Did leaving religion change your ethics?

[_honorentheos]

I became friends with an institute teacher my freshman year of college. He became fairly candid regarding the politics of the CES system and his feelings it created serious challenges for living the gospel as he saw it. He was candid in general without naming names, but what I took away from it was that I couldn't have been more wrong to assume that spending one's days reading and teaching in the scriptures would be spiritually fulfilling. Turns out it was a job with people doing what people do just like any other, with few opportunities for advancement leading to intense competition.

That said, I don't think the underlying issue is isolated to those trying to remain pure from the world by more vigorously affirming the Church is true in all regards. With modern technology a person could virtually hop over oceans on the tops of the Galt's Gulches that have been and are constantly formed as people retreat further and further away from those who have diverse views from their own and wish to live more fully in an illusion of their own elite status of some kind or another. I consider that another form of ethical debilitation as well. Diversity and tolerance being conditions that foster self-scrutiny and knowledge which I see as highly esteemed virtues.

[_deacon blues]

Is Galt's Gulch a ski resort?

Just kidding. It's nice to know reading Ayn Rand has some practical(?) application.

[_Franktalk]

I tend to leave people alone to make their choices now. Religion tends to drive you to intervene in other peoples lives. To truly know what being saved represents is to cast off judgement. I now no longer view humans as different from each other. While it is true that our avatars and our behavior in the mortal condition may differentiate us, that is mostly perception. More like forgetting who one is for a moment.

I think we place too much importance on what our avatar feels in the moment. So to examine the ethics of the avatar in the big picture is pretty meaningless. More like when in Rome do as the Romans do. That pretty much describes the mortal experience.

So everything changed but I no longer hold any importance to that.

[_Philo Sofee]

MG
that it isn't always a bad thing to be subject to authority under the right conditions.

I can't think of any that's valid.....religiously anyway. All claimed authority from God is man-made and exploited to gain power over others. You think this about all others claims except one, so don't pretend you don't. No one needs authority or anyone else's permission to do good and be good people.