>

The OP's assertion was in the context of interpretation.  Weaponizing meaning interpreting in a bad way in that context.    Interpretation done by the individual makes it the individuals responsibility in my opinion.
Sure, if one of the 10 commandments was to kill non-heterosexuals that would put a lot of the blame on the religion.
/u/Choice_Lettuce2544 (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.
All comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.
Please note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.
^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards >

With religions as big as the ones you mentioned, you're talking about hundreds of millions of people, all with different personal beliefs and different levels of acceptance of the different teachings of their respective religions. So most generalizations are just gonna be false.
That being said, there are identifiable issues that are rooted in religious beliefs that, even though we're not talking about 100% of them, a large proportion, sometimes a majority, accept them as they are thought, or as they are written in their respective scriptures. I think it is fair to criticize and "scrutinize" these issues, not because they are rooted in texts written so long ago, but because so many of these people accept them and live by them today. >


I think it is fair to criticize and "scrutinize" these issues

Of course it is fair to scrutinize the issues. I am speaking the effectiveness of scrutinizing the religion as a whole. >


While the scriptures may contain writing that is callous towards women and gay people, it is important to remember that the bible and Quran were written at a time when values and morals were vastly different and these groups were viewed and treated much differently than they are now.

And if we treated the books merely as historical texts then you might have a point.  Looking at a piece of literature within the context of the time it was written makes sense for literary critique - for example, talking about how the language in Huckleberry Finn was the common language of the time and not putting too much critique of that in your review.
The problem arises that religious texts are not used simply as historical documents; they are used by many as guides on how to behave in the modern world.  Those passages of scripture are quoted by many as how one should believe and behave today and used as a moral rubric for decisions in 2023.
That is something that should be scrutinized and critiqued in society.  Any moral framework, regardless of when it was written, is fair game for discussion when people are attempting to justify that framework's modern-day use. >

That response is entirely divorced from how people do this in practice. When people scrutinize religious texts in order to criticize and critique religious people, they're not looking for passages that are widely quoted and deployed by religious people to support moral frameworks they disagree with in order to discount those moral frameworks. Doing so would be pointless, because if you already disagree with the moral framework that is based on the text, well it doesn't really matter what the text says, you can just disagree with the end product - the moral framework that is being applied and used in the real world - rather than the text that it is allegedly based on. The authority of the Ayatollah is theoretically derived from scripture, for example, but you don't see a lot of people going to scripture to discredit him, because dictatorship is already a thing that everyone disagrees with. You can just criticize the thing, the textual support for the thing is irrelevant
In practice, scripture is scrutinized for purposes of critique by looking for passages that mainstream believers either ignore or interpret in a non-literal way, in order to make them look bad. So you go and find the sword verse for example, which most modern Muslims interpret as having referred to a specific time and not as a duty for all Muslims to carry out, and argue that no, they're actually wrong about their own religion, and this verse proves that Islam is not a religion of peace, or whatever. In the process, the critic of Islam becomes an amateur Islamic theologian, doing their own hermeneutics to invent their very own Islam which they can then criticize. It's not a very productive activity for criticizing how the text is used to justify a modern day moral framework, because in order to do it, you have to ignore the modern day moral frameworks and just make up your own one based on how you think the text ought to be interpreted. 
Essentially what you're saying is that people should criticize scripture in order to criticize people who have bad morals based on that scripture, but in practice what people actually do is use scripture to criticize people who have good morals based on that scripture. Because obviously bad morals can just be criticized on their own. Nobody goes to the Qur'an to prove that terrorists are bad, because everyone already agreed that terrorists were bad without having read the Qu'ran. What people do instead is go to the Qur'an to prove that peaceful Muslims are secretly terrorists. >

To me there is a big difference between saying "all Muslims are secretly terrorists" and saying "the Quran is a fictional book full of bad ideas" most atheists argue the latter because we all have religious loved ones in our lives and we know they aren't secretly genocidal, we just want them to look at the world more rationally. 
Maybe you or the OP would argue "you only think these are bad ideas because you are judging by modern standards". My counterpoint is simply, God isn't bound by standards of the time, an all powerful omnipotent being can't justify bad ideas by saying they were acceptable by the standards of the time. >

