== Religioholism ==

"Religion" is often translated as that which binds humanity to the divine, but its more common purpose is that of binding people together in a shared set of beliefs and uniform outward practice. Hence, religioholics, as I define them, are those who are addicted to the pursuit of binding everyone together by hook or by crook, by force, deceit or constant mental/emotional pressure, in the belief that their own religion or philosophy is the sole absolute truth and thus ought to be made universal and enforced by all temporal laws. It is a common mental disorder, manifested in both violent and covertly-manipulative forms.

Recovery from religioholism is a long and often harrowing process of detachment from trying to dictate other people's lives and personal practice. The most severe cases, to be honest, either never recover atall or at most switch their allegiance to another absolutist structure of faith (theistic or atheistic), that must support them by claiming to be all-encompassing and infallible. Such people are never content with their own beliefs and values as lived by themselves, but demand that their whole families, communities, nations and even the whole world must follow the same way under penalty of censure, banishment, punishment, torture, death and/or damnation, however that be defined.

Let's explore this unstable terrain and see what can be made of it...