Hope everyone finds themselves well whenever reading this, and I hope everyone got to celebrate the 2023 holidays with the ones they love most & enjoyed a break from the rat race.
Quick note on The Palestine Question I am working on in the Middle East series - I am in the process of finishing a couple of books for research: Noam Chomsky & Ilan Pappe’s On Palestine, Avi Shlaim’s Israel and Palestine, & Norman Finkelstein’s Gaza: An Inquest Into Its Martyrdom. Trying to balance a sense of pressure to complete something with the depth I would like to put forth.
To the main focal point of the post today, I would like to share about myself, my story, and kinda just my thoughts after 33 years in this reality.
What’s the Point?
I am sharing my background so everyone can understand where I am coming from and what I can bring to the table from my background.
I have been studying Christianity for 26 years. Judaism for a solid 18. I’ve studied most major religions in this world to a basic level. I have a focal point on Early Christianity. So when I write a piece on The Jewish Question - it’s not because I hate Jews or because I suddenly found the topic interesting - it’s because I have studied religious items my entire existence lol. Regardless of faith, religions shape world events and cultures. For that reason, I have continued to study and understand them.
I have been on the opposite end with leading Atheists & intellectuals as well.
Because of this, I have a pretty unique skillset of analyzing life from both mindsets. It’s why I have a much higher appreciation for the theological war being waged by Israel against Palestine while a lot of humans are only viewing this as a national security issue, and for the same reason why I have a large disdain for the Christian Right in the U.S. who are always infringing on separation of Church & State values in their own regard.
A Life For God
I was born to two loving parents around 9pm on Jan 17th, 1991. My parents had went through a couple of miscarriages before I arrived, so as the only child, I know I was cherished and blessed with love beyond a lot of others as I grew up. 30+ Years of Marriage and counting for them, maybe close to 40 honestly, regardless of our differences and their own human failures we all have, they provided a strong backbone to my character & set a positive example in many ways.
My spawn point was in a little town of Batesville, AR, which has a population of roughly 10,000 people. I was fortunate to grow up living on about 500 acres between my family that allowed me to actively play in the woods and experience nature. I miss that freedom arguably the most.
There are dozens of Churches in Batesville which are primarily Protestant like Baptists & Methodists, as well as some outlier denominations like Seventh Day Adventist, Church of Christ, & Jehovah Witness. Only a single Catholic and a single Episcopal Church exist in the primary town and are a minority throughout the Protestant Bible Belt at large.
My Mother and I entered the church around 1995/1996 when I was barely 5 years old. I had accepted Jesus into my heart at a Kid’s Crusade over summer in 1996. My Father joined us within a year. My parents were both active in participating in the church from the start. We participated in the Easter plays, my mother got involved in teaching elementary children at our first church, teens at our second. She was active in choir & always participating in a Bible Study. My father was similar with always studying, although he did not teach & took a less active role with the Youth. He seemed to find more enjoyment in the debate between denominational beliefs on the theological side.
My life from 5 years old was dominated by the Church and God beyond the normal standard even for the Bible Belt. I started my participation in Bible Drill1 (Scripture/Bible Memorization) at age 6, as well as the choir. Me & mother would sit in the car waiting for the bus to pick me up and get 10-20 mins of memorization in most mornings. It’s why I can still name every book in the Bible in order, tell you pointless facts like there are 66 books in canon with 39 OT & 27 NT books & could do so before I could do multiplication tables.
I came forward with my parents to request Baptism at Age 6.
1998 Traveling to my first Free Will Baptist Nationals in Oklahoma at age 7.
I remember traveling to Atlanta Georgia in 1999 to compete in the Nationals for the Free Will Baptists. I also fell off the back of the stands while singing. I bought a music cd that got taken from me - pop band Five2 & remember pouting very hard.
My parents are evangelical in a fairly hardcore manner if you have not figured that out by now. My parents are Young Earth Creationists believing the Earth is only 8-12,000 years old. My Father visited my public school in 1st grade to complain after I found a book on Evolution in the Library and brought it home - he got it removed I believe, if nothing else he complained to the school and directly to the Librarian Ms Wood.
