Don't Even Think About It

As you can see, I am now telling more specifics of my story in the Mormon Church. I did not guess before at how horrible it really was for me.

For a lot of Mormons, there is the Mormonism from the LDS pamphlets and magazines. Everyone is clean and happy. The temples are beautiful. The people are spiritual. The lifestyles are clean and simple.

But there is obviously a lot more to Mormonism than the obvious PR efforts of the LDS Church. These PR efforts don't just fool people who are not Mormon. They fool Mormons. Apparently, the brainwashing required to believe everything the LDS Church tells a person is at a very high level. I can tell you that I believe that many people are pulled into the LDS Church, or pulled out of the position of doubting because the PR is so beautiful. If you pick up a copy of the Ensign, the LDS Church's monthly magazine, you will find calming photography and articles that seem to talk about how to be a happier, more well-adjusted person. The PR is way too beautiful.

What is not beautiful is the experience of an inquisitive, inquiring, intelligent member of the Mormon Church. If you have the brains to question your leaders, you may be suddenly pulled back into a cycle of "repentance." If you speak to your bishop, he will ask you if you have been doing things right and give you a lecture about how you're supposed to read your scriptures and pray twice daily and serve others. He will lecture you on your personal obligations. If you have doubts, it's your fault, not the fault of the leaders or the doctrine.

If you read church literature, looking for confirmations of your new ideas, you may feel confused, and again chastised for doubting. You may be told to stop seeking the mysteries that you have no business knowing. You may be told your idea is flat wrong, even if you have actively put this idea to the test and gotten good results.

And then, you are told you must remain loyal to the LDS Church. Your fate as a person who "falls away" from this organization is that you have become evil, or someone who misleads others. You may be pointed to the chapter in the Book of Mormon about Zeezrom the Anti-Christ. (Alma 30) You may be told that you will not inherit the Celestial Kingdom, the place in the Afterlife that the LDS people believe is the place where the good people are rewarded. You may be told that you are a son or a daughter of perdition. A son or daughter of perdition, in LDS speak, is someone who sinned against the greater light. They have sinned against the Holy Ghost by denying the truths that they were formerly taught. They inherit hell, or outer darkness. They are the children of the devil. They do not inherit a pleasant kingdom of glory.

Basically, you are scared shitless to even leave the LDS Church. And if you do, you may believe that the world you are to embrace is too frightening or evil to live in. You may want to come back, even if leaving seemed like a good idea in the past.

I will tell you that it is indeed very lonely to not participate in the LDS Church, once you have left it. It is for me. All of your social contacts end up being inside the Church. You may lack a social life for a while during the time you are figuring out your beliefs and what kind of person you will next be able to trust.

But it is very worth it, in my mind, to learn how to trust in myself. I was not taught by the Church to trust myself. I was taught to do what my leaders told me to do. And I was told that my life was not for my pleasure. It was to serve God. But, the more I made life my pleasure, my comfort, my well-being, the less brainwashed I got. I now believe that I took several years to unbrainwash enough to even think about never going back. To be born into the LDS Church is to have your life determined by someone else. If I had known that as a child, I may never have gone back after my first bout of doubting.

Fear and Want

Well, I think there has been a lot of anger for what the Mormon Church has caused me. I think that the Mormon Church has made me like strange, evil people. Because after a while, the contradictory and over-restrictive doctrines just made me crazy. Did I know the difference between good and evil or did I flatter myself into believing that I did?

Everywhere I turned someone found something else to disapprove of in someone in the human race. It was to the point that my psychoanalysis of someone else's situation did not yield a sympathetic or normal result.

First of all, most worth mentioning, is the idea that if you have sinned the Holy Spirit completely leaves you and it makes you feel depressed and worthless and hopeless. It causes you despair. Here's the hitch. Plenty of people have had despair. Does it mean that they have all sinned? Actually, I correlate despair with a lack of hope that life is going to work out. Maybe some people despair because of their debts. Some may despair because they are so lonely. I see despair as a warning sign, not a curse or a brand. Despair says, "You need to start trying to solve this situation, either by physically changing it, or developing new perspectives."

Despair has good messages for us. Any emotional state can be exploited for our good in the end. So why should a religion try to control or over-label someone's emotions? I just don't know! I could swear that people judged me ill if they ever thought I was depressed. They thought I had done something wrong, as in that I had sinned, or they thought I had used illegal drugs. We were told we were supposed to be of good cheer. We were actually supposed to look happy and cheerful and be positive. We were supposed to have been comforted in our grief by the Holy Spirit so that we would no longer grieve or despair if we had lost something major or experienced the death of a loved one. We were supposed to want certain things. We were supposed to want to go to the temple. We were supposed to want to get married in the temple. We were supposed to want to share life with a spouse from a rather young age. We were supposed to want children. We were supposed to have righteous desires. We were supposed to want to serve a mission. We were supposed to want to spread the gospel. Yes, we considered ourselves as having the good news of the gospel. We were supposed to want to do everything for our families and children and the church. We were supposed to want to go to church and enjoy the Sabbath Day. We were supposed to have good attitudes. It went on and on and on and on.

After a while, I supposed that I really was supposed to want certain things. After a while, I wanted nothing, because I was stuffed full of what I was supposed to want. I was supposed to want to feast on the scriptures and the words of the prophets. Well, I took that one so far that it created doubt in my mind about what I was supposed to want and if I even wanted to participate in the church anymore. For you see, I really wanted the truth and was gradually sickened more and more to analyze the speech of those professing to be the saints of God. They weren't saintly. They were mean and thoughtless and shallow. And when they spoke of Jesus Christ, it was in a New Agey way that indicated they thought that Jesus fixed everything for them. More than one person said that they had turned their lives over to God or Christ. More than one woman who spoke up in Relief Society said that they had stopped making decisions. God was making all their decisions for them. I will begin to describe the dysfunction this caused in my own life.

I would like to say that since I was fed so much of what I should want that it caused dysfunction in my life when I made my decisions. First of all, I was very concerned that my decisions were all the right decisions. Though the Mormon Church preaches about free agency, they like to say that we only really have the right to use our free will to make the right choices. We are not supposed to consciously make a bad choice. This froze me up. I couldn't even decide if I wanted pizza or ice cream for lunch! It was that bad. Other people, I am sure, saw this dysfunction, but they hardly ever said anything about it. I am now wondering if they did not also have this dysfunction.

Secondly, I was looking for someone to tell me what the right decision was. God wouldn't tell me, so I looked everywhere I could for people who would tell me what to do. I watched Oprah and Dr. Phil. I could swear I was getting good information. However, what was happening was that I was becoming a sucker for every idea that their shows offered. And I only got more anxious. Dr. Phil, I have started to notice, is not the world's most compassionate TV personality.

Then there were the self-help books. I kept reading self-help books with the idea that they would tell me what to do with my life. Again, I was brainwashed into thinking I couldn't make my own decisions without making spiritually costly mistakes and killing my free agency. We are actually taught that making bad choices limits our free agency so that we can only choose from a more and more limited menu, due to the fact that our sins are bringing consequences of imprisoning our lives. So, in my fear, I was sure someone else new the formula for my life. The self-help books all read very nicely. Maybe there was a plan that lasted eight weeks? Maybe it would completely change my life? Well, often these plans were actually for the very ambitious, and I couldn't even start on them. I kept despairing. I kept giving up. I started being the person who would never... (fill in the blank with anything I might ever try to do.)

