Man, and a occasional women seem to have an endless capacity for doing bad.

So, as has been pointed out time and time again in this thread - these are not good people doing bad things. They are bad people doing the bad thing that defines them as bad.

I am sure that some posters here would not be suprised at me damaging another car when pulling out of a parking bay - inspecting the damage to the other car (which was considerable) looking around to see if anyone was looking and quickly driving off. They may think this incident would be a good example a bad person doing a bad thing and may expect nothing else of me.

In fact I was just an unseen witness to this. It was my neighbour - a member of an organised religion - a regular church attendee, supporter of local good works and thought generally to be a very good person and an example to the community.

This is just a small example of a good person doing a bad thing. There is no suggestion that his organised religion made or caused my good neighbout to act badly or it was done in its name. But whereas some folk here may not expect anything better from me - perhaps a little more would or should be expected of followers of organised religions and those who would be thought to be good. Is it just me or when good folk do bad things - does the act seem far worse because of this expectation?

Perhaps my neighbour rushed off to sort it out or just forgot? Maybe he confessed his 'sin', was forgiven and felt better about it. Perhaps it was his minister's car? I am not sure of any of that but I am sure that he is still locally considered to be a good person. Except possibly by me and whoever owned the car and had to pay to get it repaired.

But to me it is that expectation that separates organised religions from the political, cultural and all the other causes given in this thread for good folk also doing bad things. For unlike these oganisations - the whole damned point of organised religions is to be on the side of the angels and to show us how we can be on the side of the angels.

It is telling that no one here seems to excluding organised religion from being a cause of good folk doing bad things - the only concern seems to be that this cause is not singled out as the only cause........