I'm at a point where I would like to start exploring what's out there besides Mormonism!

I'm not really sure where I stand on Christian beliefs. I would like to believe in a higher power, but I suspect it may be in the same way I wanted to believe I'd be accepted to Hogwarts as a kid. I do know I believe in finding peace, and living a purposeful and moral life. I like the principles behind meditation and yoga (the connection between mind, body, and spirit).

What I'm looking for is literature I should read to explore other religions, organizations, guiding principals, etc. I want to learn about all I can, so that I can find something that resonates with me. Suggestions?

I hear ya... In my opinion, just take your time. Don't worry about getting into anything in particular, just go forward with what you like (meditation and yoga) and add little by little of just what you like. Personally, I'm Anglican and it suits me just fine. I have everything that I like and nothing to worry about. The main thing is just be true to yourself and do what you like whether it is spiritual or otherwise. That's just my two cents. Best of luck to you.

Oh yeah, and I forgot... use the internet for reading material... you can find tons of stuff without having to deal with anyone pressuring you or trying to sell you on anything.

If you're looking to explore religions, the handy religion answer book is a good place to start. It gives the basic beliefs of just about every religion out there, excepting of course the very newest ones, and it covers everything from anabaptist to zionist conscisely & without judgement. It just lays it out there.
It might help you to narrow-down what it is that you believe in, or don't believe in. I found it very helpful.
Good luck to you!!!

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/08/2012 02:04AM by MJ.

Mormonism and religion in general condition us to think we need an external source of morality and purpose. All that does is make us dependent upon those external sources while stunting the development of our own life compass.

As I've written many times before, I think the best thing anyone can do after leaving Mormonism (or any other belief system) is to become aware of what you actually believe when no one is telling you what to believe. Once you know that you REALLY believe (which shows up in how you live your life rather than in what you profess), you don't need an external source. You don't need to believe *in* something. You just believe. And you'll probably discover that your list of actual beliefs is rather short and basic. For example, mine boiled down to: Try not to be a dick, try to be helpful, avoid people that want to mess with me, feed and exercise my mind, laugh.

"Mormonism and religion in general condition us to think we need an external source of morality and purpose. All that does is make us dependent upon those external sources while stunting the development of our own life compass."

This is naive. When formulating and adopting a worldview, we all rely upon external sources. There is no such thing as some inherent "morality and purpose" we can tap into in order to avoid consideration of external influences and views.


"I think the best thing anyone can do after leaving Mormonism (or any other belief system) is to become aware of what you actually believe when no one is telling you what to believe."

Leaving Mormonism creates a "belief vacuum" as is evident from this post. Yes, you can reflect upon what seems right to you absent Mormonism, but a thoroughly grounded worldview requires much more effort and understanding. Your advise seems to me to suggest intellectual laziness. After all, even a humanistic, or atheistic, worldview requires knowledge and understanding derived essentially from external sources.

"Once you know that you REALLY believe (which shows up in how you live your life rather than in what you profess), you don't need an external source. You don't need to believe *in* something. You just believe. And you'll probably discover that your list of actual beliefs is rather short and basic. For example, mine boiled down to: Try not to be a dick, try to be helpful, avoid people that want to mess with me, feed and exercise my mind, laugh."

Yes. Your list will be short, and your worldview will be ill-informed and superficial. This is the attitude of defeatism, not enlightenment.

"This is naive. When formulating and adopting a worldview, we all rely upon external sources. There is no such thing as some inherent 'morality and purpose' we can tap into in order to avoid consideration of external influences and views."

I didn't say not to CONSIDER external sources and influences. By all means, consider as much as we can, because the more information and options we have, the better decisions we can make. But don't go latching onto something JUST BECAUSE someone who claims to know what's best says we should. A lot of people have been led in a lot of wrong directions because they accepted claims of knowledge, wisdom and authority without thinking more about it, without measuring it against their own yard stick.

Sure, that yardstick will have been influenced -- consciously or unconsciously -- by a load of external things. The point is, it's THAT individual's yardstick. I think it's obvious that you and I would be miserable if you tried to live by my yardstick and I lived by yours. Because personality is internal, needs and aspirations are internal, meaning is internal... Everything we encounter is measured by all that, and more -- providing we don't turn our decision making over to the loudest, most insistent, most authoritarian voices in the room.

