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I’ve noticed that when some people talk about ex-members, they make it seem like everyone who leaves the church is bitter toward the church. This is a common sentiment in GC. True, there are quite the number of them who probably get undue attention from being so vocal, but I’ve realized that most people who leave the church remain neutral or amiable towards the church. At this point, I can name way more amiable ex-members than bitter ones.
I blame outgroup bias and the availability heuristic.
There are some that leave the church and never give up fighting against it. It is somewhat understandable. I think many times they just want some validation that the church inflicted pain on them and/or betrayed. They never get that (in fact they get the opposite almost all the time) so they keep trying to “prove” how right they are. I wish more members could respond with, “Wow, I see how you were hurt. Is there any way I can help? I hope you find peace.” I think there would be fewer angry-exmo’s. But for most people that were deeply LDS (TBM), it is a full-on identity crisis. Many will go through the stages of the Kubler-Ross five stages of grief model – those being: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance. They are not a serial set of steps and things can trigger you back into a stage you thought you were over. It just happened to me last weekend.
I think I have said it before that the opposite of love isn’t hate, it is indifference.
I would assume if you are in someplace like Utah, it can be hard to not be a bit triggered when compared to where there are few Mormons.
Most I know seem to be more angry/bitter than the other way around. When your world is turned upside down it’s hard not to be hurt and feel angry. Some feel betrayed and lied to. I don’t agree with the approach to dealing with the pain but I understand it.
What I don’t understand is I see so many of them that want to pull family members or other people in with them. Maybe it’s just that you feel so alone when you don’t fit into the crowd anymore. Why can’t we all just respect the other persons opinion and just LOVE one another instead of trying to make the other person see through our lens? And to be honest I’d never wish that on anybody. Going through a FC has been, and still continues to be, one of the most emotionally painful periods of my life.
I’m sure the people on this board tend to try and associate with like minded people so the majority won’t have much experience with the stereotyped “bitter ex-mormon”. They are out but it’s hard to say in what real quantities.
unsure wrote:
Why can’t we all just respect the other persons opinion and just LOVE one another instead of trying to make the other person see through our lens?
Maybe they learned that behavior from general conference.
:crazy: 😈 Just kidding. It’s human nature. I think that mindset can exist on every side of every issue.
Is bitter ex-Mormon a phase or a place where people remain? It can be both but here again I think human nature comes into play. If we catch someone during a bitter phase that person may remain in the bitter phase in our minds long after they’ve left the bitter phase.
People may have moved on or would like to move on but their family and friends may have trouble respecting boundaries. Someone just wants to move on with their lives but they are constantly harangued by family over their church activity. And here the faithful family member evangelizes for the same reasons an ex-Mormon would evangelize their position, to “save” the other.
It’s pretty easy to develop a hair trigger as well, no matter what side of the debate you’re on. Persecution complexes.
“I support gay marriage.”
“You’re bitterly attacking my cherished beliefs!”
“I know the church is true.”
“Quit trying to ram your religion down my throat!”
The majority of inactives leave just because they do not have the time, or it conflicts with their work schedule/social lives, or they do not have sufficient friends or Mormon connections to keep them involved. They may go to another Christian church that is closer to their home or has a shorter Sunday service or is more inclusive or has a better children’s program. Or maybe they do not go to any church and just live their predominantly secular lives. They are ex-Mormons in the sense that they are on church rolls but most likely do not self identify as Mormons.
I believe that when we talk about stalwart Mormons that had an FC, we are talking about a sub group or minority of those that leave Mormonism.
LookingHard wrote:
I think I have said it before that the opposite of love isn’t hate, it is indifference.
I think that the majority of these individuals (on church roles but not self identifying) simply do not care or often think about Mormonism.
As a rule, those who are the most vocal are seen as the majority. As they say in psychology, “What is focal, is reality”. There is also the Church paradigm, where anyone who leaves the Church is following Satan. I guess it all depends on your reason for leaving. If you’ve been a member a long time, it’s hard not to be bitter. I know I’ve felt bitter before. I’ve given SO MUCH MONEY to the Church, not to mention countless hours. I served a mission, which is the WORST thing you can do for yourself physically, psycholocigally, emotionally… It’s expensive, especially if you have to work and pay your own way (I did). And if you served state-side English speaking, it’s a hurt to both your education and career. Spiritually, it’s a necessity for any believing male. But it really trashed me; I came home around 40lbs underweight. Then to be condemned by your friends and family really hurts. The Church does not make it easy on those who have left. As long as your records are on the Church, you will be regularly hunted down by members, bishopbrics, and missionaries. And if you have your records removed, your basically condemning yourself to hell.
