Religion is an Emotional Prison

They use religion as an excuse to own us.
They use religion as an excuse to the existence of a patriarchal society.
They use it to hide their crimes and sadism.
They use it for power and manipulation.
Religion has been one of the reasons of why women are being treated less than a man.
You say it's not the case.
I tell you go check your holy books.
I tell you I have done my research. I have done ...my job. I have figured it out. Isn't it time for you to break the chains placed on you. To break the silence. To break the lies, and speak for once the truth which will set us all free! Why are you so afraid of knowing the truth about this supreme being you are worshiping? Why are you denying the fact that you have been treated as a sheep, and as a slave? Do you like the feeling of slavery? Do you like to obey? Have you been taught that this is the feeling which brings you pleasure and happiness? Well, I shall speak my mind whether you agree or disagree.
I speak my mind based on research, evidence, facts, and books I have read.
And so my religion is love, peace, and freedom.
That's where I get my morals from.
They are not being written out for me.
I am not obliged to follow anyone.
I shall not follow anyone.
I am a free woman.
I chose to be.
And so I shall be!

- Xena Amro

https://www.facebook.com/3rd.wave.feminism#!/TrueLebaneseFeminist

Are women Less Aggressive than Men?

In my view women are by no means less aggressive than men. Of course, they are victimized and disadvantaged by men avenging themselves for the beating they received from their mothers. But women avenge themselves for such victimization and physical cruelty by taking it out on their little children, thus breeding new generations of avengers who consciously love and honor their parents.

I see no real difference between the cruelty of women and that of men, because both sexes have learned such sadism at the hands of their parents and caregivers at the time when their brains were still in the process of formation. As children, they were subjected to cruelty and even perversion, but they not allowed to defend themselves. So later take out their repressed anger on other defenseless people, frequently in the same way their parents treated them when they were small. Women frequently vent this acquired sadism on their children. While men also give free rein to it by victimizing employees at work or lower military ranks, or else participating in orgies of violence like genocide or terrorist attacks. The causes invariable lie in the repressed and totally denied suffering of their childhood (though most of them will insist that they had wonderful parents). People who were not humiliated, tormented, or beaten in their early years are incapable of sadism.

Women can live out all kinds of covert perversion on their children and torment them impunity as long as they call this behavior “good parenting.” Society idealizes mothers because people have never consciously realized that their own mothers treated them cruelly when they were small. Accordingly, women normally enjoy total immunity.

I see no sex-specific differences in the suicide bombers. I understand terrorism as an attempt to compensate for the humiliations these people were subjected to , but have never consciously perceived as such, by means of a “magnificent deed” (such as sacrificing their own lives for the sake of a group).

Though it is not difficult to understand this dynamic, there are not many people who would allow themselves to give up their denial and look the truth in the face. The fear felt by the tormented children they once were can prevent this all their lives.

From the book “Free from Lies: Discovering your true needs” By Alice Miller Page 140

Recently someone unconsciously tried to manipulate me

How would you define abuse?

Abuse means to me using a person for whatever I want from her, or him, without asking for their agreement, without respecting their will and their interests. With children, it is very easy to do so, because they are loving, they trust their parents and most adults, and they don’t realize that they were abused, that their love had been exploited. Especially if they were forced to ignore their emotions from the beginning, they might have lost their sensibility for the warning signals.

A small girl will follow to the cellar the neighbor who promised her chocolate, although she may feel uncomfortable. But if she learned from the beginning of her life that her feelings didn’t matter and that she should obey every adult person, even if she feels resistance, she will follow the neighbor. She will behave like the Little Red Riding Hood in the fairytale. And she may later suffer in her relationship with men for her whole life if she didn’t work out this early experience in the cellar. However, if she does, she will no longer be in danger of becoming a victim of rape or any other kind of molestation.
http://www.alice-miller.com/interviews_en.php?page=5

A Life-Saving Experience

Thank you for asking people to speak out about this issue. I believe that the only way we can remove the stigma surrounding abortion is to let people share their stories in public and have an open, honest dialogue.

