The one where I explain what I believe

Thank you to everyone who took the time to read my last post. Confident though I am in my decision, it was still an anxiety inducing experience. Luckily I have many supportive friends and a few supportive family members who took the time to comment. I am grateful for the respect I was shown by those family members and friends I can only assume read the post and didn't send any negativity my way.

A friend messaged me privately afterward and asked me a question I have heard several times before. It's one I would have and did ask others who stopped believing before I transitioned out of my faith. The general question is, "Well now that you don't believe in Mormonism, what belief have you replaced that with?" 

Now, I struggled with this in the beginning. I had lived a life of religious structure. I was raised to say "I know", not "I believe" (which I find to be more accurate). I thought that people, when lacking a system of religious guidance, would automatically turn to drugs, crime and violence. I can't count the number of times I have heard in church, and personally said, things like, "I don't know where I would be without the gospel, maybe on a street corner somewhere...". 

What I've discovered, is that often people try to be good just because. I no longer believe that religion is what keeps our most base instincts at bay. I believe people want to be kind, loving, and considerate because they know they would like to be treated that way. People want to live The Golden Rule, but for no particular religious reason, just due to human decency.

Take racism, for example. In one Duke University Study, there was little to no racism found among religious agnostics, as opposed to their religious counterparts. In another multi-generational psychological study, they found "high levels of family solidarity and emotional closeness between parents and nonreligious youth, and strong ethical standards and moral values that had been clearly articulated as they were imparted to the next generation". A reporter for the LA Times spoke to one of the main authors of the study by the name of Bengtson, A USC professor who said, "Many nonreligious parents were more coherent and passionate about their ethical principles than some of the ‘religious' parents in our study. The vast majority appeared to live goal-filled lives characterized by moral direction and sense of life having a purpose.”

I now see how misguided my original notion was. If the only things keeping you from raping, pillaging and murdering are heavenly reward and punishment, you might be a sociopath. We can be kind to each other because we want others to feel happiness, and because it makes us happy. We can be decent because we want others to be decent to us. We don't need any more reason than that. I reject the idea that we need someone to suffer for our "sins". I reject the idea that men are fallen, and we need heavenly intervention to escape our miserable state of unworthiness.

As an aside, I don't think religion makes everyone treat others poorly. But it often does. So don't take this as a personal affront. Or maybe do, if you are one of those people and are mature enough to recognize it and make changes. And I don't look down on people for simply being religious, just because I'm not. However, I do not respect those who use it as an excuse to act better than anyone else.

With what have I replaced my belief? With an understanding that often, dogmatic beliefs don't foster love. They don't always foster understanding. They can foster intolerance. They can promote the idea that some people are elite, or chosen of god, while others are to be looked down upon and dismissed. They treat their idea of morality as an absolute, rather than personal, and at times attempt to force their moral ideas on others (anybody heard of Kim Davis?). I believe all people are equally deserving of love and understanding. That goes for those who believe in Buddha, Christ, Allah, and the Flying Spaghetti Monster. 

I have no more authority to comment on what any deity wants than the pope, the prophet of the mormon church, or any other pastor or religious authority. I believe in the need to leave people and places better than you found them. I want to believe that there is more after this life, but frankly I have no idea. All I have is hope. For me, that's enough. We all want love, we all want acceptance, and when we can give that to others and find the same in return, we will all find happiness. It's simply human nature.

So haven't replaced my religious beliefs with any other structured belief system. That doesn't mean I don't believe in anything, as I have stated. It just means that structured and/or dogmatic beliefs are no longer helpful for me. I find more happiness without them. 

The one where I explain my stance on religion

Upon reading this, you may be worried. You may be sad. You may have heard that Dave is no longer interested in being a member of the LDS church. Or any church for that matter. Or maybe you had no idea. Sorry to drop that on you. Fact is, there is no reason to be sad. Maybe you get that, maybe you don't. But now, nearly two years after I made the decision to leave religion behind, I am confident in my decision and who I am. (Note: out of respect for my many Mormon friends and family, I didn't list any specific issues I have with the LDS church in particular, although I'm happy to share in private if anyone would like to know)

Before any of these changes occurred, I was happy in my Mormon life, as happy as I thought I could be. I had a beautiful wife, and a brand new baby boy. Life was good. I had all the things I thought I wanted. Why then, did something feel not quite right? Call it a curious mind, call it my need to know things, to understand why I do what I do. I knew I believed in the LDS church. I was a card carrying Mormon (literally, I had a temple recommend). But there were things I knew I had always swept under the rug.

