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The Case Against Religiosity by Dr. Albert Ellis PhD
This article will try to make a succinct and cogent case for the proposition that unbelief, skepticism, and thoroughgoing Atheism not only abet but are practically synonymous with mental health; and that devout belief, dogmatism, and religiosity distinctly contribute to and in some ways are equal to mental or emotional distur bance. The case against religiosity that I am about to make is, of course, hardly unassailable and is only presented as a firm (and undevout!) hypothesis that I believe has validity but that (like all scientific hypotheses) is tentative and revisable in the light of later substantiating or nonsubstantiating evidence. I shall try to state it so that, as Karl Popper has advocated, it is falsifiable and therefore scientific.
Before I attempt to write about the advan tages and disadvantages of devout religion (or religiosity), let me try to clearly define these terms. Traditionally, the term religion has meant some kind of belief in the supernatural. Thus, Webster's New World Dictionary defines religion as: "(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." However, in recent years religion has also come to be defined in broader terms than this; so that the same dictionary continues: "(3) Any specific system of belief, worship, conduct, etc., often involving a code of ethics and a philosophy: as, the Christian religion, the Buddhist religion, etc. Loosely, any system of beliefs, practices, ethical values, etc. resembling, suggestive of, or likened to such a system: as, humanism is his religion."
In the following article, I shall mainly discuss two particular forms of devout religion or relig iosity. The first of these is a devout or orthodox belief in some kind of supernatural religion, such as Judaism, Christianity, or Mohammedism--or pious adherence to the kind of religion men tioned in Webster's first two definitions. The second form of religiosi ty I shall discuss is a devout or rigid belief in some kind of secular religion (such as Libertarianism, Marxism, or Freudianism)-that is, a dogmatic, absolutistic conviction that some political, economic, social, or philosophic view is sacrosanct, provides ulti mate answers to virtually all important questions, and is to be piously subscsribed to and followed by everyone who wishes to lead a good life.
I shall not, then, particularly discuss Webster's third definition of religion, since when the term is used to denote a mild system of beliefs, practices, or ethical values that are not con nected with any assumed higher power, and that are not believed in absolutistically, devoutly, or dogmatically by secular religionists, I do not think that this kind of "religion" leads to any special individual or social harm. So a vague, general, or moderate set of "religious" beliefs will not be scrutinized in this article; but only a devout and pious brand of religiosity. Stated a little differently: I shall not attempt to relate absolutistic religiosity rather than mild religion to the existence of mental and emotional health.
Although no group of authorities fully agree on a definition of the term mental health, it seems to include several traits and behaviors that are frequently endorsed by leading theorists and
therapists. I have outlined the desirability of these "healthy" traits in several of my writings on rational-emotive therapy (RET) and they have also been generally endorsed by many other therapists, including Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Alfred Adler, Karen Horney, Erich Fromm, Rud olf Dreikurs, Fritz Perls, Abraham Maslow, ~arie Jahoda, Carl Rogers, and Rollo May. These include such traits as self-interest, self direction, social interest, tolerance, acceptance of ambiguity, acceptance of reality, commit ment, risk-taking, self-acceptance, rationality, and scientific thinking. Not all mentally healthy individuals possess the highest degree of these traits at all times. But when people seriously lack them or when they have extreme opposing hehaviors, we often consider them to be at least somewhat emtionally disturber!.
Assuming that the above criteria for mental health and a few other related criteria are reasonably valid, how are they sabotaged by a system of devout religious belief or religiosity? And how are they abetted by adherence to the principles of unbelief, skepticism, and Atheism? Let us now consider these questions.
1. Self-interest. Emotionally healthy people are primarily true to themselves and do not masochistically subjugate themselves to or un duly sacrifice the msel ves for others. They tend to put themselves first--realizing that if they do not primarily take care of themselves, who else will ?-as well as put a few selected others a close second and the rest of the world not too far behind.
Rather than be primarily self-interested, de vout deity-oriented religionists put their hypo thesized god{s) first and themselves second-or last! They are so overconcerned whether their god loves them, and whether they are doing the right thing to continue in this god's good graces, that they sacrifice some of their most cherished and enjoyable interest to supposedly appease this god. If, moreover, they are a member of any orthodox church or organization, they feel forced to choose their god's precepts first, those of their church or organization second, and their own views and preferences third.
Masochistic self-sacrifice is an integral part of most major organized religions: as shown, for example, in the ritualistic self-deprivation that Jews, Christians, and Muslims must continually bear if they are to keep their faith. Orthodox religions deliberately instill guilt (self-damna tion) in their adherents and then give these adherents guilt-soothing rituals to (temporarily) allay this kind of self-damning feelings.
Pious secular religionists, instead of bowing to supernatural gods, create semi-divine dictators (for example, Stalin and Hilter) and absolutistic entitities (for example, the USSR or the Third Reich) and masochistically demean themselves before these "noble" powers--again to the detri ment of their own self-interest.
2. Self-direction. Mentally healthy people lar gely assume responsibility for their own lives, enjoy the independence of mainly working out their own problems; and, while at times wanting or preferring the help of others, do not think that they absolutely must have such support for their effectiveness and well-being.
Devout religionists (both secular and divine) are almost necessarily dependent and other-dir ected rather than self-sufficient. To be true to orthodoxies, they first must immolate them-
selves to their god or god-like hero; second, to the religious hierarchy that runs their church or organization; and third, to all the other members of their religious sect, who are eagle-eyedly watching them to see if they defect an iota from the conduct that their god and their churchly leadership define as proper.