Abortion was a life-saving experience for me. I had just turned 20 years old in 1979, when I found out that I was pregnant. I was already living in an emotional prison with my family in Portugal, and having a child at that time would have robbed me of any chance to free myself. My child wouldn’t have fared any better: He or she would have lived a life of poverty with an emotionally unavailable mother.

Abortion was illegal then, and my whole family was against it. If they had found out about my condition, there’s no doubt in my mind they would have forced me to carry my pregnancy to term by any means possible, including locking me up or giving me drugs.

Fortunately, I found a midwife who was willing to give me the abortion I needed, although I got a bad infection from the procedure and had to go to the Emergency Room. Shortly thereafter, I moved away from my family and liberated myself from the traumatic emotional bonds that tied me to them.

The moment I found out that I was pregnant, I knew in my heart that abortion was the best choice for me. I was very comfortable with my decision, and I’m still confident that I did absolutely the best thing by not bringing an innocent new being into my set of circumstances.

The way I look at it, abortion is a private choice between a woman and her conscience that has very little impact on society. On the other hand, violence and abuse against unwanted children create a huge burden on humanity. If more people thought about this, I think they’d see that people who are against abortion are actually supporting cruelty against children.

The only bad feelings I had about my abortion was that it was illegal. No woman should have to go underground to decide what’s right for her. I still feel angry that I had to hide from everyone. I strongly believe that abortion should be available to every woman who wants one, and that politicians and religious fanatics have no business controlling women or putting us down.

Thank you for your attention,

Sylvie Shene

read more: http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-924935

My story A Life-Saving Experience was one of the stories on CNN with the most comments and shares.

I guess the truths in the comments was too much to bear for the CNN staff that must be run by a hypocrite pro-lifer, that was hoping for stories of women regretting their abortions, so they could push their pro-life agenda, but when they got a story of a woman  sure of her abortion and stood up to the pro-lifers lies with facts, they decided to give up on the show about abortion and they deleted the very enlightened comments on the abortion stories.

I had the gut feeling that CNN might one day delete all the comments and I saved most of them that I shared in my blog CNN Deleted all the Comments on the Abortions Stories on their Site
https://sylvieshene.blogspot.com/2016/02/cnn-deleted-all-comments-on-abortions.html

Today 5-14-2019 I noticed it that CNN has deleted in their website all the abortions stories, first, they deleted the comments on the abortion stories and now they deleted also the stories! CNN and most news stations suck!

These words by Alice Miller are so true. “… Rather than take the risk, they prefer to forgo information that might be of life-death importance for coming generations. So in order not to have to call their own parents into question for a single moment, they cling to outdated, destructive opinions. …Clearly, the prospect of confronting one’s own personal history, in this case, is an alarming experience. And, as always, the fear of facts is stilled by a fascination with intellectual terms and abstractions aimed at concealing and masking the truth—the truth of facts that appear so threatening… At every attempt to share the new discoveries I made with the public, I ran up against the most determined resistance on the part of the media. It is true I can go on publishing these discoveries in my books because my publishers are already aware of the growing interest in this topic. But there are other people who have important things to say, and they are dependent on the press. They and their readers rely on essential information not being torpedoed. All too often, however, the media buttress the wall of silence against which all those who have begun to confront their own childhood rebound.” 

Religion is an emotional prison

“If you were born in Israel, you’d probably be Jewish. If you were born in Saudi Arabia, you’d probably be a Muslim.  If you were born in India, you’d be Hindu. But because you were born in North America, you’re probably a Christian.  Your faith is not inspired by some divine, constant truth, it’s simply geography.”

"Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the politicians helpful."

Religion is an emotional prison that keeps people chained with invisible reins of guilt, shame, and fear. In different parts of the world the prison of religion has different names and gods and in some parts of the world some religions/prisons, they might treat you a little better and give you the illusion you have freedom, because it gives you longer reins and more room to roam, but still in prison nevertheless. I have removed the invisible reins of guilt, shame, and fear and broke free completely from the prison of religion. I am one of the luckiest people in this world! :-)

