Tag: psychology, sexuality

Religious training and indoctrination creates internal states that are in conflict with natural urges and drives.

All major religions put most of the responsibility for sexual morality on women. Religions teach that women should remain chaste and should control and hide their sexuality so men will not be tempted.

Today, Islam effectively resists secularization primarily because of its use of shame. Within the community, each person’s sexuality is tied to his or her family and to the community. To violate the sexual rules of Allah violates both the family and the community. This powerful distortion allows Islam to remain isolated from secular sexual influences. The terror of social sanction or violence keeps young people from following their heart. It prevents healthy sexual exploration and development in men and women.

Growing up in a religious environment, children learn what not to do sexually. They learn that some practices or ideas, such as homosexuality, lust, masturbation, and pornography are sinful. These ideas are embedded in the minds of children years before they are ready for marriage, so it’s no surprise that many religious people have little or no experience with sex and know little about their sexuality.The guilt cycle that results from this training creates a form of self-censorship. Because so many sex acts and ideas are liable to lead to eternal damnation, people have a strong incentive to avoid expressing or discussing secretly held ideas and interests. Fear leads to hidden thoughts and activities and prevents normal, appropriately channeled sexual expression.

With the concept of an afterlife, religion creates a portal to infect people by means of terror and fear of death. If one has no concept of an afterlife, then fear of eternal punishment becomes an effective way to convince people of the need to perform specific rituals and live a certain way.

As conscious beings, we are capable of understanding that we will die some day. We also have the ability to imagine a world after we die. Religion hijacks this ability and injects fear of eternal torture and abandonment as well as the promise of eternal bliss. A perfect carrot and stick approach. The ability to imagine what is beyond the horizon of death is what allows religion to take control and make us do unnatural things.

Once one is convinced of the idea of eternal life or death, the person may do almost anything to achieve the reward or avoid punishment. He may fly an airplane into a building or become a missionary to another county. She may become a celibate nun or vow to raise a quiver full of children and homeschool them according to her religion. At the very least, the person will attend church regularly, give money, pray and do other things to ensure good standing with the deity. The root of this action is the hope for a reward and avoidance of punishment.

There are many afterlife ideas and little agreement on what it may be.

When Islam swept out of the Arabian Peninsula, it became an invasive species to both the pagan and Christian areas it conquered. With it came the sexual practices of a very patriarchal, polygamist culture. While the religions it displaced were not particularly sex positive, Islamic sexual practices, on the whole, were uniformly sex negative.

Celibacy is nothing if not abnormal. The human body and brain are not made for such programming. Whatever normal is, it does not include celibacy.

From fear of death to sexualizing the normal and marking children, religion is hell bent on creating an environment that is sexually negative –an environment that systematically and arbitrarily restricts options for people. Regardless of the biological map of an individual, religion will do its best to impose its map. The map is almost always focused on what not to do. Since humans can rarely, if ever, live up to such a restrictive standard, it gives religion a huge opportunity to develop guilt and shame, leading the person back to the religion for relief. The map bears no resemblance to human sexuality. It is an artificial and arbitrary set of rules imposed by the religion on its adherents. The result is oppression of women, sexual misinformation, fear of death, repression of homosexuals and much more.

Open, fact-based sex education is among the biggest threats to religion. Knowing the facts about sex reveals the myths that religions preach.