If devout religiosity, therefore, is often maso chism, it is even more often dependency. For humans to be true believers and to also be strong and independent is well nigh impossible. Religi osity and self-sufficiency are contradictory terms.
3. Social interest. Emotionally and mentally healthy people are normally gregarious and de cide to try to live happily in a social group. Because they want to live successfully with others, and usually to relate intimately to a few of these selected others, they work at feeling and displaying a considerable degree of social interest and interpersonal competence. While they still are primarily interested in their per sonal survival and enjoyment, they also tend to be considerate and fair to others; to avoid need lessly harming these others; to engage in col laborative and cooperative endeavors; at times to be somewhat altruisitic, and to distinclty enjoy some measure of interpersonal and group relationships.
Devout deity-inspired religionists tend to sac rifice human love for godly love (agape) and to withdraw into monastic and holy affairs at the expense of intimate interpersonal relationships. They frequently are deficient in social compe tence. They spend immense amounts of time, effort, and money on establishments rather than on social welfare. They foment religious fights, feuds, wars, and terrorism in the course of which orthodox believ,~rs literally batter and kill rather than cooperatively help each other. They en courage charity that is highly parochial and that i,~ linked to god's glory more than to the allevia tion of human suffering. Their altruism is highly alloyed with egotistically proving to god how great and glorious they can be as human bene fac tors.
Devout secular religionists are often much more interested in the propagation of absolutis tic creeds (e.g., Maoism) than they are in inti mately reVlting to and in collaboratively helping humans. Like the god-inspired religionists, their charity is exceptionally parochial and is often given only to members of their own religious group while it discriminates against members of groups with opposing credos.
4. Tolerance. Emotionally healthy people tend to give other humans the right to be wrong-as I and Dr. Robert A. Harper urged in the original edition of A New Guide to Rational Living, which we authored in 1961. While disliking or abhorring others' behavior, they refuse to con demn them, as total persons, for performing their poor behavior. They fully accept the fact that3.ll humans seem to be remarkably fallible; and they refrain from unrealistically demanding and commanding that any of them be perfect; and they desist fro:n damning people in toto when they err. Tolerance is anathema to devout divinity-cen tered religionist'), since they believe that their particular god (e.g., Jehovah or Allah) is ab solutely 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 wrong doer but an arrant 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.
The pious secular religionists, without invoking god or hell, believes that the rules and regulation of his/her group or community (e.g. the orthodox religious faction in Iran) are completely right and at the very least, social ostracism, political banishment, and perhaps torture and death should be the lot of any strong dissenter. Religi osity, then, by settting up absolute standards of godly or proper conduct, makes you intolerant of yourself and others when you or they slightly dishonor these standards. Born of this kind of piety-inspired intolerance of self and others come some of the most serious of emotional disorders--such as extreme anxiety, depression, self-hatred, and rage.
5. Acceptance of ambiguity and uncertainty.
Emotionally mature individuals accept the fact that, as far as has yet been discovered, we live in a world of probability and chance, where there are not, nor probably ever will be, absolute necessities or complete certainties. Living in such a world is not only tolerable but in terms of adventure, learning, and striving, can even be very exciting and pleasurable.
If one of the requisites for emotional health is acceptance of ambiguity and uncertainty, then divini ty-oriented religiosity is the unhealthiest state imaginable: since its prime reason for being is to enable the religionist to believe in god-commanded certainty. Just because life is so uncertain and ambiguous, and because millions of people think that they cannot bear its vicissi tudes, they invent absolutistic gods, and thereby pretend that there is some final, invariant ans wer to human problems. Patently, these people are fooling themselves--and instead of health fully admitting that they do not need certainty, but can live comfortably in this often disorderly world, they stubbornly protect their neurotic beliefs by insisting that there must be the kind of certainty that they wrongly believe they need.
This is like a young boy's believing that he must have a kindly father in order to survive; and then, when his father is unkind, or perhaps has died, the boy dreams up a father (who may be a neighbor, a movie star, or a pure figment of his imagination) and insists that this dream father actually exists.
Devout secular religionists invent the "cer tainty" of unequivocally knowing that their spe cial poli tical, economic, social or other creed is indubitably true and cannot be falsified. Like the superhuman-oriented religionists, they also pigheadedly refuse to accept ambiguity and un certainty-and thereby render and keep them selves neurotically defensive and immature.
6. Flexibility. Emotionally sound people are intellectually flexible, tend to be open to change at all times, and are prone to take an unbigoted (or, at least, less bigoted) view of the infinitely varied people, ideas, and things in the world around them. They are not namby-pamby but can be firm and passionate in their thoughts and feelings; but they comfortably look at new evi dence and often revise their notions of "reality" to conform with this evidence.
The trait of flexibility, which is so essential to effective emotional functioning, is frequently blocked and sabotaged by profound religiosity. For the person who dogmatically believes in god, and who sustains this belief with a strong faith unfounded on fact--which a pious religionist of course does--clearly is not open to many aspects of change and, instead, sees things narrowly and bigotedly.
If, for example, a man's scriptures of his church tell him that he shalt not even covet his neighbor's wife-let alone have actual adulterous relations with her!-he cannot ask himself, "Why should I not lust after this woman, as long as I don't intend to do anything about my desire for her? What is really wrong about that?" For his god and his church have spoken; and there is no appeal from this arbitrary authority, once he has brought himself to unconditionally accept it.