"everyone who is a part of the faith is a fundamentalist nut job" well this is kind of the point isn't it? Let's use one of your examples; you either believe in the Bible or you don't. It is either true or it isn't. There cannot be an in between there really. 
It doesn't really make sense to say "I am a Christian that doesn't actually believe the bible to be true", THOSE are counterintuitive statements. 
The issue with Christianity is that the Bible is contradictory, regressive, and full of hate. Their religion is based on the Bible being true, they cannot exist separately. 
To try and say well most Christians just ignore parts of the bible so you shouldn't criticize them for those parts of the bible is exactly why they're being scrutinized. It either stands true to this day or is false. >


you either believe in the Bible or you don't. It is either true or it isn't. There cannot be an in between there really.

The bible is a collection of texts, written by a lot of different people at a lot of different times about a lot of different topics... it's not just a binary statement. >

It sort of is though. Either the "God" in these texts directed all of these texts to be written, therefore they are all true OR "God" didn't take part of any of it. 
It sort of baffles me how people can be like, oh yeah Mark and Luke, I follow them, but that Paul guy, no no no. Paul wrote about women having less rights and that they can't have authority over men, that they have to have their heads covered. But we can ignore 13/27 of the New Testament because Paul was writing it.
But sure, we can just ignore when Matthew tells us to give our belongings away to thieves because we don't like that verse. Or when he tells us to give our other cheek to be assaulted, we don't like that either. Or when Mark tells us to sleep with our dead relatives wives or to chop off your hands if you steal. 
I guess picking and choosing which verses written by the 12 Disciples or Jesus' chosen apostles is fine and doesn't raise alarms. Definitely not a reason to scrutinize because its not binary, you can just pick and choose what verses to listen to.
That invalidates the entire religion in my eyes. If you are picking and choosing what to listen to by God's "chosen messengers" than you aren't following God's word and you aren't a Christian. >

You seem to have a very western (or at least American) idea of what religion is. Religion is a very open ended idea. A lot of things are nuanced and in the gray. It isn't an "either you're with us or not" type situation (at least it shouldn't be) when it comes to religion. Religion is a vast group of people coming together to loosely follow a set of principles and morals, not picking and choosing bible verses like they're apples on a tree. You won't suddenly become a "bad christian" if you don't take every passage word for word in the bible. IMO you can't even be a "bad christian" in general, just like you can't be a "bad potterhead" or a "bad star wars fan". >

I don't. I just used a very specific religion as an example. Some religions are waxing and waning but others aren't. Christianity isn't one that is variable, you either believe in the doctrine as a whole, believe in parts of it, or don't believe. If you believe in it all fine. If you believe in parts that invalidates what you believe in by inherently generating doubt in authenticity of what you do believe in (why believe Mark but not Luke), it's contradictory. If you don't believe fine.
You can be a bad star wars fan. If I said "yeah, Captain Kirk was really great in the phantom menace" I'd be a bad star wars fan.
But relating being a fictional fan of something to religion is asinine if you're arguing for any type of validity in worshipping a religion. >

I don't think religions are very valid and I made that clear in my original post. I like to think that the bible and Quran are more silly fantasy stories than genuine spiritual scripture. >

This doesn't address my arguments at all. You claim that religion is open-ended and I was using a specific religion where it isn't. The religion and its texts are nothing more than silly fantasy because the Bible is full of contradictions yet directed by an unchanging God. This is why we can scrutinize a religion.
If I made a religion where the only rules were do not drink water and you have to drink water twice a day, this would be up for scrutiny because I am contradicting myself in the rules I am creating. This is what the "doctrine" does. >


My whole argument is basically that interpretation is key. The way one interprets a religion can affect their decisions in life but it's not the fault of the religion if someone weaponizes it in a harmful way. Bigots will always find a way to justify their bigotry and for many corrupt governments and states, religion is the easiest way to go since it is so unnecessarily and stupidly attached to a person's identity. The real problem IMO is people identifying as "christian" or "muslim" rather than viewing religious scripture like any other fantasy novel like Harry Potter or Percy Jackson which all have good guiding lessons for life.

