Needing a Decision-Making Process

[Anonymous]

InquiringMind wrote:

I have a calling and a temple recommend. So I attend, but I can go check out other religious ideologies.

What if I asked this question: Does the Church make me happy? Or will being part of another organization make me happier?

Asking the right questions for yourself will set you in the right path for yourself. As an alternative I put links to LDS groups of intellectuals. It’s not a replacement for church just a supplement. There are various clubs and groups within the LDS sphere that meet to discuses various intellectual things and some discuss beliefs or interweave there beliefs with their intellect without joining a new church. Especially culturally. Work within the frame work that is helping you and providing you meaning. Sometimes you just need a supplement to talk about things in a LDS cultural setting with intellect and what ever beliefs you share in common. The differences that you find a supplemental place with a freedom to explore your thoughts and beliefs. They are out there. LDS scientist gathering together at clubs. It’s very BY to be be in what ever institution like scientist and hold to those truths you discovered and being the truths you find in the LDS world with you.

The question is what helps you progress? What is healthy for you? What place can you contribute to in a positive way?

For Most the standard question is… Is there a god and what does he want me to do?

For me the question is .. Is there a god and what values would I worship in him that I would follow and worship him?

In case I am wrong and there’re isn’t what life would I be happy with living down here according to my values of love and service to others? What knowledge would help the world increase empathy, unity, love and quality of life whole taking on the growing problems that are caused by not enough resources and energy and to much crowding causing conflict? Will I be happy with the quality of life I increased for others(ie.. I left the world and people in a better place/condition/happiness?

Those are questions I ask myself. You’ll have to ask yourself questions that help you and others around you authentically.

[Anonymous]

I feel like the real issue for me is marriage. My personal feeling about the Church right now is that I could take it or leave it. I don’t really care one way or the other whether I’m active in it or not. I could be happy either way. There are things I like about it and things I don’t, and there were things I liked about being a non-Church-attending atheist and things I didn’t. I’m tired of rehashing the question of “should I stay or should I go” over and over in my mind and not being able to come up with an answer. A big issue in all of this is whether or not I want to marry a Mormon woman. And that’s a lifetime commitment one way or the other.

If I marry a Mormon, and in 10 years I decide I don’t want to participate in the Church anymore, and she still does, then I’ll be have marriage problems. If I stop going to Church and marry a non-Mormon, and in 10 years I decide that I want to be active in the Church again, it’s unlikely that she’ll be on board, and I’ll be going to Church alone. And I feel like it would also be hard to relate deeply to someone who knows nothing about Mormonism.

So I guess that’s what I’m really talking about when I talk about a decision making process. I see how hard it is for all of you who are in a TBM-NOM marriage, and I don’t want that. But it seems a shame to walk away from all I’ve invested in the Church and the life that I’ve tried to build for myself around the Church. I’m getting tired of what seems to be an unanswerable question, and I feel like the price of a wrong decision could be very high.

[Anonymous]

DontKnow wrote:

Daeruin, how did you mention your faith issues to her? How did you drop it in a conversation?

I guess I should ask, what’s the best way to talk about your faith issues with someone you’re seriously dating?

We had been good friends for about a year and had been dating seriously for several months before it came up, so I didn’t have to deal with the awkwardness of trying to explain it to someone I didn’t know very well. I think that was key. We were dating seriously enough that we’d talked, at least casually, about marriage. I knew she wanted a temple marriage, and I knew I couldn’t give her that. I didn’t have a temple recommend and didn’t believe I could get one. So I had to have the conversation. There was no way around it unless I took marriage off the table, and I wasn’t willing to do that. It was still hard to bring up though, because my emotions about my faith crisis were so raw still. I remember bawling my eyes out in the car while telling her about it. She knew that I was not going to church regularly, and so it was not a total surprise to her. I was really worried that she wouldn’t want to continue dating me, but thankfully, she did. It took another year and a half or so before we eventually got married.

I don’t think this is the kind of thing you can just drop in a conversation. It has to BE the conversation. I’m not sure whether it would be best to be up front about it or to let the relationship mature a bit first. I can see advantages either way. In my case, I think it helped that we knew each other so well before I told her about my faith crisis—I think that may have helped soften her heart towards me.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for explaining that to me. It makes sense now. There isn’t really a right or wrong way to do it. It depends on the situation and the couple. Thank you, Daeruin, for helping me out! 🙂

[Author]

Posts