A possible life outside mormonism

[AtlanticMike]

Usually when something in my life becomes a problem, in this case a faith crisis, I'll find a solution really quick then attack the problem until I've defeated it and I can see it in my rearview mirror. I've chosen to take a different approach this time regarding the church and its teachings so I can really study out in my mind if the teachings of the church are a positive or negative influence on my family's life. In the past few months I've probably listened to well over 100 hours of Mormon stories podcast and read thousands of post on exmormon Reddit. I've used these two to help me see what it might be like if I was to choose a life for my family outside the church. And one thing that has really stuck out to me is, most people who leave the church seem to also change their political views once they leave. Not a lot scares me, but I rather  vulgarity removed by moderator than change my political views. So my question to you guys is, in your experience personally, or maybe with family members leaving the church, what are some of the main challenges / changes a member might face leaving the church? Also for any ex-mormons / Mormons in your experience, if someone decides to leave the church, will the rest of their life be consumed with always researching church doctrine and teachings to try to justify exiting a religion they probably grew up in?

[The Nehor]

A side-effect of spending times on venues where people gnaw on old grievances about their old faith is that you will run into a disproportionate number of gnawers.

[Meadowchik]

One of the good things about reddit and other places where people vent is that they can do so anonymously without aiming their grief at their close friends and family. Having that as an outlet to let off steam can help to keep real-life relationships more civil. It can also help to maintain a level personal perspective .

One thing I have noticed about exmo reddit especially is that people cycle in and out. 

If a person leaves any tightly-knit community where there are social consequences for leaving, imo they will most likely experience an "angry phase." And if their previous community did not have a healthy way of processing anger, the leaver will experience a steep learning curve as they begin to learn how to process that anger.

Regarding politics, in my experience, learning how deeply my political views were impacted by faulty ideas from Ezra Taft Benson was like a second faith crisis. It was also devastating. 

[Metis_LDS]

18 minutes ago, AtlanticMike said:

So my question to you guys is, in your experience personally

My spouse and I left for 15 years.  We had seen so many leave and could not leave the Church alone (always being critical or actively opposing).   Our prime directive to ourselves was leave and leave it alone.  This worked quite well for us.  If you leave you will not really know why until sometime after.  Everyone picks a reason (something to tell others why) but it is rarely correct until time passes and your vision clears.  In my case I could not see that I was just burnt out and needed a holiday from the whole thing.  So my reason for leaving had been other members and how they treated me.  

[Meadowchik]

Also, as the years pass, I spend less and less time thinking about Mormonism. At the same time, I was a faithful member for 40 years. It would be strange if I didn't have to unpack any baggage from that life. Also, I am starting to come to an acceptance phase where I am learning ways I can simultaneously embrace my LDS heritage and my divergent beliefs.  It is a process.

[The Nehor]

Also there is no life outside. It is all grey and hopeless out there. To be fair it is also grey and hopeless in here.

Thinking it over there is a possibility that I am the problem.

[jkwilliams]

41 minutes ago, Meadowchik said:

Also, as the years pass, I spend less and less time thinking about Mormonism. At the same time, I was a faithful member for 40 years. It would be strange if I didn't have to unpack any baggage from that life. Also, I am starting to come to an acceptance phase where I am learning ways I can simultaneously embrace my LDS heritage and my divergent beliefs.  It is a process.

That's pretty much it: it's a grieving process. How long it takes and how it goes depends on the person, but most people get to that acceptance place, and it just isn't a big deal anymore. At least it isn't for me. 

[Fether]

1 hour ago, AtlanticMike said:

Usually when something in my life becomes a problem, in this case a faith crisis, I'll find a solution really quick then attack the problem until I've defeated it and I can see it in my rearview mirror. I've chosen to take a different approach this time regarding the church and its teachings so I can really study out in my mind if the teachings of the church are a positive or negative influence on my family's life. In the past few months I've probably listened to well over 100 hours of Mormon stories podcast and read thousands of post on exmormon Reddit. I've used these two to help me see what it might be like if I was to choose a life for my family outside the church. And one thing that has really stuck out to me is, most people who leave the church seem to also change their political views once they leave. Not a lot scares me, but I rather pull my pants down, rub peanut butter on my scrotum and be castrated by a pack of hungry raccoons than change my political views. So my question to you guys is, in your experience personally, or maybe with family members leaving the church, what are some of the main challenges / changes a member might face leaving the church? Also for any ex-mormons / Mormons in your experience, if someone decides to leave the church, will the rest of their life be consumed with always researching church doctrine and teachings to try to justify exiting a religion they probably grew up in?

Maybe, instead of leaving the church and potentially risk changing political beliefs. Try stay in the church and adjusting your religious beliefs slightly from.

