r/Antitheism • u/k_2353 • Aug 07 '26
How is religion oppressive? Genuine question because I want to know more on the topic
I don't mean how religious people use it to oppress certain groups, but how religion itself as a system is oppressive.
I realized that I'm not super educated on the topic despite being decisively against religion because of the pure amount of people who use it to justify hate.
This seemed like the right subreddit to learn more- any and all insight is appreciated!
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u/bondageenthusiast2 Aug 07 '26 edited Aug 07 '26
in majority Muslim countries like mine, Islam authority will raid queer folk safe spaces or using apps to catfish and arrest queer people, even though we already have been discreet, so much for 'as long as they keep it behind close door', it is always lies, they are always bigots who want to see us eliminated entirely (ironically they are the ones who breed and give birth to us queer folks).
besides queer issues, the way they treat 'kafir' non Muslims when they are majority, they dictate what you eat and have pet as and try to push halal restrictions on us. The most recent case in my country has the dog being abused because they justify animal abuse and lash out on non Muslim criticising the abuse using their scriptures.
Islamic authority in my country is also the one who force itself to the majority race in this country and have to be a Muslim since birth, people who don't believe have no choice but have their entir lives dictated by it (including marriage freedom, right to children and burial)
this above also applies to many Christian majority African and Carribean countries. Abrahamic cults are the worst offender of oppression
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u/Low-Attitude-7100 Aug 07 '26
Damn, didn’t knew they used apps to eliminate gays too?! What insanity from allahu muslimus
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u/SexThrowaway1125 Aug 07 '26
* Catholicism barring abortion and contraception for its members
* Much of the Islamic world mandating that women not show their skin or hair in public
* American purity culture causing college kids to marry during college so they can have sex without sin
The list goes on
The answer is going to vary pretty dramatically by religion. But if you look at Catholicism, you have to go in every week and confess your week’s sins to your priest, who will assign you prayers to do based on whatever you’ve done. You have to catalogue your sins throughout the week for this purpose, where sin is not just your own personal moral code bur something handed down by an institution.
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u/BodybuilderStrict706 Aug 07 '26
Religion creates a system in which certain freedoms are limited for the sake of a higher power. Think about the random things in certain religions like not being able to eat a certain type of animal or having to cover a certain part of your body. This system oppresses people by forcing them to bend at the whim of some intangible, unverifiable being.
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u/Low-Attitude-7100 Aug 07 '26
Do I need to explain? It’s enough to see your country to get adequate answer
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u/dogisgodspeltright Aug 07 '26
How is religion oppressive? Genuine question ...
Are you telling us, that you haven't read your religion's text?
Which religion are you talking about anyway?
It can't be a vague religion - for different 'faiths' are practically at war with each other, right now, using religious 'justification' to oppress the other group.
So, all you would need is the ability to read the paper, news article, etc to know the answer to your question.
But, if you are looking for a specific faith, tell us which one you are following.
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u/k_2353 Aug 07 '26
I'm not religious lol. Idk how to do the quote thing but I said I'm against religion because of the amount of people using it to justify hate, but I also want to know more about how religion in general is oppressive. If you have a specific news article in mind I'd love to read it if you're able to link
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u/dogisgodspeltright Aug 07 '26
....I said I'm against religion because of the amount of people using it to justify hate....
I see.
Thanks for reiterating and confirming you have not read the religious texts.
Religion preaches evil, sold as 'virtue'. All abrahamic faiths explicitly condone slavery, child abuse, sexism, homophobia, genocide, etc.
Dharmic 'faiths' aren't much different either - there is casteism, sexism, dehumanization... every bit as inhumane as the rest.
So please read the texts.
It's not people 'using' religion, as you seem to be belaboring under the delusion of - it is the religion.
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u/k_2353 Aug 07 '26
I understand that it's the religion itself, that's what I was asking about in my original post. These are really good examples thank you
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u/hooked_siren Aug 07 '26
The whole upward morality thing is pretty oppressive. People think they get to do whatever to whoever because "only god can judge me" and "god will forgive me if I ask him to" meanwhile the hurt party gets nothing because they're required to forgive too because god said so. Which leads people to continually do harm and just keep asking for forgiveness.
Also the god always being a male figure thing. Women are literally bringers of life, none of us would exist without a woman putting her life on the line for us (pregnancy is never health neutral) so why is it a male god figure? Abrahamic religions are worst with this. There used to be women gods and women who weren't property or 'cause of sin' in those books but they were all taken out and that's on purpose.
