One of the common experiences that I have encountered from both family and friends alike is the questions “What do you believe about God now?” in some cases the question is simply put just like that. In other cases it is included in a tirade against how vocal I have been about the problems that I discovered in Mormon Church history and theology that led to the church losing me as one of it’s adherents. “I don’t want to hear about why you don’t believe in Mormonism or why Joseph Smith was not a prophet in your opinion! I only want to hear what you believe now! Testify about what you believe in!” or “I don’t want to see you tearing things down – just building things up in what you believe now!”
I have to admit that this is a very tempting road to go down, and I have on occasion – but I have some valid reasons for holding my own beliefs somewhat close to my chest. Many of these reasons would be difficult to understand until you go through the process of acknowledging that you have been caught in a grand religious deception your whole life and start to find a way out of it. I would like to articulate some of these reasons so that my friends and family can understand why they will read more about my observations about what is wrong with the Mormon church than what answers I have found.
A Sweet Ride
I asked my 8 year old daughter to design a car that would fulfill every dream she had about what an automobile could be. I specifically told her not to worry about what was normal or beyond the laws of physics. And I instructed her not to worry about making the car look like any other car that she had seen. I left her alone for a while and a few hours later she presented me with this masterpiece:
The Sweet Ride
I asked her to describe all of the different features that she incorporated into this amazing car that she proudly called “The Sweet Ride.” She meticulously described the unique features of her vehicle:
- 1,000 Pony Powered engine – more pony power than even the fastest race car.
- Fueled by any flavor of soda pop – you can fill up at any restaurant with a soda fountain – especially if they have free refills.
- Marshmallow wheels with lemon candy hubcaps – for the softest and sweetest ride you have ever had.
- Edible cupcake hood ornament – in case you get hungry on the road.
- Lolly-pop front and rear bumpers – the ultimate in safety features.
- Glow-in-the-dark cotton candy fringed canopy with a bubble-gum hood joint – provides shade and snacks when you want it.
- Rock candy windshield – crystal clear protection for the driver.
- Cotton-candy, soft-serve seat cushions – for the softest seat you have ever felt.
- Nutter-Butter doors – unique waffle pattern with the best combination of peanut-butter and chocolate ever found in a door.
- Red licorice trim – for pretty details
- Rock candy reflectors headlights – as bright as the sun.
Features!
Now when you really look at it – this car is amazing. It’s confectionary details fulfill my daughters dreams and solve the problems that she has frequently articulated about our more conventional minivan. It has absolutely no basis in reality and stands in complete opposition to the laws of physics, economics and common sense. That does not matter to my daughter.
To further assess my daughters commitment to her dream car, I pulled up a very sensible alternative and showed it side-by-side with hers:
1992 Toyota Corolla
Next, I asked her a few questions:
Me: “Would you trade your soda-pop fueled “Sweet ride” with all of it’s marshmallow wheels, soft-serve seats and 1,000 Pony power engine for this sensible, white 1992 toyota corolla? It was one of the most dependable and trusted vehicles of it’s year.”
Her: “No way! My car is way cooler!”
Me: “It runs on gas”
Her: “Mine runs on soda-pop and if you get thirsty you can drink some”
Me: “This car will go a long way without breaking down.”
Her: “Mine never breaks down – and it’s got cotton candy! Dad, I really have the sweeter ride.”
Me: “I.. I really got nothing else – I would rather choose your car too!”
Joseph Smith’s Sweet Ride
Empathy is the ability to put yourself in someone else’s position and try to understand their motivations and perspectives. To understand the mind of someone who the church has lost due to issues of doctrine and church history, you have to look at things from their perspective. To these people the Mormon religion arose from the imagination of Joseph Smith. He used his very capable mind to create a religion which answered all of the important questions of the early 19th century religious environment – questions of grace/works, infant baptism, preexistence and election are all given authoritative answers and additional details are also piled on top which give the religion amazing and appealing features – eternal families, sacred temple rituals, divine authentic authority, etc. All of these features fulfilled his own dreams of pure religion and solved the problems that he saw in other faiths at the time. (if you read about his early childhood, parental views on religions, etc you see that they also answer important questions from his direct family as well)
From the perspective of someone who does not accept his divine calling, all of these remarkable features articulated by Joseph Smith through the Book of Mormon, Book of Abraham, Translations of the Bible and direct “revelations” from God paint the picture of a religion that is every bit as appealing as my daughter’s “sweet ride” but just as divorced from reality or truth.
