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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. |