At the heart of the Christian religion lies a disturbing hostility towards humanity's essential physicality. Though less stridently proclaimed today than in earlier eras, the circumspection, disdain and outright condemnation of human sexuality in the dogmas of the church has given rise, for two millennia, not only to the most monumental hypocrisy but to all manner of sexual-emotional disorders. In simple terms, sex was, and remains, a distraction, rival, and enemy of organized religion – and in private moments, an indulgence and reward of its high priests.
Repressed sexuality, on the other hand, can be channeled into a fierce piety and kill-joy religiosity, its uncompromising ardor harnessed for the purposes of the Church. But "inner conflict" is a predictable consequence, as is an obsessive preoccupation with other people's sexual predilections. The faith-based moralizer rages over private pleasures, such as homosexuality and the "sanctity of human life" – whilst condoning without embarrassment the slaughter of distant peoples who do not happen to share their own peculiar interpretation of the divine.
Christianity's anti-sexual, puritanical doctrines have inflicted untold damage on the mental, emotional and physical lives of countless millions of people. Through the course of centuries this malevolent faith has left a trail of emotionally and mentally disturbed people, people who have punished themselves and caused distress to others, in a life filled with guilt, shame and denial.
Self-hatred leading to suicide, frigid marriages leading to violence, years of loneliness, anger and regret, are some of the milder consequences of the psychosis. Misogyny, pedophilia, homophobia, rage against abortion, opposition to birth control, obsession with virgin purity, obstruction of stem cell research, morbid self-denial, flagellation, censorship of literature and art, intolerance of alternative lifestyles – Christianity's legacy runs as a foul stain across the human landscape.