Again, I was a child of God who just couldn't seem to get it right. There was a commandment I wasn't obeying. I wasn't praying for the right thing. I didn't have enough faith. I hadn't been to the temple. Again, I never went for the endowment ceremonies. I only ever went to do baptisms for the dead, a boring and harmless ritual itself.

After a while, I was very, very worn out. I had anxious thinking that spun me around in circles. I wasn't a normal, functioning adult. It turns out that I was over zealous, and still thinking that I was one of the worst LDS people out there.

After a while, I started to take care of my anxiety. I started programming myself with how I should live. I started learning to console myself. I had anxiety attacks, but after a while, instead of just thinking I was a mess, I started to think of myself with more compassion. I trained myself to relax during an attack so that it couldn't go on and ruin my whole day and wear me out completely. I read a lot of books and got a little therapy, and after a while, I was on my own. I was my own anti-anxiety coach.

After becoming my own anti-anxiety coach, I started noticing that people were condemning fear. They were saying in the meetings that fear was a sin. It was a sin to fear. They were using this scriptural reference: "There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love" ( 1 John 4:18).

People were using this scripture to mean that if you had fear you were unloving and unspiritual. If you had the love of God in you, you wouldn't be fearful. I sort of believed and disbelieved this philosophy. It was hard to talk against the Bible. However, I knew that my vicious cycle of fear and anxiety meant that something was physically wrong and I did not completely know how to cope with life. I began to not be able to cope with life at all.

Now I know that it was out of fear that people were pointing out this Biblical idea. They were afraid people would think they were fearful. So, instead of fessing up about their fear, they decided to condemn fear in all people. They were anxiety-ridden too. They were deflecting the spotlight off of themselves and onto all those sinners out there.

Apparently, we weren't supposed to have any fear about what our leaders were telling us to do. In some cases, we may have been humiliating ourselves in front of other people to prove we were faithful to the Mormon Church. Some members served two-year missions and did every form of proselyting behavior their mission president asked them to do. They were out in public, constantly trying to attract attention to the Mormon Church. They had to approach people and ask them personal questions about their religious and spiritual beliefs. They constantly had to tell people that they knew that the Mormon Church was true. And the members were supposed to be missionaries too. They had to give out Books of Mormon to their friends. They were supposed to bear their testimonies to their friends, saying things like, "And I know that Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world," and on and on and on.

And then, on top of the humiliation and constant swimming against the social current, these poor people are supposed to be perfect. And that is the burden I carried. And nothing lightened the load.

I suppose now, that it was a sign that I was allowed to endure. It was not taken from me. And that is a good thing. It was a sign I had better start to at least distance myself emotionally from that which I could not do or handle. It was a sign that I was the only one who knew myself. My leaders did not know me. And I knew it. It didn't matter how much I thought they were called of God, they were not telepathic mind-readers. They DID NOT KNOW ME.

I knew myself. I knew myself enough to keep myself alive for one more day. And they only hampered my efforts.

Word of Wisdom, Word of Foolishness: Part II

I left off my discussion of the Word of Wisdom in verse 9.



Verses 1 and 2 could actually be described as a colophon, an introduction to a book of the Bible or Book of Mormon in which the author identifies himself and his purpose. Verse 2, "To be sent greeting.." sounds like an attempt to greet the early LDS Church, the way Paul would greet his parishioners and friends in the letters that are now in the New Testament. It sounds somewhat pathetic to me.



Verse 10 tells the Church that "all wholesome herbs God hath ordained for the constitution, nature and use of man." In the bottom margin of my copy of the D&C, it states that "herbs" means "plants."



Verse 11: "Every herb in the season thereof, and every fruit in the season therof; all these to be used with prudence and thanksgiving."



Basically, Smith is saying that all good plant foods are for the use of man. This makes sense in a kind of modern way. We are always being told by nutritionists, dieticians, the food pyramid, that fruits and vegetables are very good for us. Also, some of us know how to safely use herbals to improve our health. This makes sense!



The only criticism I would have is the phrase "God hath ordained." Does God ordain and unordain substances for us to use? Or is it just a fact that certain things are good for us? Are we so restricted that we have to ask if our Nachos are ordained for our consumption? Is Smith trying to comment on the dietary restrictions of the Mosaic Law found in the Old Testament? Does he think he is giving his new restrictions for a new order? Are these restrictions and recommendations really that powerful?

Then we are told we use these plants "in the season thereof." Does this mean that no matter how well you preserved your potatoes that you can't eat them outside of potato season. Now that it has been three months since harvest you can no longer eat any preserved, dried element of those potatoes? I find this ridiculous!

And then there is the idea you should use these things with "prudence and thanksgiving." The word "temperance" appears in my footnotes. Sure, if you have been dosing yourself with the refined product of the sugar cane in excess you may feel strange. But the "thanksgiving" part is making me wonder. Do I always have to eat in "thanksgiving." If I don't feel thankful to I have to starve? Again, I find this ridiculous! I don't think so at all!

I have go to say that at this point, I don't want to explain this anymore! I am getting really annoyed and disgusted. You can find this stuff at lds.org if you want to continue reading. Or perhaps you have obtained copies of LDS scripture. This is horrible. I refuse to go on.

It seems like I used to believe in Section 89 of the Doctrine and Covenants. And I don't believe in it anymore! I have really, really had it! I used to be so brainwashed that I didn't notice all the idiocies and inconsistencies in these writings. But now, after reading some literature about what happens to a person who is brainwashed or abused, I am starting get a sense that I just don't respect all of these things that I used to believe.

I have figured out that Joseph Smith was inserting weird ideas into his translation of the Book of Mormon. Basically, I find the Book of Mormon to be a book worth reading and pondering, but he messed with the manuscript afterward. He added and deleted things. And then he went on to receive the Doctrine and Covenants? I don't think he earned half of those revelations. I think some of them are actually from Satan they are so bad.

The simple fact of the matter is that just because I like some of the literature the LDS Church prints does not mean that I like all of it.

I have been thinking I have to condemn or defend every word I have believed at one point or another. But I don't have to do either one. And I think that any readers out there, at this time, have got the point that I want to convey.

I do not want to be imprisoned by this literature anymore. I might read it, or use it, or criticize it again in the future, but I don't have to be imprisoned by it.

There is a lot I have to learn on the road to becoming a full person. I have just decided that all I need to do is to keep down that road and do whatever is necessary in each section of that long highway. I'll be fine. It is okay to relax and realize that I feel hostile to some things that were pushed on me, to the point that all I need to do is know for myself about certain things.

And as I add entries to this blog, I can write about anything I feel comfortable covering.

There are many dimensions to the life and belief systems of one person.

Word of Wisdom, Word of Foolishness: Part I

Doctrine and Covenants 89 is the Joseph Smith revelation that defines the law of health that the LDS Church is probably most famous for. One of the problems of investigators of this church is the fact that they have to give up things like coffee and beer.