Furthermore, while Joseph was undoubtedly skilled at integrating all of these features into a cohesive faith, Â his work has been tweaked, improved and refined over the decades since his death. Features such as blood atonement, polygamy and racism which created more problems than solutions were eventually discarded – smoothing the rough edges of the faith. This presents the modern day believer with a very desirable religion which they can hold up in comparison to anything else.
When a believing mormon compares their theology to any one else’s system of belief – especially if it is confined to logic and rationality, but also if it is limited to biblical assertions – they are going to find that everything else pales in comparison. They already have “the sweeter ride.”
True? True? And Unrelated
The thing to remember when considering what people go through as they start to think about the church is that there are two separate issues that they must confront.
- Is the church true?
- If not, then what is true?
The thing to remember is that if the answer to #1 is “no, the church, it’s doctrine and claims of exclusive prophetic authority are not what it claims to be” then question #2 is completely unrelated to whatever those claims are in the first place. Â This can be a bit confusing to grasp, so the illustration of the “sweet ride” can help clarify.Â
If doesn’t matter what my daughter designed her car to be. It could have run on infinitely renewable electrostatic energy from the Earths atmosphere, had 1,000,000,000 horsepower engine and capacity to seat 4,000. Since she was making it up – she could design it to be anything at all. This fanciful creation based on imagination rather than truth would always trump any real car, bound by the laws of physics, design and economics, in a direct features comparison.
But if you really need to get from Austin to New York City – choosing a made-up fanciful creation just because it fulfills your fantasy will not get you there in the real world. Once you abandon the sweet fantasy, you have to confront the world without the appealing and comforting deception and search for truth on the merits of your own conscience and mind. Suddenly you may look at the 1992 Toyota Corolla and other vehicles with new eyes, perhaps seeing some benefits that you previously overlooked because your were blinded by the confection in front of you. You may decide that your role is to walk on the power of your own 2 legs.
The Raw Wound
Another aspect of leaving Mormonism because of problems with history and doctrine is that you become very sensitive to allowing other people to dictate to you what God’s law and truth are. Because of your experience as a Mormon – you know how powerful and convincing an enticing deception can be. You don’t want to be taken on someone else’s ride.
Many people who leave for these reasons are not people who were at the margins of LDS culture but people who were very devoted to the faith and doctrine of Mormonism. Many of them faithfully held callings for years and devoted tremendous time and effort in doing them because they believed so sincerely. To discover, then, that distortions and evasions were used to hide the history of the church and it’s founders is devastating.
If they are like me – this realization sends these devoted follower into a frenzy of discovery – looking for every bit of covered up deception, rationalized misdeed and corrupt doctrine – trying to discover how truly extensive the lies are. “Perhaps it is just the modern prophets who have gone astray” then “okay, perhaps Joseph was a fallen prophet, but he did have a divine experience” then “perhaps the Scripture that Joseph brought into being was true, even though he was flawed” then “maybe the Book of Mormon is true, even though the Book of Abraham is false” and so on and so on until you come to the realization that every level of the foundation of the Church is built upon distortions and deception. It is packaged in a glazed form of godliness and piety and bound up in a self-regulating culture that discourages people from questioning it.
You submitted some of the most precious aspects of your identity and life to another person’s theology which filled you with lies and deceit dressed up in a sweet disguise. When you finally extract this saccharine poison from your soul – you are changed. You are left with a deep open wound in your heart.
Your ability and desire to trust as a child trusts is gone. You recoil at any one else telling you what to believe or what to do. How dare they! Don’t they see how completely you have trusted before with only the purest intent – only to be completely and utterly deceived? It is as though once you had removed Joseph Smith’s dagger from your heart, there is a line of other people presenting their own daggers for you to replace it with.
Searching for Truth
Acknowledging this, the former Mormon becomes very skeptical of claims of divine authority or truth from any other direction. Furthermore, they are aware that it is the ultimate in hubris for them to dictate truth to anyone else themselves. You begin a quest for truth in your own life, but from a humbled perspective. You realize that truth is an elusive thing. It is not handed down in prophetic edicts from people who you are prohibited from questioning.
You may never get it exactly right. But a funny thing happens when you start searching for truth – the lies start to stand out and jump out at you. Their contours and patterns become more evident to your searching soul. So while you continue to seek for truth – you are empowered with the freedom to identify them for what they are and leave the lies behind.
