Welcome to Religion on the Couch, by Matthias Beier

Welcome to my Religion on the Couch Substack, with a special focus on analyzing God talk. God talk is often harmful. Politicians invoke God to sanctify absolute claims to power and control and to make war. Religious and spiritual leaders frequently use God talk to make people feel bad about themselves and to support oppressive policies.

I put religion on the couch. Psychological insight is needed to understand what happens when religion goes rogue - and how to make religion sane again. This Substack will offer such insight on current events and the culture wars. It will also explore more personal questions of the deepest human longings for meaning, mattering, and love, which actually are at the heart of why humanity has religion and God talk in the first place.

I am starting this Substack at a time when half of the U.S. (it seems), as well as high-profile politicians and religious leaders, claim that God saved Trump in an assassination attempt. The monstrous implication of their claim …