In the Vol. 15, No. 2 issue of Skeptic, there is an article entitled Why Religions Turn Oppressive: A Perspective from Evolutionary Psychology. At the risk of oversimplifying things, here’s what I got out of that article:
By and large, people tend to help others when it benefits them, harm others when it either benefits them or prevents being harmed or disadvantaged, and be totally indifferent to others when what they do neither helps nor harms. An exception to this general rule is the domain of morality.
Morality consists of a large number of arbitrary rules. While obeying some can certainly be of benefit for individuals and the group, others don’t seem to be of any benefit, and can sometimes be nonsensical when viewed objectively, especially where they actually hinder the improvement of our welfare.
Where religious groups become oppressive, the targets are usually people who can’t fight back easily because of their small numbers and low social status. When a religious group condemns non-members of its group, it can lead to collective bullying. For example, when antiabortionists try to induce shame on teenage girls who go to an abortion clinic, they are also telling people in their own group where the line is drawn and that the line must be toed to avoid similar shame.
In the past, some societies would allow dominant religious groups to harm and kill non-members in the name of morality or to impose certain theological beliefs. These sometimes took the form of public executions.
If we take away the word “religion” and replace it with “dominant social group,” could not the same thing be said of nudism? There are so few of us and we seem to promote something so opposite to the prevailing norms that we become an easy target.
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