No, I'm not going to pretend to know which part is the worst. This is a moral situation and as I've come to understand morality tends to be a bit subjective. Rather, this is a thread to get peoples' opinions on the matter. Opinions hopefully with some perspective as to why you feel that way.
Now...feel free to disagree with me but to me the most disgusting and heinous part of religion is not the murder, the bigotry, the sexual repression...though that is all fairly disgusting. No, to me, the most disgusting aspect of religion is the way it targets weakness. Not just the weak of mind or will or intellect. No. It targets the weakest in all its forms. It targets those at their weakest emotionally; when a loved one has just died or a great tragedy otherwise has befallen them or someone they knew, religion is there, galloping...no, charging in to pin...SPEAR a giant cross or star or crescent-and-star or whatnot onto your forehead, accompanied by sickly sweet, simpering words, meant to coax the grieving and despairing into surrendering their logic and reason in exchange for a little comfort...a little FALSE comfort. It convinces people they are weak, that there is a higher authority that they MUST submit to and that without it they are nothing, lost and damned, blind, deaf and dumb and roasting in flames; it strips people of their strength, of their ability to hold conviction in their own capabilities and potential.
It did it to me, once. It convinced me I was weak. And it convinced me that god was all I needed but when you ask questions and get no answers you are left feeling even emptier and more hollow than ever before. It turned me to drugs. And even today I still struggle to overthrow the indoctrinating influence, an influence that continues to cripple my way of thinking of things.
For that...the most heinous aspect of religion, to me, is its subversive ways.
So what, my fellow freethinkers and, yes, even local theists, do you find to be the worst aspect of religion? You can name specific religions, or all of them in a general sense, it doesn't matter to me.
Now...feel free to disagree with me but to me the most disgusting and heinous part of religion is not the murder, the bigotry, the sexual repression...though that is all fairly disgusting. No, to me, the most disgusting aspect of religion is the way it targets weakness. Not just the weak of mind or will or intellect. No. It targets the weakest in all its forms. It targets those at their weakest emotionally; when a loved one has just died or a great tragedy otherwise has befallen them or someone they knew, religion is there, galloping...no, charging in to pin...SPEAR a giant cross or star or crescent-and-star or whatnot onto your forehead, accompanied by sickly sweet, simpering words, meant to coax the grieving and despairing into surrendering their logic and reason in exchange for a little comfort...a little FALSE comfort. It convinces people they are weak, that there is a higher authority that they MUST submit to and that without it they are nothing, lost and damned, blind, deaf and dumb and roasting in flames; it strips people of their strength, of their ability to hold conviction in their own capabilities and potential.
It did it to me, once. It convinced me I was weak. And it convinced me that god was all I needed but when you ask questions and get no answers you are left feeling even emptier and more hollow than ever before. It turned me to drugs. And even today I still struggle to overthrow the indoctrinating influence, an influence that continues to cripple my way of thinking of things.
For that...the most heinous aspect of religion, to me, is its subversive ways.
So what, my fellow freethinkers and, yes, even local theists, do you find to be the worst aspect of religion? You can name specific religions, or all of them in a general sense, it doesn't matter to me.
