From Zeal to Doubt

A Big Sex and Relationship Thumbs Down

2008-04-14T13:29:00.000-07:00

Something just occurred to me. I was reading the NOM message board about LDS attitudes about gay people. There are two attitudes:

1. Gay sex is a sin. Having gay attractions to the same sex is a sin. Gay people are sinners. They need to convert to heterosexual ways of seeing things.

2. Gay people are born the way they are. They do not sin just because they are attracted to persons of the same sex. As long as they avoid gay sex they are not sinning at all. They need our love and compassion to deal with their fates, however. It is so hard to be gay, like being mentally ill or blind. So, basically, they need all of our love, in fact more than the average person to deal with their struggles.

I think both viewpoints are annoying. Viewpoint #1 is entirely inflexible and probably goes against basic human psychology. When was anyone ever to change their attractions through therapy, unless they underwent so much brainwashing that they developed other harmful psychological problems. It also assumes that heterosexual means good. And homosexual means evil. When was the last time you thought someone was a really good person based on their heterosexual attraction to, say, women? And when was the last time you found out someone was gay and realized that they were also totally evil? Does this happen in real life? It really doesn't happen as much as some people think it happens.

Viewpoint #2 is what I call the "feel sorry for" effect. Basically, anyone with a problem is intensely pitied. Besides, there are probably many people who don't feel tortured once they choose how to deal with a same sex attraction. Some people would rather be gay than schizophrenic or crippled anyway. Is gayness a social difficulty or a disability? I am thinking that it is more of a difficulty than a disability. And yes, on a social level, many people can suffer. Also, persons making this statement do not know how much of a sin gay sex is or is not. They are not making an accurate enough judgment about what about any sexual act would be a sin. Also, if a gay sex act is a sin, does that mean that someone is now completely evil for doing it once or twice? Or is there something more going on? I don't know the answers to these questions, and so I cannot even manage to agree with anything stated in viewpoint #2.

Overall, I am probably clueless about gayness myself. It occurs to me that both of these viewpoints could be produced by a non-gay mind. They have both been produced by persons who are heterosexual. That is what I think.

And then there are other problems. When it comes to the LDS Church and sex, sex is not an act that is understood at all. The LDS Church deals with the presence of sex by stuffing it into marriage. Also, many married people have actually been told by leaders to leave their garments on while having sex. A certain percentage of people may actually be doing this, too. For the LDS Church, there is nothing natural about sex in the first place.

Heterosexual people have trouble with sex in the LDS Church. When was such a church ever the holder of the solution to the problem of gay people and gay sex? Everyone who has any type of sex and needs advice would not get any good advice about it. It just seems to me that there is a kind of mystery surrounding normal human relationships from the viewpoint of the LDS Church. The LDS Church over-emphasizes families, under-emphasizes friendships and social behavior, and tries to hide normal sex in a closet. Church authorities will even tell people that they shouldn't even think sexual thoughts. That would be an unchaste sin.

How would a gay person be converted from homosexual to heterosexual if they can't even think anything about heterosexual sex either?

In fact, in the area of dating, things are even weirder. The General Authorities had an article published in an Engisn magazine a few years ago about dating vs. hanging out. In the article, they claim that hanging out is not something that should not go on between men and women. This is because it discourages dating. They also stated that a date was practice for the kind of commitment made in marriage. A bunch of old guys are running the Mormon Church. And so, instead of trying to learn about the full spectrum of behavior of young people and the opposite sex, they decided to find one behavior and condemn it.

At first when I read the article, I was thinking that these old guys were right. After all, I hadn't gotten married, and this must be because not enough young men asked me out. This could technically be true. I have not dated a lot, and I happen to not be married.

However, after I stopped believing so much in LDS Church doctrine, I looked at the Ensign article with a new pair of eyes. I realized that part of any human relationship is what is called "hanging out." People end up spending time in the same room. Maybe one spouse is fixing the TV and the other spouse is reading a John Grisham novel. Does this mean that they are hanging out and will ruin their relationship?

On the contrary! They will not ruin their relationship. They are strengthening it by tolerating each other's hobbies and activities. If two people can do things in the same room together, it may be that they get along.

In fact, in any relationship there is a lot of hanging out. Any real relationship where people enjoy each other's company a lot is a relationship where they do things like watch movies together, have conversations together, do homework together, etc. This often happens in the same room! It's hanging out! Oh no! I better duck! The world is evil!

Send me a logic pill express!

Rotten Cores of Mormonism

2008-04-12T11:18:00.000-07:00

Well, yesterday I was talking all about being depressed. Reading that blog entry, I can tell that I am not so depressed anymore. I took the bus to get a prescription filled and shop for food. I feel better. I still need to get my driver license renewed. I haven't been getting out a lot. I felt very happy to be away from home in the grocery store. I needed to get out. It made me feel a lot better. I can feel the energy in my eyes. I actually have energy!

At any rate, I think I am still sort of screwed up. But I am not bogged down by all of it anymore. I'll go get my license renewed on Monday and feel even better.

Yesterday's entry is sort of a scary one. To hook depression up to the doctrines of the LDS Church is something that I never thought of before. To say that depression is appreciated among Mormons more than it really should be is a very menacing idea that makes everything I experienced in Mormonism even scarier.

I am not intending to scare people, but to tell the truth. The news about depression and LDS women has appeared this year. It alone is scary. The news stories have implied that the depression is all about the need for perfectionism. However, I did not always try to be perfect and I still got depressed. I would feel guilty, or I would feel anxious. The guilt and anxiety would burn me out. And then, I was afraid to look too happy in church. I thought I was being evil. I am starting to understand that the doctrine of humility in the LDS Church is out of control. The doctrine of humility literally produces low self-esteem and depression. You are supposed to have a broken heart and a contrite spirit to show that you are humble and repentant of your sins. I find this doctrine scary. I think that it causes people to make themselves even more unhappy.

My brother actually said one day that you could be happy AND have a broken heart and contrite spirit. I tried to research the matter, but found little depth to it but a promotion of the basic doctrine of the broken heart and contrite spirit. I really do not feel that this doctrine can coincide with true personal happiness. Worse yet, Mormons believe that broken hearted, contrited spirited persons are really persons who are born again. So, when Jesus says in the Bible that we must be born again, Mormons think it means we have to have a broken heart and a contrite spirit.

Is this where the leaders want us? Do they really want us that emotionally weak? Do they want us asking our leaders for more approval and more spirituality while the church erodes under the feet of every weeping member? Do Mormon leaders really expect church and stake leaders to hold up their wards and stakes with the weak leadership that such low regard for self could produce?

I find Mormon doctrine a joke. I find the manufactured, deepened humility a kind of albatross around the neck of the Mormon experience. I decided to drop my humility junk awhile ago. I decided that I was being fake. I didn't realize that it was also making me unhappy. And yet, every major doctrinal road of Mormonism only increases the burdens of the average person, inside and out.

I think that something is very wrong with a religion that could have lived for years with such ridiculous doctrine. I think that only the doctrine that Jesus Christ and Satan were brothers in the pre-existence could be worse.

I have just found the rotten core of Mormonism. That is how I feel today. I am laughing because I seem never to be done exposing to myself or others the sham that this religion could represent.

Let me list the rotten cores.

1. Polygamy
2. Broken heart, contrite spirit doctrine
3. Jesus Christ and Satan are technically spiritual brothers
4. The atonement can fix your life now, but it can't save you from your sins in the next life. The doctrine of works is emphasized above any doctrine of grace. The Mormon idea of grace is a screwed up mess.
5. LDS women are the childbearers of the world and cannot hold the priesthood. Men are superior to women in their role in leading the church and the family.
6. Temple ceremonies are cultic rituals that have nothing to do with our personal salvation.
7. The Book of Abraham is a proven fraud.

I have listed seven rotten cores so far! I think that I am recognizing something else. Mormons believe that if you have reached despair, or depression, you are in sin. Why would this be? Wouldn't the broken hearted, contrite spirit doctrine be interfering with the doctrine that we should be of good cheer? Now I have something to write about for the Church Office Building to read! This is big! This is a disaster! How can Mormons be against being unhappy, and yet be for having a broken heart and a contrite spirit? It's time to call the farce! It's time to arrest the fraudulent and promote a simpler world view! No wonder so few Mormons can be happy! No wonder so many postmormons feel their lives are so much better and freer! It isn't just that Mormonism is too strict! It's that it's way, way too illogical!

I am very excited! I am truly starting to understand the religion that nearly ended my emotional well-being!

I am alive! I am free! I am knowledgeable!

Depression and the LDS Church

2008-04-11T11:12:00.000-07:00

When I was active LDS, I was told that I had a glow about me that others could see. I was told that it would knock people over. Actually, the person who said that this look in my eyes would knock people over was a liar. I haven't seen people fall over. In fact, I was often told that I should smile more. I was asked if there was anything wrong, etc., etc., etc.

Now that I no longer attend LDS Church meetings, my relationship with depression is different. I think that I am somewhat depressed today. But it isn't the same kind of feeling I used to have. Back when I still believed in Mormonism, depression was a horrifying despair that threatened to derail me and smash me flat. I would become hopeless to the point that I would almost be suicidal. Now depression is more of a jaded feeling. Depression is like some sort of unnamed crisis, begging to be worked through slowly. Because this time, the crisis is hiding. I do not know what to call the crisis. I am just sort of reminded of my jadedness as I sit and wonder if I believe in anything at all.

I encountered a depressed person on a message board yesterday. The person described how she felt. Unlike the other five replyers to her message, I figured out right away that she was depressed. She had the kind of depression I used to have. She wanted more than anything to have a good spiritual experience so that she could feel like she could go on. I posted that she was depressed and that she should see a professional. I didn't even mess around. And I didn't apologize. No matter what real substance her depression may have had, a depression that deep leads too easily to suicide. I don't find it soulful to be that depressed.

And yet, in the LDS Church, I was often that depressed. I have come to understand that depressed people make up a larger percentage of LDS people than they did, in say, the 1980's. Depression has become more of an epidemic in the United States, and the LDS religion has only grown its depressions since then.

I think that maybe some depressed people in the LDS Church are seen by other members as more spiritual and sensitive. I think that as long as I didn't get too scary, people saw me as very spiritual when I was depressed. Sometimes I would cry a lot. LDS people interpret crying in meetings to be evidence of a spiritual experience.

Also, the Beatitudes hold another key. Matthew 5: 6 says, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, because they will be filled." (Holman Bible)

Mormons interpret people who are down as humble and hungering and thirsting after righteousness. In fact, some Mormons go to church every week, looking for another spiritual hit. The depressed Mormon can go undiagnosed for several months at a time, hiding under the blanket of spiritual seeking that resembles the behavior of drug addiction. Many Mormons with emotional problems are one spiritual experience away from hope. They are one confirmation of their personal worthiness from hope. Mormonism makes people emotionally needy.

It does seem that some religious folk will take an everyday experience, whether positive or negative, and turn it into a spiritual phenomenon. Some religious persons ignore science and common sense to continue to feed their belief system the evidence it needs to stay afloat.

I do not believe that my current depression has no spiritual element. However, I think that it may be that I am down because sometimes life gets you down. I think that I haven't thought through all I need to make my life meaningful. And I'm sure that it could be a complex thing that I need to explore. I believe that there is no one answer that will heal all my woes. I also believe that I have just felt my lack so fully that I can no longer ignore it.

Also, I am not so depressed that I cannot stand life. I am on the level of depression where I have an aversion to positive thinking. It could be that I used positive thinking for a long time to cover up my real issues. It could be that I am starting to be aware of reality on a more comprehensive level. It feels like other people's opinions of a good life are lacking. It could be that I have not fully appreciated the need for my life to be good on a very specific, individual level. No one else is fully me. I have only begun to appreciate that.

I think that many people go through life hoping that one right decision will make their lives better. It can sometimes be discouraging when you make a series of right choices and you are still unhappy. You could change your belief system to something less toxic and then wonder why you still have periods of horribly low motivation or lack of belief in anything good. You could change your neighborhood and then wonder why the same problems with your neighbors in the old neighborhood are cropping up again in the new neighborhood. It can take a while to get things right. It can take a while to discover which things are really worth changing and which things are mere trivia to your own personal life.

Despite the troubles that await us as mortals who just wait to be fulfilled day by day, often by things that have no guarantee, we often find ourselves learning what we really need, sometimes in startling ways. We can find a key to our lives one day after months of wondering why we are unhappy. And we can also recover from physical fatigues that we have battled for years.

I think that life has hope in it. It doesn't matter that I haven't found what I can hope in. All that matters is that I don't feel that my life will let me stay the same. I will either adapt to this reality, or I can let it get me down. I think that it is getting me down. I also think that there is no other way for me to go, but through this mess, continuing to explain the mess to myself, and continuing to grow from the insights I gain by overcoming it.

Changes

2008-04-08T18:15:00.001-07:00

Today is a day free of conference and other horrifying distractions. I feel much better today after having taken some vitamin B12 on Sunday night. Vitamin B12 is the vitamin of my frazzled hours. It helps me sleep at night and gain energy in the day.

Ah! It sounds like a cure-all!

Well, I can say that no one thing is a cure all for life, but the more cures you pile on, the less sick your routine and attitudes are. And the body tends to gain in health when we take care of it. This tends to be a trend that goes on into old age.

To throw off sickness is not usually the main aim of every life, but it is currently the aim of mine.

I was thinking today about an organization that could use a cast-off of sickness.

Changes to Make For the LDS Church

1. Every member currently pays 10% of their gross income in tithing. This should be changed. I say that every member should pay 5% of their net income. Basically, paying on money you really do own, after taxes, seems less insidious. If you think about it, many who pay tithing on income before taxes will end up with not even 80% of that money to use for their own needs. Why should someone's income be reduced before taxes? That is vastly unfair! And then, paying 5% tithing would cause some people to have more money. And more members would rise more quickly out of poverty! This means that a man who earns $30, 000 a year will not have to pay quite even $3,000 and could reduce that amount of $3,000 to under $1,500 per year. That would leave about $1,500 more to use to put away savings, reduce debt, deal with family emergencies, and begin financing the future educations of children.

2. Eliminate the fast offering. In addition to paying 10% gross tithing, LDS members must pay monthly fast offerings. The members are encouraged to fast once a month for a meal or two and then give away the money they would have used to eat. Basically, this is promoted as one of the many ways to help the poor. They can have your money and eat more often during their week! But, I would think that wise use of tithing money and other types of donations could easily be used to help the poor and unfortunate, especially if expenses like mall building could be eliminated. It is already a very huge financial stress on members to be tithed on gross income.

So far, I have thought of two suggestions for change of the LDS Church. I personally would not go back if these two things changes. My complaints are far deeper. However, I believe that less people would try to give up their membership if they didn't have to pay tithing like they were the deepest pockets in the world while paying for diapers and car registrations.

When I look at the LDS Church, I wonder if it could change enough for me. Or is it enough that I do not believe it is a true church of the world? I believe it is founded on lies. What would my religion look like if I could make a separate religion for myself? This is not a completely answerable question for me at this point, but I think I could begin to answer it.

My Religion

1. Jesus Christ is the Redeemer of the World. This means that anyone who has not gone completely evil has a chance in the Afterlife. What does this mean? This means that the spirits of the dead often end up in places other than hell or spirit prison. This means that they are cared for and taught when they arrive in that world. And, at some point, some of these spirits will be ressurrected with bodies. This also means that any intelligence, spirit or person, will be able to choose for themselves whether they will choose good or evil at any point. Persons do not stop progression just because they died and no longer have bodies.

I'm running out of ideas again! I think I'm tired and need to take a nap. I accomplished a lot today, especially in the category of cleaning my living space. I am looking at clean carpet, clean sheets, and sewed on buttons. I feel kind of caught up. This is good.

Good-bye until later. Later, I will personally expand upon my belief systems and the changes I would make to the LDS Church if I were its leader.

General Conference Weekend April 2008

2008-04-06T19:16:00.000-07:00

It's General Conference weekend. I just tried to listen to a little of Conference, and I couldn't listen long. The talks were driving me crazy. I really thought I could find out what was going on in the LDS Church by listening, but I digress. It is a ridiculous thing to do, to listen to all of the conference sessions when I am so disaffected with the Church.

I think the idea that people are supposed to sacrifice so much for one belief system does really just depress me. I can tell that the speakers in conference are depressed about it as well. I heard in their voices things that just cannot be abided by me any longer. The LDS Church as a depressing institution was last on my mind when Neal A. Maxwell died and they had THE MOST AWFUL funeral for him. It was drab, even for a funeral. Gordon B. Hinckley took over the funeral and reduced Maxwell to something that not even the most faithful Church member would like. I didn't like it much at all. Conference was that depressing today. And my father told me that if I watch it I might feel better!

Whatever! Whatever! Whatever!

I now think that the LDS Church is full of people who do not believe in much. For, if you believe in too much, you cannot believe in the LDS Church. Should you believe in Buddhism and Christianity and Judaism, it would be far too much. Only a small subset of any of these main religions could ever agree with Mormonism. Most don't agree at all. I feel like Mormonism is so simple and reductive and "same as always," that people don't learn much from practicing it beyond a certain young age. People are just trapped into it with fears of losing their own salvation.

