Does the Good Outweigh the Bad?

I think it depends on you. Some people find it helpful others damaging. People are different and react differently. I know people that love the church and it makes them happy. Others it destroys their lives. On the whole I think if you never belong to the church you are better off. If you had no choice and where born in it it is a 50 50 proposition.

Different people will see it differently. It depends on the relative importance of different aspects of the Church. It depends on the scale. For example, if gambling is really important to you and you can’t stand how the Church always refers to gambling as an addiction, and every time you see Sister Jones, you fume inside because you know how outspoken she is against gambling, then it might be that the bad will outweigh the good.

For me, yes, the good outweighs the bad by a lot. This site has helped me a ton in this area… I think what has helped me is to stop fretting about little things. There are still a few hot-buttons for me, but they are big-ticket items. What people wear, specific odd beliefs, what people say in their testimony, well meaning but misguided advice… I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t feel any longer that I need to be concerned with it. I don’t worry about every little detail that could otherwise bug me. Instead, I try to use the Church as a framework for family tradition and spirituality.

In your particular case… wife and kids still all-in… there is motivation to stay. My kids know that I’m no longer a believer, but that I support them. I think that provides a certain counter-balance against the more extreme dynamics in the Church. Ultimately, it is up to my kids whether they will stay in it or not. When kids are younger, I think we get this false sense that we are brainwashing them inline with the Church if we don’t leave it. I think quite differently. I support my wife and kids in the Church, but I will voice my opinion when I think the Church is out of line. If I left the Church, I wouldn’t really be able to do that. The kids grow up, they serve missions, they get married in the temple… all by their choice.

For me personally, I wouldn’t change my history in the Church. It’s part of who I am. I have no regrets that I was raised in the Church. On the contrary, I’m grateful that I was.

I’m with you Tim. I did see recently that although many studies are not friendly to the church regarding stress levels and depression and all that, one study did find that in fact the church does have a lower suicide rate so there is at least that. I agree also with the thoughts stating it depends as well. I probably wouldn’t have made it through my teenage years without the good healthy fear of suicide the church teaches so i can thank it for getting me across that chasm at the very least. It’s good enough for me that I can bear it for the happiness of my family but I no longer believe in going crazy for it.

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I no longer believe the church is true. However, my wife and kids are solidly in the church and enjoy their association with it. I enjoy it, or am at least able to tolerate it for the most part. There are lots of voices on the DAMU that say that the church is more bad than good because of teachings that hurt gays and women, an overemphasis on modesty and chastity that hurts self image and marriages in the long run, excessive guilt about masturbation, etc. Regardless of how I feel I’m most concerned about doing what is best for my kids in the long run. Does the good outweigh the bad?

Personally I think much of what we hear about the Church on the internet is coming from people that are not necessarily looking at it very objectively and it seems almost like an allergic reaction where once they conclude that the Church is not “true” then almost everything about it starts to look bad to them and they will basically have none of it anymore. It’s easy for me to imagine how much better things supposedly could have been without the Church in the picture but then when I look around and see plenty of people that weren’t raised Mormon or that rebelled in a major way before they were 21 that clearly didn’t end up better off than the average practicing Mormon it’s not such a simple open-and-shut case to honestly evaluate anymore. It seems like no one really likes learning to have some discipline and do things they don’t feel like sometimes but that doesn’t mean it isn’t still good for them over the long run in many cases.

I think a lot of it also depends on how much of it you believe in or not because if it makes people feel better to believe their life has some special meaning and purpose beyond what we see and that everything will turn out alright in the end then that’s definitely worth something compared to completely losing this kind of faith and hope. That’s one reason why I wouldn’t necessarily want to de-convert my TBM parents and brother among others even if I thought I could. However, for individual members that already don’t believe in most of the Church’s teachings I think the costs will usually outweigh the benefits because it is so heavily geared around the TBM mindset and the main practical reasons for members like this to remain somewhat active in the Church are generally to avoid potential strain or damage in their relationships and/or they like the sense of belonging and community. Of course, some of the costs can also be lowered sometimes simply by saying no to a few things like callings, tithing, and temple recommends and not paying that much attention to things you disagree with without necessarily feeling like you should have to scrap the whole thing if you don’t want to.

That’s largely because I don’t belong to the Church; it belongs to me.

Love this, Ray!

Does the good outweigh the bad? I guess that depends on the individual.

I am the controlling agent in my relationship to the Church, so I am able to get the good out of it without being subject to the bad (or most of it).

I am an “agent unto myself”, as the Book of Mormon says I am supposed to be.

I act and don’t allow myself (usually) to be acted upon.

I am the subject in the relationship, not the object.

The Church doesn’t own me; I own it.

I am Mormon to the core – but the primary focus is on “I am” not “Mormon”.

This is exactly what I’m working on. I felt much the same way as you, Tim. My husband, children, our parents, grandparents, great-grandparents all are or were members of the church. I was very much a TBM. Then I started learning about church history, reading actual facts and seeing the church in a different light. At first, I thought all was lost. I didn’t think I could stay. The wonderful people on this site have been, and continue to be, helping me find the good and be okay with worshiping in my own way. I was very worried about what would be best for my young children. There’s a thread I started here called “What’s best for the kids?” where I got some great insight and advice on how to be a more proactive parent and use my new way of seeing things to help my children better navigate what some see as the more negative or damaging aspects of the church.

Good luck to you on your journey!