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Hi GTB, your post really struck a chord with me. I too have gone through a similar experience in the last 1-2 years. It began when Mitt Romney was running for president and the whole country was having a “national discussion about Mormonism”. I began to read and hear things I had never heard before regarding our history. Many of the subjects were deeply troubling to me. I was determined to defend the church from what I viewed as baseless attacks.
I read Richard Bushman’s Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling because I saw it as a trusted source of information. Bushman has no axe to grind, and if he was biased at all he would be in favor of the church. Initially I only had one or two topics I was troubled about, but after reading the book I was overwhelmed with so many things I had issues with. I read lots of papers from apologists in FARMS articles and FAIR LDS, but like you said, the facts speak for themselves.
About your wife.
The most tragic thing about this process is how it can tear families apart. I was listening to a Christian radio station recently and a Catholic father was calling in to ask the show host for advice about how to maintain good relations with his Protestant son. He said they couldn’t agree on anything and their relationship was suffering. I thought how stupid to allow religion to come between the most important relationships in our lives.
I really hope you can work through this with your wife. Your marriage and your children are more important than anything in this world. Have you tried to read through a book like Rough Stone Rolling with your wife? That may help. If anything, perhaps she can come to understand where your doubts are coming from. She may not agree, and may continue to believe as she does now, but she may be able to understand you at least. Have you shared your feelings with her like you have in this forum? Whatever you do, do not give up!
In the end, this may be a matter of compromise. You cannot live a traditional LDS lifestyle any longer. Your wife may not be able to live without the church, but together you may be able to agree on a middle ground. Maybe her feelings have to do with letting go of a set of values more than the church itself. If you agree to reinforce those values in your home maybe she won’t feel so worried.
Also, what of your friend James? Have you told him how you feel about your friendship? Have you apologized to him? Maybe you could ask him for help.
Best of luck to you.
AW
AYdUbYA wrote:You cannot live a traditional LDS lifestyle any longer.
I’m not sure what you mean by this. Though I am far from a traditional believer, I fancy I still live a traditional LDS lifestyle. My home, closet, and cupboards look the same as ever. And yet, perhaps not so much. I accept non-violence and don’t recite the Pledge of Alliegance. I seek neither riches nor ownership. I hope to make make no oaths, covenants, or promises. And I wear no tie nor belt to church. Perhaps that is not the traditional lifestyle. But let’s not disown it wholesale.
Mormon Boy, you can stay LDS. It may mean a total redefinition of what religion is and what it means to adhere to a religion. But the church is as much yours as it is anybody else’s. They can love you or hate you, but if you decide to stay and love the religion, it’s solely your choice.
Dear Goodtruebeautiful, I so understand what you must be going through. I loved college and excelled at my training in science. I had to take a course on scientific research methodologies. Whew!, was that rigorous. We learned all about fallacious and how to subject all clinical data to rigorous statistical analysis. This type of course actually changes the way one is ABLE to think!!
Now, according to my laws of statistical probability, what was the probability that a virgin would conceive a baby son who would then atone for our sins and be resurrected – absolutely near zero . . . . . yet my testimony of the divinity of the Savior has NEVER been stronger. You see, I have learned to separate the gospel of Jesus Christ from my own limited understanding of the universe. As I have said before, He does not need to prove himself to me, it is I that must prove myself to Him.
Then came FARMS, now known as the Neal A. Maxwell Institute at BYU. Suddenly, scientists such were actually trying to prove the Book of Mormon. Oh Nooooo!!
Teams of scholarly men welding degrees in anthropology, Egyptology, population genetics, molecular biology, ancient American studies etc. were suddenly trying to discover the genotype of the Lamanites. My little world just began to crumble.
I earned a living doing some molecular biology, clinical chemistry and biochemistry. It was so easy to just go to work and do my job. Sunday, was my day of rest, my day when I didn’t have to “be in the world”. All week long, I would see death, but I craved and cleaved to the belief in eternal life. That life eternal, that faith in something larger then myself kept me going. I don’t want to prove or disprove it. I just wanted to believe. FARMS destroyed that for me. FARMS took science and religion and blended them into one entity. Like fire and ice, the two cannot coexist without destroying each other. My soul wanted to believe, but my brain won’t let me.
(Just to make matters worse, FARM doesn’t always produce high quality scientific research, given their restrictions and limitations. Often, I am just plain embarrassed by them).
