It's Hard to Know What to Believe
A fellow ex-COC-er and I have had this same conversation over and over again: we don't know what to believe any more, all we know is that we don't believe in the COC. We don't believe that the COC is the one true church. We don't believe that the COC has all the answers. And most important, we don't believe that the COC has any authority over our lives and has no authority to condemn us for our lack of belief. The problem is that, after ridding ourselves of the negativity of the COC, it's hard to find something to replace it with. After all those years of fear- and guilt-based indoctrination in a literalist interpretation of the Bible, it's hard to think rationally about doctrine, to decide what you truly can and can't accept, because you're afraid that, if you make the wrong decision, you're condemning yourself. One big question we both wrestle with is whether there's an afterlife and if so, is there a good place and a bad place and who is g...