I can't say I'm atheist, but fairly thoroughly agnostic. I have attended church a few times and some church atmospheres make me feel really good. While I'm there though my mind reels through all of the issues and contradictions it finds in the large majority of practices and I just can't help but wonder why that feeling tries so hard to out-weigh the logic side of it.

I promise this is not to troll or try and make any points. That's another one of my issues with many religions is that people think that a good feeling should trump obvious problems. But what exactly causes that feeling no matter how much I don't believe? I have some ideas of what it could be but they are very loose and not well founded.

I would like some really in depth ideas and discussions if at all possible.

Ever go to a movie that made you feel happy?
Ever go to a movie that made you feel sad?
Ever go to a movie that made you angry?
Hopeful?
scared?

It is called emotional manipulation. Churches are as good at is as advertisers, movie makers, con artists...

LOL. I'm going to church, man.

I have the same problem as the OP.

Placebo effect. Works for awhile, but not forever. The rest of the time you are just faking it or you start to have mental problems caused by the cognitive dissonance one feels by trying to suppress what you know is untrue.

The fake display of happiness everyone shows can be convincing. Happiness is contagious, and even take happiness can be for a while...

I admit it. There were times I felt exalted and one of the very elect. Then I started to self examine. I wanted to do righteous things and stop masturbating and looking at dirty pictures and feel better about myself like I did when I was striving to be a good Mormon.

But in my self examinations (pun intended) I realized that I felt good in the absence of guilt and not in the doing of good. I would help people and not feel as big a rush as when I avoided sin. It didn't make sense until it did.

I was trained to evaluated good and evil in Mormon terms. I started looking at people more generally. I knew some people who were talked about having done some sins. Some of these people had helped me and I thought were good. Some of these people did good things in spite of the rules like buy us scouts something on Sunday on a camp out just because they thought we would enjoy it.

I knew people on my mission who were excellent people and good and yet while they would talk to us, the wouldn't join. Why? Mormonism had the copyright on goodness. It made me feel good. But then when I read about Smith's polyandry I realized truly that the goodness I had felt was manufactured from my training. My Celestial visions and good feelings where circumstantial and within the bounds the Mormon lords had set.

I felt rotten. Like I was a pawn. That what good I could accomplish was for a business founded by a liar and a cheat.

Taking Steve Benson's beautiful one-liner a bit further...

Many times when I was in the cult I had warm, pleasant feelings when leaving the ward house after my meeting block, as if I'd accomplished good things while there.

As I gradually woke up and determined that its foundation was a fraud, my sense of betrayal at being emotionally and financially manipulated led to a really good feeling when on one particular Sunday I decided that I had left the ward house for the last time.

But once I got my official exit letter from SLC, I was practically in ecstasy!

Pavlov's dogs. I recall a time when I attended church with a TBM friend I was visiting for the weekend. I sat in church getting physjcal warm fuzzies, whilst at the same time thinking what a load of rubbish. It occured to me that when I heard the familiar phrases (trigger words) my body reacted by producing the same physical sensations I'd previously associated with 'the spirit'. It was a very interesting experience.

Brain washing can do that to a person.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/15/2014 09:18AM by Claire Ferguson.

I think that is one of the tactics tscc uses. I felt that way also. But if you disagree,leave,or attempt to leave it all changes. That just proves it is a cult tactic not reality. If the people embrace another only when you behave as told, that is not true. A real friend, and I still have some tbm friends, you are treated no differently whether you agree or disagree. The tactics may be subtle but they are there. At times you could make a list a mile long on how you are manipulated to do as the church says. Other churches, religions, and large groups of people do not act that way. It is controlling.

The "warm fuzzy" is a deceiver. Beware and use some reason. That is why we have a brain.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/15/2014 09:31AM by michaelc1945.

You are a masochist?

Maybe an old-rock-vintage-Protestant church in a canopy of trees would be inviting. A small sermon and then meeting for coffee afterwards and visiting about anything other than religion. I can see the appeal even as an atheist. Just being part of a group of nice people will do it.

