Jim Carroll says: Down the centuries religion has been taught as spiritual blackmail - if you don't believe, you are a sinner and will suffer eternal damnation - say this is not the case if I am wrong. In Catholic communities, right up to comparatively recently, religion has been driven into children from birth, the methods used include physical violence in the form of beating, humiliation (including that of young children) and ostracisation, encouraged and sometimes enforced by the Clergy - feel free to challenge this also, if it is not a fact. It is contemptible to ignore this fact and blame "zombies" for being zombies. What you say is true, Jim...for a small but significant percentage of people brought up with a religious upbringing. And that group is of concern to me. Most people brought up with religion are disgustingly normal, and found a religious upbringing to be nothing akin to the torture you and some others describe. But you're right that some religious households are abusive, unhealthy environments for raising children. But it it because they're religious, or because abusive people misuse religion as a tool of abuse? Even atheists abuse children, you know - in about the same proportion as religious people. -Joe Offer-
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