Most of us today worry if we are told that we have to be religious to be fully human. Those who say that usually have a particular religion in mind. The broader-minded may have Muslims, Jews and Christians in mind for at least they believe in feeding the poor and worshipping a God who is bigger than anything we can imagine. The Hindus who think that the poor should be ignored for they have bad karma to get through are definitely excluded.
The view that follows is more popular. It is that God designs humans for they are meant to be brave, kind, compassionate and fair is degrading though it does not look it. It calls the person who falls far short of these things less than human. It defines a person not as what they are but as what they ought to be in the eyes of some religion or God or Jesus. Christianity says God doesn't make evil for evil is not a thing and there is nothing to make but is simply rubbish good. So if you are pure evil that is the same as not-existing. The implication is that the more you sin the less you exist! Sane!
The Christian claim that we are made in the image of God is getting at something like all that. It is a form of ideological colonisation to tell atheists that they are tabernacles and pictures of God. And to treat them that way. It is accusing the atheist of defacing what they are and inducing others to do the same. And what about Islam that does not emphasise the image doctrine? Worse than that the Qur'an doesn't teach it.
Religion might say it considers all people human? Really? What if you had to throw a bomb to the left or the right and you had a virtuous person on one side and a shameless "sinner", maybe atheist, on the other? You would be dehumanising the sinner where it counts most, not in theory but in practice. You cannot pretend to hate the sin and love the sinner then as if the sinner should be seen apart from the sin, and as a person.
Religion lying about all this dehumanises everybody. Period. It treats us as fools not as persons.
Religion cleverly accuses anyone who is not bothered about God, especially atheists, of being dehumanised and opening the door to further forms of degradation. It says that without God a vacuum is made in which monstrous things like murderous hate, Stalinism, you name it, can appear and often do appear. Unpack that.
It can only mean that making that gap is wrong for you know some will respond by filling it with evil. Yet the gap might not have to lead to that but the believers talk as if the risk is inexcusable.
To repress a need for God would be wrong if the need is real and can only be coped with by some delusion or by simply turning to God.
If there is a God who made us for himself then they are saying that if you are not for God then you will have something that is not good like he is in his place. This is an attempt to be bad to him for he is denied his place.
To rephrase, commonsense would say that if you reject God as he is, you can effectively replace him with a similar model, a fantasy friend that inspires you. Religion will say this is impermissible and shameful for it is putting an image of God over God and is a lie. So near enough is itself evil. [It ignores how God in that case would be an extension of your character who administers the justice and vengeance you would like to see others get. God is a way of fulfilling your wish to harm.] Those who think that belief in God can make you a better person will not object to this deception as long as the person remains neighbourly and exhibits good qualities.
So let us talk about evil in a more natural way and ask if a gap could make us dangerous. A person who cares about humanity does not care if God is lied about in the way we have seen but cares if more rabid clearly harmful evil will emerge. The person worries about people's wellbeing not God.
To tell people they are vicious for making a gap just because the gap can allow evil is in fact programming them to become monsters. It is trying to give them a monstrous potential. The real monsters are those who in the name of God teach that not having enough of a relationship with God devises a dangerous toxic gap. It is as if they want them caught in a spiral of evil.
They are saying that the vacuum is bad because of what it might lead to. Yet we don't hear them saying that in the light of the Bible God having approved violence against adulteresses etc, that faith in God or alleged scripture is bad for what it might lead to.
How good is faith in God? How great is God really? Not that great if a person can get through life with an imitation. And even religion admits that most people do. Your wife is not that great and you don't think she is if you can make do with a robot version of her. Same idea.
Religion famously says that evil is a distortion of good and so is not a thing. There is nothing there for God to make. So you cannot say God made evil. So evil appears in a vacuum. Then we are told that not every absence of good is evil. For example, Catholicism says that if a trans woman feels it is unfair that she cannot birth a baby, she is wrong. It says it is like calling God evil for not letting you sprout wings so you can fly to safety if you fall over a cliff.
That amounts to saying, "It is right that I cannot have wings, just because it is right".
Not having wings can harm.
Yet we are told that the absence of a sense of God in an atheist is evil because of what harms might appear in it.
Double-standards at large.
And religion says that evil disguises itself. If evil is a lack of good then it will want you think that some lacks of good are not evil.
Whether you think the character of an act makes it evil, or whether it all depends on how many good or bad consequences there are, you are saying that bad results show that something immoral has been done. But that contradicts the principle that if I fire a dice for a million years and its 6 every time that has not the slightest thing to do with showing it will be 6 the next time. It is the same with harmful results.
It is not true that anybody really cares about morality. They care about power. Everybody does in their own way.
We know there are people who we would call cold and dead inside. We would say that aspect of them is barely human. Those who say we should not dehumanise ignore this. Surely being human in the heart is more important than being human any other way! Make no mistake, those who slam dehumanising behaviours and communications are not innocent themselves.
Joseph Conrad wrote that “The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness”. The time faith spends on studying magical evil, fearing it, praying against it, is time that could be expended on human cruelty. And who thinks religious faith cares? Nobody should think it.
Even if a believer in God says you can't blame the Devil entirely, the fact remains that they say they could be wrong about this. That is what they say when they say they believe for belief is not the same as knowing or being certain. They have to admit to being open to suggesting it is all Satan. But even suggesting such a thing is extreme. It is like thinking that maybe a sick baby should be just shot and put of her misery. You come across as fake if there are evil people about and you are pretending that it is Satan who is evil not them or that Satan not them is the biggest problem. So there is a thin line between saying the Devil made you do it or that God did. You may as well give up declaring anybody responsible. You may as well give up blaming people for feeling not responsible.
And you can talk about how human a person is but once you see them as an instrument of the supreme evil person, Satan, that talk will become irrelevant. If a tyrant is brainwashing a person to harm you you still have the right to destroy the latter in self-defence. There is no practical or emotional difference between hating them as a person or as an instrument. Hate is hate. It is triggered by the threat of danger, and by fear.
You hear hypocrites saying when people burn down a mosque or something that they are not evil and the real blame is with Satan. If people are evil then why are those fakes deflecting from that? And if it is okay to fear and hate Satan, that hate will soon spread. You will soon find that because you let hate in, that it becomes irresistibly evil to start directing it at new targets, especially those who you link with the Devil you detest.
Even forgiveness related to religion has a disgusting side. It only looks good while it is anything but. For a start, a God who pardons your grave evil doing in an instant is granting cheap mercy. No mature person wants such pardon - they want forgiveness as in a process where they change and make it safe for the other to forgive fully.
It stands to reason that if your attitudes to others are dehumanising and you are using God as a crutch to look down upon them that the forgiveness is going to be toxic. It may feel okay for a while but its true nature will take root. It will be withdrawn by you and you will deny that you have ceased to forgive.