A lot of people worry what will happen to their life once they leave the comforts of Mormonism. Will their life be better, or will they struggle to make life work for them anymore?

A story in the book "Breaking the Spell", by Daniel Dannett (the spell being religion) illustrates how it is when you leave your religion.

He tells of a man out hiking in the mountains and got lost in a dangerous cliff area when it got dark and he slipped and fell. He fortuitously was able to grab a branch just as he was headed down a cliff. He imagined a terrible fall to his death if he let go so he held on for dear life as long as he could. He got to the point where he could no longer hold on, so he accepted his fate and let go, only to find that he fell only 6 inches onto the ground!

If he had let go sooner he would have saved himself the anguishing grief of waiting for his demise if he let go. The author compared this to the fear of letting go of religion and the fearful fate that they have come to expect if they do. He said that if people would just let go, they would find that it won't be as terrible as they expect.

Just let go. It will be fine.

I like his biological approach, same as Dawkins.
The benefits of religion are incidental. You don't need the myth to have the benefits.
I like the six-inch fall analogy because as a TBM I very much feared the long fall, and indeed I saw examples of people going off the deep end that I attributed to the loss of the gospel.
But it was a circular reasoning loop. If they didn't go off the deep end, I assummed thet must still be living or believing the gospel.

I related it to letting a long big fart. It hurts and burns for a little while,,then all the pressure is gone,,feels great.

...and I was wondering how long this stage was going to last. Looks like forever. ; )

Edited to add: Better to fart and bear the shame than not to fart and bear the pain.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/23/2011 01:20PM by Queen of Denial.

Yeah, I'm still wrestling with those fears.

From another fictional book, Pratchett's the Hogfather, I feel there's some benefit in learning to believe the small lies to believe the big lies. Like belief that you are loved by some great force who will never abandon you, things work out in the end, you have divine potential and should be striving to grow yourself, etc..

I've seen how these lies give some people comfort and yet they are beliefs that you can't empirically prove to be true.

Actually, this is NOT a lie. The great force that will never abandon you is yourself! Wouldn't you risk your own life to save yourself? Isn't that what letting go of the branch means?

the shackles will be gone.

you will have found freedom........

...of romance novels.

Religion and romance novels have a few things in common.

They're both a fantasy that plays on emotion and promises a happy ending with a great big bow on top.

Fantasy vs. Reality

I was amazed to see how many women used to read romance novels during Sacrament meeting.

When my wife started doing it, I was like, honey, wth? And she was like so? Everyone else is doing it, look around sometime.

Sure enough, if you looked around there were lots of people reading romance novels, texting, playing wordgames. Anything to pass the time until they could go do it some more in class.

It's a total detachment from the core World View of their life experience up to that point.