Mormon Atheism

[Anonymous]

On Own Now wrote:

Wayfarer,

I’m trying to find the meaning of your post… I know there is one, but I have a pea-sized brain, so please bare with me.

Are you saying that your belief is that there is no supernatural overseer and no afterlife, but rather, that because of our self-awareness and consciousness, we are able to harmonize ourselves with a perceived “way”, which might be unique to each individual, yet has certain commonalities, such as love toward one-another, and that as each of us approaches the “way” as we see it, we are approaching the concept of Godliness? That Godliness is just us reaching for something higher within us, and somewhat against the “natural man”, allowing us to walk in “new life”? That the “way” is a fusion of all the things that we perceive to be good, whether they originate in Mormonism, Catholicism, Buddhism, Socialism, Humanism, or Atheism?

OK, even if that’s not what you are saying… I like it.

Very close. I am not saying anything about afterlife, nor I am saying that there is no Heavenly Father. These things are unknowable. I can hope for them, I can trust that good things might happen, but that which existed before or that which will exist is not “I AM”, therefore don’t really matter in the present.

if there is a god beyond what i can “know” in terms of what i defined above, then i can assume that his/her attributes would be at least reflective of the best we can offer. is it reasonable to think that such a being would be so arbitrary and capricious as to require a specific type of worship, with specific ordinances, in order to be saved? would such a being even require worship and admiration? the thought makes reason stare. i cannot think that any enlightened god would operate in the way lds, christians and muslims define “him”.

i am simply defining god in the same way that christ did in John 10 and 17, and as the psalmist did in psalms 82: that the only god with which we have to do exists within us but is not the self-absorbed ego. whether i call this the “I AM”, or the nonconscious self, or even the Holy Ghost, it doesnt really matter.

[Anonymous]

wayfarer,

Thanks for the response. I really like your thoughts on this subject. I have to say that your words could almost make me back off of the Atheism ledge. Yet, one thing I really like about this “way” concept you present, is that it doesn’t really matter whether you specifically believe in God/gods (Ray), think of it as unknowable (wayfarer) or believe there is no God (On Own Now)… that it doesn’t matter, because you are promoting the coming together of mind and body in the here and now, much in the way Jesus presented the Kingdom of God, and that doing so, in itself is perhaps the great “salvation” and “exaltation”. This has given me much to ponder. What you’ve articulated is in many ways, the way I’ve lived, without specifically trying. Not meaning to say I’ve arrived at “Man of Holiness” level or even close to it, but rather that I haven’t allowed my self to part ways with wanting to be worth something on the inside… I have tried to take a higher road than simply turning to anti-Mormonism and bitterness. Now, I see, based on this “way” concept that there could be a certain higher discipline that I could adopt as a sort of active inner-religion, rather than a passive general goodness.

Hmmm… Hmmmmmm……. yeah… I’ll have to give this some consideration…

Are there any particular aspects of Mormonism/Christianity that you feel are worthy to be considered as inspired? I’m guessing that you feel that there may be, but that again, it doesn’t matter, because you are empowered, whether by God or by nature, to recognize the good sprinkled throughout the story of Mormonism/Christianity.

[Anonymous]

On own now, please just bear in mind that I am just a wayfarer — a fool who is trying to make my way on the Way. All of us are human, and perhaps we can share things that help each other make our Way. I learn from each one here: you are my “master” in a sense, because I learn from each.

I believe that when we set aside the idea of an intervening, judging, all powerful god, our worldview fundamentally changes. Instead of any assumption that god dictates his will through an authorized set of prophets and scripture, the reality is that humans throughout history have expressed a view of the divine as they interpret it in their minds and hearts.

Thus, the image of the divine emerges from a thousand fragments of truth scattered amongst all sacred texts and literature. Human inspiration points to something, but any single expression of that inspiration falls short of explaining it accurately, and is always contaminated by the biases, culture, and worldview of the humans who act as prophets (those who write or speak in the name of inspiration).

Joseph Smith’s teachings have some unique aspects I really do appreciate. The idea that all revelation comes through the mind and heart of the prophet (D&C . His materialist view: “there is no such thing as immaterial matter.” His rejection of creeds, and that the gospel is all truth. His understanding that god operates according to laws of nature. Most importantly, that the great secret is that god is (a) man. He wasn’t where I am in terms of post-theism, but he certainly was close.

