Dear Luka,
I am very sorry for the delay in my response to you. Actually, I wanted to meditate on the contents of your post, which I found particularly interesting, and indeed most challenging.
I will begin by saying that your point is perfectly clear, and most difficult to contend. And why should I contend it, if you are mostly correct in what you say? You have gone to the crux of a debate on religion and religiosity which, if taken to its bare essentials and ultimate consequences, would lead us nowhere, as has occurred throughout history.
Let me explain myself please. If I understand well, you are posing an eternal dilemma: Is religion good or bad for mankind? And your answer is: It is bad if it has to resort to a critic of man's evil ways and morality and not rather to his good acts and behavior. And you are perfectly right in that. But I would go a step ahead and ask: Has religion and religiosity been good or bad for mankind over history? And here the matter becomes perhaps more complicate, because if we are talking about the influence of religion, mostly Christianity, in the Western World, we must conclude that it has been both. It would take a whole volume to discuss in what regards it has been either, especially as to its ultimate consequences. Let me mention but one: In spite of the Church's immoral behavior in many things, which in fact had nothing to do with Jesus' teachings, it always acted as the main cohesive force in the development of Europe and played a crucial role in the survival of its culture after the downfall of the old civilizations. Even if this alone could also be contended for years on end, there at least you have a good point to consider.
But enough arguing here. I mean, I have lots of things to ponder and debate about which might be resorted to as valid points to make you reconsider your position. But to what end? I have already told you that I believe you are mostly right, even though I may think my own position is more close to the truth. And my own position is this: When a debate between two irreconciliable positions takes centuries without reaching a solution, one of two things: either the solution is midway bewteen the two of them, or the discussion itself is ill defined. In other words, maybe both parties are right... or wrong.
If we took the highest possible point of view to ponder things, maybe we would conclude that both ways - that of Jesus Christ and that of Saint John the Baptist - were correct. Maybe they complemented each other. One of them would be useful for a particular sort of men, the other one for another.
In the realm of metaphysics, both Good and Evil are necessary to make the world run; that is, with all its material imperfection.
I do believe Bosch had strange reasons to depict reality as he chose to, or maybe as he honestly perceived it. He perhaps had a propensity to see rather the evil than the good in all things, but he was sincere even in that. He showed the highest possible good in the placid and beautiful landscapes and in the characters shown on the left wings of his paintings, as if he wanted to attract all men back to a saintly way of life such as existed in a primeval age in Paradise. Opposite to it, he showed what he honestly viewed as men's dreadful destination if they failed to correct their perverted ways. In the midst of both, he depicted what those perverted ways were. Of course, all of this was shown in a highly symbolic way.
Whether or not he succeeded is just another story.
Best Wishes,
Luis Miguel Goitizolo