Escaping Religious Indoctrination

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I just finished re-reading Lewis Vaughn’s autobiographical, Star Map: A Journey of Faith, Doubt, and Meaning,* a book I reviewed over five years ago.  On this reading I was even more struck by the power of the narrative and the beauty of its prose. Re-reading it I felt as if I’m back in his 1969 (or my 1973) breaking the shackles of religious indoctrination.

There is so much that should be said about this work but I’ll refer readers to my previous review if they’re interested. What I ‘d like to do here is point out just a few of the passages attributed to his first college philosophy professor who was also a Catholic priest. (We can assume that they reflect something clost to Vaughn’s own view, although I’m sure his views are ever-evolving.) Here is his mentor on life after death,

The hope of an afterlife is groundless. As you have learned faith cannot prove the existence of life after death. As for science, it has given us strong evidence against the notion of an afterlife.

But this realization doesn’t have to be accompanied by despair,

If we strive for the truly meaningful in life … and if we renounce the truly meaningless in life … then we can create a life of meaning, despite hardship and despair… A meaningful life can be established only on the hard rock of reality … By losing hope of heaven or eternal life or some other sad bit of make-believe… we can focus on true sources of meaning and happiness.

And this acceptance leads to another realization,

And from this understanding comes gratitude—gratitude for our being and impossible, unlikely speak of bright light in the void… We are all made of the same stuff, we are all whirling galaxies of atomes, we are all gifted with the same light.

And another,

Now I imained that the stars, planets, comets, and I were all connected, as if we were all nestled in a gossamer web. Or a star map. And the star map … was far superior to the one the church had given me. This one included morality, science, reason, love, friendship, and empathy. Best of all, this one was real and true.

There is so much in this autobiography to recommend and the above passages are just appetizers of the wisdom found within the book. I again encourage my readers to take a look.

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(Lewis Vaughn is one of the most popular and prolific authors of college philosophy textbook alive today.)