I don't really have any nagging beef with the church. I just don't buy it anymore. That said, I can't deny the good it's done for me. Mission was hard but refining. The conferences and lessons and principles have taught me important things about relationships, service, preparedness, finances, health and being your best.

How do you replace the good bits? I would leave but I don't want my kids to miss out on the good stuff. I don't want to slowly become less service minded or health focused or family centered. At the same time, I don't want to stay and deal with being a "jack Mormon" or explaining my double standards to my kids. What do you do to replace the self improvement/life lesson good parts??

Teach them yourself

Gatorman

Haha, fair enough. Maybe I should frame my question a bit better: has anyone found any good resources for continuing learning along these lines? It seems a weird question to ask. But I do value the completeness of coverage available in the church and I don't want to miss any important bits as I teach my kids myself.
If that makes sense?

"completeness of coverage"? Are you kidding? It sounds like you want to turn your kids over to some turn key system that has all the answers and be relieved from the hassle of actually learning what to teach them. Maybe you need to start an education program for yourself about how the world works and where ethics come from and the real answers to lifes questions so you don't need to find a solution to your kids moral education from someplace that offers "completeness of coverage". Who knows, you might even enjoy it. Once you are captured by the thrill of learning on your own, teach that to your kids.

Yep, I agree.
"The Church" isn't required to learn any of the things you say are "good bits." In fact, the vast majority of humans on the planet learn those things without being mormons, or ever hearing of mormons.

Teach your kids what you value yourself. Don't pass off the responsibility of "teaching them good bits" to an organization that makes demonstrably false claims, lies to cover up its history, hides its financial profits, and teaches its members to be ignorant, irrational, and "obedient" just because you think it has a few "good bits."

Seriously, it's not that hard to decide on what your "values" are, and pass them along to your kids. In fact, mostly all you need to do is to teach them how to use facts and reason to make decisions, and then let them learn their own lessons.

You make a good point. I guess the church made made morally lazy. Or, I allowed myself to become morally lazy in the church. I didn't have to discover what I value because it was given to me. Good for thought.

I can see why my phrasing makes me sound like a zombie. What I mean is that there are things that I learned at church that my parents never taught me. Things I'm glad I learned. My parents never valued education or budgeting or saving etc. I'm worried that I might miss an important detail that my kids would otherwise have got.

I'm glad you experienced good bits. Unfortunately, I did not. Not serving a mission caused dating difficulties. Confessing to spanking the monkey earned me a threat of disfellowshipment. And BYU certainly had a caste system.

As you move forward with your life, you'll learn to create your own good bits and they will be much better than the pablum fed to you by Mormonism.

Very best wishes, The Boner.

Have you considered that your definition of "good" was taught to you by a religion you "don't buy it anymore"?

+ a million. I would never lower my standards to the level of Mormon standards.

I don't think you have to replace anything. The wisdom of religion is sneaking into popular culture. Think of the Marvel and DC comics movies. I watched Wonder Woman recently. I felt as if I just sat through a great sermon.

Just be there for them. Kids can handle anything the world throws at them if they have good support. They don't need the church, as you'll discover the longer you're out.

Remember, you cannot have the good without the bad. And the bad will damage your kids beyond repair. We have found a non-denominational church that is completely Christ centered. There is no judgment, no expectations, no guilt.
In the real world, true friendships and relationships are what matter. In the Mormon world, it is all about deception. Good luck with that.

Ah, the age old question :)

As my screen name says, I wasn't raised Mormon. I was raised as a die-hard Christian though. My entire childhood was spent in church every time the doors were open and my teens were spent with the church as my primary social group.

I raised my children outside of church and religion. They are incredibly awesome young adults whose morals I would stack up against any other kid out there.

If you want to teach good morals, live good morals.

If you want to teach charity, do charity.

Teach them about the natural wonders of the world by spending time in nature.

Teach them practical skills.

Let them make mistakes.

Love them.

No religion required.

^ wow.
Well said. :)

There are a few ways to look at this.

Like you, I choose to view my 40+ years as a Mormon part of what made me who I am today. I am happy with who I am today. Like some people who had an accident or bad thing happen in their life, sometimes people are able to make that experience into a positive catalyst in their life.

On the other hand, Mormonism does not have exclusive access to goodness. There is not one good thing in Mormonism that is not available in abundance outside of Mormonism. If you had not viewed the world through Mormonism, there are many ways you could have had defining good experiences in your life.