I was put into a private Christian school in 4th grade with less than 25 people in the entire 4th-12th age group. 5 in my grade. We had courses like Bible, weekly chapel, all courses were taught through an anti-big bang, anti-evolution standpoint going for an Intelligent Design replacement for the “science” explanations. I remember in 5th Grade the school had Kent Hovind3 come to the school to teach us about the “history” of life. The man created an organization in 1989 called Christian Science Evangelism built around the literal interpretation of Genesis & staunch anti-evolutionist, anti-cosmology…anti-hard science lol.
My Father had a small library that I would flip through on occasion when bored. I had Fridays off from school, in 4th-6th grade so I learned to start thinking about more sophisticated things. I was always interested in how my Father would talk about arguing with his work friends about religious topics because they were of a different denomination. It made me interested in learning more about denominations and reading some of the stuff on the shelf, which led me to a lexicon and concordance and a study bible with notes. I think a Macarthur study bible if my memory serves correct. While I was not yet a dedicated reader, I enjoyed my sessions trying to grapple with deeper theological thoughts. I have a decent memory of developing one of my first argument models for the ability to lose one’s salvation aka Eternal Security - and outwitting the Vice Principal of the Private Christian School with my ready made arguments from scripture and reading that Macarthur Study Bible notes as we drove to the end of the year picnic.
By the time I was in 7th grade, I was actively evangelizing and doing local mission trips during the summer. I have fond memories of getting some of the inner city kids in the apartments of Arlington, TX and singing songs with them and seeing their smiles to have a group of us come interact with them. My Uncle was a missionary to Africa for 5 years during that age & I used to pray about that being a potential calling for me; although I never had a location on my heart.
I sat on the Youth Council for one of the largest churches in the town from 7th-10th grade. Helping the adults make decisions about trips/speakers. As part of the council, I participated in interviewing applicants who wished to be Youth Pastor. I remember the look on one of the applicants faces when I started asking him about his views on alcohol & referenced the local battle on the first possible private liquor license for a restaurant in our dry county….which an attorney at our church was fighting to keep from happening - man could not believe a 10th grader was actually so invested.
Way too many abstinence seminars were attended during my teenage years thanks to church trips. Let alone the more weird aspects like having my Youth Pastor who was mentoring a small group of us having times of “masturbation support groups” for keeping each other accountable and not “giving into sin”.
I have some funny memories of Yu-Gi-Oh. From my grandfather buying me my first deck and my parents freaking out when finding the Dark Magician card. To me not giving a fuck & buying the OG Playstation game to my mother’s annoyance. To the nerds in the Youth Group playing both Magik and Yu-Gi-Oh before service and freaking the church elders out because they literally believed it could be witchcraft & demonic.
In 8th grade I pulled out of the Christian School due to the Church that ran the school getting a new pastor that was highly radical. He yelled at a handful - which is half the school mind you - about discussing starting a “rock” band. Keep in mind the rules were basically if it was not in the hymnal it was “too worldly”. Went from a 7/10 cult-like to a 10/10 cult-like in less than 2 years.
Shifting from less than 15 in the High school to 185 in my class alone was a bit of culture shock in all forms. From one on one time with my teachers to just the social complexities. It was apparent to me from an early age that I took my beliefs a lot more seriously than others, but going from a school filled with only devout students to a public school where that was minority put a bit of a chip on my shoulder. Most kids were not spiritually inclined & I had no desire to participate in the “worldly” system at this stage.
Shoutout to Mrs Post, my 8th grade Science teacher who put up with my dumbass arguing the Earth is only thousands of years old, the Big Bang is not scientific, evolution has gaps, and the only explanation for life is intelligent design.
It was not until I was around 13-14 that the internet was really a thing for me. Dial up was all I had growing up in the sticks, but getting my first AIM account changed . I was interacting with people from across the entire US and when talking about anything, questions would arise & I learned very fast that Google could give me a source with an answer. I had interned with a psychotherapist at 15 for a business class & I had started to develop a very basic understanding of Freudian theory and pscyhoanalysis. I was on AIM helping other teens who struggled with things like bulimia, abuse, as well as talking to local teens in my town who were struggling with suicidal thoughts and cutting behaviors. Ya know, typical 15 year old shit.
