Non-religious ideas: Fromm

• What is an authoritarian conscience?

  Fear of being rejected by society because society is based on obedience to rules and conformity to norms. In most social systems, the supreme virtue is obedience, whereas the supreme sin is disobedience. They are not troubled by a moral issue - rather troubled because they have disobeyed a command and feel afraid.
• What is the humanistic conscience?

  Has intuitive knowledge of what is human and inhuman; of what makes life flourish and what destroys it. Our existing religious, philosophical and social systems have given us an intuitive knowledge of the difference between the two forms of conscience. To reject the authoritarian form and embrace the humanistic form is to free ourselves from the fear of unjust and violent authority and to realise our full potential as people