I used to be devout Mormon, and a hardcore one at that. It was woven so deeply in my reality, that everything had spiritual significance for me.
A few years ago, I encountered history, documents, and truths about the religion that were never presented to me. Since then, I've slowly, painfully, removed myself from the religion, and removed the religion from me.
It's extremely painful to go from a space where everything is eternally, deifically, infinitely of value to "nothing actually matters".
I was diagnosed with PTSD this summer from the whole affair, as it was truly traumatic, and there were times that I almost didn't make it in the most literal sense.
But I've pieced together significance slowly and surely over the years. I've learned to slow down, love deeper, participate in the demanding process of finding and acknowledging beauty in this world, and have found spirituality in my own ways.
"The Anthropocene Reviewed" by John Green was a huge influence on my current flavor of spirituality (as it's constantly shifting). I'm sure the book means something different to everyone, but for me, it really broke down the need to work to build a habit of awe, and look for the things that stop you in your tracks. Observation and conscious efforts to find meaning and beauty are how I find my spirituality.
Maybe it’s just a matter if having a time perspective that is appropriate for what we can possibly get a handle on as humans. In the medium term, as opposed to the heat-death-of-the-universe long term, stuff definitely matters.
Also btw that phrase “nothing actually matters” is a little piece of propaganda planted by religion as a false caricature of non-religious thinking. You might consider that by buying into it, you are still allowing that religion to control your thinking.
You're right. And I mean that earnestly. In reality, what I should have said was "I was suddenly responsible for assigning value to all the aspects of my life. They suddenly had no inherent godly value, just the value that I, and those around me assigned it".
But still - ultimately nothing has value. With the sun eventually consuming the earth and the universe either collapsing or going cold, everything that could have value will eventually cease to exist.
Any number, multiplied by any other number, and multiplied an endless list of values, and eventually by zero at least once is still zero. The death of everything that ever has been influenced by anything I do will eventually be multiplied by zero. Therefore, ultimately, every piece of value, regardless of how significant, is ephemeral.
But I do understand the dangers of anti-religious religiousness. The exmormon community is full of people defining their lives as the exact opposite of what they were told, and in doing so are still defined by what they used to be, but are no longer.
When we are yanked (or freely leap, depending on your perspective) from our deeply religious world views it can be terrifying. I remember being incredibly nihilistic and depressed for at a few years.
I highly recommend diving into Philosophy. The questions about human meaning aren't exclusive to individual religions, or even to religiousness. They are universal, and very smart humans have been thinking very hard for a very long time about them.
I found that with enough hard thinking, guided by the hard questions and arguments of brilliant human minds, I have come to terms with the world and learned to love it. Philosophy and the philosophical process has shaped my mind to better understand and find tremendous joy in a "godless" (even the meaning of god changes as you explore deeply) and "meaningless" (even the meaning of meaning changes as you explore deeply) world.
I was raised with religion and then later realized it doesn't make sense, I went through a lot of the same feelings
You could still have subjective value even if there's no "sea level" from which to assign an absolute value. "Value" is a pretty abstract concept and something everyone probably has to define for themselves, but at least depending on your definition _everything_ could have value - maybe not to you, or maybe not right now, but in some sense it still "ultimately" does - and that's pretty cool too
I'd love to hear more on the history, documents, and truths you found. Would you consider emailing me (it is in my profile)? Summary and jumping off points super welcome.
I had a similar experience to OP. But the catalyst for me was the Mountain Meadows Massacre[1] which I was completely oblivious to until my mid-20s. It was quite a shock to learn that the church (which I thought was "God's perfect organization") had such an ugly past. The most disturbing part was how much effort the church put to hide and scrub events like this from its members and the rest of the world.
That's very sad, for sure... but churches are only a bunch of people, trying to get closer to God. No matter how well any of them do so, they all ultimately will be failing at things all the time - anger, frustration, hate, etc.
Churches are not full of perfect people - it's the exact opposite. It's people who know they're not perfect, and understanding that, are still trying to understand life, and God.
All I'm saying is don't write off God - religion, sure.... Go for it, but God is not religion.
If you've already decided that you want to leave the church and need something tangible to point to as your reason for leaving, CES letter is well suited for that.
But if you are honestly and earnestly evaluating church history and are using CES letter as a primary source... I would make sure to give some of the more popular rebuttals (such as [0]) a read as well as they rightly call out some serious problems with the letter.
I don't think that the motive, or authenticity of the author of the CES letter should matter too much, if you do due diligence and actually research the topics, which I have. However, to your point I'll add a few more decent sources.
My personal favorite is the "Letter to My wife"[0] - similar to the CES letter but a little softer and more historically based and less fueled by emotion.
