You can not make this shit up...

[Kim]

Originally Posted by bluestarultor

You remembered right.

The Crusades? Let's check what Jesus had to say on the matter once. Nothing on war? Okay, then.

The Crusades were pretty much entirely political and a case of




Or, in my own words, religion is in general a beautiful, pure thing; it's the people who are corrupt and muck it up.

One thing I really can't stand is how whenever a religion does a bad thing, it's the people who are to blame, but whenever it does a good thing, it's because religions are inherently positive movements at heart. That's just... I really can't think of a way to put it, but it's always irritated the hell out of me.

For the topic at hand, making a personal judgment, the 'religion' in question is founded on corrupt ideals. I'll plop myself right here and say I fully recognize it as a system of belief, but I do not recognize it as a religion.

Blues, you are not the supreme arbitor of what is or isn't religion. Coming up with narrow definitions of what is or isn't religion is outside the scope of your education, and when you do it you are definitely doing it as a way to exclude things you don't want to consider religions, rather than defining religion and then holding to that definition when evaluating others. There are plenty of religions I'd argue are corrupt or founded on corrupt ideas. Doesn't mean I don't acknowledge them as religions.

Oh, and on Buddhism, it's less a religion and more a philosophy. Just throwing that out there on the worship topic.

I'm not educated enough on Buddhism to really say one way or the other, but I'm sure there are plenty of Buddhists who would disagree with you, and I really wouldn't tell them, "No, you aren't a religion" if they claimed such.