I find it increasingly common for people to judge beliefs rather than people.  Most of the major faiths tend not to encourage their members to commit horrible, unspeakable acts.  Yet every time a member of any belief system does anything unpleasant, either they or others will attribute the action to the faith.

What got me thinking about this is the certainty that these people have undoubtedly done some socially dubious things of their own over the years. Does this mean that they believe they are as vile as the worst things they have done? Or would they prefer to be viewed as a totality of their experience and actions.

To my understanding, a belief system is usually a set of values and guidelines often spiritual in nature, which it’s followers are tasked with implementing in their lives. If a follower of a given belief misinterprets, either accidentally or deliberately, those values or guidelines, it is not the fault of the belief, but of the follower.

This remains true whether the individual is twisting the belief to justify hiding a pedophile to protect an institution, or to strap on a suicide vest. In either case, responsibility rests with the individual and not the belief they have hijacked for their own purposes. Yet many people on all sides persist in judging the belief itself.

I believe this to be an example of something which will no doubt show up in future posts as well. I tend to think of it as the depersonalizing of responsibility. The person encouraging people to blow up themselves and others isn’t doing this to create a more beneficial power structure for themselves, they are doing it for God. Likewise the person choosing to hide a pedophile in order to protect the organization they are part of isn’t doing it to maintain their own position of power and privilege, they do it to protect God’s spokespersons on earth.

The other side of this problem is just as ugly. When many people think of suicide bombers, they don’t think of a relatively small subset of a particular belief who have co-opted the entire group as a justification for an otherwise unthinkable act. Instead, these few are seen as being representative of the larger group about whose beliefs the average person likely knows next to nothing.
In the same sense, the pedophile and those who chose to hide them rather than address the issue are not seen as deviant and corrupt respectively, but as representative of the faith they use to hide their crimes. The faith again is judged by actions of these relative few rather than on it’s own merits.

Faiths in whatever are seldom judged on their own merits, but on the actions of individual persons claiming it for their own. It matters not at all if the person is acting according to the belief they want to take the blame, if they claim it, the rest if the world will usually go along with the joke.

I guess my ultimate message about beliefs and the people who abuse, distort and hide behind them would be this: Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.