All the Reasons I DIDN'T Leave the Church...

When you announce that you're leaving the church, nobody asks why. Of the hundred-some people I've told, exactly ONE asked me about the reasoning behind it, listened patiently for a couple of minutes, and then the subject was changed.

NO ONE WANTS TO KNOW. It's not that they don't care; it's that they make assumptions in order to protect themselves from their own deep-seated fear...by dishonoring me.

Here's what I mean: someone leaves your faith...but there can't actually be anything wrong with the faith, right? That would make the person still clinging to it WRONG! None of us like to be wrong...particularly when we've devoted part or the whole of our lives to what we're wrong about. But it goes a step further: if we're wrong, eternal marriage and families evaporate, our social network is in danger, the possibility of salvation is called into question, and even Jesus becomes suspect. That's not a fun place to be! And since we don't want to consider any of that, we decide the church CANNOT be wrong, and so the person who is leaving must be wrong.

Take that a step further: if the person leaving is wrong, they are wrong in one (or all) of a few areas: righteousness/worthiness, impatience, laziness, taking offense, arrogance based on intellect, and/or they were duped by Satan.

Where does that leave me? As an impatient, lazy, arrogant, offended, grossly sinful dupe.

But what if that's not true? What if I left for legitimate reasons? I know it's hard to accept because it means they might be wrong, but Jesus has told us time and time again that the truth will make us free.

So I'd like to take this opportunity to make clear the reasons I did NOT leave the church:

1. My life contains a laundry list of mistakes and regrets, just like yours, but I haven't become a swinger, I'm not a drunk or a drug addict, and my morals have not changed. If anything, my morals are more cemented by my choice to discover and live them than one who is moral under duress. I have not committed gross sin; there is no blood on my hands. And just FYI, having a cup of coffee is not gross sin.
2. I have not been impatient for my Moroni 10:4 answer. I have tried over and over again for decades with complete sincerity, begging to know that the BoM is "true", and God has not seen fit to answer me. Until recently I had concluded that that was either because God didn't love me, or that God did not think I was a soul worth answering. Needless to say, as a result my self-esteem has never been good. The truth is, God hasn't sent an answer...and if he sent it to me in some "other" way, as has been argued before, what good is an answer that I can't understand?
3. I admit, I'm incredibly lazy in many areas of my life. That said, my pursuit of truth (using the LDS Moroni 10:4 truth test) has probably been more intense than your own. I am also perfectly happy and willing to live any way that God might expect, including wearing a burqa, if I had to. He hasn't told me what he expects. The way I live is not for the sake of self-indulgence or being too lazy to keep the commandments. I just don't believe the LDS gospel has very many legitimate commandments to keep.
4. I think most intellectuals are considered arrogant and instantly given a bad name for being intellectual...rather like wealthy people are given a bad name for having spent decades slowly acquiring their wealth. There is a fine line between intellectualism and arrogance, and in some ways, arrogance is important in an intellectual; it drives them to learn more, discover more, and become more. But the reality is, I don't consider myself a true intellectual. I consider myself someone with an overpowering desire to acquire knowledge and seek truth. If truth-seeking is arrogant, I am arrogant indeed, but I think the idea of arrogance is misapplied in circumstances of truth-seeking. The earnest seeker of truth is incredibly humble, willing to discard outmoded and outdated ideas as required. I seek truth. I may never find it. I'm okay with that, as long as I'm seeking, open to new ideas, and developing.
5. I have been offended MANY, MANY TIMES by the church, its doctrines, its leadership, and its membership. It never, ever caused me to leave the church because I understand that the gospel and the people are two different things. The gospel can be perfect while the people can be idiots. I understand that. It just turns out that the gospel is not perfect, is not of God, and I'm done with it. It's not the people. Amazing Mormons are still amazing, and asinine Mormons are still asinine...bless all their hearts.
6. How do you argue with "duped by Satan"? I mean, when all else fails, call on the supernatural Bad Guy to explain someone's lunacy! I can't argue over the bad guy tempter that I can't see, hear, touch, smell, or taste; somehow, even though I cannot see, hear, touch, smell, or taste him, he got to me. He persuaded me to accept lies as a bulk of evidence and not a giant CYA for the church; he duped me. 

The reality is that I leave the church of my own free will and choice. I choose to use my agency to walk away from a gospel that, in my mind, has been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt to be a farce.

People will continue to think of me what they wish, but I hope that, for the sake of all those of us leaving a religion, those who continue to practice it might be willing to consider that maybe, just maybe, the person walking away has actually put some serious thought into their decision. Maybe, just maybe, they've been willing to take the hard road because of their convictions, not because of their laziness or sinfulness.

You can't force someone to believe something they don't believe. I don't believe in the church, and I have good reasons not to. Please understand me anyway.