I want to point out how this passage indicates you don't really understand the faith of the followers of Abrahamic religions. Jews, Christians, and Muslims all believe their scriptures, in some shape or form, to be the inspired word of the creator of the universe, God. They are not fantasy stories like Harry Potter, and to make the comparison is a pretty big insult to even the more liberal followers, who would probably stop having a conversation with you. I mean, you might as well go full anti-theist at that point and start attacking their religion because why not? You already went to what amounts to a "sky-Daddy" line with your last sentence.
Sometimes the bigotry caused by religion is due to the religious texts itself, not the bigotry of the person in question. It can also prevent bigots from experiencing empathy or reasoning that would eliminate said person's bigotry. I'll use myself as an example. I was raised Catholic, and for about a four year period in my late teens-early twenties, I became rather fundamentalist. Catholicism teaches that Jesus Christ is the son of God, that he died for our sins, and through his death and resurrection that we can achieve salvation through believing in Jesus and following the commands of God. The Church, with the pope as the head, is Christ's appointed physical institution on earth. That means that when the Church says we do X, we do X. When the Church says these books are divinely inspired, these books are divinely inspired. And when said divinely inspired books say homosexuality is perverse, sexual relations outside of contraception within marriage is immoral, non-believers will burn in hell, a man who tried to kill his son because God told him to was morally righteous, and that God was morally justified in commanding death penalties and genocides, I also "believed" it. I put "believe" in quotes because I'm not really sure I truly believed it, but I acted like I did. I had enough tact to know when to hold back, which saved me in the long run, but there were definitely instances, particularly within my family, where things got ugly. I wasn't trying to justify some internal bigotry or hatred. I was trying to be a good person. I just believed that, in order to be a good person, I had to follow Christ, and this is what Christ's teachings told me to do.
And this is why we criticize the whole scriptures of religions. It's not that we necessarily want to go down this route every day. I don't argue with my religious family about how they believe in God. But their is always the possibility that they will actually read the scriptures and follow the logical route down the rabbit whole towards fundamentalism. Sometimes, merely pointing out the double-standard will cause someone to reevaluate their theology to a more liberal one, but other times the only real option to avoid problems is to attack the vast majority of the religion and explain how accepting the whole religion means accepting the unacceptable. It doesn't always work, and probably fails most of the time, but that's just the nature of arguing. I agree that going down a diatribe against a particular faith is always worth it, but it does have its time and place. >


The arguments posed here are so pointless because they assume that everyone who is a part of the faith is a fundamentalist nut job

There is an important distinction between scrutinizing a religion and scrutinizing the people who follow that religion. 
The religion is the doctrine outlined in the holy text and, if applicable, by a religious authority. Criticizing the ideology broadly is not the same as criticizing individuals who may identify with the ideology (but omit several key components). 

I'm simply saying that we should not turn this into an "islam problem" or a "christian problem" simply because its doctrine doesn't reflect modern day values.

When a disproportionate number of followers of a specific religion express problematic values as a result of their religion, then it becomes a religious problem. 
If the book says "women are worth less than men" and you treat women as being worth less as a result, then your interpretation of the text and the text itself are problematic. >

I understand there is a difference between scrutinizing people and organized faith and I agree that I should have made that more clear in my original post, but I think my argument still stands firm. Religion is associated with identity too closely nowadays. IMO we SHOULD criticize the followers who use religion to dictate their every thought and belief. I mean, should we hate all ambitious and cunning people just because they are painted in a negative light in Harry Potter? Of course not. They are human beings and deserve to be treated as such. Should we criticize the whole universe of Harry Potter because it depicts certain characteristics in a bad light? You could, but then again it would be pointless and serve no purpose. >

The problem is that alot of religious folks that no one would ever consider a "fundamentalist" bring these bronze age and medieval religious texts forward when clashing with modern values or laws
If they bring it up, I'm gonna scrutinize the shit out of it >

Scrutinize the religion all you want. I'm not saying you can't. I just think its unhelpful. Criticize fundamentalist ideology instead and it will be a much more productive conversation with the other side. >

That makes no sense. 
Fundamentalists are by definition extremists and therefore not open to reason, debate or compromise.
Secondly, I explicitly stated the real issue is the "mainstream" religious populace who still uses their holy books to justify their political goals and social restrictions and discriminatory behaviour. 
The fundamentalists are like 1-2% of religious people and I don't care about their bloodthirsty cult-like nonsense of an ideology because almost no one buys into it.
What I do care about is when people try to lobby and bully people into accepting broadly impacting laws and rules in a vain attempt to make secular society just a little less secular with every passing generation on the basis that some bronze age retard said abortion was a big no-no back then and that gay people are sinners who shouldn't be tolerated or allowed to marry because they somehow convinced themselves marriage is a Christian institution. >

