RELIGION IS A SCAM FOR ACHIEVING DIFFUSION ON RESPONSIBILITY

Nathan Phelps in the book Christianity is Not Great makes the excellent point that "individuals can easily dismiss the harm others have committed in the name of a God because it wasn't them and they don't condone it." I would like to explore this implications of this statement. If belief in God leads some to do harm, then you need to change or discard the belief in order to stop that harm. Most believers being good or civil is no excuse for holding a belief that may lead some people to do harm. If you fix the belief and harm still happens at least the belief will be completely innocent. If your religion's claimed divine revelation consists of violent scriptures and is soft on sins like child sex abuse then it is your duty to leave it. No excuses.

Phelps continues that believers may keep their own hands clean but they protect the hands of those who dirty them and give "tacit approval" to nasty doctrines and Bibles. "If you proclaim allegiance to the Bible, you claim responsibility for its content and the injustice it perpetuates in society."
 
He says, "It is faith that not so much causes, but allows evil to flourish." It certainly does both. And allowing evil to flourish is trying to cause it even if nothing happens. If you think your local Church does good works, think about the evil it enables. That should balance your view. Don't let their goodness butter you up to the religion.
 
Why must you not stay in a lying or corrupt religion? If atheists are no better or worse than religious people, "it's no argument to say that evil will exist anyway, therefore we should let an existing justification for it continue." Phelps means religious organisation here. Atheists are individuals not a religious institution so if atheism does harm and is imperfect that is not a reason to refuse to consider supporting atheism. You may say it is true that evil will happen anyway. If so then we can make it worse by being in something that can be done without. Nobody dies from having no religion.

In fact, if a religion is not improving people's morals and their knowledge of morals and has official teachings that teach moral error then you should not be in it. It is something extra for people to quarrel and cause division over. It is a threat to truth and knowledge. A religion with excellent teaching that makes little difference in its people compared to non-believers should be walked away from. One that has official teaching that is wrong should be ran away from.

A religion that is about taking credit for the good some members do, especially the more famous good, knows there is another side of the coin.  It has to own the harm members do as well.  It will not do that.  A religion that steals the credit for good should be shut down for that alone. 

Many would rightly say that taking the light and the glory is harm.  It is stealing.  It shows nil respect for those who are praised even if it canonises them.

The secret of getting “good” or “ordinary” people to facilitate or conduct grave evil is to make them feel the responsibility is not all theirs. Diffusion of responsibility is the chief or essential secret. It makes the individual feel better about the evil because he or she feels the evil is shared with others so he or she is not so bad or no worse than anybody else. It makes the individual feel supported. It make the individual feel stronger to be part of something bigger, in this case, this nasty group.

When we go to such lengths to think ourselves good that we would distort the truth and warp our own minds it shows the importance of having the truth even if that means being in a religion.  Any false ideology or religion is a menace.  If it simply false and nothing else it empowers bad people for lies are easy to use for evil even if they are not your lies.

We all feel that the harm we do is okay or just naughty when we see other people doing it. That is what bad example is all about and why example is so powerful.

Diffusion of responsibility works not just with harm but with good too. You may do nothing for others but if your group does it you get a nice rewarding glow and feel part of it all. This will happen even if it is only a section of your group that you are not involved in as well.  The reason why Catholics are so enamoured with monstrous Mother Teresa is that they think she casts a glowing light on the rest of the Church ie them.  Getting a virtuous glow risks looking at the "good" side while the harmful side is ignored too much.  Religion in teaching that evil is not created by God but is just an abused good is clearly teaching that you should see only the good deeds and you can safely ignore the bad ones for they are being turned to good anyway by God.

The glow is bad for why should you feel that way when you don’t deserve to? It paves the way and makes it easier for you to condone the harm say your religion or political party does.

Thinking you connect to a God is another way to avoid feeling much responsibility for as creator, God is ultimately and foundationally the cause of all.  Even the choices we make are not in spite of him but because of him. He creates our choice.

Diffusion of responsibility can happen if you feel you share your part in something bad with God.

