Dear Britt, you had mentioned in one of your videos that you know a man who lives in in a way that encapsulates Love in a way that stands out in amongst all others... I would really like to hear more about that. Thank you.
Thank you!!!! Your essays have provided me key insights into my life......I'm a life-long true seeker. Never had an existential crisis regarding religion. I had great mentors. My biggest cause of suffering is misanthropy.
Misanthropy is just a symptom Usually, of an ego which you won’t let go of but which other people don’t care about. In short: protagonist syndrome while being a “loser” in the social game.
The very first statement Britt said in this video sums everything up. The VAST majority of people hate hearing the truth. The truth hurts you and is extremely uncomfortable to hear and resign yourself to. It is so very much easier to live the illusion rather than the disillusion. In order to make themselves happy and at peace, they choose the fantasy based disillusion in order to make it through to the end of their lives. In a big way, it's a form of "self preservation" of the mind, which makes a person's heart happier too. I myself insist on basing my life on truth. EXCELLENT video.
I thought I must have undiagnosed autism because apparently my core value is truth seeking. I have always wished I could live in delusion because they are happier there and life is easier there. Now I know what it is about me that is different and how I can manage and appreciate it better. Britt is awesome.
Excellent talk, thank you. Your content is incredibly helpful for me as I come out of my 20 year long militant atheist stage. I keep checking your calendar for openings for coaching, I’ve decided most therapists cannot help me with what I’m going through.
Thank you for this. I'm the truth-at-all-costs type, and I left Mormonism decades ago and have recently been mentally revisiting the experience. My journey into skepticism and truth-seeking has given me what I think is a pretty good ability to remember to look for delusion in my own self first instead of always just seeing it in others. But the downside of that ability is that it means I'm always requestioning whether I was right that the dishonesty in the church was such a clear and undeniable reason for leaving, given the social costs such insistence included for me as well as possibly for my children. It's easy to start assuming something is wrong with me (why couldn't I just have played along like my siblings, who seem so happy and secure in their little church bubble)? So it was nice to hear a reminder that this is just how some people are. No shame in just being what I am. And also, thank you for the reminder that there are upsides to the path I chose (or rather, was destined to walk down). I think I had never considered the idea that insisting on knowing the truth ultimately makes you more free, but that rings true.
Learned Resilience is exactly what I’ve seen. when I hear people’s problems I sometimes think to myself how I’ve overcame what they’re facing and how I’ve worked through it. Sometimes I can help them see what I learned and help them get through what they’re experiencing
Great vid - self-delusion is an 800-lb gorilla few notice. My Dad was a stand-up, honest man but when it came to a contentious home life, delusion was his ally.
I just came across a line in Ch. 6 of Fawn Brodie‘s No Man Knows My History. Not long after Joseph Smith and Emma Hale married, Fawn says “The moment was auspicious in American history for the rise of a prophet of real stature. Although the authority and tradition of the Christian religion were decomposing in the New World’s freedom, there was a counter-desire to escape from disorder and chaos. The broken unity of Christianity was laboring at its own reconstruction.“ I feel like I never could’ve understood this without your help.
Probably one of the reasons Bhuddism gets so few newcomers. One commandment of the faith is that you face the harsh facts of your life squarely. There's no comfort there, just the truth.
No comfort? /harsh/ truth? I’m sorry, no. The truth isn’t harsh at all. And cessation of projection/embracing reality beyond thought IS letting go of anxiety. Buddhism is about stopping self-created suffering when there is no reality of pain. And also, buddHism. How did you get …. Every single word wrong?
I would respectfully push back on this idea that Buddhism is just truth. I was a practicing Buddhist for about 10 years and there is plenty of BS claims that are a comfort mechanism. The idea of reincarnation and Karma being the main ones. It’s a way of handling fear of death and justice. Drilling down into these ideas and learning they stem from the same types of dogma and revelation origin as Christianity was what drove me away from it.
again thanks for sharing awareness and insights out loud what come to me is terms like fool's journey and death and the many ways from it like Transmutation and transformation INjoy
This channel is really intriguing for me and challenges, my beliefs and the very reality I find myself in. I’ve deconstructed a lot, but I still have a ways to go. I am still under the spell or programming that I chose to come here to experience programming put upon me for the opportunity to break out of it. I do believe in reincarnation if one wants to. I believe I came here to experience and feel through the duality. I don’t know if I could live with the knowledge that we die and then there is nothing more. That is so hard to accept. That would strip me of my meaning for going on and living my life. Then why would I exist? Why not “tap out” when things become overwhelming or uncomfortable, what stops you from tapping out?