No one ever really challenged me about my faith in my hometown because everyone believed in God. Since most of hard science was against my faith, I spent time learning Philosophy and Psychology. I was fascinated by Pop Psychology & I had started actually reading Aristotle & Plato after stumbling upon quotes on Myspace that made me want to read more. Between them and Alexander the Great - my love for the Hellenistic period began.
By 17, I had a pretty minimum understanding of historical context at large. I had focused on my communication skills, learning the Bible, basic psych, and philosophy. I never bothered studying history in any real sense because secular history was often at odds with the Biblical interpretation I was fed growing up. If the History Channel were left on or Discovery, my Father would always throw a fit at the content because everything is evolution or old universe. The Bible told me all the history I needed lol.
Alexander the Great is one of my favorite humans in history because of how the man impacted the world we live in. I was watching a History documentary on him that kinda started framing the general historical context for me in a different light. In a world that loves to iterate the Roman contributions, a lot of the Roman culture is leftover Hellenism. It started clicking for me that I should really start understanding the roots of something if I wanted to have any hope towards a truth.
The End of Faith
I remember being so nervous to open up the box I knew I had to open. I knew I needed to really examine my entire belief system for what it is. Why did the Protestant Reformation happen in 1544? Why did Baptists not exist until the 17th century? Why did theological notions like the Rapture not exist until the 19th century? Why does everyone and their brother claim their denomination is “the true Church” that can be “traced back to Jesus”? From large denominational variances like Catholicism vs Baptists to sophisticated differences like Free Will Baptists vs Southern Baptists.
There was one verse that set me forward in confidence. John 8:32 - “& ye shall know the Truth, and the Truth shall set you free.” I remember thinking, if Jesus is the Truth. He will be there. My search for Truth is in good faith, not out of doubt.
So I started exploring the Early Church and reading the Apostolic Fathers after learning about the Didache. I started understanding the fights with Marcion & the varying Christologies that existed. Understanding the formation of the canon from both a New Testament to the belief systems like a Trinity doctrine.
Once I was exploring the Early Church and started figuring out it was the Wild Wild West for a few centuries - I wanted to hone in on canon and the history of the writings. This led me to the final nails in the coffin for my faith.
I had went to a website - infidels.org - which is a website for Atheists & Agnostics dedicated to religious and spirituality discussions & research. I had started reading the forum posts on Biblical errors. The insights about the Early Church variances and how long it took to get some basic doctrines established did have me concerned, but Biblical Errors is directly against the notion of Inerrancy. There is no mental gymnastics to do - there either are errors or there are not.
There were numerous posts detailing the hundreds of errors in translations, transcription errors, actual contradictions and paradoxes. I remember spending a week going through some list of over 100 contradictions hoping I could resolve them, and I could only resolve a few.
I can remember staring at this list and the varying versions of Mark and thinking about how much of a cluster fuck the theology was during the first few centuries and feeling the panic as I knew I was starting to grasp I had spent the bulk of my life believing everything incorrectly. And absolutely terrified if I was incorrect that my eternal existence was on the line. Truly something you can only experience to understand; most self-proclaimed Christians couldn’t quote you 10 verses. It’s not real for most humans, it’s cultural byproduct. For me it was real.
It took about 6 months for me to really come to terms with everything. During all of this I had left one church group and started leading another small church group in a different town that only had a handful of younger teens. I had shifted my focus from researching the history of christianity to the psychology of religion itself. I started playing around with raising my hands during worship and watching the subset effect. I started connecting how community truly establishes group think.
This is about the time I started diving into Nietzsche after discovering some of his quotes. If I could spend time with one man in history it might be him; I feel we are kindred spirits born in different eras. I embraced the reality I had found, and decided to move forward on the path.
By 18 I had stopped going to Church entirely & I accepted that Monotheism has no Truth. I came out as an Atheist & began that battle.
I was shit posted by several peers who made comments that I was an embarrassment to my family & that I was going to hell. Let alone the countless church members who would approach me and try to persuade me to come back as if there was something wrong with me and my decision…knowing full well I was more theologically informed than most of the humans coming to me. I grew up in a home where my Father had actively stated Jesus is the only Absolute Truth and the only way for morality to exist is through Jesus. He had stated Atheists are evil several times throughout my life.