Joseph, and Jesus Christ used metaphorical words to express spiritual principles, that when taken literally don’t make sense. In the Gospel of John, Jesus explains to Nicodemus that one must be born again. Nicodemus tries all the literalist ways of interpreting this, and Jesus has to correct him. The Writer of John continually makes fun of people who take divine principles literally. Jesus taught in parables. Joseph taught of spiritual things (visions with “spiritual eyes”) in words that make them seem like literal events. While I think he did this to lend authority and value to his teachings and the church he founded, his followers amplified them to make literal things that should not be so. Joseph differed from Christ, because Joseph did not correct those who were taking it literally. This appears to be pious fraud, but so also does most of the bible. It doesn’t make deception right, but we can at least understand it in the context of what all organized religion is.

With a post-theist worldview, then all religious teachings can be mined for divine content. We can appreciate that the expressions of those who take things literally are what they need to say and do to feel connected with the divine. If we recognize that ‘connection’ is the Way things work, then if we dispute their literalist worldview in a way that has them severing their relationship with us, then we are no longer one with them. This is not the Way. But also, going along with their literal stories and reinforcing their literalism isn’t authentic for us.

Instead, we focus our discussion on the divine content we share, building a relationship in love that demonstrates what Paul called, “A more excellent Way.” At some point, when they begin to see that the way of literalism doesn’t work, then our loving relationship can help them see thelight and come to a place where they can find peace. As Buddha said, when the student is ready, the master will appear — this means that when they are ready, they will naturally need and find masters who have been there and done that. And what’s funny, is that they/we have been there all along.

[Anonymous]

wayfarer wrote:

please just bear in mind that I am just a wayfarer — a fool who is trying to make my way on the Way. All of us are human, and perhaps we can share things that help each other make our Way.

Don’t worry, wayfarer, I’m with you. I’m done following other people as arbitrators between my spirituality and me. I agree that we are all human and that we can learn from each other, etc, etc… I’m intrigued by the perspective you hold, because I can see a way in which this “Way” concept could help me restore the sense of purpose that was lost in my faith translation, but that in order for it to have any value, I have to own it myself, whether I first hear it from you, cwald, nephite, or Ray is immaterial. Ideas should stand on their own, regardless of the messenger. Right now, I’m very intrigued by the “Way” idea. I appreciate your illuminating it. I’m sure that there are others that will still say, “phht… wayfarer and On Own Now, are off on some bizarre tangent…” But for me, just the slight twist and brief light has made me think, more than I have in a while, about the value I place on certain aspects of the church/gospel, and whether I can provide myself with a more “active”, as I said, versus “passive” way-ahead. So, I’m grateful for the dialog, even if it is just between two fools trying to make their own way.

[Anonymous]

On Own Now wrote:

wayfarer wrote:

please just bear in mind that I am just a wayfarer — a fool who is trying to make my way on the Way. All of us are human, and perhaps we can share things that help each other make our Way.

Don’t worry, wayfarer, I’m with you. I’m done following other people as arbitrators between my spirituality and me. I agree that we are all human and that we can learn from each other, etc, etc… I’m intrigued by the perspective you hold, because I can see a way in which this “Way” concept could help me restore the sense of purpose that was lost in my faith translation, but that in order for it to have any value, I have to own it myself, whether I first hear it from you, cwald, nephite, or Ray is immaterial. Ideas should stand on their own, regardless of the messenger. Right now, I’m very intrigued by the “Way” idea. I appreciate your illuminating it. I’m sure that there are others that will still say, “phht… wayfarer and On Own Now, are off on some bizarre tangent…” But for me, just the slight twist and brief light has made me think, more than I have in a while, about the value I place on certain aspects of the church/gospel, and whether I can provide myself with a more “active”, as I said, versus “passive” way-ahead. So, I’m grateful for the dialog, even if it is just between two fools trying to make their own way.

Actually hearing you two act like this kind of thing is the only way to salvage some value from your experience with the Church mostly makes me sad. That’s because I see so many Mormons ending up as atheists, agnostics, pantheists or otherwise completely non-religious people as basically a routine real life example of “throwing the baby out with the bathwater.” To me, what is best about Mormonism absolutely does not technically depend on strict literal belief in prophets, scriptures, or divine tradition and authority. So it seems like it should be a fairly easy and simple thing to let go of the absolute authority and accuracy of LDS Church Presidents and Apostles and still be left with some variation of basic Christianity.

