The Case Against Religion — Albert Ellis It Ain’t Rocket Science… Before we can talk sensibly about religion — or almost anything else — we should give some kind of definition of what we are talking about. Let me, therefore, start with what I think are some legitimate definitions of the term religion. Other concepts of this term, of course, exist; but what I am talking about when I use it is as follows. According to Webster’s New World Dictionary, religion is: “(1) belief in a divine or superhuman power or powers to be obeyed and worshipped as the creator(s) and ruler(s) of the universe; (2) expression of this belief in conduct and ritual.” English and English, in their Comprehensive Dictionary of Psychological and Psychoanalytical Terms (1958), define religion as “a system of beliefs by means of which individuals or a community put themselves in relation to god or to a supernatural world and often to each other, and from which the religious person derives a set of values by whic...
Recently , I had one of those realizations: My mother orphaned me, abandoned me. and dumped me at age 2 1/2; I lost all trust of her when she threatened me with a stick with a nail in it. I continued to live with her until age 14 when I hit the streets at her invitation. Other siblings left earlier, they hated me for leaving and not care-taking her. This put the responsibility on them for her eventual care. So they dumped me as well. The nail in the board incident came back to me in a dream clear as day, I woke in a state of extreme anxiety. The next few days I felt/feel a sense of relief and freedom a sense of being spaced out, very emotional in that I’m experiencing my emotions quite sharply. Inner peace and calm at the same time. Why? It’s not my fault. She was, like my family of siblings, a blame shifter. Intellectually I knew she was nuts but as she manipulated with fear, obligation, guilt, and boards with nails in them, from a very early age, it has taken a while to recover...
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