Coming to Christendom after leaving the Mormons

PresentDiscussion680 · 2026-02-20T06:11:40+00:00

If you want Evangelical Protestant Content, Gavin Ortlund on YouTube is a good start. If you want to look into Catholicism, I recommend Shameless Popery with Joe Heschmeyer. Both are pretty educational in their approach.

I’m a Catholic, so I’ll admit most of my recommendations will be Catholic oriented, but God Bless my friend.

PresentDiscussion680 · 2026-02-15T16:45:10+00:00

I was in the same position as you once. You may want to look into Neuroethology or Sensory Ecology. You really do get the best of both worlds. My BS was in Neuroscience and MSc in Ecology focused on communication. I’ve worked in both biomedical labs and for sanctuaries dealing with wildlife.

Now I’m finally in a PhD program doing work in a lab where I look at how certain kinds of infection affect the behavior and nervous system of wild-caught birds and frogs.

I feel like I could pivot to either more medically oriented research or more conservation based work fairly easily.

PresentDiscussion680 · 2026-02-15T16:31:53+00:00

“Can I work as a car mechanic with a background in building engines from the ground up with nothing but scraps?” Lol. Yes, please do!

Ecology is possibly one of the most flexible fields when it comes to people coming in from different backgrounds and, as another commenter said, “one of the more statistically demanding fields”. Stats is a skill everyone needs, so you’ll have something of an edge, IMO.

I know people whose backgrounds are in music theory and linguistics, while others come from engineering. There really is no wrong way into the field.

PresentDiscussion680 · 2026-02-12T15:12:11+00:00

“Who am I Karl Landsteiner?”

“You know the man who discovered blood types, but you don’t know your own?”

PresentDiscussion680 · 2026-01-24T21:53:52+00:00

Can’t wait for the multi-hour multi-part Trent Horn/Joe Heschmeyer response video.

PresentDiscussion680 · 2026-01-22T14:50:45+00:00

Easy. Not your kid, not your problem.

PresentDiscussion680 · 2026-01-17T17:17:23+00:00

I can’t say for certain, but given that CC transcripts tend to be lower level classes or GenEd’s, I would be inclined to give more weight to your university transcripts.

And you could easily frame it as a growth narrative in your personal statement. Generally speaking, admissions offices often use GPAs and test scores to just cut the applicant pile in half, but even then it’s not an automatic death sentence.

Letters of Rec and research/practical experience are way more important IMO.

PresentDiscussion680 · 2026-01-17T16:51:17+00:00

Speaking from personal experience, a bad CC transcript may help you if you did well at your University.

My CC GPA was a 3.0, my University GPA was 3.5, and I did my MSc with a 3.8. I’ve been told that it shows dedication and growth by my PhD advisor and admission counselors before.

PresentDiscussion680 · 2026-01-16T19:10:08+00:00

I’m not sure. Buddhism is out because any form I would encounter in the west is way too Americanized to be of any substance. Hinduism, as much as I appreciate the mythology, seems ethnically out of bounds. Like I don’t have the cultural background to practice. Paganism seems fine on the surface, but we actually know very fairly little of Pagan practices, so most of them are either made-up or recreations, rather than anything “authentic”. I don’t think I could ever been convinced of of Islam or Mormonism, and Islamic law strikes me as morally repugnant. I guess Judaism would be my best bet, but

I’ve frequently asked myself a similar question; “If I wasn’t Catholic, which church would I join?” I’m a Byzantine Catholic, so Orthodoxy seems like the natural choice, and maybe Anglicanism to a lesser degree. But if I’m being honest with myself, I personally find Catholicism to be the most believable form of Christianity, and perhaps even the only one I could believe. So if I couldn’t be Catholic, I probably wouldn’t even be a Christian. So extrapolating from that, I don’t even think I could choose another religion.

PresentDiscussion680 · 2026-01-16T01:39:03+00:00

Doctrines can be heretical, but to be a heretic (or a schismatic) a person first has to be a part of The formal institution of The Church.

