Faults, Follies, and Blaming the Whole for the Mistakes of the Parts

Like I said, I think a lot. A LOT.

Another thing on my mind recently is the human tendency to blame an organization as an entity for the mistakes made by individuals who happen to be members of that organization.

This is like blaming all Americans for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, when those who had any real power to affect that are individuals in government (and not even all our elected officials had the power to affect this either).

This is blaming the entire U.S. military for things like Abu Ghraib.

This is blaming all Muslims for the actions of militant extremists.

This is blaming all Christians for the Crusades, for the extreme intolerant views of individuals who claim Christianity as their religion.

The fact that there are individuals within any organization that are not very good representatives of that organization is no reason to discount that organization. The violent actions of historical Christians is not, in and of itself, a valid reason to reject Christianity. To use a very poor argumentative structure to prove a point I'll reduce this logic to it's bare bones and point out its flaws: If the logic being followed is choosing not to be a Christian because of the bad things Christians have done throughout history, the real conclusion of this logic (in the extreme, admittedly) is that we must choose not to be human, because of the atrocious things humans have done throughout history. So, suicide for everyone?

This is why blaming an organization for the actions of a small number of its members is not a reasonable practice. Particularly when it comes to religion, because none of us can really claim to be a perfect example of what our religion says we should be. Honest religious people must admit that they are simply living out the pursuit of being what they should be, and are not currently what they should be.

I am not currently the man I should be, but I'm working on it.

As in any large organization, especially in one where individuals can obtain positions of power (I'll cite Cardinal Richelieu as a famous example), if a particularly corrupt person happens to gain that power the organization will suffer from extreme misrepresentation. Christianity, Islam, and many other organizations have suffered from this many times throughout history. I doubt many Christians would hold up the conversion tactics of the Spanish conquistadors as exemplary of their beliefs. Nor would (in my estimation) Muslims hold up the actions/statements of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, or of those the American media labels 'extremists' as exemplary of theirs.

As difficult as it may be we must consider these types of situations as they really are. They are the actions of flawed individuals. We must understand that even those in positions of religious leadership are still human and will make mistakes. We must understand that a religious organization is a collection of humans who all make mistakes. It is not fair to judge the religion itself based upon the actions of the flawed people who are trying to pursue its values. No matter how poorly, or how well those individuals might fulfill those values.

We must evaluate religions on their own merit and determine for ourselves whether we, in the pursuit of being who we should be and are not, will allow the values laid out by a certain belief system to direct our pursuit.