When you fear losing your salvation too much you cannot give anything to anyone else. When you are programmed to believe that everyone else is losing their salvation, you can do nothing but fill others with fear.

Worse yet, if someone asks you for help with their own very real problem, you can only reduce it to nothing. After all, it could be that the person with the problem is a sinner.

Because of this, too many LDS people end up turning their backs on other people's problems. I suppose that I understand even more about the evils and demons of my own life. I understand better what I have to fear. I understand with a very frightening completeness what has stopped me from having a productive and happy life.

These real evils that I have encountered have only been pooh-poohed by the LDS people. This is because they do not believe in enough to believe in real evil. If you do not believe in real evil, you can never rescue anyone from it.

I understand that the Catholic Church at least believes that possession and demons are real. It would seem that LDS folk turn a blind eye to these things in the idea that God would never let these things happen to you unless you did something wrong.

Feminists believe in the self-esteem and well-being of women. LDS people believe that women are mere servants to priesthood holders and the vast families that they bear for the men and the Church. According to many men in the Church, women really, really want babies. It is no matter if she is having trouble with her career or her education or her friendships with other women. The family must be fulfilling her. No matter that I have spent time with my nephews, and I have noticed that it does not fulfill me. I only understand it as some biological or moral imperative to raise children, not complete intellectual fulfillment. You can love being a mother, but it does not give you degrees or jobs. Some women never want these things, but they are usually overly lucky in that their husband or family of origin is filthily wealthy. I cannot pretend to understand motherhood, but I understand that I would always want other things for myself, whether or not I bore children. Why can't a women want more, especially an unmarried woman like me? They say not enough to unmarried women. They never give them credit for their careers or accomplishments enough to make them happy in the LDS Church. No, instead unmarried women are seen as dangerous, or lesbian, or just not interested in men.

Perhaps they fail to see that some of us cannot bear to just marry any man? We need to give ourselves time to end up in a relationship with one that would give us what we really need? How can a twenty-one-year-old returned missionary ever make me feel good about myself? He can't even say he likes women much, especially after being on a mission for two years. And I've been out with a few of these young men. They tended to not give me not much of an ego stroke. They could barely make conversation.

Give me a break. Give all the stupid young men a break. Let them develop their own lives before they make another person miserable through marriage.

It feels like all of these complaints are rehashed. I do not know what I am going to do next. This is not because I am stupid. I think I am tired. I had to pretend too long that nothing, inside or outside of the Church was getting me down. Things came at me from every direction. Now it's time to start to feel normal again.

I am so fatigued.

I think that I may just be boring for a while. I can't pretend to be on fire for life.

Though as far as I can tell, I'm safer than I've been in a long time.

The LDS Church Is Indeed Imperfect

2008-03-30T12:08:00.000-07:00

So, I go completely insane. And going to church turns out to be a major factor ratcheting up the insanity. After the hospitalization, I decide that I am going to go back to church. However, each time I go, it is so unpleasant that I can barely go at all, maybe once every two to three months? Well, the last church visit was March 2007. It was really, really pathetic. I could tell that everyone was either cursed, brainwashed, or depressed. There is no spirituality. All that is good about it is that I realize I grew up with all the more elderly people in the congregation. I decide I have a love for them. That's all. Basically, throughout 2006 and 2007, every time I go to church my mental health symptoms get worse. My medication wasn't at the right dosage yet, and every time I attend church, except for the last March visit, I get symptoms that indicate that I'm starting to hallucinate again.

Church was a trigger for insanity?

One thing that I grew up with and agreed with told me that I had to keep going to church even if it was a miserable experience. I was told, along with a lot of other members, that the LDS Church was perfect, but the people in it were not. I swallowed this whole. Most people took this idea to mean that if someone at church offended you, you were supposed to keep going anyway, because the Church was perfect. This was all part of the brainwashing. It wasn't that there was nothing brilliant about the way the LDS Church was run. It was that there were a lot of problems that people constantly turned their backs on. The content of a Sunday School lesson was lame and banal. A Relief Society lesson seemed filled with lies. A bishop gave someone brutally rude and untrue advice. Someone killed himself because he was gay. These problems were glaring, but often ignored.

I believed that the Church was perfect. I would talk about how we, as LDS people, had the truth, to my friends who were LDS. I was supposed to be really righteous and spiritual because I liked the LDS Church. But what surprised me was the fact that not everyone responded with glee to these speeches. Some people seemed floored, as in shocked. They seemed downright shocked. Maybe the speeches made them feel guilty? Maybe some people were cultural Mormons who didn't believe everything they heard in the walls of the church building? Maybe some people hated the Book of Mormon? I loved the Book of Mormon for a long time. Surely I would rub some people the wrong way!

And then there was the idea that people would get offended and not attend again. Every six months, in General Conference, LDS people get to hear how they are supposed to live. They hear speeches from the General Authorities on different LDS topics. The General Authorities were fond of saying that if you are offended by someone, that is no reason to stop attending. Basically, if you are offended, that is your problem. But, after about the age of 25, I started to get offended by many things. First I noticed that the speakers in sacrament meeting often used bad grammar. But after that age of thirty, I started hearing things come out of people's mouths that sounded wrong. They didn't sound like Church doctrine. A lot of things weren't Church doctrine. But some of the things that sounded wrong really were Church doctrine. I realized that a lot of people were parroting a lot of untrue things in church. One person would say something. Then another person would say it, too.

And then I started to notice, about five years ago, that some of the things they said in church weren't just wrong or untrue, they were mean, hateful things. They said mean things about people grieving the death of a loved one. They said means things about the mentally ill. They said mean things about people who didn't give their all. They said mean things about lazy people. And the meanness didn't abate. It got worse and worse. It got so that everyone sounded either shallow or completely stupid.

I had been offended over and over and over again. I began to realize that something was wrong with a certain percentage of people in the LDS Church. They were mean. They were shallow. They were uneducated. They were close-minded. They didn't travel. They only associated with immediate and extended family members. They were overworked and didn't take time to nurture their friendships, including with me. The people's focuses in life began to be offensive. I would develop feelings of jealousy when a group of people decided they were going to the temple. Some people would talk about going to the temple in front of me just because I was beginning to hate the idea and refused to have my temple recommend renewed. I had uncovered a pattern of feelings of unworthiness whenever I thought about renewing it. They thought I had done something wrong. I was unknowingly dissing the temple because I thought something was wrong with it. And I kept thinking of reasons I couldn't go, mostly because I was never, ever worthy enough to go. I hadn't done any of the horrible things they thought I had, though. Mostly, my evil was an imagined entity. Even if I was becoming evil, I was never worried about any evil that actually really existed in my person. It was all overly imaginative anxiety. It was based on the LDS Church's definition of evil, not a practical encounter of truly bad habits or attitudes.

In the end, I couldn't fit in. Everyone else was getting on with their lives. And I was left worrying futilely about my own salvation. I just couldn't get it together. And time was passing! I was over thirty! And I still hadn't gone to the temple to get my endowments!

But this idea of unworthiness started to dissolve. And it turned to a disgust for the things talked about in church. And I began to admit I didn't like LDS men, which was horrible for me, because I thought I was supposed to marry one of them.

After a while, I admitted to myself that I didn't even like LDS people as a whole, especially while they were busy trying to be LDS, which was basically in every spare minute that they had. While I do not think that I truly hate all LDS people, I have a suspicion of them and what is on their minds. After all, I was one of them. I think I have a few LDS friends left. I'm just not making the effort to contact them until I am more right with myself and my position in regards to the LDS religion. I am not interested in insincere conversations about being LDS or liking being LDS. About a month ago, I finished unloading a boat load of anger, and I am still kind of bitter and frightened.

And when you think about what it really means when they say that the LDS Church is perfect but the people are not, I am stuck in a logical quandary. For what else is a church, but a group of people getting together to worship in a particular way? For if the LDS people are not perfect, including the top leaders, the LDS Church cannot be perfect at all. A church is a group of people. If a group of people is imperfect, then a church they form will be imperfect as well. This could probably apply to any church on earth! Basically, my brainwashing is undone. The LDS Church is indeed imperfect.

Totally Insane

2008-03-21T12:03:00.000-07:00

No one taught me what to do next because there was no next. That was supposed to be life. It was supposed to save my life. Instead, it nearly buried me.

When I speak of hearing voices, I speak of a few events only. The voice that said, "Save yourself," I experienced in 2005. At that point, my religion had taught me that I would find personal fulfillment and eternal salvation by helping others. Charity was one of the traits that defined a pure, virtuous person going to the Celestial Kingdom, or highest heaven. If we did what the Church told us, we would learn charity and sacrifice. Apparently, sacrifice was often taught, along with strict obedience to Mormon leaders.

There were only a few very, very big problems with this line of thinking. First of all, the service projects that I participated in while inside the LDS Church were not service projects of my own choosing. Often, a whole bunch of people would come to work on a project for a few hours, often on a Saturday. Then we would go home and have nothing to do with the project again. We never, as individuals, chose what we would like to do to serve someone. The Church, however, would often recommend projects that were in its interest. Or a compassionate service leader would suggest a project. It seemed that a lot of pure, personal service was diluted by ordered or recommended service. And often, lots of people would be in on one project, contributing miniscule amounts of labor to a large scheme. Again, the notion of individually chosen projects that did not rely on the Church often failed or wilted. There simply wasn't time to do anything outside of the Church's program. As a result, I often felt disconnected from the goodness of service. I did not like it.

Second, I was in massive trouble in my own life. I continued to try to attend church meetings, only to realize that I could not stand them much at all. If I actually made it to church one Sunday, I could end up feeling worse afterward. I often did not even notice this. Also, I was going more and more insane. I got delusional and thought a number of crazy things. I began to limit my activities based on "answers" to prayers that were often paranoid and illogical. I was going insane. And after I heard the voice telling me to save myself, I really literal got more and more in need of some literal kind of saving. I was getting less and less healthy. And my addiction to a prescription drug was starting to waste away my mind and body. I had symptoms of schizophrenia and autism that started to appear out of nowhere. I had super-sensititve hearing and overall muscle weakness. I didn't eat enough food. I had an eating disorder and often thought about losing weight. I was often depressed. When I tried to exercise, it would only deplete me. And I had symptoms indicating that I was developing diabetes. I had some very scary episodes of high and low blood sugar. Some of this was caused by undertreatment of mental and physical issues. Some of it was caused by the prescription drug to which I was addicted.

So far, the LDS Church had not saved me one whit. And I was going to go do something for someone through that church? Was I insane? At this point, I know that I was under a very strong illusion that refused to fade due to years of religious brainwashing. But I was being shown, by the whole Universe (I am sure this includes God) that I was destroying myself. How could I offer help to others in my insanity and ill-health? How could I serve the monster sapping me of my life force? It was beginning to be blasphemous to all of reality. I was being socked in the jaw by reality, and I could not even stop to acknowledge it. Though when I heard the voice saying two simple words--"Save yourself," I had to start thinking. What was it that I was supposed to do to help myself? For the first time, helping myself started to seem bigger than the LDS Church. For the first time, sense started to break through. I was being shown the higher way out of my mess. I didn't realize it was the higher way, but I began to act as if it had more importance than any institution. Even though I ran into lots and lots of bad advice, I began to learn how to sift through it. I started to learn to recognize the real Truth, not the truth taught to me as LDS dogma.

Despite the fact that I started acting like I wanted to help myself, I deteriorated further and further into insane delusions, and probably began hallucinating at a point that I didn't even realize. I ended up in the hospital the next year, where I got the medication that I continue to take to this day. One of the nurses said that the schizophrenic symptoms I had came on in an unusually late onset. It was not that common for such symptoms to show up in a person's 30's. At this point, I agree and disagree. I do think that persons showing mild signs of delusions can get worse and worse through life and go crazy at a later age. I also think that the way I was living my life could only make me insane. I did, I realized later, show slight signs of being delusional. And yes, my life had driven me crazy. No one in the mental health system gave me proper diagnosis and treatment. In fact, some of the mental health practitioners showed a desire to destroy me rather then make me more healthy. And the LDS Church did not help at all. As I got more and more isolated, the LDS Church did me less and less good. I now understand that bad religions only make their followers completely insane.

It is okay to be a little unrealistic with kooky ideas. But I far surpassed this state in 2006. I really, truly became insane on a level I had never associated with my personality. I knew myself as unrealistic, but also as possessing a kind of common sense. But for a while, the common sense I possessed completely disappeared. It didn't appear again until the year 2007. For, even while I had a good medication to treat my symptoms, it took a while for my symptoms to go down enough that I wasn't constantly battling delusions.

Again, a big pseudo THANKS A LOT.

Heresies

2008-03-19T12:34:00.000-07:00

There are heresies that I am sick of believing. I am very, very sick of believing them. Whenever I get in touch with these personal heresies, I become ill, or have a desire to suddenly argue all day long about why they are so horrible.

1. Mormons are Christians. While I cannot completely argue away this idea, I hate it. Why? Because Mormonism distorts Christianity. Mormonism fractures Christianity and then regrows its limbs in hideous, twisted shapes. Mormons are told to have charity by the Book of Mormon, but Mormon leaders have little charity for those with troubled minds and consciences. Why do I know this? I have talked to plenty of bishops who only seem able to give hackneyed or insensitive advice and then banish me from the office with the idea that they are too busy to have any time with me. I am also appalled by the way Mormons portray the traits of God and Jesus Christ. And I am appalled at the magical way Mormons have of looking at the atonement.

2. Satan and Jesus Christ were brothers in the pre-existence. This is a really, really bad one. Why would something as evil as Satan be produced by the same father as something as good as Jesus Christ. Mormons do not appreciate Jesus Christ's power to save, and they do not appreciate the full evil of a figure like Satan. In fact, as far as I know, Satan was birthed by something that was not god. Perhaps something evil? I realized this when I read a verse in Revelations about where Satan came from and who he really is.

3. The atonement of Jesus Christ will fix everything if we have faith. What? Many Mormons believe that the atonement of Jesus Christ will fix their lives right now. I call this a kind of magical thinking. Mormons don't just believe that repentance will help people now. They don't just believe the atonement of Jesus Christ is what is needed to gain salvation in the next life. They actually believe that it will fix your life now. How this could be I could never figure out. It was never explained well to me. But it does smack of magical thinking.

4. Even though Jesus Christ died for our sins we will be rewarded for our works. If we do too many wrong things and not enough of the right ones, our souls will not be saved. Basically, Mormons believe you have to do a number of things to get salvation. They don't believe people in a sinful state can be saved. They think that you have to repent of everything that would keep you out of the highest degree of heaven. And they don't believe in death bed repentance either. Basically, Mormons have put many of the peoples of the world in a rough spot. I do not believe that Jesus Christ would leave someone who has managed to neglect repenting of a few small sins in a horrible place like spirit prison, but this is what Mormons believe. And then they believe there is no chance for repentance or changing in the Afterlife. I do not think that Mormons believe in being saved by grace. But why would a loving soul like Jesus Christ make it possible for everyone to be ressurrected, but then neglect to show imperfect people how they can be saved? So many people die imperfect. I do not believe there is one truly perfect person on earth, no matter how that person may be worshipped by his/her peers. Basically, I believe that Jesus is merciful to those who try to be good, no matter how they fail in each individual work. The whole right/wrong dichotomy tests the best of us. Don't you think that someone who atoned for your sins would save you in the next life rather than letting you be condemned to hell for an eternity for a tiny thing? The Pharisees strained at a gnat. I guess Mormons do, too.

5. You must go through a temple of God on earth and obey the prophet and all of the priesthood holders above you or you won't get to the highest degree of heaven. Wait a minute! Why would ten priesthood holders above me be able to keep me out of heaven if God could snatch me out of hell and put me in heaven? God is more powerful than any prophet or priesthood holder. After all, all they happen to be is men who got ordained by other men to what Mormons call the priesthood. Even if there was a true prophet on earth, he wouldn't be able to keep me out of heaven just because he didn't like my hairstyle, how many earrings I wear, and my health habits. Yet, this is how Mormons think. You can't take a sip of wine ever. You can't wear anything improper like flip-flops to church. On and on and on and on. I think that the "prophets" I've heard speak lately don't have much to say. And what do I think of the temple? Not much. No loving God would rely on something so disturbing.

Basically, I am sick of a lot of things about Mormonism. The last post on a message board that I made about any Mormon doctrine made me really, really mad. I think I am still very angry. I can't get that stuff out of my system. It seems like I am going to be obsessed with it forever. I am not getting it out of my system very fast. I am in touch with a kind of blinding anger that makes no sense. It is because none of this stuff that I was taught when I was growing up makes any sense.

It was all arbitrary. I kept getting new doctrines from Mormon Church leaders. It never ended. I kept finding out ways that I wasn't doing right. It never ended. I was on a hamster wheel, and I was told that it would bring me happiness. Actually, no happiness happened as I treaded the wheel, and I did notice that it took me nowhere. Actually, I got more and more backwards with time. I appeared to be moving backwards, not forwards. I got less and less mentally competent, less and less hopeful. I didn't seem to be able to get it right. I still can't get it right. But I appear to have moved forward instead of backward. I have decided that I, not the LDS Church, am accountable for my choices.