I think about how in the USA, lingering paranoia from hellfire and brimstone sermons prevents it. I joke that otherwise the USA would have Japan and South Korea numbers.
Britt have you ever heard of the book by Lawrence Rickles PhD titled The Vampire Lectures? His essays on Anne Rices The Vampire Chronicles covers this also. It’s an old book from the 90’s but I would love to hear your thoughts. He has a line from that chapter that says “Revenge & Justice look an awful lot like the same thing.”
@ Was it in the Pale Blue Dot? Carl Sagan is/was among the best teachers ever. His description of God in his last lecture is where I’d begin that discussion if I wanted to. Yes Carl said that he loved living in Ithaca NY and looking for knowledge and understanding everywhere. Nice to converse with you.
Agnosticism, is FAR more logical and useful, than either Atheism, or delusional ideas taught by organized religion or personal delusions, as far as the whole "God" question is concerned. It's okay not to know "everything" if one can't really know.
Agnosticism is soft atheism. You know what the truth is and try to encourage yourself that you could be wrong and live forever. It is more useful of course, but not all of us can stay in an agnostic place, some people have to face truth and it can lead to the void. Nihilism makes you uncomfortable so you pad it with the “well maybe there is an afterlife/reincarnation/jll see my loved ones again” to make it more comfortable…
@stephaniemassengale7160 ...do you know for "FACT" ....that there's no god or divine intervention or act of creation somehow related to our existence ? I mean ABSOLUTE FACT. Do you ? What's so "soft" about that ? If you have "facts" I'm open to them, let me know.
Would it not be Comfortable lies over Harsh truths? Religion is great, no death, on to a better life with Jesus in Heaven. Pain? It is there for a reason, we can't understand it, we can't understand god's will, we just have to accept it and know we will have no pain in Heaven. Yes, we act like we are surprised that people die. "Oh my, how long was he sick? You know I had an uncle who was like that, he went fast, etc." People perform forensic post mortems in the receiving line at funeral homes, questioning the bereft survivor, as if this came out of the blue, and this goes on like they have no place else to go to nothing else to do and there is not a line in back of them stretching out the door, and I am thinking, Come on, I just want to say I am sorry and get out of here.. Yes, I know of no one who can play in my world, although I am great friends with everyone when they talk about where they went on vacation, what they are buying etc.
By Donald Hoffman's theory it's probably a good idea to live in a lie. Then again, life is strange. Knowing what's true is a matter of paradigms, reference frames, consensus and perspectives. More recently I heard perspective that Jesus was a nihilist. Exhibiting traits of one creating their own meaning after reaching the true depths of reality. If that's true, what does being a nihilist imply in a practical sense?
I think she is agreeing that it is better to live in a lie, but some of us don’t choose to be truth seekers, we just are, involuntarily. We can’t just convince ourselves to see what is not there. I’m so glad she is acknowledging this and gives some upsides and tools to deal with it. Trust me if I could live in silly lies to make life easier I would.
Most disturbing with the subtitles. Elementary knowledge of media production tells you that the moment you see a written text, you will be forced to read it and the spoken voice will interfere with the text and make you lose concentration. Make a parallel version with subtitles for the hearing impaired. I gave up listening after five minutes.
As a person with good hearing and an autistic body, I have always found captions helpful. Thanks for letting me know that for some people, their experience is the opposite.
Because delusion is just temporary escapism. Rather than processing what is harsh and finding peace.
You said comfortable truth over harsh lies. I think you meant the oposite: comfortable lies over harsh truth. Amazing video. Thx.
Thank you. I appreciated this video. I am one of those truth-seekers-at-all-costs people. This helped me understand my situation a bit better.
Dear Britt, you had mentioned in one of your videos that you know a man who lives in in a way that encapsulates Love in a way that stands out in amongst all others... I would really like to hear more about that. Thank you.
That cat analogy "i could play in everyone else's world but no one could play with me" hits so hard 😢
Thank you!!!! Your essays have provided me key insights into my life......I'm a life-long true seeker. Never had an existential crisis regarding religion. I had great mentors. My biggest cause of suffering is misanthropy.
Misanthropy is just a symptom
Usually, of an ego which you won’t let go of but which other people don’t care about.
In short: protagonist syndrome while being a “loser” in the social game.
The very first statement Britt said in this video sums everything up. The VAST majority of people hate hearing the truth. The truth hurts you and is extremely uncomfortable to hear and resign yourself to. It is so very much easier to live the illusion rather than the disillusion. In order to make themselves happy and at peace, they choose the fantasy based disillusion in order to make it through to the end of their lives. In a big way, it's a form of "self preservation" of the mind, which makes a person's heart happier too. I myself insist on basing my life on truth. EXCELLENT video.
