While I personally think that religion has many more negative effects overall than it does positive ones, primarily on people’s ability to rationally come to conclusions based on evidence, (e.g. if the bible says only 2 sexes were created by god, but we can physically observe intersex people, who’s right? Some Christians would argue intersex people only exist because of Satan, rather than the reality that it just doesn’t match up with scripture) this is absolutely NOT the way to go.
If you are a believer that specifically chooses not to follow the hateful parts of an only partially hateful book, then you are definitionally following a non-hateful book.
Most of these people would have ended up being raised from when they were kids as Christians whether or not their church was loving or hateful. This is obviously better than the alternative. Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.
While I personally think that religion has many more negative effects overall than it does positive ones, primarily on people’s ability to rationally come to conclusions based on evidence, (e.g. if the bible says only 2 sexes were created by god, but we can physically observe intersex people, who’s right? Some Christians would argue intersex people only exist because of Satan, rather than the reality that it just doesn’t match up with scripture) this is absolutely NOT the way to go.
If you are a believer that specifically chooses not to follow the hateful parts of an only partially hateful book, then you are definitionally following a non-hateful book.
Most of these people would have ended up being raised from when they were kids as Christians whether or not their church was loving or hateful. This is obviously better than the alternative. Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.