I feel really horrible today. I am rather tired. How am I supposed to keep going on some sort of fake journey? I don't really feel where I am going at all. I think that I am being fake with myself about what my direction in life should be. I have ideas to do things, but it doesn't ring true. I feel fatigue instead of energy. Something is very, very wrong. I might crawl back into bed and do some brainstorming and resting there. Nothing is taking right. It seems all wrong. I am not doing well at all. I have a lot of anger and confusion to deal with. How dare they derail my life so far that I wouldn't know what I wanted if it hit me in the face? It's not right! I'm in my 30's and I'm still trying to find myself?

Thanks a lot Mormon Church for hiding me from myself! Thanks a lot for telling me that I am wrong! Thanks a lot for hiding truth from everyone so that the whole world can be even more messed up than it is! Thanks a lot for letting me crash so badly that my body and mind aren't up to speed enough for me to move out of the traps in my life fast enough! Thanks a lot for turning me into a vegetable and then condemning me for becoming a living person! Thanks so much! Thanks a lot! Thanks a lot!

Go to hell!

I know that this is how I really feel. I feel a hatred in my heart for all the lousy premises of Mormonism. I feel a hatred for the magical thinking. "If you would accept the atonement your life would be better!" I can hear them saying it now! Quit your magical illogical thinking! Value your lives enough to get out of Dodge and start making decisions to save yourself now!

Because that is what a voice in my head said to me in 2005, after I prayed to God to ask how I should help others. I got no answer to the actual question, "How should I serve?" Instead I got a warning in my head, "Save yourself."

The LDS Church taught me that it was wrong for me to want to save myself without saving others. They were fond of talking about how service and missionary work was what really saved your soul. Otherwise, you should do what your leaders said and accept the atonement. Excuse me, people, but have I ever been able to reject the gifts of God that are naturally due to all of his people? When have I ever believed truly that I could not save myself from any kind of ruin? When have I ever wanted to believe that my life was in someone else's hands? Where is the mercy of the merciless? I have relied on evil men to give me advice and straighten my paths through life. When will I ever get out of the nightmare? When will something I think or say be the way to get me out of this hell hole? When will I be able to respect myself? When will I be able to get it right? What is my problem? No! What is your problem? Why can't you tell me the way out of my insoluble mess? Why can't you tell me why I'm still defective? Why can't you give me the time of day just once without a message of guilt about what I am supposed to do? Why are your members starting to shun me? Why do they cringe when I talk about how we can bring good things to ourselves when I speak up in church? Why is everyone so shocked that I have suffered at all? Why have all of my friends so far blamed me? Where is the mercy? When does it end? My heart was bleeding and now it is hardening! What have you brought me to? I was supposed to humble myself and now I am a rebel, hardened by life. Now I can only respond to my survival instinct. Why can I no longer trust anyone? Why are they all vipers? Why do they only care about the empty order of their own lives? Why are they staring into a void and telling me to come with them? When will they grow up and teach real doctrine? Why is it all false? Why don't I fit in?

Where are your souls? Why are they easing into an apathetic laxity? Where is your charity? Why can you only ignore others? Why can you only ridicule me when I do not respond to you the way that you would like? Where is your integrity? Why do I have a sudden urge to sing jazz during the hymns? Why do you care if I do? Why should I even care if I am being proper? Why does it matter so much to wear a skirt to church?

Why do I even bother? If I set foot in a church building ever again, I will wear pants. I wear the pants in my family. Be off with you. I no longer care about your sick game.

Give me strength. I was never talking to a real god. I was talking to the Mormon god. They sapped my faith in Him, the real God. They turned him into a New Age answer.

They answer to no one else, or so they think. Where is my God? I haven't managed to answer that question? The impatience and anger eat me up while I feel that I can do nothing. So far, my own god has been myself. Have they taken the Creator of the Universe away from me? I feel like they have.

They nearly took away my desire to be chaste, virtuous, kind, happy, normal. They nearly took away my desire to live my life. For only a short-tracked treadmill would do. The LDS faith recycled itself daily in my unanswered questions. I kept vomiting all their bad ideas off of the side until I began to step in my own vomit. It was a warning for me to get away.

Now that I am mostly on the outside, I can only stare at the vomit, as if it was some kind of badge of honor. The horror was what began to define me. The nightmare was the real truth. I am hurting inside because I am still attached to the nightmare. No one can get me out.

I know that other people are in the nightmare. So, basically, they can't get me out either. They can help me extricate my body from pits, but they can do nothing if I don't know where I am.

Ifeel angry, and then I feel dead inside.

Where do I go from here? No one taught me the answer to this question.

Mormonism is Crumbling Merely by Logic

2008-03-16T14:16:00.000-07:00

I just found another site on the internet on which I can post. It seems that there are lots and lots of different kinds of message boards. Now there are three which I can lurk on. (I'm not counting the NOM or the exmormon board.) It seems that eliminating the exmormon board is not going to create a problem for me. I will learn what it is like to politely post and get polite responses! Wow! What a swanky idea!

Yesterday I read Deuteronomy 31-32. In Chapter 31, Joshua is called to take the people of Israel to the promised land. Moses also completes writing down on a scroll every single word of what is known as the law of Moses. He has the people place it beside the ark of the covenant as a "witness" against them. I suppose this is an acknowledgement of the Israelites' tendency to rebel against the commandments of the Lord. It's also a prophecy of greater rebellion. What would it be like should a religious leader say this to you? Would you believe him? You have to be an awfully good leader to be like Moses.

Chapter 32 is in verse in The Holman Bible. It is entitled "Song of Moses." This song appears to be a very big prophecy. Verse 25 says "Outside, the sword will take their children, and inside there will be terror; the young man and the virgin [will be killed] the infant and the gray-haired man." This is the verse of the lack of mercy of the invaders and destroyers of Jerusalem, in particular, the Chaldeans. (2 Kings 25: 8-21) It refers to slaying the people by the sword without the city. In the city, people will starve to death, etc. Chapter 32 is a prophecy to warn the people until their apostacy right before Jerusalem is destroyed.

I am reading the Bible, but not all chronologically. I am skipping around from book to book, between the Old Testament and the New Testament.

There is something else I have found. This passage was quoted on MADB, the Mormon Apologist board. It is Matthew 30-32: "Anyone who is not with Me is against Me, and anyone who does not gather with Me scatters. Because of this, I tell you, people will be forgiven every sin and blasphemy, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him. But whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the one to come."

Basically, these verses are about which types of blasphemy and obedience are forgivable. Basically, "every sin and blasphemy" will be forgiven. But there is one blasphemy that will not be forgiven. We are not to blaspheme the Holy Spirit or Holy Ghost. It occurs to me that Jesus is willing to forgive, especially if we are willing to repent. However, this blasphemy against the Holy Ghost is something that just seems to be unforgivable. I do not know how it is that you blaspheme the Holy Spirit. Do you say something horrible if you know the Holy Spirit is in the room? Are there acts that could only be in defiance and disrespect of the Spirit which speaks all truth? It seems that you would either need to say something really horrible that is directly against the Holy Ghost, or that you would need to do things in complete rebellion to what everything good is telling you. It could be that you would have to intentionally be blasphemous against that which you know to be true. If you don't know how you would ever intend to do something like this yourself, it could be a really good sign. Basically, you're not as evil as you thought you were. I know that I do not completely know how this would be possible. I am not feeling ANY ambition in this area. But it seems there may be people evil enough to do this. To me, real, pure evil is an intention to be evil, not an accidental evil. If you keep trying to make good decisions and keep away from that which you think is evil, you are doing exactly the opposite.

According to the Book of Mormon there is more to this equation. Alma 39: 5-6 talk about the LDS version of this type of thing. According to these verses, there is one "unpardonable" sin: "[denying] the Holy Ghost." There is a sin that is most near unto it: "[murdering] against the light and knowledge of God," also called "the shedding of innocent blood." It is not easy to obtain forgiveness for this sin.

The Book of Mormon does people a disservice here. It does not use the word "blaspheme" like the Bible scripture does. It uses the word "deny." Why would denying something be the same as blaspheming something? Aren't these two acts lightyears apart? You could "deny" the Holy Ghost merely by denying the Holy Ghost is influencing you. You could just not know at all. You could "blaspheme" the Holy Ghost only by intentionally doing and saying very, very horrible things. I find myself laughing at this. Why is this so badly written? Could it be that the Book of Mormon has passages that are entirely uninspired in any way? Does this mean that Joseph Smith, Jr. did not translate any golden plates at all? Could it be that in the book are entire passages written so badly that not even Mormons can follow them?

It only seems that the more I try to defend or explain the Book of Mormon, the worse it gets. Passages that I once thought were the light of my spiritual world, fall apart under completely logical scrutiny. I do not even need to be antagonistic against it. I can only watch the cookie crumble. It was once a yummy cookie. Only, it is now stale and completely in crumbs.

This is why I no longer need virulently hateful anti-Mormon rhetoric. I don't need to hate people. All I need to do is find the truth and speak it as I see it. That, right there is enough to take down the weak structures in Mormonism, at least in my own mind. I personally don't need to complain all day long that Mormonism is a cult. I don't need to say bad things about my fellow Mormons very often at all. The Book of Mormon is falling apart, as has much of the more unique doctrines of Mormonism. I'm not worried about being converted back anymore.

I'm Not a NOM

2008-03-15T12:01:00.000-07:00

Hmmmmm......It seems that I was NOM for a day.

I am not a NOM. I think I really thought that I was constructing a plan in my head. I thought that in a year, I would pick a ward, visit its meetings often, and disrupt it. Maybe for a month or two. Then I thought that I was going to write several letters to the prophet. My rationale was that I still cared about the Church and that I was going to help it start to get rid of its corruption. I have to say that this sounded more appealing than being anti-Mormon.

However, at this point I don't want to have much more to do with the LDS Church. I am very sick of it. And, yesterday, the thought that I had more duty towards it made me feel kind of lousy inside. I felt just a little bit sick. I thought I was being principled. But really, my duty is not towards the Church anymore. It is to myself.

I think that it is indeed my duty to stay off of exmormon.org. The message board is so anti-Mormon that I cannot help but wonder if anyone on it is truly being honest about their experiences with Mormonism. They just agree with anti-Mormon statements that are posted and don't think about what they are really saying.

When I posted on the NOM board that I still enjoy the Book of Mormon, I did it out of shock that no one on the exmormon board had any respect for my heritage or opinion. The exmormon board is so bad that people start thinking they are NOM's. Actually, you don't have to back to your NOM-hood to despise hate speech that lacks logic or truth. The people on exmormon.org, or RFM, hate religions of all kinds. They hate spirituality of all kinds. Some of them hate goodness of all kinds. That's not my kind of people. And that certainly is not me.

I like the NOM's because they have standards. Being LDS told me that there were some standards that I could live. I little bit of deprivation every now and then was not a crime. Lots and lots of deprivation is a crime. But self-control has its charms. It can actually preserve your life. And it can help you achieve higher things than those who do not have self-control. The RFM posters have thrown the baby out with the bathwater. Some of them are lying about having been born into the church as well. They constantly say things that indicate they were converted to it at a certain point as adults and in a few years decided to leave and have nothing to do with it again. RFM is a good board for anger. But after you have gone through all of your anger, you start to hate it.

I admire the NOM's, even though I do not completely endorse their continued activity in the LDS Church. I might post on the NOM board every once and a while. They're cute people. See! I am definitely not anti-Mormon. I think the LDS Church would be different if it contained a higher level of people with the kindness, tolerance, and consideration of the NOM's. The LDS Church is shooting itself in the foot by discouraging NOM's from voicing their opinions. I think that many of them will either leave the LDS Church or form a break-off organization. The organization that breaks off may be so weird that the mainstream LDS Church will be embarrassed.

Watch out LDS Church! You never know what defectors will do with your material!

There are two other boards that I can post on where I don't have to be NOM or anti-Mormon. I can just be a Post Mormon or Ex-Mormon.

Too Much Anti-Mormon Hate Speech is Wrong

2008-03-14T12:23:00.000-07:00

I think that I have been trying too hard to be anti-Mormon. Just because I think that there are evil elements to the LDS Church does not mean I have to promote hate speech against it. I am starting to tire of anti-Mormon websites that have nothing to do with individual belief systems and everything to do with hating Mormons and Mormonism without reason.

I thought that the anti-Mormon website I was posting on was honest, but I began to realize that people were distorting the facts to sound more anti-Mormon and more cool. I am beginning to feel that this is immature. I am beginning to mistrust those people.

There are still a number of things that I have an emotional attachment to in Mormonism. I like some passages of the Book of Mormon. I belief in an afterlife. I believe that people will be rewarded in heaven for their good deeds. I believe in many parts of the Bible. I believe in God. I believe in Jesus Christ. But no belief that anyone walks away with is respected by certain anti-Mormons.

And then all Mormons are ridiculed as if they are all stupid because they were raised in the Mormon tradition. If anyone is damaged by the Church they act as if everyone in that church is evil and damaging, despite the fact that there may be many good or completely innocent people in that church.

I also believe that God works with the leaders and followers of churches to help them make those churches closer to worshipping Him and closer to the truth. I think that many churches have choices to make. Will they be more accepting of humanity? Will they promote rules that really do make people happy, not rules that only restrict unnecessarily? Will they teach their parishioners how to treat one another kindly? Will they help their members in the everyday decisions and routines that bother them most?

It seems that many churches could be good churches. Rather than focusing on whether a church is THE TRUE CHURCH, maybe it should be emphasized what good that church does for its members. It should be emphasized that no church should be found abusing others spiritually, emotionally, or physically. Even if the members believe that the abuse fosters the truth. How can abuse foster the truth?

And just as I said that I would write about the chapters in the Bible that I was reading, I stopped having enthusiasm for reading the Bible. Oh my goodness! How did that happen?

I think that I am stuffing this whole search for the truth thing a little too far down my throat. I am not just letting myself be. If I want to, any time I can read that Bible. If I have no response to it, I have no response to it.

Basically, anything goes here on my blog. Any concern I have, anything I am learning. It belongs here.

In the mean time, I am going to make sure I don't go onto extra hateful anti-Mormon websites. There are lots of alternatives that I am finding on the internet. Also, I can focus on doing more interesting activities offline so that I may promote a more well-rounded life for myself.

I can still complain about the Mormon Church. I am just sick of letting my spiritual journey be defined by the opinions of others. It hurts me to be rejected for the positive aspects of my belief system. I should guard my feelings regarding those beliefs and participate only in internet communities that do not completely cut into me for being the believer that I am. I believe in spirituality. I believe in God.

Let it be. Let it be.

A New Kind of Entry

2008-03-09T19:25:00.001-07:00

My blog is entering a new era. I have worked on a lot of the anger I have held in for years. I have mourned many aspects of my life not being perfect. I have acknowledged head on what I need to acknowledge now that I am no longer an active member of the LDS Church.

I would like to keep blogging about the LDS Church. I would like to keep blogging about the brainwashing and confusion produced by the Church.

I would also like to speak about my new beliefs, my new questions, my Bible study. I would like to write about how I perceive what I read in the Bible. I will not always give learned or wordy analyses of what I read. But I will comment on the impression it left me with to deal with the text known as the Holy Bible to so many religions.

I am starting to want to move forward. I will start by learning to gaze at belief and meaning in life from different angles.

So, I just realized that a part of the brainwashing I am undoing since being in the Mormon Church has to do with physical pain. In high school, one day, I was in the bathroom. I had horrible cramps due to the time of month, and no idea what to take for them. They were really bad. An hour later, when I got out of the bathroom, the cramps had subsided. I left the regular high school building to go to what is known as release time seminary. Many LDS high school students in Utah spend at least one class period of the day being taught LDS doctrines and being encouraged to study the Standard Works--the Book of Mormon, King James Bible, Doctrine and Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price. When I went to seminary, we were told how we were to deal with adversity in life. It sounded like the topic was describing my day. We were told not to pray to have the adversity taken away. We were instead supposed to pray to be able to endure it. LDS people are taught, and often believe, that any pain or discomfort in life is allowed by God so that we can be humble and turn to Him. We are told not to ask why, but ask why not.

It sounds sort of cruel. A high school girl is learning to deal with her life and her body and she is told in seminary that she should endure it and pray to endure it? She can't try to take it away? While I was not convinced it meant that I should not take pain medication next time my little problem happened, I thought that if I had been righteous, I wouldn't have prayed for God to take away my pain. By the way, I had, and I think that that is why I left the bathroom ready to go to another class. God did help me on that day. You shouldn't pray to have it taken away?

I think that to do this day, I get tense whenever I have any sort of physical discomfort, as if I am trying to will myself to endure the pain. I have noticed that when I relax, the pain subsides and I am able to think about how to properly deal with my discomfort on a medical and emotional level. Yes, God takes away pain when there is no way out of it, and the soul in distress needs it.