Conclusion
If you wish to have empathy with a former Mormon – it would be difficult for you to identify with this perspective because you don’t see the Gospel of Joseph Smith as a negative thing in your life. This is the point of empathy however, to stretch your mind and put yourself in someone else’s perspective which is by definition different from your own. If you cannot or are unwilling to do so – then you cannot have empathy for them.
This is why you won’t hear too much of what I personally believe about the world on the blog. Rather than expound on my own answers to life’s difficult problems, I focus on demonstrating the chips on the edges which reveal the darkness beneath the shiny veneer of Mormonism. My goal is not to get people to adopt my particular notion of truth, but to allow them to examine their sweet ride and see if it meets the standard of truth. Once they discover the absent foundation of the church, they will be able to look around and discover the world freshly with their own eyes. They will develop their own personal relationship with the divine and pursue a life free from the deception and fantasy of others – myself included.
It doesn’t matter what the makeup of your imaginary car was or what anyone else’s car was. Once you let go of your sweet fantasy, the important thing for you to do is to determine for yourself where you will find your belief and what standard of truth you will subscribe to. It is a very personal decision and while others who still are still holding on to the sweet ride you left behind will ask to see what jalopy you are driving around in now – understand that it will always seem pedestrian to them by comparison.
You could be describing my experience with Mormonism as of late, too. If you haven’t already read any writings of JD Krishnamurti, you might find them very interesting. His “Truth Is A Pathless Land” is a classic, but he’s also written many essays on Truth, Fear, etc. I am not a devotee of his, because he specifically did not want them. Period. Just thought you might enjoy his stuff if you haven’t already heard of him. Thanks for taking the time to write your thoughts. I’ve enjoyed several of your posts. Keep it up!
I “discovered” this blog a few weeks back. I have enjoyed every word. I especially like these thoughts on “truth” because my own dh will sometimes say “you don’t believe in anything.” Well that’s sure not true for me. He has not yet fully empathized with me, so of course, like you stated, “my ride” is “pedestrian” to him. He doesn’t comprehend why I would feel the way I do. Anyway, loved the analogy and I’d like to share it with him. Very well written.
Good stuff!
That was incredibly good. I think I understand myself better now after reading it. Things I didn’t understand before about why I reacted the way I do make perfect sense. Bless you.
The problem with arbitrarily determining truth for yourself about what is “God’s Laws and Truth” or the “Sweet Ride” is that God doesn’t have one truth for you and another truth for Joe and yet another for Sally and so forth. It might be true that you’re only ready to accept certain truths, but if any of the truths you accept aren’t among God’s truths, you’ve deceived yourself.
Perhaps you covered this by saying, you’ll probably never get it exactly right. Ok, so maybe it’s ok just to say you’re trying. Your heart’s in the right place, right? Only your original premise is that your “sweet ride” must be based in reality. How can you know what reality is about God if you don’t know? You cannot just think it therefore it is. You have no power to make or change anything regarding God just like I cannot make you like battery acid and call it Ice Cream. So how do you reconcile this new world view with no outside help?
Ok, so maybe God helps you. So now you’re a prophet or at least someone with a testimony of God helping you. Do you keep to yourself what god has helped you with or do you share it?
Also according to your world view, this is the ultimate in hubris to dictate truth to anyone else but oneself and your goal for yourself and others is to pursue a life free from the deception and fantasy of others, including your own. You want to encourage people develop their own personal relationship with the divine. So among other reasons you state, it’s more than probable that you’ll keep it to yourself. Are you certain this action is what god would want?
Well it’s non-confrontational, so maybe it avoids conflict. No conflict is good, right? But sometimes you have to do hard things in life. You have to go to work, that’s the responsible thing to do, but everyone can think of reasons not to go to work, like spending time with the family, which of course sounds more appealing then avoiding conflict. Are you sure you’re not just rationalizing to make things easier with regard to your responsibilities? Only one person benefits in this model, you. There is no self-sacrifice, no accountability, you hold all the cards, even the one’s God is supposed to hold. He is a servant to your world view. He isn’t a God, he’s an Idol, because all he really has to do is sit there and do and say nothing, all loving, all accepting. A yes man to your every whim.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this.
Your whole comment is clearly coming from the perspective of someone who is accustomed to having a sense of certainty about what is God’s will and law. It may be that you believe in the legitimacy of church leaders claim to speak God’s law or it may be that you believe the that the experience of “feeling the spirit” confirms the truth of what those men tell you, independent of church leaders.