Joseph Smith says he got this revelation when he was meeting with the brethren and they were using tobacco and other things in the meetings. The result was a dirty room with tobacco spit all over it. No one really wanted to clean it up.

Joseph Smith quickly turned it around by giving the contents of Doctrine and Covenants 89. It is a very interesting document because it seems to contain good ideas, and it seems to me to be completely made up as well.

Let me start with verse one. This Word of Wisdom is given for the benefit of the high priests, the church, and the saints in Zion.

Verses two and three I will quote directly: "To be sent greeting; not by commandment or constraint, but by revelation and the word of wisdom, showing forth the order and will of God in the temporal salvation of all saints in the last days--

"Given for a principle with a promise, adapted to the capcity of the weak and the weakest of all saints, who are or can be called saints."

Joseph Smith is greeting the Church. He is not commanding or constraining. But this is revelation and words of wisdom. It shows what God meant to be the temporal (or physical) salvation of all saints in the days before the second coming of Jesus Christ.

It is adapted to the capacity of the weak and weakest of all those who can be called saints.

Basically, Smith is saying that those who do not follow the restrictions and instructions in this revelation will not be called saints at all. They are not holy or chosen or very good. They are doing things indicative of people without spiritual power. They may be evil people.

This does not make sense to me. I actually do not believe that people who drink coffee are evil. I do not believe a New Year's toast is the act of an evil person.

I also think that some very weak people actually are weak enough that they can't quit their addictions, be they gambling or alcohol or anything else. They try but they don't have all the steps to their personal addiction problem. Calling people unholy or evil because they can't deal with their problems which happen to be too great is excessively harsh and judgmental.

And even trickier is the idea that this is a friendly greeting to the Church. And that it is not given by commandment or constraint. Why would you say that if you just called all people who do not follow this unholy? Isn't the judgmental nature of such language indicative of a strong commandment or constraint? Isn't the will of God something stronger than a friendly greeting or suggestion?

Well, here we go with the next verse. It seems that Smith believed, in verse four, that their are conspiring men in the last days with evils and designs in their hearts. It does seem that verse four has a legitimate ring. Advertising for alcoholic beverages and cigarettes and coffee can be found that lure in people too young to have these substances. And persons who are vulnerable because of immaturity or lack of critical thinking may decide that they indeed do want a Lucky cigarette. This is the part that drew me in as a young person. But was verse four actual revelation? It may be that it described something accurate in Smith's day. I do not know for sure on this one at all.

Verse five says that it is not good in the sight of "your Father" to partake of wine or strong drink. Basically Smith does not feel that God the Father would approve of persons partaking of strong drinks. What are strong drinks according to LDS people? They are alcoholic beverages.

It also states that strong drink is only appropriate for offering up your sacraments before God.

Verse six says that it should be "pure wine of the grape of the vine, of your own make." Basically, you can make wine to serve during the passing of the sacrament in a church meeting.

This passage is actually outdated. LDS persons in the twenty-first century only partake of water in sacrament meetings, not wine. And any touch of an alcoholic beverage to the lips is considered a sin that you can be disciplined for. Basically no one so much as has one sip of a weaker alcoholic beverage like wine or beer.

Verse seven states that strong drinks are not for the belly but for the washing of your body.

Verse eight states that tobacco is not for the body or for the belly, but it is an herb bruises and an herb for sick cattle. It should be "used with judgment and skill."

Verse nine introduces hot drinks. Smith says they are not for the body or the belly. According to Brigham Young hot drinks are coffee and tea.

I think that verse nine is weak since Smith himself right in his own revelation does not say what hot drinks are. It is so unclear that Brigham Young himself had to teach his parishioners that coffee and tea were what was meant. No true revelation from God would be so vague that people in the same century could not figure out what it meant.

I also object to the use of the term "hot drinks". It seems that Bruce R. McKonkie in Mormon Doctrine thought that this meant that anything too hot or too cold was bad for the stomach. I disagree with this idea to the fullest extent. I also think that it is no sin to drink certain types of teas, as long as you are careful of the ingredients in them. Perhaps plain old black tea and the teas of certain extremely powerful plants are to be avoided. Also, these days, tea that is sold as tea but secretly contains drugs is something I have run across. It also seems to be that addiction to coffee could backfire as well. But I see no reason that someone needing a stimulant in a bad situation should not drink it.

I am going to end this discussion of the Word of Wisdom right here. It is long and contains many implications. I will continue later in Part II.

My Reasons Are Important

I absolutely cannot believe myself today! I started feeling really bad. I couldn't believe I had been thinking horrible things about the Mormon Church. I sort of wanted to go back. But now as I type this, the episode has vanished. I think I started feeling really sorry for myself that what used to be my social arena was yanked out from under me. I wondered if I could go to a meeting. It seemed that for a few hours, I would have gone to another church meeting. And then, I started watching a stupid movie on AMC and now I don't care to go back. It was an episode of brainwashed irrationality!

I absolutely cannot go back! I am obviously in a grieving process. And my brainwashing is still being undone.

Oh man. This seems to be the dangerous time. It seems that absolute hatred of the Mormon Church is too strong for me right now. I am still feeling sensitive that I ever did anything for that church. It's like I'm saying inside, "Say those horrible things. I can see how they're true." And then the other half of me says, "Oh, please don't say that. I was a real Mormon. It comforted me."

Basically, I don't think that going completely bitter is for me. I think the problem is black and white thinking. It seemed that I had to have black and white thinking to believe the Mormon stuff. The "white" thinking was "This is a great church. The hymns bring in the Spirit. God loves me. I feel the Spirit. You are not a member of my church. You must feel so awful! Wasn't General Conference great!" The "black" thinking is, "That church is a cult! Those people take away your freedom! Their doctrines are horrible. What I saw in the temple is shocking! They're all brainwashed!"

It seems that learning thinking that resides in the middle is more for me. I think that the dark thinking at its darkest is not anything my heart can abide. But when I think about how unhappy I was and what my beliefs are now, that makes me feel better. I think it is essential to my recovery from that horrible church to know the worst stuff, especially some of the thoughts of others wanting to break from it. On a certain level, it strengthens me and makes me understand some of my weirder, more disturbing memories.

But those most awful things were not why I quit attending. They are not why I am thinking of having my name taken out of the membership. My own misery and my own doubt and my own disgust in believing in such a narrow-minded God are why I am gone. My own beliefs about good and evil and holy books are why I am gone. I am not just becoming bitter. I am becoming my own person. I am developing my own positive and negative views. I am becoming a more healthy, normal version of myself.

I was not fighting for the right to say the most horrible things I could think of to say to the LDS Church. I was fighting for the right to no longer be harassed, to be free, to love the truth and not lies. I was fighting to have a better life.

I am not getting out to make excuses and tell everyone that it was all the Mormon's fault. I am getting out to save my soul. I am getting out so my heart doesn't have to be staked over and over again. I am getting out so my natural intelligence won't be cursed anymore. I am getting out to be more tolerant of the people of the world. I am getting out to have a more abundant life. I am getting out so that if I marry I can marry any man I choose, not just someone who talks about the temple and his mission and why being a man with the priesthood is so special.

