Agnostic Atheist Vs. Gnostic Theist (Part 1)

This conversation is special, because it takes place between two polar opposites on the philosophical "scale:" An agnostic atheist (myself), and a gnostic theist. But what really makes it different is that we both value logic so highly. I have never talked to a gnostic theist who valued logic in the same way I did, and didn't give up when the conversation got heavy, bowing out with a faith statement, or an embrace-ignorance statement. "Well, this is just when you have to have faith. It may not make sense to us, but God understands and he'll explain all of it when we die." On the contrary, he listens, and battles me to the bitter end, and we're able to communicate because we're actually on the same page about one thing: Logic matters.

(I've changed his name to Bob Vance)

• Bob Vance

  I know (not believe) that God exists.
  

  • 

    Julia Helen Lowe How do you define what "knowing" is?

    November 14 at 1:55pm via mobile · Like
  • Bob Vance I know God exists when I have spiritual experiences that are so profound or consistent that coincidence is completely out of the question.

    November 14 at 4:17pm via mobile · Like · 1
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    Julia Helen Lowe Wouldn't that be considered strong belief still, though? Unless the evidence is so strong that no other conceivable explanation could possibly be true, it's belief, not knowledge, right? Even coincidence is a potential explanation. If any other possibility exists, it just baaaarley falls short of knowledge.

    November 14 at 5:36pm via mobile · Like
  • Bob Vance Consistent spiritual experiences provide the evidence needed to "know" God exists. Because each experience builds off of the last one and the probability that somehow these things naturally occur in an organized manner without the assistance of God becomes less and less with each experience. When the probability of God existing becomes greater than 99.9999% I call that knowledge.
  • November 14 at 5:41pm via mobile · Unlike · 2
  • 

    Julia Helen Lowe Cool. I wanna hear your list of events that renders the probability of the existence of God to 99.9999%. That would be mightily interesting. Pm me, if you get the chance/desire to do so.

    November 14 at 5:50pm via mobile · Like
  • 
    

  Seth Garrett

  Bob Vance 

  -How I know God exist - ----------------------------

  P(God) = 1.00 - P(Every experience is a coincidence)

  List of personal experiences with estimated probabilities

  #1 - Age 4-8 Memorized scriptures - felt inspired and able to fully understand the truth in each verse my mind was enlightened and expanded by the words. P(God #1) = 1% God, 99% coincidence

  #2 - Age 4-6 Sometimes I would lose my toys. After I would pray to find them, I would find them immediately. Quantity of instances 3+ P(God#2a) = 10%, 90% coincidence P(God#2b) = 10%, 90% coincidence P(God#2c) = 10%, 90% coincidence

  #3 - Age 5 Five members of my family were looking for a small object for 60 minutes + None of us could find it. We combed the house twice. After we all gathered for a family prayer, I was able to find it immediately afterwards. Two events happened at the same time - Event(find object) and Event(pray). A simple probability model could say that within the timeframe of 60 minutes, there are 60 open slots for either event. The probability that both events happened within the same minute would be 1/60 * 1/60 = 1/360 That is less likely to happen than to pray "Please bless this coin to land on heads 8 times in a row" and have it succeed.

  Not very likely to happen randomly. But hey, anything is possible. P(God#3) = 20%, 80% coincidence

  #4 - Age 8 The spirit guided me to return home at the same time that my family had gathered together in prayer because they were looking for me and thought they had lost me. Again, very unlikely. I had no idea that my family was praying for me, but I felt a strong urge to go home, despite my more selfish urges to stay outside. Event(weird urge to go home) = 1 / 1000 times playing outside Event(family prays to find me) = 1 / 1000 prayers. The fact that these two events coincided at exactly the same time? 1/1000 * 1/1000 = 1 / 1,000,000 But hey, lets be reasonable! Coincidences happen! P(God#4) = 70%, 30% coincidence

  #5 - Age 3 When I was 3 my mom had me and my brother Sam. My mom was curious about how many children she would have. She prayed. Immediately after the prayer, I stopped playing with my toys and walked over to her and said, "Mommy, you are going to have five babies." and then I went back to my toys. Event(Child leaves toys to talk to mommy) - 1/10 times playing with toys Event(Child says something) - 1,000 random possibilities Event(Mommy's question) - 1,000 random possibilites Event(random words predict future) - 1 / 1000 This scenario alone shows that the probability of things playing out this way is extremely rare. The fact that what I said matched up to her question is 1 / 1,000,000. The fact that what I said actually came true makes it even more extraordinary at 1 / 1,000,000,000 But hey coincidences happen. P(God) = 99% , 1% coincidence

  #6 - Age 9 My parents were trying to decide which house to move into. The "red" house or the "white" house. The red house was bigger with more bathrooms, but the white house was near the Brysons and the Halls. My parents asked us to pray if God would help us make a decision on where to move. My always said my prayers but had never asked a question like this before. I opened my prayer like normal, but before I could finish asking the question, the answer to my question came like a revelatory bolt of lightning to my brain. It felt like the words were downloaded from heaven to my consciousness. The words came faster than I could think on my own. I heard the words saying, "Is a toilet going to stop you from being with your family?"

  At that time I consciously knew that I had received a revelation from God. I knew that it was not my own head speaking. It was a completely new cognitive experience. There was zero doubt in my mind that God was real after this experience.

  After I heard these words I felt a strong urge to write them down before I forgot them. I left the note on my dresser. In the morning my parents say the note and were so impressed that they didn't need an explanation from me because they knew that those were the words of God. Needless to say, we moved into the "white" house.

  E(prayer contains random question) - 1 / 1000 possibilities P(Head randomly comes up with a response to questions) - 90% likely P(responses impresses adults to think it is from God) - 1% likely P(Head thinks faster than it is able to) - 0.1 % likely P(Head experiences a new cognitive feeling like lightning) - 0.1% likely P( Reasonable person is 100% convinced that God spoke to them) - 0.1 % likely

  Multiplying all of the probabilities (ignoring the Event) it comes out to 0.000000000009 which is equal to 1 / 1 1 1, 1 1 1, 1 1 1, 1 1 1 Very unlikely to happen randomly. But we will give coincidence the benefit of the doubt.

  P(God) - 99%, 1% coincidence

  This is just the first 10 years of my life. P(Every experience is a coincidence) = .99 * .90 * .90 * .90 * .80 * .30 * .01 * .01 = 0.000017321 P(God) = 99.999982679% It was at this point in my life that I became convinced of myself that I "knew" God was real.
• Friday
• 

  11/15, 10:13am

  Julia Helen Lowe

  Very interesting math.

