I'm curious how many of us can identify either of these two things:
1) What was it that sent you down the path of reconsidering your belief in the Mormon church? Was there one thing that specifically got you questioning?
2) What was it that was the final straw that broke the camels back where you were confident you didn't believe?
There are just so many possibilities I'm curious to hear what others are?
When I finally admitted to myself that there wasn't one single argument that supported my beliefs that was actually honest.
I realized I had been lying to myself and others in an attempt to justify beliefs I had been taught to believe as a small child.
I used that same standard for all religious beliefs, namely: is this reasoning honest? And I had to admit that there is not one single honest reason to believe in a god, and by extension, any religion.
My own internal sense of real and make believe as a child. It always sounded made up me and I never recall believing it. Even before I was baptised at 8 yrs old. I used to fight with my dad as a young kid about it a lot.
The only thing telling me it was true and that I had to believe it was my dad, the rabid TBM, and that only added to my conviction that it was false, and I was right to not believe.
When I was about 13 years old, my parents let me go inactive.....that was a very happy day for me.
I tried it as an adult (22 yrs old) to prove it out for myself, and served a mission, married in the temple and attended church for a few years. Two years into my degree at BYU, I read the Tanner's book, verified what they claimed and knew I had been right all my life. The church was made up and I was under no obligation to believe, support, attend, etc. So I flew under the radar at BYU for 2 years and finished my degree. Never attended again and resigned years ago.
The more I read, the more I began to see the big picture. I think seeing the patterns repeat in world mythology tipped me off. Gods after gods were created, and the gods reflected the values and answered the questions for that culture. I saw the role god played for humans to need answers and deal with mortality.
I think I was reading George Smith's Atheism, The Case Against God when I realized once and for all I didn't have any reason to hold a belief anymore. It was like a mental paradigm shift.
I remember feeling very disoriented with no tethers to anchor my framework for getting answers. I felt alone but kept reading. I realized it was all in the books. It was always there for anyone who wanted to know how and why man creates gods.
It's really hard to look objectively at one religion, see it's obvious falsity and then NOT see the same in your own religion if you are brave enough to use the same objectivity. I was challenged to do so and...
By belief was provisional. "Oh, you mean it's supposed to be real, not just another fairytale? Okay. You're the grownups and you're smarter than me."
Then there was feeling more and more worthless and depressed the more I lived the gospel. I was a good Mormon, but I was miserable. Mormonism wasn't working for me. Why would Heavenly Father not want it to work?
I thought my mission might trip the switch and give me a full-blown testimony. It didn't. It hacked up my provisional belief into a hundred pieces and dumped it in a trash bag on the side of a frozen Saskatchewan farm road.
I went to college and started thinking bigger, wider, deeper thoughts and asking the questions that went along with them. I started to realize all religion was just made up. (Guess that's what I get for going to a godless state university instead of BYU.)
After mulling it all for a few years, I eventually realized I didn't believe in a supernatural world of any kind. No gods, angels, ghosts, devils, zombies or any of that. I just didn't.
Answers to my own questions that best I can. I have a hard time pin pointing.
1) There we a lot of things that bothered over the years. I just put them "on the shelf" and tried to be humble and have faith that eventually they would be answered. Sometimes something that bothered me would quit bothering me so I would have more faith that the others things were OK. Things that bothered me: a) That miracles were really convenient - if what you wanted to happen happened it was a miracle, if not it was god's will. b) That the spirit didn't seem very reliable in actually helping people make real decisions. c) The old testament seemed quite clearly to not be literally true. I was able to still believe in Christianity/Mormonism. d) Every time I read the scriptures I ended up with more doubts and questions. Too many things seemed contradictory or e) Problems in the content of the Book of Mormon. Nephi hearing voices to behead Laban; Jacob would have to be 70 when Enos was born, Enos 8-when Jarom was born and Enos living to be 140. All the seemingly narcissistic references to Joseph Smith in 1st Nephi. And so forth.
2) Eventually I decided that the strong spiritual experiences I felt must just be natural emotions and not feelings sent from god. This was hard to get to this point because I have had many very very strong experiences - e.g. strong answers to prayers, prompting to marry my wife, prompting to leave a job and take a pay cut where it turned out to be a very very good choice. Also there was the fear "what if I'm wrong - I'm screwed for eternity." Also feelings of maybe I'm not worthy/righteous enough to make a true determination of this.
Things that finally got me over this: a) I lived a period of about 2 years in my life where I was a nearly perfect Mormon. These were two of the most painful/difficult years of my life, but I was able to rule out not being worthy.
b) The obvious unreliability of the spirit. Promptings that didn't make sense. Feeling the spirit more in emotional charged settings - like professional speakers vs not feeling much but bored most of the time in the temple and at church. Thinking of the girl I felt prompted to marry before my wife that wasn't even interested in me. The need for the church to have a bunch of rules that revelation can only be trusted if it is exactly in line with the current leaders.
c) So much other evidence that it must not be true.
d) Deciding that the emotions were very in line with what you could expect from evolution - people survive better in tight knit groups - these emotions help this groups come together in a common cause.
