I don’t hate the members, I just feel sad when I think of them, and of my ex-family.
That makes me sad too. I don’t have a particularly negative attitude towards religion (alll my personal interactions with religions and religious people have been pretty positive and haven’t included any of the aspects on your list) but I hear stories like yours about the incredibly toxic things people can do with their religions, and it depresses me, mostly because I don’t think it’s purely a symptom of people being religious. Otherwise, how could nearly all the religious people I’ve met be more accepting and less hypocritical about their daily life decisions than my atheist-by-default friends? It’s more a symptom of people being flawed humans, and that is depressing.
That makes me sad too. I don’t have a particularly negative attitude towards religion (alll my personal interactions with religions and religious people have been pretty positive and haven’t included any of the aspects on your list) but I hear stories like yours about the incredibly toxic things people can do with their religions, and it depresses me, mostly because I don’t think it’s purely a symptom of people being religious. Otherwise, how could nearly all the religious people I’ve met be more accepting and less hypocritical about their daily life decisions than my atheist-by-default friends? It’s more a symptom of people being flawed humans, and that is depressing.