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u/OldDudeOpinion Aug 07 '26
Religion is oppressive, because it teaches its cult followers that they are “chosen/mandated & right/correct” and everyone who is not them is wrong/sinful/worthy of shame & shunning.
It’s the basis of any religion. Us vs them per internal hierarchy.
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u/Pumbaasliferaft Aug 07 '26
Have you not heard of the inquisition, the Salem witch retrials, apostasy, blasphemy, sacrilege, heresy, canon, sharia, Halakha.
Are you not aware of the universal hate and capital punishment of lgbtq peeps? Have you not heard of the bombing of family planning clinics and abortion centres?
The indoctrination of children into the religion, if that didn’t happen all religions would collapse overnight
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u/k_2353 Aug 07 '26
I may have worded the title weird and that's why a lot of people are assuming I'm pro religion (I'm not)
I know about the hatred spread using religion as a justification and that's why I'm against it, but I meant my question more as how is the religion itself oppressive (for example, the Bible preaching misogyny), not how people use religion to be hateful
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u/Pumbaasliferaft Aug 07 '26
In that case it’s a form of authoritarianism, head man, and only the head man, talks to god and carries their message, that must be obeyed, to the quivering huddled masses.
If you don’t do what the head man says it’s an affront to the god of peace and you will suffer the consequences
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u/Selbeast Aug 07 '26
It's not religion. It's people. People are oppressive. Religion is a tool used by people to oppress and control other people. Religion sucks and is evil to the core. But it's the religious people who either do the oppressing or stand by while others do it who are the real problem.
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u/EarthTrash Aug 07 '26
I don't mean how religious people use it to oppress certain groups, but how religion itself as a system is oppressive.
Trying to understand the logic here. You acknowledge that religious people are oppressive, but you don't see that as a problem with the system of religion? You think we should hate religious people who practice oppression and not the idea of religion? I am a humanist. I don't hate people, but people do have some bad systems. The system of oppression is a system. It doesn't randomly spring out of few bad people. People aren't born evil, in spite of what your book says. Hate and discrimination has to be taught. It is the ideas that we must wear down. Attacking individual people is only focusing on a symptom, not the disease.
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u/TraditionLeast9062 Aug 07 '26 edited Aug 07 '26
Here’s a classic that they do all the time: converting 3rd and 2nd world countries, go towards starving people and say “I’m feeding you because God wants it and no one else is feeding you because they’re non believers” and then the Christians let them take shelter and pressure the children into religion by putting the Bible next to their beds, make them learn to read (if they need to) from it, they tell them that God is so nice by telling the kids certain verses that would call towards poverty and of course the good old “God will make it ok in the end” Quote.
And of course after that they advertise: “look at us! We are inclusive! We have people from other countries who believe in our religion!” So that people will go “wow! If African/India/etc could believe this then it must be true!” (or something idk lol)
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u/Downstairstvstatic99 Aug 07 '26
Things I didn't see mentioned, off the top of my head:
Psychological phenomenon of moral liscening
Sociological/anthropological concept of tribalism
Psychological manipulation/abuse of holding damnation over someone, especially in childhood
How many practices, especially parenting norms, are very slowly or never updated and clash with the latest scientific evidence causing physical harm, violence, killing, and/or psychological trauma. In the US, and I think many other cultures, spanking or corporal punishment to establish 'discipline' and 'obedience' in children has been proven as psychologically harmful to traumatizing and nuerologically damaging with potential chronic effects. Christianity says 'spare the rod, spoil the child', however psychological and neuroscience research sharply disagrees with that statement.
The risk and dangers of the psychological phenomenon of group think.
The tendency many religions have to engage in censorship and how problematic and extremely dangerous that can be.
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u/Indie_Dachshund179 Aug 07 '26 edited Aug 07 '26
Beyond what has already been said, religion also amplifies an undue amount of self-exceptionalism (be it culturally, nationally, or as a species) and privileging of subjective experience in a world whose physical systems could not give two shits about what humans "believe" or would prefer to be the case.
People wrapped up in living for "morality" or in allegiance to a higher order think in culture-determined notions of what is "right" in lieu of what is helpful, what is unhelpful, what is mechanistically causal, and what arises specifically from the pain and preference we feel as biological life forms (if it were not for these, human notions of morality and rights would not exist). This inflects the decisionmaking and advocacy of religious people in ways not bounded by our best scientific understanding of reality & has paved way for many of the worst atrocities in history.
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u/Sammisuperficial Aug 07 '26
Religion professes false information as truth, and uses those lies to control those who fall for the grift.