LookingHard wrote:
I think I have said it before that the opposite of love isn’t hate, it is indifference.
I’ve heard that saying before, and I wholeheartedly agree. Some days I wish I could pull of indifference. But the truth is, I love the Church too much.
FWIW, my own view after my FC was exactly that; that most people who left after a FC were bitter. This is because of my own experience. When I went through my own FC (long ago) I went out to find others like me online. All I found was vitriol toward the Church and its members. My own perception, even a decade after my FC was that most members who suffered a FC were vocal and irritated. But that’s because that’s all I could find. I didn’t know until I finally found StayLDS that there were others like me. Part of the issue is that people like us tend to keep it pretty quiet. There may be other members of my own ward who are just like me, but we don’t talk on that level. The vast majority of the people in my current ward don’t know about my FC/FT; they just think of me as a semi-active and semi-cooky-ideas-guy who has probably always been like that and are perplexed how my wonderful wife could have come to marry a loveable but odd duck like me?
Also FWIW, even here, where we like to think we are moderate toward the Church, we have plenty of dialog that an all-in member would easily interpret as bitterness. For us, it’s about processing and working through the issues, but to somebody who’s not in our shoes it would look like venting (and, hell, sometimes it is). I’m very annoyed/concerned about some of the content of the most recent GC, which I plan to put into a post here, but it will appear like bitterness to the faithful.
What OnOwnNow said, with a helping of what Roy said. We get the stereotype of bitter ex-Mormons from the simple fact that those who are not bitter remain silent – at least, they remain silent to us, since they only talk/vent/complain/etc. to people in their new circles and not online. Most ex-Mormons lead normal lives outside the Church; those that don’t tend to fight actively vocally against it.
The same is true of the people who leave almost all other religions. Most simply move on, but the ones that don’t are loud about their bitterness.
That’s because the bitter ones make the most noise. Many just walk away. SamBee wrote:
That’s because the bitter ones make the most noise. Many just walk away.
^Yep. The vast majority just quietly slip away.
The only other thing I was thinking about is that we are a proselyting church, so people who’ve left can suddenly turn those skills back at us, trying to persuade us that we need to change. Once a missionary, always a missionary. There also always has to be an enemy. - Satan
- The World – Anything not LDS
- The other churches
- Former Members
- Science
That’s our list. Other religions have theirs. They all look the same but on the other religions list we are their outlier. It’s lame but totally human nature. And yes we make the biggest mountain out of it in GC.
mom3 wrote:
There also always has to be an enemy.- Satan
- The World – Anything not LDS
- The other churches
- Former Members
- Science
That’s our list. Other religions have theirs. They all look the same but on the other religions list we are their outlier. It’s lame but totally human nature. And yes we make the biggest mountain out of it in GC.
Isn’t that the basic list for most all western religions? The only difference is, Churches with similarities form an “enemy-of-my-enemy” alliance to target the odd ones out (ex. Baptists might be at odds with the Lutheran, but they’ll sort things out once they get rid of the Muslims).
Quote:Isn’t that the basic list for most all western religions? The only difference is, Churches with similarities form an “enemy-of-my-enemy” alliance to target the odd ones out (ex. Baptists might be at odds with the Lutheran, but they’ll sort things out once they get rid of the Muslims).
Yep.
dande48 wrote:
mom3 wrote:
There also always has to be an enemy.- Satan
- The World – Anything not LDS
- The other churches
- Former Members
- Science
That’s our list. Other religions have theirs. They all look the same but on the other religions list we are their outlier. It’s lame but totally human nature. And yes we make the biggest mountain out of it in GC.
Isn’t that the basic list for most all western religions? The only difference is, Churches with similarities form an “enemy-of-my-enemy” alliance to target the odd ones out (ex. Baptists might be at odds with the Lutheran, but they’ll sort things out once they get rid of the Muslims).
Or more relevantly, Evangelicals and Catholics in general don’t care much for Mormons or our theology – but when it comes to “religious freedom” we’re all in it together. Just wait until that’s not an issue anymore and see what happens.
(Yes, “religious freedom” is in quotes on purpose because it has little to do with freedom.)
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