New Here

I guess it is customary to introduce yourself with an accompanying “sob” story, so here’s mine

I was raised LDS, forced to go to church every Sunday, forced to attend a church college, and then chose to go on a mission and finish my education at a church school on my own. There has never been a day that has gone by where I haven’t been seeking some sort of confirmation of truth. I have never had any great epiphany or revalation that I know of indicating that the gospel as prescribed by mormonism is true. I even struggled as a missionary, and had a pretty rough mission despite my earnest attempt to do my best and lose myself in the work. Many years later I decided to to make sure once and for all whether or not things were true. I listened to a good hour of conference talks/devotionals per day and lived the gospel the best that I could. After years of this, I changed jobs and had a co-worker who was formerly LDS. (uh oh right?) He was even more devout than I ever was during his time in the church, only to get derailed by the likes of Richard Dawkins and others.

I continued my own quest for truth and unfortunately for my church going efforts, began to find it. I ultimately came to the conclusion that the history of the church was inconclusive because history is subjective in nature. For example, a roommate of mine in college could write in his journal that I was gay (even though I’m not), and 100 years from now people would be certain I was gay. Kind of a bad example, but I feel like similar things have occurred in church history. So it all came down to whether or not I got a happy feeling when I pray. Well, being the scientific type that I am, I decided to determine what was the Spirit and what was emotion. So I prayed to other deities as an experiment and found that I could invoke similar feelings. uh oh right? So I have been going to church to support my wife and family, but otherwise feel completely separated. I have turned to apologist websites and haven’t found much resolution.

To make my problem worse, I have adhd and have always hated going to church because I’m not interested. It’s just boring for me, and always has been. Having a biological impairment that prevents me from enjoying boring things much doesn’t help.

SO, here I am today struggling to keep going. I have need to save my tithing money anyway, but I still fear retribution of sorts. I still believe in a supreme being in the universe, I’m just not convinced that anyone has written a clean version of anything. It seems that all scriptures and religions are heavily tainted with the precepts of the human mind that did the writing/speaking. I have been reading through a few things on the site and have found that many of the articles/opinions are similar to my own. I’m hoping to find a way to be a “middle mormon” for my family and myself.