Im assuming you watched the Jim Bennett interview on Mormon Stories? (It’s like 6 parts, here is part 1  

) I loved it. He is very orthodox in His beliefs where he needs to be, but is unorthodox in his cultural approach.

The vast majority of my friends that left the church are completely Enamored with taking down the church and proving it is wrong. I have a mission buddy who left the church upward ago. I looked up his Facebook the other day just to see how he was doing. Well, he is still posting the same caliber anti-Mormon stuff he was when he left all those years ago. He cannot let it ago, it is all he posts about. He is obsessed with destroying the faith of others and attacking the organization he was once a part of. He can’t possibly be happy. This is the sad fate of most my friends that leave the church. Not all, but most.

One last observation. Decision making is done by two factors. We make decisions by emotion, then we justify by logics. Mormon Stories thrives on getting people mad, then listing everything that is wrong with the church. They are pro salesmen. If you are spending all your emotional energy on watching MS and hearing their emotional and logical arguments  and only going to church sources to find logical arguments, you will most definitely follow MS. Just make sure you are listening to GC. Listen to their messages, find the emotional reason to stay in the church along with the logical

[Meadowchik]

17 minutes ago, Fether said:

The vast majority of my friends that left the church are completely Enamored with taking down the church and proving it is wrong. I have a mission buddy who left the church upward ago. I looked up his Facebook the other day just to see how he was doing. Well, he is still posting the same caliber anti-Mormon stuff he was when he left all those years ago. He cannot let it ago, it is all he posts about. He is obsessed with destroying the faith of others and attacking the organization he was once a part of. He can’t possibly be happy. This is the sad fate of most my friends that leave the church. Not all, but most.

Those same people might disagree with your assessment. It is possible to sustain anger about a thing while developing one's life in other ways and being happy. 

[Meadowchik]

29 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

That's pretty much it: it's a grieving process. How long it takes and how it goes depends on the person, but most people get to that acceptance place, and it just isn't a big deal anymore. At least it isn't for me. 

Yup, and it can also be impacted by those around us. If our loved ones and communities are capable of respecting us as our beliefs change, it can go a long way towards enhancing our own healing. 

[Peacefully]

22 minutes ago, Meadowchik said:

Yup, and it can also be impacted by those around us. If our loved ones and communities are capable of respecting us as our beliefs change, it can go a long way towards enhancing our own healing. 

I agree with this. We have five children and all have left the church for different reasons. The interesting thing is that they still respect us and our beliefs. Even when I had a mini faith crisis, my daughter never encouraged me to leave. She just listened and empathized. So I have seen posts by angry ex-members on sites like Reddit, but I haven’t experienced it personally. My social and political views have moderated over the years and this has also led to some light questioning of church policies and doctrine but I think I have come to the point where I can stay and abide by the rules while still having my own thoughts and feelings (sorry for throwing in that contentious word, lol). I will say the pandemic gave me a needed break from church culture. This board has given me an outlet this last year, and though we don’t all agree on everything, it is a great faith-based site to explore subjects that are never discussed in Sunday School:) Thank you for being my safe place to have my faith crisis!

Edited April 18, 2021 by Peacefully

[Peacefully]

1 hour ago, The Nehor said:

Also there is no life outside. It is all grey and hopeless out there. To be fair it is also grey and hopeless in here.

Thinking it over there is a possibility that I am the problem.

Nehor, are you ok?

[rongo]

@AtlanticMike:

My impression of you from your posts is that you are now doing better, faith crisis-wise, than you were before. Is that inaccurate? Would you say you are still floundering, treading water, or are you in a better place?

[AtlanticMike]

10 minutes ago, rongo said:

@AtlanticMike:

My impression of you from your posts is that you are now doing better, faith crisis-wise, than you were before. Is that inaccurate? Would you say you are still floundering, treading water, or are you in a better place?

I'm glad you can see that so thank you for saying that. I'm definitely doing and feeling better, like I said, I'm exploring if our family life would be better outside the church and I'm not seeing much benefit if I leave the church. Matter of fact, the more I read on exmormon Reddit the more I'm starting to realize that I think that exmormonism is almost a religion unto itself. I could be wrong though, I'll admit that, but the intensity to trash Mormonism on that site is amazing to me, I haven't figured that part out yet. 

      I'm starting to wonder if leaving the gospel is so intense to some people, people possibly with my personality type that have a need to explore, might always leave a void that can't be filled because it's a bottoless pit of exploration. If so, that won't be beneficial to me or my family. So many questions. 

 

[Fether]

1 hour ago, Meadowchik said:

Those same people might disagree with your assessment.