If traditional Christianity is still too much for your taste then it seems like you should still theoretically be able to hold out some glimmer of hope for an afterlife and/or a personal God that actually cares about people and hears their prayers where these points are completely independent from everything else. But that is not what typically happens as far as I can tell because it seems like the majority of NOMs and ex-Mormons feel compelled to continue to take additional steps to basically purge all faith in anything from their system. When I see the continued relative popularity of Christianity compared to atheism and agnosticism in America at least as well as the fact that some people like C.S. Lewis and Francis Collins have actually taken the opposite path from atheism/agnosticism to Christianity while thinking very carefully about it to me this says it is not a simple case where the average person is generally going to arrive at the same conclusions you did eventually if they put enough thought into it.

I’m not saying that you should believe something else instead; acutally I don’t really blame you for believing what you do. What I’m really getting at and what interests me the most about this is simply the question of why is it that the LDS Church has basically become a breeding ground for such a high percentage of future atheists, agnostics, or otherwise non-religious people? Even many inactive members that won’t necessarily self-identify as atheist or agnostic typically don’t seem to have much use for religion and theology anymore. It almost looks like an allergic reaction to religion in general where once people finally get to the point of saying no to what the Church teaches if anything else reminds them too much of the Church then they will basically have none of it anymore. Personally I think this is mostly an unintended side-effect of the black and white all-or-nothing mindset so prevalent in the Church where everything is treated as if it is so serious and important and you are expected to accept it all and if not then it’s absolutely not alright.

[Anonymous]

DevilsAdvocate,

Well, first of all, I feel like I am in a tiny minority at stayLDS, being an Atheist, true blue, through and through. I think the overwhelming majority here feel that there is, or at least that there possibly is, something divine out there. There are many reasons that I stay LDS, but my faith is that there is no God. It’s important, I think, to understand that I didn’t set out to become Atheist… I didn’t choose it… it chose me. I’ve had people puzzled at why I wouldn’t want to believe something else, because it is happier, but as you already know from your experience with Mormonism, just because something is appealing doesn’t mean you can just turn on belief in it.

DevilsAdvocate wrote:

it seems like it should be a fairly easy and simple thing to let go of the absolute authority and accuracy of LDS Church Presidents and Apostles and still be left with some variation of basic Christianity.

No disagreement. I considered myself a Christian for, I don’t know 4, 5, 6 years after my faith crisis. Even now, a dozen years after “embracing” Atheism, I feel that I am most closely aligned with Christianity… I still read the NT, but I probably pick up the BofM once every 6 months.

DevilsAdvocate wrote:

it is not a simple case where the average person is generally going to arrive at the same conclusions you did eventually if they put enough thought into it.

I totally agree. Atheism is an extreme… and not a happy one. There are plenty of reasons intelligent people would continue to have faith in God… I wish I could.

DevilsAdvocate wrote:

What I’m really getting at and what interests me the most about this is simply the question of why is it that the LDS Church has basically become a breeding ground for such a high percentage of future atheists, agnostics, or otherwise non-religious people? Even many inactive members that won’t necessarily self-identify as atheist or agnostic typically don’t seem to have much use for religion and theology anymore. It almost looks like an allergic reaction to religion in general where once people finally get to the point of saying no to what the Church teaches if anything else reminds them too much of the Church then they will basically have none of it anymore. Personally I think this is mostly an unintended side-effect of the black and white all-or-nothing mindset so prevalent in the Church where everything is treated as if it is so serious and important and you are expected to accept it all and if not then it’s absolutely not alright.

It’s a great question, DevilsAdvocate. When I had my faith crisis, I gave serious thought to finding a Christian church. But it soon became apparent that there was no way that would work. I had spent my whole life believing and even teaching that the Great Apostasy had befallen man and left the earth without divine authority. I still believed that, even after losing faith in the Mormon Church’s claims of authority. I think this may be related to what you are asking. I mean, to use an old Mormon reference, if the Mormon Church doesn’t have the authority, then how could any protestant church claim authority? Yet, Catholicism has as many problems as Mormonism. So, for me,. there was simply no longer a “church” that could provide for my spiritual needs, and I was left to the Bible and my own conscience. I stayed in the LDS Church, but had I not, I would have become “non-religious”, which to me means people who don’t belong to a church, regardless of whether they are believers. In other words, from my vantage point, I had two choices: stay in the LDS church or have no church.