  However, I don't see the logical connection between an event occurring, and a human shaped omnipotent being existing. What you've calculated there is the probability of all those events happening exactly way they did. And yes, the probability of all that happening is extremely unlikely. It would be very unlikely for those exact events to recreate themselves somewhere else in the universe. But that calculation has nothing to do with a specific idea of an anthropomorphic father-like deity. You applied that conception to your math because that was the idea you were given to believe, and you work to prove that it is true, because that is your desire.
• Bob Vance
• No, you are reading more out of what I claimed that was actually said. I only claimed that I "knew" God existed, commonly defined as an intelligent power greater than us. Although my experiences don't necessarily prove that he is a male father, I view it as highly probable because multiple events show that this "God" responses to prayer addressing "God" as a "heavenly father".
• 

  11/15, 2:20pm

  Julia Helen Lowe

  An intelligent power greater than us isn't the common definition of God. An alien species could be an intelligent power greater than human beings, but unless they are directly in charge of/watching/meddling with our planet, they are not our gods. If I had to place a bet, I'd personally bet that there ARE greater intelligences in our universe, but I don't find my good fortune, or any person's good fortune, a reason to believe that they are meddling in our affairs.
• Bob Vance
• sorry i meant a supernatural intelligence greater than our own

  that has a supernatural power greater than our own -
• 

  11/15, 2:28pm

  Julia Helen Lowe

  Ok

  So
• 

  11/15, 2:33pm

  Julia Helen Lowe

  You're saying that because a few fortunate events occurred in close chronology with a spiritual act, the spiritual act must have a causal relationship with the event.

  However, a very religious person will perform spiritual acts so frequently, that it is to be expected that in the course of decades, a few of these acts will coincide with the outcome that you desire/are looking for.
• 

  11/15, 2:40pm

  Julia Helen Lowe

  More frequently, however, these spiritual acts pass by without any fortunate events. If you could count the number of times a devout religious person prays against the number of times they got the sign they were looking for, I imagine it would not be statistically significant. Also, if you were to conduct a randomized study on prayers vrs non prayers and recorded the number of times an event appears fortunate/remarkable, the data would be almost identical, certainly not statistically significant.

  Every person experiences these unlikely events, whether you are praying or not. That's because unlikely events happen all the time in this universe, but we're programmed to estimate probabilities in our minds automatically. When an event strikes our programming as highly improbable, it feels to us like a "miracle"
• 

  11/15, 2:55pm

  Julia Helen Lowe

  I would LOVE to see a study done on a large number of people of the same socioeconomic class and similar lifestyle, half pray to God, half are completely unreligious, and see if the number of times a religious person feels god helped them is significantly greater than how many times the secular feel lucky. Why had no one done that?? Maybe they have... I'm gunna look it up
• Bob Vance
• I know what you are saying but there is no pray event that can be correlated with the fortunate event in a non-religious household so there will probably not be any significant feeling of luck. Without prayer, people find things when they find them. Lucky would imply they always find things quickly. But that is not the case for either demographic. The difference will be that when the non-religious person is willing to give up, the religious person turns to prayer. That behavioral factor alone could increase the success of "finding" among religious people, but there is more to it than just a behavioral change. There has to be a supernatural component because there is no natural reason why you would find things "immediately" after prayer. Prayer skeptics say, "Well its because your mind is thinking clearer when you stop and think for prayer." But according to my experience, the prayer does not help you "clearly think" of where it is. The finding event is completely random, which means subconscious guidance was involved.
• Plenty of people have guidance at the subconscious level and some have guidance at a conscious level. Many mormons have stories that play out similar to this - 1) mormon is traveling one direction, 2) spiritual inner voice tells them to stop/ change directions, 3) mormon tries to ignore inner voice because it doesnt make sense, 4) feeling/voice consistently warns the mormon 3 times, 5) mormon finally gives in and listens, 6) following the guidance saves their life from an unseen danger. This obviously shows that "God" exists. Where does this higher intelligence come from if not God?
• and supernatural feelings and thoughts that answer your questions better than you could come up with? those must come from "God"

  answers to questions that accurately predict the future? again - God is the only good answer

  i haven't even got to burning in the bosom, healings, gift of tongues and demons yet.

  sure maybe humanity evolved a "God" cortex of the brain that can think supernaturally, but I think that God's existence is a much better answer than that one

  a "God" cortex of the brain can only explain away some things. It can't explain away burning in the bosom, healings, gift of tongues and demons.
• 

  11/15, 5:59pm

  Julia Helen Lowe

  I can provide explanations for each of those, actually.
• 

  11/15, 6:14pm

  Julia Helen Lowe

  I've learned a lot about what the human body can experience without any outside stimulus, purely through the brain. I won't go into it because it's really personal, so never mind.

  Everything has an explanation. Because this universe strictly follows rules. If there is a mystery, it's simply because a sensible explanation has not been found yet. Some may not be within our reach to ever find, actually, but the reason still exists. Throughout history, every mystery ever solved has turned out to be NOT magic.
• 

  11/15, 6:29pm

  Julia Helen Lowe

  If there is something going on here, if people are somehow getting access to wisdom, then something REAL is happening. It could be that encoded in our dna are stores of information from our ancient ancestors. Or maybe our epigenetics were influenced by the last few generations, and we're getting wisdom from our grandparents. Or maybe somehow conscious minds can access a collective source of information. Or maybe your neurons fired perfectly randomly (the way neurons do) and jumped to a correct conclusion, which is one of the coolest, most powerful part of our brains. Whatever it is, it's something that makes sense. The idea that an outside entity is consciously giving you information is just one idea in a sea of ideas. Maybe someone's been stalking you your whole life, setting up these scenarios to trick you (ridiculous of course, but you see what I'm saying. There are actually NUMEROUS possible explanations, but you spend your energy defending only one, because not believing it is too great a sacrifice for you. To lose your faith would be losing to much, so you're not willing to go there)
• 

  11/15, 6:31pm

  Julia Helen Lowe

  Sorry for all the grammatical errors, not editing
• 
  
• Bob Vance
• Im an honest person. I don't think that my belief in God is based on a dependence upon the social structure related to that explanation. I believe that God existing is the BEST explanation. In my opinion, none of your alternative explanations are even close to this one as a reasonable explanation for why the universe is the way it is. The existence of a God makes way more sense than a collective knowledge source (which I view as the second best explanation you have offered). 1) collective knowledge source doesn't explain creation, the source of intelligences/spirits, the existence or good and evil, nor miracles, nor healing, nor demons, nor prophesy. 2) collective knowledge source when compared with God's existence is equally supernatural and no more likely to be true than God actually existing.
• 3) a collective source of information doesn't explain our purpose. If we area all taping into collective information, why does it "tap" into us? It would make sense that in dire circumstances our brain can be triggered to activate this "collective information" function, but how does the collective information foresee danger before the individual is aware that there is a dire circumstance and project a thought upon the individual against their will? It is obvious that this "collective source of information" It has an intelligence of its own.
• Sunday
• 

  11/17, 2:06pm

  Julia Helen Lowe

  You are right, that explanation doesn't make much sense. I wouldn't place a bet on it. I do however find the probability that a fully formed complex being popping into existence unlikely. A single point of energy though.... Still crazy to pop into existence, but not nearly as improbable as a complex organism being the beginning of everything. Does that make sense? Even if there are superior aliens or something "in charge" of our world, they arose from the same point of energy... I guess what I'm saying is that even if there is some sort of "god" living in our universe, it probably didn't create the universe it's in. Meaning god isn't really god in the traditional sense. If a godlike creature living in this universe DID create it, then it existed before the universe existed. Explaining why God would exist in the first place is a much more difficult question than how a point of energy might arise through a moment of quantum weirdness. The truth is, it's all the same question: why does ANYTHING exist at all? Saying, "because, god." is just the same question once removed, except way more complicated. Ok, but then where does God come from? You run into an infinite digress, and the question actually becomes much harder to answer.

