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It think 'criticism' is a better word to use. 'Judging' feels more about making a proclamation of truth or handing down a legal decision or something like that.
If we're looking at religion in the sense of "how does X affect Y based on Z" or in other words if we're assessing the effect religion has on one thing or another then we can certainly be critical. Critical in the sense of scrutinizing (like literary criticism), not necessarily denigrating.
So it's probably more than appropriate to ask things like "How well does religion do toward making people happy?" or something more narrow like "does church attendance lead to deeper religious understanding?" Or whatever. It's something that religious people do with their own religions, usually in the hopes of making it better or making it more appealing to people or something like that. It's just that non-religious people or people hostile to a particular religion may also do with a different aim through different kinds of questions. It's when people have preconceived ideas (and they don't show the thought process or experiences that led them to those idea) that you get into a bad kind of judging.
tl;dr judging is fine if you really want to ask questions and get answers and not just spout your own views regardless of what anyone else says
If we're looking at religion in the sense of "how does X affect Y based on Z" or in other words if we're assessing the effect religion has on one thing or another then we can certainly be critical. Critical in the sense of scrutinizing (like literary criticism), not necessarily denigrating.
So it's probably more than appropriate to ask things like "How well does religion do toward making people happy?" or something more narrow like "does church attendance lead to deeper religious understanding?" Or whatever. It's something that religious people do with their own religions, usually in the hopes of making it better or making it more appealing to people or something like that. It's just that non-religious people or people hostile to a particular religion may also do with a different aim through different kinds of questions. It's when people have preconceived ideas (and they don't show the thought process or experiences that led them to those idea) that you get into a bad kind of judging.
tl;dr judging is fine if you really want to ask questions and get answers and not just spout your own views regardless of what anyone else says