I don't understand how my argument makes no sense. Also, I think we are sort of disconnected by our definitions of fundamentalists. I believe that the American religious populace that you speak of should qualify as fundamentalists because they are taking scripture literally (even making up their own sometimes) and using it to justify certain views. As a person who is not from America, I can tell you that most people from where I live don't force their religious beliefs into law or political discourse. Fundamentalists are not as small of a group as you may think, especially in America where it seems every lawmaker, judge and president is fundamentalist nowadays. >

Scripture was written to be taken literally. The difference between normal religious populace and fundamentalists is that to a fundamentalist, everything has religion at its core, where as the normies just push their own beliefs and summarily justify it with whatever their priest says while driving off in his Ferrari.
Edit : and your Argument makes no sense because it proposes sensible discussion with people who would be happy to kill you for disrespecting their god. You can't talk to a fundamentalist because he doesn't live in the world you do. >


My whole argument is basically that interpretation is key. The way one 
interprets a religion can affect their decisions in life but it's not 
the fault of the religion if someone weaponizes it in a harmful way.

You seem to be arguing that the only valid interpretation of religions are ones that don't conflict with modern values, and that when someone follows tenets of their religion that conflict with modern values we shouldn't attribute any of that to the religion itself.
At face value, I don't see any way to justify that. It's only in recent history that the interpretations of these religions have begun to take a progressive shift. If anything, you're invalidating the religions and their believers by arguing that being faithful to the texts isn't valid. >

I think there is a huge difference between your text and title. The text mainly argues "not every believer lives exactly its described in the book" which is, i would say a common fact. For example, there are muslims who drink alcohol, have sexual intercourse before marriage and do all other stuff their religion forbids. You are completely right on this, we cannot judge these people simply based on their religions. But a muslim and islam are different things, exactly like christianity and christians. One is a religion and the other is a human being. I cannot say all muslims are sexist but I can say quran is sexist. One is a written text, an ideology and can/should be criticized >

I am not saying you should not or can't criticize a religion. If you read my title it states that doing so is  "pointless", meaning it is not a constructive or helpful to criticize the entire religion. >

The word pointless is a vague term. Pointless for who or what? If your goal is intellectual activity, it is super useful. If you are trying to understand the world better and consequently build a better version of it, criticizing religion is a necessity. If your goal is understanding certain religions better, again it is super useful. Criticizing a religion, when done without prejudices, opens up a dialogue between different understandings of the world. By discussing religion, we could also see our flaws and better ourselves. If there was more intellectual dialoges between religions, we could perhaps avoid stuff like colonization, slavery or even late stage capitalism. On the other hand, If you want to find a cure for the cancer or travel to the mars, yes it is pretty pointless. >

Δ
This is similar to the other comment, but again I think you make a lot of good points. I agree that we should scrutinize religion without biases and prejudices taking center stage. The problem with mainstream media discourse and even modern philosophers is that they try to criticize doctrine with the intent of painting it in a bad light using modern values as I said in my original post. As a skeptic myself, I used to watch Sam Harris, the intellectual atheist philosopher speak about religion. However, I always thought that he demeaned his message by attacking Islam's doctrine and scripture based on his morals and values. I believe that intellectual skeptics would do much better by sticking to interpretation and the existence of god rather than attacking a specific religion. >


it's not the fault of the religion if someone weaponizes it in a harmful way

Isn't it the other way around? 
It IS the fault of the religion if people follow it literally/strictly.  That's what it teaches. It's right there in print.
But the religion's beliefs are not the fault of individuals if they choose to follow it in more of a loosey goosey kind of way. >

I disagree. It should not be the other way around. People should be held accountable and criticized for their actions because it attempts to do something useful, change the way one views a religion or scripture. Criticizing the religion itself is not going to make it magically reform into a pinnacle of modern values. >

Ok. 
But how is it not the religion's fault if someone follows their tenets faithfully?