  Given all that, I think simulation theory is the best explanation for the possibility of "god". I may even place a bet on simulation theory, I like it. Though it still runs into the infinite digress problem, which irks my logical mind. Though of course I have to admit that just because it bothers my logical mind doesn't mean it's not true. I don't know anything. Nobody knows, KNOWS exactly how it works yet. And I'm ok with that. The joy of science is in continual discovery, why try hard to learn if you already have it all figured out. Anyone that says they "know" something currently unknowable is cutting themselves off from discovering other avenues of truth and possibilities. Because if information contradicts what you "know", pride will have you discount whatever it is, or twist the information to fit the world view you have chosen/publicly declared your certainty of. Far better to be open, than certain. Much better to adjust your beliefs based on what's observed, than to deny observation so that faith can be preserved.
• 

  11/17, 2:13pm

  Julia Helen Lowe

  Btw, this conversation is so epic! I feel like we should post it somewhere, haha. Thank you thank you, I love a mormon who will actually debate me, I need the mental stimulation
• 
  

Let's Make Decisions and Determine Validity Based on Our Feelings. Oh Wait... Let's Don't

Here's a list of fake feelings I've experienced in the last five months.
Mental:
-The feeling that I'm not fully awake
-The feeling that I can't tell if I'm awake or asleep
-Fear of wearing sunglasses (because they distort reality a little)
-Forgetting how to swallow on command
-Fear of yawning for too long
-Fear of getting a thought stuck in my head forever
-The feeling that my surroundings are foggy and unreal
-The perception that my limbs don't belong to me.
-The sense that my eyes won't focus on what I'm looking at
-The feeling that, no matter what position I'm in, my right side won't relax.
-Fear that thinking about my legs will cause a charlie-horse
-Fear that I will cause myself to go schizophrenic
-A sudden perception that every one of my senses is being overstimulated
-Fear of too much sensation
-Fear of a lack of sensation, too. (Numbness)
-A loss of joy in being touched
-The inability to decipher between sensations
-The sense that when I get the idea of panicking in my head for long enough, it starts to happen
-Fear of being out of control of my body
(Actual danger of any of these things happening? None.)

Physical:
-Extreme discomfort as my waste system functions properly
-Extreme discomfort in my feet when I contemplate certain textures
-Intermittent heart stabs, sometimes as a response to heat
-Persistent achy heart pain
-A feeling that there's an itch inside my chest that I can't scratch
-A lump in my throat that won't go away
-Pressure all over my head
-Tightness in my neck and throat.
-A buzzing sensation in my stomach
-A sense that the air is hot and cold at the same time
-A buzzing feeling on the bottom-middle of my right foot
-An overstimulated burn all over my skin
(Actual physical health problems? None.)

So, what about that burning in my chest during testimony meeting that I experienced so strongly that it forced tears out of my eyes?

...What about it?

When You Feel Like You're Living in that Alternate Universe, the One Where Everything Went Wrong.

I bet you I'm not the only one.

I bet most people, at some point in their lives, wake up and think, "This? This is what happened? I just did this to the rest of my life? And I can never, ever, ever go back? What alternate universe did I just step into?"

It's an odd sensation, thinking that, somewhere in this infinite multiverse, there's a copy of you living out your real life, the one you planned on, the one you could have lived, the one you always thought you'd have, if only that one horrible mistake hadn't been made. I don't even believe the theory that there are infinite copies of us, really. But I still get a strong sense every once in a while like I'm living in one of those alternate universes, one of them where everything went wrong, one of them that the real Julia feels lucky she's not in, and lays awake at night feeling joyfully existential about it.



At some point, we're all Marty Mcfly, realizing time was split in two by a simple mistake. But we're all stuck without a time machine. We have to live in the dangerous, disgusting, corrupted version of Hill Valley, where your mom's being abused and your father is dead. We have no choice but to try and kill Biff, to clean up the city, one shattered window at a time.

It's interesting how absolutely linear and permanent time is, because our brains certainly don't tell us that it is. I've often heard people say, "It's so dumb how linear we assume time is. We're so narrow minded. Time is probably more like a circle or a sphere. We just can't comprehend that." And this is really funny, because I think it is almost the exact opposite.

Sure, time is more fluid than it appears to us, slowing down around mass, dilating at certain speeds, et cetera, but it most certainly only flows in one direction, and even if it fluctuates, once something happens, it NEVER un-happens. But our "narrow-minded" little brains try to tell us, "Time isn't linear. Time isn't linear. Just go back a few seconds. You can do it. You can do it. If we sit here and think hard enough, time will bend to us. We can change the past."

Fact is, we're not narrow minded at all. (At least not, of course, in this respect.) We live in a rigid situation, a universe that always follows the rules, and yet our minds aren't held to any of the rules. We can romp around in the future, we can fly around the past, we can imagine the origin of the universe. And what's more? We even try to go BEFORE the beginning of the universe, to see beyond that boundary, even though according to the universe, that's just a big no-no. There probably wasn't time at all before then, there probably wasn't anything. How dare we try and go there!

But our brains don't care about breaking the rules. We have modeling software in our heads that allows us to make up places with completely different rules than the rules responsible for creating our heads. Every night we imagine places with no rules at all. Don't ask me how that's possible.

So I guess what I'm saying is, sometimes our devastatingly creative, impossibly imaginative minds make us stupid and naive. Because we feel invincible. Our brains tell us we're not subject to the rules here. Anything that goes wrong can always be undone. This delusion is amplified when we haven't experienced much pain. Sure, we can see the pain of others on the surface, think we understand it, think that secretly they must want it in some way, that they chose it, secretly they're just amplifying it for dramatic effect, but pain is not as bad as it seems, people are all just cowards, I can handle it, those rules don't apply to me, I can choose to be stronger.

So we do it: that moment of weakness, that moment of pride, that moment of selfishness, carelessness, stupidity, inattentiveness, lack of foresight.

And in that moment we feel our lives rocketing off the path they were on, our surroundings are the same and yet suddenly unrecognizable, and the pain hits you. And you find out pain is so, so much worse than you thought it would be. Because for a while you try and go back in time, over and over. Just a few seconds. That can't be so hard. Just a few minutes. Just a few days. Go back a month, you can do it. But it's a complete lie. You're fixed in time like cement. You can't even go back one millisecond. How's that for powerless. It's not the immediate painful consequence of the mistake you just made that is so bad, it's the understanding that now everything is different than it would have been, there's an entire other* reality that you have to bury and mourn, and you're completely out of control. The lasting consequences were something you never even saw coming. Or, you should have, if you weren't so stupid.