I like people. I like a variety of people. I don't like a clone. I like a real person. I want real friends. In the Mormon Church, I had friends that lied too much to be true friends. When I get over the injuries of feeling brainwashed and feeling like I've wasted my life I will start to make more friends. I will go places I want to go. I will do things I want to do. And when that happens, I know that real friends start to follow.

And what if I reconnect with old friends and discover that some really were friends?

I can feel the difference between asserting my needs and beliefs and taking on other's frustration. I am not ready to absorb the hurts of all who are bitter. It doesn't matter. All that matters is that I save myself and then get to see the best I seek in humanity again.

I don't have to be bitter. Being bitter makes me feel so bad that it pushes me back. Being myself keeps me out of horrible organizations. Being myself builds someone who would not let others take excessive advantage of her. I am discovering my own value. I am discovering who does have the truth. And so many people live with good things in their lives. I want to be one of those people, and I want to be free.

The Final Straw to the Last Exit

It is getting shocking. The more I engage myself in expressing my views on the LDS Church and the more I find out about how horrible the Church is at its worst, the more I am alienated from the perception I had of it only one year ago. I was breaking away, but I still thought it was all okay and very virtuous.

I just wonder what percentage of people break away who were born into the Mormon faith. I think it is much lower than for those who were converted for only a few years. It feels like I am getting away on very, very low odds.

How did this happen? Why did this happen? One thing that LDS authorities would say to me is that I should not ask why. I should ask why not. I shouldn't chafe against trials and adversity. They will only make me stronger. I should be grateful to God.

Here's the only problem. If something bad is happening to you, you should ask why. The answer to the question may get you out. I asked, "Why don't I feel like I fit in with church members? And, why does it get harder and harder for me to go to church?" If I had completely soaked in every bit of brainwashing, I would have stopped asking the question, and started forcing myself in a very cruel way to go back. But I hadn't. That was the miracle. I hadn't soaked in every piece of brainwashing. I just started to tell myself that I was different from those people. I had done everything I could to connect with them and there was nothing else I could do. I also realized that my mother and father were both from cultures that resisted some LDS ideas. And then I asked why it was harder and harder to go to church. And I wasn't satisfied until I told myself that I thought the church meetings were boring, dissatisfying, untruthful, and unpleasant. And then, gradually, I began to accept that the Lord really was telling me to stay away. And I realized that He meant that I should stay away permanently.

So, what was the final straw that broke when I finally completely left and told myself that all of it wasn't true?

It was gradual, but there were some cruel moments.

There was a time in my life when I thought I was really happy. I was happily doing some callings in my church and enjoying the association of some of the young people inside of it. I felt that I had never been happier. But things went wrong.

At a certain point, I began to feel very, very depressed. It seemed that I could never get rid of the depression. I felt physically like I was dying. I tried to get treatment. The treatment didn't work. But when I did stupid little things like taking naps and taking vitamins, I started to shake it off.

One Sunday, despite the fact that I had callings to fulfill in my ward, I suddenly decided that there was no way I could go to church. I felt oppressed by the very idea. I decided to call the Relief Society President to tell her that I wouldn't be there to fulfill my duties. I told her that if I went, I wasn't going to wear a skirt. I was going to wear pants. She started to pep talk me. She yelled that I was going to show up and that I was going to wear a skirt. She did such a good job that I showed up at church in a skirt. No woman attends Sunday meetings at that church in pants. It is considered very tacky.

By that summer, however, I was less and less active. I had gotten too old for the young single adult ward I was going to, and I found that I didn't like other wards at all. I didn't like my home ward. And I was way too nervous for the singles ward for older adults. I felt completely uncomfortable there. I couldn't speak to people. They all seemed old and decayed. And here's the kicker. The oldest people in that ward were 45 years old. They shouldn't have looked that decayed!

I began to tap into the idea that I thought something was wrong with those older single people. Somehow, I was much younger at heart. And I was truly kicking the depression. Unfortunately, in the fall, I attended my home ward for a year more. Again, the depression kicked in. I even complained verbally about it to ward members.

A year and a half later, I found myself completely unable to go to church. I developed a really bad cold, and became afraid for my physical and mental health. I stayed away because going made me feel sicker. It seemed, somehow, that I felt freer on a physical and mental level when I was out of that church. I was less depressed. I didn't suffer so much from colds. It was really, really weird. I had no choice but to stay away. 2004 was the last year that I fully attended and participated in the LDS Church. After that I could only dabble in pretending to be an active LDS Church member.

As you can see, it took way too long for me to figure out that I was in the best place not going to that church. It took me almost three more years to break from it.

In 2006, I was sent visiting teachers that I argued with. That has been covered in a previous blog entry.

In 2007, I tried going to a Relief Society book club. I still thought about going permamently back to Sunday meetings. But the last straw came when someone in the book club started racially slurring the author of the book I chose. The author was of a different race and culture. It was exactly why I picked the book. I thought the other book club members would appreciate this mind-broadening, but they didn't.

I walked out of the book club meeting seconds after the racial slurring. I went home and realized that the LDS Church was not the true church. I realized that I would not go back. I had been disgusted and treated badly by those people for too long. God had told me to stay away for too long. I finally got it. I finally broke through the curse my mind had had on it for years. I finally stopped believing everything. I finally got out my church handouts and began to go through them. I threw out more than half of them.

The people were too evil and the doctrines were too lazily and incompletely formed. Even if the LDS Church turned me onto the Bible and other good things, they were destroying my full sense of the truth.

Ever since that day, I have been reviewing LDS doctrines and discarding them. The unique LDS belief that remains in my heart is the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. I really think that God inspired and helped Joseph Smith to come up with that book. Most of the other things he came out with are suspect. I think he made up the First Vision and a few other things. Despite my belief in some sections of the Doctrine and Covenants, Joseph Smith's revelations to the church, I think that he made a lot of them up with no divine inspiration behind them whatsoever. Joseph Smith was supposed to change and shake up the world. He was not supposed to rule it.

Any person who claims to have ever been a prophet will be suspected of lying. But there are people who are prophets, both likely people and unlikely people.

Big problems happen when one prophet is so revered that the others are completely ignored. Forbid that someone should decide that someone is not a prophet because they are from the wrong tradition! But forbid that that prophet is worshipped! Only God should be worshipped.

I was not worshipping God by going to that church. I was worshipping its leaders past and present. That is not what I wanted at all. That is not what I needed at all. I am freer than I thought. I am right where everyone else is. Sometimes I think I know that truth and sometimes I think I am feeling very, very confused. I'm just like everyone else. How strange.

How strange, but how fortunate.

I Am Actually Lucky!

I am a luckier person than I thought. I caught onto exmormon.org. I have been reading the stories and opinions of people there. It seems that I avoided something very terrible. I avoided the temple endowment. Apparently there is some twistedness and trauma in going to get your endowments. I believe these people because I realize that God really was protecting me from the worst aspect of the Mormon Church. If I had gone to get my endowments, I would have suffered a fate worse than death. I may even have killed myself over the fact that this was what I was supposed to do and yet, when I did it, I realized that it was totally evil.

