Salon.com: Bad Religious Ideas

Valerie Tarico, writing on AlterNet via Salon has come up with a 12 worst religious ideas list.

Unfortunately some of Judaism's core principles (e.g. chosen people and veneration of books) are disrespected in this diatribe. Even though I don't agree with Tarico (or do I?), it's the Talmudic way to publish opposing positions.

Here are the items named on her list, with a few choice text excerpts. See the article, if you dare, for the details of her objections.

Chosen People – The term “Chosen People” typically refers to the Hebrew Bible and the ugly idea that God has given certain tribes a Promised Land (even though it is already occupied by other people).... Religious sects are inherently tribal and divisive because they compete by making mutually exclusive truth claims and by promising blessings or afterlife rewards that no competing sect can offer.

Heretics – ...Those who don’t believe in a god are corrupt, doers of abominable deeds. “There is none [among them] who does good,” says the Psalmist...

Holy War – ...The Hebrew scriptures recount battle after battle in which their war God, Yahweh, helps them to not only defeat but also exterminate the shepherding cultures that occupy their “Promised Land.”...

Blasphemy – ...The Bible prescribes death for blasphemers...

Glorified suffering – ...Self-denial in the form of asceticism and fasting is a part of both Eastern and Western religions, not only because deprivation induces altered states but also because people believe suffering somehow brings us closer to divinity...

Genital mutilation – ...Infant circumcision in Judaism serves as a sign of tribal membership, but circumcision also serves to test the commitment of adult converts. In one Bible story, a chieftain agrees to convert and submit his clan to the procedure as a show of commitment to a peace treaty. (While the men lie incapacitated, the whole town is then slain by the Israelites.)...

Blood sacrifice – ...When our ancient ancestors slit the throats on humans and animals or cut out their hearts or sent the smoke of sacrifices heavenward, many believed that they were literally feeding supernatural beings. In time, in most religions, the rationale changed—the gods didn’t need feeding so much as they needed signs of devotion and penance...

Hell – ...

Karma – ...

Eternal Life – ...Devout believers put their spiritual energy into preparing for a world to come rather than cherishing and stewarding the one wild and precious world we have been given.

Male Ownership of Female Fertility – ...Traditional religions variously assert that men have a god-ordained right to give women in marriage, take them in war, exclude them from heaven, and kill them if the origins of their offspring can’t be assured...

Bibliolatry (aka Book Worship) – ...Religious apologists often try to deny, minimize, or explain away the sins of scripture and the evils of religious history. “It wasn’t really slavery.” “That’s just the Old Testament.” “He didn’t mean it that way.” “You have to understand how bad their enemies were.”

...It is only by acknowledging religion’s worst ideas that we have any hope of embracing the best.