Holy hell, you get me. Thank you.
I thought I must have undiagnosed autism because apparently my core value is truth seeking. I have always wished I could live in delusion because they are happier there and life is easier there. Now I know what it is about me that is different and how I can manage and appreciate it better. Britt is awesome.
@ I feel exactly the same!
Excellent talk, thank you. Your content is incredibly helpful for me as I come out of my 20 year long militant atheist stage. I keep checking your calendar for openings for coaching, I’ve decided most therapists cannot help me with what I’m going through.
*hears the words "put to sleep" in conjunction with a dog.
*anxiously makes sure the dog's ribcage is moving.
I made the exact same connection. I thought it was kind of weird right up until I saw the dog move in the background.
I really appreciate your authenticity and candor. You speak straight with no fluff and I absolutely appreciate that.
Thank you for this. I'm the truth-at-all-costs type, and I left Mormonism decades ago and have recently been mentally revisiting the experience. My journey into skepticism and truth-seeking has given me what I think is a pretty good ability to remember to look for delusion in my own self first instead of always just seeing it in others. But the downside of that ability is that it means I'm always requestioning whether I was right that the dishonesty in the church was such a clear and undeniable reason for leaving, given the social costs such insistence included for me as well as possibly for my children. It's easy to start assuming something is wrong with me (why couldn't I just have played along like my siblings, who seem so happy and secure in their little church bubble)? So it was nice to hear a reminder that this is just how some people are. No shame in just being what I am. And also, thank you for the reminder that there are upsides to the path I chose (or rather, was destined to walk down). I think I had never considered the idea that insisting on knowing the truth ultimately makes you more free, but that rings true.
Thank you for this important video, there is a lot of truth about the psychology in relation to truth seeking
Learned Resilience is exactly what I’ve seen. when I hear people’s problems I sometimes think to myself how I’ve overcame what they’re facing and how I’ve worked through it. Sometimes I can help them see what I learned and help them get through what they’re experiencing
"Death smiles at us all; all a man can do is smile back," ~ Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius
Thank You. Deconstructing & Reprogramming is & has been Extremely Difficult, Especially since 2012.
This was incredibly usefull to me. Thank you for making this.
At this point I have already suffered greatly from the religious delusions. I doubt there would be any sort of truth that would be worse.
I wish I could find a women like you to go through life with. Your husband is a very lucky guy.
Great vid - self-delusion is an 800-lb gorilla few notice. My Dad was a stand-up, honest man but when it came to a contentious home life, delusion was his ally.
I just came across a line in Ch. 6 of Fawn Brodie‘s No Man Knows My History. Not long after Joseph Smith and Emma Hale married, Fawn says “The moment was auspicious in American history for the rise of a prophet of real stature. Although the authority and tradition of the Christian religion were decomposing in the New World’s freedom, there was a counter-desire to escape from disorder and chaos. The broken unity of Christianity was laboring at its own reconstruction.“ I feel like I never could’ve understood this without your help.
Although I see truth as the most important, I also worry that this path leads to insanity. I see it, and I know I'm less a man than those before me.
I see it as knowing my path has downsides, but not being able to tolerate any other path.
Brilliant!
Probably one of the reasons Bhuddism gets so few newcomers. One commandment of the faith is that you face the harsh facts of your life squarely. There's no comfort there, just the truth.
No comfort? /harsh/ truth?
I’m sorry, no. The truth isn’t harsh at all. And cessation of projection/embracing reality beyond thought IS letting go of anxiety.
Buddhism is about stopping self-created suffering when there is no reality of pain.
And also, buddHism.
How did you get …. Every single word wrong?
I would respectfully push back on this idea that Buddhism is just truth. I was a practicing Buddhist for about 10 years and there is plenty of BS claims that are a comfort mechanism. The idea of reincarnation and Karma being the main ones. It’s a way of handling fear of death and justice. Drilling down into these ideas and learning they stem from the same types of dogma and revelation origin as Christianity was what drove me away from it.
Thank you Britt for sharing your story and knowledge with us- so helpful!
I can hangout and be normal or whatever I guess but I’m still looking for something. It’s not about me anyways… I don’t mind suffering.
Cool one
again thanks for sharing awareness and insights out loud what come to me is terms like fool's journey and death and the many ways from it like Transmutation and transformation INjoy
well said
Therapy was bullshit to me, because it all sounded like more corporate motivational coach bullshit.
You know who is also happier? The less intelligent. Give me truth
This channel is really intriguing for me and challenges, my beliefs and the very reality I find myself in.