Thank goodness that those experiences have not happened to me! It may be why I am alive today! I was so devoted! I would have been crushed!

I think that the aura the LDS Church creates around its members is one of the great delusions out there. I never realized how horrible it could seem to others.

And yet, I think I suffered because I felt the lack of truth in the church meetings. I felt the lack of good feelings. I felt the lack of things I used to feel. Because, it has actually gotten worse over the years. I can tell the members are far more demented and less open to truth and new ideas than they used to be.

For example, in one Relief Society meeting (the women's meeting), a lesson was given on how we should accept death and we shouldn't grieve when people die because they are going to a place where God will take care of them. Not only was the content of this lesson over the top in its brainwashing dumbing down of the members, but it was also made worse by the insensitivity of the teacher. She claimed to have gone to her grandmother's funeral as a child and laughed and giggled the whole way through. Then she claimed that this was the way she was supposed to behave. Then other members chimed in and told stories about reproving the grief of others, as if it was a sin!

It is true that there are ice cold people for whom nothing is bothersome, even death, but these people are usually thought of as sociopaths--human beings without much conscience or emotion! I was getting very, very upset because I remembered the death of an uncle and I was very upset thinking that I didn't know what would happen to his soul now that he was dead. Death is eye opening and hard for a tender heart.

And grief is the most natural thing in the world. You should welcome your grief and help yourself process it. Don't deny it. One of the most important things I have done to help myself recover from Mormon brainwashing is to acknowledge my feelings and ask myself why I might be having them. I do not ignore and belittle my emotions. I welcome them as part of being human. I am not going to grow Spock ears because some religious nuts think it means I accept everything that God has in store for me and my loved ones! Baloney! Shame! Shame! The Mormon Church is a cult.

I really did have to have a few years of therapy to realize that I can have feelings. I am glad I did have some therapy.

Ignoring The Truth

I think that I went a little crazy yesterday. I have had many benefits from being LDS? Well, maybe, maybe not.

I think that there were obvious benefits. I think I named them all. I do think the Book of Mormon was what Joseph Smith was on the earth to translate. He wasn't on the earth to do much else. Sure, he started a church. It seems natural.

But now that we are in the twenty-first century, that church is beginning to seem all wrong. There are many churches out there that have performed good social and spiritual functions without being completely right. But the LDS Church can't just give what it can give and move on. It has to tell people to box themselves in to a strange view and regard people of other cultures and belief systems as wrong. It is not automatically right. Any organization has to earn the right to say that they are the true religion. Have the people been earning the right?

No one has been earning the right. No one will try to break the Book of Mormon spell. Today's LDS person does not search the Bible, does not try other holy writing like the Indian Vedas or the Quran. They do not look at the Apocrypha to see what may be gleaned from those works. I don't even think that they are reading the entire Book of Mormon anymore. Is truth found by unexamined, incomplete, lazy readings done to appease a wrathful God? No, it is not found that way. Does God reward a lazy scholar? No.

LDS scripture itself seems to be against them. This scripture, 3 Nephi 28:34, is from the Book of Mormon: "And wo be unto him that will not hearken unto the words of Jesus, and also to them whom he hath chosen and sent among them; for whoso receiveth not the words of Jesus and the words of those whom he hath sent receiveth not him; and there he will not receive them at the last day."

To me, some of the most important "words of Jesus" are the clear and correct words of the Old and New Testament. Basically, if you do not accept these words and barely accept other words of scripture or inspiration, you are not accepting Jesus. And you will not dwell where He dwells after this life. Basically, a church full of people slowly diluting and perverting every doctrine of goodness I know and then turning their backs on the words that are the true origins of their faith is a church I would best break from and warn others to avoid.

I really cannot avoid the impulse to tell the awful things I was being urged to accept. It doesn't seem right. Why?

First of all, any church professing to be the one true church on earth will attract lots of investigators, even if it doesn't convert many of them. And those it does convert, will be laden with responsibilities and activities of all kinds so that thinking about what one is converted to will not be a natural process. I don't think we should accept apocalyptic or unfamiliar truths without thinking about and testing them.

Alma Chapter 32 is a part of the Book of Mormon that tells you how to test any commandment or doctrine that you come across. I think that by this time I have tested a few interesting doctrines.

Alma 32: 28 says, "Now, we will compare the word unto a seed." And what follows is comparing a test of a doctrine to the growth of that "word" in your heart as a seed. If it begins to grow and becomes a good, or delicious thing, this is a good sign. If it grows to the height of a tree, this is good. Basically, there is a long passage that describes what the words of truth should really do in your heart, and in your life.

I have had some LDS doctrines flunk this test with ugly colors.

Basically, like any other religion in which people claim to believe in Christ, the Bible is a real spring board. The Bible is what got them where they are. To turn your back on the whole Bible so that you may constantly read and re-read and interpret and misinterpret one tiny book is not a good idea. Truth was never in one tiny spot. It seems to be scattered all over.

I will end with this Book of Mormon passage that I have been looking for and finally found. It is 2 Nephi 28: 29-31: "Wo be unto him that shall say: We have received the word of God, and we need no more of the word of God, for we have enough!

"For behold, thus saith the Lord God: I will give unto the children of men line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little; and blessed are those who hearken unto my precepts, and lend an ear unto my counsel, for they shall learn wisdom; for unto him that receiveth I will give more; and from them that shall say, We have enough, from them shall be taken away even that which they have.

"Cursed is he that putteth his trust in man, maketh flesh his arm, or shall hearken unto the precepts of men, save their precepts shall be given by the power of the Holy Ghost."

Some thoughts

I think that as an LDS Church member many things have shocked me. I wonder, though, if this doesn't happen in other churches, too. There are lots of other churches out there, good and bad. This occurred to me today.

Also, it has occurred to me that I still have certain convictions. And I do know the answers to some of the questions I posed in an earlier blog.

I would tell my children to not have sex unless they were married to someone. I think if I told them anything less they would be raised in a manner that was too permissive. I think laying down boundaries that make sense is what works for young people. Whatever I taught them about sex in general, that would be more nit picky. But they would know that I don't believe in much permissiveness in this area of life.

I do not wonder much about swearing. Aside from how any bad words may or may not offend God, I still do not believe I should take the Lord's name in vain. I also should avoid the F-word and the A-word (three letter word for backside).

It seems that there is a sense that I got from being raised LDS that boundaries to your behavior do matter. It seems that too much restrictiveness truly makes a person dart back and forth from the bars of the cage to the back of the cell. However, too much permissiveness can cause anxiety as well. If you really think it is wrong to go rob a bank, you will truly have anxiety as you go to do just that. Also, I don't want to believe in nothing. That is part of what my Bible reading is all about. I think I will always believe in something. After all this time I still believe in God. I think that means something very significant.

I think that the positive things I got from the LDS Church are more than I can count on one hand. I think that if you consider whether or not anything is the truth, and consider a spiritual reality as well as an easily touched physical one, you open your mind in a way that is good for you. I think it's good for society as well. Opening your mind to goodness is a solution to some of the ills of society.

