Freedom From Arbitrary Constraint
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2023/12/16
Motherf*cker was wrong about everything else.
-Richard Pryor speaking on his late father
My message to younger people trapped in a community of Christian dogmatists, or other ideologues is straightforward: you are not alone. Your path will be more difficult. Your allies will be unlikely, and the path to freedom will be a fight upstream, against the grain, and difficult with costs in time, money, and opportunities. Such is the world, your world. Sooner you come to terms with the world as it is, the better. Expect tough truths.
Find the others.
Don’t give up. Keep going.
The condescension, the assumptions, the negative affect, the bullying, the harassment, the siloing, and ostracism are facts of life in many Christian communities, even in Canada. The Christian population, by my updated projects, should reach less than half of the general population somewhere in 2024. Nonetheless, if they’re non-liberal denominations, you should understand secondary status in community. Expect social problems.
Keep going. Don’t give up.
Hard-won fights of prior freethinkers provide the mental, social, and professional wiggle room felt now. It was worse before; it is better now. You’ll have to work as hard to keep the gains and harder to continue to new frontiers of equality. That’s the nature of carving a territorial water. If you are reading this, then you are, likely, well on a trod path of early hardship. Only highly unusual people persist in isolation. Expect weird friendships.
Don’t give up. Keep going.
You were born into a winning fight as the just and fair society is the one seen in human rights norms and democratic governance. These are flexible in the manner of plurality. The monochrome visions of theocratically oriented individuals do not hold fast against these forces. Freethought is a mental stance seen most prominently in the secular while manifesting in liberal religious traditions’ leaders too. Expect justice when earned.
Keep going. Don’t give up.
You feel out of place because you are out of place. Your feelings are valid. Simply because an older person holds a view doesn’t mean it’s right. It means it’s based on more data from life experience, and life experience can be misleading. A young creationist becoming an old creationist is still an ignorant person on the biological sciences in the big picture. Time does not necessitate the correctness of views. Expect scientific ignorance norms.
Don’t give up. Keep going.
The central points are the preponderance of evidence and the logical structure of arguments to support views. The soundness and validity of the arguments. The alignment with the preponderance of the best evidence to date. Respect for expertise in a time of mass specialization because human knowledge outstrips any single mind. A melding of these with compassion. That’ll get you far more internal freedom. Expect self-deception.
Keep going. Don’t give up.
Find the others.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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