Of course they would. No one wants to admit their passionate and never ending hate for an organization is destructive to themselves.

[Meadowchik]

24 minutes ago, Fether said:

Of course they would. No one wants to admit their passionate and never ending hate for an organization is destructive to themselves.

Or you could be incorrect in your assessment.

[Kenngo1969]

Perhaps the reasons for leaving are as varied as the reasons for staying, but:

Immediate 10% raise

Sundays off

Freedom to experiment with non-prescribed mind-altering substances

Different social circles

 

[Rain]

One word of caution: one of the rules on the board is not to share why I left stories.  This topic can have some good discussion, but it could easily wander in a direction that will get it shut down. If you want it to stay then be careful how you handle the topic.

With that said, whatever one does I have found it is good to be proactive about it rather than reactive.  You can find both types staying in and leaving the church, but I find you hear from the reactive types more often and more loudly.  Those that have gone into making the choice either way have seemed to be happier when they did it proactively.  

Covey on being proactive and reactive:

"(Proactive) means more than merely taking initiative. It means that as human beings, we are responsible for our own lives. Our behavior is a function of our decisions, not our conditions. We can subordinate feelings to values. We have the initiative and the responsibility to make things happen.

"Look at the word responsibility—“response-ability”—the ability to choose your response. Highly proactive people recognize that responsibility. They do not blame circumstances, conditions, or conditioning for their behavior. Their behavior is a product of their own conscious choice, based on values, rather than a product of their conditions, based on feeling.

"Because we are, by nature, proactive, if our lives are a function of conditioning and conditions, it is because we have, by conscious decision or by default, chosen to empower those things to control us.

"In making such a choice, we become reactive. Reactive people are often affected by their physical environment. If the weather is good, they feel good. If it isn’t, it affects their attitude and their performance. Proactive people can carry their own weather with them. Whether it rains or shines makes no difference to them. They are value driven; and if their value is to produce good quality work, it isn’t a function of whether the weather is conducive to it or not. Reactive people are also affected by their social environment, by the “social weather.”When people treat them well, they feel well; when people don’t, they become defensive or protective.

"Reactive people build their emotional lives around the behavior of others, empowering the weaknesses of other people to control them.

"The ability to subordinate an impulse to a value is the essence of the proactive person. Reactive people are driven by feelings, by circumstances, by conditions, by their environment. Proactive people are driven by values—carefully thought about, selected and internalized values. Proactive people are still influenced by external stimuli, whether physical, social, or psychological. But their response to the stimuli, conscious or unconscious, is a value-based choice or response.

"As Eleanor Roosevelt observed, “No one can hurt you without your consent.”In the words of Gandhi, “They cannot take away our self respect if we do not give it to them.”It is our willing permission, our consent to what happens to us, that hurts us far more than what happens to us in the first place.

"I admit this is very hard to accept emotionally, especially if we have had years and years of explaining our misery in the name of circumstance or someone else’s behavior. But until a person can say deeply and honestly, “I am what I am today because of the choices I made yesterday,”that person cannot say, “I choose otherwise.”

[AtlanticMike]

4 hours ago, Meadowchik said:

It is a process.

Thank you for explaining and saying this. That's exactly what I don't want, to go through a process. Like I said, I think with my personality I would definitely make it a huge process. 

[jkwilliams]

12 minutes ago, AtlanticMike said:

Thank you for explaining and saying this. That's exactly what I don't want, to go through a process. Like I said, I think with my personality I would definitely make it a huge process. 

Well, if you don’t believe the church is true, you’re already in the process. 

The thing about it is that there is no set process. I used to work with a guy who was a devout member when he took 2 weeks off for Christmas. When he came back, he had resigned. I was shocked, but he said once he had figured things out, he didn’t see any reason to drag things out. He didn’t go through a lengthy process of stress and grief. He was just done, so he moved on without looking back. 

[AtlanticMike]

3 hours ago, Fether said:

If you are spending all your emotional energy on watching MS and hearing their emotional and logical arguments  and only going to church sources to find logical arguments, you will most definitely follow MS

I really liked Mormon stories at first because I was concentrating on the archaeological, DNA, and truth claims episodes. None of that stuff bothers me for some reason, I'm not to worried if the history the church has portrayed is true or not, what bothers me is watching episodes where couples or even whole families that have left tell their stories and you can see the pain in their faces. I kinda like the guy who is doing the interview, but sometimes it's just a little to much to take. Plus, last week I watched one and it was all about burning or removing a book, I think it was Spencer Kimball's book The Miracle of Forgiveness, yeah, I can't get on board with that, way to far out their for me. Thank you for your story.