This view is not abnormal by the way & my parents are not remotely alone. Protestants are split half/half between the view God is necessary to be moral. Black & White Evangelicals leaning towards Necessary.
Similarly, my parents are not alone on views of Creationism; As many as 47% and as few as 38% of Americans have taken a creationist view of human origins throughout Gallup's 37-year trend.4
Nor are they abnormal with the views on Evolution and scientific conflict at large.5
Living as a non-believer in the Bible Belt is an uphill battle that is difficult to digest. I vividly remember the 2011 Study published in the Atlantic that noted that Rapists scored higher than Atheists as far as public trust and perception. Let that one sink in.6 There was an intriguing follow up study in 2017 on this that was a globalized study. Similar results, even among more atheistic countries. 7
It’s an odd paradigm to escape the cult that 70% of the nation you belong to believes in. It would be equivalent to finding Jesus in Afghanistan after being Muslim your entire life.
Similar to how I found myself when I was in religion and trying to convince people to take it more seriously - I found myself outside religion trying to get people to open their eyes to the reality outside of religious dogma.
I have fond memories of spending multiple nights a week calling Christian Hotlines and deconverting the people who were supposed to be helping others reach Jesus. I started getting comfortable arguing theology as a non-believer and enjoying the objective nature having zero dog in the fight allows me to have with theological exegesis.
Being an 18 year old who had believed the Earth was 10,000 years old, Evolution was incorrect, Big Bang incorrect. I was starting from a lot of nothing in my intellectual understanding of reality. The opposite of the faith I was leaving where I knew more than most Church Elders & Peers.
I have high admiration, love, and respect for the men who were brave enough to be actively speaking out during this time with the message that it is okay to not believe in God. They are the only people who iterated that message and made me feel like I had someone who understood. Christopher Hitchens, a famous journalist/intellectual. Richard Dawkins, one of the fathers of modern Evolutionary Biology, Lawrence Krauss, Theoretical Physicist and Nobel Laureate, Daniel Dennett, a leading philosopher, & Sam Harris, who was a young intellectual focusing on philosophy and neuroscience.
I spent a lot of my college years learning about this reality. Learning the history of the universe and wrapping my mind around the scientific explanations for reality. Youtube lectures were finally starting to become popular by 2014, and I was spending countless hours watching Lawrence Krauss’s Origins Podcast Lectures & the Royal Institute.
The Shaman Life
On the opposite spectrum, starting my Freshmen year of college, I tried Psilocybin Mushrooms for the first time with my best friend Daniel. I spent a lot of time on Bluelight & Shroomery as a late teen exploring the forums and I learned how to look at the pharmacodynamics / Pharmacokinetics of substances to determine what the fuck was true and what was not as far as harmful substances and how they work with our cognition. I was immediately fascinated with Neuro and Consciousness and the spiritual realm of that.
I found Terrence McKenna rather fast on Shroomery and found his ideas quite radical, but intriguing none-the-less. He mentioned the famous Turn On Tune In Drop Out lecture from Tim Leary and once I listened to that lecture…I knew I had to find some Mushrooms. I trusted that over LSD, which still seemed scary to me at the time. Synthetic vs nature I suppose for the virgin mind. I had profound experiences on my Psilocybin Trips over my college years of taking them.
A seemingly common experience, I have also had my own Mushroom entity experiences. Coming from an Atheist who is on the skeptical end of “feelings” and “experience”. I have little clue how to explain them in any “rational” sense. I experienced telepathy from long distances with a friend. Psilocybin was my first glimpse into the world of events I have no explanation for. I have also had my DMT entity experience, which quite frankly panicked me. Psilocybin I usually only “feel a presence” - with DMT I was looking 3 elven like entities into their eyes while the lead one communicated for me to follow through the portal behind them telepathically. I was not ready and I panicked at such a vividly out of body experience. Would be the last time I saw a DMT entity during my short use, but I returned through the portal a few more times and experienced a different world. Crystalline Structures that one just intuits as technologically advanced shit straight out of Thor.