Either pain finds you in this life and you become wise, or it doesn't, and you're so stupid and naive that you create it for yourself. And then, you become wise.

Welcome to your Alternate Universe.


*(See, there's a way out of saying "whole nuther.")

Finding philosophical rock-bottom

You know, I'm not threatened by ideas anymore. Not any ideas. They don't hurt me, scare me, scar me, send me plummeting off a cliff, push me into a dark hole, or fill me with angry nausea. They just can't, after hitting philosophical rock-bottom.

It used to be off-limits ideas that scarred me deep. The f-word, my nemesis, was one of these. After all, my thoughts were not just fleeting electrical patterns. My thoughts had meaning. My thoughts partly determined eligibility for salvation; if I couldn't get them in control, whole universes might never be created. An f-word infested mind wouldn't be pure enough to accomplish it. No, I couldn't allow filthiness; my thoughts were important; they had a purpose; they had eternal, universal meaning. I thought my mind was magic, and the magic f-word hurt me, every day.

It used to be the cultural-religious sort of ideas that made my stomach churn. When I believed them. I'd hear a professor question the divinity of the female counterpart to God, and start seeing stars in class as the blood drained from my head, and I truly believed for a moment that I lived in a universe with a God that designed my half of the human species to be second-class, for a righteous purpose. What does it mean about the universe, I would continually ask. What is the significance of this built-in inequality? I always assumed deeper meaning behind the structure set-up of my culture. Eternal, universal meaning. I thought my culture was magic, and my magic culture hurt me, every day.

It used to be the political sort of ideas that made my heart race. I learned about economics and strongly felt that capitalism was the best fiscal system. I became fixated on the idea of freedom and decided that capitalism was not only a functional masterpiece on earth, but that there was some larger purpose for it, some older, philosophical principle embedded into the universe, declaring capitalism as the system the universe intended for us to use. Barrack Obama was running for president at the time. When he spoke of ideas contrary to the free market, he was not a-man-who-is-saying-stuff-I-personally-disagree-with, he was the-end-of-America, he was the-downfall-of-my-civilization, he was anti-matter, he was contrary-to-the-laws-of-the-universe. If he won the election, all of us who understood the meaning and significance of capitalism would need to sequester ourselves in the woods and live the principles we knew to be true. I made capitalism magic, and the threat of black-magic-socialism filled me with fear, everyday.

Those were the ideas that used to bring me turmoil. Back when I threw meaning upon every surface, saw significance where it wasn't deserved. But when I stepped off the edge of faith and fell, and instead began searching for meaning in deeper, darker corners, a new set of ideas caused pain and depression.

It used to be the existential sort of ideas that made me feel like I was falling into an empty, black void. I couldn't help it: ceasing to exist seemed to me the most probable reality after death. I didn't want to believe it. But it was the only option that made enough sense to me, the only one I didn't feel like believing was self-deception. So I believed it. But I wasn't ready for it. For months, I woke up thinking about death and went to bed thinking about death. Two family members died during this time. I was hollow and weak at their funerals. I'm going to die. I'm just going to disappear. There will be nothing. Nothing. Nothing. How can I mean anything if I won't exist soon? What is the purpose? I searched for meaning everyday, and felt betrayed every moment that I discovered none.

I once had a conversation with Brian, Allen, and Caleb, that left me so devastated that I struggled to be a functioning human being afterward. Essentially what we did was follow every known theory of the universe/death to it's logical conclusion, as far as we could possibly take it. And systematically every one turned into some kind of horror. If you go long enough, you see it. Every possibility for the after life would be eventual torture, or the frightening blackness of nothing. It was about 4 in the morning when the conversation ended and I tried to lay down. I couldn't sleep and felt the universe caving in on me. Belief in ANYTHING, I thought, is better than this feeling. Even if they're wrong, those who believe have it better than me. Truth wouldn't make me feel such despair, right? There must be more meaning. There must be something more.

So I searched for meaning and tried to find it in the fact that humans seem to be set apart from the rest of reality. I tried to find it in music, art, love, and free will. Music is inexplicably powerful, beyond reason. Art separates us from the animals. Love transcends all evolutionary purposes. And then education kept robbing me of the magic of even these. Sound waves stimulate our nerves in such a way that our skin reacts and releases endorphins, sometimes elephants paint pictures too, and all forms of love increased the likelihood of survival and reproduction in our ancestors.

But then there was free will. For some reason, we have free will. We have this inexplicable power that sets us above the impartial universe. God or not, afterlife or not, you can't deny that humans have this one special gift that gives us purpose while we're here.

Except for that you can. I was online one day and skimmed over a Sam Harris article about how free will was an illusion. I quickly left the page. That was an idea that would once again tear apart my structure of meaning, I wouldn't be able to handle that again. I won't read it. Except for the thought still entered my mind. Could free will really not exist either? So, human actions are completely due to inevitable chemical reactions? Unfortunately, after time spent letting this one stew in my mind, it began to seem logical. More probable than the alternative. Once again, my meaning had been stripped from me. New ideas just seemed to keep coming and raping my sense of significance. The universe is not magic, and I am not either. Where is the meaning now? Where else could it lie, if not in me and no where in the universe? Free will was the last magic. The last magic left in the entire universe.

It was once all the magic was gone that I stopped falling. There was no height left for me to descend from. I stopped searching for something or someone to give me what I wanted. There was no where else to look.

Here was rock bottom:
Meaning: there is none. Purpose: I have none. Reason: No one ever gave one. Plan: No one had one in mind. Magic: It does not exist. Ever. Anywhere. Every single thing in existence can potentially be analyzed and explained. Everything has an explanation.

I'm not sure how many months I stayed here, sitting on rock bottom, but I couldn't do it forever. Nihilism. That's what this was. How could anyone stay here for long? If there wasn't already a ladder out of here, I'd just have to build one.

But first I'd have to let go of my resentment and fear of the world being understandable. What's so great about being un-explainable? Whoever said that magic was the same as significance? Why does our sense of meaning come from being confused, from NOT understanding, from unpredictable events, and gaps in information? When did naivete become a requirement for feeling special?

Understanding things started to become beautiful to me. How heartrendingly adorable it is that people hug because they are having a simultaneous release of oxytocin, a chemical which makes muscles want to contract, and so they get close together and contract on each other. How gorgeous it is that humans are literally related to all life on earth, and we are not special as a species. How wondrous that it doesn't really matter how we feel, and yet being human feels... so... incredible. It's amazing that listening to a jumble of meaningless sound waves can do something so spectacular to my mind, can completely overtake my emotions.

I made meaning again. And I began to feel like there was actually much, much more of it now. The universe was so poetic, the story of these small creatures who came from muck, building a purpose for themselves piece upon piece upon piece. I was overwhelmed by the poetry of it. Forcing there to be purpose out of a naturally purposeless world was so much more meaningful to me than if someone else had designed it and handed it down to us.

