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For me, it was an incorrect strong answer to a prayer, that I received in the temple. I had some shelf items at the time, I was starting to empathize with lgbt people and disagreeing with the church’s stance on lgbt issues. I also had the realization that prophets can be completely wrong, but I’d always kind of known that in a way, but felt safe in my own prayer answers to figure out if they were wrong. But when I got a clearly incorrect prayer answer, everything fell instantly. Suddenly I felt like, if I can’t trust my prayer answers, or the prophets, how do I know what’s true? It made me question everything I’d ever believed and I basically had to start from scratch to figure out what I did and didn’t believe in. But there is good in all this you know — I now am very accepting of other people’s perspectives on religion, even in Mormonism. I still abhor judgmentalism and conscription into callings, and will disagree with that inside (and sometimes openly at church), but I accept people who believe the full Monty of what the church teaches. Their beliefs and mine can co-exist. I’m fine with that. I guess that’s a blessing of my shelf breaking. Always Thinking wrote:Suddenly I felt like, if I can’t trust my prayer answers, or the prophets, how do I know what’s true? It made me question everything I’d ever believed and I basically had to start from scratch to figure out what I did and didn’t believe in.
I think this is another good example of a problem that is not easy to resolve…because we are taught all the time we are to turn to the Lord, and learn these things for ourselves…and when it doesn’t work out…we have to go through so many gymnastics to make sense of it that it makes you wonder what to believe and what not to. It starts to feel like…”you too can get the right answer, but if you get the wrong one…move along and ignore it and just believe what is the generally accepted answer by the group”. It starts to unwind and get confusing.It becomes a choice on what you want to still believe, despite things being messy and not straight-forward like the missionaries teach it should be, as if there is only one clear way.
Good point AT. It’s a tough one.
SilentDawning wrote:Their beliefs and mine can co-exist. I’m fine with that. I guess that’s a blessing of my shelf breaking.
I agree. I think this is why God allows these ambiguities to continue on…we learn more from it not being perfect. (Go to orchestra, choir analogies about various opinions complimenting each other to enrich the experience)
I voted for the existence/nature of God because that most closely fits my catalyst. There seems to be a segment of the faith crisis crowd that encounters an unexpected traumatic life event that rocks their faith. For me this was the stillbirth of our third child. She was full term and appeared to be perfectly normal. Every indication was that if she had been taken from the womb a week earlier she could be alive today. This was a crushing blow to DW and me and it tore at what I felt to be fundamental pillars or assumptions of my faith. Does God favor the righteous? Does god bless those he favors? To what, specifically, does my tithing payment, dedicated priesthood service, and generally living as a faithful Mormon entitle me? It would not have even taken a miracle. How about some ordinary run of the mill inspiration to DW, our Dr., or me that something was wrong and needed medical intervention?
When I really examined the fine print on what I had felt was the Righteousness = Blessings contract I found that nothing is guaranteed in this life. This was huge for me. My entire family could be taken out by a single drunk driver and God was not going to do anything about it – tithing or no tithing.
In reconstructing my assumptive reality, for my own sanity, I had to do so with the assumption that God does not intervene or almost never intervenes (maybe He intervenes to kick off the atonement or the restoration but not much else). This means that I take the testimony of others about God’s intervention in their life with a huge dose of skepticism. It is not that I “know” that God did not help my neighbor find the proverbial lost car keys but if I accept that He does that then the questions come back about why He did not step in for me.
That is my catalyst.
For me it was questioning the existence of God / religion vs. science. While I believe that there is room for faithful scientists – it seems that physics and chemistry best explain nearly everything while requiring the fewest extraneous assumptions and explanations. A deist god or a non-existent god to me explains everything pretty well – with the HUGE exception of how did I win the cosmic mega lottery and get to live a human life on earth? That HUGE exception is the main reason I have some faith and hope there is a loving god out there. To me science does a better job of answering almost everything.
I’m one of those that if I weren’t Mormon I’d probably be atheist.
Roy wrote:
When I really examined the fine print on what I had felt was the Righteousness = Blessings contract I found that nothing is guaranteed in this life. This was huge for me. My entire family could be taken out by a single drunk driver and God was not going to do anything about it – tithing or no tithing.Confirmation bias at work — there are scriptures that seem to give unconditional affirmation that righteousness leads to prosperity, but at the same time, we all know good people who are victims of violent crime, get cancer for no reason, and have other calamities befall them. But I think people want desperately to believe in the “just world hypothesis” to feel they have control over their safety (faith that if they pay their tithing, and have a TR all will be well, etcetera). But then calamities strike.
I remember when my son was diagnosed with a pretty terrible disease, my wife was a mess emotionally. I was cool, collected, and she asked “why aren’t you upset”? My answer was “I live here”. I’ve accepted many bad things — I used to visualize and worry about them, and steep myself in what life would be like if they happened. I never believed God would somehow protect me, as the rain falls on the righteous and the wicked. So I was free of the burden you experienced when my own calamity struck.
So, to believe that God will bless you with protection from these seemingly random events is a false assumption. And when that assumption was proven wrong, it shattered your paradigm and hurt your faith.
For me, my false assumption was that the church was a divinely led organization, above temporal concerns, and when pressed, would live its values the same way a Christian will accept death rather than deny the faith. My own experiences proved to me over and over again that the church is no different than any temporal organization. My assumptions were shattered, and like you, my faith and commitment waned.