I’ve deconstructed a lot, but I still have a ways to go. I am still under the spell or programming that I chose to come here to experience programming put upon me for the opportunity to break out of it. I do believe in reincarnation if one wants to. I believe I came here to experience and feel through the duality. I don’t know if I could live with the knowledge that we die and then there is nothing more. That is so hard to accept. That would strip me of my meaning for going on and living my life. Then why would I exist? Why not “tap out” when things become overwhelming or uncomfortable, what stops you from tapping out?
I think about how in the USA, lingering paranoia from hellfire and brimstone sermons prevents it. I joke that otherwise the USA would have Japan and South Korea numbers.
I would recommend her book, she addresses a lot of your concerns.
Britt have you ever heard of the book by Lawrence Rickles PhD titled The Vampire Lectures? His essays on Anne Rices The Vampire Chronicles covers this also. It’s an old book from the 90’s but I would love to hear your thoughts. He has a line from that chapter that says “Revenge & Justice look an awful lot like the same thing.”
I'll check it out!
I commend you for the close captions you add to your videos. However the word coloring effect is distracting 😅
Non-life begot life.
Our origins are energy matter and time. That makes the universe my family.
"We are The Universe contemplating Itself."
@ Yes. Beautifully said. Thank you
Beautifully said by Carl Sagan, for those not familiar with the expression.
@ Was it in the Pale Blue Dot? Carl Sagan is/was among the best teachers ever. His description of God in his last lecture is where I’d begin that discussion if I wanted to.
Yes Carl said that he loved living in Ithaca NY and looking for knowledge and understanding everywhere.
Nice to converse with you.
Because the truth sucks
Quick question. Not meant to be rude. If you’re an atheist spiritual director, do you believe in a spirit?
Mundus vult decipi: The world wants to be deceived, so it is deceived.
Davis Melissa Clark Mark Allen Nancy
Agnosticism, is FAR more logical and useful, than either Atheism, or delusional ideas taught by organized religion or personal delusions, as far as the whole "God" question is concerned.
It's okay not to know "everything" if one can't really know.
I argued that the existence of God or gods is not knowable to me.
Agnosticism is soft atheism. You know what the truth is and try to encourage yourself that you could be wrong and live forever. It is more useful of course, but not all of us can stay in an agnostic place, some people have to face truth and it can lead to the void. Nihilism makes you uncomfortable so you pad it with the “well maybe there is an afterlife/reincarnation/jll see my loved ones again” to make it more comfortable…
@stephaniemassengale7160 ...do you know for "FACT" ....that there's no god or divine intervention or act of creation somehow related to our existence ?
I mean ABSOLUTE FACT.
Do you ?
What's so "soft" about that ?
If you have "facts" I'm open to them, let me know.
Would it not be Comfortable lies over Harsh truths? Religion is great, no death, on to a better life with Jesus in Heaven. Pain? It is there for a reason, we can't understand it, we can't understand god's will, we just have to accept it and know we will have no pain in Heaven. Yes, we act like we are surprised that people die. "Oh my, how long was he sick? You know I had an uncle who was like that, he went fast, etc."
People perform forensic post mortems in the receiving line at funeral homes, questioning the bereft survivor, as if this came out of the blue, and this goes on like they have no place else to go to nothing else to do and there is not a line in back of them stretching out the door, and I am thinking, Come on, I just want to say I am sorry and get out of here..
Yes, I know of no one who can play in my world, although I am great friends with everyone when they talk about where they went on vacation, what they are buying etc.
Kind of sounds like the story of my life…
By Donald Hoffman's theory it's probably a good idea to live in a lie.
Then again, life is strange. Knowing what's true is a matter of paradigms, reference frames, consensus and perspectives.
More recently I heard perspective that Jesus was a nihilist. Exhibiting traits of one creating their own meaning after reaching the true depths of reality. If that's true, what does being a nihilist imply in a practical sense?
I think she is agreeing that it is better to live in a lie, but some of us don’t choose to be truth seekers, we just are, involuntarily. We can’t just convince ourselves to see what is not there. I’m so glad she is acknowledging this and gives some upsides and tools to deal with it. Trust me if I could live in silly lies to make life easier I would.
Meh. I know how to turn it on and off…. I think 🧐
Most disturbing with the subtitles. Elementary knowledge of media production tells you that the moment you see a written text, you will be forced to read it and the spoken voice will interfere with the text and make you lose concentration. Make a parallel version with subtitles for the hearing impaired. I gave up listening after five minutes.
As a person with good hearing and an autistic body, I have always found captions helpful. Thanks for letting me know that for some people, their experience is the opposite.
If you're alive And claim to be an anti natalist...you have something you need to do.
People might do it if the hospital would arrest you for precrime.