What do I think happens to people who don't believe in goodness? I don't think that they truly understand or measure what they and others around them are capable of. And I think that they can give up on their lives. I know a person who has been in and out of prison. And any desire for goodness seems to be an act. I asked myself why someone would try so hard to lie and manipulate and destroy and never make money in an honest way. And finally, the answer came to me: He has given up on himself. He has given up on his life. He has given up.

This answer that I came up with about this specific person surprised me. Before I decided this it seemed as though I was dealing with a frightening monster--maybe even someone filled with evil impulses. And perhaps he is filled with evil, destructive impulses. But then I saw a sadness, a tragedy. I saw a real human being doing a real thing. I saw someone actually give up on himself.

Do you know what you have to give up to completely give up on youself? You give up on hope. You give up on trying. You give up on your intelligence. You give up on your ability. You give up your truth. You give up your unique values and great plans. You give up on the inherent goodness and value of your soul.

If you have ever have glimpsed how valuable someone really is to you, or how valuable they may be to God, you know that this is indeed a tragedy. I realize, at this point, that this tragedy is nearly indescribable. It is impossible to describe the worth of one human being.

Women, Children, Marriage

I think that one of the things about the LDS Church that slowly aggravated me more and more was the role that the women are supposed to occupy. They said it was a women's calling to have children. It was a woman's calling to be a wife and a mother. Though they also said it was a man's calling to be a husband and a father, they let the men also be breadwinners and the ones who served full-time missions. They encouraged young women to go on missions, but only if they were not married.

When I was younger this didn't bother me. As a child, I preferred it when my mother was in the home, not when she was working.

But there was a bigger picture. After a while, my mother became the breadwinner. She had no choice but to work. She had a career picked out already because she had gone to college and determined that she liked a certain profession. She had even gotten experience in it before marrying.

Despite the fact that the children all felt more secure when mother was home, there was no way to beg off of reality. Reality was there no matter who wanted what. And ironically, right after Ezra Taft Benson made the big speech about women staying home with children, that was when my mother went back to work. It seemed that the Ezra Taft Benson speech was not properly timed. Throughout the eighties and nineties, more and more mothers went back to work. It seems that two income families were doing better and better in the new economy.

I think that the LDS Church's lack of realism was quite stunning. No one really asked if all of this mother stay home stuff was possible and what to do if it wasn't. And it is really clear that women do well in the workplace, too.

What is worse than this, however, is the push for all of the young people to get married. When this happens, people who are not ready to get married get married and suffer. And young men, as well as young women, suffer. There is a backwards view that they have to get married or they will not inherit the highest place in heaven, and so it is best to make them marry when they are young.

Well, a lot of these young marriages break up. At Brigham Young University, the divorce rate was at least eighty percent. And young people could never finish their schooling and keep up a marriage. I remember being that young. I thought I was supposed to get married myself. But I was really bored with all of the young men. There were a few I liked, but I never liked the young men who thought that being Mormon enough to please their parents was the thing to do. I could detect the pleaser disease in the young men more easily than I could in the young women.

What was it like to be at a private religious university? I would say that it was kind of boring and not a very good education. I started to get educated, but the world view was too narrow to help my meagre sense of reality. It seems that my sense of reality needed work first. At a certain point I was very unhappy and couldn't even see that there were other ways to live. I really could have quit school and gone elsewhere, I now realize.

Well, back to the roles of women. After I attended school, I noticed that a friend of mine had a lot of difficulty with child birth. And after two very difficult pregnancies, she decided that she still needed to have another baby, even though the first two nearly killed her. I was frightened for her and realized that her only identity was as a childbearer, and nothing else.

I began to sense that making women solely mothers and childbearers was not only boring and a total pain in the neck; it was dangerous on a physical level. It is as if the most current thought on women is from the nineteenth century. Women can't be happy or survive on this attitude.

I never wanted children. Though I was given to believe that if I did it was a righteous desire. And during the time of my life when I tried the hardest to live the LDS Church's teachings, I never got a desire to have children more than in a shallow, passing way. I was a little envious of the young mothers and their cute offspring, but it was mostly jealously and envy.

At this point, I wonder if it would kill LDS Church leaders to just acknowledge that women have full, well-rounded personalities like men do. A lot of women I have known have enjoyed working, earning money, and becoming independent and living on their own. Women and men are both made happy by accomplishment, independence, and social contact with the outside world.

My own mother never told me she wanted me to get married. She wanted me to get an education. And so far, I have followed my mother's lead much more than I will ever follow the teachings of the LDS Church.

The Holy Bible

I am now reading the Bible. When I was actively attending the LDS Church, I was often reading the Book of Mormon. That is not bad at all. I would occasionally try to read the Bible. The LDS version of the Bible is the King James Version. So, the language was difficult and it was hard to read.

But things got kind of strange. The King James Bible is considered LDS scripture. But there are parts that Joseph Smith altered. He claimed they were a better translation from God. He didn't just change words or decide the Hebrew meant something different. He added whole verses and passages containing concepts that would define Mormon doctrine. The problem is that it looks rather obvious and sometimes destroys the clear, simple meaning of the text.

I believed, for several years, the the Joseph Smith Translation (JST) was correct. And then, I found out that the LDS Church had only approved a certain portion of the manuscript of the JST. And then I began to wonder what criteria they used to choose which passages would be altered.

And currently, as I go through the Bible again, this time, hoping to finish it, not just dabble in it, the JST does not make much sense. Joseph Smith really did make some passages clearer and point out discrepancies that Bible scholars should look at. But I now believe that it ends right there.

I wish to read the King James version of the Bible without relying as much on the JST. It really actually is better and clearer without the added JST passages. Something tells me that this clarity was meant to be.

Any Bible text relies, ultimately, on some old manuscripts that may or may not have properly preserved the text. And there may have truly been some men who altered or cut out passages they didn't like.

But I prefer to believe that there are many ways of dealing with these textual problems. And I prefer to believe that not just one man has all of the answers.

What really fries my cheese is the fact that I was told that The Holy Bible was not as spiritual as the Book of Mormon. This tends to be a rather LDS take on why there is more than one holy book in our religion. I don't believe this.

About five years ago, I went to stake conference, and the main speaker told us that we were to read the Book of Mormon because it would bring in the Holy Spirit. He told us that the Bible would not. I was then wondering if I shouldn't read the whole Bible. I had started to be interested in it. I was enjoying the book of Genesis very much, even to the point that I thought it was entertaining, and a great psychological look at human nature.

And then I went to that stake conference, and I felt guilty for liking the Bible. I stopped reading it and went back to my Book of Mormon.

It was a true tragedy. A few months later, when I tried to pick up the Bible again, it seemed much harder to read. I didn't appreciate or understand it on any level.

Last year, I picked up the Bible again. I found it untrue that the Book of Mormon did a better job of bringing in the Holy Spirit. I felt something very good upon me as I began reading it from the beginning. I began to see how the Bible informs the typical doctrines of the Christian religions. I began to see how valuable it was.

It was truly a good spiritual experience. It was truly a defining moment of my life.

I hope that everyone else out there can, at some point in their lives, have this experience with that very interesting book, the Holy Bible.