Heroin
Crack
Meth

People do this stuff because it makes them feel "good". But there are healthy ways to feel good and unhealthy ways to feel good. Joining a cult is not one of those healthy ways.

The Mormons know they have no other way of gaining converts. Joseph Smith was the master manipulator. He knew how to control people through their emotions. Modern day Mormons are simply employing the same tactics as their founder.

And what should I do when the Church does not make me "feel good?"

Attending Church is a hassle from Saturday night until Monday morning. You don't "just go" to an LDS Church. You *must* wear the correct *clothes*. You must have the correct *hair*. You must hold a prestigious *calling*. You must have a temple *recommend*. Church is the embodiment of "endure to the end." Meetings last 3 hours, plus leadership meetings. We would be going, going, gone in a push lasting from 6:00 A.M. until 6:00 P.M.

Then while I am there I was not allowed to participate in anything (because I was "unworthy"). Children ask in loud voices, "WHY DIDN'T THAT MAN HAVE ANY BREAD?" And my wife wonders why I wanted to stay home?

I endured this for ~10 years until I finally decided that confessing sins to the Church was not helping my self-esteem.

No, the LDS Church is not place where I would go to "feel good."

I feel good when I read a book that satisfies me--maybe it doesn't have a happy ending, or conclusions I agree with, but if it challenged me in some way, I tend to like it. It makes me feel really good, like the day was worth getting out of bed for. Other people sometimes argue with me about whether or not a particular book was good or true or not, but that doesn't change what I think, for me. What might make me change my mind, might be reading other/more in-depth info about the subject and talking with others who have done the same with other books, afterward. Gaining new knowledge= knowing more. I might be able to or want to, make a different decision, then.

I feel great when I am swimming leisurely in my own time; having once been a competitive swimmer, not having that pressure on how I do it and how quickly, makes swimming fun for me in a way it never really was before. It makes me feel at peace and like all is right with the world... Other people swimming lanes next to me may seem grumpy and unhappy, in a big hurry and too busy completing laps to enjoy the experience, themselves. I still feel great about me. What might change my mind about that, might be knowing the water wasn't clean, the pool not well maintained, or if I were injured while swimming, making swimming painful or difficult. New, outside information, different experiences that weren't exactly the same as ones I had before, might make me change my mind about swimming. But, I don't want to be those unhappy grumpy people swimming too fast, encouraging all the others to do the same, without thinking.

Feeling good about something isn't evidence something is true. It isn't evidence that the people who share that experience with you are good people like you are, or feel the same about things as you do. That they have your best interest at heart. That what they agree on, is what you agree with, either.

And not everything fun, is good for you. Too much cake, too often; too much partying or drinking; too much staying up all night, not working hard enough and goofing off; too much hanging out with people with braces on their brains, too much reading only one kind of literature with only one author or conclusion: none of that is any good for you.

Social and religious groups offer mental/physical benefits to your well being, and other benefits to those around you, when you do things together in groups. Food banks and drives to stock them, for one. Medical missions, for another.

Being lonely isn't good for primates, which we are, as humans. Homo sapiens sapiens are primates, no getting around that and they are groupers. They need social groups to survive. Language acquisition usually can't happen in isolation for us, for instance, and etiquette/using your manners and doing things which tend not to harm the group or threaten its survival, are learned in groups, too.

There are also very negative, harmful things that can happen in groups and to individuals doing things together in groups. Churches are groups, so are KKK rallies. The Air Force is a group, so are infantries made up of child soldiers. The police force is a group, and so is a gang. Ethnic cleansing can't happen unless there is one group who opposes another group and values them less; habitat can't get destroyed unless one group opposes another and values another group less.

Groups include, but they can exclude, too. Groups can help, but they can harm.

So, despite the fact that groups offer protections and benefits that individuals cannot duplicate by people standing alone, you do need to make sure that the group you ally yourself with is a good one and will work for you.

If it makes you feel good, if you are not harming yourself or anyone else by doing it, then go do that. But be truthful when you assess the situation: if it works for you but it is harming others; if you feel intense pressure to stay in the group and remain the same as others in the group; or you begin to see all others as opposition to the group, then stop going.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/15/2014 01:10PM by bookratt.