Religion blind hatred for anyone not in your spiritual fraternity and hypocritical self interest is a cancer on society. ftfy

People are afraid of dying and what may or may not come after, so we make up comforting narratives to ease the existential dread. And those narratives double as a cultural identity marker to make people feel special and in a community. I would be okay if it just stopped there. Where most religions here in the west go wrong for me is the constant threats of eternal damnation if you aren't part of the club, like the concept of hell and eternal punishment for finite usually-not-that-bad crime is just so awful on a practical and philosophical level it must have originated from the human mind and our deep seeded desire for the ultimate form of vengeance. Imagining the people who wronged you burning in hell forever really does bring some people a fucked up sense of comfort I guess. That and most versions of God being kind of a overly controlling petty dick who despite being benevolent and all loving will absolutely torch your ass for all eternity if you don't constantly ask for forgiveness over every little thing. Like im pretty sure an all powerful benevolent god that truly loves every being in existence wouldn't have such a fragile and temperamental ego, nor would they expect constant groveling every time you bust a nut.

I used to be a hardcore athiest since I disliked those aspects of my countries popular religions so much. Taking heroic doses of mushrooms and learning eastern ideas of religion like daoism and the idea of the godhead through Alan Watts helped me tremendously with coming around to the spiritual nature of realty. Im much happier with actually being able to experience subjective experiences my edgelord athiest past self never would have imagined while feeling relatively comfortable with the concept of my own mortality.

Not sure what point I was trying to make. sorry for the ramble.