In either event you haven’t actually done the uncomfortable thing of really imagining what it is like to realize that the entirety of Joseph’s religious product has no legitimate foundation. It’s a mind blowing experience that is difficult to imagine without actually coming to that point in reality.
Is there life after this? Do I have the hope of seeing my family in the next life? How can I know what God want’s me to do? Is there a God? Why am I even alive on earth today? Is scripture real and factual?
These are all questions which believing Mormons have never had to actually work out for themselves because the answer to them was provided by the leaders of the church. There was no uncertainty about them. It is a comforting blanket which Mormon’s don’t realize they enjoy.
For Mormons, the answers to all these questions and more can be traced back to Joseph Smith. They are a product of the scripture and teachings he brought into the world. It is important to realize that answers to these questions aren’t only found in Mormonism. Numerous other religions have come up with their own answers to these questions and many express them with the same absolute certainty that Mormons feel about their own answers. In each religion, those various answers provide their members with the same feeling of comfort and assurance that Mormons feel about their own answers. In each other faith, the answers can be traced back to some entity which claims legitimate authority to answer the questions.
When a questioning Mormon finally comes to the point where they acknowledge that Joseph Smith had no more authority or power to declare God’s law than any of the other religions, then the real crisis starts. The member has to confront the uncertainty that exists with all of these essential questions as the realize that the source of the answers was faulty. Realizing how much they trusted Joseph only to have that trust betrayed, they become very suspicious of other people claiming to provide such answers.
You see for many ex-Mormons, the struggle is not in trying to find a new provider of truth and certainty. Mormons frequently think that is what is going on though – they accuse exmormons of switching to a new false religion or setting themselves up as a new prophet (as you have done here). The struggle is more about learning to deal with uncertainty and doubt because they are an ever present new reality of life outside Mormonism.
Every Mormon who leaves the church at some point had to trust their own logic, reason and conscience above that of Joseph or any of the men who have filled his shoes thereafter. That was the first real step into the world of developing your own individual moral identity rather than simply adopting one that was given to you. That first step is followed by many more and is a very individual process.
Accepting a dealing with uncertainty means acknowledging that for many of these important questions – no one has a definitive authoritative answer. As such, you can find an answer that it meaningful and helpful to you from within yourself – because it is just a legitimate as an answer provided by a man in a billion dollar fancy building proclaiming to speak for God.
The last paragraph of your comment lists things that you find as shortcomings in what I am describing:
” no self-sacrifice, no accountability, you hold all the cards”
People who sacrifice themselves to the Mormon church or any other demanding group do so by paying money, giving time, labor, etc. according to the demands and needs of the group. Letting go of those false controls does not mean that you no longer sacrifice – it simply means that you give meaning and validity to whatever sacrifice that you decide is right for yourself – not just what a false authority dictates.
Once you abandon the control of men who claim false authority, then you realize that the accountability that you bear is not to men holding arbitrary measures of obedience, but rather to the lives and individuals of those around you. Looking down on people who drank coffee or beer or tea is no longer a part of that dynamic and instead you initial feel pangs of shame for how you previously judged them – that is a particularly humbling part of the journey out of Mormonism. You start to learn to accept and love those around you without the judgement you previously felt you were entitled to cast back when you thought you possessed truth.
You do hold all the cards of what you are willing to accept in yourself and from others. That is a good thing. You no longer have to find excuses for things like racism, bigotry or polygamy. You don’t have to find rationalizations for why supposed men of God did explainable things. You are free to reject anything which does not meet your standard of truth and hold onto good things wherever you find them. You are still subject to the law and this concept doesn’t mean that you are free to go rape and murder. It just means that you aren’t compelled to accept bad things as good in order to preserve the image and control of men claiming divine superiority.
You are doing exactly what I warned about in this post. Looking at my feeble new car and pitying me for what you perceive to be it’s pedestrian nature. I wish I could say I was surprised.
Uhm, ok…yea. How about I put my listening cap on and you tell me one or two things.
Describe legitimate authority and give a few examples. Then, time permitting, explain how those who claim false authority breach your model of legitimate authority. Ok go…
Legitimate Authority
Okay. Authority may mean that special knowledge about God and the universe may be considered authoritative and true, It may mean that a person has special privilege to call upon the powers of heaven and it also may mean that a person has a right to direct, discipline or apply certain restrictions on others in their personal life or within the church.