It is amazing how the brainwashing of any kind of organization can take away the empowerment and natural faith of one individual. And I am amazed that any religious people would take the pain and confusion of a high school student and turn it into some sort of trial that can never be relieved. Shame, shame on Mormonism.

Now for the Bible portion of my blog!

I have been reading 1 Corinthians. Chapter 7 verses 25-40 talks about how to deal with the unmarried and the widows. Instead of saying the everyone must be married, Paul talks about how those who may not be in a grand position to marry, no matter what their age, should not assume that they must get married and rush into a marriage contract. He talks about how married life is different than single life. He calls single life a time to be holy. He calls married life a time to please one's spouse. Paul emphasizes the value of each time of life. He tackles the social mores of his day regarding marriage and virginity. He gives his followers some guildelines. This passage says to me that Paul was teaching people so they would be able to deal with the practical affairs of their lives and emphasize common sense in their traditions and behaviors. To me this means that true religion emphasizes practical matters when necessary so that right living can be lived everyday, not just in a church or synagogue.

Chapter 8 is about food offered to idols. This chapter makes less sense to me because it is so much a practical matter of the saints in Corinth. There doesn't seem to be a modern equivalent to the problem presented in this chapter. I think that personally, I am not going to read it over and over again and worry about it. I am just glad that Paul is telling the people to beware of practices that would be offensive to the Lord.

I think that as I read the Bible, I wonder what kind of Christian I am. I do not seem to be vibrating with Christianity. I think that as a member of the Mormon Church, I did not seem to feel the vibrance of the truest form of Christianity. The Mormon Church took the bite out of the atonement for me. And there are logical things that Mormonism never addressed that I am trying to figure out. Basically, I do not know all the questions I must ask for things to make sense. As an active Mormon, things did not make much sense when it came to Jesus and what he has done for me and mankind.

Reading the Bible makes me explore my feelings: Do I believe what is presented to me in the Bible on a literal level? Do I believe some literal things and some symbolic things? Are there mysteries that no one knows, including the authors of the Bible? Are non-Christian religions valid? I have started with questions. And I know that I am completely out of touch with questions that seem to be there on an instinctual, but not logical level. I wonder what will come out of me in a few years? I think that I am more comfortable living with questions than answers at this point and time. After all, when I believed I had all the answers, I was living a cruel and rigid religion that did not honor the idea of being the question. Eastern religions honor this. I think Christians could do this too.

Bizarre Beliefs and Magical Thinking for All!

2008-03-09T16:17:00.000-07:00

The things that I believed while I was in the Mormon Church were not always just the standard fare. I did not just believe that Joseph Smith was a prophet who had a vision, that the Book of Mormon was true, and that the LDS Church was the one true church one earth. I believed other crazy things.

A few years ago, I was on my aunt's rural property and thought that I had found a temple. I thought that I was feeling the power of God whenever I went to a certain spot. I believed that there were spots throughout the earth that were natural temples. This was from the idea that a spot in Jerusalem was consecrated by a Mormon leader. However, I didn't think it was consecrated by the Mormon leader. I thought it was consecrated by the Book of Mormon prophet Moroni.

On the same vacation/family reunion at my aunt's house, I decided that I was going to convert all of my non-Mormon relatives. These relatives had long been a concern to me. They did things like drinking beer, gambling, and swearing. Some of my cousins are the wildest people I know. However, by the end of this family reunion I was sure they couldn't possibly be open to it. And they had started many fights that proved that all they wanted in life was attention and mischief. They told lies and made empty accusations. And I began to retreat from them on an emotional level. These people want to be Mormons? Oh, please.

Another time, I was in church when a stake president was speaking in sacrament meeting. He said that the windows of heaven were closing and we didn't have much more opportunity to pay our debts. He said that in a few years we would not be able to pay them off anymore. I believed this wholeheartedly. As LDS people, we were always told to prepare for disasters and that the Second Coming of Christ was around the corner. The LDS leaders made a big deal out of everyone paying their debts. So, this made sense to me. Soon thereafter I got a "prophecy" telling me that the economy of the United States would collapse in 15 years. I used the bad reports of the U.S. economy on NPR to work myself up on this one. I called people and told them the prophecy. I was sure it was true. Nothing really unusual happened to make me believe that my idea had come from God. However, I thought I had the gift of prophecy. My sister pooh-poohed me when I told her. I thought she was blind and insensitive when it came to the truth.

Later, I decided that the United States economy was probably still pretty good since it kept having any growth at all. I have since decided that economic woes are here, but they pop up in cycles and for actual reasons. Sometimes the economy just prunes itself here and there. I now believe that it would take many years for the whole U.S. economy to get that weak.

On a financial level, the LDS Church is not the place to be. It may be that the LDS Church is very wealthy. I don't have exact figures, but it is worth over a billion at this point. One of the reasons for this wealth is that everyone pays ten percent of their gross earnings every year. People are told that they must pay tithing or they will not get temple recommends. They are also told that they will avoid being burned during the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. They are told that if they faithfully pay tithing to the LDS Church the windows of heaven will be opened and pour out a blessing upon their heads. They believe that they will be wealthier than those who do not pay tithing.

So basically, LDS people believe that they will personally be wealthier and that God will make them prosperous if they pay their tithing. There are tithing stories in the church about people receiving checks in the mail and being able to pay their bills, just because they paid tithing. Basically, LDS people believe that if they give to the Church, God will give back to them. Unfortunately, many people have financial problems that are made worse by the fact that ten percent of what precious little money they do have is going to donations to the LDS Church, not payment of large bills or savings for houses, educations, or retirement.

Basically, when it comes to money, Mormons have magical thinking. They imagine that paying tithing will make them richer. It does the opposite.

Also, Mormons are told to pay all of their debts. Some people are in debt because the money doesn't stretch during the month to cover everything. So, basically, the people are constantly made to feel guilty for being in a financial position the LDS Church put them in. So, people have to pay tithing and feel guilty for not paying it. And then, they have to feel guilty that they are in debt, in some cases, because they paid tithing.

And then there is this shocking fact: At a certain point, LDS leaders were telling Church members that they needed to settle down and put down roots. They were told to buy a house and not move all of the time. It makes sense for some families to find a good neighborhood, buy a house, and settle down. However, not all church members are wealthy enough to buy a house that is large enough for them and all of their children.

On top of this, everyone is told to get an education. Lots of young people graduate from college with student loan debt.

Here is a classic scenario from BYU:

A nineteen year old girl and a twenty-two year old boy get married in the temple. Neither one of them has finished college. They both get jobs and try to support each other and make it through school. At some point, the girl may stop using birth control. Either that or she never used it in the first place. This fertile young woman is now pregnant. She has the child. This is what the leaders have told her to do. The young man is now trying to support a wife AND child and get through school. The couple may continue to fail to use birth control and have more children. The young man continues to struggle with bringing in enough money and getting his degree. Some young men never get their degree and end up earning less than they could have. All this and the family keeps growing.

The young people could have all sorts of debt. They could have student loan debt, house debt, car debt, debt from medical bills. But they keep going and assume that this is how life is. For some couples, this breaks up the family. The young couple, or young parents cannot survive the financial deprivation. On an emotional level, things have gotten to be too hard.

Some couples divorce. Some couples feel a never-ending misery that life will never get better. What is worse, the LDS Church leaders tell people that life will not get easier. They tell them that they must prepare for the future and become more spiritual. And they must not stop paying tithing. They are also told that happiness comes from marrying and starting a family early. Many people are actually made unhappy by this kind of a life. Parents and children miss out on health care, future educational opportunities, and a chance to feel financially secure more often.

As you can see, guilt for debt is the cherry the LDS leaders put on top of the sundae of shame, anxiety and burden that the leaders give to families in the church.

Are families really forever in the LDS Church? Or are they merely part of the bizarre mythology that LDS leaders use to manipulate the members into feeling guilt and neediness that would make them turn to the LDS Church for answers? Many people feel that the LDS Church does have the answers. They feel it isolates them from the evils of the world. But does it?

I feel that the LDS Church makes its members believe myths and lies about life that make it impossible to be successful and independent. I know one young family that started out in debt and a lack of education, and I know that no one can make it in this world with great success merely by following the teachings of the LDS Church. Debt and regret are too often the real result.

Why do I care about this? I didn't marry young. I didn't marry at all. Well, I got some of my ideas about life from my fellow church members. And it just didn't wash for me. And I began to feel sorry for people that I at first felt must be very righteous. After a while, I began to tell my family members that I thought that people shouldn't be marrying under the age of 25. I saw impossible life situations because it happens rampantly in the LDS Church. I feel that many people in our society are mentally still children. One reason for this is that American society is so complex that we are children for a while. Our culture is the opposite of simple and relaxing. It makes us into idiots while we try to figure out why the world is the way it is. It is not easy to get along in this society. It is something we must learn before we drag others into our learning curves.

Let us have some sense and think for ourselves. Let us see what ideas and organizations make us believe that life can be easily navigated. Let us see that we not become trapped in them.

I Am Becoming Myself

2008-03-05T21:19:00.000-08:00

Since my last entry on this blog, I have come to some interesting conclusions. I looked at the NOM (New Order Mormon) message board. I thought that it was an interesting board. The people seemed to be having civil conversations. They liked the LDS Church a lot more than the people on the exmormon board. They were a lot less angry.

At first I thought it was kind of beautiful. All of these people were expressing different opinions without sounding bitter. I have to admit that I was drawn to the lack of bitterness. It was truly a rest from the more bitter-sounding stuff on exmormon.org. I thought that the threads on the board had more depth, especially the threads in which people were philosophizing or reasoning about some issue. I also felt like I had reasoned like a NOM for a long time. I still reason somewhat like a NOM.

There was a problem, however, when I lurked on the NOM board the next day. I realized, that as much as I would like to pretend to be a NOM, I am all the way out. I think that I wished that I had seen that board a year or two earlier when I was thinking in that vein. I would have thought it was great. It may have even helped me more quickly understand that I don't reason like a true blue Mormon.

However, I am dealing with the present time. I cannot actually go back to church. It would be against my values and I would be poisoned by the bad spiritual atmosphere in the church building again. And a woman from the ward called the other day, and she was so rude that I hung up on her. I can't go back to those people. I don't trust them with my emotional well-being. I suppose that I wished I could go back to fool my mother who is pressing on me like a hot iron. But there is no other way to deal with this than with honesty. I think it is a bad deal all around.

I also think that those NOMS are attending better wards than I last attended. The last two wards I attended were so bad that I couldn't even think about going back. I obviously do not believe in the Mormon Church anymore. I think that after lurking on the NOM board a little, I realized that I fundamentally differ from the philosophies of those people. A NOM participates in LDS Church meetings whether or not they believe any Mormon doctrine. I do not participate at all. I am no longer trying some ridiculous balancing act. I'm through.

I realize, as well, that I am not ready to write my whole resignation letter as of yet. I did try it, and it was scary. I am still forming opinions that will allow me to completely comprehend this whole experience of going toward an Ex-Mormon status. I am seduced by all sides of the coin. I see the good. I see the bad. I don't hate active Mormons for liking their faith. It disturbs me that they like their faith, but I don't hate them. I understand it all too well.

I have realized that what is happening is that I am becoming more definite about who I am and what I believe. I more definitely believe that I no longer believe in the Mormon Church. So many things about that church are no longer sacred. If I post on the internet I speak with more certainty, and I do not believe that I am so easily swayed. I am just more honest with myself and honest with others.

In fact, the next time my mother harasses me with her version of the truth, I will tell her what I think of her assailing me with her beliefs without her understanding mine. I will have to tell her if what she says breaches healthy boundaries. She can't terrorize me my whole life. I don't try to upset her and preach anti-Mormon views to her, but I feel that she is sort of trying to storm the castle of my beliefs and emotions. She is still trying to get me to go back to church.

I am starting to be ready to say what I believe. I am starting to be ready to tell her to back off.

A strange thing happened when I last lurked on the NOM board. I began to be sick with the awareness that the NOM position, to me, seems naive and emotionally dishonest. I cannot actually believe, no matter who says it, that the LDS Church is a force for good in that many people's lives. I can't actually believe that it is all that pleasant. I can't believe that it is innocent. I was looking for innocence on that board. Instead there is a clash of opinions, disguised in LDS reasoning. The LDS reasoning is still there, but the beliefs are fading.

And every once in a while, I read a post that tells me that the person posting that message is a very disturbing person to me. Some people on the internet come off as fake and insincere to me. I am actually good at reading people's intents in their posts. And there were a few posters who were pretending to be nicer and more agreeable than they were. They were also pretending to like the LDS Church more than they really did. I found the insincerity creepy. I found it creepier than the anger on the exmormon board.

It shocked me how much I suddenly knew, after running across those posts, who I was. I suddenly feel as if I know myself. I looked at something that is no longer me and I know myself. All of this twisted belief! I was becoming like that! I was becoming insincere and claiming beliefs I want nothing to do with. I think I really am finding myself. I feel as if I am living securely and happily in my own skin. I am recovering who I am. I am uncovering what I always was but that the Mormon Church tried to cover up. It tried to hide myself from me. It tried to define me. But I am no longer easily defined by others.

This is a shock and a pleasure. How the hell was I running around not knowing myself? How the hell did I keep myself so hidden? The fakery and the hyprocrisy and the fear are starting to melt away. I even go out in public and don't feel so nervous. And I stand up straighter. I feel like a ramrod rock some days. I don't hide myself. Could it be that I am not some person who is just a shame? I was withering in shame and fear. Does it take that long to get out of a religiously prompted haze of negative, shameful, fearful beliefs?

Maybe I will actually become a more mature, competent person? Maybe I will become my own version of functionality and normalcy!

Maybe I really am myself!

Pity and Negativity

2008-03-02T14:02:00.000-08:00

I have been working on my resignation letter. I feel like I have gotten halfway through the first draft. The challenge is to make sure I remember all that I would like to write about in my reasons for leaving the LDS Church. I am covering a number of topics.

Today, I opened my eyes to a new topic. It is how I felt when I went to church and how I feel the LDS members are being educated on an emotional level. Fear isn't the only thing that LDS people are taught. I also picked up on a tendency for people to feel sorry for themselves. Self-pity is a serious topic in the LDS Church.

First, there is the epidemic of depression. A large number of LDS people actually experience depression without having any idea why. I was like that for a while. I felt, often, like I was drowning in negative emotions and a lack of energy. This kind of experience is often described as depression. Sometimes people refer to it as "burnout."

But I finally got that feeling sorry for yourself is one thing that the leaders of the LDS Church may make members feel. My mother came home from church and told me that she knew I was discouraged. She went on and on and bore her testimony of the Book of Mormon. By the time she stopped I thought I was going crazy. All of the things she said actually depressed me. Basically, she thinks I am discouraged and so reading anti-Mormon lit and refusing to participate in the Church at all. This is obviously not it at all. In fact, she made me feel sick inside, and as the feeling faded, I realized that the pity she was heaping on me was the pity I always felt when in church meetings.

Pity is a funny thing. It is actually a comfortable feeling for some people. A certain amount of pity feels like compassion. But pity is not compassion. Pity is an emotion that gives you the excuse to stay stuck and look for answers, yet never find any. Because pity is more comfortable to some people than owning up to who they really are and what the truth really is.

Pity actually assumes there is something wrong with you. It often masquerades as some type of sympathy, but the key to recognizing it is that it is based on the idea that there is something wrong with the person either experiencing self-pity or being given pity. Pity has nothing to do with personal growth. And once that gets into your head, you begin to despise it.

I think that my mother was trying to guilt me back into going to church. I think she thinks I believe in the Book of Mormon, but that I might say I don't believe in it just to be rebellious. But I am not ten years old or thirteen years old. These are the low ages you must be to actually rebel to get attention. I am over the age of thirty. It's not rebellion. By the time you are my age, you are sick of fooling around with your life, and you do mean business. That my mother does not know this is shocking to me.

Basically, I realized that some lessons that are given in church meetings actually do make you feel sorry for yourself. The grief lesson that I spoke of in a previous blog was the type of lesson that messed with your emotions. You started out feeling sorry for yourself, and you ended feeling chastised. It never erased the feeling of self-pity you may have had in the first place, but in the end it just made you an angry, self-pitying person. For some reason, somebody higher up wants all of the members to feel negative emotions and just crash into a kind of despair.

I don't completely understand it, but I think that the higher up's in the LDS Church are constantly playing with people's emotions as if they are shiny Christmas toys. They flatter people, then they make them feel ashamed. They instruct them, and then they make them feel discouraged. The whole thing is some kind of sick game. The game always ends with the members feeling some sort of unresolved negative emotion. It never ends.

Basically, this makes me feel sicker and sicker about the LDS Church. It is makes it really obvious that I must stay away, and not just for a while, but forever. After a while, staying away forever was my plan. But now I am completely sickened. It's like I know that the Devil is behind the games played with the members lives. I know that the members are being corrupted and twisted around. I know it is dangerous for people to assume that the church is wholesome or even just harmless. Watch out! The LDS Church will get you.

