I've got to go with Jainism. Their commitment to non-harm is wild. They wear face masks not to inhale small insects, they sweep floors in front of them so as to not step on bugs as they walk. The living mummification is very strange.

Buddhism is pretty tough discipline wise. True Islam takes a lot of devotion.

Christianity based on the argument that loving your enemies is difficult. Thank you for the contribution. Definitely a hard thing to do.

I knew someone that was Jain. Wasn't super strict, but was vegan. But he was telling me his grand parents back home walk barefoot everywhere to minize the risk of accidentally hurting an insect.

Jabin said:

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As hard as loving your enemies?

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This isn't unique to Christianity. Buddhism, Islam, Sikhs, Jainism, and Judaism have very similar verses/views.

Sapper Redux said:

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Jabin said:

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As hard as loving your enemies?

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This isn't unique to Christianity. Buddhism, Islam, Sikhs, Jainism, and Judaism have very similar verses/views.

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I was going to say something about that because I'm studying Right Effort and the author was talking about the importance of love and kindness. Most of the time when I start meditation, I will extend love and kindness starting with myself, then my family, then friends, colleagues, people who have done me wrong and finally to strangers I met during the day. It's not easy.

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This isn't unique to Christianity. Buddhism, Islam, Sikhs, Jainism, and Judaism have very similar verses/views.

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Genuinely curious - can you provide sources for further research? I was not aware of that.

And what are the OT verses that are similar for Jews? I'm somewhat familiar with the OT and am not aware of any. In fact, to the contrary, the normal criticism of the OT is that it instructs the Jews to do the opposite, i.e., to commit genocide on their enemies. I don't agree with that take either, but am curious what OT passages you think amount to a command to the Jews to love their enemies.

I'm just looking for discussion and learning here, not argument.

I suppose part of it depends on how you're defining "love your enemy as yourself." There's not an exact 1:1 quote in other faiths, but the obligation is present in a similar form.

The Buddha is supposed to have said, "Hatred will not cease by hatred, but by love alone. This is the ancient law." As well as, "All fear violence, all are afraid of death. Seeing the similarity to oneself, one should not use violence or have it used."

For Judaism, a lot of what the Gospels attribute to Jesus is a not a change from a second temple Jewish approach to the Bible aside from the claims about divinity/messianic claims. The idea that the greatest commandment is to love God and love your neighbor as yourself goes back well before Jesus and likely before Hillel. Jewish law put a great deal of stock in proportional punishment and behavior towards enemies, and the actual application of the laws was supposed to bend towards leniency. Reading through some of the discussions, Judaism doesn't require one to love their enemies, but does require ethical behavior and an obligation to assist an enemy when they need it. https://rabbisacks.org/covenant-conversation/mishpatim/helping-an-enemy/

Jabin said:

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This isn't unique to Christianity. Buddhism, Islam, Sikhs, Jainism, and Judaism have very similar verses/views.

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Genuinely curious - can you provide sources for further research? I was not aware of that.

And what are the OT verses that are similar for Jews? I'm somewhat familiar with the OT and am not aware of any. In fact, to the contrary, the normal criticism of the OT is that it instructs the Jews to do the opposite, i.e., to commit genocide on their enemies. I don't agree with that take either, but am curious what OT passages you think amount to a command to the Jews to love their enemies.

I'm just looking for discussion and learning here, not argument.

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Remember that Judaism came out of a Bedouin society, and there are plenty of laws about extending hospitality to the stranger, who is often an enemy, if you see him in need. Basically, if your enemy is in the middle of the desert and needs help, you can't just turn him away to die of exposure.

Plenty of versus in Proverbs about:
1) Taking care of your enemies
2) Wanting the best for your enemies
3) Making peace with your enemies
4) That vengeance belongs to the Lord, and not to seek vengeance.

About the genocide thing, you read about it the most because it is the most challenging stuff in the Bible to deal with. We could go more into details about that somewhere else, but there is no easy answer there. But, the lessons to Israel are not "eye for an eye", but to love and take care of your enemies.

To the OP, I think you have to get down to the sect level.

