My Journey from Mormonism to Atheism

[InquiringMind]

I'll go ahead and tell the story of my journey out of Mormonism and into atheism.  

I was raised in the LDS Church by parents who were converts to the religion.  My upbringing wasn't particularly strict, but when I got to adolescence, I got the standard guilt and shame spiels about sexuality and about the human condition generally.  That, and my tendency towards OCD and scrupulosity, made religion somewhat of a negative experience for me, though I didn't think that I had the freedom to leave.  There were plenty of things that I did like about Mormonism, like the ideas about a grandiose afterlife, and some of the really weird mysterious stuff that's all pretty enthralling if you believe it, and the very active social atmosphere of Mormon culture.  

I went on a Mormon mission to Utah, which I know is a little unusual.  I really enjoyed it, and overall I had a positive experience, though I still had a lot of worry about sin and feeling unclean.  I went to BYU, and I was hoping to get married there.  I got a degree in music and left BYU without a wife, which was pretty disappointing.  I tried to make a career in music, but it didn't work out.  So I decided to get a second bachelor's degree in aerospace engineering.  I'd had some doubts about the Church at this point, mostly because my life wasn't working out the way I'd hoped it would, and I didn't understand why God wasn't giving me the "blessings" I thought I'd earned by being such a faithful Mormon.  But I was too terrified to seriously question the religion, lest God should smite me down.  I still believed in the religion, but mostly because I had never seriously investigated the possibility that it could be wrong.  

I decided to write an instructional book on dating.   This was partially because Mormon dating is very bizarre and quirky and has some real problems, and partially because I had failed to find a relationship that worked, even after going on many many dates.  I submitted the mostly-completed manuscript to the largest publisher of Mormon books, and it was rejected.  By this time I was working on a second bachelor's degree in engineering and was confused about why I was still failing with women and relationships.  At this point, the failure of my book, my failures with women, and the fact that I still had more schooling before I could start a career made me angry enough at God to consider the possibility that my religious beliefs were wrong.  So I finally had the permission I felt I needed to to seriously examine my religious beliefs.  I spent many hours examining atheism and Mormon beliefs.  I looked at Mormon history and doctrine, and saw all of the ugliness and problems that I had been ignoring.  I learned about all of the troubling history in Mormonism and went through all of the philosophical problems with belief in God.  I worked in an observatory one summer, and I used to lie out under the stars at night and think about death, and think about how the universe created me without God.    

I found that I liked my physics classes more than I liked my engineering classes, so I transferred to a different university to finish a physics degree.  Right about that time, I stopped going to Church.  I was pretty much a full atheist at that point.  I'd become convinced by philosophical arguments that there probably is no God, and I was also angry that I'd invested so much in a religion that had lied to me.  

I did go back to Mormonism for about 6 months in 2014 so that I could date a Mormon that I was really enamored with.  She didn't treat me very well, and the relationship was pretty rough, but I learned a great deal about myself from it. I didn't really come back to literal belief in Mormonism during that time.  It was more of an opportunity to try out metaphorical belief in religion. By the end of summer 2014 I had stopping going to church again, and I don't think I'll ever go back.  I'm an atheist.  I suppose that no one really knows if there's a God, but I think it's pretty unlikely.  

So there's my story.  I first became disaffected because I didn't feel that God had adequately rewarded me for my years of faithful service, and after I'd learned about the problems in Mormon history and doctrine, and read the philosophical arguments against the existence of God, I became an atheist.

[Minimalist]

I have great respect for people who can throw off the tribal indoctrination.

[Brian37]

Good and bad happen in life to everyone to greater or lesser degrees. Some have success, even the bad guys and never get punished their entire lives. But not getting what you want in life because of promise of reward for being loyal is bullshit. In reality there is no fictional man in white robe vs a guy in a red leotard with a pitchfork battling over the neurons in your brain.