I Bear My Testimony......

2008-02-27T17:07:00.000-08:00

Today my mother started talking to me. She said to me, "You know those chapters of Isaiah that are quoted in the Book of Mormon." I said, "Yeah."

She said, "You know how they are different when you compare them in the Bible."

I said, "Yeah." (Tension started to build.)

She said, "How do you think they're different?"

I said, "Joseph Smith probably changed them."

She said, "Really? He wasn't very educated."

I said, "Even though he wasn't very educated, he was linguistically gifted."

She said, "I know that he could never have changed those chapters on his own."

So, basically, my own mother testified to me that she doesn't think old Joe did it on his own. My own mother is against me now! Ack! Ack! Ack!

Then later today she said, "You can ask me any question you like. I know the answer."

That one freaked me out, too.

I felt creeped out by the whole Joseph Smith/Isaiah exchange.

Meanwhile, I'm thinking, "How much schooling do you need to change Isaiah chapters? Not much. All you have to do is have enough education to be literate."

Joseph Smith does not fool me. Anybody, and I mean anybody could change those chapters. I see it as a not-too-brilliant feat. All he had to do was change them in a few places so that Mormons, of both today, and yesteryear, will become convinced, before they've checked it all out objectively, that Joseph Smith was speaking for God, that it was an incredible revelation!!!!

I do not want to have anymore creepy conversations with my mother. She is an idiot to think she can change my mind by testifying or offering advice. And, guess what, I NEVER ask her for advice on anything, unless it purely technical, like, how to use a sewing machine, or how to fix a CD player. She's a good mechanic and seamstress, and a horrible reasoner.

Basically, whenever a Mormon is having a dispute with some non-member or anti-Mormon, they are supposed to bear their testimony to that person. This is the equivalent, in mainstream Christianity, of testifying. It is very, very creepy. And I freak out whenever anyone of any other religion pulls this trick, too. I have never liked hearing people bear their testimonies or testify. The fact is that once a month, in our sacrament meetings, LDS people are encouraged to get up on the stand and speak their testimonies into the microphone.

I now see this ritual as a brainwashing technique. Go up and say it. Listen to others say it. Now you really do think that God lives AND that the LDS Church is the one true church on Earth.

There are other things about the Church that are brainwashy, too. But I don't think I need to go into it, do I?

At this point, I have decided that I can, indeed, write my resignation letter. I am listening to all the wrong voices if I think I don't have material of my own for my letter. I am just kind of scared.

After all, I have authored this blog, which is already long. It will be more nerve-wracking, but I just can't stand to quit working on it. It might start to really take shape a few weeks from now. I am giving myself as much time as it takes to write a letter that has real bite. Because I plan to bow out of the LDS Church in style.

Still Undoing Brainwashing

2008-02-25T22:08:00.000-08:00

Today, I started writing my resignation letter so that I could resign from the LDS Church. It started out okay. I copied a form letter on a website, and then I began to give my reasons for leaving the church. I stopped at one point and got up from my desk. I realized that I actually still, somewhere believed in my heart, that some of it was true. I began to read my Bible and I realized that the doctrine that I was writing was not true had basis in another doctrine in my Bible. I realized that although I am believing in certain things irrationally, they started in the Bible as another doctrine.

The doctrine I am speaking about is the doctrine in the Doctrine and Covenants about the three degrees of glory in the next life. I stated, in my writing, that I did not believe that the highest degree of glory, the Celestial Kingdom, was a real place. I began to feel uneasy about that statement. The fact is that even if my mind lets go of the belief in a Celestial Kingdom, there is a Bible doctrine in 1 Corinthians about the glory of resurrected beings in the next life. Two glories are named--celestial and terrestrial. However, according to the Bible, they are not places, they are just states of glory.

According to the Mormon Church, there are three degrees of glory possible to inherit in the next life--the Celestial Kingdom, the Terrestrial Kingdom, and the Telestial Kingdom. Joseph Smith made up a name for the lowest--"telestial." And he called them kingdoms. And he has a whole spiel in Doctrine and Covenants 76 about which sins and life choices put people in which kingdom. That is the main problem. I believe that wherever and however you end up in the next life cannot be possibly determined by the words of a mere man. I do believe that there is a large amount of Mormon snobbery going on. Mormons believe that you must accept their religion either in this life or the next life or you won't be able to inherit the most glorious kingdom with the most privileges--the Celestial Kingdom.

My problems stem from believing that Joseph Smith must have thought he was something special to be able to tell everyone what they needed to do to inherit the celestial kingdom. He really thought that his narrow religion was what determined who got all the good stuff in heaven. And it annoys me to think that good people of other faiths would not be able to be considered worthy of the highest that God has to offer people in the next life. I think that I am more wrapped up in the idea of fairness. I am currently less wrapped up in the literal existence of any "kingdom of glory."

I think that understanding my priorities and positions on certain LDS doctrines is still a process that I am in. I am not completely over the Mormon Church yet. And I have obviously not undone all of my brainwashing yet. I was raised to be in that church for life. What else would happen if I tried to deny it all at once?

I get tired of reading and writing and looking, but I still need to do a lot more writing. I think that I am going to look at writing that letter about three months from now. Maybe I could look at resigning and writing the letter again in May? That might be enough time to see if I am progressing and if I am ready to let go of it all. No one changes their beliefs all at once. It is often a gradual process, sometimes with subtleties that would surprise anyone.

Get Away

2008-02-23T19:27:00.000-08:00

Today, I finally understood how hurt I was at being controlled on a "moral" level for so many years. I finally had myself a very good cry. I finally realized how the strict rules were giving me a desire to actually rebel.

Apparently, the Mormon rules did control me, but there was a healthy part of me that would have no part of it. I kept wanting to break a rule. I wanted to laugh out loud, louder than Mormons wanted me to laugh. And I wondered if it was so bad to have sex with someone I wasn't married to. I wondered why I didn't just get up and scream to the Church and the world that I didn't give a rat's behind anymore.

The fact is that I am no whore. But the idea that I absolutely could not have sex with anyone I was not married to, including anyone I was engaged to, was so repressive that I would have fantasies of having sex with persons I was not married to and would NEVER marry due to the fact that they were so unsuitable.

I never actually did have sex with one of those unsuitable people. But I now realize that that is what spiritual abuse can do to a person. The person will either fantasize about rebelling, or they WILL rebel. And some people can become victims of very bad people just because they threw way too many rules to the wind, rules that might protect them from real crimes.

I think that what happened to me is that I got more cautious as I dropped those ridiculous standards. The fact is, that in my mind, I DO need to make sure that any persons I have sex with in the future are not one of those "unsuitable" people and that the sex is in the context of a committed relationship. I am still deciding on my rules in this area, but at least I have rules I agree with myself on.

Rules that turn you into a person with more than one personality are physically, emotionally, and spiritually damaging, and yes, very dangerous.

And so, yes, the rules of the Mormon Church are very, very damaging on all levels. If a rule is too hard to keep, you have no idea who will do something completely stupid just to be able to say that they broke your lame, idiot rule.

Normal human beings don't like living in glass houses with pancake make-up on so that they can look perfect to everyone else all of the time.

Normal human beings get sick of going to church with other people who also feel like they will throw up if anybody thinks anything bad about them.

Some women, particularly in the Mormon Church, have been raised to believe that their real goal in life is to attract and marry a nice young returned missionary.

They wear make-up and make sure they have dates as many weekends as possible. They have boyfriends as early as they can possibly have boyfriends, sometime after the time they turn sixteen. Sixteen is the age that Mormon youth can start dating.

One day I was looking at the cover of a video about a young male missionary called "Return with Honor." On the back of the DVD cover was a young brunette in red lipstick and lots of eye makeup. She was posed in a shot with the young missionary in the movie. She had that "Mormon look." At that point, I realized that that "Mormon look" was the look of a young woman who was wearing too much make-up, acting much older than she was, and thinking that her only hope was to snag and influence this young man.

It didn't just look like it was from the 1950's, which it did. But it also looked like she was a very sexualized, aged person. She was the Mormon Barbie that is often termed the "Molly Mormon." It sounds so innocent to people in the LDS Church. They see it all the time, in the media and in real life, as well. But it struck me as weird and disturbing when I saw this image of this young woman. A young woman like that finds the next available man and acts like his girlfriend as quickly as she can.

Nothing about this behavior has anything to do with survival in the real world. And it was how my leaders wanted me to end up. They thought that if I and all the other women took seriously our duty to marry a "righteous" man in the temple that we had eternal perspective and were truly committing our life to the Lord.

But I have only come to realize that this is just not right at all. It disturbed me for many years, but now I know that it is not just disturbing and confusing to me personally; but it is also just plain wrong.

I didn't end up a Molly Mormon. But what I ended up as was far more disturbing, particularly since being a Molly Mormon was never my dream. Something worse happened to me. I became repressed, emotionally unstable, constantly afraid of what others thought of me, and finally, completely insane.

It turned out that insanity was really where it was at for me. There was nothing else. I was safe insane. Not many people could get close to me. And it drove away many people in the end.

Would I wish this for my life if I had it all to do over again? No, I would not. But looking back, my insanity was prettier than becoming a hardened fake. At least the insanity was real. Nothing else was.

When it comes down to it, I decided early that my salvation was important. I began to realize that acting out lies just because I was a church member was not a good course. Lying made me feel terrible. And I suppose that that is one thing that slowly began to pull me out of the Church. Removing me from the Mormon Church was worse than removing gum stuck for years to the bottom of your chair, but I slowly loosened myself. And other people had hands in this process, I am sure, but many would be surprised that complete inactivity in the LDS Church was what I was really looking for through all of my tears and confusion and feeling not good enough. Inside, and outside, all I needed was to get away.

The Twisting of Isaiah 29

2008-02-20T19:55:00.000-08:00

I am going to be more serious now.

The next chapter in Isaiah, 29, has interesting stuff in it as well. This is not as scary as how I interpreted a passage from chapter 28.

Verses 9-12 of Isaiah 29 is about how there is a deep sleep poured out upon the people and their prophets and seers see and prophesy nothing. There is a great metaphor in there about how trying to see a vision is, for the people of Israel is like reading a sealed book.

"And the vision of all is become unto you as the words of a book that is sealed, which men deliver to one that is learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he saith, I cannot for it is sealed:
"And the book is delivered to him that is not learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he saith, I am not learned."

You would never guess what Joseph Smith did to it! He took verses 11 and 12 and twisted them so they would be a prophecy of the coming forth of the Book of Mormon. According to Joseph Smith and his Book of Mormon witnesses, there was a sealed portion of the golden plates, the plates from which the translation of the Book of Mormon was taken. No one could read it. But somehow, Joseph Smith decided to make up a story about a scholar telling him, when he sent over someone with some characters from the plates, that he couldn't read a sealed book, meaning the gold plates. Basically, this scholar refused to read or interpret these characters, which were copied onto a piece of paper.

Look in the Book of Mormon in 2 Nephi 27: 15-21:

"But behold, it shall come to pass that the Lord God shall say unto him to whom he shall deliver the book: Take these words which are not sealed and deliver them to another, that he may show them unto the learned, saying: Read this, I pray thee. And the learned shall say: Bring hither the book, and I will read them.
"And now, because of the glory of the world and to get gain will they say this, and not for the glory of God.
"And the man shall say: I cannot bring the book, for it is sealed.
"Then shall the learned say: I cannot read it.
"Wherefore it shall come to pass, that the Lord God will deliver again the book and the words thereof to him that is not learned; and the man that is not learned shall say: I am not learned.
"Then shall the Lord God say unto him: The learned shall not read them, for they have rejected them, and I am able to do mine own work; wherefore thou shalt read the words which I shall give unto thee.
"Touch not the things which are sealed, for I will bring them forth in mine own due time; for I will show unto the children of men that I am able to do mine own work."

Here we have the beginning of the twisting of a negative prophecy about the Israelites in Bible times to a positive prophecy about the Book of Mormon and its assessment by faithless and worldy scholars in the nineteenth century. Is this far-fetched? Why yes of course.

Read the canonized Joseph Smith--History in verses 63-65. It sounds like this story was either made up or twisted around to sound, again, like Bible prophecy from Isaiah.

At this point, I am sort of annoyed at Joseph Smith. He also uses Isaiah 29: 13-14 as well. According to the LDS Church, verse 14 prophesies the coming of the LDS Church, that it is the "marvellous work and a wonder" in verse 14. Again, go to 2 Nephi 27 to get this one re-quoted in verse 26. And verse 13 is quoted as well in verse 25 to describe the preachers of his day as being far from the Lord despite all their speaking of him. It is a way of saying that Joseph Smith was supposedly told, by Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ in the first vision, that none of those churches in Joseph Smith's home town, or in the world, were true. (See Joseph Smith--History verse 19.)

I must say that Joseph Smith worked hard to convince Latter-day Saints through the ages that their church and their Book of Mormon were both the truest on earth. And it worked!

It doesn't work on me anymore. I am doing closer, more honest readings of the Bible. And, sorry, Joe, but it doesn't work on me anymore. No more Joe Smith magic is blinding my eyes.

Sayonara!

SIN!!!!!!!!!!!

2008-02-20T14:23:00.000-08:00

Everything is a sin!

These are all sins:

1. Watching TV.
2. Wearing low necklines.
3. Getting mad at your parents.
4. Grieving the death of your gold fish.
5. Spending too much time painting your fingernails and putting on make-up.
6. Loving your pet birds more than the Bible.
7. Eating chocolate.
8. Eating food with very enjoyable flavors.
9. Taking a sip of wine in an Italian restaurant on a very romantic date.
10. Kissing.
11. Enjoying sex.
12. Reading more of the great fiction writers than you do your Book of Mormon.
13. Believing in any theory of evolution.
14. Taking a break from being good.
15. Having so much fun that you laugh loudly.
16. Enjoying music with a beat.
17. Letting people drink beer in your presence without complaining that they are making you sick and violating God's laws.
18. Letting people have their own beliefs.
19. Saying nice things about atheists.
20. Putting up wall paper on Sunday.
21. Going shopping on Sunday.
22. Have sexual thoughts.
23. Masturbating.
24. Letting yourself be depressed.
25. Talking to birds. Get with reality! Start talking to God!
26. Managing to not worry about your salvation.
27. Thinking you are capable of doing anything right.
28. Looking at a painting of a naked woman by Henri Matisse.
29. Enjoying listening to the radio more than you enjoy going to church.
30. Telling religious people to loosen up.
31. Being easy on yourself after making a mistake.
32. Dropping a stitch when knitting.
33. Making a mistake while playing the organ in church.
34. Being lazy.
35. Moving too slowly while working on researching your family history.
36. Meditating.
37. Deciding that the Bible or Book of Mormon does not represent your viewpoint.
38. Teaching principles of Buddhism in church.
39. Skipping church to learn about Buddhism.
40. Telling the ladies who go to church with you that having self-esteem is good.
41. Liking and caring about yourself.
42. Having boundaries so that others will not take advantage of you when you are feeling vulnerable or over-burdened.
43. Being selfish.
44. Liking people who believe things you don't believe.
45. Marrying an agnostic who worships trees.
46. Making it a goal to earn money. (Oh no! Greed!)
47. Providing condoms in many places so that teenagers won't get pregnant.
48. Thinking about sinning.
49. Looking like you are sinning.
50. Putting fake cigarettes in your mouth.

There are so many more sins! But I can't think of anymore right now!

The Only Road Is Out

2008-02-18T12:52:00.001-08:00

This solitude thing is starting to be a bad idea. Even though I don't always have the energy to leave the house, I think I should whenever I get bored. Yesterday I had cabin fever really, really bad. I was used up as far as all the take time for yourself to think stuff. Also, I had one of those bad episodes of being afraid of the Mormon Church, again.

I am going somewhere today, and it should really help my morale. Doing chores in the house yesterday helped a lot. When I got moving I started to shake off the depression.

I really, actually, don't need to fear that I am going back to the LDS Church. I hate it for what a it is: a pack of lies. And I agree with what I said yesterday: I will leave for my own reasons, and the bad reasons that I agree with from everyone else's negative experiences with this church.

I don't need to fear. I am getting farther and farther away. The pond still stinks, but I am sick of wondering if I am ever going to go step in it again.

I do need to make some reading goals. And yes, I will spend many days alone, but it is no longer forced. I am feeling better today and I realize that only something evil could convince me that I will ever go back. I am feeling the fear leaving. The Church is looking smaller. I am beginning to understand that it really is all up to me. Some strange fate will not get me back onto the church benches. I will prevail in what I am doing.

Yes, it will take a few years to explore the ideas I need to explore and make sure I am unbrainwashed enough to be out of danger of wasting my life or having some dreary glazed-eyed existence. But my eyes are much less glazed now. And the only direction is out.

I read a little of "Under the Banner of Heaven" last night. It is kind of entertaining because it seems so wildly improbable. And yet, I know it is probable where I come from.

Where I come from was shaping who I was. It was slowly corrupting me. If I had taken it all seriously, I would be a very bad person. The fact is, that I felt my soul corrupting. I felt cold and dark. My femininity was sucked into a black hole of self-disgust, doubt, and guilt. I was not a happy person.