I wanted to cry to the entire earth that the Book of Mormon was a “gift from God” just as His Son was a “gift from God”. No one could ever adequately explain how the gifts of God are bestowed upon men, but that is because our souls need to marvel, we are eternally driven in the quest to believe the incomprehensible, the unprovable and the unknowable. That is God.
Sorry that I am always going off on such tangents (tangential speech?), – what does that mean, maybe I should look it up. To the point:
I was went out to eat for my best friend’s birthday. The waiter offered us a free, double-chocolate, hot-molten, fudge cake, topped with ice cream, just to celebrate BF’s birthday. My friends was just delighted at the very site of such a rich indulgence, then it happened. I opened my big, fat mouth and asked the waiter, how many calories does it have. I ruined the entire evening. No one could savor that cake after learning the truth! Hey, I did the mouth, that was 5.3 hours in the gym and that’s assuming I could walk after I ate it.
As I sipped my diet coke, the friendly waiter just looked down at us and said, “you ladies don’t eat out very often, do you?” “When you’re out enjoying yourself, you have to celebrate a little, life only happens to you once”.
So, I’m like that with faith, why can’t we just take the whole cake, share it with friends and love every minute of it? Why do we have to analysis it?
You can’t have joy without faith.
MWallace57 wrote:My soul wanted to believe, but my brain won’t let me.
(Just to make matters worse, FARM doesn’t always produce high quality scientific research, given their restrictions and limitations. Often, I am just plain embarrassed by them).
I wanted to cry to the entire earth that the Book of Mormon was a “gift from God” just as His Son was a “gift from God”. No one could ever adequately explain how the gifts of God are bestowed upon men, but that is because our souls need to marvel, we are eternally driven in the quest to believe the incomprehensible, the unprovable and the unknowable. That is God.
Interesting posts, MW…thanks! Yes, those of us with many years of education under our belt have some challenges, don’t we?! One big problem we have in our (and most) religions, is that for a long time, the “scriptures” were/are viewed as “true” historical documents, so FARMS et al has the charge to show the world that the BoM MAY be true. Yes, FARMS fails miserably, but it speaks well, and for those less educated, they accomplish the goal of keeping a wedge in the closing door for those wanting to believe the “stuff” really happened.
I think there is another way, and I perceive many here on this forum are transitioning to that place. Older traditions have successfully made the jump, and it involves a more metaphorical take on our stories. When the story of Lehi and his family is read like other fables, many lessons can be learned to apply to our lives today. Human life is so different today than ever before in our history…and we need to adjust to the change. Allowing it to happen rather than fighting it is our only path to peaceful existence.
Thanks so much Rix. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate that you understand me. Having someone who can validate my emotions is so important, I can’t tell you. I completed an Advanced course in Immunohematology (Blood banking) and became aware of the diversity of blood antigen types. I was shocked to learn that a
Hawaiian child with leukemia has a 1 in one million chance of finding a compatible bone marrow transplant donor – talk about a rare phenotype!
Hawaii answer to the problem was to “bank” or store frozen umbilical cord blood on all newborns. If the child ever does need a bone marrow transplant, that graft will be available immediately. My point is that we do not fully understand all of these exceedingly rare genotypes that populated the Pacific Island and Pacific Rim. There are also groups, such as the Navajo in the four corner regions that didn’t appear to have intermarried very much. God only knows the true origin of these peoples and it will take dozens of years, millions of dollars and millions of laboratory tests to finally and definitively connect all of the dots.
I don’t want to spend time, effort and money proving the Book of Mormon. It doesn’t need to be proved. I feel that we are literally spending our faith away. I’d rather spend all of that money on banking umbilical cord blood of newborns or better yet, just preventing childhood leukemia all together. (Let’s stop the nuclear testing, for example). Let science help save the mortal body and let faith save the eternal soul.
Excellent introduction and thread. There is so much to cover here. Let’s see… Quote:They had a “missionary wall” showing where all 6 sons served missions, adorned with handsome photos and a favorite scripture. Around the corner was the “marriage wall”, replete with large pictures of all 10 children accompanied by their temple- married spouse.
