The Mormon Temple in Salt Lake City - just one of the many temples built to do who knows what.Long-time readers of the blog are no doubt aware of my rants about the Mormon church. I blogged about it all through the month of December (a fitting month for an anti-religious rant). Well, these posts led some people to ask me why I personally left the church. Sure I've provided plenty of fodder for any logical person to make an assumption, but what led me to leave the church? Well here we go.
First of all, you need to understand that my family was never all that into it. Our religiousness seemed to phases in and out every couple of years. I think people in the church were able to guilt my parents every once in awhile. Whatever the reason, our church attendance was sparse. My parents converted to Mormonism sometime before I can remember, but the Mormon church is the only one I ever remember attending with any regularity.
For my family, attending the Mormon church meant a 20 minute drive to Freeport (another washed-up Pennsylvania town) every Sunday for a three-hour church service. The first hour of church (for us kids anyway) always consisted of 2 hours of Sunday school (divided into 2 one-hour segments) and then 1 hour of the actual service. I think my first complaints were ones of pure laziness. "Mooommm, why do we have to go all the way to Freeport when everyone else on the block goes to the church down the street?" "Moooommm, why is church so looooong! Dana says her church only lasts for an hour!" Damn Catholics and their brevity. Of course, Dana had to go to a Catholic elementary school, so she got hers.
Anyway, Mormon church is just as boring as any other Christian church session as far as I can tell, so the next great leap away from the church came during my teenage years. Among Mormon types, when you enter the 9th grade, you have to take Seminary - what you normal folks would call "bible study." This lasts four years. For the first two years, I had to go down to the church every Wednesday evening for a class. But this nice arrangement didn't last long. The last two years involved my brother and I going to another guy's house every morning before school for an hour-long lesson. That was every weekday morning at 6am.
And my teachers wondered why I slept in class.
And of course, the Sunday school classes continued. All of this had its desired effect - I got to read the Old Testament, the New Testament, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price very closely (the last two being other fun Mormon texts). I don't think the ultimate outcome was exactly what they wanted. You see, my textual analytic skills were already developing, and I got to be a very curious and inquisitive little Mormon teen. Way before I knew about the strange and peculiar stories of the church, I was asking a lot of questions about their standard stuff.
The Mormon missionaries really bothered me. In the first place, I didn't want to go. I knew that they sent you places based on your skills. I'd been spending my high school years learning Spanish, and I didn't want to end up in some mud-farming village in the Amazon. But more importantly, the logic made no sense to me. According to Mormon doctrine, if anyone lives on this Earth and doesn't hear about Mormonism, they go to the lowest-level of Heaven, which is an okay place, but it's not great. If they hear about Mormonism and accept it, they get to go to the highest level of Heaven. But if they accept Mormonism and later reject it, they go straight to Hell (with the burning and the torture and the whole nine yards). So this got me asking questions.
Me: What happens to people who never hear about Mormonism on Earth?
Teacher: They will have the opportunity to hear an accept the Gospel in the Celestial Kingdom (that's Mormon-speak for Heaven - I love the lingo).
Me: Wouldn't people be better off not hearing about it all?
Teacher: But their lives will be fuller with the spirit of Jesus Christ.
Me: But right now they're going to be okay. If the missionaries show up, they're essentially gambling with their souls.
Teacher: Well, the same thing will happen in heaven anyway.
Me: But they'll already be dead!! What idiot is going to turn down Jesus if he comes down and tells you that he exists?
Teacher: But wouldn't you rather live your life now knowing Jesus?
These conversations would go in circles like that for awhile until the teacher would get exasperated and say "Well, that's what the Book of Mormon says to do!" And after awhile, this just got to me. These people didn't have a clue. The more I learned, the more I was convinced that the church made no sense. There were too many loopholes and too many logical fallacies.
I think my family ultimately came to the same conclusion. I think our entire family had been on the outs with the church for a long time. For one thing, we were never allowed to go to the inner parts of the Temple. We weren't deemed worthy enough. I actually went there once. I got to see some of it, but since I wasn't a super Mormon, I couldn't go to the inner sanctum (or whatever they call it). Given how incredibly dull and lifeless most Mormon functions seem to be, it's probably not as exciting as a lot of people think.
Though if they have giant orgies and worship a man-snake, I'll feel pretty cheated that I didn't get to check that shit out.