It sort of started because I had a problem with the lack of miracles today. According to scripture, God used to send angels to talk to men, prophets parted the seas, floods covered the earth, water was turned to wine, dead men were awakened from their eternal slumber, commandments were given to prophets on stone tablets directly from God, mana rained down from heaven, etc. etc.??? That's cool. I believed it. But not now? God just stopped? No more miracles? I don't mean every day miracles, like finding your keys, or getting a good grade even without studying. I mean bona fide, scientifically impossible kinda miracles. The big-uns.

That was sort of the beginning. My first "huh?" moment. Or at least the first I was able to admit to myself. And that opened the floodgates. I realized I had all kinds of questions. Questions specific to my religion as well as Christianity in general. And they were questions I didn't have answers for. I looked. And I looked. And I looked. I read "approved" materials on the questions I had. As an aside, the fact that there are "approved" materials is pretty concerning.

“If we have the truth, it cannot be harmed by investigation. If we have not the truth, it ought to be harmed.” – President J. Reuben Clark –

The approved stuff didn't give me answers (like why do we believe the earth is 6,000 years old, when science says that just ain't true?), so I started looking to other sources. I read the CES letter (cesletter.com). That was basically the end of it. Boom. Crash. (Insert bomb explosion noise). I thought I had a bullet proof testimony. I thought it was so strong that investigation would only make me a stronger believer. I would simply be better able to defend my faith when faced with questions that bothered me. I. Was. Wrong.

I died inside.

I have lost friends to suicide. I've lost loved ones. I have felt emotional pain in other ways. But never like this. I lost the biggest part of who I was. I had to come to grips with my new reality. In my new reality, the church  I was raised in, taught to believe in unequivocally, wasn't what I thought it was. It destroyed my world. I cried myself to sleep for months. I cried in the shower. I cried at school. I often had to leave class to grieve my loss. I never knew what would trigger the memory of loss or when it would hit. I went through the five stages of grief. I wanted it to be true. I needed it to be. But it wasn't, and I knew it. And I couldn't un-know it.

At this point, if you are a believer, and you're still reading this, you're possibly thinking one of two things. "Poor Dave, he just didn't have enough faith", or maybe "This is making me sort of angry, he's stating some of things that I believe aren't true, like it's a fact!". You'd be wrong on the first, and right on the second. It is a fact. Religion in general often flies in the face of facts. It's not about that. It's about faith, as people are fond of saying. It's about assuming the facts and the science are wrong, or your knowledge isn't complete, or ignoring it altogether. And for billions of people, that's fine. It works. But not for this guy. It stopped working for me.

In the end, I am happier. If you had asked me any time during the first year, I'm not sure I could have said that. I had to accept who I am now and figure out how to live my life. I had to accept that I no longer have the answers, and deal with the fear and anxiety that realization brought with it. I had to figure out who the real Dave is. Not the version the church I was raised in taught me I should be. Just me. And I had to realize that's alright.

Now? Now I'm a devoted father and loving husband. Now I reason important issues out, read dissenting opinions, and decide where I stand. Now I get to just be me and be happy with that. I am still the same person as I was before. Only, I'm the version that's less judgemental of others. I'm more empathetic. I'm more confident. I don't feel oppressive guilt because I can't be perfect. If I reach or exceed a goal, I'm stoked. If I fall short, I dust myself off and move forward. I don't beat myself up for days like I used to. For me it's a healthier, happier way of life.

There are those who will think, "he can't be truly happy without the gospel", because that's what they have been taught. There are those who will think I wasn't righteous enough, maybe I just wanted to sin so badly that I threw it all away. And that's okay. That's their prerogative. It's scary just to entertain the thought that people they know may have left their religion for legitimate reasons. That would mean they should be questioning as well. And let me tell you, that is terrifying. It was the hardest thing I've ever gone through. It was the hard road, and still is sometimes, no question. But it's the decision I had to make if I wanted to be honest with myself.

 I can hold my head high even if some look down on me for my decision, because I know I came to it after agonizing over what I knew. In the end, I feel like I didn't have a choice. I hid it at first. I was scared. Scared of what people would say and do, scared of how it might affect friendships and family, scared of the potential repercussions in my life. But now that I know who I am and what's important to me, I can be proud that I didn't take the easy road and  shut it all out. I accepted the new information and dealt with it. I can be proud of who I am.

So be sad for me if you must, but know that I am not.