Malcolm Gladwell: How I Rediscovered Religion

I'm ex-mormon. We were taught a narrative, that basically priesthood power was taken away, and brought back, so basically either the prophet was a real prophet or not. Either the book of mormon was true/false if it was true then Joseph was a prophet and blah blah (Spoiler: he's not, and the book of mormon is not a true book).

We're taught in seminary (a class before school in high school) lots of deep doctrine, and history of the church. I thought I knew it all, then found the CES Letter which was basically an eye opener about inconsistencies in the church details.

Around the same time, I kept going back to what my Seminary teacher told me, that it's important to consider the 'nature of God'. Well, okay. So, it seems the one common thread is God is pretty demanding that he be 'worshipped' and that no other 'God' be worshiped but him. Sounds like classic narcissism to me. Then it dawned on me how it mirrors the pharaoh/slave relationship and probably because the people in power used the threat of afterlife as a form of power over people and they modeled it over the relationship w/ the supreme authority of the land.

Fast forward, and I've left the church (removed my records), now I'm agnostic (I highly doubt God exists), but I don't fully rule out an after life, after all we still don't know what consciousness is. Where it is. What makes it work. etc...

I think it's possible a bit of us is left over, or the 'game' is rebooted and we play it all over again. If we're a simulation, then we'd get a 2nd act possibly as bits and bytes. However, afterlife existing does not require a deity or almighty being.

IF there was a god/creator, he probably blew himself up creating our universe in the big bang. My philosophy though is now to be more stoic and just live for now, and with the idea that this is the only life we get, if there's more later it's just a bonus.

Christianity is so very sticky; trying to clean it off just results in more of it getting gunked around. At this point, I've structured my thoughts around religions so that my default assumption is that all religious beliefs are delusions. My reasoning comes in the form of three barriers.

First, historicity. When we pull apart ancient holy texts, we find a mix of myths, legends, distorted tales, and eventually the foundation of history. Any religious belief has to first demonstrate that it's consistent with our archeological finds, current resources, and competing histories.

Second, speaking of competing histories, is comparative religion, AKA comparative values and beliefs. Religions generally have contemporary competitors. They may claim different versions of historical events or have contradictory metaphysics.

Third, physics and the fallacy of nature. In short, observable events are natural and described by physics, and the burden of proof is on religions to show that supernatural events happen. As science has marched on, miracles have shrunk in occurrence and priestly rituals have decreased in power.

So, for example, how might born-again Christianity fare when considered this way? On the first barrier, there probably was somebody like Jesus or John the Baptist or Simon the Zealot at roughly the given times, stirring up the trouble and getting killed for it. Also, we know that the Gospels were secondhand accounts at best due to when they were written, and we know that they were deliberately crafted to fulfill Jewish prophecies. However, Second Temple Judaism doesn't have strong historicity for its founding figures of Abraham and Moses, which hollows out the promises that the figure of Jesus makes.

On the second barrier, there are a pile of sun-god and resurrected-demigod cults around the Mediterranean, some dating back to the Egyptian New Kingdom, which would have made the general mythological ideas over a millennium old at the time of Jesus. Indeed, in the Gospel of John, Jesus performs a resurrected-demigod ritual. I want to say "nothing is new under the sun-god", or maybe "Jesus is too much in the son-god"?

And on the third barrier, there's no reason to accept any of the miraculous claims for as long as there are natural physical mechanisms of action, and explanations which are simpler than the implications of the Problem of Evil. We know that modern speaking in tongues is a sort of hypnosis, that modern faith healing is quackery and scams, that modern reincarnations are a combination of childish pranks and gullible adults, that modern water to wine is a magic trick dating back to Egypt, and that modern baptism feels tingly in your brain because of the mammalian cold-water diving reflex. There's no evidence to suggest that these were any different in ancient times, and plenty of evidence to suggest that humans were broadly the same then as now, and that their culture was extremely similar to ours.

So, on reflection, what actually supports Christian beliefs, and why should we accept it as evidence? It turns out not much at all!

While i agree, be careful making claims of fact. You dont yet have enough evidence to claim that something doesn't exist, just like they don't have enough evidence to claim that something does...

If you use the same weak foundation they do your argument is at the same level as theirs, and that is not right. They need to produce evidence to back their claims, until then the default value to apply is 0 (disbelief) .

edit Also its worth noting that the OP article isn't about facts or accuracy. its all about support structures. The guy had a few moments when he needed some and the ones that A) there and B) easy to slot back into were Christianity.

The guy was never really free of that yoke, he just didn't have a lot of need for it. Until he did and slotted back into the fold seamlessly.

Certainly not his entire career. Malcolm Gladwell is/was a propagandist shilling for pharma, big tobacco, wall street, and the health insurance industry.

https://shameproject.com/profile/malcolm-gladwell-2/

Eg.:

* https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1990/02/27/n...

* https://www.businessinsider.com/new-study-destroys-malcolm-g...

In the other hand, being forced to navigate the willful delusions of so many makes the world a harder, less prosperous, and less kind place.