That's my opinion, too, but it's not as widely shared as I'd like...

Once you turn against the wellspring of morality and goodness (as the truest bluest believers perceive it), you lose all credibility and right to speak within that circle on anything.

So a question emerges: is it better for you to be "true to yourself" and take the massive L and have everybody turn against you forever and never accomplish another good thing but the allies you care about within your circle of people you know (but have your self-perceived integrity); OR, is it better to let go of your need to make everything make sense and operate within the life birth has given you to accomplish some good?

Kinda hard to do the latter, since the church persecutes liberal belief as much as it can while trying to avoid taking a fatal credibility hit with the youth, but some try to walk that path. Arguably they achieve more good than the people who just walk away and start enjoying their second Sunday.

The deepest cut my family gave me from the drama of the last 7 years was when they said "you have to show up more often in order for us to know you care about us." That threw me for a loop.I was trying to argue for real things and things that mattered to me from within a believing framework for years, and all that happened was they sidestepped my protestations and chided me about "toeing the edge" of apostasy. Muscling through those moments just looks to them like "coming out in open rebellion against God." I'm on the Spectrum and I have severe ADHD. I can't bear it when they refuse to have a logical debate with me and instead try to insinuate my social anxieties are indicative of how holy they are and how I can't bear their light. Remaining "plugged in" to get a few extra words in every now and then was giving me PTSD and also wasting my time and they were dismissing me anyway.

Regardless, I have spent many thousands of hours of my life thinking churchy thoughts about morality and mortality and community and stuff, and it's hard to just let it all go and walk away from it and never think about those things again. I wonder if there was a better way than the path I ended up taking.

anybody Wrote:
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> n/t

Do you mean: Once you publicly profess that [WHAT] you know to be false is "true"[,] you're bought (or, you mean, "you're lying")

And how do u know?....
And can you elaborate?
Or give any examples?

Thanks-

This post true!
I ain't gonna lie-

They need to make the title text field wider. There's not enough room.

You know when you are lying -- either to yourself, or to others.

It's why totalitarian regimes want you to "confess" before they execute you. It's not enough for them to get rid of you -- they want you to say out loud that you "believe" what they want you to believe first. Then they kill you. Or your family. Or your town or village.

Once you *willingly* begin "lyin' for the Lord" or any other cult or all-encompassing belief system, they own you.

Many who are paid to do this come to believe their false message to be true.

You start to believe your own lies because you become what you think. You have successfully brainwashed yourself.