Any time, in fact, that people unempirically establish a god or a set of religious postulates that supposedly have a super-human origin, they can thereafter use no empirical evidence to question the dictates of this god or those postu lates, since they are (by definition) beyond scien tific validation. Rigid secular religionists, too, cannot change the rules that their pious creeds establish. Thus, devout Nazis cannot accept any goodness of Jews or of Gypsies, even when it can be incontrovertibly shown that such individuals performed good acts. The best that devout religionists can do, if they want to change any of the rules that stem from their doctrines, is to change their religion itself. Otherwise, they are stuck with its abso lutistic axioms, as well as their logical corol laries, that the religionists themselves have ini tially accepted on faith. We may therefore note again that, just as devout religion is masochism, ot hcr-clirectedness, intolerance, and refusal to ilccept uncertainty, it also seems to be synony muus with mental and emotional inflexibility.
7. Scientific thinking. Emotionally stable peo ple are reasonably (not totally) objective, ration al, and scientific. They not only construct rea sonable and empirically substantiated theories relating to what goes on in the surrounding world (and with their fellow creatures who inhabit this world) but they also, if they follow the teachings of RET, are able to apply the rules of logic and of the scientific method to their own lives and to their interpersonal relationships.
1'1 regard to scientific thinking, it practically goes without saying that this kind of cerebration is antithetical to religiosity. The main requisites of the scientific method-as Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Hans Reichenbach, Herbert Feigl, Karl Popper, W.W. Bartley, Michael Maho ney, and a host of other philosophers of science have pointed out--inc1ude: (1) At least in some final
religion, that they are separate or beyond exper ience; that they exist apart from the material universe; that, whatever science says, they are indubitably true and real.
To devoutly believe in any of the usual reli gions, therefore, is to be unscientific, and we could well contend that the more devout one is, the less scientific one tends to be. Although a pious religionist need not be entirely unscientific (as, for that matter, neither need be a raving maniac), it is difficult to see how such a person could be consistently scientific.
While people may be both scientific and vaguely or generally religious (as, for example, many liberal Protestants and reformed Jews tend to be), it is doubtful whether they may simultan eously be thoroughly devout and objective. De vout secular religionists (such as fanatic believers in phrenology or reincarnation) are not necessarily driven to believe in superhuman and supernatural concepts. But they almost inevitably favor abolutistic convictions about certain other issues; and absolutism and dogma are the antithesis of science. Just about all absolutists, secular and godly, tend to flout some of the basic postulates of the scientific method.
8. Commitment. As I have noted on several occasions in my writing on rational-emotive therapy (RET), emotionally healthy and happy people are usually absorbed in something outside of themselves, whether this be people, things, or ideas. They seem to lead better lives when they have at least one major creative interest, as well as some outstanding human involvement, which they make very important to themselves and around which they structure a good part of their lives. In regard to the trait of commitment, devoutly religious people may--for once!--have some ad vantages. For if they are truly religious, and therefore seriously committed to their god, church, or creed, they to some extent acquire a major interest in life. Pious religious commit tment, however, frequently has its serious dis advantages, since it tends to be obsessive-com pulsive and it may well interfere with other kinds of healthy commitments--such as deep involvements in sex-love relationships, in scien tific pursuits, and even in artistic endeavors (because these may interfere with or contradict the religious commitments). Moreover, religious commitment is an absorption that is often moti vated by guilt or hostility and that may conse quently serve as a frenzied covering-up mechan ism that masks, but that does not really elimi nate, these underlying disturbed feelings. Pious god-inspired commitment, moreover, is frequen tly the kind of commitment that is based on falsehoods and illusions and that therefore easily can be shattered, thus plunging the previously committed individual into the depths of disil lusionment and dispair.
Not all forms of commitment, in other words, are equally healthy or beneficial. The grand inquisitors of the medieval Catholic church were utterly dedicated to their "holy" work and Hitler and many of his associates were fanatically committed to their Nazi doctrines. But this hardly proves that they were emotionally stable humans. In fact, a good case can be made for the proposition that although involved or passionate commitment to some cause or ideal is normally healthy and happiness-producing, devout, pious, or fanatic commitment to the same kind of
cause or ideal is potentially pernicious and fre quently (though not always) does much more harm than good. Both deity-oriented and secular manifestations of piousness may have distinct advantages for committed individuals. But let us not forget their enormous disadvantages, too!
9. Risk-taking. Emotionally sound people are able to take risks, to ask themsleves what they would really like to do in life, and then to try to do this, even though they have to risk defeat or failure. They are reasonably adventurous (though not foolhardy); are willing to try almost anything once, if only to see how they like it; and they look forward to some different or unusual breaks in their usual routines.
In regard to risk-taking, I think it is fairly obvious that pious theists are highly determined to avoid adventure and to refuse to take many of life's normal risks. They strongly believe in rigid and unvalidatable assumptions precisely because they are often afraid to follow their own prefer ences and aims. They demand a guarantee that they will be safe and secure, come what may; and since the real world does not provide them with any such guarantee, they invent some god or other higher power that will presumably give it to them. Their invention of this deity, and their piously subjugating themselves to it, there by confirms their view that the world is too risky and gives them a further excuse for sticking to inhibiting straight and narrow (and often joyless) paths of existence.
