Ep. 196: Dr. Mark Gregory Karris — How to Overcome Harmful Beliefs About God, Yourself, and the Afterlife

Think Act Be Podcast

My guest this week is Dr. Mark Karris, author of the new book, The Diabolical Trinity: Healing Religious Trauma From a Wrathful God, Tormenting Hell, and a Sinful Self. Mark shared about the damaging effects this trio of doctrines can have on people, himself included, and how to heal.

Topics we discussed included:

• How certain religious beliefs themselves can be traumatic, apart from abusive, authoritarian leaders
• Differing effects of indoctrination in these beliefs early in life vs. later
• My guest’s own traumatic religious experiences
• Anxiety related to the belief in hell and “eternal conscious torment”
• The question of why some people have trauma reactions to these beliefs and other don’t
• Possible effects of the family or church environment in which diabolical beliefs were taught
• The similarities between some depictions of God and abusive partners
• A wrathful god as a possible vengeful projection of believers
• Seeing through persistent gut-level beliefs from harmful religious doctrines
• The practices Mark offers for healing from religious trauma
• The opportunity cost of not learning about a loving divine presence
• People who don’t want anything to do with even a benevolent deity
• The doctrine of universalism, that “love wins in the end”
• Different ways of understanding hell within the Christian tradition
• What my guest believes about God now