Even if I have another unhappy day like yesterday, I will wake up to more happy days like today. I am reminded that I was tortured and guilty all of the time a year ago. But I feel so much less torture today. If I thought I needed to go back to church for one more second, I would be so miserable and frightened today. But I don't.

There are more good days than bad days. I will make it out alright. I'm not just leaving something. I am entering something new. I am entering something that is burdenless. I am entering something so free I could never have imagined it. I do have the freedom to choose. I can do things I want to do. I can spend my money on things I really want, not on things I don't want. I don't have to pay any church any money I earn ever again.

I was paying, the last time I paid tithing, to be tortured and corrupted. I was beginning to understand the path to evil. Before I decided to never go back, I had a realization. There is a path you can go down that consists entirely of your fake attempts to be good. You walk around looking good and acting spiritual and magnanimous and inspired. This path leads you down a road to a prideful kind of evil. You try to convert everyone else to this path. You are the leader. You are the great one. That is the path they were trying to get me to go down. You don't need a real identity. All you need is the identity of your leader. God told you to try to heal the world and prophesy. And, by golly, you are going to do it. You are chosen.

I do not have to be chosen. I have to be me. If God chose me for anything, I may figure it out by the time I am old and gray and on my death bed. Or I won't know at all. But sometime in the afterlife, a realization will hit me or someone will tell me. As far as I am concerned, I have chosen myself to be myself.

How I Feel About This Journey

2008-02-17T20:34:00.001-08:00

I have been reading the first blogs I posted here. Boy has a lot changed!

I went through a period of anger. I also claimed that there were reasons I am leaving the Mormon Church, and that the worst reasons I could find for anyone else leaving were not my reasons. I have decided, now, that I am going to leave for good for those "awful" reasons, too. I am leaving for many, many reasons. I am standing up for myself and anyone else who could have been hurt by this church as well. It is starting to feel like some sort of political cause, except that it is religion, not politics.

I burned off a heck of a lot of anger! I even got so mad one night that I wondered if I could ever sue the LDS Church, just to get revenge. I have dropped that idea, but I am starting to see things in a different light.

Today I feel somewhat down, as if all of this religion-dumping is starting to make me feel down in the dumps. I also suspect that one of the reasons I want to have solitude is so that I can feel better emotionally and physically before I start trying to go out of the house for much other than grocery shopping or checking out a library book.

I think that one reason I am not going out is that life has worn me out. This solitude thing is less principled that I thought it was. It is more practical. Basically, I feel really, really lousy. And I feel a kind of burden that I want to do so much more studying to prove things to myself so that I know where I stand on all of the Mormon stuff. There are times when it really bores me. There are times when I wish it would go away.

But it's not going to go away. Like I said in the last post, I am now too big for the pond, and the algae is making it stink. I found a good metaphor for my experience, and I am starting to understand why I feel the way I do. I am too big for the pond, but I am still near it. I can still smell it. It is hard to let go of it when it is still that near.

I have undone so much brainwashing so far, but I still find things in the Bible that scare me. And when I started analyzing a part of Alma in the Book of Mormon today, first I started writing critiques on the strange logic of the book. I think the logic is twisted. And I think that I understand the illogic of the doctrine in some of the stories in the Book of Mormon. But then I ended up on verses that made sense. It scared me because it seemed so real. Part of it seems so real.

I began to get scared that I would start thinking that the LDS doctrine and church are wonderful things. It just stumped me. I think that I found a part of the Book of Mormon that makes sense. I have no idea if it will make sense a year from now. That is the problem. Will I still be sucked in? How much time is this going to take? This is more than having a period of solitude to rest and reassert my boundaries and do study. This is a serious commitment to see where my truth is in a few years.

I felt today that I might not have the strength. I fear not having the strength. I fear getting sucked in. Does this mean that I don't have the strength? Does this mean that I will get sucked back in to the Mormon Church? I have gone to all this trouble, ordered books, completed a reading of some of these books, looked up things online. Am I just pushing myself too far? Am I just discouraged?

I think I am discouraged. I want to read the whole Bible, and the Bible is one big book. Also, I have two versions of the Bible sitting on my desk. Which version tells me the most truth? Which book of the Bible is best represented by which version? I am switching back and forth. The Bible is big.

I could push myself too far. I may want to have a realistic idea of how far I can go, study wise, in the next month, before I flip out. I think I just need to keep going. This whole thing is so big! I really had no idea that I would be undoing a lifetime of brainwashing when I first decided to never go back in November. I was born into it. It's like learning to play the violin after being a piano virtuoso for thirty years. It is strange and new. It could be that I'm still playing "Mary Had a Little Lamb" in my religious and spiritual mind. It will take a while to progress to a much more complicated piece.

Wow! A year ago I would never have thought that I was attempting this type of intellectual and spiritual feat.

The Pond

2008-02-16T16:51:00.000-08:00

I came to a realization today. It is this: the LDS Church looks big to those who join it and believe in it. It looks like the salvation of your soul, the words of Jesus, Jehovah Himself. It seems to be the voice of heaven, the representation of the eternities, the answer to your question about your purpose.

When you question this, you are led to believe that your own personal doubts are small compared to the vast reach into the eternities that the Church has. The incredible prominence around the globe is another thing that makes it so big.

In order to keep believing this, you must believe that all beliefs you have are small compared to all the beliefs the Church tells you to have. You must believe that you are insignificant in order to submit yourself to the Church's will.

I believed that I was a small drop in a large pond. I was overwhelmed by whatever was big enough to make a ripple in that pond. I saw incredible visions that the owners of the pond had given to all water molecules there. They told us they were from beautiful, crystal skies.

After a while, I stopped being a water droplet. I started being a different kind of molecule. I didn't like the other water molecules. I began to find other molecules to expand my cause and feel buoyed up rather than drowned.

It started to stink in the pond. I started to smell the algae. I didn't like it in that pond. I didn't have fish lungs. I had the lungs of a man who stands on land and breathes in the air that reaches to the sky, the real sky, not some mysterious spiritual sky.

The pond and the surrounding land and the keepers of the pond and the land started to bore me. I began to take walks farther and farther away from the pond into land owned by other kinds of men. I began to realize that the stink of the pond was getting farther and farther away, but I was still afraid of the visions of holiness that they gave us. What if they were true? Why was I wishing I could still believe in them?

I did not realize that I had sprouted a real self, a real body that walked on the ground above the pond, away from the pond. I had been fooled into thinking I was a tiny molecule. I missed the other "molecules." But really, I was more of an amphibian. The others were fish and amphibians too. I had never really noticed. I just thought I was a water molecule.

I began to notice that I saw better and could run farther faster and experience more kinds of fun outside the algae-ridden pond. I was developing human characteristics. The others had this evolutionary potential, but they didn't know it.

I still fell prey to spells when I thought that really, I must be a water molecule, ready any time to become a big waterfall to scare the land owners of the other lands. I fell prey to spells when I thought that the visions were true.

I hadn't really yet determined if there was anything bigger than me that could replace the quaint little pond. I began to realize that there were things. I just wasn't giving them enough credence. And if I didn't realize my human characteristics often enough, I might really try to go sit in the pond, the stinky pond with algae, not realizing that people thought I thought I was too big to go back to thinking I was a drop of water.

But I haven't been back to have fun at this little pond. Even if I am frightened. I am growing land legs. I am looking at reality. And I have my own visions in my dreams at night. I think of my own stories when the sun shines, and when it rains. And I am discovering things that were too big to fit in the pond.

A Desolating Scourge

2008-02-15T19:44:00.000-08:00

I just found more good stuff!

I looked up 3 Nephi 13: 19-21. It contains a copy of one of the Biblical passages that contradicts Jacob 2:17-19.

It says, "Lay not up for youselves treasure upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and thieves break through and steal;
"But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal.
"For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."

Why, oh why, is the Book of Mormon getting stupider and stupider? It doesn't happen overnight. No one wakes up and suddenly says that the number one sacred text of their religion is kind of suspect! No one does this. And yet I keep finding things that indicate there is even more junk to be de-bunked!

I was reading my Bible and finding even more passages lifted and stuck in the Book of Mormon or Doctrine and Covenants. And I found even more that I could not believe!

But what is worse than collapsing doctrine in the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants is a chapter of Isaiah. Isaiah 28 appears to have some warnings for certain LDS people. It is originally a warning to those who were rulers of Jerusalem at that time, but it rings with a truthfulness to some modern LDS practices.

Isaiah 28: 14-18 says: "Where hear the word of the Lord, ye scornful men, that rule this people which is in Jerusalem.
"Because ye have said, We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come unto us: for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves:
"Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD, Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation: he that believeth shall not make haste.
"Judgment also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet: and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding place.
"And your covenant with death shall be disannulled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, then ye shall be trodden down by it.
"From the time that it goeth forth it shall take you: for morning by morning shall it pass over, by day and by night: and it shall be a vexation only to understand the report.
"For the bed is shorter than that a man can stretch himself on it: and the covering narrower than that he can wrap himself in it.
"For the LORD shall rise up as in mount Perazim, he shall be wroth as in the valley of Gibeon, that he may do his work, his strange work; and bring to pass his act, his strange act.
"Now there be ye not mockers, lest your bands be made strong: for I have heard from the Lord GOD of Hosts a consumption, even determined upon the whole earth." (KJV)

It just seems that the "covenant with death" and the "agreement with hell" refers to temple endowment covenants. Some people who have gone through the temple have thought there was a Satanic element to the rituals. It may not be a covenant with God that people make there. Also, the covenant with death would be the penalties for sharing temple ceremonies with anyone else.

Also, the making "lies our refuge" appears to be the way the Mormons square themselves with their violent, polygamous past. The leaders do not detail the history in all accuracy to the LDS people. They only seem to hide it. "Under falsehood" have they hid themselves. Also, the "overflowing scourge shall pass through" and "it will not come unto us" refers to the idea that the LDS people believe that in the second coming they will not burn with the wicked. They will go back to Missouri, raise up Zion, and be saved. They also believe they are protected by the Lord from the evils of our day that may visit themselves upon other peoples.

Yet, in verse 17, "Judgment also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet: and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lifes, and the waters shall overflow the hiding place." What if, one day the Lord decides to judge the refuges of lies--temples and meeting houses, in which the LDS people continually lie about their heritage, their past, and their doctrine?

"And your covenant with death shall be disannulled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand" indicates that those rituals and oaths will not withstand the judgments of the Lord in the last days. What if indeed there is a desolating scourge that the LDS people will not withstand?

It indicates, in verse 22, that the "consumption, even determined upon the whole earth," is the timeframe in which this prophecy could come to pass. That this desolating scourge could come upon those in a much later time, when the whole earth will have a "consumption" upon it.

It seems that any who take false covenants are not only not protecting themselves. They are dragging themselves into the ignorance of the whole earth.

I find this passage in Isaiah to be rather difficult to interpret. I also find in it a sign that the elements of the evils I am speaking up about seem to gather themselves rather closely into one Biblical passage.

Floods? Scourges? Is this possible?

You be the judge. I am here to show as best as I can.

Seeking Treasures on Earth and in Heaven

2008-02-13T14:16:00.001-08:00

Joseph Smith was trying to be Moses AND Jesus. It appears that he took passages of the Bible and either used them as examples of ways he could shape his organization, or he stuck them in the Book of Mormon, altered, in his own words. Sometimes these words ring true. But often, they are altered in a way that distorts the real truth.

Jacob 2: 17-19: "Think of your brethren like unto yourselves, and be familiar with all and free with your substance, that they may be rich like unto you.
"But before ye seek for riches, seek ye for the kingdom of God.
"And after ye have obtained a hope in Christ ye shall obtain riches, if ye seek them; and ye will seek them for the intent to do good--to clothe the naked, and to feed the hungry, and to liberate the captive, and administer relief to the sick and the afflicted."

This sounds principled enough. Seek for the kingdom of God first. Be familiar with your brothers and sisters. Be free with your substance. Make everyone else rich, too.

If you seek riches, seek them for the intent to do good by clothing the naked, feeding the hungry, liberating the captive, and administering relief to the sick and the afflicted.

Especially when we get to verse 19, this all sounds very good. But let me think critically for a moment.

It seems that being free with your substance that all may be rich could be stretched to mean: live the United Order that Joseph Smith and Brigham Young have set up. Turn all your wealth over to us and we'll re-distribute it! This is the kind of thing the early LDS pioneers lived. Essentially, it's a form of socialism.

Also, the idea of seeking for riches for anything BUT helping others is ignored in this Book of Mormon passage. People need things as they go through life. They need to pay off debts. They need to pay for treatment of their medical conditions. They need to pay for items and help that further their vocations and callings in life. They need to feed and clothe their children. If giving all your money to charity is all you ever had to do with your money, this would be great. But money matters get complicated. Particularly in the complicated world in which we live.

Also, in the early days of the Church, Brigham Young was advising the people to avoid going prospecting in California. The time of the gold rush and the start of the wealth from that American historical period was something that threatened the status of Brigham Young and his Church, and the membership of that church.

So, what if the people had sought for the kingdom of God and could go on to seeking riches? Well, Brigham Young didn't even let them think about it. Another Book of Mormon passage disrespected by an LDS leader!

There is a Bible passage that I really like. It complements and constrasts the Jacob Book of Mormon passage. It is a passage from The Sermon on the Mount.

"This is why I tell you: Don't worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Isn't life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the sky; they don't sow or reap or gather in barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Aren't you worth more than they? Can any of you add a single cubit to his height by worrying? And why do you worry about clothes? Learn how the wildflowers of the field grow: they don't labor or spin thread. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was adorned like one of these! If that's how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and thrown into the furnace tomorrow, won't He do much more for you--you of little faith? So don't worry, saying 'What will we eat?' or 'What will we drink?' or 'What will we wear?' For the idolaters eagerly seek all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you. Therefore don't worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." (Matthew 6:25-34, Holman Bible.)

So, basically, this Biblical passage tells you to seek the kingdom of God first as well. It also says to seek "His righteousness." You are not just trying to be saved. You are also trying to be good and partake of the love that Jesus offers those who seek Him. This is a quest for a sacred life, not just the promise of a sacred afterlife, as the Book of Mormon passage might have you believe.

Basically, all the physical and material things it mentions in the passage will be provided for you if you first seek the kingdom of God and His righteousness. It does not mean that you stop seeking for the kingdom and His righteousness. It does not say that now you can go get rich. It says that as you seek Jesus and all that is right, you will be provided for. This probably means, on a very simple level, that if you plead with the Lord in prayer for a car, you might not even be listened to. But if you seek righteousness and salvation, you will be more guided in your attempts to fill the needs of this life, including your need for a car. The Lord will help provide for those who truly seek Him.

Also, there is more instruction: "Don't collect for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break through and steal. But collect for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves don't break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." (Matthew 6: 19-21, Holman Bible)

Basically, the treasures you collect should be things you can take with you. And they should be that which helps you gain reward in heaven. If you are caught up in constantly looking for material wealth and material things, you are very in danger of never looking to collect that which will nourish your soul and give you reward in heaven.

Basically, seeking for riches is something that must be balanced with seeking for the kingdom of God. The Book of Mormon says it is okay, flat out, after you have "hope in Christ," I guess maybe hope of salvation. The Bible says that it is okay only when balanced with seeking for Jesus and His righteousness and treasures in heaven. So, we must forever balance, in the Bible's approach. The Book of Mormon seriously undervalues this seeking for Christ and righteousness and reward in heaven.

It seems arrogant to me that we should have obtained "the kingdom of God," and then are able to abandon this search to get rich.

So, basically, here is one place I found today that shows that the Bible indeed has more to offer us.

My Reading and My Progess So Far

2008-02-12T15:58:00.000-08:00

I have completed reading "Beyond Mormonism." This book has a wow factor when it comes to the post-Mormon spiritual life of the author and his wife. I found myself teary-eyed as I read about his conversion to Christianity and the troubles his wife faced as she learned trust in Jesus Christ. Basically, I felt that these people really were on a spiritual journey as they headed out of the Mormon Church.

I am currently nearing the end of "Out of Mormonism" by Judy Robertson. This book is much more controversial and challenging for Mormons and non-Mormons alike. Judy and her family also seek Christianity as they leave the Mormon Church. But there roads both into and, finally, out of the Mormon Church are full of much more controversy. If you are currently having anxiety attacks or have recently suffered a nervous breakdown, do not read this book. It is very vivid about certain troubling things about Mormonism.

I also received, in the mail, "The Life Organizer" by Jennifer Louden. It teaches the reader how to create a spiritual and individual approach to life-planning. Basically, this book espouses you listening to your own heart and following your own beliefs. This book explains a few things I need to know about keeping my life path open, particularly as I am leaving a very structured environment and approach to life.

I think that I have plenty of books to read. As soon as I finish the ones I have, or get bored, I am going to be getting some more books!