 

[let’s roll]

Hi Mike,

If you deem your current quest as cultural, I have little to offer in the way of advice how to approach that quest.  

My experience has been that engaging in a consistent spiritual quest centered around discovering how better to love and commune with Deity, identifying which of  my “neighbors” would benefit most from my love, and pursuing activities to address promptings regarding “what lack I yet” keeps me fully focused and engaged.

There is a divine peace that removes doubt—both by providing assurance regarding things that matter and by dissipating the desire to spend time wondering about things that don’t.  

Godspeed to you.

 

[Kenngo1969]

It all comes down to this, Mr. Atlantic.  I have questions.  I don't see how anyone with a halfway-functioning brain could be a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and not have questions.  (In the past, you have misinterpreted the sentence to mean the exact opposite of what I wrote, so read it again.  No, no, twice isn't enough.  Read it again.  Now, read it again.  Yes, yes, again.  No, no, you need to read it again.  Yes ... again.  Yes.  Anyone with a brain will have questions.  Do you have it yet, or are you going to go off all half-cocked and say that I'm insulting people who have questions about the Church of Jesus Christ and so on and so forth, ad infinitum and ad nauseam?  If you are, you don't have it yet, and you need to read that sentence AGAIN.  And, further, if you think I'm insulting people who have questions then I'm insulting myself, because as I said in my second sentence, I have questions.

Questions are inevitable.  Doubt and faith are choices.  With respect, anyone who says otherwise is using someone else's regime for evaluating the evidence.  If we're not going to use someone else's regime for evaluating the evidence, then each of us is his or her own trier of fact.  Each of us decides for himself or herself what the "rules of evidence" are and, consequently, what evidence s/he will admit, what evidence s/he will exclude, how much weight s/he will give to any piece of evidence s/he decides to admit, and so on.  Are you going to feed your doubts, or are you going to feed your faith?

And at some point, there has to be a sense of "judicial finality," if you will.  Whatever questions may remain, whatever answers I may yet lack, I don't feel the need to keep reevaluating evidence with respect to questions that already have been answered to my satisfaction.  I got an answer.  The "court" ruled.  Res judicata.  Stare decisis.

 

Edited April 18, 2021 by Kenngo1969

[jkwilliams]

1 hour ago, AtlanticMike said:

I really liked Mormon stories at first because I was concentrating on the archaeological, DNA, and truth claims episodes. None of that stuff bothers me for some reason, I'm not to worried if the history the church has portrayed is true or not, what bothers me is watching episodes where couples or even whole families that have left tell their stories and you can see the pain in their faces. I kinda like the guy who is doing the interview, but sometimes it's just a little to much to take. Plus, last week I watched one and it was all about burning or removing a book, I think it was Spencer Kimball's book The Miracle of Forgiveness, yeah, I can't get on board with that, way to far out their for me. Thank you for your story.

 

Admittedly I have never watched a single episode of Mormon Stories, but it seems to me a mistake to believe the folks that are interviewed are typical of people who leave. Those who leave without much fuss do not make for a compelling podcast. 

Obviously you can and will do what you want. I’m certainly not interested in telling you to stay or go. 

[Tacenda]

6 hours ago, AtlanticMike said:

Usually when something in my life becomes a problem, in this case a faith crisis, I'll find a solution really quick then attack the problem until I've defeated it and I can see it in my rearview mirror. I've chosen to take a different approach this time regarding the church and its teachings so I can really study out in my mind if the teachings of the church are a positive or negative influence on my family's life. In the past few months I've probably listened to well over 100 hours of Mormon stories podcast and read thousands of post on exmormon Reddit. I've used these two to help me see what it might be like if I was to choose a life for my family outside the church. And one thing that has really stuck out to me is, most people who leave the church seem to also change their political views once they leave. Not a lot scares me, but I rather  vulgarity removed by moderator than change my political views. So my question to you guys is, in your experience personally, or maybe with family members leaving the church, what are some of the main challenges / changes a member might face leaving the church? Also for any ex-mormons / Mormons in your experience, if someone decides to leave the church, will the rest of their life be consumed with always researching church doctrine and teachings to try to justify exiting a religion they probably grew up in?

You just named my life in the bold. But I haven't left and wear the garments, and follow the WoW, and do everything I did before except attend church like I use to. With covid I watch church though. 

But I am the loneliest I've ever been, and miss the associations that were had in the ward I use to live in. But it sounds like you have plenty of friends that are not LDS as well, I'll bet. But for those that depended on their wards for social lives, that makes it super depressing to not have that anymore, and if people know you don't believe anymore, you become a doubt germ and many won't associate closely like they have before. 

Best of luck, glad you're back on this forum, I missed you!