It sounds like your family is a lot more LDS than mine is. I’ll be interested to read more of your perspectives coming from that background. I’m curious. Did any of your sisters want to serve a mission? If so, did your parents encourage or discourage them? I ask because all of my wife’s brothers served, but she was the only one of her sisters who did. Her mom, who I love for many reasons, is very old-fashioned and sometimes I wonder if she didn’t really want my wife to serve a mission. She’s never said anything to that effect. It’s more of a vibe I get. I’ve seen some families with this dynamic (only the boys serve) and I’ve seen totally the opposite in others. One of my mission companions came from a family of 10 children in SE Idaho. There was a family up the street who also had 10 children and all of them (boys and girls) served missions. My comp said his mom got upset when one of his sisters got married instead of serving because the other family liked to boast about their 10 returned missionaries and she was upset that they weren’t going to compete with them.
Quote:When I met my mission president he asked me was, “Elder, why are you here?” I said, “I want to serve. I have a testimony and I want to share it.” I had a wimpy, happy sort of “serve the people” kind of attitude I guess. That wasn’t good enough.
His rejoinder, “Wrong! The only reason you are here is to baptize.”
I wonder if your mission president and mine were separated at birth. I had much the same attitude you did when I went out. I wanted to teach and share the gospel, but I was (and still am) a lousy salesperson and I wasn’t going to try to talk anyone into baptism that didn’t truly want it. I was put off by my mission president’s single-minded focus on baptism numbers. I wound up spending most of my mission re-activating those who had gone inactive. Even though my mission might have been a failure in my mission president’s eyes, I feel pretty good about what I was able to do.
Quote:Of course my fall from activity breaks my beloved’s heart. She must feel like the floor has dropped out of her life.
Unfortunately, this is quite common when one spouse becomes disaffected. Even more unfortunate, some find out that their marriage doesn’t have much of a foundation beyond the church. I sincerely hope and pray that yours is not one of those. Has your wife looked at Faces East? There are a lot of wonderful people and resources available to help her work through this. My prayer is that both of you can find ways to strengthen your foundation beyond just religion.
Quote:There’s a journey out there that I’m ready to take. I just wish those I love best… could share it with me.
That’s the kicker. Everyone of us is on our own journey. Whether you realize it or not, chances are your experience and actions have launched your wife and family members on spiritual journeys of their own. They most likely won’t end up in the same place and their experiences may not have the sense of urgency or depth that yours does, but they are on a journey nonetheless.
Quote:I hate to say it but I think your spiritual life would be on a bit different trajectory if you weren’t living in Utah. …there seems to be an actual level of intolerance for differences in the Utah Mormon social community that makes a questioner like yourself an “outsider” almost instantly.
I wholeheartedly second this. I’ve lived here for 30 years, and I’ve been wanting to get out almost from the moment I arrived. There is intense social pressure to conform to certain ideals in Utah, and often some of the worst judgement comes from neighbors. It’d be nice to have a little “space” to work things out without constantly needing to look over your shoulder. Unfortunately, your loved ones might bear a much bigger brunt of the scorn and judgement for your disaffection than you will.
Quote:My home, closet, and cupboards look the same as ever. And yet, perhaps not so much. I accept non-violence and don’t recite the Pledge of Alliegance.
LOL! I still recite the pledge, but now I leave out the “under God” part. So far, no one’s noticed yet. I think one of the best things you can do as a disaffected member to placate your spouse is not to make dramatic lifestyle changes. Even if you no longer believe the WoW is inspired, don’t start drinking alcohol or coffee, or start using tobacco. Also, even though you no longer wear garments, don’t start wearing tank tops or wife beaters (except to the gym, of course). This will help your spouse realize that you’re the same person, even though your beliefs have changed.
Quote:The waiter offered us a free, double-chocolate, hot-molten, fudge cake, topped with ice cream, just to celebrate BF’s birthday. My friends was just delighted at the very site of such a rich indulgence, then it happened. I opened my big, fat mouth and asked the waiter, how many calories does it have. I ruined the entire evening.
LOL again. As an aspiring bodybuilder, I’ve ruined my share of gatherings in like manner. Now I try to be more subtle, though. I’ve learned to get my mother-in-law off my back at family parties by taking a piece of cake, picking at it a little while continuing conversations, and looking both ways before throwing it out later. Plus, I’ve also learned the value of having a good cheat meal once a week or so.
😈 Hello, It must be so hard not being able to even talk to your wife about the church. I don’t know for sure but it sounds like she doesn’t understand your decisions or how you feel. It sounds very hard. Even the elephant in the room sounds uncomfortable.
(a lost friend, a wounded marriage, and children that don’t understand)
I sometimes wonder if my husband would even stay married to me if say I joined and became a member of the catholic faith. I would like to believe family should love you or your spouse no matter what.
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