“There is an element of control we have over suffering.”

“We have no control over fate and history, but we can control how we conduct ourselves in this life.”

“Each deity controlled different elements of the world order, so no one god had full control, and which deity was in charge fluctuated over time and place.”

“Like too much alcohol,self-consciousness makes us see ourselves double, and we make the double image for two selves - mental and material, controlling and controlled, reflective and spontaneous. Thus instead of suffering we suffer about suffering, and suffer about suffering about suffering.”

“religion, the most powerful of the elements which have entered into the formation of moral feeling, having almost always been governed either by the ambition of a hierarchy, seeking control over every department of human conduct, or by the spirit of Puritanism.”

“Anger is frustration at the fact that we are not God, and do not have control over reality.”