The Objectivism Online Meta-Blog

Unequivocally, the greatest and most harmful result of the irrationality of religion is its hatred, absolute and unmitigated, of sex. There is nothing religion hates more than our human nature, especially our sexual nature.

Religion arises as an answer to fundamental psychological needs; among these needs are those for psychological continuity and an answer to death. However, it does so as a perversion. Instead of seeking real answers to these questions, it makes up the answers it wishes were true and then believes them to be true because it wishes them to be true (they call this epistemic perversion "faith"). The religious answer to our fear of death and attempt to understand it is this: death is an illusion, it's not real. The "real" you is a magical, eternal, thing we call the "soul" and this soul thing cannot die (immortality of soul), so therefore you cannot die either (identification of self with soul). Unfortunately for you, though, your magical soul thing is trapped in your body (mind/body dualism) and therefore it can't get to the magic realm of souls (heaven). However, you cannot just kill yourself! (Although it'd be reasonable if you actually believed this.) Because this would offend the maker of magical souls, who is himself a perfect uber-soul thing (god). The absurdity of it is apparent to everyone, except those blinded by faith - those who need it most.

Imagine that if you really believed that you were just your soul and that your body had trapped you here on Earth, you would justifiably hate your body and the needs it imposes on your soul. And we see that, indeed, this is the case. All religions that have a dualist doctrine hate the body and sexuality; perhaps more properly they feel it is shameful and therefore they hate it.

This hatred leads the religious to lash out at those who seem to be enjoying their bodies and so attacks them from the outside. Worse, though, is that the religious doctrine makes them ashamed of their enjoyment of their bodies and so shame and guilt attacks them from the inside. This dual attack on sexuality can be devastating to those who can't see past the illusions of religion.

In March of this year, a young girl named Jessica Logan killed herself in Cincinnati Ohio after she sent nude pictures of herself to a boy she liked, he spread them around the school, and then the students harassed her until she killed herself. I said then that morality has real consequences: people are motivated by the ideas they hold. In this case the religious ideals motivated the students to attack Jessica for enjoying her body and her shame over her enjoyment led her to kill herself.

Now, religion has killed again: this time in Florida. Her name was Hope Witsell and she was only 13 years old. She sent nude pictures of herself to a boy she liked and according to the story, a rival girl found them and sent them to other people and the pictures went viral around the school. Of course, since sex is shameful to christians, the students viciously attacked her and made her life miserable. Worse, her internal shame led her to start cutting herself. What was her parents response? To send her to a christian counselor. Of course, this only exacerbated the problem, since christianity was the problem to begin with, and she killed herself.

The paper notes that she was only 13 and that her parents "took her to church every Sunday." This is, of course, to assure us that she was a good christian girl (which was precisely the problem). Further, everyone acts surprised that a 13 year old could actually be sexual. This is patently absurd and only comes from the religious denial of sexuality and there refusal to want to think about it. Humans are naturally sexual beings and our bodies are sexual from the day we are born. In her case, it's likely that Hope was already in puberty and her body was sexually maturing. I'm sure her parents were incapable of seeing her as a sexual being and probably never gave her any advice about her burgeoning sexuality.

What is most heart wrenching to me is that Hope considered herself to be be completely at fault, according to one of her friends. At fault for what? For being human in a society tainted by religion. She was too young to be able to see past all of the religious lies and propaganda and just assert her right to her own life and sexuality.

And so, Hope Wisell is dead; killed by religion. For those who think ideas do not matter in life, look here! Here is an example of ideas mattering!

Although I'd like to think that things will start to get better, I know they will only get worse because of this. In order to "help stop it from happening again," legislatures and prosecutors will step up cases against the practice of sexting and start trying these kids for possessing nudes pictures of children. They will prosecute children for possessing pictures of other children, who took them consensually, and register them as "sex offenders." Especially the poor young girls who actually take the pictures of themselves: these girls are not only distributing felonious images, but creating them! This, of course, will cause more girls to kill themselves instead of facing a court for their "crime." All reason has gone out of the law on this. Thankfully the ACLU is starting to defend some of these cases, but they won't be able to stem the tide of it until people stop thinking of children as asexual and start recognizing that they are sexual beings too.

We cannot hope to have reason in our culture until we can rid it of faith.