Consider the opportunity cost of spending all that time on the Mormon hamster wheel. A mission might give you sales skills for example, but you could have gotten that selling anything not involving a scam. You spent two years that could have been spent in any number of ways in service, education, or financial development. You could have volunteered at zoo or for habitat for humanity (for example) and had irreplaceable life-changing experiences and lessons about morality.

As you plan for your kids to experience "good stuff," be sure and weigh the negative impact that goes along with it in the church. The child's rational thinking skills will likely be repressed.

Kids will get most of their "good bits" from side by side experience with their parent and will appreciate them more than if they were being farmed out to church, IMO.

Just because the church's foundational truth claims are false doesn't mean there isn't much good to be found in the church and through involvement in its programs and activities.
We here on RFM are adept at bringing some truth and balance to an overall assessment of the church but tend to overlook the good that seems inseparable from the not so good.

I wish we could find something that had the same power to inspire, unite and mobilize people in good causes" as religion seem to do.

"The greatest tragedy in mankind's entire history may be the hijacking of morality by religion." – Arthur C. Clarke

No church could have helped you except that you had what it took to help yourself.

To many members credit the mormon church for what the individual members accomplish.

For the OP, how about teaching gays that they should marry straight women? And the fallout for the entire family? Let alone those gay children in the church who are taught they are evil and then many commit suicide. How about the fact that kids of gays can't be baptized if they live with their gay parent more than 50% of the time? My kids' father is gay. My daughter is TBM. I wonder what they ask her in TR interviews. Do they ask her if she supports her father's lifestyle? and if she does, do they deny her a TR?

So many problems with mormonism. I lived the worst of them.

Let's not discuss the fact that the bishop and other leaders told me to do whatever it took to get my boyfriend turned on except INTERCOURSE, but we could do anything else. This was the LEADERS. It was more important to "save the gay" than it was for me to continue to be "chaste."

There is a lot YOU DO NOT SEE that many of the rest of us have experienced.

I was born who I am. I'm a better person outside of mormonism than I was in mormonism.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/17/2017 12:16PM by cl2.

if they know that this kind of behavior is encouraged. Let's say they have never had a bad mormon experience and they credit the church with much of their success, but if they know it hurts people why continue to support it?

I wouldn't give a dime to an organization that might use one cent of it to hurt, harass, or demean innocent victims. It's hard to imagine why anyone would unless they're just blind to the facts.

Realize that the church took all the credit for the "good bits" in your life, and shoved everything else back onto you. Heads the church wins, tails you lose. And, more likely than not, you accepted and internalized it.

Once you let go of that mindset, it will become far easier to chart your own path.

decultified Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Realize that the church took all the credit for
> the "good bits" in your life, and shoved
> everything else back onto you. Heads the church
> wins, tails you lose. And, more likely than not,
> you accepted and internalized it.
>
> Once you let go of that mindset, it will become
> far easier to chart your own path.

You nailed it decultified. You said basically what the quote I included above said.

"The greatest tragedy in mankind's entire history may be the hijacking of morality by religion." – Arthur C. Clarke

I think you're spot on. There's a lot of rhetoric in the church about humility and recognizing God's hand. I think you're right. Perhaps I shortchange my own propensity for sensibility and goodness, attributing to the church when it was who I would've been even without it. Thanks for the insight :)

so you can only get good from mormonism ? You cannot get good from anywhere else ?

Hey Dave. Not so much that, as me feeling inadequate as a parent, and worrying I'd miss something important that would be a cost to my children. I know there is good out there. But I feel like the church did a good job of pointing me at many good principles I might have otherwise missed. Feeling anxious about missing good things that I my children may need.

This may help to illustrate the way I believe some of us see the Mormon "good bits."

A congressman drafts a really great bill that will help many in his state and probably many others as well. However, the only way congress is going to approve it is if many other congressmen are allowed to attach their own agenda to the bill. By the time the bill comes up for a vote, it is a bloated, selfish mess loaded down with personal agendas and perks.

Mormon "good bits" are the same way. You child is taught what Jesus supposedly said about love your neighbor. At the same time, that phrase is loaded with bigotry against gay people. Your children will learn this and know this. They can talk about loving your fellow men and then soon after read that they should only marry within their race.

I could go on but, you know--Mormon "good bits" have a lot in common with Pork Barrels. Jesus has a lot of personal agendas attached to him nowadays.


You can't cover every base with your children. You can spend enough time with them that they seem the good parts of you. That makes a huge impression.