At this point, I see myself as having rejected many doctrines of Mormonism. I think that now I need to keep studying things that promote the growth of my mind and my more positive emotions. I have processed a lot of anger. I have realized that I only half-believed Mormonism, especially after I started to have a lot of trouble in my own life. My conscience was telling me certain things were untrue even though the Church and the LDS scriptures were telling me they were true. I really did begin, about three years ago, to have incredible cognitive dissonance about each thing taught in church.

The fact is, that even if you do not agree with your Mormon brothers and sister on a lot of things they say, you keep clinging to Mormonism as if it must be your own. You really are told that happiness IS the object and design of your existence, even though nothing about the religion is making you happy. Some of the doctrines are just an excuse to keep you in. Some of the doctrines are meant to hide the more disturbing aspects of the church and what goes on in its temples. In other words, there is a whole wall of doctrine that is a lie. When members believe the truths about the church, and they believe the lies, they can get confused, particularly when they dig deeper and seriously learn about and discuss the roots of the church. Particularly when they review and research statements and behaviors of past prophets and leaders and the words of the LDS scriptural canon.

I have by no means, formally named all of these discrepancies. I do not think I know all of them. I have already named the discrepancies involved in baptizing children.

Currently, I have decided to read the Book of Mormon only every four days. I can read the Bible everyday, but the Book of Mormon has been causing me problems. As I mentioned before, as a former brainwashing tool that I was taught to use against myself, it is inappropriate to take it very seriously, at least for the duration of about a month.

I feel like I really have figured out a lot. I am starting to understand why I used to see things the way I did. I am understanding my defensiveness. I had more troubled relationships with others because I could not compromise with them. Emotionally, I was very repressed and drained. I could not give anything to anyone. I understand now that I was drained by my attempts to live as a Mormon. I already feel less uptight when interacting with my family members. I really did not have anything left to give. And that surprises me! Why was it that I seemed to be able to give? I could. I just couldn't give without turning myself into an overly involved emotional wreck. And I was seriously drawn to co-dependence. After all, everything had to be about me or I wouldn't have been able to survive.

And the LDS leaders were always telling us women that we had to give and show charity to others. If you ask me, the strict application of more than one Mormon doctrine at once will leave you without the ability to give or have charity or love others the way you would really like. You are trapped on every side. You can't move to the right or the left. The conflicting doctrines really do contribute to this syndrome. Perhaps, at some point, I will name more of these doctrines.

The Book of Mormon: The Low Down

2008-02-11T14:13:00.000-08:00

This weekend, I finally got in touch with my anger about the Book of Mormon. Currently, I only really believe in it halfway. I think there is good stuff in it. But I also realize that it is the LDS Church's brainwashing tool.

What I am saying is that they get you to read the Book of Mormon everyday, and then you suddenly decided to stay.

My take on the Book of Mormon is that it is halfway fiction. Basically, I am saying that the story about the Nephites and the Lamanites is probably made up. I am not saying that it is not absolutely brilliant, which it is. I am saying that it is probably a made up story.

One of the signs that it is a made up story is that so far, the DNA scientists have from Native Americans is pointing to their origins from a part of Asia. It doesn't point to origins from the ancient Middle East, as the Book of Mormon and the Mormon Church would have you believe.

I have also heard, but not yet checked out, that the 1830 edition of the Book of Mormon has a number of things different in it than the current Book of Mormon. I want to get a copy of it and compare it to my most current edition. I also have editions of it from the 1980's that I want to compare. Of course, there would be far fewer differences between now and the '80's, but it might yield some result.

Basically, what is really important, is that I do not believe the Book of Mormon should be automatically labeled the word of God as the LDS faith has it. I wish to search and read the Bible more to see if there are more origins of doctrines and passages in the Book of Mormon that I haven't yet found.

Basically, at this point, my real goal is to find out if there is indeed any truth in the Book of Mormon at all. In that goal is for me a realization of what percentage of the Book of Mormon I want to pay attention to in my further pursuits and reviews of the truth.

Now I need to get back to what I said about the Book of Mormon being a brainwashing tool of the LDS Church. In the 1980's, Ezra Taft Benson made a point of telling the LDS people that they were under condemnation or a curse if they did not take the Book of Mormon seriously--reading it and following their teachings. Also, it is a position of the LDS Church that the Book of Mormon is the most correct book on the earth and it contains a fullness of the gospel.

Basically, LDS folk are instructed to read it everyday so that they will not be under condemnation or curse of any kind by God. Also, the LDS believe that those who criticize the Book of Mormon as being faulty and untrue are under condemnation.

So, basically, I was under the impression that if I didn't read the Book of Mormon most days, I would fall under condemnation.

At first, this was not a bad thing. Given that there is truth in the book, I have had some uplifting and life-changing experiences stemming from my readings of its pages. It is not all bad.

However, I was led to believe that it would keep me from temptation and that my life would go easier if I read it. I was also led to believe that I would be more spiritual if I read it everyday. The spiritual thing goes along with being able to keep from temptation. I was also supposed to be happier.

It was not completely wrong that the Book of Mormon could make me happy. It has some good, uplifting messages in its pages.

However, my life actually got weirder and weirder after a certain point in the late 1990's. I was doing less and less well emotionally. I had anxiety attacks and anxiety issues and thoughts start to arise. My life was not actually getting better. Sometimes, reading the Book of Mormon did calm me down. But there were parts of the book that seemed harsh or even a bit fictional and shadowy.

About three years ago, it got very hard to read the Book of Mormon. It was suggested to me, about four years ago that I was too angry and judgmental of others. I did my best to drop some anger. It helped.

But little did I know that constantly reading the Book of Mormon and judging myself harshly were linked. The doctrines in the Book of Mormon are very black and white. And because of this I could not stop judging others harshly. There are black and white doctrines in the Bible. However, no one told me to read the pages with these doctrines daily.

Basically, I began to see the world as an evil place. And yes, it was so bad, that many times I was screaming for professional help, without always knowing it.

It the last three years of my life, I did my best to keep reading the Book of Mormon. It was as if I was gagging on it. Some weeks I would read it daily. But I would stop the chronological reading to go to passages that I liked the best. I realize now that I was detecting those passages that I really thought were inspired and that I thought really soothed me.

It also kept me thinking that I needed to go to church and participate in it. I kept feeling guilty for not living an LDS Church centered life, when actually, I couldn't stand to do so anymore. The torture just kept building and building. And I found more and more doctrines preached by members in regular meetings to be either false or completely back woods and judgmental. I basically, was becoming someone who did not believe as my active LDS brothers and sisters did. And I was still trying to make myself conform by reading the Book of Mormon. And I hated it more and more. I started taking more and more cheap routes in my reading.

I realized, last month, that I didn't have to read my Book of Mormon everyday. I think that that is when my mind came out of the shadows, and I really started to consider other kinds of truths. About two months before that time I had decided that the LDS Church as presently constituted was not true. When I began to ease up on Book of Mormon study, I was able to consider the possibility that it may have always been a church in trouble with the truth.

Since that realization last month, I have found out a lot that has made the reality of the LDS Church burn down before my eyes.

And I am starting to become less judgmental about myself and others. I think that when the Bible tells us to not judge others, I think that what it is really telling us is that we need to avoid stuffing our lives with things that cause judgmental attitudes. Alas, even my little Book of Mormon needs to be handled with care.

Am I Still A Child?

2008-02-09T13:29:00.000-08:00

I have received some of my books from Amazon.com. I have started reading, "Under the Banner of Heaven" and am halfway through "Beyond Mormonism: An Elder's Story." I am also enjoying my Holman Student Bible. It looks like the type of Bible that young Christians and Jews use. I love it! It is in color, too!

I think that I am starting to realize that some people are snagged into joining the LDS Church because they are attracted to what looks like the truth. Also, some missionaries use leading questions that make you assume they are teaching you the truth. This is being made clear to me as I read "Beyond Mormonism."

I think I am also surprised by the conclusion the author of "Beyond Mormonism" when he claimed that he and his wife, while still members of the LDS Church, were stuck in a rut. Then, after they leave the Church, they finally starting progressing again. I must say that the LDS Church has had me stuck too. I have been stuck in shame, hatred of self, reading the same church literature over and over again, feeling like a six-year-old instead of an adult, afraid and unable to make my own decisions, afraid to even think about the things that would happen should I even go against Church doctrine.

I think that the truth is this: I was stuck in a parent/child relationship with the LDS Church. I was the child. The LDS Church was the parent. As long as I stayed in the LDS Church, I would be taken care of. Now that I am heading toward the exit I have to say that last month was the first time that I had a sense of myself as an adult. I actually felt grown-up.

I think that now that I am making my own choices about what I will believe and what I will disbelieve, I am starting to feel a maturity that I thought I would never feel. I will say that I actually believe that being an adult is about making my own choices despite what everyone else says.

I feel like an adult because I am thinking about moral scenarios. What will happen if I make that decision? Would I feel comfortable making that decision? I am deciding what moral boundaries I have based on my own judgment. This makes me feel grown-up as well.

Using my own mind to decide things is actually really, really good. God gave me a brain that I may use it. That is what I really think. How many others have felt like children because they were part of a strict, life-encompassing organization? How many others couldn't even claim their wisdom as they entered old age?

I think that in making me a child, the LDS Church was taking away my dignity. I had no sense of dignity. I was supposed to have humility. I was supposed to defer to others for their judgment of my problems. I was supposed to be completely loyal to something that began to slowly fall apart. I was supposed to believe that the arbitrary voices and opinions of my leaders was the voice of God.

I think that when the LDS Church is accused of being polytheistic it is about more than their unique take on the doctrine of the trinity. First, they tell members that if they are righteous and make it into the Celestial Kingdom and have entered into a celestial marriage, that they are destined to become gods in the next life. Second, many different men with the priesthood have claimed to be able to speak for God. Everyone from your bishop to the prophet of the LDS Church is able to tell you what to do because they speak the words of God. The LDS people can't just decide to do what one living prophet tells them to do. They also believe they are bound to do what every other priesthood leader over them tells them to do. They are given instruction until they have no time to do anything else in their lives. I believe that this is polytheistic as well.

I think that I was very overwhelmed by the idea that if I died righteous having been married in the temple that I would become a goddess with my god husband. I couldn't imagine having to carry out the responsibility of peopling and creating and ruling new worlds. This was too overwhelming. I just didn't see it in myself. After all, my leaders, and certain Book of Mormon doctrines, made me feel poorly about myself. My own self-image made it impossible for me to believe that I could rule myself. I was supposed to mope about in guilt and shame in this life, just waiting to be exalted and high self-esteem in the next life. It was too much of a leap.

Not only was I psychologically unprepared for the promises of the next life, I was also caught in a reasoning problem. Even if I did earn godhood, would that mean that for the billions of people on the earth, the billions of couples, that there was room in the universe for all of them to start new worlds? I really am straining to believe that that is a good idea.

I am also straining to believe that anyone knows the nature of God enough to be able to say that this is what we will be doing in the next life. Can we actually become gods? Are we god material? How do we know that we are god material if we cannot all agree on who and what God really is? How do we know if he has a body of flesh and blood? How do we know what properties and divinities and spiritual essences make him God? How do we know what role mortal gender plays in who is considered God? The LDS Church claims to know all of this. I think they claim it in arrogance. For many people, the nature of God is a concept that is either too sacred or too controversial.

At this point, I would say that the Mormon machine claims to churn out god material. I would only hope to ever claim to make myself material of goodness. How could I claim anything else?

Grinding the Faces of the Poor

2008-02-07T11:41:00.000-08:00

I have been reading the stories on the Biography Board at exmormon.org. I have enjoyed finding that the reasons I am leaving the LDS Church are the same reasons that others have left. And I feel less alone realizing that it is as hard for them to leave as it is for me.

I am starting to think of actually resigning. There are form letters and advice to get on resigning from the LDS Church. I think I will start working on the letter in March.

I am starting to feel constricted about being a member, even just in name only. I feel like the Church still owns me. It is a frightening feeling. I feel also, that if I don't resign, I will be haunted by persons trying to reactivate me, and I may experience some kind of LDS Church discipline, which is very harsh. Basically, from all accounts I know of, the leaders can actually try to re-brainwash you in any meeting you have with them from the date that you question the church or say you are leaving it. I feel it is safer to send in a resignation. Then, in a few years, I can see to the difficult task of getting my name removed from the records.

I think that the LDS Church is a bunch of bullies. They bully people into participating in their religious traditions. They can't just invite someone and accept it if a person thinks the Church isn't for them.

I am also appalled by the fact that they try to collect tithing from everybody, even people who are on government welfare, even though it is supposedly church policy that people on SSDI do not have to pay tithing. And not only do they expect tithing on 10% of your income from everyone. They also expect everyone to pay fast offerings. You are really only supposed to have to pay a few dollars of fast offering each month. But they would like to you to pay much, much more. Members have been urged to pay more.

What is worse is the fact that some members never get good welfare help, either because the Church thinks these members have brought their problems themselves, or because these members won't attend 100% of their church meetings or pay 10% tithing money. These members need welfare, so why do they need to extract money from them?

The year 2007 is the last year I paid any tithing to the LDS Church. According to an official statement that was sent to my home, I paid $1.28. Basically, the bishop was able to buy breath mints because of me. I'm so generous!

I feel good about giving the Church such a miniscule amount. That is about how much truth I've gotten out of it the past three years. One dollar and twenty eight cents worth.

I believe that the LDS Church is taking too much tithing money from the individual wards. After all, they need the money to keep up shopping malls and proselytize to poor people who are down and out and vulnerable to joining cults.

It should be noted that the church gives humanitarian aid. However, they spend more on their business ventures, PR, and other things to make them look good. They spend almost nothing to make the church run well. They bankrupt and take advantage of low and middle income people who barely have the time or money that each member is required to give. They are blood suckers!

I have read too many stories on exmormon.org. I have also seen that the poor people in my wards never got richer. The church grinds the face of the poor.

Age of Innocence or Age of Accountability?

2008-02-05T11:50:00.000-08:00

Today I am thinking about how long I am going to be a hermit. It makes sense to affiliate myself with no one for at least a year. Now I am thinking that maybe two years would make sense for affiliations with major organizations. No affiliations for one year. No affiliations with major groups for two years, including religious organizations.

Now the question of how long I will do Walden needs to be asked. It seems that I will not like being a total hermit for a whole year. I think I need some forced aloneness though.

I have decided that I will be a "Walden" hermit for seven months. This will buy me plenty of reading and thinking time and plenty of time to enjoy not being annoyed by persons who want me to give up my integrity. I can deal with those persons online, I think, but I can't deal with them in person at present.

I am also thinking that in August of 2008, I am going to slowly expose myself back into society. I will know my own mind better. When I don't know my own mind I waste energy defending myself for no good reason. And people like to take advantage of those who don't know their own minds.

I would now like to address more religious topics.

Last night, I did a Google search on "age of accountability." This is an important topic because the LDS Church says that eight-years-old is the age of accountability. I have grown up with this all my life, so it doesn't seem extremely strange. But it is starting to sound more and more wrong.

First of all, in my search, I found that the lowest non-LDS number was twelve. And the highest non-LDS number was twenty. Both of these numbers are higher than eight.

Basically, age of accountability is the age that a young person is responsible for his/her own decisions and managing his/her own temptations.

In the LDS Church, the age of accountability is the age that Satan is allowed to start tempting a person. It is also the age that members are supposed to be baptized.

I was baptized at the age of eight. It was not an unpleasant experience. But I had no idea what it meant. I just knew that I was now a church member. And that was a good thing. It meant I was growing up. I liked the respect of being a baptized member of the LDS Church.

And yet, I still find it wrong.

First of all, I find it strange that Joseph Smith would have decided that the age of eight is the age that a child would first be tempted of the devil. I don't even know, at this point, why he picked the age of eight. Second, I think that it is a way for the LDS Church to have more members who are loyal for life. Children are not known to withstand or oppose brainwashing. Also, they tend to do anything their parents and other respected authority figures tell them to do. Though a child may be sincere about wanting to be baptized, they could also be sincere about wanting to please their parents and wanting to be just like their friends who have also been baptized.

I really do not think that the age of eight is the age of accountability. Also, how does anyone think that someone would begin to be tempted by the devil at the same age as someone else? And how does anyone know when someone else's age of accountability for their own decisions begins? It may be different for each individual.

I think the fact that I had to get baptized at the age of eight made me more loyal to the Church. It also left me not understanding how seriously the LDS Church takes baptism. For them, baptism is a serious covenant. It is a promise to bear one another's burdens and stand for Christ. I find this serious type of covenant inappropriate for a child to take. It is a serious covenent for an adult to take.

Also, I do not think that I was responsible for all of my own behavior yet, due to the fact that I was still innocent and immature enough to figure out what I was and wasn't responsible for.

And here's the kicker, because I was baptized, I took it rather seriously. I thought of myself as an adult in my own child mind. I actually stopped playing with my toys and told everyone else that I was tired of them. It nearly took away my childhood. It should be noted however, that I did plenty of childish things, like playing pretend, coloring in coloring books, and playing with a sewing kit designed for children. I was still sort of playing with toys.