But I'll always remember rock-bottom. And so frightening ideas that bring me close to there again, are not frightening at all. Because I know now where it is, and I know how to climb out. Bring it on.

Free Will and the Love of Insanity

So, let's get something straight here:

The concept of free will depends upon love for illogicality, and the glorification of insanity.

What do I mean by that?

Well lets think. What is the difference between a person, and a rock? A rock's movement can be calculated with geometry, and it never strays from the math. You throw a rock and where it lands is completely predictable. Humans, on the other hand... well you never can be quite sure what one will choose to do next. So we might say that free will can be measured by unpredictability. The more unpredictable something is, the more it appears to have free will. After all, if every action you take is entirely dependent on surrounding stimuli, then you haven't chosen to do what you're doing. All you have done is responded as the most complicated chemical reaction in the known universe. Your movements could be anticipated and deemed inevitable, if one had enough knowledge.

So, if you really want to have free will, you must have the ability to break from the chain of cause and effect, and do something for no reason at all. Something completely unpredictable that wasn't brought on by a logical response to your environment, or series of thoughts. Something totally illogical. Something insane. If it's reasonable, did you really choose it?

Or maybe it is enough to simply be random. You don't have to be completely insane to have free will, you just have to let your actions be determined by the random tendencies of your mind. Then you are a free agent. Then you are making choices.

Or are you? Randomness is the other law which the universe uses to function. So if you're going to reject cause and effect in the pursuit of free will, and act in pure randomness, that is also to be expected in this universe. I might also deem that inevitable, if not predictable through probabilities.

So, is there any way to act, then, other than "because of (fill in the blank)," or due to random firings of the brain? Can we really be unpredictable? Can I be completely unreasonable and insane?

Why do I want to be unreasonable and insane? Why does that feel good? I remember a moment when I felt like I really had free will for a second. I was walking home from school and suddenly decided to take a completely different path, that I had never ever taken before. Why? I didn't know. It was a longer way home. It was uphill. It wasn't sensible. But I did it, just because I could. I could decide to make no sense. At least I imagined that I could. And it made me feel more real.

But, is making a choice because you properly synthesized a set of information and reacted accordingly really less of a choice? Why is a choice with no foundation better than a choice that makes sense? We want to make wise decisions, right? Well, wisdom requires logical calculation.

And yet, there is this sense among humans, that illogicality is valuable. Maybe you haven't noticed it before, maybe it's just something that my particular sphere of acquaintances enjoy, but it seems so to me. We feel more alive when we're spontaneous. We love what is weird, chaotic, freaky. Just go watch, "Salad Fingers" on youtube, right now. You'll see what I mean. Why did they make Salad fingers? FOR NO BLOODY REASON. And there's crap like this all over the collective human consciousness. We are nuts. We're insane. And we love it.

Maybe we don't have free will. Maybe it doesn't exist. But we value it, still. And I have no idea why. Because it seems like being perfectly sensible would be better for survival.

Also, I wonder why people resist the idea of the universe popping into existence for no reason, if this reasonless-ness, this complete unpredictability, is the essence of what we value about ourselves. We like to imagine that somebody chose to create the universe from their higher will, for a reason. But if it was so reasonable, isn't that just God obeying some sort of law of cause and effect? Is that really such an amazing act of will? Perhaps the universe beginning, from nothing, FOR NO REASON, is the most stunning display of free will of all. Maybe it's the only real instance of choice there ever was.

Existential thoughts on a plane

I'm sitting in the middle of the sky. That's where I am right now - the sky. In an object way too large to be floating in the air. Designed by a tiny organic mass in ape shape, smart enough to mimic the behavior of other tiny organic masses. An adorable exaggeration of a bird. Built by manipulating the crust of the earth until the material is unrecognizably smooth, shiny, and hard. A quality of matter the earth would never know if it weren't for the utter discontentment and driving jealousy of a network of electricity, chemicals, and cells.

And so I'm sitting in the middle of the sky. Seeing something I was never meant to see. Seeing the surface of an alien planet, the most beautiful alien world in the known universe. The bugs that collectively made this experience possible for me are now too small to see. All I can see is the subtle evidence of their intelligence, the gentle shapes that meet their needs.

Mostly, though, the surface of the planet is untouched. Completely void of intention. Our purposes are almost not even a presence here. From this distance I can't say why any of them do what they do. And they're barely doing anything at all.

Except I do see that scattered, here and there, the gentle manipulations compound into works of art. Giant drawings on the largest possible drawing surface. Painters that don't know they're painting. Studies in composition that can only be comprehended if you're looking down on the clouds, not looking up at them.

I'm inside of a cloud. This shouldn't be real.

"I will wait"

I will wait, I thought. I'll wait as long as it takes for you to change your mind. Eventually, you'll realize. You'll realize that you've never felt anything like what you felt with me. You'll remember the things I told you, like that you made humanity beautiful. You'll try and be close to others, and you'll see that it's pale and weak. You'll commit to someone and you won't bare your soul. Your mind won't be understood. They won't ever love you as much as I did. I will wait until you realize. I will have faith that it felt special for a reason. That I couldn't care so much about you if it wasn't meant to be an amazing, nail-biting story.

Please don't wait for me, I thought. I can't have your guilt around the corners of my eyes while I explore. I will hurt you. But I don't want to. Your devotion frightens me. Your certainty makes me uncertain. Since I can have you whenever I want, I can't want you. Even though I want to. I'd like to try, to test the waters. But if I do, I fear you'll pull me in, past the point of no return. I hide away so I won't drown. I need to breathe. Don't wait until I change my mind. I won't. You're not my story.

Pathetica

Died for you twice. Washed in a wall of sound and screamed.
But I'll stay longer, I'll love harder, I'll give you everything, shorten my dreams, drown my beliefs,
Then you'll see.
Just for this feeling.
Just for your mind.
Rip away another one, I can take it. Suddenly inhuman, I've been there. Take what you need. I can't leave the leash.
Say I'm pathetic, but I'm not crazy. Still I'll stay longer, I'll love harder, I'll give you everything, shorten my dreams, drown my beliefs,
Then you'll see.
Just for my children.
Just for my mouth.
All for the feeling.
So I can say I won.
No one can tell me it's more pathetic to hold like a human, than to let go like a monster.

Baby Scene (Part 2)

Pull me, take me,
I trust where you place me.
I can't scare you
and you won't change your mind.

You know what we are,
you love that we're lowly.
You hold me low,
and sink when I'm down.

I'm not lying this time.
Your voice changes me.
My ears drown out,
I only hear you.

Blind to honor,
you see me differently.
Cradle my touch,
you startle, ear on my stomach.

You know my mind
well enough to lead my body.
Gave you my weight,
I hold together.

You make my end
the thing most worth living.
You cause my pain
and take it on with me.

I won't make a scene until it's you.

