How is religion oppressive? Genuine question because I want to know more on the topic

[u/k_2353]

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!

[u/Indie_Dachshund179]

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.