Customer Reviews

Case Against Religion: A Psychotherapists View and the Case Against Religiosity

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Renowned psychiatrist Albert Ellis argues that there is little real difference between the mental states of people in insane asylums and deeply religious people.

Mentally ill people often use religious imagery; Religious leaders are often mentally ill; psychosis is a break from reality; religion is a break from reality; psychotics and religionists generally believe in all-powerful, non-material spirtits or entities which they can interact with through ritualized behaviors, chants, drugs, prayers, etc.

The claims of religionists, goddists, and spiritualists have no more basis in fact than the claims of the mentally ill, states Dr. Ellis.

Parental promotion of religion is guaranteed to have deleterious effects on children, argues Dr. Ellis. In fact, many of his patients were driven to their insanity by deeply religious upbringings.

The root ideas of religion grow out of fear and ignorance, and to be 'succesful', religionists need to destroy the self-sufficiency of a nation; reducing people to childish dependency and superstitious fear through belief in magical ideas. It is an ominous prospect, given the recent upsurge in religiosity among Americans.

While this book is the text of speeched delivered to atheist conventions, thre are other, more scholarly and detailed books by Dr. Ellis which explain his ideas, and provide readers with the supporting evidence for his claims.

People interested in details, or just gaining some insight and understanding the basis for Dr. Ellis' claims, might want to check out his book ''Reason and Emotion in Psychotherapy'', or Dr. Gregory Bateson's book, "Steps to an Ecology of mind".

-Brian Lynch

This book helped me to step out of my box and away from the dogmatic views that I grew up with and see religion from a different perspective. I will say that I realized that my belief system is a very individual personal relationship with Jesus and not a traditional Christian or Religious following.

As someone who has read a lot of psychology and a fair deal of RET/CBT literature in particular I knew what to expect from this little book. The arguments Ellis makes are not to everyone's liking and this is not really the place to go into that, but Albert Ellis uses this very short book to explain why he sees religion as a damaging influence in many peoples lives. He boils this down to two main arguments; that religion causes us to feel anxious and fearful (about death, sin take your pick), and that religion quite often results in negating of the self. Anyone who has read guide to rational living will be familiar with a lot of what is in this book as Ellis reprises many of his "irrational beliefs" and discusses how religiosity leads to these becoming manifest in our belief systems. This book did put me in mind of Richard Dawkins thesis that religion is a virus of thought, most recently expressed in his book the God Delusion. Besides the main arguments which I have tried to cover briefly, the writing style is typically simple, perhaps even simplistic in parts. But what else would you expect from one of the high priests of mental reductionism? If you have your mind made up that your faith is unshakeable this book is not for you. If you have read Guide to Rational Living and enjoyed it, I reckon it will be likewise for this title.

Although I am an agnostic and have posted reviews critical of religion, I cannot agree with the idea that a belief in the supernatural is the same thing as being crazy. Worse yet, Ellis is notorious in my mind for vulgar, slangy pop-psych advice-column approaches to mental health issues, using words like nutty, kooky, etc. I find this extremely unprofessional. Ellis comes across to me as a shock-jock dumb-downer and popularizer, an attention-seeker.

This book is not about moderate theists it is about people who are very much into their religion be it secular or theistic and what it does to the thinking of a person who is very rigid in their beliefs.

The founder of Rational-Emotive Therapy explains why he feels religion makes people unhappy and unwell. He also examines what motivates people to be religious.

I read a book on ethics written by a Calvinistic Christian apologist who made the point that the basic underlying choice in ethics is that of theonomy (God as lawgiver), or autonomy (the self as lawgiver). Strangely enough, I'm quite certain Albert Ellis would have agreed with that old Calvinist. However, that would be the only meaningful area of agreement between the two men. For Ellis, and psychotherapists in general, helping an individual to be autonomous is the essence of the psychotherapeutic process. Christians refer to themselves as "bond servants of Christ," or "slaves of Christ." One thing can definitely be said of slaves---they are not self-determining. That is the main point Ellis eloquently makes in these two presentations.

