Dear Higher Education Pessimistics, I see how you love fearmongering about higher education and how you love to blame people leaving religion on being “indoctrinated” with “liberal” ideologies. The truth is though, nothing I was taught in my college classes made me change my mind about the beliefs I grew up with. What made me change my mind started with reading the Bible, which I have read completely.
The section that made me examine what I was taught was Matthew 7:15-20, where Jesus was warning about false prophets. The part that resonated with me is the part in which he said,” You will recognize them by their fruits.” Because of this, I started to observe the fruits of Christianity around me. What I saw is political idolatry of the Republican Party and Donald Trump, systemic sexual and spiritual abuse going unreported, nonsensical fearmongering of certain people groups (Liberals, Muslims, or the LGBTQ+ Community, etc.), and not to mention how they always love claiming the high moral ground while doing the same or worse stuff that those they fear monger about.
I tried (and wanted) to reform it. Which is why I stayed as long as I did. Even during the Trump administration. Even after the January 6th insurrection. But when Evangelicals (including those I personally know) started blaming President Biden for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, saying “Weak men create hard times”, that was the straw that broke the camel’s back for me and made me realize I don’t believe in the values of organized religion, because they prioritize bashing a President they don’t like, then showing their support for Ukraine and the Ukrainian people. Quite frankly, I’m surprised that I didn’t leave for good before 2022.
Since then, I started exploring other worldviews and religions and I don’t identify with any and I’m fine with that because being raised religious I was often told to be content not having tons of unanswered questions and sometimes even discouraged from thinking and trying to come up with answers to difficult questions. As a result, I had to act like I knew everything and that I had all the answers. Now, that I am irreligious, I am comfortable accepting the fact that I don’t know everything and that’s why I have decades to find answers. I quote I once read said,” A scientist will read dozens of books in his lifetime, but still believes he has a lot more to learn. A religious person barely reads one book, and thinks they know it all” or as Albert Einstein put it,” The more I learn, the more I realize I don’t know. The more I realize I don’t know, the more I want to learn.”
Jean-Marc Brand 