Eventually, I went from Mormonism to Christianity to Atheism. I might have had a layover in Agnosticism, but if so, it was a tight connection. I don’t feel like Atheism was an inevitable landing spot for me at all, and as I said, I didn’t come to it for a long time.

I’m not satisfied with Atheism, because it offers no hope. But I believe it. I can’t just unswallow the red pill. It makes the death of a loved one especially bitter. It’s a lonely feeling. It’s why I applaud those that can remain faithful, even if that faith is in the black & white-ness of Mormonism. Good for them… I would rather have that than what I have. That’s why I don’t ever work to “convince” anyone of the problems of Mormonism or any other religion. Part of me, hell, not just a part of me, laments the loss.

But through it all, I have tried to have something worthwhile to latch onto, and staying LDS has helped somewhat. From where I stand, the “way” concept that was described here by wayfarer, helps me to think that there can be something good to strive for, even for someone like me… so, don’t be too sad for me. I’m still just trying to figure out where to go “from here” even though my faith crisis is nearing its 20th anniversary.

[Anonymous]

DevilsAdvocate wrote:

Actually hearing you two act like this kind of thing is the only way to salvage some value from your experience with the Church mostly makes me sad. That’s because I see so many Mormons ending up as atheists, agnostics, pantheists or otherwise completely non-religious people as basically a routine real life example of “throwing the baby out with the bathwater.” To me, what is best about Mormonism absolutely does not technically depend on strict literal belief in prophets, scriptures, or divine tradition and authority. So it seems like it should be a fairly easy and simple thing to let go of the absolute authority and accuracy of LDS Church Presidents and Apostles and still be left with some variation of basic Christianity.

I do not put on the “atheist”/rational hat. Much of spirituality and mysticism defies logic, but does not have to be based in the supernatural. I am a fully active LDS, albeit with unorthodox beliefs and a freedom from policy-based restrictions. More importantly, I consider myself deeply spiritual, and have had numerous, profound spiritual experiences in and outside the church.

i do not throw the baby out at all: I actively evaluated what i believe in my mind and heart and found three categories: that which i accept to be true, that which i reject as false, and that which i take on faith, not knowing whether true or false.

This triage of belief/faith/disbelief applies equally to mormonism as well as christianity. I cannot reject mormonism and then accept christianity, because their beliefs both fit into the triage, and there is good and evil unique to either. I find it amusing to the point of absurd how christians make of Christ, the writings/scripture, and the historical stories as being literally true when they were not meant to be, and Mormons do the same. I find it heinous how christians claim authority on issues like right to life/choice or homosexuality based upon biblical principles, when no such proscription exists in plain and clear doctrine. Instead, we should do as Alma 32 tells us to do: We put faith principles to a test: if something is true, we believe it, if false we cast it aside, and recognizing in faith our lack of perfect knowledge regarding the unknowable stuff in the middle.

the Middle is where we have authentic faith. faith is not to assert knowledge about a thing unknown, nor is it to reject it outright. faith is not to believe something false, or to ignore the evidence. While It may may appear atheistic reject the omni-whatever god and all things supernatural (these are in my “false” category in my triage), I leave to faith that there may be an afterlife, eternal families both before and after, and that the words “god”, “gods” and “godess” have meaning, as applying to exalted or enlightened men and women. In Joseph Smith, as reflected in D&C 88, “god”, however defined, works integrally within the laws of nature, giving me the freedom to believe, privately, in a post-theist worldview. Joseph’s equating of god with man and his power limited by nature is heretical to mainstream Christianity.

I don’t think you can be both atheist and active Mormon in the sense of passing TR question 1. Maybe it is splitting hairs and dealing in tautologies, but to me, Mormonism allows and indeed embodies at its core a post-theist worldview wrapped up in Christian terminology.

– I have faith in and a testimony of God the Father and Mother as symbolic of the eternal nature of families, and that we, as their children, share in the Divine Nature.

– I have faith in and a testimony of Jesus Christ as the great “I AM”, “the Way”, “Truth”, and “Eternal Life”, who is fully god and fully man, with whom we can be one with and exactly like unto in our enlightened and exalted moments.

– I have faith in and a testimony of the Holy Spirit as the god within each of us — our collective nonconscious — connected to all that ever is, was, or shall be.

