Thought Crimes

Perhaps the most psychologically destructive thing in religion is the fear of punishment for thought crimes. Desiring the accumulation of goods, coveting the goods of your neighbor, desiring things that have been forbidden to you, sexual attraction that is deemed inappropriate even in the absence of acting on it, and, worst of all, questioning the faith, could all end with punishment for you in this life or the next. A fear of thinking is by far the worst type of fear to overcome, because it is so insidious. Even when you question this fear, you wonder whether you are questioning it because someone (like Satan) is telling you to.

It is, for many people, much easier to get your moral guidance from someone else than to face the complex questions of morality on your own. We are all programmed by evolution to do what authority tells us, at least until we develop the cognitive ability to question it. We do what we are told because that is how we survive. If we are told not to jump off a cliff or play with a lion, it is more advantageous for us to evolve to simply obey than to question why. When that is hijacked, and a person is taught not to seek to answer any questions for themselves, but to rely fully on the authority of another, it can be hard to break free.

Most people with religious backgrounds have had some level of psychological conditioning from within the religion, teaching them how they should think. Few have probably had as much as I did. My parents are the kind of people who would have been leaders of a psychotic cult, if they had the people skills; although since they were so obviously insane, they drove everyone away. But since they were my parents, there was little I could do to escape their insanity. For a number of reasons, they felt that I was an especially evil creature that had to be destroyed, psychologically or physically, at all costs.

It can be difficult to break down the walls of psychological conditioning, even after losing your faith, even if you only had an only moderately religious upbringing. Building a solid emotional foundation from scratch as an adult is extremely difficult. It is extremely easy to relapse into unhealthy or unproductive ways of thinking. For some people, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) may be helpful. I find it reduces my anxiety to listen to music. In a sort of counter-intuitive way, depressing songs often help me feel better. Here is a playlist of songs that help me.