The story about encountering Scientology reflects something I’ve noticed several times in deconversion stories — that the road away from religion starts with learning about another religion. A believer is stunned at how utterly ridiculous the newly-encountered, unfamiliar religion is — but then starts to think about how his own religion is equally absurd. It can start a train of thought that leads out of the darkness. I guess that’s what happened with Burr.
Hazarding a guess — Chinese people who can read are most likely educated enough to know some English as well. This video is full of concepts which would be completely alien to Chinese culture and probably not easy to express in Chinese. Literate Chinese viewers might understand it better if they had the original English in front of them as well. Almost all speakers of other languages who have studied English can understand written English more easily than speech, especially rapid and/or colloquial speech.
I used to poke fun at Scientology when I was a Christian. Being exposed to it at a young age and surrounded by group think tends to normalise your own beliefs. It isn’t until you can step back and remove yourself from it for a while that you can realise how stupid your own beliefs were.
A Tale Unfolds 
“Why is their religion so stupid and mine is not? Because I heard theirs when I was an adult”. Brilliant. Simple.
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Wonderful! He gets it.
The story about encountering Scientology reflects something I’ve noticed several times in deconversion stories — that the road away from religion starts with learning about another religion. A believer is stunned at how utterly ridiculous the newly-encountered, unfamiliar religion is — but then starts to think about how his own religion is equally absurd. It can start a train of thought that leads out of the darkness. I guess that’s what happened with Burr.
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I love this. And yes, he does get it. Why are the sub titles in both English and Chinese?
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Hazarding a guess — Chinese people who can read are most likely educated enough to know some English as well. This video is full of concepts which would be completely alien to Chinese culture and probably not easy to express in Chinese. Literate Chinese viewers might understand it better if they had the original English in front of them as well. Almost all speakers of other languages who have studied English can understand written English more easily than speech, especially rapid and/or colloquial speech.
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I love the curling analogy. I think I’m going to use that.
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This is hilarious!
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I used to poke fun at Scientology when I was a Christian. Being exposed to it at a young age and surrounded by group think tends to normalise your own beliefs. It isn’t until you can step back and remove yourself from it for a while that you can realise how stupid your own beliefs were.
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Of course, stepping back is foreign to most believers (of any faith). It’s ONWARD! CONVERT THE LOST!
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