It happens so easily with this for you are told that bad things such as illnesses and accidents happen for a good purpose under God's care.

Diffusion of responsibility is a very common thing. Somebody is in serious trouble.  You can guarantee that witnesses will probably just walk on by or stand there.  The bystander effect is one of the most shocking things about human nature.  Diffusion of responsibility happens when the bystander assumes that someone else will intervene and can and should.  If the unfortunate person suffers the loss of limb or life you will tell yourself that it is not all your fault.  You will blame those who did not make things safe enough or you will blame chance for causing the harm in the first place and say that if you stood by you were not the only one.  Some will tell themselves that they did right to do nothing for others could help better.

God belief contributes to the problem too.  You may think God can get involved or get others who are better than you to get involved. If you trust God is wise, then it may be that they are the best person.  If nobody helps maybe God has a plan so their lose of life and limb may actually BE THE HELP!  Belief in God does not diminish the bystander effect as studies show.  Are we surprised?

Make no mistake, we repeatedly engage in diffusion of responsibility and don't even notice most of the time the harm we do.  So it stands to reason our faith in God and devotion should be suspect.

Religion has a huge problem with creating diffusion of responsibility. It explains why religions of a certain type particularly Catholicism and Islam are relatively immune to refutation or dismantling.  Usually ideological empires based on lies and rubbish and dangerous doctrines come crashing down which is why they need to act religious and have a God devotion to avoid this fate.  This is frightening for something like that should not last!!

If you create a form of religion or faith that leads to trouble or damages the environment you will feel okay about that as long as you think religion is something that is going to appear in one form or another sometime so if you don't found the religion somebody else will do it.  That fuels a feeling of diffusion of responsibility.
 
Religion especially in its organised form is hardly a need the way your water tap is.  To unnecessarily promote an entity, such as religion, that thrives on cognitive dissonance, is paving the way for violent people to argue say that they are good Catholics and that their going out to bomb Protestants and Muslims is part of their faith. And especially when Jesus said the Old Testament was infallible and the word of God though he knew fine well that it justifies murder and bloodletting in the name of God and contains commandments from him that endorse violence. And the pope does not excommunicate Catholic extremists who are violent.

Interestingly it is dishonest of a religion to say, "The killers are not acting in the name of Catholicism [or whatever] but in their own. Their faith is not the faith of the Church."  Why?  Because faith is faith and they still have a faith no matter if it is Catholic or not.  They still show the power of faith to make a person willing to self-destruct in the name of hate and vengeance and the alleged God who brings good out of atrocities.  So to try to make out faith is special just because it belongs to an organisation is rubbish.  It is cynically caring more about the organisation than anyone or anything.

There is enough in the world to create diffusion of responsibility without religion.  It is so damn good at it that it is scary.   Religion means you have gods and angels or God to share responsibility with you if you don't have the people in the religion. Plus as the one who sees the big picture, he can command things that terrify us so there is no reality check.  Religion is so prevalent that it can be considered to have given the world an education in diffusion of responsibility.

Diffusion of responsibility is a terrible thing but especially if it is over a God who is a fiction or over version of God that is not real or true.  As religion risks diffusion of responsibility and it is a huge and real risk the default presumption when you consider religion is, "It is a creation of human beings.  It is not of God."  The bigger the claims made by the religion and the less it cares about evidence backing it up and the more demands it makes, the crueller it is. It is not for the truth though it says it is, so it is against it. If the man-made religion claims to administer the will of God, then we have man controlling people in the name of God and leading them astray. If God is merely man's idea and not revealed from Heaven then nobody who says that God punishes people and uses suffering to make people more virtuous should be left unchallenged and should be sternly corrected. They are being deplorable - only a real God giving a real revelation would have the right to say such a thing and delegate that right to people clearly and undeniably.

Even if there is a God, that will not stop people inventing a God who could be very like the real one but it is still invented. If you don't know Anna personally and keep saying she did this or that and is like this or that you are inventing a lot about her.  The Anna in your head is an invention.  If religion is of man then in reality, man's word is honoured as God's word. Man's authority is mistaken for God's authority. That would be horrendous considering nothing man-made should be considered immune from leading to violence or harm. It often does lead to harm. If there is a God the counterfeit religion of God objectively insults him and mocks him.

