There are some excellent points in this thread. I especially enjoyed the Benjamin Franklin letter .
I am of the opinion that anyone's beliefs are fair game for discussion and criticism. Where would science be if no one ever challenged each others theories?
Malign is an interesting word to use because it moves way beyond criticism. I personally don't feel that its very helpful to do something like this because most people won't put any weight in what you have to say if it has an obvious tone of bitterness.
If a religion is practicing harmful things, then you have no reason to lie about them or go out of your way to slander them further. All you need to do is expose the truth and let people judge for themselves. And if the religion is basically not doing anything harmful but you just disagree with it, then it is of course not ok to lie and spread slander.
So honestly I don't see any good reason to malign a religion unless you have your own agenda beyond exposing the things that they do. Like the WT society for instance. They always need to remind us that false religion is EVIL and are going to be executed by God himself for their heinous deeds.
I agree. But I don't believe anyone's religion should be Maligned. Doctrinal Debates and a Religions past wrongdoings lead to great discussions if done with respect.
This makes me chuckle a little bit, because lets be honest here. Most people are not interested in a debate about their religion's doctrines and shortcomings. You may be going into it with a view to respectful discussion but they usually view it as an outright attack no matter how you try to be objective. Because while many people profess to be religiously open minded, when they are actually faced with a challenge they immediately fall back on the "fact" that they have the truth and you don't.
I just wish people would realize that maybe there is no truth about God, or maybe there are many truths about God...so lets just discuss why we believe what we believe and identify harmful beliefs in the process... and maybe be able to weed them out. Well, this sort of thing will probably not happen for another 1000 years so I am not exactly holding my breath.