Please remember at this time you will be vulnerable to what you read. It is best to see an exit counselor to help prevent you from becoming trapped by other ideologies. I'm talking from experience. These sorts of groups, whether a church or LGAT, condition minds to be more passive to suggestion. It's best to undo this by seeing a professional who is familiar with exit counseling.

And just to add to the confusion, most of the skeptics I've met were not reasonable at all when it came to the concept of God. Of the ones I've met, every single one was angry about events that happened in their lives and reasoned if there was a God then these bad things wouldn't have happened.

For whatever reason when bad things happen, humans have a tendency to completely forget about free will and the consequences of free will when used for selfish reasons. At no time was I ever taught I would be protected from the happenings of the world by God.

Truth, as much as all the LGATs would like people to think, is not personal. And truth is not something humans are good at describing. So anyone with all the answers is always someone to avoid.

For my own personal belief, I don't understand how people can look at this world and all the underlying structure and still think it was just an accident. I was taught to seek as much knowledge as I could in my school/church. I have met other Catholics who were not taught to seek knowledge. I've also found there is a great deal of fiction concerning secular knowledge of Catholicism. All the same, it just depends on the people who run the individual churches/write the books and how they use their free will as to whether or not religion is being taught/portrayed as it should.

Hi, Alexis,

I think your advice to see an exit counselor is spot on. When someone leaves a coercive group, they may be confused and suggestible.

But I do have a bit of an issue with this part of your post:

Quote

And just to add to the confusion, most of the skeptics I've met were not reasonable at all when it came to the concept of God. Of the ones I've met, every single one was angry about events that happened in their lives and reasoned if there was a God then these bad things wouldn't have happened.

:? I guess you would consider me a skeptic, and an atheist as well. However, I'm not angry, nor do I think others should believe (or not believe) as I do. And no one awful event that's happened in my life has led to me believe that God wouldn't have allowed bad things to happen. I rejected the teachings of my church at a very early age (so early, in fact, that I can't remember a time when I DID accept them).

I think people should be free to believe what they like. If a belief or ideology is forced upon someone by coersion and thought reform, then I think it's helpful to offer information so they can make an informed decision. Whether they decide to embrace a religion afterwards is their choice.

Its true that some "skeptics" have projected their confusion and anger onto "God", and have taken their anger at a religious institution that harmed them, and blamed this on "God" as well.

Just to clarify, when I say Skeptic, I mean someone who is quite disciplined in this subject, and has worked though their personal angst, and can look at it objectively.

Also, the "order" (and disorder) in the natural world is explained through the current ideas in biological science and Evolution. This is a huge subject, but it does have relevance to this subject. Richard Dawkings is an excellent writer who explains, for example, how "eyes" evolved over millions of years, in many different ways. This gets into how DNA works, and the entire massive subject.

Now this is the moment where everyone starts seeing red.
For those who believe in a religion, they can start getting very angry, and then start the argument for Creationism, or "Intelligent Design". One could literally spend years of their life trying to figure out who is more accurate in their explanations, and who is making errors, either on purpose, or by mistake.

This is part of the problem, in my view.
Reality is very complex, and very counter-intuitive, and very difficult to understand.
So people have built "mental models", to try and come to grips with it.
The trick here is to find a mental model that is as accurate as possible.

Now the problem is, our own Beliefs generally choose which model to Believe, and filter the "facts" to suit those beliefs in a closed-loop.

I think this is part of the problem with cults.
Most cultish groups seem to have a Cosmology that explains reality in some way. A certain Metaphysics.

So a very simple question about what is going on when there is a "laying on of hands", very quickly leads to whether or not God exists, and if so what is Gods nature. It also leads to conflicting views of the nature of reality itself, and to the current ideas about Evolution, DNA, and all the rest of it.

This is a very complex line of thought, and each person has to figure things out for themselves.
The problem is there are so many biased sources of information on all sides, systems of thought that are set-up to bring people into them.
Some of these are cultish in nature.

I don't know where I am going with this, but there have been some people who have sought a balanced, reasonable communication between conflicting ideas.
I guess what I am saying is for each person to try their best to figure things out for themselves.
The problem with that, is that these subjects are so complex, and there are so many "systems" out there to entrap people, I don't see how the average person can cope.

The only way out I see, is to not accept systems of ideas "whole hog". You have to break them apart piece by piece, and examine each part separately to see if it makes sense.
But do people WANT to do this?
Not generally.

So most of us walk into a pre-designed system of thought, perhaps even by Plato or Augustine, or by some local Cultish Guru, and we buy into it.

Anyway, this is a very tough nut to crack, but I do personally believe that the tools of critical thinking can help us find our way through this morass.

Coz