this post was submitted on 21 Jul 2023
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Counterpoint: Religion cannot be evil, as it is a human construct and cannot exhibit behavior, evil or otherwise. It's people who use it for evil. The people are the problem.
Is a computer virus not evil?
The original writer might be dead but it doesn’t mean that on its own the virus can’t do harm anymore.
Religion is a virus. The words are of hate and bigotry. As long as a single human is still infested with the “religion virus”, it will be able to spread hate and oppression.
No, software is not capable of being immoral or wicked. It might have been created with immoral and wicked intent, but the intent of the creator does not imprint wickedness onto the creation.
Really, though, I get the point you're trying to make. We're just arguing semantics.
Yes it does.
If I wrote a virus code to destroy other people’s computers and put it onto the internet, then regardless if I’m still alive or not, the code is going to continue to do the evil it was made for.
Intention matters. Religion was made to control people. It will continue doing so until it is completely wiped off the face of the earth.
Not OP but virus is just an algorhytm without decisive power to act either way, it has no ground for intent or decision. Like a gun. It's people who kills. You being alive doesn't matter if you left a shotgun rigged to shoot at the door once someone come in. The problem is the man who wrote the guide to create such traps, those who reprint it, those who take it to their heart and indocrinate others to use it to welcome their neighbors.
There's a bad reading of the Fight Club (and not only it). A piece of fiction is mutated by the previous biases, to support them back in a loop. They see Tyler as an alpha chad, and think the same imaginary guy lives within them, and letting him out is the way to become the fucker of women and the leader of men. It doesn't tik all points of the Religion(tm), but it's not far from individual toxic faith. Was Fight Club a bad book?
Or in case it isn't fair, have you read Mein Kampf? Yeah, the universally Bad Book. I've read it in my late teens for it was so banned in my country (me edgy), I needed to access the second page of Google before downloading it. It felt sooo boring, and preaching, and whiney, and fake. I literally couldn't believe someone really read it on their own. But then again, the society of nazi Germany was supposed to read this toilet paper, to gift it to others, to make something out it. And some, who felt like this miserable painter and vet, took it to their heart. They've seen answers to questions they had before, they've seen their own reflection in it, and they've seen their existing hate doubled down in this piece of crap. And others just played in, having it as an accessory because it is what others do.
Is it familiar?
If there's a group of miserable people, they would make 50 Shades of Grey a bestseller (they did), and they would execute the code lying in it if they are vulnerable.
Educated population with critical perception of media who don't have these fantasies already, would not be infected with a written word. Their insecurities and biases make it happen, their need to be enabled to act on them. As someone wrote, 'To shoot, one should have a bullet in their heart'.
Abuse of religion comes from people who need it to have slaves, beat wives or find why they are so miserable. Others would not turn into it by reading a book. Unless the same people would make it the rules of the game, like it was to have a gift edition of MK as your table book.
To be hurt by a trojan, you need a computer, that would be happy to run it. And growing scepticism against religious radicalism in the west shows we slowly come to immunity against it. But it's still not neutered, still widespread, as there are still people vulnerable enough for it.