I Just Couldn't Check My Brain at the Door
When people ask me how I finally got out of the COC, the short answer is that I reached a point where I simply couldn't check my brain at the door. When I was very small, I believed whatever they told me without question because I had no external knowledge or frame of reference. But as I got older, I started to experience a certain amount of cognitive dissonance. Like Neo in the first "Matrix" movie, I sensed that something was wrong but had no words to name or explain it. One of the things I sensed was the inherent hypocrisy of the COC: they talk about love, but tear each other down, they talk about mercy and forgiveness but judge each other harshly, they talk about charity but don't reach out to the community, and so forth. Another thing I sensed, more and more as I went to school and learned about the world, was the intellectual dishonesty of COC doctrines. If you want to be a COC member in good standing, then you are forced to accept things you know can't poss...