Saying Buddhism is more or less severe than Christianity doesn't really make sense, because there is such a wide scale of severity of both religions. You could talk about some Buddhist monks starving themselves to death, but Christianity has had sects that were similarly severe over its existence.

As for a direct answer, what was the cult in the 80's where everyone had to cut off their genitals and then commit suicide? That one gets my vote.

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Remember that Judaism came out of a Bedouin society

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I really like your posts, but that statement is news to me. What exactly do you mean by Bedouin and what do you mean by your statement that the Jews came out of such a society?

Jabin said:

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Remember that Judaism came out of a Bedouin society

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I really like your posts, but that statement is news to me. What exactly do you mean by Bedouin and what do you mean by your statement that the Jews came out of such a society?

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Bedouin's are desert hill people. Nomadic herders. I would distinguish them from farmers / cultivators. Not really a specific culture I would say, but similar to usage as the common term "hunter's gatherers". It is more of an economic term if anything.

Typically, when you read about Jew's and their wealth, it talks a lot about livestock. Then we have the Exodus and wandering in the desert for 40 years. Finally we can look at the architecture of the period, and the buildings that were away from civilization, away from the farm communities, were significantly different, not only in function, but also in style, from the cities and farms.

In a Bedouin society, starving / dehydrating to death is a common danger. Many of the laws in the OT about protecting the stranger were an early form of Emergency Services / Welfare. You took care of the stranger so that, when you get lost in the desert, the person that you find when you are dying of thirst will also take care of you.

So, many different things point to early Jews at being nomadic herders. Such people exist in the ME even today, and have many of the same hospitality requirements in their culture as you find in the OT.

BusterAg said:

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Jabin said:

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Remember that Judaism came out of a Bedouin society

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I really like your posts, but that statement is news to me. What exactly do you mean by Bedouin and what do you mean by your statement that the Jews came out of such a society?

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Bedouin's are desert hill people. Nomadic herders. I would distinguish them from farmers / cultivators. Not really a specific culture I would say, but similar to usage as the common term "hunter's gatherers". It is more of an economic term if anything.

Typically, when you read about Jew's and their wealth, it talks a lot about livestock. Then we have the Exodus and wandering in the desert for 40 years. Finally we can look at the architecture of the period, and the buildings that were away from civilization, away from the farm communities, were significantly different, not only in function, but also in style, from the cities and farms.

In a Bedouin society, starving / dehydrating to death is a common danger. Many of the laws in the OT about protecting the stranger were an early form of Emergency Services / Welfare. You took care of the stranger so that, when you get lost in the desert, the person that you find when you are dying of thirst will also take care of you.

So, many different things point to early Jews at being nomadic herders. Such people exist in the ME even today, and have many of the same hospitality requirements in their culture as you find in the OT.

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Ahhh, OK, so you're using "Bedouin" merely to mean nomadic herders? I bring that up because for years archaeologists and sociologists assumed that modern Bedouins (a unique group of nomadic herders) were representative of all ancient, Middle Eastern nomadic societies. That assumption has come under attack by scholars in the last decade or two. They've pointed out and proven that some ancient nomadic societies were radically different that modern Bedouins.

As an extreme example, the nomadic Mongols had virtually no similarity to the nomadic Bedouins. In the Middle East, the nomadic Edomites were highly centralized and had the ability to operate a mining district with over 10,000 mines and protect the miners and ore from the mines. The Bedouins, by contrast, are decentralized, unorganized, and wholly incapable of emulating the Edomites. For decades archaeologists assumed, based on their error of extrapolating from the Bedouins, that only an empire such as Egypt or Assyria could have operated the mines.

The OT does have admonitions to protect the stranger and the alien in the land. But, as far as I know, it has nothing that approximates "love your enemy". I don't believe that Bedouins, despite their culture of hospitality, believe that they should love their enemies.

The Jews do seem to have many customs that correlate to modern Bedouins. But, it is also clear that there was a hierarchy, and that they were successful in conquest, either by force or assimilation, of the cities of what is modern day Israel.

