I remember my time in Portland as being like an Alice in Wonderland. One of my experience paths involved going to weekly meetings for the new sadly defunct group United States Atheists. At those meetings a very nice man befriended me and we would often go to a nearby bar to talk, with a few of the others from the meetings. Also this man later headed up atheist group monthly visits to the OMSI Science Pub events, in connection with atheist related meetup.com groups & later with the Center For Inquiry, Portland.
Another experience path involved appearing a few times on the Sciligion cable access show.
The Mormon & Christian Memetic Whirlpool
Mormons wear nice clothes. That was the first comment from my wife as I drove her around downtown Salt Lake, especially during their General Conferences. But just wearing nice clothes doesn't mean you are happy.
As I have walked with my wife & son around Temple Square, I know she's felt the pull of the Mormon memetic whirlpool. I've felt it too, but I also get a huge icky poo feeling along with. A cult is a group which engages in a few key things:
1. Leader worship.
2. Excommunication of those who disagree - both from your own family if you disagree, and from the cult in general.
3. Active suppression of evidence that may discredit what the leaders are claiming.
4. Putting the cult first, above family & other human relationships.
A cult is an especially strong form of memetic group or camp with especially strong defenses, and strong belief maintenance to keep people in line.
Our path through the forest of competing ideas can result in our being sucked one way or another, based on how we are feeling & what's happening to us at any given time.
So, I won't be returning to Mormonism or Christianity any time soon. Why? Because I remember the deception, the lies, and the pain. I haven't forgotten the lies of the leaders or their hypocrisy.
My related video commentary on this whole situation:
Commentary included with above video:
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This is an initial video response to:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxjSAuLAG48
Gebhardt's story: From Christianity, to atheism, and then back to Christianity again
Created February 4, 2014 7:39am
While in Portland I was befriended by a man who went with me to weekly meetings for the now defunct group United States Atheists. After those meetings we often would go to a bar for a chat. Also the man became an organizer for Center for Inquiry, Portland and their past monthly OMSI Science Pub events. Also the man invited me to participate in a cable access TV show called Sciligion.
Here's one example where we're appearing together on the show:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCSnEh16anA
and here's another example of where he's talking about converting to being an atheist (before converting back to Christianity):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEe0KfQ1L1w
In the video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxjSAuLAG48 my friend talks about a differentiation between the the physical and the metaphysical, the normal and the paranormal. For me such differentiations are simply memetic camp defense mechanisms. If some god exists in another dimension as a "spiritual being," he or she or it would still be a physical entity. Does the so-called metaphysical item or entity exist? If the answer is yes then they are physical AKA a real thing with real physical properties.
It's sad that to belong to a human social group we have to a.) suck up to a leader, and b.) state that we believe in one or more joint-lies. Can we change this situation? Can we have human social groups where we don't all have to state that we believe in the joint lies?
When we leave conservative religion we may encounter what is essentially liberal-religion. Many atheist & "free thought" groups are essentially liberal religions. If you don't tow the party line in these liberal flavors of religion you will then undergo a heresy trial, one which almost exactly mirrors the heresy trials of conservative religions. In those trials you will be accused of having held onto tenets from your old religion, concepts which you should have just completely tossed according to them. But the key fallacies in their arguments can be revealed via the following activity: Going to China, where they know nothing about your religion, and see what they believe in & do. Do the same thing in other cultures. Religion is a NATURAL phenomenon, and so even tenets in conservative religion can still be fully natural.
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