Humans as a majority get sold the religions of their parents based on the societies they are born in. If you had been born in Iran you'd most likely be raised a Shiite Muslim. If you were born in Saudi Arabia you'd most likely be raised a Sunni Muslim. If you had been born in Israel you'd most likely be raised Jewish. If you had been raised in Tibet you'd most likely be raised Buddhist. If you had been born in a liberal black community and were black, in America you'd most likely be raised Black Southern Baptist. If you had been raised in Africa you'd be some form of Christianity or Islam.

While you cannot force the end of religion, for to try would make one a monster, it is still absurd to me to postulate it as a necessity knowing the age of our universe. Our planet has had 5 mass extinctions in it's 4 billion year history of only which 1% remains. Our sun is only one star in a galaxy of billions of stars. A galaxy so big it takes 1 ray of light 100,000 years at the speed of light to cross. And that is in a 13.8 billion year old universe full of 100s of billions of galaxies.

No, it isn't enough to simply reject any god claim merely because you had some rough times. That would only address the morality of the alleged cosmic security guard if one is going to claim it is all powerful and can protect you. It would only make the claimed attribute an absurd claim and by use of logic force one to conclude that such a being can only be called a deadbeat dick. But that is only if we are talking in context of "lets pretend".

I view any "omnimax-God" claim like I would any bad B movie or bad si fi book. You can postulate that naked assertion all you want, but don't ask me to like a concept like that. There is no way a parent in their right mind I'd consider sane that would allow, if they had the power to stop it 100% of the time, the same type of violence and death we see in reality every day. The reality is that if humans want to stop suffering then we are the only reality that can do it. There is no magic man in the sky. To assume such about our place in all of this, would be to consider myself a toy, or lab rat for it's amusement.

On average worldwide per year, 50 to 60 million humans die from everything. Babies die stillborn, kids die from famine and disease. Humans of all ages die from famine and disease, and natural disaster and accident and crime and war. There is no way I would hire such a selective deadbeat to run a bicycle factory. The bikes would end up with squid for spokes and the workers would murder each other over the competing assembly manuals.

Humans make up gods and it is that simple. It is a mere projection of their own desires, fears and insecurities.

[brewer]

Glad you saw the light. (sorry, bad pun)

So have you been excommunicated or shunned or what ever mormons do? Or are you still accepted, at least in some degree, by those that you are/were close to?

You don't know how hard it was to not type morons. Oh shit, I typed morons. Damn, I did it again.

[bennyboy]

When IQ > brainwashing.

[vorlon13]

Quite a few of the witnesses listed at the front of the Book of Mormon who attested to it were later excommunicated.

Think about that for a second.


As an analogy, would anyone who eye witnessed any of Jesus's miracles (had they actually occurred) ever have apostatized away from the faith ? And strayed so far Jesus would have then excommunicated them? Yet that is precisely what happened to many in Joseph Smith's original inner circle!

And then consider Joseph Smith, witnessing God Almighty and taking direct dictation from God's lips and repeating those same words from God to his congregation and publishing them in official church publications

-and then-


Joseph Smith revises (many times more than once) those very same revelations !!!

Who would do such a thing? What kind of God would pick such a man to be His revelator ??

And yet there exists clear, compelling evidence, almost all of it taken DIRECTLY from official LDS church publications that such changes were made to God's Words !!!

How could such an organization continue to function into the present era with such foundations without the full knowledge and connivance of the current administrators ?


Clearly, as certainly as the sun will rise tomorrow, there cannot be anyone in the upper hierarchy of the current Mormon Church who in any microscopic degree could be described as a "True Believer" that God Himself, choose among all the people of the world, one Joseph Smith, Jr. to found His One True Church.

[InquiringMind]

How could such an organization continue to function into the present era with such foundations without the full knowledge and connivance of the current administrators ?  

Never underestimate the power of people to believe weird things if it helps them to find a place to belong and eases their anxieties.  The Catholic Church has survived much more - wars, inquisitions, being totally wrong about the heliocentric solar system, priests molesting boys, etc.  People want to hope for immortality, and they want a community to belong to that gives them warm fuzzy feelings of security.  Religion gives them a sense of that, even in a way that secular communities still can't match.

