I grew up in the Westboro Baptist Church. Here's why I left

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Really good TED talk by Megan Phelps-Roper. She nailed the effects of dogma, brainwashing, in-group preferences, and parallels what happened in her family's church to what's happening right now in the present political hard right/left divide.

It's too simplistic. For instance, pro-choice means people get a choice, and there are others who want to control them. How do you get past that? People have their beliefs hard stuck inside them, no matter what science says.

But yes, not arguing is a good point. But when people challenge each others' deepest beliefs, it is inevitable that people will get defensive.

How does one get past the individual that WON'T listen, especially when that individual bullies others because of their hate for them? I'm serious.

I don't think she's quite making the case of 'roll over if people demand your rights'. She's more or less saying that when people break off into tribes and immerse themselves in echo chambers communication stops and that communication is the only thing that keeps the currency of ideas fluid enough so that people who have a dogmatic viewpoint can have enough evidence to the contrary passed over or under the wall until their cognitive dissonance forces them to reconsider their viewpoint.

She's clearly not going to win over many postmodernists with this view because she's asserting that there are ideas more true in their circumspection and nuance than others, not just a melee of different groups with equal facts where facts are just a weapon for dominance rather than legitimate appeals to any sort of underlying truth.

Yes, her 15 minute lecture might be a bit self-referential and narrow in its scope but I do think she's making a very good point about the importance of communication.

She is still completely ambivalent, as to whether she believes church doctrines, anymore, aside from the social dynamics of that. Take away the externals, and this is basically, moral relativism. In other words, it assumes that there can never be absolute truth, apart from her social graces.

I just listened to Sam Harris's Waking Up Podcast 12 with her today at work - it sounds like she's agnostic.

As far as moral relativism I don't agree - she's speaking to a particular layer of human interaction as well as the effects of dogmatism which is her area of expertise by extension of her experiences. I don't know what's wrong with her sticking to what she can speak on competently.

There are a lot of time where I consider renouncing Christianity out of fear of being lumped with the WBC jag-offs.

I'm confused, how did we get on health care? I don't think that's the far-left/far-right central point of refusal by any means.

My point being - the political psychosis on the ground in the US and Canada actually does match deranged secular religions and it's not a fight for reproductive rights or a fight for healthcare. Either of those would be quite rational by comparison.

What suggests that she's making an appeal to paper over that with moral equivalency?

Thank you for posting this, Techstepgenr8tion! What a wonderful talk! I hadn't read up on the WBC in a few years. Megan leaving was probably the last I remember hearing. I'm delighted that she found peace and is sharing what she's learned.

I appreciate that people are being civil and dignified, but two mutually-exclusive views can't both be correct.

And, you're not being disrespectful, in the least, afaic.

It's just that we are no longer able to hear her beliefs, if any.

She has to self-censor, now, I think.