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Elisa Dvorak's avatar

"The depolarization space cannot subscribe to one religion any more than it can subscribe to one political ideology, so I welcome my non-Christian friends to tell me how they've handled this problem."

As an atheist, I ended up settling on media analysis to work on reconstructing the story I tell myself. Media analysis work involves a lot of language assessment to be able to identify emotionally loaded words and phrases. Learning and sharing how to find this in articles had spillover effect into how I view myself. When I rewrote my own story to have less emotionally loaded language, I could see my value stemming from actively looking for other perspectives and knowing how close to get to them. I was also able to make sure accuracy stayed as a north star, and that also made my story of self less riddled with shame.

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Julian Adorney's avatar

Interesting!

So if you don't mind my asking (and maybe you answered this and I missed it!), where do you get your sense of value from as a human being?

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Elisa Dvorak's avatar

I did indicate that my value stems from looking for other perspectives. In other words, just using my brain rigorously. Even as a child, I received more encouragement to develop my mind, and I've been able to more fully embrace linking my value as a human being to my ability to think.

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