Devout nontheistic religionists mainly substi tute dogmatic belief in some philosophy or cause for a fanatical belief in god; and they use this sacredized cause to inhibit themselves against adventure and risk-taking. Thus, pious nutrition- , ists will under no conditions risk eating white bread or sugar, even when it might temporarily do them some good. And devout adherents of cognitive therapy (including devout RETers) may not tolerate the idea that any feeling can be free of thought and will insist that all dysfunctional behaviors (such as headaches ~d feelings of depression) ~ be of purly ideological origin. normously fearing failure and rejection, and falsely defining their own worth as humans in terms of achievement and approval, devout reli gionists sacrifice time, energy, and material goods and pleasures to the worship of their assumed gods or god-like philosophies, so that they can at least be sure that their god loves and supports them or that an inherent Rightness is on their side. All devout religions seem to be dis tinctly inhibiting--which means, in effect, that piously religious individuals sell their soul, sur render their Own basic urges and pleasures, in order to feel comfortable with the heavenly helper or the indubitably correct creed that they have invented or adopted. Religiosity, then, im portantly consists of needless, self-defeating in hibi t ion. themselves. In accordance with the principles of RET they fully or unconditionally accept themselves (or give themselves what Carl Rogers calls unconditionally positive regard). They try to perform adequately or competently in their affairs ~d to win the approval and love of others; but they do so for enjoyment and not for ego gratification or for self-deification. They consequently try to rate only their acts, deeds, and traits, in the light of the goals, values, and purposes they choose (such as the goals of graduating from school or of having an enjoyable sex-love relationship); and they rigor ollsly try to avoid rating their self, their being, their essence, or their totality.
Healthy people, in other words, unconditional ly accept themselves because they choose to do so, regardless of how well or badly they perform and regardless of how much approval they re ceive from others. They distinctly prefer to act competently and to win others' favor; and they accordingly assess and criticize their own be haviors when they fail in these respects. But they don't hold that they absolutely must do well or be loved; and they therefore don't conclude that they, in toto, are good people when they succeed and are rotten individuals when they fail. In regard to self-acceptance, it seems clear that devout religionists cannot accept them selves just because they are alive and because they have some power to enjoy life. Rather, orthodox theists make their self-acceptance quite contingent on their being accepted by the god, the church, the clergy, and the other mem bers of the religious denomination in which they believe. If all these extrinsic persons and things accept them, then and then only are they able to accept themselves. Which means that these religionists define themselves only through the reflected appraisals of god and of other humans. Fanatical religion, for such individuals, almost necessarily winds up with lack of unconditional self-acceptance and, instead, with a considerable r- degree of self-abasement and self-abnegation as, of course, virtually all the saints and mystics have found.
What about theistic religions, like Christian i ty, that presumably give grace to all people who accept their tenets and thereby allow all humans to accej,Jt themselves unconditionally? As far as I know, there are no theistic creeds that actually do this. The best of them--like Science of Mind- state that god (or Jesus) is all-loving and that s/he theref()re always gives everyone grace or unconditit)nal acceptance. But these theistic religions still require their adherents to believe (1) that a god (or son of god) must exist; (2) that s/he personally gives you unconditional accept ance or grace; and (3) that consequently you must believe in this religion and in its god to receive the "unconditional" grace. Unless you accept these three conditions of grace, you will presumably never be fully self-accepting. And these conditions, of course, make your accepting of yourself conditional rather than unconditional. Nonreligious philosophies, such as RET, teach that you can always choose to accept yourself just because you decide to do so, and require no conditions or redundant beliefs in god or religion to help you do this choosing. Ironically, in fact, when you do decide to adopt a religious view and choose to accept yourself conditionally (because you believe in a grace-giving god or son-of-god), you choose to believe in this religion and you consequently create the grace-giver who "makes" you self acceptable. All religiously-inspired forms of self-acceptance, therefore, in the final analysis depend on your belief system; and they are consequently actually self-inspired! Even when a religion supposedly "gives" you grace, you really choose it yourself, and the religious trappings in which you frame your self-acceptance consist of a redundant hypothesis (that god exists and that slhe gives you grace) that is utterly unprovable and unfalsifiable and that really adds nothing to your own decision to be self-accepting.
Although liberal religionists (like the followers of Science of Mind) may be largely self-accept ing, devout religionists have much more trouble in gaining any measure of unconditional self acceptance. This goes for devout secular as well as pious theistic believers. For the former cannot unconditionally accept themselves be cause they invariably seem to make self-ac ceptance (or, worse yet, ego-inflation or self esteem) depend on their adhering rigidly to the tenets of their particular creed. Thus, fanatical Nazis only see themselves (and others) as good people if they are good Nazis; and if they perform non-Nazi or anti-Nazi acts (e.g., es pouse internationalism or help Jews or Gypsies) they damn themselves as rotten individuals, who presumably deserve to suffer and die. Ku Klux Klanners, along with downing Blacks, Jews, Catholics, and others, excoriate themselves as worthless when they fail to live up to ideal KKK standards. Pious secular religionists, like fanati cal theists, seem incapable of unconditionally accepting themselves (or others), since one of the essences of devoutness or fanaticism is to thoroughly damn and to attempt to censor and punish all those who even mildly disagree with the fanatics view.
A special way in which devout religiosity sabo tages unconditional self-acceptance is its strong tendency to encourage ego-aggrandizing or gran- diosity. It is clearly self-defeating to tell your self, "I am a good person because I have good charac ter," or "I can esteem myself because I a'n highly competent." For if you give yourself this kind of ego-bolstering you make yourself highly liable to self-downing as soon as it can be shown that your character is not so good or that you are beginning, in some important way, to act incompetently.