I always had doubts, but I just kind of threw a blanket it over them. It wasn't until I went through the temple, and then on a mission, that I realized it was something I couldn't fake any longer and I came home immediately. When I returned, I was willing to believe it might still be true and I just needed a LOT of work on my testimony. The one thing I learned when I got home, though, was that nothing is as it seems. I think what really got me was that when I got home, I was much more open to learning. My biggest challenge was accepting that homosexuals are people too and not this massive enemy the church makes them out to me. It was hard to let go of what was drilled into my head, but when I finally got over it, I realized how the church was not only persecuting them, but many other minorities and even people like me who wanted to learn as much as they could. That's pretty much the point that I decided it couldn't be a true church if that's how its members acted and then researched the true history. Needless to say everything else is long in the past.
Looking back as a BIC mormon there were various things that I had trouble reconciling. Mostly those things had to do with various social experiences within the church, not with the doctrine. I managed to believe the doctrine or at least rationalize it - it was more along the lines of "shouldn't people in the true church be nicer/kinder/less judgmental"?
My immediate family was very active, but we always had time for family stuff and we spent a lot of family time together. So - the example I saw at home was a really great one for eternal families.
I know that my first REAL doubt and "hey this is really weird" moment was when I went to the temple for the first time. But, I stayed active and I was married to an active guy. Who, unfortunately, turned out to be an emotionally abusive person. When I finally divorced him - subconsciously I think I left the church also at that point - because I stopped paying tithing. I think internally I decided that I wasn't buying into any more abusive relationships. (and the church was one.) I still went on and off for a few more years.
Also, it was NOT doctrinal issues or history that made me leave - I would have discounted those. It was the sexism towards women, the judgmental attitude (I was a divorced single woman at that point), the complete boredom in the meetings and the stupid stuff in GC along with being "taught" stuff that I COMPLETELY disagreed with or thought was just petty. After a while, I just came to the realization that the "One True Church" would be a lot more humble and a lot less judgmental, and I didn't go back.
I didn't find out about a lot of the "revised" history until fairly recently.
Sitting in Ward Council as RS president listening to the group of leaders criticize inactives and try to explain what was wrong with them until I got so disgusted I went home, cried, and looked up Mormonism online. Wow, was that a shock. I resigned.
I wish you would comment more in depth on your enlightenment to leave. It sounds really interesting. If I don't show another comment after this thread, please start a new one with my name in the title just so I can catch up on the response. I work a lot in odd hours so I don't always see what is posted on time.
I think I was always suspect of the over whelming need to prove it was true. It just seemed to require so much effort and attention. As a child I remember thinking there was something odd about having to learn to defend my beliefs.
Being molested by a leader helped. Blacks not being able to hold the priesthood always bothered me. Paul H. Dunn bothered me.
I was inactive for a long time. My parents going on their mission to Ghana made me angry enough to look up things about the church on the internet. Its funny how scary that was for me at first. But it didn't take long to loose the fear and feel happy relief.
Feeling ripped off by the church; feeling used by its lies and its taking my family away.
The very idea that one would have the arm of one's conscience TWISTED by having one's family held hostage--that unless I drink the Kool-aid my family will hate me and the church will preach against me--is appalling for any "religion" to do. Cults do that.
I was the most devout in my entire family. I didn't study ANYTHING except maybe reading some Dialog and Sunstone--AFTER I got married to my gay husband. I think part of the reason we got married was to figure it out ourselves as the leaders had all the wrong answers and we certainly needed their voyeurism out of our lives. Both of us were on a path of questioning from the day we married (if not before).
All the history doesn't matter to me--it was just icing on the cake. Sure, I had questions all my life. The list could go on and on and on--but it was my own life experience.
Somewhere deep in my soul (and I'm not a very confident person--so this had to have struck really deep), I KNEW they were WRONG about our situation.
The day it hit me it was because of something my friend's daughter said--she was getting married and every time something went wrong with her plans she would say, "The church is still true, so why does it matter?" This just so happened to be after the worst years of my life (and still recovering). AND I kept repeating that to myself over and over and I realized IT MATTERED TO ME in the most important question of my life, IT MATTERED TO ME and they were WRONG. They didn't give a damn about my kids (first and foremost), about me, and about my ex--and all the victims of their attitude towards gays. I could care less about all the rest--
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/15/2011 12:14AM by cl2.
My Mormon-hating atheist grandpa with the pink car told me when I was really little that there was no god, and I suspected he was right. When my parents dragged me to church as a teenager, after years of inactivity and on the heels of an interstate move, it felt weird and wrong. My parents made like they knew what they were doing, so I tried to believe, but I was constantly questioning.
I had a mental list of four or five things that really bothered me, number one being the whole man-god/worship-me-or-else concept. That he would create homosexuals and then punish them it for was another thing. No idea why I was thinking much about homosexuality in the late 1970s, but even then it was obvious to me it wasn't a choice. I also had a huge problem with polygamy in heaven, and with all the leaders being old and well to do. But it was more the whole experience and a general feeling that it was wrong than any of those things. I stopped attending and considering myself a member as soon as I got out on my own at age 20.
Edited 7 time(s). Last edit at 12/15/2011 01:09AM by munchybotaz.