My roommate at the time, Baker, who was the only Atheist I managed to befriend during my college years in AR - also did the DMT trips with me. We shared similar visions of sacred geometrical portals. After the first trip, we drew what we saw for each other and we drew these without even knowing what they represented: I drew Metatron’s Cube is - it was my primary vision & he drew the Flower of Life.
I find this aspect fascinating to this day just because of the nuances to our personalities. I am focused around intellect & wisdom in the universe - which is what Metatron’s Cube is oriented towards. Flower of Life is more oriented towards the Oneness and Interconnectedness. Baker is much more focused on that in his life.
Without spending too long on this aspect, these experiences certainly shape how I view and approach life by reminding me that I have my own experiences that I have no explanations for in any rational sense. The universe is complex, and Truth is not to readily apparent. The more you dig, the more questions arise. During a point in life where scientific answers were around every corner for me, there were still some things that even the scientific method was not designed to probe with current tech/understanding.
The Price of Independence
Mid-Twenties for most people is the time in our lives where we really get to process who we are. Where we come from. Our childhood and our parents. It is the first time in most of our lives where we have the independence to do this analysis. My Sr Year of College I took my Personality course and really learned a lot about myself with all the testing I went through and information I learned about the genetic side of personality.
Graduating college in 2014 was the next major change in my life. After starting to understand myself better & gaining financial freedom - I wanted to stop biting my tongue with some of the wild statements that I put up with around me verbally and treat everyone as an equal. You say something, I’m allowed to respond in earnest. That simple.
I was working for Fortune 500 companies within a few weeks of graduating. Yay nepotism. My Father had a successful career in the industry and managed to hire on a lot of his friends - so when my Father got put in charge of a project, most of his friends from my town were hired. So my office was filled with my former choir director & a couple other familiar faces from Church life.
Politics and Religion were always being discussed between the older guys. What could go wrong right. By 2015 I had embraced the notion of “facts don’t care about feelings” & I was verbally rag-dolling these 50+ year olds on theology, politics, and basic science - I had spent the last 5 years learning physics and biology & was developing a baseline competence at where humanity is at in our endeavors of understanding.
Old men do not like to lose to young men in anything. These guys had spent most of their lives without having someone like me respond disagreeably on pretty much every sentence uttered, and they did not appreciate it. I remember my former choir director whining one day that everyone walked on egg shells around me & I responded it was not on me they feel entitled that I treat their factually incorrect thoughts as a respectable opinion. I do not respect stupidity; none of us are perfect, but not all of us are Flat Earth level incorrect. There’s ignorance and there's stupidity - I have no issues delineating them in my world.
There’s a dilemma we all face as offspring & parents in that at some point the offspring likely has a better grasp of reality than the parent. We do not live in 1750 anymore where the world is not changing much by the decade - we live in a rapidly evolving society that at 33 I have difficulties keeping up with everything that progresses. The ancient paradigm of Elder Wisdom is less true today than it once was; life experience will always provide some edge of wisdom, but the average 12 year old would out compete most 55+ in tech related tasks.
Most people take the approach of “they’re old and stuck in their ways” - and do little to nothing to push for social change in their immediate family. I’m evangelical and do not mind lol. Let alone my personality traits scoring high in openness and disagreeableness - I have a high tolerance for argumentation and contentious situations. Some are simply not confrontational at all, but not I.
So I started responding in earnest to my parents, mainly my Father, and the whacky statements/beliefs that would be made. Now keep in mind, I am a first generation college graduate. My Father thinks the Bible is the first book ever written & during a science discussion one day…the man had zero awareness that gravity existed outside of Earth. My Father has great communication skills, but the man is not an academic and has a shit knowledge base.
By the end of 2015 - my parents and I were fighting constantly. With the US going full into woke political mode with BLM starting & the Trans movement just gaining popularity - I was trying to figure out my own thoughts while dealing with religious nuts for parents spewing hateful nonsense. I lost most of the respect I held for my parents that year & I made the hard choice that love is not solely enough. Values matter & I started accepting that our values are just irreconcilably different.
My scientific love was hostile to their religious dogma & created constant tension. I had put up with items like anti-evolution, anti-big bang, and a general hostility towards scientific theory for far too long, but I started to question why I gave my parents a pass when I would not for anyone else.
