I think non religious people are more moral and self aware than religious people in general. I'm not including gnosticism as religious. The least moral and least self aware seem to be those who follow Judaic religions but it can include other religions as well.
Lack of morality in Judaic religions...
Faith is the single biggest immorality in these religions. Followers of Judaic religions don't exist in a vaccume. They compose of the majority of the world's population. This is a huge problem.
Most people think of wars and the inquisition as prime examples. These stem from a root cause which is Faith. Now for a personal example that really opened my mind to what Faith can do...
I knew many Christians growing up. Literally dozens of them. At least one hears the audible voice of god. Many of them have told me god speaks to them (This might not be audible but perhaps an emotional feeling). Several of them ask god for advice on important matters. God had supposedly helped a few of them with quite a bit (mostly trivial things.
I was always a sweet girl growing up.i never caused any problems. My mom has major issues. When my dad died she became severely abusive. She alienated me from literally everyone. She would tell people terrible things about me that weren't true. They all believed her and not me. This is the case even when I came out as an adult. If these people truely had such a hotline to god, how and why did god not tell them to not believe what my mom was saying and leave enable the abuse for all those years, and then to leave me no choice but cut them out of my life when they still hasn't gotten the message from God? Weird. Maybe god was busy instead helping them with those trivial matters. Makes no sense at all. These emotional feelings and voices are a literal delusion I think.
Another way they are immoral, narcassistic and even cruel is countless of specific beliefs they hold.
They believe that god will let a good person burn in hell ever if they were a good person.
They believe that god chooses to help them on trivial matters and yet chooses not to help people who are actually suffering severely. This is justified by god working in mysterious ways.
They believe that god murdering babies in the bible is not wrong.
Judaic religious followers don't seem as self aware as others...
(This is not meant to be rude. The following is my own experience with religious people. Maybe there is some that aren't like this that I just haven't met. I have met quitea few though)
They tend to be instinctual and emotionally driven. The religion I think is a way for them to have a social circle which gives them purpose and comfort. They aren't 'individuals' in the same way as other people I meet. It seems like they think in terms of the group. This extends beyond religion to other sectors of life. It seems they feel the need for an authority figure to guide them. This also extends to other parts of life. They don't look within for guidance.
Hey I hear you loud and clear. Oh and a shout out to Knoxville Tennessee I used to live in Asheville North Carolina and I would go over to Knoxville a lot. You make some very good points but it's also good to remember that there are a lot of good natured religious people that help the community and feed the hungry and we are social creatures. This is a social community. Faith is such a general term and you were talking about how wrong and misguided some people can be. Also when you mentioned the word self aware people are self-aware regardless of whether they're narcissistic or paying attention. Maybe a better word is conscientious you were saying some of those Christians are not conscientious at all. I think of it more like ignorant I think if people can understand and be right you would think they would choose that but it's not a choice where we grow up sometimes it's not a choice what we learn growing up or what our IQ is. Maybe people do the best they can except when they don't. Sometimes I feel like I don't know anymore!
Thank you for opening up. I can relate in some ways all because I can't stand people who judge others by the way they dress, smell or many other things. I know from practicing many different religion's in my 73 years I never understood why each religious book all talked about things that never truthfully was even taught by those so called pastor's or what ever title they carried also if we go in to the original scrolls where all these religious book for each and every religion out there we would find that these book only have small bits of truth that mankind chose to put into book form claiming that their God or deities suposively only wanted everyone to see or hear and claim them as the only true truth. I'm a spiritualist all because of what I have learned from everyone out there that practices the different religion's as well as from non religious people who don't practice any of the religious nonsense because they can see the bull shit that those that do follow some kind of faith or religious teaching have done when they aren't around other that know that they practice such beliefs. Scientist and atheist make more since to me than most of these religious folks any way. Just because I am a spiritualist doesn't mean I'm religious just means I am more open minded than others and hate religion's that claims that they are correct with teachings and no other teaching is correct even though they all teach the same damn thing. Sorry about the long reply.