I got to the point where I was miserable that I wasn't living up to the standards of the church, so I stopped going out of shame. Luckily, that gave me distance, which gave me the freedom to actually explore my deeper thoughts.
I also really love both history and science. During this time, I had decided I wasn't going to search out anything that I felt was anti-Mormon, but I kept coming up to stuff which just totally conflicted with the Mormon view. In the past I always rationalized these away, but now it was different.
What really broke the camel's back was a documentary about Ancient America, and all the per-Columbian myths that different groups over time have adopted to their view of that period. Interesting enough, right about the time Joseph Smith was alive, the country was obsessed with finding signs of the Lost Tribes of Israel in the Americas. It was even one of the missions of the Lewis and Clark expedition. Interesting enough, Mormons were not the only ones to believe that the American-Indians were descended from the Jews. interesting enough DNA studies disproved that the American Indians had any connection to the Middle East.
forbiddencokedrinker Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I got to the point where I was miserable that I > wasn't living up to the standards of the church, > so I stopped going out of shame. Luckily, that > gave me distance, which gave me the freedom to > actually explore my deeper thoughts. > > I also really love both history and science. > During this time, I had decided I wasn't going to > search out anything that I felt was anti-Mormon, > but I kept coming up to stuff which just totally > conflicted with the Mormon view. In the past I > always rationalized these away, but now it was > different. > > What really broke the camel's back was a > documentary about Ancient America, and all the > per-Columbian myths that different groups over > time have adopted to their view of that period. > Interesting enough, right about the time Joseph > Smith was alive, the country was obsessed with > finding signs of the Lost Tribes of Israel in the > Americas. It was even one of the missions of the > Lewis and Clark expedition. Interesting enough, > Mormons were not the only ones to believe that the > American-Indians were descended from the Jews. > interesting enough DNA studies disproved that the > American Indians had any connection to the Middle > East.
Do you remember the name of the documentary? That would be great to show others... Please post if possible.
I've been a staunch non-believer for about 3 years. This followed about 4 years of strongly believing. Before that I was very doubtful for about 5-10 years.
My wife knew I had doubts in the 5-10 year period. Eventually I went on one of those pioneer treks with me wife and reading the entire Book of Mormon in one month. It was a very very spiritual experience and it wiped out all my doubts. I continued to have lots of spiritual experiences.
About 4 years ago I started getting to the point where I couldn't continue to reconcile things in my mind and I seriously started questioning if those spiritual experiences were really from a god or if they were just internal emotions.
About 3 years ago I finally concluded 100% that I was an atheist. Since then I've never wavered back to the other side. I however decided to just continue to go through the motions and not tell my wife and upset her.
About 2 years ago I was called as Elder's Quorum President. Both the bishop and stake president told me that they had huge revelations that I was called of god - hah! Of course they called me with my wife in the room so I had only 2 choices - either accept the calling or let the cat out of the bag. So I accepted the calling.
This last summer I finally decided the right decision was to tell my wife the truth. I sent an email to the bishop and stake president telling them that I don't believe. The bishop called me in and was completely hostile and borderline abusive - he took my temple recommend and told me to stand down immediately as EQP (everyone in our ward hates our bishop he's a complete jerk and activity has dropped something like 20% in the 5 years he's been bishop.) The stake president also brought me in to officially release me. He was the exact opposite of our bishop - completely loving, friendly, and kind about it.
So to answer your question directly: 1) I am a non believing atheist. 2) Doing what I want I would resign tomorrow. I remain a member for now for my wife's sake. I attend sacrament meeting and sunday school because it is important to my wife that I do - I think primarily she just doesn't want the social awkwardness of being there alone. I don't pay tithing - my wife does on her 10 hour a week job.
Note: I purposely avoided any "anti-mormon" information. The little I was exposed to was pretty crazy (the evangelical churches tend to have pretty weak/inaccurate stuff - e.g. The Godmakers). I always believed the company line that it was just half-truths, stuff taken out of context, not really historical, etc. LOL that the church has use that to effectively discredit the truth when they are the ones that use the half truths, history hiding, etc.
That I do not believe there is a Pepsi machine on Pluto or a Tea pot in orbit around Mars, no evidence to support the existence of such things. Without the idea of a God, it is kinda hard to believe in a god based religion.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/15/2011 09:15AM by MJ.
Ironically I could accept all the other whacko stuff - polygamy, plurality of gods, garments (though I hated them), Book of Abraham, meetings out the ying yang, etc.
Once I discovered the church could justify lying to protect itself I felt betrayed.
The history of the Mormon Church and the attempts of that church to run away from its history, which confirms the validity of that history, proved to me that its all a lie.
1) What was it that sent you down the path of reconsidering your belief in the Mormon church? Was there one thing that specifically got you questioning?
2) What was it that was the final straw that broke the camels back where you were confident you didn't believe?
for Golden Plates - the improbability of angels flying around hiding and finding stuff -- the only claim is "spiritual eye" witness, therefore, the Book of Mormon is plagiarized other sources about imaginary people, places, and things.
When it sunk it, it struck me funny! I chuckled and laughed for days and days!