The Story

Descent from a sky,
given elite from all life.
Isolated in destiny,
all blackness for our light.
The stars lined for one movement
Handed will not by choice to choose what is forced
Depraved without sensing you and nothing next to you
Something too large for the story that holds it,
Complicate what's simple
Pacify the mystery.

Grown from the wreck,
risen from mud.
We're shrapnel given time
and made of destroyers,
same as old stars.
Connected by weakness
we're making what's greatness.
We don't last long but we feel forever,
and sometimes love seems longer than all of it.
Show me a more beautiful story.

Will

This morning I woke up thinking about the disconnect between the macro and micro worlds, wondering how, and if ever, they connect. Large objects obey the rules of inevitability, cause and effect: energy is conserved as one event changes another, which changes another. Small things obey the rules of probability, as seen in the electron orbitals around atoms. The probability remains constant, while the electrons themselves appear completely randomly; no one ever knows where exactly one will be. So these are the too ways in which change occurs: randomly, or by cause and effect.

But there is a really weird kind of energy (or means of change) that can exist on the scale between the micro and macro--incidentally the size of intelligent organisms on earth: will. We are as large as a universe to our atoms and as small as atoms to the universe. We are hinged between the two worlds, our brains having a quantum nature, and our bodies a physical one. We function using both processes, all the time. And we can feel it. We always have. What else is responsible for the idea of spirits being separate from the physical world, the overwhelming feeling that we are made up of two elements, the sense that we are wearing our bodies. Humans and large brained creatures like us are dichotomous beings. And when you combine the laws of the micro and macro, you get something very odd, that can affect the universe in a new way, and it looks a lot like free will. Will is neither cause and effect, or probabilistic randomness, but the connection between them, a new force that exists when those processes touch. It is intention and choice, a means of influencing matter that rarely occurs in the universe, and it is the avenue by which the universe draws meaning from its inherently intentionless and purposeless nature. Will may have been evolved through natural processes, some odd by-product of natural selection, it may benefit the propagation of certain 'selfish genes,' but once accidentally established by evolution, it breaks from the inevitability of natural selection and can even fly in the face of it, creating creatures that have the ability to destroy themselves, and may very well choose to do so. Will, as well as consciousness may be an illusion, but I feel that I'm real, and I choose to have free will, even if the universe never intended for me to have it. Choosing to make free will a reality is the ultimate manifestation of the energy itself; what power is there in agency, if it wasn't your choice, if it was handed to you by some other being?

I actually remember the moment I chose to be more than chemistry, and a victim of the macro laws. As a child, the chemicals in my body were causing me to be in perpetual fear, and my actions weren't under my control. I literally didn't decide where my legs took me, if I got scared enough. I've never been sure why, but one day in ninth grade I chose to have a will. I had been functioning purely under the laws of cause and effect, when suddenly my brain made a leap and I said to myself, "feel the fear, and then move anyway." I was able to set aside cause and effect for a moment, and jump to a new way of thinking, without following any concrete mental pathways. This is why you need the random element in order to have will. Brains have the ability to jump from place to place because of their quantum nature. In that moment I chose to have the ability to decide. And there's really no reason it should have happened; most anxiety disorders don't just slip away, most people need therapy (the purpose of therapy being teaching people how to choose.) But I stopped walking painfully fast, I started choosing to go to public places again. The universe changed, just a little bit, and the force behind that change was intention, choice. To me it doesn't matter if will is an illusion or not. We make it real.

Baby scene

Cough and pull,
drag and dull.
Stuck and loose in
limbo scream. Horror
at our baby scene.
I'm left alone with
your eyes on me.
You're not my need.
But I can't run, or
stay or sleep or dream.
My dreams shed light
on dishonesty. Our feet
are contradicting me.
We love and dance
in place, and I hold to
hope of love for me.

I see a mother and
I know your heart
would leave. A pointed
eye in breathing sing.
No hand on my both-sides
to hold me strong with
whispering. A body used
for trembling. I tremble
with lack of anything,
and you remind me I came
here accidentally.

I can't love or leave,

and you can't love
me off my honor, sweat,
and hands and knees.
My hand's a fly you
shew off with mercy,
and I can't get your
hands on me.
I gave a girl, she's not
your heir, will never be.
You can't love this if
you don't love me.

Stuck and loose in

limbo scream,

You can't love this if

you don't love me.

If we were Gods

I woke up and had an existential crisis this morning. It's always in the morning for me, just after I wake up, that at least one aspect of the strangeness of my existence will blindside me between the eyes. I guess my brain gets surprised that it's still here most mornings. Most of the time it passes before I have time to do any real thinking about it. I feel it and then it's gone. This morning I suddenly comprehended reproduction in the oddest way. That it all started because a vesical was smashed in two by a rock or something, and now replication of organisms has taken over the surface of the earth. All these squirming little balls of cells making more, and more, and more. Mutating, again, and again, and again, until you get a monkey shaped ball of brain that calls itself Julia, that didn't choose to be here, and is planning on making more squirming balls; growing slimy humans inside of her body. And then pushing them out onto the surface of the earth so that they can squirm all over it, and pass on a few mutations that get to play in this game called natural selection that nobody set up, and nobody is watching, it just is.

I felt all of that in just a moment. And then I began following this reproduction process further in my mind, following the path far into the future. What's going to happen to us?

Lets say all the best circumstances take place. Lets be true optimists right now, and say that all of this will be possible in the future. Our first step to insure that we can keep replicating is to get off planet. The Earth could become unsuitable in a thousand different scenarios, and if anything goes wrong, we're screwed. Our next step is to get out of this solar system before the sun dies, and kills us all. We need to populate the galaxy. But we probably need to get out of the Milky-way before it collides with Andromeda, and occupy the rest of the universe. And then, the hardest of all, we need to get into other universes before this one undergoes heat death, where every star is dead, and every bit of matter/energy disintegrates into heat, which finally cools and then nothing exists at all.

This is a big project. But lets say we pull it off in trillions and trillions of years. We're a species that has figured out how this universe works, well enough to leave it, and probably control the fabric of space somewhat. We're not human, but we resemble humans in the same way humans used to resemble chimpanzees. We're a new species probably called "Gods." Perhaps our binomial name is Homo deus. We've probably integrated computers into our brains, so that our consciousnesses can now complete tasks that were impossible for brain tissue. We've eliminated aging, and if you're careful, you can live forever. We continued to advance socially, and now the species at large is more benevolent, kind, gentle, loving, forgiving, and we've long since weeded out bigotry.

