Pros/cons of some religions

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Pros/cons of some religions

OmegaKV
Islam:

* Pros:

- Quran is short
- Oneness of God is more clear cut than most other religions
- Non-pacifist, giving Muslims an option when diplomacy and reasoning with people does not work
- Muslims seem to have healthy family lives and high birth rates and a young population

* Cons:

- Religious services consist of doing a stupid dance
- Can't meet women at mosque
- No platform for people to express their viewpoints, beyond informal discussions
- Says you are a bad person if you have a hard time believing in heaven/hell

Christianity:

* Pros:

- Track record of creating great civilization (renaissance and enlightenment)
- Couples often meet at church
- Large diversity of sects to choose from
- Some churches are conservative and have good leadership and good values

* Cons:

- Most sects are dying and have lots of old people
- Most sects are liberal and are competing with each other to get LGBTQ followers
- Paradoxically to their liberalism, churches seem very ethnocentric, with whites going to white churches and blacks going to black churches, and even smaller ethnicities having their own church. This can make things awkward if you are not part of the church's ethnic group. And if you have to go to your ethnic group's church, then there actually isn't a "Large diversity of sects to choose from".
- Only the pastor or church leader has a platform to express his viewpoints


Baha'i:

* Pros:

- Lots of writings criticizing religious leadership, which should in theory give people strength to rebel against bad religious leadership
- An ordinary person can give a talk/seminar on a topic and this is seen as legitimate. Well, this stopped being the case ~15 years ago due to antagonization of these seminars by the central Baha'i leadership. But I think as more Bahais get fed up with the central Baha'i leadership the seminars will be making a comeback.
- Not ethnocentric so newcomers of any background can feel comfortable attending services

* Cons:

- Obsession with gaining converts which is backfiring and harming the community. Baha'i prophet is in part responsible for this since his writings indicate he did envision the entire planet converting to his religion. My hope is that with better leadership people will learn to tone things down.
- Idolatrous belief in the central religious leadership, and belief they are infallible.
- No one sees any point in coming up with ideas to improve their community because they think their infallible central religious leadership is going to figure everything out
- Everything is centralized, and there is no diversity of sects to choose from
- Services are boring because central leadership wants us to do boring crap.
- No young people due to the previous point
- Everyone is liberal


So the main benefit I see the Baha'i religion potentially having over other religions is really just that it empowers ordinary people to become "lay clergy" and give these seminars. And I think this is significant. You shouldn't have to be a designated clergy to give a talk to your religious community about the incel problem, for example. Lots of cons but I think the only one rooted in scripture is the first one. Hopefully with a good enough reform most of these cons of the Baha'i religion can be eliminated.