Is purposeful and moral really necessary? Sounds like you want me to go home-teaching next week too! LOL

Sounds like your version of home teaching would be a LOT more fun than the surprise-attacks I was subjected to at BYU-Idaho, though haha ;)

Home-teaching suprise attacks at BYU-Idaho sounds like a nightmare! Have fun exploring all of the new options.

The truth isn't what makes you happy, although it can.
Religion is all fake, save yourself some time.
I recommend secular humanism, authors like Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Carl Sagan, my favorites. They take the biological view, because it's the truth.

Interesting, I just realized that even secular humanists can sound preachy. BTW, not here to start a debate, just making an observation.

I intended to be even more preachy and I was holding back.
Forgive me for reading between the lines and all the assumptions that makes...
...but,
What I hear alot of teetering TBMs saying is that I don't want to give up what I'm fond of in LDS beliefs so give me an excuse to keep them even if they're bogus.
...the big ones are hanging onto Jesus and eternal marriage.
kristenp says "a purposeful and moral life", and I almost want to finish her sentance "like mormonism was". In other words she's looking for a surrogate or foster form of mormonism to fill the void it leaves.
I'm saying there's no void to fill. The void was artificially created by mormonism. There's no need to go looking for salvation. "I can't lose now, there's no game to play" (song Don't Look Back- Boston).
However, I still think the truth is important for its own sake and that you need to be educated enough in it to avoid being deceived again. So, just as I thought the truth was my duty as a TBM, I still do.

"In other words she's looking for a surrogate or foster form of mormonism to fill the void it leaves.
I'm saying there's no void to fill. The void was artificially created by mormonism. There's no need to go looking for salvation."

Mormonism did not create the void. The void is well-established by the human existential condition, which is acknowledged by theists and atheists alike. The void, as this poster suggests, is finding meaning and purpose within such condition. You can fill the void with religion or humanism; or you can simply avoid thinking about it. Those sources that you cite that challenge theism do not offer anything substantive in exchange, except in some cases some vague idea of "religious naturalism" (i.e. acknowledging the "sacredness" of nature). Criticizing religious attempts to fill the void is both easy and legitimate. Filling the void with something else that is both rational and empirically supported is what is quite difficult.

Finally, I would not brag about being preachy. At least Mormons understand what they are preaching. You have no idea what you are preaching!

I'm not exactly looking to be enlightened to "The Truth," but rather looking to be educated. I was born in the church and am really ignorant about what else is out there. I'd like to see if there's anything that aligns more with my personal views. I will check those authors out, thank you!

...the "Truth" here referencing the "one true church" rhetoric. I'm looking forward to hearing some actual truths.

"I'm not exactly looking to be enlightened to "The Truth," but rather looking to be educated. I was born in the church and am really ignorant about what else is out there. I'd like to see if there's anything that aligns more with my personal views. I will check those authors out, thank you!"

I agree that searching for "The Truth" is likely ill-advised and perhaps dangerous. However, finding something that aligns more with your personal views, is also illegitimate. By your own acknowledgement your current personal views are ill-informed. Thus, what you should be looking for is knowledge and information that will inform you so that you can create a reasonable and informed worldview that hopefully also provides meaning in your life. This will take an effort well beyond the skeptical literature suggested by amos2--assuming you are serious in your quest.

I was raised in a non-denomnational church that did not believe in "church membership" as there could be no such thing as "the one true church" on earth.
(call it my vaccination against Mormonism)
The theory is: only you and God know if you are truly a member. The records are kept in Heaven, not on earth. You don't need hand shakes as God can see your heart.
I know....what a concept.
Someday, I will get around to telling the story of how I ended up married to a 4th gen Mormon man for many years now.
But first, we have to get him de-converted.

I would like to hear that story. The version of God that you describe makes much more sense to me than the one I was taught growing up.

The other thing that I REALLY loved was;
As God's children, he treated us all as individuals. The same way you wouldn't/don't have the exact same rules for your children. One can drive a car but the others are too young. Another can be left alone, unsupervised with no problem, but another (perhaps older) child can't be trusted.....
The real God would never have a "one size fits all" rule.
Some of my best Sunday School memories were adult classes where there were many different perspectives, everybody got their say, and at the end, everyone still was friends with everyone else.
Some even changed their viewpoint during the discussion
Awesome stuff.
My suggestion to you would be:
Read the New Testament for yourself. When you are clear about what Jesus said/taught, then you will be in a better place to pick a church.

The world is your bivalve. I mean oyster.

There are even a few little excerpts in that insane Old Testament where God indicates you should not define him as anything you can observe in the world (check out the 10 commandments).