I want to know what is so wrong with being young and carefree. It seems that the LDS Church seeks to kill every spark of freshness and youth so that we will be afraid of sinning, so we will fear a temptation from the devil, so we will run to the temple and run to the Church for more instructions.

I just realized that there is a passage in the Book of Mormon that is violated by baptizing people so young into the LDS Church:

"Listen to the word of Christ, your Redeemer, your Lord and your God. Behold, I came into the world not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance; the whole need no physician, but they that are sick; wherefore, little children are whole, for they are not capable of committing sin; wherefore the curse of Adam is taken from them in me, that it hath no power over them; and the law of circumcision is done away in me.
"And after this manner did the Holy Ghost manifest the word of God unto me; wherefore, my beloved son, I know that it is solemn mockery before God, that ye should baptize little children.
"Behold I say unto you that this thing shall ye teach--repentance and baptism unto those who are accountable and capable of committing sin; yea, teach parents that they must repent and be baptized, and humble themselves as their little children, and they shall all be saved with their little children.
"And their little children need no repentance, neither baptism. Behold, baptism is unto repentance to the fulfilling the commandments unto the remission of sins.
"But little children are alive in Christ, even from the foundation of the world; if not so, God is a partial God, and also a changeable God, and a respecter to persons; for how many little children have died without baptism!" (Moroni 8:8-12)

It seems that this passage makes it clear that "little children" do not need baptism at all. It depends on what your interpretation of "little children" means. It could mean any kid too young to get it together. If you are of the age that you can barely give up your toys, you don't know about sex, and you have no clue how the real world works, and your only desire is to have fun and obey your parents, you are innocent. I was innocent at the age of eight. And I was completely too young to adhere to my baptismal covenants.

I think that many parents would see this in their offspring. I think that it takes a long time for someone who is eight years old to yet grow up.

I am surprised at the barracuda-like techniques that the LDS Church uses to maintain high church membership numbers and scare young people so that they will obey LDS authorities when they are older. I think that perhaps this is one sign that the LDS Church may be the wrong church, not the true church at all.

Education is Essential

2008-02-04T13:44:00.000-08:00

Well......I am feeling less intense today after a good night's sleep.

I think that it can get rather consuming for me to deal with my new anti-Mormon attitudes.

I also think that where other Ex-Mormons, and Mormons who no longer believe, happen to affiliate themselves is no business of mine. But I am still making sure I don't affiliate with anyone for a year.

I do have to find my own integrity.

I have done some reading on the LDS Church as it functions as a corporation, and how it may actually be an organization in decline:

http://www.utlm.org/onlineresources/riseandfalloftheldschurch.htm

This links to a long article that is up-to-date as of four years ago.

Basically, I had a feeling that the LDS Church was in decline, but nothing to back it up but the fact that the ward I was attending was getting less spiritual and seemed to have less people attending it. Basically, from my point of view, more people than I are actually sick of the organization.

Anyway, I just ordered six books on Amazon so that I could take care of my intellectual curiosity about Mormonism and other topics I am interested in. I have decided I need to educate myself about all of the ideas out there that I am interested in. It will broaden my mind. And by the end of my year of solitude I will have figured out a lot that I am wondering about. And I will be clued in to more issues and more strategies I can take for my life. Basically, I am going to broaden my mind so that my life will not turn into a single serving of unseasoned hash browns.

I think I am already a smart person. I have even been flattered countless times by others praising my intellect or my creativity. The problem is that no matter how smart you are, if you don't keep up your mind and your interests and make sure your lifestyle is healthy, you won't be very happy. And you will get quite bored. And bored people get into a lot of trouble. Bored people find things to do. That is what I found out my freshman year of college.

I Am Myself

2008-02-03T22:14:00.000-08:00

I have been reading the results of Google searches. I have run across all sorts of great literature. I have run across some "ex-mormon" type blogs. It appears that there are a group of bloggers who say similar things about why they no longer believe in the LDS Church. It sort of makes me nervous.

I have to say that I can't say all the same things that they say. I think that this blog has a bent to it that is more psychological in tone. I know exactly what all of this over-zealous religious stuff can do to your brain. My brain has tons of information on this one.

I think that maybe I hoped to be read by doing this blog. I am starting to hope to be sincere and actually write about what I want to write about. It can be insanely boring. It can be insanely dangerous.

This blog really is only affiliated with one group--ME.

I think that it is good that I have some communities to explore should I get too lonely. However, I am spending as much time alone as possible. I am actually trying to un-brainwash, not find a different organization or group to put my allegiance to. I think that my reasons, particularly a search for the truth, are really good.

I may post links on this blog from time to time. They are things that I think are good, not things that groups of people think are good.

And it should be noted that I need to blog in order to get myself the therapeutic benefits that I need to emotionally recover from feeling that my life is not my own and fearing going to hell. It is actually a slower process than I thought. It is more complicated. I feel more guilt than I thought I would feel. Because it appears that one thing can actually override and improperly educate my conscience: Years and years of unrelenting and merciless brainwashing.

I know what the Mormon Church does to people. And I will keep talking about it.

Looking Back

2008-02-03T11:12:00.000-08:00

I have been reading through the first three entries on this blog. It occurs to me that I have changed my tune. It was easier for me to say that I had good years in my childhood in the LDS Church.

Now, I have gotten in touch with the total negativity of being an active member of this church in my adulthood.

It seems that childhood is such an innocent time. And it seems that being a member of the LDS Church was easier for children, particularly in the seventies and eighties, the decades of my childhood. People are careful with children. And if LDS people are being harder on children now, I am appalled. Childhood is a time of innocence that should have a kind of bliss and a carefree quality. The world is bad enough without over-programming your children.

I really do believe, somehow, that being LDS, for each and every member of the church, even around the whole world, has become much harder. I don't know what has happened, but it just has become harder. Perhaps the LDS Church is farther from the truth than it used to be.

It seems that one would think that the LDS Church never had enough truth, due to the strange doctrines that were openly promoted in the days of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. But after a while, the doctrines became less bad. Polygamy and the Danites seem to have gone away, particularly after Utah became an actual state in the United States of America. But after a while, the religion started to get worse again. I have seen Mormonism get more coarse and merciless. And I am afraid that certain horrifying doctrines may start to dominate the average LDS Church members mind. I do not believe the LDS Church is a stable organization.

The "Blessing"

2008-02-01T17:30:00.000-08:00

I would like to confess something. The day that I decided that the LDS Church could no longer be the true church on earth, I threw away some paper-based handouts I got from church meetings. I had tons of handouts and packets on different doctrines. I didn't pause much when I threw these away.

However, something very important made me pause. I wondered if I should keep my patriarchal blessing. To an LDS person, the patriarchal blessing is a very sacred thing. You are not supposed to tell others what is in your blessing. Generally, you get your blessing as a teenager or young adult. And you have to have one before you serve an LDS mission.

Basically, you go to the stake patriarch so that he can put his hands on your head and give you a large blessing that is supposed to guide you through your individual life. You are given advice to do certain things, keep the commandments, and avoid your personal weaknesses.

I decided that I would get a blessing when I was about 20 years old. I got the blessing one Sunday with my family standing and listening. I loved the experience. It made me feel special.

A tape recorder was on while the blessing was being given. After we left the patriarch's home, the patriarchs wife, acting in a secretarial position, typed up the blessing on official LDS Church paper and had it delivered to my home.

When I got the blessing, I was excited. This was just for me!

There were a few catches, however. I didn't understand my blessing. Some aspects of it made little sense. It seemed like gibberish at first. What did it have to do with my life? There was even a sentence in it that made no sense to me whatsoever. It basically told me that there was nothing in the next life for me but to learn of my Savior Jesus Christ. This sentence made no sense since I believed that there would be many things for me to do in the Afterlife. Sure, I would rest. And I would also have a purpose after death. What I had to do didn't matter. It was the idea that there was more to do than what my blessing suggested. I kept reading the sentence over and over again, wondering if there was a hidden meaning. One member had said that a sentence appeared on her blessing one day that hadn't been there before. It made everything make sense to her. I figured that this might happen to me someday. But in all of the experiences that tried my faith, whenever I looked at my copy of my blessing, I saw nothing but the original sentence. I decided to ignore it. Maybe it was a typo! Maybe it didn't matter! There was good advice in the rest of my blessing. It would be okay.

Well, the blessing also told me that marriage was my most important accomplishment. And it told me to enter into all of the ordinances of the gospel and keep all of the commandments. So, basically it told me that I couldn't go the easy way of just keeping those commandments I had the strength and knowledge to keep. It told me I had to keep all of them. While this seemed like a nice ideal, it was too stressful. I don't think I ever accomplished it. And for an LDS person, getting all of the "ordinances of the gospel" included going to the temple endowment ceremonies. I could never feel right in my heart about the temple endowment ceremonies.

And then there was the marriage part. Nobody ever asked them to marry me. And I had had no good long-term relationships with any male member of the LDS Church. Only a member can marry a member in the temple. And I became increasingly unattracted to the men who were going so far as to get their temple endowments. I had only really fallen in love with a young man who was kind of rebellious. He seemed more sexy than the "faithful" LDS men.

I think I know what was going on now. It was impossible for me to follow what even the stake patriarch said was best for me. I couldn't even follow my own blessing. And as time went on, it failed me in other ways.

At one point, I began to suffer from a nervous breakdown. I believed that I had to pray to know what God wanted me to do everyday of my life. I would pray to God for each little task. I got this idea from the General Authorities of the LDS Church. They said that we were to turn our lives over to God. I even prayed about whether or not I was supposed to put a belt on my pants. Sometimes, I think I really did get answers. But often, I thought God was telling me to not do something that I really wanted to do. Or I thought God told me not to put a belt on, even though my pants were baggy. I thought I was getting direction from God, but I was getting more stress than direction. I was often exhausted, wondering why God had taken my more relaxing and pleasant activities away.

At one point, I thought I was getting revelation whenever I read my scriptures. I thought that God had a message for me in every scriptural chapter. I would ask God to point me to the verses that were for me. I got more and more religiously bent. I thought God told me to do more things that were hard for me, like attending church and keeping the Sabbath Day holy. I just couldn't win.

My patriarchal blessing did not help. It told me that God would tell me, as I read the scriptures, what my purpose in life was. Currently, I find that idea very fishy. Wasn't my patriarchal blessing supposed to tell me that? Wasn't I already told that marriage and helping others and getting all the ordinances was what I was supposed to do? There was more? And then there was nothing that the patriarch saw in the eternities but to learn of Jesus Christ? But how much was there actually to learn about Jesus Christ? Why was I being denied? And my blessing told me to pray to God. It didn't advise me about prayers that got strange answers. It just told me to pray.

Why, when I began to get more mentally well, did I drop the habit of asking God which scriptural verse was written just for me? It seemed that my patriarchal blessing made me go further down an irrational path. It seemed that I was being told to be even more overzealous and even make a fool of myself and waste my money. Everything was going downhill. I didn't have anything left.

I really actually did not have much left. My life felt like one big restriction. Everything was withheld from me. I was "told" to do things that even began to ruin my family relationships. And I happen to be close to my family members. And it would destroy me if I was estranged from all of them. And yet, even that was being taken away from me.

After a hospitalization and medication, I began to discard the habit of praying for absolutely everything. Besides, whenever I back slid and started back in that ridiculous habit, I would again get bizarre results.

I think that when I had the habit of praying about every little thing, I actually answered myself. And I don't want to know what evil force may have answered my prayers. It was that bizarre and miserable.

Well, my blessing told me to do all I could to "serve." That often means, in the LDS Church, that you faithfully serve the church. I thought it meant I was supposed to help people. But, after a while, I found myself tied up in the idiocy of some of the LDS Church's service projects. Some of them seemed like busy work. A lot of it seemed to actually help people. But if I got too far into the service, I hit pressure to be more religiously zealous. I won't mention people or organizations, but some of the people most involved in the LDS Church would actively test the success and faith of those working by their sides. It wasn't enough to help someone. You had to prove you were righteous. I started to get a lot of trouble with this. At times it caused me great rage. It didn't seem to be enough to be kind to your friends or make sure someone you were worried about was okay. I liked to help my friends. And I am afraid, that through some twist of logic, other members thought this was insignificant. You had to change the whole world and make everyone think like you. But I found more satisfaction and comfort in helping my friends.

And then there is the part of the blessing that said I was of the house of Ephraim. I actually do not believe this. I do not look like other members of the LDS Church who think they are. I believe that the Houses of Israel really are found among certain people on Earth. However, Joseph Smith seemed to be obsessed with the Houses of Israel. He believed that if you are not of any of the Houses of Israel you must be adopted into the House of Ephraim in order to be one of the chosen people of God and get salvation. I now find it an insult to focus so much on genealogy. It is racist. I happen to personally believe that I am a member of a different House of Israel based on the things I have read in the book of Genesis.

In the end, I have decided that my blessing was more of a curse; the sentence that didn't make sense could be part of the making of a curse. My "blessing" limited me instead of freeing me. It was not right. That is why I threw it in the garbage. I didn't reread it at all. I just threw it away.

It was all untrue.

Fear or Love?

2008-02-01T12:14:00.000-08:00

Well, after all of the horror of being LDS, I truly lost the ability to take it anymore. And they were unsympathetic about my fears. I was supposed to conquer them all, otherwise, I wasn't righteous.

But 1 John 4:18 had a different message. It says, "There is no fear in love." We were taught to love our leaders and the scriptures. And we were taught to fear our leaders and fear what would happen if we didn't follow them. And the love and fear were incompatible. I noticed that I did not care about the late-LDS prophet, Gordon B. Hinckley one bit. And I didn't like his words to us at General Conference. It just did not seem right at all when I heard him speak. I was supposed to fear what would happen if I didn't follow his advice, or the advice of the Twelve Apostles under him. In the end, I ended up brushing it aside. I didn't fear what would happen to me. I wasn't convinced he ever spoke more than shallow flattery.

It was others that I feared, and they first impressed me, and later, they baffled me. After a while, I had less fear, and I had no love for them. These were the people who caused me fear? And without the fear, I was unimpressed. There was no love. It was all a brainwashed spell. And the fear their words caused me started to recede. No love. No admiration. No concern for my eternal soul. The leaders became clueless spewers of PR.

It is true that there is no fear in love. There was no love. It did not cast out my fear. I started to cast it out as I started to doubt and become more and more inactive in the Mormon Church.

And it was true, as it says it 1 John 4:18 that "fear hath torment." If there was real love in all the words and advice and overzealousness of the LDS Church, it would have soothed me and helped me with my fears about life. Instead, it created fears. And the torment, the shame, the anxiety, the lack of self-esteem, the tiredness of body and mind, that was the torment. I actually supposed that I deserved it at certain times. More torment.

"He that feareth is not made perfect in love." These words described me. They tell me that I was not being surrounded by the pure love of Christ. True charity was often not bestowed upon my soul. When I decided to give myself a break, I started teaching myself charity. Whenever anyone sincerely told me that I didn't need to be perfect, I experienced charity. I experienced true relief. I experienced the true love that exudes from the truest form of Christianity. I had opportunities to show myself that love and others had opportunities as well.

The love I was shown was not from the organization of the LDS Church. It was from seemingly ordinary, sometimes brilliant, sometimes incredibly unremarkable reminders to stop being hard on myself. Being hard on myself is one of the things I strive to leave behind as I leave behind the cult-like anxieties of being actively LDS. If a thought that I must finish everything perfectly or despair comes into my head, I have the opportunity to say, "Hey, it's fine. What I did is significant and useful. I can stop and rest. My muscles are sore anyway."

I now have to fuel myself and have enough strength to do everyday things and continue projects. Otherwise, it is too much and I need to stop. I only burn all the fuel I have when something is at unusually high stakes. It used to be that everyday was high stakes. Now it is time to let my adrenal glands recover. Everyday is a chance to wake up and act alive. Acting alive does not have to equate with burning myself out.

Matthew 11:28-30 now has more meaning to me:

"Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
"Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
"For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."

A Gospel of compassion is so much easier than a theology of fear. And it teaches so much more about how we treat ourselves and others. I fear that if I ever go back to such a strict religious practice, I will be in danger of treating others so that they learn fear and not love. That is not my goal. And right now, figuring out what I really believe and how to keep myself out of a state of depletion is my goal. I start with myself if I am to change the world around me.

Don't Even Think About It

2008-01-30T13:00:00.000-08:00

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

2008-01-25T11:48:00.000-08:00

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

2008-01-22T19:56:00.000-08:00

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

2008-01-20T14:07:00.000-08:00

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

2008-01-19T16:36:00.000-08:00

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

2008-01-18T13:24:00.000-08:00

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!

2008-01-17T21:21:00.000-08:00

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

2008-01-17T10:30:00.000-08:00

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

2008-01-16T19:02:00.000-08:00

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

2008-01-14T10:25:00.001-08:00

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

2008-01-11T12:26:00.000-08:00

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

2008-01-09T00:03:00.000-08:00

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

2008-01-04T21:39:00.000-08:00

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?

2008-01-03T14:59:00.000-08:00

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

2008-01-02T20:51:00.000-08:00

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

2008-01-01T16:30:00.000-08:00

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.