Previously: After reading Ishmael by Daniel Quinn for my high school Theory of Knowledge course, I dive into Quinn's next book, The Story of B.

At the end of The Story of B, B reminds us that, because of the Great Forgetting, people don't remember what it's like to live in a world that isn't full of violence, pain, and hardship. It's no wonder that Taker totalitarian agriculture—a new, slapdash system compared to the 3 million years of Leaver culture before it—resulted in massive suffering, and thus the beliefs that 1) the world is inherently full of suffering and 2) that humans are inherently flawed and in need of saving.

And if humans are in need of saving, it makes sense that salvationist religions like Christianity would develop as a way to address that suffering. But B argues that seeking individual salvation as one's highest goal is inherently selfish, and it's particularly dangerous when the benefits of salvation (like, say, paradise after death) don't have any relationship to the rest of life on Earth.

Separating yourself from the rest of life on the planet and focusing on your own personal salvation, or even the salvation of your species, is a fundamentally selfish way to exist. That approach has caused significant harm to our planet and the other beings we share it with. B offers an alternative: What if there's nothing inherently wrong with humans, but we suffer because the vast majority of us are stuck in a system that's deeply flawed? B says that he rejects salvation out of an enormous love for the world and everything living in it.

As I finished reading, the whole mosaic snapped into focus and I realized several things:

1. Christianity was not created or revealed by God, but by people, who used religion as a way to cope with the suffering caused by the broken system in which they lived. This seemed like a perfectly rational explanation, and that explanation was consistent with my own experience. I had never felt or seen anything supernatural myself, and I had never heard of any evidence (outside of the Bible) that supported the existence of the supernatural. In fact, I didn't think it was possible to prove the existence or non-existence of God, or the supernatural, at all. Looking at my day-to-day life, B's perspective seemed much more reasonable than the fantastical Bible stories that I had been told were literally true.

2. Furthermore, it would be immoral for me to continue to hold a salvationist belief system that separated humans and placed us above the rest of the life on our planet. 

And with that, my faith just…disintegrated. I sat on the floor of my room with the book in my hands, and I knew that it was gone.

Like a cartoon character who has just run off the edge of a cliff but hasn't started to fall yet, I had a moment to enjoy my newfound sense of clarity.

And then: I looked down. 
The gravity of what just happened hit me.

I was going to lose the community I had been part of my entire life. I was going to devastate my parents and the rest of my family, who would believe that I was destined to spend eternity in torment in Hell.

Everything changed for me in an instant. On the one hand, that made sense: all of the logical arguments led me to a particular conclusion. On the other hand: What the heck just happened!?

Next time: How had I had such a strong Lutheran faith for so many years and then lost it overnight?