Dan and such are apocalyptic texts like Revelation, and probably should be ignored by non-religious sorts for the same reason. Psalms and other books can be ignored too, they’re just sayings, I’m a big reader of religious texts and even I couldn’t do these ones.
I describe myself as a little dose of toxic masculinity.