Ellis clearly defines what he means by religion in the very beginning of these two essays. He leaves no room for ambiguity. Basically he sees religion as a belief in a supernatural deity, without any evidence for such a belief. To quote Ellis, "But all religions which are worthy of the name contend that their superhuman entities cannot be seen, heard, smelled, tasted, felt , or otherwise humanly experienced, and that their gods and their principles are therefore distinctly beyond science."

He lists the basic attributes that almost all schools of psychotherapy agree are crucial to mental health, things like "self-interest," "self-direction," "tolerance,", "acceptance of uncertainty," "flexibility," "scientific thinking," "commitment," "risk-taking," and "self-acceptance." Reading this list, it might seem like religious people do some of these things. However, he makes the case that they substantially don't, due to their religious commitments. You will need to read the presentations in order to see how he defines the above terms.

Let's take tolerance from the list above. Ellis says, "Emotionally healthy people tend to give other humans the right to be wrong..." A good religionist could not do this in the case of homosexual marriage. Their deity has spoken. That is a settled matter. Those who don't share their view must be shown the error of their ways, as opposed to being accepted for who they are, and being allowed to pursue happiness as they see fit. Ellis goes on to say, "Tolerance is anathema to devout divinity-centered religionists, since they believe that their particular god (e.g. Jehovah or Allah) is absolutely right and that all opposing deities and humans are positively and utterly false and wrong. According to orthodox religious "shalts" and "shalt nots," you become not only a "wrongdoer" but an errant sinner when you commit ethical and religious misdeeds; and, as a sinner, you become worthless, undeserving of any human happiness, and deserving of being forever damned (excommunicated) on earth and perhaps roasted eternally in hell."

Finally, I cannot give this pamphlet more than four stars. I believe he is basically correct in his assessment of religion in general, and how it fights against good mental hygiene. In fact, I'll say that he is absolutely correct in making the case that the goals of religion for the individual are antithetical to the goals of psychotherapy for the individual. However, he does not cite any studies to back up his assertions. While I acknowledge that he says he is making an hypothesis in presentation two, which is substantially like presentation number one, I still think he could have cited some studies that might give some indication that his hypothesis is true. In addition, I really don't think of this as a hypothesis because it is not simply stated. It is too long to be a hypothesis. However, this pamphlet is definitely worth reading, if for no other reason than to see the distinction between religion's goal for the individual, and psychotherapy's goal for the individual.

Another demonstration of how an apparently 'scientific' personality can ignore mountains of data to promote his pet theory. He reminds me of actors testifying before Congress about some matter outside of their competence.

Albert Ellis is a GIANT in psychology as well as an incredibly interesting person. Religious folks will be offended by this work because they associate their doctrine with some of the positive outcomes one derives from being in a community as though the religious aspect were some causal factor( not the case). Ignore and sublimate the negative social consequences of your faith at your peril. To the 'psychologist' before me: don't try to smugly overlap aristolean rules of logic to convince people Ellis is somehow blinded by prejudice. The rule of non-contradiction only applies if some asserts this in their argument. Ellis doesn't pander to your pet theory and is getting your panties in a bunch; the man is far brighter than you and frankly, so am I.

As one that is deeply enmeshed in a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, I find many points of agreement,and points of void re conclusions, with Ellis conjecture about'religious beliefs'. I totally agree that it is those things we believe, that can and do effectively create the reality we perceive, and eventually receive, but to preclude that subordination to the concept of a superior, divine, entity is antithetical to the therapeutic process(?),I do not follow that didactic train of thought. Believing a divine plan and purpose exists, per scripture, and believing one is able to tap into a supernatural power, that is beyond human understanding, shall we say is a spiritual concept, which Ellis may or may not have a perceptual clue about, it seems, his belief system ended in self (unfortunately) and not the divine.