Example area, views on homosexuality started really mattering to me. I have two cousins that are Bi/Homosexual. One about 8 years older than me and I remember how the adults spoke about him. There has been a solid genetic argument since the mid 2000’s for homosexuality. Both of my cousins were obviously not straight growing up; human sexuality has long been known to be observed as early as age 3 and primarily established by age 5. Decades of repeated research confirming. Everyone’s theology and opinion can go fuck itself when I have clear data.
Another example, I was grappling with being raised anti-science and the borderline abuse of intellectual indoctrination. I still struggle with that one. I am fully aware my parents did the behavior out of love, but sometimes intent is not everything. I am sure Hitler “intended” well for the human species at large lol. I’m sure most Domestic Abusers will tell you they “love” their partners.
Other examples, drugs. There would be zero compromise on things even like Cannabis.
During 2016 things hit the breaking point between me and my Parents to the point my Project Manager who was my Father’s friend, fired me from my job as a punishment lol. My Father fired him a few days later and offered me my job back, but I knew I had to commit to the process of being myself and living my life on my own terms. So I did.
I took a year off of work to take care of myself mentally. It felt like I had died twice in my life already at this point. Once with my faith, now with my family. From 18-24 I had been in two serious relationships most of that time, which had also came to a close as of 2016. My best friend whom I had gotten a six figure career & known for over a decade moved out and abandoned me because I smoked weed…same human who was a virgin until 25 and first sip of Alcohol at 23…he’s autistic…but it still hurt. I was the most lonely I have ever felt in my entire life.
March 2017 I visited my parents at their home in AR with some cannabis and a bong…cuz I do enjoy cannabis. My Parents threatened to call the cops on me for a few grams of cannabis & my Father told me to not come back unless I had a change of lifestyle. The estrangement was official & mutual.
The New Wave
During my healing process from 2016-2017 - I was taking mushrooms and LSD to try and process everything in my life. Truly helped. I was also fortunate enough that a former Catholic Priest who left the faith was a Psychotherapist in town. Shoutout Dr Meiring - RIP to a great human. We had such a good relationship that we would meet for breakfast and lunch monthly outside of his practice to just chat. At that time, I was struggling to accept that’s okay to set strong boundaries, even with parents. In my mind, it felt like I had to be some detached sociopath to be willing to push through the pain of fighting with parents over value differences that matter and holding one’s ground.
I started a relationship towards the end of 2016 which also provided support and stability. 8 Years and still going :)
Mid-2017 I was starting to pick myself off the ground of the March experience with my parents. I had started attending a TESL program at Bowling Green State University & was thinking maybe hop overseas if I did not get back into the career I had been working the last 2 years. Towards the end of the year I got an offer to move to Albuquerque, NM on a project & took that opportunity to do hit the ground running.
Not that I was not constantly reading or learning already, but the year off allowed me to hyper focus & I had made a lot of strides in my knowledge gaps in both Theology thanks to starting to deep dive Bart Ehrman’s blog and books, as well as the sciences as I started to become rather advanced in the lectures & publications I was reading. In 2017, I was basically 8 years old in my modern understanding of the world after only leaving the Creationist dogma behind in 2009.
At the end of 2017 I took my first International Trip to Peru with two of the intellectual heroes I admire most. Lawrence Krauss (Theoretical Physicist) & Richard Dawkins (Evolutionary Biologist) - along with a small group of 25 or so of us. I feel very honored to have been able to do that with two men who helped me long before they met me in real life.
I think the critical thing I took from this trip is that humans will replace their religious dogma with anything to keep an anchor to the reality they have established. Everyone is wrapped up in an identity they try to protect. This includes the skeptical academic types. I love science & the scientific method is by far the best tool we have created for objective progress, but uhhh, it's not perfect and it will not solve all of human’s problems. It’s not designed to.
The next few years flew by. I bought a house in NM in Sept 2018. Sold it Sept 2019. Moved to MI. Covid happened and put the world on pause for two years in 2020. I spent time working in Idaho before having to be back due to shutdowns.
