Chatting with some former members over lunch, one gent disclosed that on his last Sunday attending church - once there was already a rumor going around that he was struggling with his testimony - a guy in his ward patted him on the shoulder in passing and leaned over, whispering, "It's true."
As my new friend relates the tale, he grabbed the man's hand on his shoulder (definitely surprising the guy) and stopped him. "Okay, but hypothetically speaking, if it wasn't true, would you want to know?"
"But it is true."
(I confess: at this point every single one of us around the table rolled our eyes.)
"Okay, but again, we're dealing in hypotheticals here, if it was NOT true, would you want to know?"
After thinking for a moment, the guy shook his head "no." "Probably not. After all, it's what I believe, and what I'm doing with my life."
Now, that's all well and good, of course, but I gave up Santa Claus a looooooooooong time ago. I prefer to deal in reality. I prefer to think in terms of fact and fiction, discarding fiction in favor of fact where leading my life is concerned. I prefer to discover TRUTH.
But apparently, no matter how members protest that they seek after truth, they find some truths irrelevant. Such is the case with a few of my convert-friends, who have openly stated that they lack a testimony of Joseph Smith as a prophet (one even went so far as to say that he was martyred because he was leading the people astray, and God couldn't allow that!!!), or even a testimony of the Book of Mormon as the word of God. They're not interested in truth. Their testimonies, instead, are based on the "feeling" that THIS is what they're meant to do with their lives.
That disappoints me. It's a cop-out, first of all, but more importantly, it's actively choosing to live in a fantasy world.
I've heard members argue that that fantasy world gives people hope...that, even if they're wrong, they had something to hope for in the next life while living this one.
But frankly, I find that a bit sick and childish. If you're hoping for impossible things, particularly at the expense of the actual life you lead, what sort of hope do you really have? Take my husband. He hates his job. He wishes every day that he'd gone into something else and would love to go back and get a different degree, because every day he sits at his desk, he is truly miserable. Now that he understands the idea of the Celestial Kingdom is bunk, and that there is very little chance of a post-existence, let alone the opportunity to create his own world and people it, he's looking at the here and now as potentially all there is.
Mormons would say, "How sad." I heartily disagree. I think, "HOW WONDERFUL!!! That means that he's going to finally rethink how he's going to spend the next 30 years of his career, and maybe he'll be motivated to make a change!!!" After all, spending the next 30 years - the prime of your life - doing something you hate isn't that big a deal when you believe you have all eternity to do something you'll enjoy...but wasting the next 30 years doing something you hate when that's likely all you'll get is absolutely asinine.
I - we - choose to live in reality. We want to know the truth, we seek after it, we are (more or less) comfortable in the realization that there are things we don't, can't, and will likely never know, and we're determined to make the most of the life that we have.
I can't say the same for the brother who whispered "It's true" to my new friend. He's busy enjoying the fairy tale, growing old and living by someone else's rules in the meantime. While that's his prerogative, frankly, I pity him. I pity all those who prefer fantasy to reality, because they're missing out on reality.
But at least it reminds me to enjoy what I have, what I know, and who I am. May you all do the same.
What can you do? You can't convince a believer. I know, I've tried with my Mormon family members. It's hopeless.
ReplyDeleteWhen I left the church, my wife was mad & heartbroken. She believes I'm sincere, rather than offended, lazy, or sinful, but she doesn't want to research.
ReplyDeleteIn nearly 4 years we've discussed it 2 times (both recent).
The 1st conversation went like this:
--She felt I'd harmed her by leaving
--I felt I'd discovered truth, yet friends/family were hostile if I talked about it
--I feel compelled to talk about it, because it isn't a benign club, but harms people financially, emotionally, intellectually, & in their relationships
--I respectfully restrain myself from criticizing people's beliefs, but I grow frustrated when they wont at least look into facts
--I asked her to research, not anything anti-mormon, but just the Book of Abraham facsimiles
--She refused, fearing I'd trick her somehow
--I told her it was provably false, & even if Joseph Smith had acted as a man, it had still been canonized, ratified & quoted time and time again
--I told her there were similar & frequent problems throughout her scriptures
--She said she didn't want to know any of that
Then I posed the same question you did in your blog: "If it was false, would you want to know?"
She thought about it in silence for several minutes, before saying "I don't know."
The only task I could get her to agree to was to figure out the answer to that question.
Judging by the fact that she hasn't wanted to discuss anything related to the church, I'm guessing she decided "no."
Our 2nd conversation you could sum up as, "Wife, since you do not want to know what is true, I don't want you to indoctrinate our small children any longer. I would like them to be able to stay home from church, if they so desire. I would also like you to study your scriptures, not just read them, & decide what things you believe, and what things you do not. I don't want you to just blanket-feed our children your church's dogma without it at least passing by you first as a filter. If you believe it, you can teach it to them, but only if I am allowed to teach them too."
Up to this point, I'd basically been forbidden from talking to our children about my beliefs. She agreed, our children have chosen not to go to church the majority of the time, and I have told my children that people are allowed to believe different things and that's ok, & that mommy believes in church & god, and daddy thinks those things are just make-believe, but they are allowed to learn & believe whatever they want (they are 4 & 2, so that's as deep as I want to get).
...so that's an incredibly long way of saying: "would you want to know" is the most important question to me. Anyone who answers "no" should, in my opinion, lose all credibility &/or authority on their opinions. It's tantamount to a Physicist espousing string theory choosing to disregard any-and-all results from experimental physicists.
Its very difficult, my mom was LDS my dad was a christain i heard both sides i had a hard time wirh Mormonism its so restricting can not do things most normal people do i don't believe in the morman church but have friends that are morman they always asks way don't you come to church get sick of it just want to be free, i was baptised a morman so its hard, visting teachers never get tired of asking personal things.
ReplyDeleteThe "friends" I tried to talk to didn't want to know either. I learned the hard way. I thought if I told them what I had learned, they would feel just as outraged as I did. Instead, I was shunned by ALMOST everyone I knew. I am okay with that because I am the kind of person who definitely wanted to KNOW. I resigned in my early 30's when I was pregnant with my 5th baby (2005). One of my friends, a convert, said she liked the morals of the church and didn't care if it was true or not. If I had to guess, I'd guess that most don't want to KNOW. (Besides, they already "know the church is true." - gag)
ReplyDeleteI'm in the position of waiting on my husband to come around. He went through what I am going through 10 years ago, but didn't tell me then. He kept going, struggling, and became Bishop 6 years ago. He decided he is doing so much good, with the church as the vessel, that he will stick with it. I am trying to explain that the good is being outweighed by the psychological harm, but he seems to feel like cutting it out will do himself too much psychological harm. I find his attitude selfish. I believe a big part of it is his unwillingness to be a disappointment to his family and friends, but I don't think he sees that yet. I wish I knew how to help him see it.
ReplyDelete