My testimony is that these statements are deeply, symbolically true, and my faith and hope is that by acting on them and the embodied principles of love and reverence for the gods within us all, we can enlighten and exalt each other in unique and meaningful ways.

I don’t think either atheists or orthodox Christians would accept my testimony or faith. I think Spong would be right there with me, and I think Joseph might agree as well — he at least set up the framework for my post-theist worldview. ’tis one of the reasons I stayLDS on the Middle Way…

[Anonymous]

On Own Now wrote:

I’m not satisfied with Atheism, because it offers no hope. But I believe it…It makes the death of a loved one especially bitter. It’s a lonely feeling. It’s why I applaud those that can remain faithful, even if that faith is in the black & white-ness of Mormonism. Good for them… I would rather have that than what I have. That’s why I don’t ever work to “convince” anyone of the problems of Mormonism or any other religion. Part of me, hell, not just a part of me, laments the loss…But through it all, I have tried to have something worthwhile to latch onto, and staying LDS has helped somewhat. From where I stand, the “way” concept that was described here by wayfarer, helps me to think that there can be something good to strive for, even for someone like me… so, don’t be too sad for me. I’m still just trying to figure out where to go “from here” even though my faith crisis is nearing its 20th anniversary.

wayfarer wrote:

I do not put on the “atheist”/rational hat. Much of spirituality and mysticism defies logic, but does not have to be based in the supernatural. I am a fully active LDS, albeit with unorthodox beliefs and a freedom from policy-based restrictions. More importantly, I consider myself deeply spiritual, and have had numerous, profound spiritual experiences in and outside the church…i do not throw the baby out at all: I actively evaluated what i believe…

This triage of belief/faith/disbelief applies equally to mormonism as well as christianity. I cannot reject mormonism and then accept christianity…I find it amusing to the point of absurd how christians make of Christ, the writings/scripture, and the historical stories as being literally true when they were not meant to be, and Mormons do the same. I find it heinous how christians claim authority on issues like right to life/choice or homosexuality based upon biblical principles, when no such proscription exists in plain and clear doctrine…faith is not to assert knowledge about a thing unknown, nor is it to reject it outright…While It may may appear atheistic reject the omni-whatever god and all things supernatural…I leave to faith that there may be an afterlife…I don’t think either atheists or orthodox Christians would accept my testimony or faith…

When I said that hearing you two try to salvage some value from your experience with the Church made me sad I didn’t mean that I feel sorry for you or that you are necessarily wrong to believe what you do; actually you both seem to be well-adjusted and doing fine at this point as far as I can tell. What makes me sad is mostly the whole state of affairs where many Church members are basically being set up and fated to experience a hard fall. Personally I didn’t want to obsess this much over what is true or not, I mostly just wanted for Christmas and Easter to mean something more and better than what we typically see in our everyday lives and that kind of thing but it’s just not quite the same anymore because I don’t want to get my hopes up too much or put too much trust in anyone or anything anymore.

I’m sorry wayfarer, I wasn’t trying to say that you aren’t still spiritual in your own way; what I meant was mostly that I think the general aversion to anything supernatural or taking someone else’s word for something that can’t be directly verified is an extra step or two beyond basic loss of belief in the LDS Church’s official claims and it sounds more like agnosticism to me than most traditional religious beliefs. Also, I wasn’t trying to say it should be a logical step to go from Mormonism to strict literal interpretation of the Bible like some hardcore fundamentalist Christian churches preach, I was thinking more along the lines of Christianity the way C.S. Lewis viewed things or perhaps an even more liberal and symbolic type of Christianity than that mostly focused on the essence of it without getting caught up too much in the details. Anyway I understand that you can’t always choose what to believe; sometimes you just have to accept what seems most likely to you based on your own background and experience.

[Anonymous]

Quote:

What makes me sad is mostly the whole state of affairs where many Church members are basically being set up and fated to experience a hard fall.

Fwiw, the majority of members never experience that type of fall. Even many of those who leave don’t experience a “hard fall”.

Frankly, the people who experience a “hard fall” generally would experience it in just about any organized religion that still teaches some degree of special standing. It’s not unique to LDS Church members, at all. It’s about a disconnect between the type of worldview that works for most peopel and what works for those who simply see things differently, and that disconnect is magnified in a cynical information age like that in which we live right now. It’s harder for people now to understand the “magical world view” of Joseph’s time, so it’s harder for many members to understand him and how he taught. It’s harder for some people who understand and are attuned to that world view to understand our current leaders and how they teach. However, again, that’s not uniquely Mormon; it’s manifested all the time throughout religion – and throughout the history of religion.