Some OT versus about enemies:
Proverbs 20:22 - Do not say, "I will recompense evil"; Wait for the Lord, and He will save you.
Proverbs 24:17 - Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, And do not let your heart be glad when he stumbles;
Proverbs 25:21: - If your enemy is hungry, give him bread to eat; And if he is thirsty, give him water to drink;
Exodus 23:4-5: - "If you meet your enemy's ox or his donkey going astray, you shall surely bring it back to him again. If you see the donkey of one who hates you lying under its burden, and you would refrain from helping it, you shall surely help him with it.
Job 31:29; "If I have rejoiced at the destruction of him who hated me, Or lifted myself up when evil found him
(Indeed I have not allowed my mouth to sin By asking for a curse on his soul); [Job saying he didn't sin by hating his enemy]


So, nothing that specifically uses the word "love" and "enemy" together. But it is clear that you are not to hate your enemy, nor to wish that bad things happen to him, nor to allow bad things to happen to him out of neglect. I think you could sum up all of this saying: "Don't hate your enemy, and be kind to him". Love your enemy is only a half step away.

There are versus in the OT that talk about destroying enemies. These usually refer to an entire group of people or a nation. This is a bit different. On a person by person basis, OT says don't hate them, but be kind to them.

BTW ancient Israel did have a lot of agriculture, too. We read a lot about grain and even more about vineyards. But, within Jewish society, there remained a large portion of the population that were nomadic herders. And, from a Biblical context, they wandered 40 years as nomads before entering Israel. From a historical / archeological context, much of the Jewish culture appears to have a beginning in nomadic tribes that lived around but apart from the Egyptian cities in ancient Canaan that appear to be very un-Egyptian.

By what "metric" are we defining severity?

747Ag said:

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By what "metric" are we defining severity?

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Discipline, precepts and stuff.

I think the most severe religion is any belief or practice that one holds to other than faith alone in Christ alone.

Because I'm convinced that there is one true God who desires mankind not to be religious but to be in relationship with Him through a reconciliation process by faith in the work of His Son, all other options give a false hope or methods that are not real.

In many cultures throughout the world one of the most insulting actions you can take is to refuse a gift or attempt to pay for it. God has offered the gift of His Son to us and humanity rejects it through false ideas about earning His favor through religious practices or by ignoring it all together.

Okay, but this is pure opinion which is rejected by the vast majority of people who don't share your beliefs. The concept of "most severe" or "extreme" forms of faith is something we could theoretically measure with a certain level of empiricism.

DirtDiver said:

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I think the most severe religion is any belief or practice that one holds to other than faith alone in Christ alone.

Because I'm convinced that there is one true God who desires mankind not to be religious but to be in relationship with Him through a reconciliation process by faith in the work of His Son, all other options give a false hope or methods that are not real.

In many cultures throughout the world one of the most insulting actions you can take is to refuse a gift or attempt to pay for it. God has offered the gift of His Son to us and humanity rejects it through false ideas about earning His favor through religious practices or by ignoring it all together.

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Agree. Very carnal and human based. Lordship salvation comes to mind.

How is it "carnal" to work to be a better person? The Christian obsession with unredeemable human depravity is not shared around the world.

Sapper Redux said:

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How is it "carnal" to work to be a better person? The Christian obsession with unredeemable human depravity is not shared around the world.

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Nothing wrong with working to be a better person. It is carnal to think your good works ensures your salvation..

Sapper Redux said:

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Okay, but this is pure opinion which is rejected by the vast majority of people who don't share your beliefs. The concept of "most severe" or "extreme" forms of faith is something we could theoretically measure with a certain level of empiricism.

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The nature of true is that it's narrow and not based upon majority opinion. Think about how these 2 major sin categories separate humans in their interaction with one another.
1. Self-Righteousness
2. "Immoral" behavior (lying, drunkenness, sexual immorality, greed, covetousness, racial pride).

It should be no surprise that these 2 categories separate humanity from God. If Jesus is trustworthy and was telling us the truth about ourselves and God, then the most "severe religion" would be anything that separates us from a relationship or intimacy with God.

Bad News: We are all guilty.
Good News: Jesus is on a rescue mission and that terms of the relationship are free.

The question is: Is it reasonable to conclude that Jesus is trustworthy?

You're not answering the question. You're just inserting your personal theology. Christianity certainly is the most misanthropic religion, but that wasn't the question.

dermdoc said:

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Sapper Redux said:

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How is it "carnal" to work to be a better person? The Christian obsession with unredeemable human depravity is not shared around the world.