Freedom

Dealing with all the negativity of my religious situation has been difficult for me. It would have been easier to lie and say that it was all okay.

But that would be too much of a lie, more of a lie than I like to tell these days.

I think it is therapeutic, however, to realize the truth I have been storing up inside for some time. Making logical sense of it is the task before me.

As I continue to not go to church I have feelings of emptiness along with feelings of relief. I realize how much freer I am to do what I want with my time and money. Part of me is still so used to being a prisoner to an overly narrow belief system that I crave another overly structured, imprisoning situation. I taste a glimpse of what it would be like to be enclosed in a cell for several years, and then be let out.

Freedom is a learned skill.

I am glad to not be paying tithing anymore, but wonder what I will do with my money in the future. It doesn't matter how little money I may have. I depended on the structure to give me security. If I can't donate to a church, what am I supposed to do? I must say that even though it would be logical to be happy I could save more for myself and have more comforts and only give to causes that really pleased me, I am at a loss.

This is life? Is this all there is?

Appreciating freedom is a learned skill.

Being free sometimes means that we are tied up in learning to make decisions for ourselves. The anxiety of having to choose an entire path for yourself can feel like a confusing chore that darts in and out of sight.

Choosing the truths to believe to guide my life by can be trying.

Am I supposed to keep the Sabbath Day holy?

Could I ever order a drink at a bar?

If I had children, what would I tell them about the morality and immorality of sexual activity?

What actually matters for me now?

Can I swear?

Some questions seem big. Some seem petty. But they are all there. They have all occurred to me at some point this week.

Being free is actually a very large responsibility.

More Mayhem

Not only did I decide to not serve an LDS mission. Later, I decided the LDS Church was not what I thought it to be as I was growing up.

About eight years ago, in church, a man was speaking. What he said is not what resonated with me. It was the question of why he was at the pulpit at all. Into my my mind came the idea that it was possible that he was speaking and telling others that the LDS Church was the true church because it was what he was taught and he was passing it on to others. The tradition was that the adults swore to their children that it was true.

This notion was somewhat appealing, more appealing than I thought such a notion should be. It was also scary to be thinking this thought. And in the end I chalked it up to be another doubt.

However, this rare and startling thought surprised me because it was so clear and so different from my other thoughts about the convictions of the men running the LDS Church. I had assumed everyone absolutely believed it was true. I now realize, from talking with certain members that not everyone who is LDS is so sure about their religious tradition.

Not only did I have thoughts of doubt that had a legitimacy, but again, I refused to mimic the pattern I was supposed to follow when bearing my testimony. On the first Sunday of every month, during the hour designated as Sacrament Meeting, any member can get up and speak about their religious feelings. At one point, The First Presidency wanted to teach everyone to declare they believe in Jesus Christ and the Atonement, the Book of Mormon, that the LDS Church is the one true church on earth, and that Joseph Smith's First Vision was true.

More rules. More guidelines. I never really took this testimony pattern as my pattern. And the last time I got up and spoke in testimony meeting, I spoke about the importance of gratitude and how it brings the blessings of God. Notice how all the elements I was supposed to mention never did get mentioned. I am laughing as I write this paragraph.

A few years ago, the doubts started to swarm around my person like flies around the head of a man unbathed for years.

I was supposed to get a temple recommend so that I could attend the temple regularly. Yet, I let it lapse. At first I felt unworthy to go to the temple becuase I found it harder and harder to attend meetings and attend to church duties. I felt like I never did enough and that what I did always threatened to be less than desired by my leaders. I also regarded the temple worthiness questions asked by the bishop to be embarrassingly intrusive to answer.

After a while, refusing to go to a temple recommend interview turned into refusing to do other things.

I began to hate the atmosphere in church. I used to often feel many good spirits in the church building. But in the past three years, whenever I have tried to go to to church, I felt either a dead, spiritless atmosphere, or some kind of evil or bothersome presence.

And my fellow members became more rude. And they often ignored me. Whether or not the members of a ward knew me they became less and less friendly until the friendliness was gone.

And the words spoken in church became more and more uninspired and sometimes downright strange. It seemed like some members wanted to embrace New Age ideas. And other members spoke and acted in ways less full or grace or compassion or mercy. They spoke more and more harsh words to one another and taught each other without compassion or reason.

And then, I actually experienced harassment. The last visiting teachers who came to see me tried to force me to go to church. They didn't bodily force me, but I felt it was the next step up. They tried to force me to say I would be in a meeting the next Sunday. They visited and argued with me two times. Neither time did I ever cave in and say I would be there. I only ever said "Maybe."

Let's just say that when they arrived I took out my verbal judo. The cut throat nature of the arguing was startling. And I threw off their flattery like last year's baloney sandwich.

In the end, I got them. They didn't get me. That things had to be that way was very, very wrong. Organizations that harass others into participation are headed down the wrong road. And basically, this type of behavior of active members toward less active members is something that tells me that the members were never instructed properly on what to do when someone won't attend any meetings.

Let's just say that my attempts to quell my fears about my fading faith never helped. Each attempt to get back to my faith only caused it to fade more and more. It only caused me to hate LDS representations of truth and doctrine further. In the end, the truth as I knew it was so warped that I couldn't even get a grip on what I believed anymore. I only got more corrupted and unable to deal with the brainwashing I needed to undo.

It fast became hopeless for me to identify the actual Truth.

What happened?

Today, I wish to make clear the beginnings of my doubts about the LDS Church.

A long time ago, before my college years, that is, from the seventies up to the early nineties, I was a properly involved church member. I had doubts as a matter of course. It is normal to doubt. I just thought that the Holy Spirit hadn't yet spoken to me and told me that everything about the Church was true.



In the eighties, I began reading my Book of Mormon on my own. On my first reading I was very confused. A few years later, at the age of eighteen, I began to read and enjoy it. And as years went by I could swear it was a true book. I still think it is a book containing truths I have yet to learn about, ponder, and live.



But there is much more to the LDS Church than the Book of Mormon.



Sometime in the nineties I started avoiding going to church meetings. I was a college student at BYU and felt guilty because BYU is a religious university and you are supposed to attend as many of your church meetings as possible. I would often strive to do better and attend a little more often. I would say that at that time the spiritual content of the meetings benefited me. I often felt a good spirit rest upon the meetings.



But problems began to appear which very subtly questioned my loyalty to LDS doctrine.

As young adults, LDS young people are advised to take time off from their social, occupational, and educational pursuits to serve an LDS mission. Basically, the young people who took this suggestion would put in a set of papers to the authorities and then wait to be assigned a location--France, Ohio, California, Scotland. You could be sent anywhere.



I was wondering myself if I shouldn't go. But there are a few experiences I had that caused me to doubt if I should go at all.



During one church meeting I attended a missionary prep class, a class instructing potential future missionaries. During the class the young instructor taught us that we were supposed to share our personal testimonies about basic church teachings in a certain format, "I know that the Book of Mormon is true." "I know that the Church is true." Stuff like this. You couldn't use the words, "I believe.." You had to say that you knew. To me, this smacked of dishonesty and bureaucracy. Wasn't I supposed to tell these people in a sincere way what I thought of the LDS Church. Wouldn't this inspire them to investigate? But no, you had to always state that your knowledge was perfect. I disagreed vehemently with the teacher on this point and he looked at me like he suddenly knew I had more problems than he ever thought I had before.