So what do you do with your time, now that you can travel from universe to universe? I think I would start a project. Maybe I'd start an evolutionary cycle on a planet very different from earth just to see what kind of life was generated. I'd probably try and see if there are other ways that intelligence can be evolved. Maybe I'd spend my time as a xenobiologist, studying alien life, or trying to communicate with it. But do you know what I think would be my big project? I think that I would search around the multiverse until I found a planet very, very much like earth. As close as possible to the conditions on earth when life began there. I would try to get there before there was any life, and I would start a system of competing vesicals, as close to how it began on earth as possible. And I'd watch. I would have so much knowledge about early earth and the events that led to my evolution, that I would know what events needed to happen for a similar creature to evolve. Perhaps I would have control enough to propel a large asteroid toward the planet to eliminate the far-too-successful lizard-like creatures that most likely would never evolve intelligence. But I would want to see, with all my heart, a creature that started to resemble an ape. I guess there would be no real reason for it, other than the excitement of it, the feeling like I wasn't alone in my ape-ness, the desire to recreate my origins. It wouldn't be my only project, but good God I would want to see if I could do it. I mean, why not try it? I literally have forever to play with. I would be thrilled beyond belief if the apes started to evolve to look like my predecessors, homo sapiens.

So lets say my big science project worked. An earth-like planet with intelligent beings on it that remind me of myself in the cutest way. What would be my relationship to them? Would they know about me? Would I talk to them? How much of my time would I spend in the observation room? Would I care about their behavior?

I don't think that I would make them aware of my existence. Such a thing would have too large an impact on their societies. I wouldn't want to mess with it. If I came to their planet and showed them how advanced I was, they would certainly start to worship me, factions would start, some would want me to rule, others would conspire to kill me, they'd probably start killing each other because of me. I'd probably end up dead in the end if I lived with them. If I set up the kind of government that actually works, in order to help them, I think it would be a disaster. You can't force knowledge or freedom on anyone. Besides, it's not like I could control them. There would be too many of them. The only way to set up a proper government for them would be to enlist my Homo Deus friends as enforcers, and then too easily it would become a slavery situation, God's ruling over great apes. No, the truth is, humanity was able to become great because they didn't have a supreme authority making decisions for them. If I ever wanted these creature to progress, I would need to leave them alone. I guess it would kind of be like they were my children. I would hope the best for them, but like a parent, I would need to let them go and let them make decisions for themselves, even when the answer to their problems is so obvious to me.

Would there behavior matter to me? I think yes. Not on a small scale, but in the great scheme of things, I would know how much they would need to progress in order to get off their planet in time. If they were behind, I would get worried. If they couldn't figure out how to end bigotry and prejudice in time, they probably wouldn't be able to pull together to figure out the big puzzles. Perhaps I'd even get interested in a specific person's life every once and a while. In fact, I'm sure of it. Because I'd know that really the only thing that matters is the individual. Only observing the species as a whole would get dull. I would want to see the art, the intimacy, the beauty, the real purpose of life that you can only find when you look closer. I wouldn't read their thoughts though, even if I had the technology to decipher their brain waves. Truth be told it would be a waste of time, an invasion of privacy, and what would I do with all that information anyway? How would that help either of us? And even though I'd be aware of their major mistakes, I wouldn't send punishment to steer their actions or anything creepy like that. I have no business doing that. Because I know that humanity learned well enough through natural consequences. No need to assign extra weight to their actions. There would, of course, be no reason to send a friend there to pay the price for their mistakes. There's no great cosmic justice here. Each action they take either leads them to survival or destruction, starflight or nuclear war, and it's their choice. Besides, if I did send someone to help, it would probably just end up polarizing them, and they'd kill whoever it was.

Would I ever try to communicate with them? Maybe. Maybe when they were intelligent enough to understand I'd feel comfortable giving them little tidbits about science or government or proper behavior, the type of behavior they would need to have if they ever joined the community of intelligent universe-hoppers. Why not, right? This is my project, I can do what I want. But how would I get the information to them? For Homo Deus, we have computers built right into our brains, and we all access the Cranialinternet instantaneously in our minds. I guess sending an "email" via Cranialinternet, a message that travels directly from mind to mind would seem a lot like telepathy, but it's not. I would need to invent some way for these creatures to perhaps access this trans-universal web of information with their brains, too. Program some feature to specialize in connecting to unaltered brain tissue. It wouldn't be impossible, would it? It's designed to be accessed with at least partial brain tissue, it seems like they could get some access to it. Their connection would be deathly slow, but that's better than nothing. Yes! This is genius! I've got the figure this out. Because this way, I don't have to try and communicate with them one by one (slow, impossible, and futile), their minds will be accessing small amounts information from the Cranialinternet when they need it. This could make all the difference in speeding up their progression.

How much time would I spend paying attention to them? I wouldn't consume myself in it. I'd keep myself updated, watch their news, keep up on world events probably. But I have my own life to keep me occupied. And watching everything too closely would drain me no doubt. I'm not perfect, and I'm not all-powerful. It would suck not to be able to do much about the things I saw.
Or maybe, I would pay a huge amount of attention. I do have so much time to kill.

And finally, what would be the fruition of my project? Introducing them to the rest of us, I think. When they finally began to resemble us, when they finally were more like peers, I would definitely want to meet them. Just thinking of it, I know my heart would explode. Being equals for the first time. Finally getting to teach them everything we've learned. It would be glorious. Perhaps we'd even have advanced enough biological science that we could reassemble old consciousnesses, and I could even meet some of the people I was more intimately interested in who died along the way.

Then I thought, maybe someone did something like that for us humans. Maybe someone did set up all these squirming replicating bags of slimy human brains.

But she wouldn't make herself known. She wouldn't read our minds. She wouldn't keep tallies on sins we committed. She wouldn't send punishment. She wouldn't set up organizations for us, or encourage factions. She wouldn't know our future. She wouldn't send a God to rule us, or to save us, or to be killed by us. She wouldn't speak to us personally; it would be up to us to download inspiration from the cosmos into our minds. And maybe, if we play our cards right, we'll join the community of universe-hoppers someday. Surely there must be things more intelligent and advanced than that one species, on that one planet, in that one Milky-way galaxy, out there already.

Or maybe we're the only life that has existed, anywhere, ever.

And that's why I laid in bed for hours this morning.

Found me in the wake

You found me in the wake.
Dried up on shore, I didn't move.
I can't say you rescued me, but I left

every letter downstairs.

Too lucky for breathing. I blink and feel you
closing in. Almost too soon.
Just as I laid down my lies you picked me up.
My truth held close for the first time.

As a child I walked too quickly
after school. I shuddered with my
feet in a ditch as dusty boy spoke to me,
now I won't fall from your running water voice.

Bled me out and drag me
through white wake. Follow and sway.
One delay and I live again.
Just in time. Just in time for you.

Stay home for me

Once, I shook next to you on a bus.

I folded my arms under your coat

so you couldn't see how you took over me.

Once I looked down with my head on your chest,

with your words in my hair, and I couldn't bring

myself to put my arm where I wanted it.

You drove an hour once, all the way back home,

when my scream hung in the air and you tasted

your loss, still you didn't stay home for me.

One time you appeared unannounced upstairs.

I wore an old hoodie and you proved I was pretty

after declining to touch me two days before.

This one time, I lifted my forehead from the carpet to your leg,

and your hand stroking my hair stilled my jagged breath

as you listed the reasons you knew who I was.

