Have you ever changed your belief in the afterlife because you felt let down by life? I did… for almost 5 years. Pragmatism won the mental juggle. Books about history, sociology, psychology, real-science littered my desk and shelf. Gone were the works on self-improvement and quantum physics and energy.

Before that: inculcated by Mormonism, ideology and dogma and a bigotry I was not aware of. The pendulum swung 180 degrees after consuming Mormon history. The history I was told to never read — because it was Anti; hedonistic and calculatingly wrong.

This was my past and present: my future seemed perilously linked to something spiritual, something other than life ending in dirt. Running from a God with a beard and a penis — a father in heaven created by a man or men. With or without a judge in the sky seemed immaterial to being immortal.

Back to today: 15 years since Mormonism, 10 years since spiritual, karmic beliefs, and 5 years of; it’s all bullshit. The scientific, methodical being pushed aside to make room for random, synchronistic events. Can there be an after-life? Are our souls on a karmic journey?

While these questions can be more a quest than the likely hood of being answered indefinitely. My father who happen’s to be mormon; emphatically stated that I will have an after-life relationship with my son. I answered, “I hope you’re right…” And I meant every word.

Maybe it’s age, maybe it’s time, or children, or nostalgia. Believing in something we cannot see or explain takes faith. And this word negatively resonates because of my mormon upbringing. A cruel, shameful, guilt-ridden, judgmental environment pushed me away from faith.

Which helped me understand why: When we believe we will be judged we are more inclined to judge. If we are here to learn about ourselves and see different perspectives then we must experience more of life not less. This life may in fact be one we have done many times before.

Science seems vastly behind when it comes to understanding the mind, its thoughts and their impact. Its infatuation with Newtonian physics reminds me of the Elders in mormonism and their devotion to denying LGBTQ equality.

Cognitive dissonance is abundant with our species across many fields and backgrounds and disciplines. We’re all guilty of mental checks and balances and gymnastic-esque fashion. How long can we act as though we are right and others are wrong?

This type of thinking is why we are in the shit. It keeps us from working together and helping each other. Einstein said: “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” This, “same thinking” is at the heart of cognitive dissonance — whether it’s religion or science both have been incrementally guilty.

Which brings us back to the question, “Have you ever changed your belief in the after-life because you felt let down by life?” If you have… I would suggest you have broken-through your cognitive dissonance and had enough courage to not know.

Not knowing: is equivalent to vulnerability, exposed, fragility. When was the last time you encountered a vulnerable scientist or priest? Science and Religion are opposites yet so much the same. We have seen both just as dogmatic, imperious, and high-handed.

Being disappointed or let down, betrayed, forgotten is a part of life, some may say the reason were here… to help us evolve, grow, expand, mature, develop. Then again whether we have changed our beliefs or not doesn’t matter. Or does it?

Our togetherness rather than what we believe supersedes our mental structures. In other words: we need each other, we need connection, we need community. Myth or Religion and Science shrinks if we don’t stand united. If we don’t help ease our pain. If we cannot help one another; we all lose.

If you have changed your beliefs because of life then you are the leaders of tomorrow and you can change our World. You are the forces of light unafraid of the unknown. Courageous enough to be vulnerable, defenceless, impotent and paradoxically audacious enough to make a change.