I feel that when it comes to religion or sensitive issues people get overtly defensive and fail to acknowledge some level of accountability.
Think of a company where some employees engage in corruption or scamming. Once exposed, it becomes a major scandal. The reputation of the company is tarnished. The entire organization is scrutinized top down for such unscrupulous dealings. Are all employees like this? Does management condone such behavior? Surely the company has an organizational structure that lets people easily do such things. Even when most employees are innocent, such scrutiny is inevitable. A company cannot ignore the problem or refuse to acknowledge it. The company cannot say we are innocent and expect everyone to believe it. People want accountability and responsibility. People want a promise of follow up and change. The company has to take significant actions to punish the guilty, establish rules and guidelines and continuously monitor their employees to prevent such issues from rising again.
Similarly when members of a certain religion or community engage in violence it becomes a major issue. The reputation of that faith or community is tarnished. Everyone looks at them top down to see if everyone is messed up. Is every member of this group like this? Do the preachers/leaders/holy books condone such behavior. Surely there is something wrong with the belief structure that lets people do this. Even when most people are innocent, it is human nature to scrutinize. Religions simply cannot ignore the problem and refuse to acknowledge it. They cannot say most of us are good and expect people to blindly buy it. They have to become accountable and say, yes we see a problem within our ranks. They must commit to some sort of change to steer their entire population towards better behavior. Accountability and responsibility is a must.
Even if most priests were innocent, the Catholic Church had to do accept the sex abuse scandal and do something about it.
Even if not all cops are racist, the justice system in USA has to acknowledge the racial biases and do something about it
Even if all Indians are not rapists, India has to admit they have a rape problem and try to uplift the perception of women
Similarly, even though most Muslims are innocent and denounce terrorism - Islam has to acknowledge that they have a problem with terrorism. They have to admit that Muslim religious terrorism is the current most pressing global issue. People are not saying the entire religion is bad. What people are asking is please acknowledge the problems affiliated with you and do your best to fix it.
Edited by return_to_hades - 10 years ago
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