[Bunburryist]

From your experience, do most Mormons spend much time actually thinking about the afterlife stuff, or is it kind of in the background.  My understanding is that at least some Mormons believe people can become gods.  Did you know many people who believed this?  Do you think they really believed it and took it seriously, or was it just something talked about in church?

[InquiringMind]

From your experience, do most Mormons spend much time actually thinking about the afterlife stuff, or is it kind of in the background.  My understanding is that at least some Mormons believe people can become gods.  Did you know many people who believed this?  Do you think they really believed it and took it seriously, or was it just something talked about in church?

Most Mormons definitely believe that we can become gods.  I certainly believed it when I was a Mormon.  I think that Mormonism has a somewhat beautiful and grandiose cosmology with a grand plan where we were originally created for the purpose of becoming gods.  A lot of Mormons use it as self-esteem when their life isn't going as well as they'd hoped, as in "Maybe I didn't get that scholarship, but I was created to be a god someday, and that makes me worth something."  

The focus of Mormonism has shifted in recent years, though.  There used to be a lot more talk about the deeper and more grandiose and frankly crazier doctrines, but now Mormon culture focuses more on the problems of everyday living, especially within family life.  There's a lot more focus on getting through tough times in your life now, whereas it used to be more end-of-the-world gloom and doom.

I don't mind people bashing Mormonism, because some of the beliefs are crazy for sure.  But there are positives about Mormonism as a faith tradition, even if the institutional Church should be burned to the ground.  I feel much more alone now that I'm out of the Church because the Mormon social support system is truly remarkable.  And I miss the sense of meaning and purpose that I had when I was Mormon.  I felt like I was part of something big and important.  Now that I'm an atheist, it feels like nothing really matters.  That criticism by religious people of atheism has turned out to be true.  I'm asking myself at this point - if religion gives people a sense of meaning in a meaningless world, even if that meaning is ultimately wrong, does it really matter that their sense of meaning was based on a lie?  If life is ultimately meaningless anyway, then what does it matter whether your sense is meaning is based on truth or fiction, as long as it helps you to get through life?

[Brian37]

From your experience, do most Mormons spend much time actually thinking about the afterlife stuff, or is it kind of in the background.  My understanding is that at least some Mormons believe people can become gods.  Did you know many people who believed this?  Do you think they really believed it and took it seriously, or was it just something talked about in church?

Most Mormons definitely believe that we can become gods.  I certainly believed it when I was a Mormon.  I think that Mormonism has a somewhat beautiful and grandiose cosmology with a grand plan where we were originally created for the purpose of becoming gods.  A lot of Mormons use it as self-esteem when their life isn't going as well as they'd hoped, as in "Maybe I didn't get that scholarship, but I was created to be a god someday, and that makes me worth something."  

The focus of Mormonism has shifted in recent years, though.  There used to be a lot more talk about the deeper and more grandiose and frankly crazier doctrines, but now Mormon culture focuses more on the problems of everyday living, especially within family life.  There's a lot more focus on getting through tough times in your life now, whereas it used to be more end-of-the-world gloom and doom.

I don't mind people bashing Mormonism, because some of the beliefs are crazy for sure.  But there are positives about Mormonism as a faith tradition, even if the institutional Church should be burned to the ground.  I feel much more alone now that I'm out of the Church because the Mormon social support system is truly remarkable.  And I miss the sense of meaning and purpose that I had when I was Mormon.  I felt like I was part of something big and important.  Now that I'm an atheist, it feels like nothing really matters.  That criticism by religious people of atheism has turned out to be true.  I'm asking myself at this point - if religion gives people a sense of meaning in a meaningless world, even if that meaning is ultimately wrong, does it really matter that their sense of meaning was based on a lie?  If life is ultimately meaningless anyway, then what does it matter whether your sense is meaning is based on truth or fiction, as long as it helps you to get through life?

Just because humans  are finite does not mean you have to view that time fatalistically or negatively. You go to a movie knowing it ends but you still go and enjoy it. Do you stress out over your non existence of your pre-life 5 million years ago? Do you stress out over the death of a cockroach? Life being finite, does not mean you can't give yourself meaning for time you have now.