So many bad followers imply the religious ideal itself is wrong

Evidence

The question still remains, why the worst number so many and the best so few. To my mind there are two conceivable answers to this question: (1) that the worst by reason of some original perversity of theirs are morally uneducable, and are therefore incapable of making the remotest approach to the religious ideal. Or: (2) that the religious ideal is a wholly wrong ideal which has given a wrong moral twist to the lives of the many, and that the best have become best in spite of the wrong ideal—in fact, by giving to the wrong twist a turn in the right direction. … Of these two explanations I am not prepared to accept the first, and I am sure that even the Mahatma will not insist upon the contrary. To my mind the second is the only logical and reasonable explanation, unless the Mahatma has a third alternative to explain why the worst are so many and the best so few. — Ambedkar, B R, Annihilation of Caste_ The Annotated…, 1238

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: Ambedkar’s rebuttal to ‘judge a religion by its best’ reverses the inference: if the best are so few among so many worst, the ideal itself must be at fault, not the individuals — a genuinely difficult argument that resists easy summary.
• XREF: connects to: The praised Christian ideal of self-denial is built on a falsehood