Comments by "June VanDerMark" (@junevandermark952) on "How to overcome depression | Jordan Peterson and Lex Fridman" video.

For 70 years I was confused by my childhood religious indoctrination. Religion is a primate guilt-inducer. Being taught by theologists that if we refuse to believe in the existence of a god ... we are EVIL ... is enough to depress anybody? I am almost 84 years of age, and for the last almost 14 years, I've been an Atheist, and finally am at peace with Stephen Hawking's theory ... that in one form or another, the universe always existed ... no creator ... no plan ... and that suffering of all forms of life ... is natural. And by leaving all religion behind as being man-created fiction ... I am far from being alone. Hundreds of members of clergy are now leaving religion behind, to find employment elsewhere.
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The sad part of religion is that so many people … including members of clergy … are convinced not only that a god exists … but that they are not able to live up to the god’s expectations. These devout believers often suffer from extreme depression … and many take their own lives. Abraham Lincoln suffered from extreme depression. He was born “out of wedlock” and was taught that he was “illegitimate," and that being illegitimate was a terrible SIN. From the book … LINCOLN'S BATTLE WITH GOD ... author ... Stephen Mansfield Lincoln would not have been the first man to long for divine acceptance but to think himself unworthy of it. He had translated this sense of shame to a theological level by believing that God rejected him for a wrong that occurred before he was born.
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