You dodged a bullet. You do not match at all, and imagine how horrible it would be if you had kids.

Almost anyone would be more compatible with you than this.

For Noah's Ark, get him a kid's version of The Epic of Gilgamesh first, so he can see the original, and include a discussion about how it's evil to drown children. Then go ahead an let him see the Christian version where a drunken Noah enslaves his grandchild, and talk about how enslaving grandchildren is evil.

https://thebrickbible.com/legacy/genesis/noahs_curse/01_gn09_18-19.html

You can use the Lego version.

Sounds trollish. Sorry you had to deal with that.

Is there a link to this video?

I heartily approve of this ridicule of a scapegoat blood-magic human sacrifice. Good work.

The sacrifice aspect is called the sunk-cost fallacy.

If you can make someone sacrifice enormously, they must either believe they were wise to make such a sacrifice or foolish to have been so terribly duped.

Obviously, people don't like to feel like fools, so the sunk-cost fallacy results in people emotionally needing the cult to be true and their sacrifice to be justified.

Point of information: Walmart has donated more to charity than the $250B cult.

I’ve come to the conclusion that the Mormon church is not true, but I still tried to hold on to some belief in God and Jesus.

Here's the problem with trying to believe: There is a word for attempting to make oneself believe something. It's make-believe. Any attempt to believe through sheer force of will is identical to playing pretend.

In reality, one is either convinced or one is not regardless of one's wishes. That's why your god belief isn't sustainable.

Here anyway:

Letting Go Of God

This is the softest, gentlest, funniest, most enjoyable primer to atheism that you could ever wish for. Julia Sweeney is a delight, and her one-woman show is as moving as it is informative. You'll enjoy it immensely.

First of all, having one son is a choice god made.

Interesting tangent: According to the OT, god has many many sons and they love fucking humans.

When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose.

Then the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not abide in1 man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.”

The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown.

And if anyone thinks the sons of got are metaphorical, sure, then so's Jesus.

Congrats to you too!

Congratulations! This is a major accomplishment, and I am happy for you and anyone who accomplishes so much!

Congratulations on the personal freedom!

Ah yeah, the definitions of "fetch you" and "fuck you" are identical. You're cursing someone regardless of which morpheme you use.

I would be tempted to say, "I'll pray for you to receive true humility," to the elders, but that would just be baiting them. lol

Congrats regardless.

Report if you like. I might also attempt to eat up her time so she couldn't proselytize to others more vulnerable than myself, while making her feel very comfortable, which would challenge her view of "worldly" people. You do what works for you though.

This is a very extreme case, and I'm sorry for what you've suffered, but I also seem some very good reasoning and respect for evidence in what you wrote as well as a sincere interest in what is true, and for that you should be proud.

Many of us feel stupid or duped at times, but you know what, if you were dumb yesterday, and you realize it today, that's evidence that you're smarter than ever. This is a fact that is worth acknowledging, especially when you' on the verge of escaping a cult that million fail to escape.

Writing a list of desires is also wise, because one of the most frequently reported pitfalls of waking up is not knowing what to live for. You've got a good head start there already.

As for not having connections outside the cult, there's excellent news. Even the acquaintances you make on the outside are likely to be superior to the "friends" who demonize and ostracize people like us. Yes, it is difficult to make new friends, but even the casual friends you make will not require the sort of mind control the cult required, and no one is likely to believe anyone else is going to get hit by a fireball in Armageddon.

I've not seen the show, but I'm interested to hear that Sheldon rejects theistic claims.

While I am no personally a mythicist, you might like to read Richard Carrier's books, and they often challenge even non-Christian Bible scholars, including Ehrman. I'm not saying that Carrier is correct, just that if you want to see scholars argue, you can count on him for that.

Otherwise, if you've not read The Bible Unearthed, it's an excellent historical perspective on the OT. I've read it twice and learned new things both times--it's that dense.

Conformity is a key aspect of mind control, and Mormonism is a very high control group, so grooming standards are liking to be fairly uniform, as is personal conduct.

And yes, small gene pool. lol

Fascinating, and thanks for sharing.

Now I'm curious about Japanese, because the Japanese word for "fired" is "beheaded".

I can't believe in married bachelors or round squares, so sure. If the god is illogical, someone can be incapable of accepting it, and many if not most deities are illogical.

This can be done one belief at a time and one person at a time, which most religious people will understand much better than "I am an atheist!" or "God is evil!" etc.

For example, I might say I didn't believe the victims of the Holocaust went to hell. It's hard for someone to damn Holocaust victims, and if they do, I don't really want to hang out with them anyway, so this one's pretty win-win to me.

I love being able to speak critically about my old faith, although there's a sad number of people who demonize this and try to call speaking from lived experience "preaching".

It's not preaching if it's explicitly rhetoric criticizing what preachers say and do.

Whenever someone explains something bad or evil and then uses God to defend to it, there is something within my subconscious that just stops right there.

This is easily explained by neural pathways. There are physical pathways in your brain that facilitated favored ways of thinking and put those thoughts on the fast track. Your neural pathways are likely primed to rejected rhetoric critical of your old religion. This is a natural response.

The good news is that exposure is what forms new neural pathways, so if you continually expose yourself to this sort of critical discourse, and really think about it from new ways, eventually the old pathway will get replaced with a new one.

As someone who came from a Baptist denomination, it's also taken me a lot to heal from the hellfire/brimstone of that faith-based ideology, and I'm very happy to be away from that as well.

What makes me unhappy is when faith promoters start demonizing queer survivors of their own cult for pushing back against the evils of their faith.

If you don't think your faith hurt anyone, then ask around and see who disagrees. Accusing the survivors of faith of being preachers is just victim-blaming.