Welcome to Recalculating: a podcast about spiritual detours, honest doubt, and the unexpected clarity that comes from questioning the path you’re on.
I am Altar'd Thoughts (Will James),
https://linktr.ee/altardthoughts
I grew up in Seventh-Day Adventism. A system with one way to believe, one way to belong, one version of God, one direction.
Somewhere along the line, the road signs stopped matching the destination. I had a choice: keep relying on the map that had me driving in circles, or start asking some different questions.
Today I want to examine the question: What happens when a deeply personal experience — a dream, a vision, a revelation — evolves into something bigger? Something public? Something institutional? Something beyond the dreamer?
I recently got around to a movie that has been sitting in my queue for years - the 2017 Netflix film “The Discovery.” Early in the film, we are introduced to our protagonist, Will, played by Jason Segel.
Will is the son of Dr. Thomas Harbor, a scientist, played by Robert Redford, who has recently gone public with the claim he’d proven that the afterlife is real. I will state here that this is not a film making a statement about any religion. While the afterlife is seemingly confirmed, that afterlife is not called Heaven, and there aren’t any ministers taking victory laps, as I recall, but there is some proof that death is not the end. That there is a there, there.
The great mystery solved.
What is the afterlife? Is it the same for everyone? These questions were still unknowns, but “Is Death Final?” No. That much, for Dr. Harbor, was no longer a question of faith, but an actuality. A certainty.
Instead of bringing peace to the world, validation to religion, mass conversions, or at least a global exhalation of anxiety, society almost immediately begins to unravel.