And then there were other problems. At one point, I told one of my church leaders that I indeed was planning on going on a mission and wouldn't return to college in the fall. After I made this announcement, I was paralyzed with fear, uncertainty, and disgust. I couldn't bring myself to tell my bishop or even get a job. I thought I had just chickened out. But when I renounced plans to serve a mission, I suddenly felt a lot better. After all, I was looking forward to school at the university in the fall.



I now know that that incredible paralysis preserved my integrity. I didn't want to go out and preach something I wasn't always sure about. I didn't want to have to pretend to be perfect and dress like a missionary everyday. I didn't want to have to finance something that would be hard enough to just show up for. I didn't want to do it and I couldn't admit it. All I could really do that summer was stall.



The final blow to any plans to serve a mission for the LDS Church came when I was attending sacrament meeting about ten years ago. A leader in the ward was speaking. He told us that if you have the truth you have a desire to share it with others. I felt like I must be lazy or evil because I realized I didn't desire to share it with others. I thought it was scary. Secretly, beneath my love of believing that I knew more of the truth than persons not worshipping as I was, was a fear of dragging more people into a church with strict rules. I knew that not everyone liked to abstain from coffee and R-Rated movies and pay tithing. I knew that many people felt violated if you pushed them too hard to investigate your religion. I knew that my own best friendships didn't smack of the coercion that the LDS Church advised I exercise so that we could have membership growth.



And (this is really interesting) I never thought of these people from traditions not my own as going to hell. Some of them I considered saved already because they were faithful to God in their own traditions. I considered them good, maybe even better than I and my fellow Mormons.



It was only a few years later, when I reflected on where people of other faiths and persuasions were going, that I relied on LDS doctrine to work out in my mind where they really must be going and became horrified and fearful. Reading the doctrine made me believe that if you did not accept the LDS religion in this life or the next that you would not inherit as many good things in heaven as those who did. I believed that if you weren't accepting of the LDS faith that you would be separate from all the good people who did. And for a while, I became sorrowful when someone had died without being baptized into the LDS Church. Basically, I couldn't handle the deaths of the majority of the people on the earth.



But after a while, my mind started to flip back to my former belief. As I refused to attend more and more church meetings, my mind started to open to the idea that there were a lot of people I knew nothing about, simply because they were not LDS and had not gone to my church. I started to believe that I didn't know most of the good people on the earth. As the LDS Church gathered more and more shame on it in my mind, I began to realize that maybe there were people of other faiths who could inherit more than I will in heaven. And I now realize that there are many who will inherit the same things I will inherit. And these people will be from different faiths, have different personalities, etc. Heaven is getting more cozy. Heaven is starting to look like the real world.

And what shocks me most as this idea came back to me, is that I was so brainwashed that I couldn't be too upset because I really thought I was better because I was in the better religion. I really liked the idea that everyone else was under my feet. Because inferiority complexes respond very favorably to people thinking they are better, either on earth, or in heaven.

And I now realize that it is not hard at all to give up a belief I am better than others if it means that heaven will be interesting again.

And I think that in the next few years, life will become much more interesting, too.

There are many other things that made me discount the LDS Church. But there are plenty of other blog entries.

Getting practical today

Today, I decided to get practical. Feeling as if I was free floating couldn't last much longer. No, no, I'm not going back to religion. I am going to use some very practical ideas to give my life the structure it started to miss when I gave up on my old religion.



I started reading a book on time management this morning. I got inspired to make some plans for the day, which I did. I cleaned up some things and got some laundry done. I wrote, on an old planner page, a few to-do's and a few things to do at certain times. I did a few routine activities and I only planned one religious thing. I planned to read some of my Book of Mormon. I believe in that book and feel it does me good to touch base with it a few days a week. Later, just because I felt like it, I read some of the Doctrine and Covenants. I read Section 93, which corresponds idea wise to John 1 of the New Testament. Then I read a few sections of my recently purchased copy of The Upanishads. Some of the ideas in this Indian text actually corresponded to D&C 93 and John 1. Wow! I guess truth is truth wherever you find it.



I don't need to be a super strict religious person to find truth. In fact, I need to loosen up and just read what I want to read when I want to read it.



This afternoon I bought some new planner pages for 2008 at a Franklin Covey store. The cashier, a young woman, shorted me two dollars in change. I didn't quite figure this out until I got home. I realized, though, that letting it go was the moral thing to do. She appeared very nervous and confused, on the verge of getting upset. She is not a born cashier. I realized I would have to ressurrect every petty feeling I've ever had to go back to get the two dollars. I think that this is my form of generosity for today. This is the type of generosity I want to develop and refine. It's a lot better than donating large amounts of money to murky causes. It is better than giving anymore tithing money to a church I don't agree with.



I think I am realizing that my life can have structure, generosity, and other things. I just need to be the one to decide that these things need to be in my life. I have to be the one to decide if it is practical or worth striving for. Last night, I felt at the end of my rope. But life is starting to seem full of opportunities.



I also realized last night that I was addicted to the negativity of not being able to give enough to God. I think I'm finally letting that go. You give what you are able to give. You conquer what you can conquer. In the past I would always have told this to someone else who felt overwhelmed, but it somehow got cancelled out as I put tons and tons of demands on myself. Well, I am starting to treat myself more as an equal to others. Thank goodness!

My purposes in keeping this blog

Welcome to From Zeal to Doubt. My purpose in keeping this blog is to write about why I used to be religiously zealous, but no longer am. I just recently realized that the church I was raised in is no longer a church I believe in enough to attend or promote.



I was born into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Known commonly as the LDS Church, or the Mormon Church, this church shaped my character and beliefs. It was quite good for me to belong to as a child, and it helped me decide to follow my conscience and regard beliefs of morality and virtue in living my life.



My problem is certainly not with the rule following behavior that I learned by attending this church. My problem is of a deeper concern, of a concern with faith, things I do not have in common with other believing members, and a lack of belief in some doctrines I was either taught to believe in or that I used to believe in. I have also been appalled by how, as time went on, I began to feel worse and worse on a spiritual and emotional level while attending church meetings. And from this negative emotional experience, I began to realize I did not agree any longer with how that church was run.



Also, I felt that I had to not only rigidly follow certain doctrines. I felt I had to agree with them, lest I be called an apostate or rebel or bad person or someone without faith. I could not disagree with what my church leaders said and not fear some kind of discipline by my leaders--namely disfellowshipping, excommunication, or cruel verbal and social disapproval. And I felt I had to confess way too many sins, things that I now think I should have kept to myself.


Basically, first I was misunderstood by the people in the LDS faith. And now, in turn, I misunderstand the whole darn religion.


As well as describing my past beliefs and the reasons for my break with this particular church, I would also like to describe the beliefs I am now forming and the questions of morality that come up as I freely float through life without any participation in any sort of religion. I would like to use this blog to express and my current beliefs and the things I puzzle over during this intense spiritual transition in my life.