[Anonymous]

Quote:

Quote:

What makes me sad is mostly the whole state of affairs where many Church members are basically being set up and fated to experience a hard fall.

Fwiw, the majority of members never experience that type of fall. Even many of those who leave don’t experience a “hard fall”.

Frankly, the people who experience a “hard fall” generally would experience it in just about any organized religion that still teaches some degree of special standing. It’s not unique to LDS Church members, at all.

I am genuinely curious. What would you say is another religion/church (with a membership of any significant size in North America) with the necessary conditions for the “hard falls?” Not trying to be melodramatic, but I’m so distracted and distressed by the hurt of my fall that I’m just not seeing one.

[Anonymous]

Ann, there are very few Christian churches that are growing to any degree in the United States and Europe right now. Most who report growth numbers are reporting net losses. Non-denominational churches and mega-churches are growing, as is the number of people who report that they are spiritual but not religious, but people are leaving organized denominations steadily – either formally by resigning their membership or, more often, simply by not attending worship services anymore. From the last data I saw, the LDS activity rate (based on a common criterion of attendance at worship service at least once a month) actually is one of the highest among Protestant denominations, and the Catholic Church has a huge percentage of members who attend only for special masses. In all cases, that issue is the most severe among youth and young adults.

The specific denominations for which I can remember figures fairly well in this regard are the Mehodists, Southern Baptists, Catholics and Disciples of Christ. The exodus among young adults in the more socially conservative denominations is particularly striking – again, those groups that make some claim to special standing.

[Anonymous]

Thanks, Ray. I picture most people leaving those denominations because they either don’t want the requirements of devout life in that church, or they’ve just become less convinced that what/who they understand to be God cares more about creed or ordinances than living a good life, which most people figure (I think erroneously) they can do on their own. Seems like the hard falls in our church are usually preciptated by sudden mistrust in the one man on whose story the whole house is stacked. ( Maybe strict Catholics have a similarly-high point from which to fall, but I don’t get the sense that many others do.) I look down the road of never being able to get away from the question of Joseph’s integrity and feel fatigue. There isn’t a real (open, honest) place in the church for someone who wants to set it aside. I guess, logically, there can’t be.

[Anonymous]

Honestly, Ann, I don’t think there’s much of a difference in what causes people to leave any denomination (in whatever way and to whatever degree). Your first description fits pretty well regard less of denominational affiliation:

Quote:

I picture most people leaving those denominations because they either don’t want the requirements of devout life in that church, or they’ve just become less convinced that what/who they understand to be God cares more about creed or ordinances than living a good life, which most people figure (I think erroneously) they can do on their own.

The details vary from group to group, but that is a good description of those who struggle in the LDS Church, as well. Joseph is a major issue for many, but Jesus becomes a major issue for many Christians who lose faith – and the “requirements of a devout life” is a very good umbrella for faith crisis issues all around, since those requirements include both time commitment and the nature of specific doctrinal acceptance.

Humans like to think their joys and sufferings are unique to them and those like them, but I believe they almost always are nearly universal in nature – even, again, when the details vary.

[Anonymous]

Old-Timer wrote:

Quote:

What makes me sad is mostly the whole state of affairs where many Church members are basically being set up and fated to experience a hard fall.

Fwiw, the majority of members never experience that type of fall. Even many of those who leave don’t experience a “hard fall”…Frankly, the people who experience a “hard fall” generally would experience it in just about any organized religion that still teaches some degree of special standing. It’s not unique to LDS Church members, at all. It’s about a disconnect between the type of worldview that works for most peopel and what works for those who simply see things differently, and that disconnect is magnified in a cynical information age like that in which we live right now. It’s harder for people now to understand the “magical world view” of Joseph’s time, so it’s harder for many members to understand him and how he taught. It’s harder for some people who understand and are attuned to that world view to understand our current leaders and how they teach. However, again, that’s not uniquely Mormon; it’s manifested all the time throughout religion – and throughout the history of religion.