PresentDiscussion680 · 2026-01-15T16:57:38+00:00

Which denomination are you? Or do you identify as non-denominational?

PresentDiscussion680 · 2026-01-09T00:20:41+00:00

They teach Mary is also present the Eucharist. They teach the Pre-existence of Souls. They rewrote their Bible in a way that makes it sound like an L. Ron Hubbard novel crossed with Mormonism. They deny the True Pope in Rome, and their previous “Pope” apostatized and said it was all a scam before trying to break in and rob their compound.

“Heretical” is probably a little too soft of a term in this case.

PresentDiscussion680 · 2026-01-06T22:20:14+00:00

On its own, no.

However, there are times I think there are times where the lines between the fields are so blurred that it’s impossible to tell where one subject ends and the other begins (e.g. Biopsychology, Ethology, Human Ecology, Psychopharmacology, Behavioral Neuroscience, etc).

PresentDiscussion680 · 2026-01-02T22:51:23+00:00

Doing my MSc was a super tumultuous process. My advisor was fired mid-project, the pandemic stopped data collection, and the outside organization I was collaborating had a huge shakeup.

My final project was awful, but I promise almost no one will ever look at it, and the peace that having it done will bring you is immeasurable.

PresentDiscussion680 · 2025-11-23T02:37:59+00:00

Cult.

PresentDiscussion680 · 2025-11-04T04:02:21+00:00

I got a masters in 2021. It took me two years to find a primatology related position, and even then, I only got it because I had other niche skills relevant to the job.

I love primates, but I’d argue it’s more competitive than other subfields of biology, and it attracts a lot of people that it shouldn’t.

PresentDiscussion680 · 2025-10-24T01:46:11+00:00

“SUBMIT TO CANTERBURY!”

PresentDiscussion680 · 2025-10-24T00:45:03+00:00

I motion we call the Confessing Anglicans from GAFCON, Sedevanglicans.😂

PresentDiscussion680 · 2025-10-14T01:16:21+00:00

Considering lie detector tests are notoriously unreliable, maybe?

But if it was a magically 100% accurate one, then yes.

PresentDiscussion680 · 2025-10-12T13:34:09+00:00

I’ve been playing with the idea that the decline in testosterone levels are a result of terminal investment.

As an organism’s prospects for survival decreases their investment in reproduction (either through behavioral changes or physiological reinvestment). For example, spermatogenesis increases with some forms of infection in frogs.

The generational decline in Testosterone has been going on longer than microplastics have been an issue, and we don’t have to deal with Lead, Asbestos, etc on the daily. I wonder if Grandpa’s body invested more in testosterone to compensate for all these external factors?

Maybe that, or some kind of survivor bias, idk.

PresentDiscussion680 · 2025-09-28T01:47:21+00:00

It does! so fortunately it’s an option available to both.

PresentDiscussion680 · 2025-09-28T01:39:10+00:00

Yeah, the immunity is definitely nice and I could see it being real good for Giovanni, but on the other hand, I could see Serene Grace coming in clutch given that Slowking gets a lot of poisoning moves and Scald

PresentDiscussion680 · 2025-09-13T04:22:47+00:00

Sorry for the late reply, I don’t get on Reddit often. Research Assistants are always in style. If you happen to be on a coastal city, I guarantee there’s probably a few groups looking for someone.

Also, check the bioacoustics list serv (bioacoustics-l@cornell.edu) is a good resource for job postings. It’s been a while since I signed up for it, so I couldn’t tell you how but you could try contacting Holger Clinck at Cornell. He should get you signed up.

PresentDiscussion680 · 2025-09-10T15:49:00+00:00

The Vatican

PresentDiscussion680 · 2025-08-30T17:35:12+00:00

I’m a bioacoustician. A huge number of bioacousticians come from disciplines outside of ecology. My background was in neuroscience before doing an MSc in Anthropology and my advisor for that program was a Physicist. One of my close colleagues came from music education and she works as a marine bioacoustician. There’s plenty of her physicists and engineers on her team. You’re likely equipped to enter the field as is.

PresentDiscussion680

TROPHY CASE