When it was dark and I broke at the thought of you leaving,

you never knew that I watched from the window
as you knelt on the sidewalk, and prayed to God for us.

Once, on the way to my sister's where I'd finally be alone,

you wouldn't stop turning and looking and crying.

Your eyes stayed off the road, but you couldn't stay home for me.

You found me next to you once in the middle of the night,

and made yourself very clear. You told me again in words, in time,

in promise, then lies, then left, because you wouldn't stay home for me.

Religious Suicide

My cousin committed suicide two weeks ago, on the ninth of August, because she thought Heavenly Father wanted her to. Her decent into mental illness was slow and subtle, like a frog in a boiling pot. No one understood how bad it really was, and therefore no one took drastic enough preventative measures to stop the tragedy. This is her story.

She grew up in the most beautiful Mormon family, the oldest of six. She was about ten years older than me, so we were never close, but I played with her younger siblings my entire childhood. I think we all looked up to her as some distant object of perfection. She was a living snow white--She had perfect white skin, and gorgeous, long dark hair. She sewed her own clothes, cooked for everyone, and knew how to can anything. She had no qualms about scolding or telling you how to behave--A born mother.

And that's exactly what she became. After her mission to the Philippines, (a difficult and disturbing mission. She was in the last group of sister missionaries ever allowed to serve there. I have wondered if the disturbing things she saw somehow contributed to her illness,) she married the first man she ever dated and became a mother. The man she married painted for a living, and didn't provide her with the bounteous, lovely lifestyle she was used to. He moved her to a dump of a place, far away from her family. The pressure of being a poor, new mother without support sent her into a post-partum depression that never seemed to lift. And every time she added another child the pressure built, the depression thickened, and people started noticing she was not acting normally.

"The men in my ward are all flirting with me." She said. That's how it started. She would tell elaborate stories of how this elder and that elder couldn't stand her beauty and were always implying that they wanted her. I remember laughing behind her back, thinking that she wanted male attention so desperately that she was just inventing flirtation that wasn't there. I told my family, "She should have dated more men before she got married. She never got to experience the fun of flirtation, and so she needs it now." But pretty soon the stories of flirtation turned into more unbelievable tales about the bishopric, how they wanted to have affairs with her, how they desperately wanted to put their seed in her, especially when she was pregnant. She started telling everyone that the bishop had set up surveillance in their home. Everyone told her that she was mistaken, that they were worried her grip on reality was failing. She responded with an ultimatum-- The bishopric was planning something awful, and it was going to happen in six weeks. If it didn't happen then she would admit she was crazy.

It didn't happen. She got up in sacrament meeting and began reciting her list of “The Top Ten Reasons Why I'm Crazy.” She started telling everyone the things she believed about the bishop, and other completely inappropriate things, but she didn't get very far because her husband walked up to the pulpit, took her out of the building, and immediately drove her to the mental hospital.

She didn't stay there very long. Her parents drove down to see her in the hospital and she seemed to be completely normal. “She's fine.” They assured everyone. “She just needs to take it easy.” They brought her to live with them so they could help with the kids and ease the pressure she was under. It helped. She seemed to be doing better. But when she moved back home the descent started again. She named all of the rooms in their home a room in the temple. Their bedroom was the celestial room. The closets were the temple dressing rooms, and they were only allowed to get undressed in the “dressing rooms.” She spent every night obsessively reading the Book of Mormon. Her sister found her scriptures once, flipped through them and saw the word “hotdog” written on every page. “Why did you write hotdog all over your scriptures?” She asked. My cousin replied, “Well, clearly I couldn't have written penis on them.” Like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Every time she read a verse that reminded her of a penis, she marked it with “hotdog.”

And then came the day that she stumbled across Matthew 5:30, “And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.” It struck her to the core. It resounded within her, as if God were answering a prayer, as if God had shown her the way to atone for her guilt. She told her husband that God wanted her to atone for her sins. She knew it. She could feel it. My brother, who used to cut his wrists every time he masturbated in order to punish himself and knows well the amount of guilt even a sane member of the church can experience, suggested that perhaps it was masturbation that she thought she needed to atone for. She felt that her arm was evil, that it was causing her to sin, and that she needed to get rid of it.

Her husband found her in the kitchen late one night, rifling through the drawers.

“Honey,” He asked apprehensively, “What are you looking for?”

She sighed. “I know you're not going to understand this, but I need to cut off my arm.”

“No.” He said. “If you do that, you'll die, do you understand?”

But she didn't. If you ever tried to talk reason to her she would grin and nod her head, like she was on a higher plane than you, so you couldn't possibly understand as well as her. She believed that if she only accomplished this Abrahamic test, God would preserve her. Her husband found websites about successfully amputating a limb in her recent searches. He hid all the knives and arranged for her to stay once again with her parents, because he had to go to work and could not keep an eye on her all the time. He drove her up to Utah, and on the way they stopped by a temple. He got out of the car, and she got in the driver's seat and drove off with their three children, leaving him stranded at the temple. She drove so fast that she got in a car chase with the police, all the while holding the Book of Mormon in front of her, believing it would protect her. The cops couldn't catch her. They threw down spikes on the freeway, but she dodged them, and finally OnStar actually turned off her car, and the cops sent her to jail. She was charged with child endangerment, but the charges were dropped, her parents successfully brought her back to their home, and everyone was so grateful that they had dodged a bullet, and that it was all over. Things were looking up.

Before she entered the house, her sister hid all of the knives. The whole family spent the evening with her, and watched as she sprawled out her patriarchal blessing, church talks, and her scriptures all over the floor, and obsessively marked them. Her sister asked her, “What happened to you? What caused all of this? What is it that made you like this?” My cousin started weeping and said, “There's just so much pressure to be perfect.”

She slept in her little sister's upstairs room with her three children that night. But she didn't sleep. As soon as everyone was quiet, she slipped out of her room and found a garden saw in the garage, and a pair of sewing scissors in the sewing room. She laid out her temple dress, and pinned a note to it, telling her little sister that she would wear this dress when she became a bride of Christ. She went to the downstairs bathroom and cut off all of her long dark hair in front of the mirror. She sat in the sewing room in her garments and tried to cut off her arm, but didn't make it all the way through. She tried to make it up the stairs to, what, get help? To put on her temple dress because she had a vision of the way she wanted to be found? She didn't make it up the stairs. Her father found her in the morning, and now our entire family is plagued with nightmares. I can hardly stand to listen in church, because the religious phrases frighten me. My relationship to the church was already complicated, but now it's impossibly difficult because while it was religion that contributed to her path of destruction, it was religion that I needed for comfort in the aftermath. And yet I couldn't find comfort in the doctrine that led to her death, or even the sweet religious phrases that people say. They just sound frightening and demonic to me now.

Have any of you had any experience with mental illness? Has anyone else seen religion play a heavy part in it? I would like to discuss the possibility that religious ideas can be damaging to the mind. How do you sift through the good ones and the creepy ones? How can I feel comfortable teaching my children ideas that I fear will warp their minds?