Comments by "June VanDerMark" (@junevandermark952) on "Why Do People Leave Their Childhood Religions?" video.

While conversing with another woman about religion, her defense was that those in churches give each other "support." I agreed, and when I asked her if what they teach within the church is based on truth, she informed me that "truth" comes in many layers. That was news to me, as I always thought that only lies came in layers. We can't search for truth, and at the same time, claim to know truth. The search for truth keeps us moving ... while claiming to know truth brings us to a halt in the egotistical mindset of, "I have arrived at my destination, so I don’t have to search any farther." Maybe it’s best to believe that truth (if it even exists) is always one step ahead of us.
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If those in religion taught that there is only one place to go in an afterlife, and it is a divine place, where every soul is treated with the utmost kindness, and nothing but love ... even though I am not any longer religious, I would think that the story couldn't do any harm. But the story doesn't end there. It goes on to state (as literal truth) that most souls will go to a very bad place in the
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@Beecher's Hope When I was still under the spell of religion, I could never believe that other souls would go to a bad place in a hereafter, where those souls would suffer for eternity, while my soul would be rewarded with eternal bliss. At age 70, I left religion behind, and now believe that I am whole, just as I am, and that the universe always existed ... no creator involved. That was the belief of Stephen Hawking before he died, and I copied his system of belief. Since I became an Atheist, my behavior is neither better, nor worse, than when I was steeped in religious confusion.
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@Beecher's Hope If, as children, we had all been taught, and had believed the following story, we wouldn’t have any fear of death. From the book Medicine Madams and Mounties … Stories of a Yukon Doctor * 1933-1947 ... Death is the final sleep ... The Indians I met were used to death and dying. They saw it daily as they slaughtered and trapped animals for their livelihood. For them everything had its time, ending in death, and they could not understand our fear of dying. “Why do white people fear death?” they often asked me. “Nobody fears the onset of the unconsciousness called sleep yet you are afraid of the final sleep, death.”
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