AM: Thank you for your further thoughts. I agree with almost everything you write besides your trust in the help of religions. Have you been growing up in a religious home, have you been a devoted child? This could explain your strong belief that representatives of religions can become interested in the tragedy of child abuse. I made many experiences in this direction and came to the conclusion that all religions are based on the denial of true feelings. Buddhism clearly preaches only “positive feelings” and coming away from the negative ones (that are actually authentic, true). You want to lead people towards the truth, how then do you expect help from religions? I don’t see neither how you want to pass on your knowledge to the masses who never never heard anything about unconsciousness, about repressed emotions etc though they are constantly driven by them. As therapist you know how much time it takes to become free from lies that were inflicted on us in the first years of our lives. How do you want the masses to liberate themselves from this burden without long therapies? I don’t want to question your optimism, it is precious to me, I would love to be able to share it with you but I can’t ignore the fact that the power of religions is stronger than the inborn capacity to love if it is so early destroyed. If we expected help from religions that are based on denial we would “reckon without the host”. The capacity for love we brought to the world at our birth has been systematically destroyed by religious hypocrisy.
You say rightly that for 100 years now we have been exposed to the idea (to the FACT, I would say) that childhood experience shapes the adult. What happened to this discovery? In the seventies some authors took it seriously. RD Laing, Siraala, Kemper (The Battered Child), Florence Rush, Ashley Montague and others moved in the direction towards awareness and were listened to. But today all this seems forgotten and covered by religions and all kind of esoteric “wisdom” disguised under the word “spirituality”. In the late eighties even the most powerful communist system could be abandoned because it was not linked to religion and the liberation from lies did not implied feelings of guilt as religious systems do. There, the liberation seems almost impossible because the fears of the small child don’t allow people this liberation. Where are you then looking for help? From institutions who forbid this liberation and benefit from our cruel and ignorant upbringing?
http://www.alice-miller.com/en/why-cant-religions-help-to-increase-awareness/

AM: Thank you for expounding your vision. Yes, it would be wonderful if we could initiate a powerful movement towards more awarness. In fact, by understanding the emotional needs of children we would come to understand OURSELVES too, the basis of our existence, of our own Being as responsible adults. But this is impossible without liberating the strong bitterness of the abused child we hide deeply in our bodies because of the fears of our parents. Unfortunately, ALL religions FORBID this emotional liberation, they rather allow wars, some of them even consider wars as sacred because they have never understood that feeling the legitimate rage PROTECTS us from acting out in wars and criminality. The last are organized exactly by people who DON’T feel.
http://www.alice-miller.com/en/the-sacred-wars/

AM: I am far away from being religious as in all religions I know of I see the lack of psychological knowledge, much hypocrisy and a lot of contradictions. To show one of them I wrote: If I DID believe that Jesus was the son of God I would assume that he was not beaten in his childhood and I would learn from this example. I could then no longer promote the violent education as most christians still do. Perhaps you would like to read the very interesting book “Jesus, A Psychological Biography”, by Donald Capp, 2000 .Until now, nobody could give proven facts that Jesus existed. Nor that he didn’t exist. Thus we have only rely on the bible with everything we think and say.
http://www.alice-miller.com/en/religions/

"They use religion as an excuse to own us. 

They use religion as an excuse to the existence of a patriarchal society.
They use it to hide their crimes and sadism.
They use it for power and manipulation.
Religion has been one of the reasons of why women are being treated less than a man.
You say it's not the case.
I tell you go check your holy books.
I tell you I have done my research. I have done ...my job. I have figured it out. Isn't it time for you to break the chains placed on you. To break the silence. To break the lies, and speak for once the truth which will set us all free! Why are you so afraid of knowing the truth about this supreme being you are worshiping? Why are you denying the fact that you have been treated as a sheep, and as a slave? Do you like the feeling of slavery? Do you like to obey? Have you been taught that this is the feeling which brings you pleasure and happiness? Well, I shall speak my mind whether you agree or disagree.
I speak my mind based on research, evidence, facts, and books I have read.
And so my religion is love, peace, and freedom.
That's where I get my morals from.
They are not being written out for me.
I am not obliged to follow anyone.
I shall not follow anyone.
I am a free woman.
I chose to be.
And so I shall be!"
- Xena Amro

https://www.facebook.com/3rd.wave.feminism#!/TrueLebaneseFeminist

Be careful about what you believe in because your mind will create it!