I don’t know about that. By “hard fall” I didn’t mean that it is devastating to the point that members that experience this can’t generally manage to cope with it enough to pick up the pieces and move on, I was simply trying to say that I think it is more unfortunate and painful than it ideally needs to be. Also, I wasn’t thinking about the majority of active members or even the majority of those that become permanently inactive. I was thinking specifically about an increasing subset of members that were heavily invested in the Church and went on missions, got married in the temple, accepted every calling, paid tithing year after year, didn’t wait to have children or had more children than they might have otherwise, and/or didn’t pursue more education or career opportunities primarily because they thought this was what they were supposed to do only to later find more problems with the Church than they could deal with anymore and end up having to come to terms with all of this added baggage.

The best way I can think of to describe it is that the Church basically encourages people to put all of their eggs in one basket and also gets them to expect others to do the same in a relatively nosy and overbearing way that really is worse than average in my opinion. So in addition to a faith crisis these members often also have to deal with shattered trust and the effects on themselves and others of a unique combination of things like the testimony concept, the one true church idea, temple marriage, worthiness interviews, tithing settlement, the commitment pattern, and callings that require outward support of all these correlated doctrines. By contrast, in most other churches that I know of it seems like if you hear something you don’t agree with then it would generally be much easier to just ignore it, stay home, or even go to another church instead without having it be nearly this big of a deal or feeling like you need to question the very existence of God over it. And even if some members of most other churches lose faith completely it seems like it would still be much easier for them to just walk away or continue to attend church with their family without many regrets simply because many of these churches don’t make the same heavy demands that the LDS Church does.

Also, I don’t believe the idea that nearly this many people are just not cut out for organized religion and the same ones would typically experience a serious faith crisis or wash out eventually regardless of which church they are raised in. Sure to some of us Christianity sounds just as fantastic and hard to believe as traditional Mormonism once you are already in a relatively suspicious and mistrustful state of mind because of claims about things like the virgin birth, the physical resurrection, and other miracles. However, at first it was not that hard for me to just suspend disbelief and readily accept things like the first vision, the visitation of angels, and the miraculous delivery and translation of the Book of Mormon. What was always much more difficult to deal with was apparent contradictions such as Church leaders saying evolution was completely incompatible with the gospel and Adam was literally the first man versus what most available scientific evidence suggested or the claims that Church leaders were receiving direct revelations and would never lead the Church astray while any major changes like discontinuing polygamy and the racial priesthood ban or enforcing the WoW in TR interviews seemed to happen mostly based on political convenience.

Even a few of these glaring inconsistencies did not immediately destroy my faith in the Church and I was easily able to rationalize and make excuses to shrug them off for years. It was only after I could see at least 20 major inconsistencies like this at the same time that I felt like I couldn’t deny it all anymore. That’s why I think Christianity is much easier to defend for those that already believe or want to believe than traditional Mormonism because it just doesn’t make nearly as many very specific claims that can be directly discredited with solid logic or evidence to the contrary and all we really have left to go by now is the words of the men originally telling this story that we are basically free to interpret any way that we want in the absence of a relatively authoritarian church telling us what they are supposed to mean. This is also one reason why I think the Church should focus less on Mormon traditions and more on Christianity, especially the practice of it as in treating people in a fair and ethical way starting at the top independent of any miraculous or divine origins of this mandate. But regardless of what they do or don’t do it will be interesting to see how things play out in the next few years and decades. Basically I think the Church was much better adapted to the environment that existed before the internet opened up more easy access to outside information and ideas and it hasn’t adequately adjusted to this change yet assuming that it can.

[Anonymous]

Ann wrote:

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What makes me sad is mostly the whole state of affairs where many Church members are basically being set up and fated to experience a hard fall.

Fwiw, the majority of members never experience that type of fall. Even many of those who leave don’t experience a “hard fall”.

Frankly, the people who experience a “hard fall” generally would experience it in just about any organized religion that still teaches some degree of special standing. It’s not unique to LDS Church members, at all.

I am genuinely curious. What would you say is another religion/church (with a membership of any significant size in North America) with the necessary conditions for the “hard falls?” Not trying to be melodramatic, but I’m so distracted and distressed by the hurt of my fall that I’m just not seeing one.

Trying to set the record for delay before response…

Ann, I have a friend who was born and raised Catholic. He then converted to Evangelical Christianity, decrying his former church and beliefs. Later still, he converted to Atheism and is an outspoken critic of religion. He was never a Mormon.

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