Posted by:
josephsmyth
(
)
Date: February 28, 2012 06:47PM
Now I know how I believed it.
It's like Carl Sagan said, "Religion is simply a community of people who gather together on a regular basis to reassure each other that it's ok to continue subscribing to absurdities. But for me it's far better to see the world the way it really exists, rather than persist in delusion, no matter how comforting or reassuring that may seem."
I needed a community and the one I was born into seemed like the most natural one at the time. It didn't seem absurd to me at the time, since I'd look around me and see Doctors, Dentists, Attorneys, Engineers all of whom were swearing suicidal oaths to slit their throats and stomachs if they ever divulged the secrets we learned in the Temple. That's the brainwashing trick. The convince you that something really absurd is actually NORMAL, since everybody else in the room, whom you respect, is doing it. So you go along to get along. You go through the temple to go on a mission. You go on a mission to get the pretty Mormon wife. You get the pretty Mormon wife to start REALLY fulfilling your REAL purpose of bringing down little spirits from Heaven. Before you know it, you're in so deep and you're so busy trying to provide for this HUGE Mormon family that you can't see straight. You don't look at the evidence because of the implications. It's a slippery slope. One thing leads to another and next thing you know you're on your own, sliding down a glacier headed for a huge cravass, with no way to stop.
It's like Paul Graham said in "Lies We Tell Kids"
http://www.paulgraham.com/lies.html (Identity)
"The truth is common property. You can't distinguish your group by doing things that are rational, and believing things that are true. If you want to set yourself apart from other people, you have to do things that are arbitrary, and believe things that are false."
So for a long time I was a Mormon. That was my identity. I fit the bill perfectly. Mormon heritage, Mormon family, Return Missionary, Mormon wife from a strong Mormon family, 4 kids, a professional degree and career, pillar in the Mormon community, leader in the Stake. And meanwhile I was going to the temple and swearing suicidal oaths. I had become that well respected guy in the temple pantomiming slitting my throat that others looked up to and said, "Hey, it can't be that wierd if everybody else is doing it."
But I was pretty open minded, probably to a fault. When my own kids started asking me questions about the Mormon church, I listened and sought to find real answers, since the pablum of Standard Mormon answers never really satisfied me. By that time the internet had come into existence and it didn't take me long to do the independent research and conclude that it wasn't at all what it claimed to be. The problem I had at the time however was that I was trapped. Sealed to a TBM wife, with a whole tribe of kids we'd raised to be perfect little Mormons. I was living under a couple of ultimatums. One from my wife who threatened to leave me if I breathed a word of my doubts to our kids and one from my Bishop, who threatened to discipline me if I shared my doubts with any other Mormons.
Even my wife and kids? I asked
Especially your wife and kids, he said.
That pissed me off and put me in a fighting mood. NOBODY tells me I can't be honest with my own kids!
It took me 3 years of fighting to convince her that Joseph's Myth was bogus. I almost lost her over it, a couple of times.
But it was worth it and it would have been worth it to lose my marriage over my integrity. I'm just glad it didn't come down to that however, since making love to my wife is a whole lot more fun than fncking integrity. haha