You will do even worse if you make such self statements as, "I am a great or noble person because I do outstandingly well at work or at art," or "Because I subscribe to this particular fine philosophy or cause I am better than you are and am indeed a superior individual!" For this kind of holier-than-thou self-rating, or arrant grandiosity, assumes that you and other people can be truly superior and godlike-and that you and they are thoroughly ordinary or worthless when they are not looking down from some kind of heavenly perch. Devout religiosity particularly foments ego bolstering and grandiosity. Where mild religion ists think of themselves as good people because they are members in good standing of their own religious group, pious ones frequently think of themselves as utterly noble and great because of their religious convicitions. Thus, pious Christ ians, Jews, fascists, and com munists tend to deify themselves for their beliefs and al legiances; and probably devout Atheists also tend to feel somewhat god-like and holy! Grandiosity is one of the most common of human disturbed feelings; and it often compensates for underlying feelings of slobhood. In fact, as Camilla Ander son, a notably sane psychiatrist, has shown, few of us would ever wind up feeling like turds if we did not start off with the grandiose assumptions that we must--yes, must--be noble and great.
Anyway, devout religionists are frequently at tracted to and bound to their piety largely because it presumably offers them holier-than thouness and oneupsmanship over non-religion ists. And by its appeal to such disturbed indivi duals, devout religious creeds encourage some of the craziest kinds of thoughts, emotions, and behaviors and favor severe manifestations of neurosis, borderline personality states, and sometimes even psychosis.
11. Emotionally healthy people, it almost goes without saying, accept WIGO (what is going on) in the world. This means several important things: (1) They have a reasonably good percep tion of reality and do not see things that do not exist and do not refuse to see things that do. (2) They find various aspects of reality, in accor dance with their own goals and inclination, "good" and certain aspects "bad"--but they ac cept both these aspects, without exaggerating the "good" realities and without denying or whin ing about the "bad" ones. (3) They do their best to work at changing those aspects of reality that they view as "bad", to accept those that they cannot change, and to acknowledge the differ ence between the two. Devout theistic religionists frequently refuse to accept reality in all three of the ways just listed: (1) They are frequently sure that they see things--e.g., gods, angels, devils, and absolute laws of the universe-for which there is no confirmatory empirical data and that in all pro bability do not actually exist. And they refuse to see some obvious things--such as the ubiquity of human fallibility and the overwhelming unlikeli- hood that any humans will ever be perfect-that almost certainly do exist. (2) They often whine and scream--and even have their gods whine and scream (as Jehovah presumably did when he turned Lot's wife into a pillar of salt for looking back at Sodom and Gomorrah) when they see something "bad". They especially indulge in childish whining and in temper tantrums when other religionists or non-believers refuse to see the virtues of the devout theists' favored reli gious dogmas. (3) Instead of working hard to change grim reality, they often pray to their god(s) to bring about such changes while they impotently sit on their rumps waiting for their prayers to be answered. When certain obvious things are unchangeable--such as the propensity of humans to become ill and to die-they refuse to accept these realities and often invent uto pian heavens where humans presumably live for ever in perfect bliss, without their suffering any kinds of afflication. Obviously, therefore, devout theists often ignore, deny, and hallucinate about reality; and the more devout they are--as the long history of religion shows-the more delu sionary and hallucinatory they seem to be.
Devout nontheistic religionists--such as ortho dox and closed-minded capitalists, communists, and rationalists--rarely seem to deny reality as much as do devout theists. But· because they dogmatically and absolutistically follow narrow creeds, they frequently look at the world and the people in it with heavily pollyannaish and/or overly pessimistic glasses and they thereby signi ficantly distort reality by seeing it in enormously wishful-thinking ways.
If we summarize what we have been saying, the conclusion seems inescapable that religiosity is, on almost every conceivable count, opposed to the normal goals of mental health. Instead, it encourages masochism, other-directedness, social withdrawal, intolerance, refusal to accept ambi guity and uncertainty, unscientific thinking, needless inhibition, lack of self-acceptance, and reluctance to acknowledge and deal adequately with reality. In the one area where devout religion has some advantage-that of encourag ing commitment to a cause or project in which people may become vitally absorbed--it even tends to sabotage this advantage in two impor tant ways: (1) It encourages its adherents to commit themsJlves to its tenets for the wrong reasons--that is, to cover up instead of to face and rid themselves of their personal insecurities. (2) It encourages a fanatic, obsessive-compulsive kind of commitment that is, in its own right, a form of emotional disturbance.
This is not to deny that for some people some of the time religious notions, even when they are devoutly and rigidly held, have some benefits. Of course they do. Devout adherence to a theistic or secular form of religion can at times motivate people to help others who are needy to give up unhealty addictions (e.g. to cigarettes or al coho!), to follow valuable disciplines (e.g. dieting or exercising), to go for psychotherapy, to strive for world peace, to follow long-range instead of short-range hedonism, and to work for many other kinds of valuable goals. Historical and biographical data abound to show this good side of religiosity. But I would still contend that on the whole religious piety and dogma do much more harm than good; and the beneficent be haviors that they sometimes abet would most likely be more frequent and profound without their influence. As a good case in point, let llS take the issue of interpersonal and political war and peace. Unquestionably, many devout religionists (e.g. St. Francis and St. Theresa) have led notably unangry and loving existences themselves and many others (e.g., several of the popes) have helped in the creation of world peace. So pious religion and surcease from human aggression hardly are completely incompatible. The fact remains, howevel", that fanaticism of any kind, especially religious fanaticism, has clearly pro duced and in all probability will continue to produce enormous amounts of b~kering, fight ing, violence, bloodshed, homicide, feuds, wars, and genocide. For all its peace-inviting poten tial, therefore, arrant (not to mention arrogant) religiosity has led to immense individual and social harm by fomenting an incredible amount of antihuman and antihumane aggression. It can therefore be concluded that anger-attacking and peace-loving religious views that are held un devoutly and unrigidly, as well as similar views that are held by nonreligionists and antireligion ists, probably serve humankind far better than religiosi ty-inspired peace efforts.
