WOTM: After Religion
Where do you go after religion? And what are the questions you need to ask?
For me, there were two important questions I wanted to resolve after I divorced myself from religion: How do we know what we know? And in this regard, I was interested in the kind of knowledge that produces reliable, repeatable results. And... the question I'll ask in the next video in this two-part series. How's that for a teaser? Huh?!!! Deity, I'm such a prick!
For all your continued support, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you!!! You are all, truly, the best people who have ever lived. And I'm not just saying that. I'm typing it too.
Comments (5)
Happy Birthday Brian! And thanks for another dose of truth : )
Hey Brian Keith... a question always picks at the back of my brain like a tick sucking on an artery about to burst. "How do we communicate this information to people who don't care about truth?" With their side firmly in control of this country right now, it's critical that we reach people who deep down might care about truth--but that care is buried under layers of "Jesus will make it OK in the end." How do we do it? It may seem for all the world like you're preaching to the choir here--or filling an "echo chamber" of sorts. I think this is how none of us saw TRUMP coming.
Just wanted to say Happy Birthday for tomorrow (at the time of writing)! Gosh I do hate it too when other people force me to keep mentioning my birthday just because they want me to get extra presents (Aug 19th for me, in case you were wondering).
As you know, I also experienced the horrific trauma of extricating myself from the Mormon cult, and can attest that everything you describe about the consequences is accurate. The difference in my case was that that particular purge of scholars and intellectuals didn't cause me to come out of the closet, as I had my name removed a couple of years earlier. In my case, it was because of… science. As a Latin Americanist by profession, years of researching the evidence about pre-Columbian civilizations made it painfully clear: the Nephites never existed. He made the friggin' book up! (Well, actually, to be more accurate, he plagiarized huge chunks of it.) In short, I could no longer feign a belief in what was a demonstrable fraud, and paid a similarly painful price for my integrity —socially, professionally, with the dearest members of my family. Despite it all, getting that heavy, crushing Mormon monkey off my back was the most liberating sensation of relief I have ever felt. Oh… P.S. Another orbit completed around the fusion power plant, huh? Have a Blissful Birthday! And tell Amy… mmmuuuuaaaaa!
WOW!!! I got really lucky in not losing any family. I know a lot of people who did. It's very sad. But the amazing part of your comment — one with which I completely agree, is that the relief of liberating yourself was worth almost any cost. I don't think people without our experience can understand that. It really is the most liberating feeling I can imagine short of being liberated from a prison or work/death camp. Obviously, those take the cake. But on a personal/emotional level, it's an act of liberating your very self and discovering you without all that bullshit that has been laid on you your entire life. One of my oldest Mormon friends is experiencing that right now. And he's loving life like never before.