10 Harmful Effects of Religion
*See the video for this post on my YT channel here*
In this post, I'm going to talk about 10 harmful effects religion had on my life. There are other damaging effects to mention, this being just 10 and I plan to talk about those issues in future videos. Also, I have to start by saying these are my personal experiences with religion, and it may or may not be so different from your own experiences.
1. Indoctrination
I'll start with indoctrination. This is what first comes to mind since I was raised in church from the time I was adopted at 5 weeks old. Indoctrination is harmful because you don't learn critical thinking skills. Even if what the adults taught me was true, I wouldn't be believing for good reasons. Lack of critical thinking skills leads to believing in anything really. From flat earthers, anti-vaccers, to this).
To quote Richard Dawkins from The God Delusion, “one of the truly bad effects of religion is that it teaches us that it is a virtue to be satisfied with not understanding”.
If you do think for yourself, and/or question anything about the ideas that are being forced on you, you're shamed for it. See this video for more.
2. Being Terrified of the Idea of Hell
This fear lasted for years. Even after I realized I didn't believe in a hell, this fear still lingered. I eventually overcame that fear. I talk more-depth about the idea of hell and how I overcame it here.
3. Not Knowing How to Grieve
I treated death as if it wasn't real. I thought it was just saying good-bye for now, but we'll see each other again soon, when we're all in heaven. I also thought of this life as something that didn't matter, all of my concern was focused on the next life or the “afterlife”. Eventually it got to the point where I was comfortable with the idea of dying for my faith if that was ever something I needed to do.
My first encounters with death were when I was too young to understand it. My grandparents passed away when I was very young, I think I was around 6. When my grandparents passed away, I was told they went to a better place: heaven.
Family pets died when I was a kid too. I specifically remember digging up my dead hamster that we buried in the backyard 3 days earlier (I waited 3 days to dig him up because Jesus rose back from the grave after 3 days so surely my hamster will too. This was my reasoning when I was a kid. When I recovered the box his body was in, I found a very startling image. Imagine digging up your loved, dead pet, lifting the lid off of the box and finding worms and other bugs emerging from the inside of its body, eating it. Yeah... we're gonna get dark. I was going to include a photo here but decided not to. I typed in 'worms on decaying animal'... don't do that.
4. Sexual Shame
What religion doesn't participate in sexual shame? Shaming people for being sexual at all. I realized I was bisexual when I was 27, I'm now 30 now and it took a long time to accept that. I think part of the blame lands on religion and being around people who were homophobic and not accepting of others if they were anything but straight. I also was molested as a kid for years and that alone made me feel incredibly worthless and guilty because I thought it was my fault. I thought for so long that there was something horribly wrong with me.
Now, let's add another layer of shame with the help of religion.
I remember kids in my youth group would take purity pledges at Jesus Camps each summer and other church services. I think this started when I was around eleven.
Even IF I had never been sexually abused as a kid, even IF I wasn't bi – the harm religion added to my life in terms sexual shame was damaging. Author Linda Kay Klein recently wrote a book about her experience with the Evangelical Purity movement and she was interviewed recently on the Fresh Air podcast with Terry Gross. Unfortunately, I can really relate to her experiences. Almost everything she talks about in that episode aside from the last 7 minutes seems like a part of my story. & that's horrible but I think other women and girls can also relate to her story.
Why is god obsessed with people's sex lives? This coming from the god who said, "I am the Lord your God, who brought you up out of Egypt. Open wide your mouth and I will fill it”. (Psalm 81:10)
5. Thought I Was Never Good Enough for God.
That's just it. I never felt that I could ever live up to god's standards. This lead to low self esteem. When you're told on repeat, “You're a sinner and unworthy and you need to be saved, you're flawed, you're not good enough, you're broken and need to be fixed, you're weak and in need of another's strength, and that if only you have enough faith, then you'll truly be saved and escape eternal damnation and hellfire. Even after leaving the faith and not believing in a god, the effects of low self-esteem is hard to break.
6. Ashamed and Angry for Being Female.
I spoke a bit about this in my other video, Molested & Indoctrinated. I felt inferior to boys and men growing up. I thought I was worth less than them and that I should be submissive and docile around them. This leads into #7.
7. Not Using My Voice
This still effects me. Special thanks to these verses:
1 Timothy 2:12
1 Corinthians 14:34
8. Thought I Was the Cause of Other's Sins
I felt that I was causing men to sin with 'lustful' thoughts if I wasn't dressed properly. At Jesus Camp it was the 'fingertip rule'. On a missions trip outside the US, it was skirts to the ground.
The sexual abuse I went through definitely added to this thinking; I thought I was causing the abuse to happen. So I started dressing in over-sized, baggy clothing.
Moving onto the last two points, I don't know if they are direct effects of religion but they are the result of the effects previously mentioned; i.e. low self esteem, shame, indoctrination, etc.. Without religion, I'm not sure if I would have felt this way.
9. Suicide Thoughts
Suicide thoughts. And that was alright with me. I thought that *this* life didn't matter.
I also became suicidal when I was trying to find a way out of a Christian College I went to. I thought, 'if this is how life is going to be, I'm done'. Again, you can hear more about this here.
10. I Used Self-Harm to Escape a Cult.
You can still see the scars on my forearm. And, again, I talk about this entire story in another video where I share about my experience of going to a Jesus Boot Camp when I was attending a small Christian college in Griffin, GA.
Close: I'd love to hear from you below. If you're currently suffering from the harmful effects of religion, or you have questions about leaving your religion and you'd just like to talk to someone, I'm going to add some helpful resources below. Know that you're not alone and there is help.
RESOURCES:
-Sarah
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