A lot of people ask me, "Since you're over the LDS church, why don't you just leave it behind and move on with your life instead of wasting all your time trying to tear it down?"
I have stated many times that if people are truly happy with their religion, whatever religion it is, then I am happy for them. One might ask, "If that is the case, then why do you blog against religion?"
That is a legitimate question. It's not for the attention and it's certainly not for the money. In fact, I've never received a penny for what I do here.
For 30 years, I gave myself unquestioningly to the church. I trusted them. I put my faith, money, and talents into them, expecting the eventual promised outcome: eternal salvation. I served a mission for them. I tried to bring my non-member friends into the church. I prayed daily and knew the scriptures inside and out. I read the Book of Mormon cover to cover at least a dozen times. Before my mission, I attended church for six hours a day (of my complete own free will). I truly strived to obey all the commandments and keep myself temple worthy. In short, I put everything I had into the church.
When I found out it wasn't true, that meant the last 30 years of investing into LDS, Inc. was a waste. But not only was it a waste, it was a sham, a con, a hoax. It wasn't an investment that just went under... it was a complete swindle from the very beginning.
I will never get those 30 years back. I will never get the thousands of dollars back. I will never get my youth back.
I threw away my youth for a cult. A cult that sucks you dry and then keeps on sucking. I turned down several sexual advances throughout my youth in an attempt to "keep the spirit". I was a normal young man with normal hormones and feelings. I suppressed them all in order to "be worthy". I will never get those years or those opportunities back.
And that is what pisses me off more than anything. My damn youth was wasted. I might as well have stayed in bed and slept for 30 years.
So I do what I do so that some other person can find the truth before their youth is gone. The sad (and funny) part is that if someone had come to me as a young adult and told me the church was not true, I would have shrugged them off and bet my life that it was true.
The LDS church destroys lives and families. Let me answer the above questions with another question. Do you walk away from something terrible and just leave it there to keep doing terrible things? No! You warn people about the danger and you fight to eliminate it.
Asking me why I can't leave the LDS church alone is like asking a Jew to leave Hitler alone. If you were a Jew and Hitler killed your entire family, would you just shrug it off and walk away if you had the means and ability to fight back? No! You would do anything you could to stop Hitler before he kills someone elses family.
And that's why I can't leave it alone. Now, I know that is extreme, comparing the LDS church to Hitler, but it was just an example. All I am trying to do is save someone else from wasting their life away, investing everything they have in a sham.
If you invested money into something and it later turns out that the "investment" was a scam, would you warn your friends not to invest? Of course you would! You wouldn't just walk away and say nothing while your friends get ripped off. You would do something. You would say something. You would try to prevent them from scamming more people.
And that's why I do what I do. I wasn't happy as a Mormon and yet I was brainwashed into thinking I was happy. Hey, I really mean it... if there are people who LOVE paying 10% of their hard earned income, who LOVE attending meeting after meeting, who LOVE having every aspect of their life dictated and controlled, then GREAT! I'm glad you love it! Stay with it! But for those who only say they LOVE it because the church has programmed them to say that they LOVE it, that is my target audience. That is who I am trying to liberate. I'm just seeking the person who believes it is true and yet has this feeling of burden, like a huge stone tied around their neck.
That is what it always felt like to me. I believed it and yet felt completely burdened down by all the expectations and commandments. I gave them a chance to prove themselves and they failed miserably. I gave them a chance for 30 years!
I won't discuss the actual reasons (at least not in this particular post) of why I came to understand that it's not true. I won't expound on why I believe they lied to me. I will just say that once I found my truth, that heavy burden was gone. Having Jesus in your life is supposed to make the burden easy... WRONG! Kicking Jesus and religion out of my life is what actually made the burden go away.
No more "big brother" in heaven who is always disappointed with me. No more superstition. No more crap. I now see life and the world the way it really is. Life is wonderful without religion and that's why I do what I do. I don't get paid for it. I don't get extra "blessings" for it. I just do it because I want to. I want to do my little part to make someone elses life better.
7 comments:
Nice post. Your point of view is a rational one. What else would a moral person do if they had first hand information about an evil organization? Take a nap?
I know plenty of ex-Mormons who are just fine with walking away and forgetting about it. That's fine. Maybe someday I will too. We all have to follow our own path, and for now, my path is here.
We can't leave it alone because Mormonism won't let us. They contribute $ and man power to try to withhold rights from the gay community. They send adults to visit my children. They send missionaries to my home. They brainwash my loved ones. They rip families apart.
Like you said, you were in it for 30 years. You can't just wash away 30 years in one sentence. We don't expect abuse victims to magically heal once the abuse has been admitted, it takes time. It may take a week, month or 20 years. Its only up to you to decide when you are past it.
My husband handles leaving completely different then I do. I have to talk to people about the personal aspect of leaving. He likes to talk about the actual proof as to why its false. We handle it differently and its just fine.
When the church can leaves us alone, the sooner we can move on. When the church is a safe place then I will leave it alone. Until that happens, I don't see myself moving on any time soon.
411- Great explanation. When I finally figured out the lie, it lifted a huge weight off of my chest.
Keep up the great blog.
Nicely put. A prime example of a religion destroying lives is the recent article in the New Yorker magazine regarding Scientology. On my blog I posted about it, but it's just more proof that evil is religion and the motives behind organized religion are evil.
Of course, if you feel guilty you can always get the new Iphone App from the Catholic Church that lets you confess over 3G. Instant forgiveness..... Priceless...
Melody, believe me, I know exactly what you mean!
e-Confessions... that's too funny!
*chuckle* Hey, Outcast, c'mon man, confession is sound psychology, and as sound psychology it opens a path to show folks confessing directly to their version of God without religion for a middleman actually works better, being as how on those rare occasions when God agrees to play shrink He's known for being very, very astute, and much cheaper than any other form of mental health professional on the market.
Question in my mind is this: how long will it be before the brainwashed of our time equate the technology as part of God the way the brainwashed of other times came to equate religion as part of God? But you're right, it is mastercard priceless comedy that I'm sure Saturday Night Live is kicking themselves for not seeing ten years ago.
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