Right now, I feel liberated. Truly liberated that I no longer am bound by the shoulds of our religion. I feel good about being a free agent now, serving on my own terms. The contract was broken, even though I think it was an assumed part of the contract that the church would somehow transcend temporality. I still believe it SHOULD be bigger than life when it is faced with value conflicts like the ones I presented them with in trying to get on a mission and adopt a child. But it isn’t — it has been a big disappointment to the point I no longer feel the same commitment I once did. And that has opened my eyes and my experience to so many more good experiences.
I trust you find joy in participating in other churches, and that may well be a blessing from your own assumptions being shattered. I am NOT saying that it makes it all better, or that God blessed you through your trial — that to me is confirmation bias at work again — but it’s just something to recognize as good that comes out of certain situations. Would we let the traumatic happen again if we could, to get the subsequent side benefits? I would likely say no, but it helps to recognize they exist when there is nothing we can do about the trauma that happened to us previously.
I never had a shelf, since I saw a lot of things differently as a young child and had parents who accepted that. In other words, I never had to put things on a shelf, since I just dealt with my uniqueness as being part of who I was. The one that is the most difficult for me now is the cultural stuff and the fact that I simply disagree with so much of what I hear. However, I have had years to learn to let it slide and work to help others be more tolerant and less locked into a one-true-way mentality.
I am at peace with my own views, so I don’t need a shelf.
Old Timer wrote:
I am at peace with my own views, so I don’t need a shelf.
That’s yet another positive outcome for me: I no longer have a shelf. When something doesn’t sit right, I don’t need to carefully package it up and put it anywhere – I can just drop it. Wherever did we get the notion that doing so is immoral?
I know, it’s human nature. It just regularly sucks, is all.
Everyone, thanks for your votes and stories. The effect I thought I saw wasn’t as strong as I expected, so I learned something. I’ve got another theory to test, though, so keep your Guinea pig hats on.
I wonder for many of us that have had a packed shelf that eventually broke assume that everyone else must have a shelf with a few things on it. Just thinking about it I used too. My mind is always asking questions and wanting to know how things work. I think my type will be pre-disposed to placing things on a shelf and not be able to leave it alone I find it hard to imagine but I suppose it is probably the case that others minds word different than mine.
Absolutely. One kind of mind that has to put things on a shelf and is really uncomfortable doing it is often called Myers-Briggs type N. (I’m sure there are other kinds; this kind is just involved in a trend that’s easy to notice because Myers-Briggs types come up regularly on Internet forums.) They comprise about 10% of the population of Utah, 10% of the population of Utah’s most contributive source population (the UK), and a ridiculously high percentage of disaffected Mormons on the Internet – in the neighborhood of 90%. (Things to keep in mind: the 10% numbers are compiled from reports of people who visited 16personalities.com, and I get the 90% number from my impressions of Myers-Briggs posts here, at NOM, and on the ex-Mormon subreddit. There’s a lot of self-selection bias behind these numbers, but the trend is strong enough that it almost certainly doesn’t matter.)
A good way to understand type N: these are minds that trust the conclusions they come to about the world around them – logically or intuitively – as much as they trust their senses. These minds are uncomfortable living with contradictions. The world must make sense to them. These are scientists, engineers, philosophers, artists, poets, and dreamers.
It’s better not to tell them to put things on shelves, and then take them seriously when their conclusions inevitably don’t match yours.
Yep – I am I NTJ I would love to see a study looking if there are more N’s that have issues in the nuanced, NOM, ex-mo.
Part of mine and my husbands’ were not getting spiritual confirmations of the church and BofM has promised. We had often fasted and prayed about whether JS was a true prophet, the church was true, the BofM, and before going to the temple. We really wanted it to be true and had hoped but the spiritual confirmations did not come. We had negative or non spiritual feelings/experiences in the temple, and when reading parts of the BofM. After reading Grant Palmers book on Origins and his podcasts we just could not believe in JS lds scriptures and the church anymore. The people were not the issue and we still love some of the Mormon teachings but felt that God was leading us out of the church. Yet we still hope some lds teachings are true. Can it be a mixed bag; part true/ part false? bridget_night wrote:
Can it be a mixed bag; part true/ part false?
The phrase “Remember The Sparrow” kept me going through some tough times. Then I found out that 83% of baby sparrows and robins do not live to adulthood. That was the start of my questions.
If God takes such poor care of the simple sparrow, how can I expect Him to keep any other promise listed in the scriptures?
Then I started reading about church history in an attempt to steer clear of an unhealthy ward dynamic.
Boom .. All fall down.
SilentDawning wrote:
Confirmation bias at work — there are scriptures that seem to give unconditional affirmation that righteousness leads to prosperity, but at the same time, we all know good people who are victims of violent crime, get cancer for no reason, and have other calamities befall them. But I think people want desperately to believe in the “just world hypothesis” to feel they have control over their safety (faith that if they pay their tithing, and have a TR all will be well, etcetera). But then calamities strike.
This describes me well. I believed that I could control my destiny. I once was asked what my biggest fear was. I answered that it was to be powerless. LDS doctrine offered me a feeling of certainty and I ran with it.
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