I was fortunate to have a Vietnam/Cambodia trip to bring in January 2020 before the lockdowns in March. Honestly probably one of my favorite trips I have done in my life thanks to the amazing group of people on this trip. I also just felt more capable of being myself on this trip vs the former where I was honestly still a bit shell shocked talking to an intellectual hero and just traumatized dealing with family.
In 2021 I went back to AR for the first time in years. My grandfather was dying & as the only grandchild on that side & a nasty divorce that split my Father’s side of the family in 2013 (which I’m not detailing here) - I had to go back for that. It was the first time back home since being told to not return until a lifestyle change occurred…and I keep going in the opposite lifestyle direction sooo…I quite honestly hated being there. Thankfully, I have an Aunt that I love and who has some appreciation for the position of being a “black sheep” in the family who lets me crash with them…cannabis and all.
In 2023 I went back to AR for a family visit and just to reset after working for a few months straight. My parents still refuse to budge on smoking, babbling about respect in their household when my ass is smoking bongs outside not ripping shit in the living room. I have actual shoulder problems. It’s not like I always just smoke to get high. Sometimes I am actually hurting and want to mask pain.
Life Post Covid: A New World
I think I speak for a lot of people when I say there is a precovid era and post covid era for a lot of us in life. From workplace transitions to layoffs to cultural shifts at large - a lot more changed in society during this era than changed within my own life.
We are on the verge of World War 3 & society feels like it is decaying. Suicide rates are at an all time high. Depression at an all time high. The schooling system is in a crisis with students producing the worst test results since keeping record. We are seeing a Reverse Flynn Effect in the first generation in almost a century of keeping track. There is an increase in homelessness & debt. The life expectancy has fallen several years in a row now.
By most objective measures we could examine - we are not doing okay in society. And I would like to end the post by kind of just elaborating on my own insights toward that end.
First point. Parenting became extra complicated as tech advanced leaving a lot of parents ignorant on how to adjust strategy.
For most of humanity the notion of age being a defining characteristic of wisdom held true. The longer one lived, the more experience and knowledge they accumulated. In a world where most are not literate and most die in a war or to disease before Age 40 - the ones who did live to see old age of course were wise.
People take for granted our spawn point in history; we are just on the other side of a sharp intellectual curve for society. For Globalized Literacy, in 1900, literacy barely exceeded 20%. From the 1950s on, world literacy began to take off, hitting 42% in 1960 and 70% in 1983. It sits at roughly 90% today.
Kids develop a larger knowledge base at a younger age. Kids are now playing with Adults & Teens through online gaming which is exposing the younger kids to concepts faster while also allowing the older Teens/Adults to maintain some of their childlike behaviors longer. If a 19 year old is daily playing a game for hours with a 13 year old - both will impact the other.
Second Point. The US is the most in debt in history with the American consumer also in the most debt in history. BRICS has surpassed the G7 Global GDP. Items like Social Security are expected to take a hit as early as 2032 due to an inability to keep funds rolling. The US is one of the only nations in the Western Economies to not have free health care, most achieved that by 1975. Instead, tax dollars go to funding Saudi Arabia or Israel or Ukraine for proxy wars.
For the first time in two centuries for the US, the standard of living will drop a couple of generations in a row. Prepare your offspring accordingly.
Final Point. The only thing in life we can control is ourselves. Life is me vs myselfself & complacency destroys hard work. We all have different walks of life, different values, and different solutions that work for our needs…life is not a popularity contest…it’s a contest of love. Which his much more difficult to achieve, but to quote the Beatles in conclusion….”Love is all you need.”
https://www.absc.org/ministries/bible-drill/ - to see 2024 Bible Drill Curriculum
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_(group)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_Hovind
https://news.gallup.com/poll/261680/americans-believe-creationism.aspx
https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2009/11/05/public-opinion-on-religion-and-science-in-the-united-states/
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2011/12/study-of-the-day-religious-people-distrust-atheists-as-much-as-rapists/250005/
https://www2.psych.ubc.ca/~ara/Manuscripts/Gervais%20et%20al-%20Atheist%20Distrust.pdf
https://reason.com/2017/08/09/even-atheists-think-that-atheists-are-mo/