Karen Dalton-Beninato ☑️“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.” - Carl Sagan on The Great Bamboozle
festus@kbeninato This is so true. I'm an ex-Christian and Christianity was at the center of my life. Eventually I couldn't reconcile it with the lack of evidence (not just historic evidence, but also lack of seeing healings, or my not hearing god talk to me, etc).
After a certain event where yet again the evidence failed to support Christianity I realized that I either had to sacrifice my faith, or sacrifice the idea of me being open to evidence and ultimately truth-driven. I chose to be truth-driven, but it was *hard* giving up my faith, admitting I had been a fool wasting so many nights praying, so much money lost tithing, so many opportunities lost, etc. It's hard admitting that the foundation you built your entire life on is a lie; it doesn't surprise me that many people instead opt to numb their brain, avoid thinking about it, and continue with the lie.