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.