Religion, then, is not all bad; and even devout religiosity has some saving graces. But on the whole and in the main? The legacy and the future of dogmatic religion seem to be indicative of considerably m0re human harm than good.
If religiosity is so inimical to mental health and happiness, what are the chances of unbelief, skepticism, and thoroughgoing Atheism helping humans in this important aspect of their lives? I would say excellent. My own view--based on more than f,..>rty years of research and clinical work in the field of psychology and psycho- therapy but still admittedly prejudiced by my personal predilections and feelings--is that if people were thoroughly unbelieving of any dog mas, if they were highly skeptical of all hypo theses and theories that they formulated, if they believed in no kinds of gods, devils, or other supernatural beings, and if they subscribed to no forms of absolutistic thinking, they would be minimally emotionally disturbed and maximally healthy. Stated a little differently: if you, I, and everyone else in the world were thoroughly sci entific, and if we consistently used the scientific method in our own lives and in our relationships wi th others, we would rarely upset Qurselves about anything-and I mean anything!
My view of the incompatibility of skepticism and scientific thinking with what we usually call neurosis or emotional upsetness stems from my work with rational-emotive therapy (RET), a leading school of modern psychotherapy, which I founded at the beginning of 1955, after I had become disillusioned with practicing psychoa nalysis and several other modes of therapy. RET is a comprehensive or multimodal system, which investigates the cognitive, emotive, and be havioral origins of human disturbance and that therefore employs a large variety of thinking, feeling, and activity-oriented methods of under standing and alleviating this disturbance. It is most famous, however, for its cognitive or philo sophic theories and practices and is the father of what is now often called cognitive or cognitive behavior therapy.
One of the main postulates of RET is that neurotic disorder largely (but not completely) stems, not from the situations or events that happen to people in their past or present lives but from their own thinking about these events- from the explicit and implicit ideas, attitudes, philosophies, and self-statements that they be lieve just prior to feeling emotionally upset. Thus, when people feel anxious, depressed, in adequate, angry or self-pitying, they feel these ways because they almost invariably tell them selves, and devoutly believe, one or more ir rational or self-defeating ideas. I first outlined, in my original paper on RET that I presented at the American Psychological Association conven tion in Chicago in 1956, ten major irrational (that is, antiempirical and illogical) beliefs that people strongly hold when they upset themselves. But I later found that these can be reduced to three basic irrationalities-and that, coincident ally enough, all three of these consist of absoli tistic shoulds, oughts, and musts.
I found what Karen Horney had discovered a decade before I originated RET: that human disturbance largely comes from what she called the tyranny of the shoulds--ol' from what I call musturbation. Whenever people feel distinctly anxious, depressed, hostile, self-pitying, or otherw Ise needlessly neurotic, whenever they be have distinctly against their own wishes and interests (as when they are addicted to pro crastination, smoking, or drinking even though they very much want to forego these self-de feating behaviors), they seem to devoutly be lieve, explicitly and/or implicity, one or more of these musturbatory creeds: (1) "I must perform well and have to win the approval of significant others by doing so, else it's awful and I am a worthless person!" (2) "Other people must treat me fairly and considerately; and if they don't it's terrible and they are rotten individuals!" (3) Conditions under which I live must be nice and comfortable and absolutely shoUi
If people did not consciously and unconsciously believe any of these absolutistic, unconditional musts, shoulds, and oughts, RET clearly hypo thesizes, they would feel appropriately sad, re gretful, frustrated, and annoyed when their de sires and preferences are not fulfilled. But they would rarely, if ever, feel inappropriately panicked, despairing, self-downing, enraged, or self-pitying. Stated differently: if humans only strongly preferred, wished, or desired goals and things that they favored and only wanted to avoid things they disfavored, and if they never Jehovianly demanded, commanded, or necessi tated that the situations they viewed as "good" exist and those they viewed as "bad" not exist, they would not seriously disturb themselves about anything-including failure, rejection, in justice, disaster, and death. Instead, they would resolutely encounter such disadvantageous condi tions; feel appropriately sad (but not horrified) about them; feel strongly determined to al leviate or eliminate them; and unwhiningly ac cept them when they could not change these conditions.
