Leaving the religion I would die for

Originally posted as chronological links on Jan 30, 2022. Updated as narrative format on May 5, 2022.

removed some stuff on 10/22/2022. incomplete

I watched Johnny Harris' video Why I Left The Mormon Church. I saw someone's experience in really believing something and experience religion just like me stop believing. I noticed that both his religion and mine claim to have the complete truth, and that everyone else that believed differently was wrong. But I knew the Mormon religion was not true, because duh only my religion is true, but that seemed contradictory. How could a person with the same experiences with me believe something that's obviously wrong? Something's really fishy here.

Here is exactly what I typed into a google doc on August 13, 2021 after watching some videos.

The next important video I watched were by TheraminTrees, showing how aspects of religion I was experiencing were harmful. I noticed that I was experiencing indoctrination and abuse.

As I was really interested in MBTI personality types in the summer, and I came across CS Joseph advising ENTPs to "make sure you are constantly doing if, this, then that thinking and logically verify every single thing in your life, including your belief systems, including those traditional beliefs systems that you were raised within." That encouraged me to figure out if my religion was true, so I searched up "how do you know if a religion is true" and I found a Quora answer linking this Street Epistemology video by Anthony Magnabosco.

updated 5/5/2021 11:43pm. still working on this

I watched Johnny Harris' video Why I Left The Mormon Church, and seeing that someone could really believe something and experience religion just like me, and then not believe it anymore made me think something was fishy. My takeaway from TheraminTrees' videos were that many aspects of religion was I experiencing were really harmful. As I was digging into personality types, I came across CS Joseph advising ENTPs to "make sure you are constantly doing if, this, then that thinking and logically verify every single thing in your life, including your belief systems, including those traditional beliefs systems that you were raised within." That encouraged me to figure out if my religion was true, so I searched up "how do you know if a religion is true" and I found a Quora answer linking this Street Epistemology video by Anthony Magnabosco. I was so excited to find a systematic method to know if a belief is true that I kept on watching his videos until I grasped how SE and the Socratic method worked. It was hands down one of the most important youtube videos I have ever watched, because from then on I had a way to evaluate claims and beliefs rationally. I found Holy Koolaid's Nothing Fails Like Bible History series, and seeing so many historic inaccuracies lowered my confidence that the Bible was true. I watched videos by various atheist youtubers like Genetically Modified Skeptic and how they stopped believing, and the reasons for me to believe decreased a lot.

In the middle of that, I talked to someone, and the conversation could be concluded as him saying there are so many things you can't prove, like that love exists, and to give it another chance. My confidence that the belief was true went up a bit where I was still trying to use the methods people in the religion were wanting me to use. Like praying, reading the Bible, being more open and seeking.

I also talked to another person, and I was saying I didn't have any reliable methods to know the belief was true, and he understood me way better. The takeaway from him was there are two paths: one were you stop looking and you don't believe, and another where you keep on looking and you eventually find something that makes you believe.

The general process for this whole thing was trying to answer "are there any reliable methods to know that this claim is true?" and figuring out if my reasons held up. Through street epistemology and the atheist videos I learned better critical thinking skills and quotes like "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" Carl Sagan "that which is presented without no evidence can be dismissed with no evidence" Christopher Hitchens burden of proof standard of evidence "people that don't want you to think are never your friend" TheraminTrees "It is not measurable, falsifiable, independently verifiable, empirical evidence. It's subjective garbage." Holy Koolaid?

darkmatter: hard to escape, using manipulation

handbook

atheist experience

rhett and link

tracie harris

stopindoc questions

lesswrong, scientist experts and other link

arguing with m

a cognitively rigid, unsoliticited advice, being called satan

parents

links in link post

companion post: guide to learning street epistemology with socratic questioning and bayesian statistics