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Nothing wrong with working to be a better person. It is carnal to think your good works ensures your salvation..

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A non-Christian wouldn't think of morality in terms of salvation. The idea that we are in need of salvation in the first place is not self-evident and isn't found in most other religions.

Rocag said:

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dermdoc said:

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Sapper Redux said:

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How is it "carnal" to work to be a better person? The Christian obsession with unredeemable human depravity is not shared around the world.

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Nothing wrong with working to be a better person. It is carnal to think your good works ensures your salvation..

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A non-Christian wouldn't think of morality in terms of salvation. The idea that we are in need of salvation in the first place is not self-evident and isn't found in most other religions.

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Agree it is not found in other religions. I think it is pretty self evident we need it when I look at the world.

"Love one another; as I have loved you"

Don't know if that's quite what you mean by "severe," but I can't think of anything more difficult to do.

Sapper Redux said:

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You're not answering the question. You're just inserting your personal theology. Christianity certainly is the most misanthropic religion, but that wasn't the question.

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That's the question right? What is the most severe religion? I'm convinced the the Biblical contains the truth about reality and the Jesus is the one true God who desires you and all humanity to live in relationship and fellowship with God which produces our greatest good. Love and fellowship vs sin and division.

Because I'm convinced Jesus being the one true God is a universal truth that applies to all humanity, my claim that any belief/religion/ or practice that would cause someone to be out of fellowship with their creator as the most severe. To me, it doesn't matter if it's the belief of atheism which ignores the reality of God or the belief of the most religiously dedicated person who believes that God is impressed with their righteousness (New testament Pharisees that Jesus interacted with).

While misguided Christians have been history misanthropic at times, Jesus certainly wasn't and the instructions given in the text do no support their behavior.

Side note: Observe the conversations of Jesus with others and read the new testament to see how anti-religious Jesus was.

Prayer: talking with God. Relational vs religious if God is a personal being.
The Lords Supper: Take time to remember the event in which God willingly laid down His life for you to pay for everything you have ever done wrong.
Church: Take time to acknowledge Him and help others.

If someone ones to be 'religious' according to the NT they should... James 1:27 Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

In other words, help people that cannot pay you back and don't be polluted in sinful, immoral thinking and behavior (side note: because when you do you hurt others). Misanthropic?

Yes. The Christian notion that humans are evil from birth and irredeemable without God killing himself as a blood sacrifice, as well as mandating correct belief regardless of actions and behavior in order to avoid eternal damnation is extremely misanthropic.

Most strict islamicists believe jihad is required of the faithful. I think permanent war until the earth is conquered is pretty hardcore.

Zobel said:

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Sapper Redux said:

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Yes. The Christian notion that humans are evil from birth and irredeemable without God killing himself as a blood sacrifice, as well as mandating correct belief regardless of actions and behavior in order to avoid eternal damnation is extremely misanthropic.

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Fortunately this is not a Christian notion.

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Agree. Yet so many people believe that about Christianity. Very frustrating.

I've thought a bit about this thread in general and I keep coming back to the question of what exactly do we mean we say that a religion is 'severe'? We haven't really defined it in any clear way.

What makes sense to me is saying that a 'severe' religion would require dramatic changes in terms of a person's behavior and lifestyle when they join that religion. In that sense, the most demanding faiths are often considered cults especially because those requirements are many times paired with tangible consequences for not following the rules.

So something like Scientology would definitely be severe, assuming you accept it as a religion in the first place. Severe in the sense that it is very controlling of the behavior of its followers and pairs this with harsh consequences for breaking the rules.

Zobel said:

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Sapper Redux said:

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Yes. The Christian notion that humans are evil from birth and irredeemable without God killing himself as a blood sacrifice, as well as mandating correct belief regardless of actions and behavior in order to avoid eternal damnation is extremely misanthropic.

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Fortunately this is not a Christian notion.

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The idea that humans are not good and eternally separated from God by sin and must rely on God's blood sacrifice for salvation is absolutely a Christian notion. The idea of total depravity is absolutely supported by millions of Christians.