Religion can thrive on people's feelings that they want it to be true even if it is not.  Faith can be about needs and feelings despite itself.  Diffusion of responsibility is about feelings.  You have this deadly feeling that you are okay when you do evil in unison with others.  This is the power of tacit support.  You feel you are not on your own.

If a huge number of people are murderers, that makes you feel better about being a killer. Being in a religion that generally judges everybody as a sinner makes you feel part of a community of sinners. You feel better about your sin. Some don't but most do or feel less bad than they would if they were not in the religion. A religion of sinners encourages your sin when it makes you feel better about it. It does not have much respect for those whom you hurt though it will fake it! A religion of sinners encourages the sins that are socially acceptable. For example, Christians don't seem to worry if you have sex outside marriage as long as you don't do it during rush hour on the pavement in the town. Yet their faith says, "To worry not about sin but about some forms of sin is a sin itself."
 
If you are in a religion and some members do great evil, eg rape children and tell them it is God's will, murder people of other religions in terrorist attacks, you will tell yourself, "It does not indicate my religion and my faith in it is bad. I am not those people. They are not me." But if it is down to luck that you are not like them then it follows that faith can be dangerous. You are encouraging faith and that puts people at risk.
 
No judge will be impressed if you stand up in court and say, "I don't normally murder people. I deserve to get away with killing that girl in cold blood for I am not a killer. Killing once does not mean I am just a killer. There is more to me than just that! There is more to me than the mistakes or wrongs I have done." In fact saying that will land you a heavier sentence. Yet the Church endorses that kind of attitude by urging you to love sinners including yourself and hate the sins. It is no wonder that Christianity's record in making people holy shows nothing remarkable. The goodness and badness is just what you would expect from something that wasn't really getting any grace from God. And we must remember that though it is true that an organisation cannot be blamed for everything its members do, it can if it offers grace to help when there is no grace.

TIME FOR MAIN EMPHASIS:

IF YOU ARE JOINED IN A RELIGION TO OTHERS BY GOD THEN YOU ARE IN A SORT OF BODY.  CHRISTIANITY CALLS THE CHURCH THE BODY OF CHRIST TO MAKE THAT SAME POINT.  IT IS AS GOOD AS LITERAL.  THUS YOU CANNOT USE YOUR GOOD WORKS TO EXCUSE WHAT YOUR BROTHER OR SISTER IN RELIGION HAS DONE. OR TO DISTANCE YOURSELF.  THE BIBLE SAYS THE HAND IS TO BLAME FOR WHAT THE EYE HAS DONE.

TIME FOR THE NEXT EMPHASIS:

 THUS YOU BECOME AS IF YOU KILLED THE GIRL. YOU ARE AS BAD AS IF YOU SAID IT WAS A ONCE-OFF.  THAT IS NO EXCUSE.  YOU WANT TO MAKE OUT THAT THE REAL YOU IS GOOD AND THE CRIME IS NOT  YOU.  YOU JUST WANT TO BE TREATED SOFTLY. 

IT IS ALSO TRUE THAT NOT ONE PERSON IN THIS WORLD CAN GIVE A REASON OR EVIDENCE THAT YOU ARE WRONG.  YOU ARE IN THE BEST POSITION TO KNOW BUT THEY DISMISS THIS.  THEY WANT TO SLAM YOU AS DEFINED BY THE EVIL YOU HAVE DONE.  IT IS NOT OPPOSITION TO THE EVIL THEY ARE ABOUT BUT USING WHAT YOU DID AS PERMISSION TO OPPOSE AND GET VENGEANCE ON YOU.  AND YOU ARE NO BETTER THAN THEM ANYWAY.

All the corruptions of religion can be traced to diffusion of responsibility.  This is about feeling okay about the toxic side and about taking credit for the good that is reported in some sections of religion.  Above all get religion out of schools and do not let children get recruited into it.