So, un-define God. Take God out of the little box everyone likes to try to put God in. Analyze the doctrines about unseen things in Mormonism as if you were analyzing a cool rock you found on the road when you were a kid; with curiosity but not with attachment.

You may find yourself gravitating toward a new spirituality, or away from the concept of a personal God altogether. You may become happily agnostic, or a Born Again Christian. You may find that there is a spirituality that doesn't require a belief in un-testable and unverifiable things. The world is completely open to you once you decide you don't actually know who/what/how God is at all. This doesn't necessarily mean you won't believe in God. You don't have to start with atheism or agnosticism, but you may arrive there. And you may not.

Joseph Smith was unwittingly correct when he said something like this (my additions in parentheses): You cannot have true (Mormon) faith unless you have a true (Mormon) idea about the nature of God (end paraphrase). The ambivalence and bifurcated thinking you are experiencing about Mormonism largely comes from the fact that you are indoctrinated in the Mormon idea of God. Remove those ideas, and it becomes easier, at least in my experience.

Good luck to you. I've been there exactly where you're at. Actually, I was there for 7 years before I figured out what to do and actually had the courage to do it. I assume you are not as cowardly as I was. The fact that you started here at RFM, of all places, tells me you're quite a brave person. I didn't even come here until 1 year after I left Mormonism...then they scared me off for another year. Lonely times.

This is a good thread about meditation and those spiritual beliefs:)

http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,401330,401951#msg-401951

My first piece of advice: ignore the know it alls, whether they be religious or atheists. It’s your journey; your life is your own personal mystery to explore. My second piece of advice is to read a wide variety of books on science, philosophy, and religion. A knowledge of only one of those three, in my opinion, gives an incomplete understanding of what we are as human beings. My third piece of advice would be to try to find some quiet alone time on a regular basis. It’s hard to sort out what is really important from what is not if we are constantly bombarded by things crying out for our attention. I think the great danger of our consumer, media driven culture is that its far too easy to drift from one distraction to another without ever really coming to know ourselves, or for that matter, to know others. Our culture facilitates living the unexamined life.

I’ll let other people give book recommendations on Eastern spirituality. You may be surprised to discover, like I was, that Christianity also has a very old and robust contemplative tradition. As Mormons we were basically exposed to none of that since Mormonism is mostly about doing stuff or at least the appearance of doing stuff. The bishop always has another calling to extend if you have time to waste on contemplation and meditation.

Anyway, here are two books suggestions. They are written by Christians but I think a non-Christian could still find some good stuff in there.

New Seeds of Contemplation by Thomas Merton (anything by him is pretty good, including his account of his own spiritual journey in The Seven Storey Mountain)

The Mountain of Silence: A Search for Orthodox Spirituality by Kyriacos Markides

Some of my favorite Merton quotes:

“We stumble and fall constantly even when we are most enlightened. But when we are in true spiritual darkness, we do not even know that we have fallen.”

“We are so obsessed with doing that we have no time and no imagination left for being. As a result, men are valued not for what they are but for what they do or what they have - for their usefulness.”

In the movie "Cast Away" Tom Hanks plays a man who is marooned on a deserted, south-Pacific island for 4 years. He finally decides that he can't stand to live the rest of his life alone on the island and builds a raft and sets to sea.

Finally he sees the last glimpse of the island disappear over the horizon and from that point there's nothing but ocean surrounding him and his small raft.

This is similar to what happens when leaving Mormonism. Mormonism is the island. It may be miserable and unacceptable but it is SOMETHING. For those of us who were BIC it was EVERYTHING we had in terms of making sense of the world. When one finally realizes that Mormonism is fake, there is no "backup island" readily available. Our "belief" is alone on a rickety raft surrounded by ocean in all directions.

My first advice is to stop looking for answers and start looking at the question. In religion BELIEF is a huge thing. In Mormonism it is pounded into us, My advice is to stop asking yourself what you believe, and instead ask about the whole idea of BELIEF itself. Mormonism has colored the concept into a meaning that fits the Mormon mold. In Mormonism belief is an absolute devotion to one set of principles. They are believed fervently to be absolute truth.

When leaving Mormonism it is natural to want to quickly exchange one set of "absolute truths" for another. The comfort of saying "I know" that is a bedrock of Mormonism is hard to move away from. It takes time to be comfortable with not knowing a lot of things.

Believe in Art; or, put another way, believe in our ability to create objects that embody meaning. Art can be anything from a well-formed Idea to a well-constucted Cathedral, and much more besides.

