religion is regressive for humans. It holds them back from moral growth by constructing an evironment of supervision and doctrines that threaten punishment for infractions.
The religious member is never able to decide for himself what is wrong. Instead, he is more apt to please the supervisor in order to avoid punishment/secure reward.
In Kohlbergs stages of moral development,this confines the religion base to level 1 morality.
Level 1 (Pre-Conventional) 1. Obedience and punishment orientation (How can I avoid punishment?) 2. Self-interest orientation (What's in it for me?) Level 2 (Conventional) 3. Interpersonal accord and conformity (Social norms)(The good boy/good girl attitude) 4. Authority and social-order maintaining orientation (Law and order morality) Level 3 (Post-Conventional) 5. Social contract orientation6. Universal ethical principles (Principled conscience)
This is evidenced and reinforced by heaven and hell. Most christians (and others) are so tightly wound up in the idea of punishment/reward, that the terminology and social interactions have become "God forgive your soul", "Don't believe in God? You'll wish you did when you get to heaven and God says 'I knew ye not' ", etc etc.
Of course, the hardcore religious will say that these kinds of people will never to go heaven either and that they are just fooling themselves. However, the hardcore religious have their own problems. Who goes to heaven. Only christians? only catholics? Only jews? A mix of all religious members?
The common consensii is that heaven is relegated to those who either love god, or those that simply follow the commandments. These consensii have two problems. Honoring ones parents is not a universal social virtue, and loving God is strict in which religion is right.
At the end of the day, religion is too restrictive of it's own merit and reward to be anything close to what an actual spirituality should consist of.