There's also a good document[1] featuring many times where the church has lied on the record with at least 152 cases.
There's also the podcast: MormonStories[2].
One of the best episodes being where they interview Tom Phillips a Stake President who has been friends and associated with general authorities. [3]
> [Excerpt from synopsis]: Many LDS Church members are unaware that a secret LDS temple ordinance called the “Second Anointing” is regularly being administered by LDS Church apostles to elite friends, family, and leaders (mostly stake presidents, temple presidents, mission presidents, and LDS general authorities, along with their wives). In this ordinance (according to reports) an apostle washes the feet of the couple in the temple, anoints them on the head with oil such that their “calling and election is made sure” (guaranteeing them a place in the Celestial Kingdom), and then invites the couple to retreat to a room in the temple, wherein the wife washes her husband’s feet, and then lays her hands on his head to give him a special priesthood blessing.
> In June of 2012 I interviewed Tom Phillips, former LDS church stake president in London, England U.K. In this interview he discusses the following:
- His early experiences as a bishop and stake president in the LDS church, along with his friendship with LDS apostle Jeffrey R. Holland.
- His experience receiving a secret/sacred LDS church ordinance called the “Second Anointing,” wherein he > - was anointed by the hands of Elder M. Russel Ballard, and assured exaltation in there hereafter.
- His subsequent loss of faith over historical and scientific issues with the church.
- His direct correspondence with then friend, LDS apostle Jeffrey R. Holland, over these troubling issues.
- The pain, suffering, and ultimate divorce that he and his family experienced as a result of his faith crisis.
- Additional details about Tom’s story can be found here [http://mormonthink.com/tomphillips.htm].
For anyone who's ready to do the final act of leaving the church and completely remove your membership there's a free and easy online service that helps with that.[4]
- https://reddit.com/r/exmormon
- https://protectldschildren.org/read-the-stories-2/ - Stories of bishops abusing their power and asking sexuality based questions in interviews alone with children as young as 11. Many times this has in fact led to 'grooming' behavior in Bishops with pedophilia tendencies.
> I encountered history, documents, and truths about the religion that were never presented to me
I encountered something like this but wasn't able to find it since; I think it was called something like the "blue document" or the "blue papers"; basically a very intelligent Mormon came up with a document with all of his very reasonable but quite heretical questions, and it caused quite a stir. Would love to track it down again and bookmark it this time.
> "nothing actually matters"
Well... It does, IMHO, you just don't need religion to have that.
Disclaimer: I've donated to https://footstepsorg.org/ and one or more ex-mormon support orgs because I think the more extreme the beliefs, the more cult-like and harmful they are. My family's Catholic but I'm the "black sheep" and have been exploring maybe joining a unitarian church, just for the "community of free-thinkers" aspect
I am so sorry for your pain. My journey paralleled yours, just easier. Figuring out who/what I was after leaving the mormon church was internal chaos for years. I'm glad to hear you're at a better place now.
You sound exactly like me... it definitely was rough, though I wasn't as active in the end (got tired of right-wing viewpoints from the pulpit, so started staying home more and more)...
In many ways my shelf-breaking liberated me, in others it crushed pieces of me. In the end I'm probably more spiritual, if agnostic (though I do believe the universe could have some sort of universal consciousness, or be a simulation, or something along those lines and an afterlife is possible -- we are energy after all and perhaps whatever consciousness is - gets another purpose after it leaves...but none of the requires a deity, and I'm pretty sure all deities worshipped are man made, and even if there really were a GOD we're too insignificant to matter much to him, we're one tiny planet in a universe with billions of galaxies, probably billions of civilizations spanning eons, etc...
)
I'm often inspired by the beauty in the universe, or the things my children do, etc... or just humanity. Not having church context surrounding those things has made them even more enjoyable.
A few years ago, I encountered history, documents, and truths about the religion that were never presented to me. Since then, I've slowly, painfully, removed myself from the religion, and removed the religion from me.
It's extremely painful to go from a space where everything is eternally, deifically, infinitely of value to "nothing actually matters".
I was diagnosed with PTSD this summer from the whole affair, as it was truly traumatic, and there were times that I almost didn't make it in the most literal sense.
But I've pieced together significance slowly and surely over the years. I've learned to slow down, love deeper, participate in the demanding process of finding and acknowledging beauty in this world, and have found spirituality in my own ways.
"The Anthropocene Reviewed" by John Green was a huge influence on my current flavor of spirituality (as it's constantly shifting). I'm sure the book means something different to everyone, but for me, it really broke down the need to work to build a habit of awe, and look for the things that stop you in your tracks. Observation and conscious efforts to find meaning and beauty are how I find my spirituality.