Stay tuned for the exciting part six - my life after the Mormon church (the anticipation is killing you, I'm sure.)
Former Mormons - Critically examining bogus doctrine (much to the consternation of religious figures) since 1831.
First of all, you need to understand that my family was never all that into it. Our religiousness seemed to phases in and out every couple of years. I think people in the church were able to guilt my parents every once in awhile. Whatever the reason, our church attendance was sparse. My parents converted to Mormonism sometime before I can remember, but the Mormon church is the only one I ever remember attending with any regularity.
For my family, attending the Mormon church meant a 20 minute drive to Freeport (another washed-up Pennsylvania town) every Sunday for a three-hour church service. The first hour of church (for us kids anyway) always consisted of 2 hours of Sunday school (divided into 2 one-hour segments) and then 1 hour of the actual service. I think my first complaints were ones of pure laziness. "Mooommm, why do we have to go all the way to Freeport when everyone else on the block goes to the church down the street?" "Moooommm, why is church so looooong! Dana says her church only lasts for an hour!" Damn Catholics and their brevity. Of course, Dana had to go to a Catholic elementary school, so she got hers.
Anyway, Mormon church is just as boring as any other Christian church session as far as I can tell, so the next great leap away from the church came during my teenage years. Among Mormon types, when you enter the 9th grade, you have to take Seminary - what you normal folks would call "bible study." This lasts four years. For the first two years, I had to go down to the church every Wednesday evening for a class. But this nice arrangement didn't last long. The last two years involved my brother and I going to another guy's house every morning before school for an hour-long lesson. That was every weekday morning at 6am.
And my teachers wondered why I slept in class.
And of course, the Sunday school classes continued. All of this had its desired effect - I got to read the Old Testament, the New Testament, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price very closely (the last two being other fun Mormon texts). I don't think the ultimate outcome was exactly what they wanted. You see, my textual analytic skills were already developing, and I got to be a very curious and inquisitive little Mormon teen. Way before I knew about the strange and peculiar stories of the church, I was asking a lot of questions about their standard stuff.
The Mormon missionaries really bothered me. In the first place, I didn't want to go. I knew that they sent you places based on your skills. I'd been spending my high school years learning Spanish, and I didn't want to end up in some mud-farming village in the Amazon. But more importantly, the logic made no sense to me. According to Mormon doctrine, if anyone lives on this Earth and doesn't hear about Mormonism, they go to the lowest-level of Heaven, which is an okay place, but it's not great. If they hear about Mormonism and accept it, they get to go to the highest level of Heaven. But if they accept Mormonism and later reject it, they go straight to Hell (with the burning and the torture and the whole nine yards). So this got me asking questions.
Me: What happens to people who never hear about Mormonism on Earth?
Teacher: They will have the opportunity to hear an accept the Gospel in the Celestial Kingdom (that's Mormon-speak for Heaven - I love the lingo).
Me: Wouldn't people be better off not hearing about it all?
Teacher: But their lives will be fuller with the spirit of Jesus Christ.
Me: But right now they're going to be okay. If the missionaries show up, they're essentially gambling with their souls.
Teacher: Well, the same thing will happen in heaven anyway.
Me: But they'll already be dead!! What idiot is going to turn down Jesus if he comes down and tells you that he exists?
Teacher: But wouldn't you rather live your life now knowing Jesus?
These conversations would go in circles like that for awhile until the teacher would get exasperated and say "Well, that's what the Book of Mormon says to do!" And after awhile, this just got to me. These people didn't have a clue. The more I learned, the more I was convinced that the church made no sense. There were too many loopholes and too many logical fallacies.
I think my family ultimately came to the same conclusion. I think our entire family had been on the outs with the church for a long time. For one thing, we were never allowed to go to the inner parts of the Temple. We weren't deemed worthy enough. I actually went there once. I got to see some of it, but since I wasn't a super Mormon, I couldn't go to the inner sanctum (or whatever they call it). Given how incredibly dull and lifeless most Mormon functions seem to be, it's probably not as exciting as a lot of people think.
Though if they have giant orgies and worship a man-snake, I'll feel pretty cheated that I didn't get to check that shit out.
Stay tuned for the exciting part six - my life after the Mormon church (the anticipation is killing you, I'm sure.)
Former Mormons - Critically examining bogus doctrine (much to the consternation of religious figures) since 1831.
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