Fuck organized religion.
Superstition is the end of reason, and therefore the ally of violence. A less superstitious world is a less violent world.
Religion is all about controlling people through fear and shame. This naturally leads to a great deal of hatred, violence, and suffering.
The following is an excerpt from The Empathic Civilization - Becoming Human, pp 119 - 122 (TLDR at bottom)
"When we talk of guilt, we need to be clear not to confuse it with shame. Often the two terms are used interchangeably when, in fact, they are quite different. While guilt can trigger empathic distress and the desire to reach out and make amends to another whom one has harmed, shame denigrates a person’s being, making them feel worthless and inhuman. To be shamed is to be rejected. Shame is a way of isolating a person from the collective we. He or she becomes an outsider and a nonperson. Shame has the effect of turning off the innate empathic impulse. If one feels like a nonbeing, socially ostracized and without self-worth, he is unable to draw upon his empathic reserves to feel for another’s plight. Unable to emotionally connect with others, he either shrinks into withdrawal or acts out his sense of abandonment by exercising rage at others. Why rage? Because it is often the only way he has open to him to communicate and engage his fellow human beings. The idea of the “loner,” isolated from society and full of rage toward his fellows, is a phenomenon in every society.
When one is made to feel guilty, it is one’s humanity that is being called upon to do the right thing by another person. Unlike shaming someone, which isolates him from humanity, guilty is an internal mechanism that reminds one of his deep social connection to others and the need to repair the social bond. Guilt needs to be handled carefully. If a parent’s induction discipline creates too much of a sense of guilt in the child, he is likely to grow up feeling that nothing he can do will ever be adequate to amend a hurt or restore a social bond. If, on the other hand, a parent’s induction discipline doesn’t result in instilling at least a minimum of guilt in the child, he will grow up without being able to reflect on how his behavior affects others and unable to trigger sufficient empathic distress to re-heal the social bond. Just good enough parenting lets the child know that he did something wrong, but in a caring way that lets him know that he is still loved and regarded as a person. By explaining how the other person might feel and asking him how he would feel in the same situation, the parents are letting him know that they trust his innate goodness and desire to empathize with others and make amends. Equally important, the parents are teaching a cxhild that their love for him is no less because of his wrongful behavior. No one is perfect. The best we can expect of each other is to learn from our indiscretions and try to do better next time.
By shaming a child, however, the parents are letting him know that whe is not living up to their expectations and, therefore, not worthy of their consideration. Their expectations, rather than his humanity, become the focal point of the disciplinary exercise. The child is left with the impression that his very being is a disappointment and that he must conform to an “ideal image” of what his parents expects from him or suffer the consequence of rejection*.
Guilt cultures create a very different human being from shaming cultures. The American philosopher Martha Nussbaum puts it this way:
Moral guilt is so much better than shame, because it can be atoned for, it does not sully the entirety of one’s being. It is a dignified emotion compatible with optimism about one’s own prospects. . . . Rather than making a forbidding and stifling demand for perfection, [morality] holds the child in her imperfection, telling her that the world contains possibilities of forgiveness and mercy, and that she is loved as a person of interest and worth in her own right. She therefore need not fear that her human imperfections will cause the world’s destruction. And because she is not stricken by annihilating shame at her imperfection, she will have less need for nevy and jealousy, emotions that express her desire for omnipotent control of the sources of good.
Ironically, while a shaming culture pretends to adhere to the highest standards of moral perfection, in reality it produces a culture of self-hate, envy, jealousy, and hatred toward others. Shaming cultures, throughout history, have been the most aggressive and violent because they lock up the empathic impulse, and with it the ability to experience another’s plight and respond with acts of compassion. When a child grows up in a shaming culture believing that he must conform to an ideal of perfection or purity or suffer the wrath of the community, he is likely to judge everyone else by the same rigid, uncompromising standards. Lacking empathy, he is unable to experience other people’s suffering as if it were his own and therefore is likely to judge their plight as their own fault because they failed to live up to the standards of perfection expected of them by society.
Shaming cultures still exist in traditional societies. It is not uncommon to hear about a woman who has been gang-raped and who is then stoned to death by her own family and neighbors, because she has brought shame on herself and her family. Rather than empathize with her suffering, the community inflicts even greater punishment on her by taking her life. In the eyes of the community, she bears the shame of the rape, despite the fact that she was the innocent victim. As far as her family and neighbors are concerned, she is forever defiled and impure and therefore an object of disgust to be blotted out. The power of shaming cultures to squelch empathy and transform human beings into monsters is terrifying to behold."
TLDR"While a shaming culture pretends to adhere to the highest standards of moral perfection, in reality it produces a culture of self-hate, envy, jealousy, and hatred toward others. Shaming cultures, throughout history, have been the most aggressive and violent because they lock up the empathic impulse, and with it the ability to experience another’s plight and respond with acts of compassion. When a child grows up in a shaming culture believing that he must conform to an ideal of perfection or purity or suffer the wrath of the community, he is likely to judge everyone else by the same rigid, uncompromising standards. Lacking empathy, he is unable to experience other people’s suffering as if it were his own and therefore is likely to judge their plight as their own fault because they failed to live up to the standards of perfection expected of them by society. (...) The power of shaming cultures to squelch empathy and transform human beings into monsters is terrifying to behold."
-Jeremy Rifkin