Assuming (as RET does) that most of what we call emotional disturbance stems from absolutis tic thinking-from unconditional and dogmatic shoulds, oughts, and musts that we tell ourselves and devoutly believe-what are the main ways to change this kind of thinking and to train our selves to live with desires and preferences in stead of with godlike commands on ourselves, on others, and on the univer.se? RET uses many cognitive, emotive, and behavioral methods of doing this-as I have explained in several of my books, such as Reason and Emotion in Psycho therapy, Growth Through Reason, Humanistic Psychotherapy: the Rational-Emotive Approach, Handbook of Rational-Emotive Therapy, and Ra tional-Emotive Therapy and Cognitive Behavior Therapy. Probably the most elegant and thoroughgoing of these RET methods is that of Disputing-which has also at times been called cognitive restructuring, cognitive therapy, self instructional training, semantic therapy, and the use of coping statements. In RET, Disputing is synonymous with skepticism, unbelief, and the scientific method. It consists of taking your basic irrational Beliefs (iBs) or your absolutistic hypotheses about yourself, others, and the world, and actively and forcefully questioning and chal lenging these Beliefs, until you thoroughly sur render them and replace them with rational Beliefs (rBs).
Let me briefly explain the RET Disputing process. Suppose that at point A (Activating Event) you try for a very good job that you greatly desire, mess up during the interview process, and get rejected for the job. At point C (Consequence) you feel neurotically depressed and withdraw from all further job-seeking ef forts. If you know the principles of RET, you realize that although A (Activating Event con sisting of failure and rejection) cO""1tributes to C (Consequence of depression and withdrawal) it does not directly "cause" it. The more important "cause" of C is B-your Beliefs about what has transpired at A. So you look, first for your desires or rational Beliefs (rBs) and soon find them to be: "I wish I had succeeded and got accepted for this good job, and since I failed that's quite unfortunate and frustrating. But be cause this isn't the only good job I might get, it isn't the end of the world. Too bad! Now let me keep looking until I get another job that I really want." You see that if you rigorously and only stick to this set of rational Beliefs (rBs) you would feel appropriately sad and frustrated--but not inappropriately and neurotically depressed and withdrawn.
You therefore, still using RET, look for your irrational Beliefs (iBs)--knowing (on theoretical grounds) that they are absolutistic and unrealis tic (antiempirical). Since they usually follow similar patterns, you quickly find these irrational Beliefs: (1) "I absolutely should not, must not have failed as I did in seeking this good job!" (2) "How awful for me to fail (as I must not have done) and get rejected!" (3) "I can't stand failing and being rejected" (4) "Because I failed and got rejected for this job (as I must not have done), and because there must be something radically wrong with me for failing, I am an inadequate person who will doubtless fail at getting all other good jobs; who is undeserving, in fact, of getting any really good one; and who might as well quit trying to better my position in life!"
After discovering, through the use of RET, the ABCs of your feelings and depression, inad equacy, and withdrawal when you have failed to get a job that you greatly wanted, and later clearly seeing that the As (Activating Events) contribute to the Cs (disturbed emotional and behavioral Consequences) but not directly "cause" them, and after realizing, instead, that your iBs (irrational Beliefs about the As) more directly and importantly lead to these Cs, you then proceed to D (the Disputing of your ir rational Beliefs). D (Disputing) is another name for skepticism, scientific thinking, unbelief, and the logico-empirical method of extirpating anti empirical or unrealistic dogmas. Using Disputing (or the scientific method), you vigorously chal lenge and eliminate your irrational Beliefs (iEs) as follows:
1. You ask yourself: "Where is the evidence that I absolutely should not, must not have failed as I did in seeking this good job?" Answer: "There is no evidence for my should or must. It probably would have been highly preferable if I had suc ceeeded in getting this job (though it is possible, also, that it would not have been preferable but turned out badly.) But no matter how preferable it would have been, there is no necessity for my preferences to be fulfilled. There is no law of the universe that says that because I greatly want something it must be granted to me. If such a law existed, then I would have got the job; so obviously this law does not exist. Unconditional necessities--e.g., my having to have what I dis tinctly desire--may be ~ law, but the world clearly does not include this rule! If I must not have failed to get this job, then I obviously would have got it. But, clearly, I didn't! Therefore my must is contradicted by reality, and I had better change it back into a strong preference."
2. You ask yourself: "In what way is it awful or terrible for me to fail and get rejected for this highly desirable job?" Answer: "In no way!" Ob viously, it is distinctly unpleasant and inconven ient for me to be rejected when I really want this job. But awful and terrible do not merely mean unpleasant or even very unpleasant. Awful means, over and above inconvenient, that it is totally bad 100% annoying that I failed to get this job. But that is most unlikely, since only something like being crippled for lif e or being dead would be close to 100% bad. And even that wouldn't really be 100% bad-since I can think of things worse than that, such as being crippled for life and being in continual pain. Awful or terrible means, second, more than bad, more than com pletely obnoxious-but, of course, nothing that ever happens to me could be more than 100% bad! Awful means, third, badder than it should or must be. But however bad it is forme to lose this job, it must be exactly that bad-for that's the way it is! So whenever I tell myself that an ything is aw ful, terrible, or horrible I am really going beyond reality and contending that just because I really don't like it, and even greatly deplore it, it must not exist. What rot! Whatever exists exists!--no matter how bad I personally find it.!
3. You ask yourself: "Is it really true that I can't stand losing this job and getting rejected?" Answer: "Of course I can stand it! I may never like it; I may, in fact, enormously abhor this loss and rejection. But I can always stand what I don't like, unless it is literally lethal and kills me. Even then, I can stand it till I die! Thus, if a steam roller rolls over me and kills me, it is silly to tell myself, while I am still alive, 'I can't stand it, I can't stand it!'--for that is exactly what I am doing until I am literally dead standing it, bearing it. The term, 'I can't stand it!' really has no sense to it, since as long as I (or anyone else) lives, we have to stand whatever goes on in our lives, whether it be injustice, torture, or anything else. Only when we are dead does the phrase make any sense. And when, while still alive and kicking, I whine and scream, 'I can't stand being rejected for this job!' I am obviously out of my foolish head. For I am standing it. Even if I kill myself because I lost this job, I am still deciding to do so and the loss of the job itself does not make me do so. It is not because I can't stand it that Tkill myself but because I idiotically think I can't stand it--when, of course, I really can. So I'd better almost completely eliminate the phrases, 'I can't stand it!' or 'I can't bear it' from my thinking and my vocabulary since they are virtually never in accordance with reality."