In Mormonism all the authority that any leader claims is derived from the original claims of Joseph Smith. If Joseph’s claims to revelation and priesthood authority are fabricated, then no LDS leaders ever had any real authority.
In Scientology it is L Ron Hubbard from which any claim to true knowledge or authority derives. In Jehovahs witnesses it is Charles T Russell and in Christian Science it is Mary Baker Eddy and so on.
There is organizational authority and there is divine authority.
As agents of the actual organization of a corporate entity, people in positions of organizational authority have undeniable rights to operate in that capacity. Those offices and rights are spelled out in the organizational documents. They can determine who is listed on the rolls of their groups and who isn’t, they can direct church funds towards whatever use they see fit, they can choose what company to hire for whatever needs. Joseph Smith, Mary Baker Eddy, Hubbard and all of them certainly had claim to legitimate organizational authority.
Divine authority is different, however. Any time a leader is conveying special proprietary information of a divine nature or effecting somehow the spiritual standing of a member, through promotion, discipline or reproval, they are exercising divine authority.
I have no problem with organizational authority. Just as the president of the Rotary club has certain rights, so does the president of the Church and it’s officers. The problem is when people like Smith and his successors claim divine authority.
You and I can look at the claims of divine authority of Hubbard, Eddy, Russel and so on and see that they are false and illegitimate. Hubbards claim that aliens hundreds of thousands of years ago traveled in ships that looked like airplanes from the mid 20th century is just a ridiculous anachronism. The whole Xenu story is just so clearly a science fiction fabrication that any claims he has to legitimate divine authority are laughable.
Mary Baker Eddy claims that the spiritual world is the only reality and is entirely good, and that the material world, with its evil, sickness and death, is an illusion and the product of malicious animal magnetism. This concept is so foreign and in contradiction with real scientific observation of the world around us that we can easily see that it and she have no legitimate claim to speak authoritative divine truth.
Charles Russell may be more difficult to impeach so easily because he rooted his claims in something that most people are already familiar with and accept – the bible. By his assertion, if you accept the bible, you must accept his authoritative interpretation of it. When you see the product of his claim to authority though – failed predictions of the return of Christ, depriving children of blood transfusions, imposed shunning of family members, etc. then it becomes clear that his claims are illegitimate.
Every individual has a certain legitimate authority and claim over their own self. They have self ownership. An individual gathers data from the world around them and then makes choices based on that data. When someone places themselves subject to another’s illegitimate divine authority, then they make decisions and react to things in a way that places the pronouncements of the authority in priority over their own self. They make choices and see things in a way that they would not if they did not believe the authoritative claims of the leaders.
That is where you can see the real harm of these other leaders false authority. When scientologists spend all their retirement savings to have auditing sessions to purge themselves of harmful thetans. When Christian scientists spurn medical treatment. When JW’s lose a child for want of a blood transfusion – all these things could be avoided by simply rejecting illegitimate authority.
Let’s pretend for a moment that Mormonism does have true legitimate authority in the Utah based, corporate, Monson led flavor of Mormonism. Does a Christian Scientist or JW have to learn about and gain a testimony of Mormonism in order to reject the false authority of their religious tradition? No. Members of those religions reject and abandon them every day without knowing anything about Joseph Smith, Mormonism or the Priesthood. It follows, then, that one does not have to know what legitimate authority is in order to reject false authority. You can reject false authority when you examine it and find that it is so full of inconsistencies, falsehoods, manipulation and flat out abuse that there is no possible way that it is legitimate.
That is why so many people reject Mormonism and Joseph’s own claim to authority.
You ask me for an example of legitimate authority. My response is that the most important authority that you can learn is that of your own self. Only by keeping your own mind and authority over yourself will you be able to avoid the abuse of all the various false authorities claiming that you will be damned if you don’t follow them. Do not let these other men over-ride the authority of your own conscience and reason.
If you ever do come across true, legitimate authority – then it will be unavoidable and unmistakable. You wont have to twist logic and reason to keep it consistent. You won’t have to avoid uncomfortable dark corners in it’s history in order to maintain faith.
Once people extract themselves from the comforting delusions of Hubbard, Eddy, Russell and, yes, Smith – they can then choose to retain their own authority of conscience. In doing so you free to start a search for truth, but with the first hand experience of what it is like to be so totally captured by another’s claim to authority, you do so with a very different perspective. For me, it rests in never allowing another man to put himself between my personal connection with God. For you or anyone else it will be different.