When we are first leaving Mormonism many of us suffer from a lack of context. Here's something to help with that, Kenneth Clarke's 'Civilisation':

http://www.amazon.com/Civilisation-Civilization-Sir-Kenneth-Clark/dp/0563085444

(The BBC created a very accomplished series of 1hr videos, of which the book derives; many of which are scattered throughout youtube, but is also readily available for purchase.)

Kenneth Clarke gives us an easy, almost off-handed survey of Western Civilisation and a personal example of what it means to be civilised. The sweep of his view forever dwarfs the Mormon World View in which we were brought up. Placing our religious upbringing and the accompanying world-view into the larger context of Western Civilisation frees us up to pursue other meanings that may find us.

Believe in Humankind's readiness to create, which means your own as well, and be open to the experience this World offers, and Meaning will find you rather than the other way around.

Cheers, and good luck.

Human

I would second this.

I'm ashamed to admit that I once thought that all of Western civilization was just a prelude and preparation for the glories of the Restoration (face palm).

Yes, major facepalm! We were taught to interpret Western Civilisation from the p.o.v of a tiny clique of religious fanatics clinging (largely) to the basin of a Lake of Salt. Put in it's proper order, LDSinc. is nothing more than a footnote, if that, in the Sweep and Scope of our Western Heritage. Reversing this for me was number one to recovery.



Here's what Kenneth Clark believes:


"I hold a number of beliefs that have been repudiated by the liveliest intellects of our time. I believe that order is better than chaos, creation better than destruction. I prefer gentleness to violence, forgiveness to vendetta. On the whole I think that knowledge is preferable to ignorance, and I am sure that human sympathy is more valuable than ideology. I believe that in spite of recent triumphs of science, men haven't changed much in the last two thousand years; and in consequence we must still try to learn from history. History is ourselves. I also hold one or two beliefs that are more difficult to put shortly. For example, I believe in courtesy, the ritual by which we avoid hurting other people's feelings by satisfying our own egos. And I think we should remember that we are part of a great whole, which for convenience we call nature. All living things are our brothers and sisters. Above all, I believe in the God-given genius of certain individuals, and I value a society that makes their existence possible."

--Civilisation--

I agree.

Human

Human Wrote:
------------------------------------------------------
> I believe in the God-given genius of certain
> individuals, and I value a society that makes
> their existence possible."
>

There something in Mormonism that stifles that kind of genius. I think its the one size fits all approach to life combined with the sheer drudgery of callings, meetings, etc. Thankfully not all religious cultures are that way or we wouldn't even have that thing we call civilization.

Think about this, then start your journey:

Life is unequal. What could this mean? How could this be of benefit to us? Is there any "evidence" for any claim that would fall into the category of scientifically unexplainable?

Good luck.

believe (dictionary definition)
verb (used without object): to have confidence in the truth, the existence, or the reliability of something, although without absolute proof that one is right in doing so.

I consider "believe" to be a negative term because of the lack of absolute proof it entails. All religion is based on unverifiable magic. Organized religions want to lighten your wallet by making you believe that they have something really important to give you. Their feel-good ideas may give you some immediate gratification, but it will be financially costly. It seems to me that you are continuing to "bark up the wrong tree."

Instead of worrying about religion and spirituality, try learning to live in the present moment, in the here and now. The past is gone and cannot be changed. The future is nebulous idea that doesn't seem to ever arrive. Today is where we are living. So focus on enjoying today.

PS -- If you absolutely must have some religion and spirituality in your life then visit www.unity.org . This is a "new age" church and it may be what you are looking for.

For some broad, general reading, I'd recommend Joseph Campbell's 'The Power of Myth'

http://www.amazon.com/Power-Myth-Joseph-Campbell/dp/0385418868/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1328732057&sr=1-1

This volume discusses the purpose and place of religion in culture in very broad terms by showing examples from a variety of different traditions.

I would also recommend Karen Armstrong's 'A History of God'

http://www.amazon.com/History-God-000-Year-Judaism-Christianity/dp/0345384563/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1328732128&sr=1-1

This volume lays out the history of monotheism and all its twists, turns and variations throughout the years.

If you're into yoga and meditation, you might want to actually go read some Hindu texts. Maybe the Bhagavad Gita?

http://www.amazon.com/Bhagavad-Gita-Classics-Indian-Spirituality/dp/1586380192/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1328732191&sr=1-1

And good luck to you.

Erin