4. You ask yourself, "Where is it written that there must be something radically wrong with me for failing to get this job? And even if it can be shown that there is something seriously wrong with me, and that I will therefore lose other good jobs as well, where is the evidence that (a) I am an inadequate person who will doubtless fail at getting all other good jobs; (b) I am therefore undeserving of ever getting any fine position; and (c) I therefore might as well quit trying to better my position in life?" Answer: "All these ideas are only written in my deluded head. First, I can easily fail to get this job or other good jobs when there is nothing radically wrong with me, but for several other reasons (such as the compe tition's being very heavy or my potential bosses not wanting to hire me because I am too intelli gent or too competent). Second, even if it can be shown that there is something radically wrong with me, that merely means that I am a person who has inadequacies and not an inadequate person. For an inadequate person would always and only have inadequacies; and it is most un likely that my traits are universally that bad. Third, even if I frequently act quite inadequately and incompetently, that never proves that I am undeserving of ever getting any fine position and that some universal law of deservingness will absolutely prevent me from getting one. It mere ly proves that, statistically speaking, the proba bility of my getting the kind of position that I want is rather low, but that if I keep trying very hard I might well finally get it.
If you Dispute, and keep Disputing, your irra tional Beliefs (iBs) in this manner, the theory and praclic(~ of RET says that you will rarely feel emotionally disturbed and will seldom foolishly act against your own interests; and when you do, you will quickly be able to see what you are doing to needlessly upset yourself and will be able to 'unupset' yourself again. But let me re peat, so that there will be little misunder standing about this!--RET does not show you how to be completely calm, serene, detached, unfeel ing, passive, or resigned. As its name implies, it is a rational-emotive type of therapy; and it assumes that you, like practically all humans, strongly desire to remain alive and to be happy. It therefore, in many ways, helps you feel more than you normally would--but to feel pleasure, joy, elation, and occasional ecstasy when things are going the way you want them to go and to feel, and sometimes strongly feel, sorrow, re gret, frustration, and annoyance when you are not getting what you would really want to get out of life.
The Disputing that you do when you use RET is synonymous with the scientific method of chal lenging or disputing unrealistic or invalid hypo theses; and it is the same kind of skepticism and unbelief that you would use if you were desirous of uprooting your (or anyone else's) devout reli giosity. RET, therefore, when it is employed in the manner in which I and my close associates employ it, is equivalent to the scientific method and is ':me of the :nost powerful foes of religious piety, fanaticism, and dogma.
To sum up what I have been saying in this essay: Vague, gener::ll, or mild "religion" seems to consist of people's having some serious philo-
sophy of life, and especially an outlook about important questions like those of ethics, death, immortality, ::lnd the origin, development, and outcorne of the universe. It is sometimes (and sometimes not) connected with a belief in super human sources and powers. This kind of religion seems a natural part of the human condition and does not seem to be intrinsically connected to mental health: since it has not been shown that vague religionists--whether they be theists, pan-theists, or humanists--are emotionally healthier or unhealthier than nonreligionists. In fact, if we talk only about vague or moderate forms of "religion" it is not clear that any thoroughgoing "nonreligionists even exist!"
Devout or pious religionists, or devotees of religiosity, seem to be distinc~ly different from mild religionists in that they hold to their beliefs in a distinctly dogmatic, orthodox, absolutistic, dgid, closed manner. Many of them are devoutly or piously theistic--e.g., orthodox Jews, Catho lics, Protestants, Muslims, or mystics-and therefore worship divine or superhuman power(s). But many of them are devout secular religion ists--e.g., fanatical communists, Nazis, libera tionists, or rightwing or leftwing terorists-who are largely or completely non-theistic. Devout theistic and devout secular religionists differ in some important ways; but in regard to their fanaticism and absolutism they are remarkably similar.
It is my contention that both pietistic theists and secular religionists--like virtually all people imbued with intense religiosity and fanaticism are emotionally disturbed: usually neurotic and sometimes psychotic. For they strongly and rigidly believe in the same kinds of profound irrationalities, absolutistic musts, and uncondi tional necessities in which seriously disturbed people powerfully believe. When, moreover, they employ the logico-empirical methods of science, and when they fully accept (while often distinctly disliking and actively trying to change) reality, they are able to surrender their devout ness and to become significantly less disturbed. Indeed, I hypothesize, the more scientific, open minded, and straight-thinking about themselves, about others, and about the world people are, the less neurotically they will think, feel and behave. This is my major hypothesis about the relation ship between absolutistic religious belief (reli giosity) and mental health. The evidence that I have found, clinically and experimentally, in support of this hypothesis (as well as the evi dence falsifying the hypothesis that devout reli giousity is significantly correlated with and pro bably causative of good mental health) seems to be most impressive. But much more investigation of this issue had better be done, since it is up to me and others to empirically bolster or discon firm these hypotheses.
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