EA - It's okay to leave by Nathan Young

Link to original articleWelcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: It's okay to leave, published by Nathan Young on December 23, 2022 on The Effective Altruism Forum.Aged 25, I leave the movement that has been most important in my life so far: Christianity.Tl;drSome things I wish I’d said to myself:If I leave, what will actually happen?It’s probably gonna be okayIf it’s true, I need not fear examining itIf I am not happy, that mattersWhat can I learn by leaving that current me will be glad to know?I will still have my friends and if I don’t then those friendships weren’t gonna surviveAre decisions reversible?I can fear something and do it anywayI like meContextI was a conservative evangelical Christian and had been since childhood. I stuck to a relatively literally interpretation of the Bible. I didn’t drink, I hadn’t had sex, I attended church several times a week. I lived in a community of 30 people who supported and critiqued one another about the most intimate details of our lives. I’ve written more here.It was hard to leave:I feared I’d go to HellI lived with friends from church and they had asked me to leave (which I agreed with) so I needed to find a new homeI didn’t know how to be a non-ChrisitanMuch of my social life revolved around my faithI conception of the future was Christian alsoI acknowledge this isn’t how Christianity is for everyone, though I will argue that conservative evangelicals aren’t exactly handing out pamphlets on how to leave. Making it hard to leave is a feature, not a bug and it’s one I’d like not to replicate.This post is written about a specific belief system and a specific person. I also give advice to others who might leave communities.Advice“If I leave then ______ will happen”I wish I had considered the actual outcomes. What were the things that I was fearing? I guess it was going to Hell, which is a trickier fear than most, a log jam in my brain, that I feared to touch, let alone remove.I think it’s worth considering this for all kinds of decisions - jobs, relationships and communities. If your brain doesn’t know what you’ll lose by leaving, why are you there?“It’s probably gonna be okay”I wish someone had told me this. That it was probably gonna be fine.Part of what took me so long was fare. I was scared of finding new friends, having sex, having money without having to beg my parents.It was fine. I surprised myself by how capable and adaptable I am. I wish someone had held me and told me that I was going to do better than I’d have expected. Perhaps I’d have left a lot earlier than I did.If you are going to leave a community, you are probably gonna do better than it seems. Solve problems 1 at a time. You’ve made it this far.“If it’s true, you need not fear examining it”I was terrified of actually thinking about my faith and ending up in Hell. Terrified of being disloyal, of having to explain my thoughts.But if something is worth believing in, I think there has to be some chance it’s false. The Christianity I believed in was like an abusive partner, harassing and terrifying me about how I would be punished if I left or even considered leaving. I now see that as a clear red flag. If a community makes it hard to leave - get out. If it turns out to be good, you can always rejoin.If your community is giving you good things, then you can write them down. And you can write down the bad things too. Because if it’s a thing your future self is gonna want, the good list should contain bigger things.“You are not happy and that matters”I wasn’t happy. And somehow people didn’t say that to me. And I didn’t say that to myself. Happiness isn’t everything, but it’s a useful internal signal. If I am not happy it is worth listening to my body and wondering why.Are you sad? If so, that’s notable. Is your community making you sad? That’s notable too.“Tell me what you find”Threa...