Geisha wrote: Stasi wrote: Well, just so you know where I'm coming from, I'm an ex-Mormon, now Agnostic. I hold no hostility towards the LDS faith, or really any other religion, for that matter, as long as its expression is positive.
Sooo, seeing as how you have a we'll tempered belief, I'm not interested in challenging it further. That isn't to say we won't have our disagreements, both theological and secular.
I would REALLY like to know:
what made you leave the mormon religion? I have a really good friend who's mormon and when I visited her for a weekend, she told me ALL about and tried to convert me into it. I'm a bit skeptical about the religion since there are a plethora of things that clash with what I believe in (catholicism) and I am perfectly comfortable and happy in what I'm in now.... but I haven't heard an outsider's opinion of it and have heard only the "good" things about it. They claim a lot of things (extra prophets and books) that I have NEVER once heard about in my life.... until I met this friend of mine. One of the questions that bothers me about that religion is: if they have all this important information that is "vital" to humankind, then why doesn't the majority of the rest of the world know about it or even consider it? Why are they so "exclusive?" Why did they have to start from scratch and make people believe in their religion rather than unite all the religions?
Anyways... those are my "questions" about it.... and I would certainly love to hear a more neutral opinion about it, rather than one that is so faithfully/emotionally fuelled....
Sorry I haven't replied sooner, I've just now read this post. First, I'll answer the question as to what made me leave the Mormon church.
Hmmm, this is very complex. As I got older, I had trouble with prayer and the general idea of faith. I would pray to God to help me have stronger, more firm faith in His existence. I would also pray to God to help me be strong and make friends more easily. See, my dad was in the Army and in three year's time, I went to about 5 different schools. This time period was when started becoming a bit antisocial, right, because what good is it to make friends and get emotionally involved with someone if you're just going to move soon after? And when I'd tried to write letters and whatnot, at some point I stopped hearing from anyone. This began to give me the terrible impression that most relationships are disposable. That you can get along with, hang out, and really like someone but as soon as you're apart for any length of time, their existence becomes more and more inconsequential. Anyway, I never felt that my prayers were answered.
And I know that religious folks would say that God doesn't always answer a prayer in a readily apparent manner and only will allow what follows His will.
Which leads to another issue I began to face: accepting the exclusive 'truth' of any single belief system over another. In church, people would say you know the true church when you feel a 'burning in your bosom'. But everyone from pagans, to Catholics, to Fundies, to Buddhists, etc. can feel a strong feeling that what they believe is very real and very true. And because God doesn't manifest Himself in any manner that one could consider to be empirical proof, why should I believe in one over another. I'd prayed to God to know the truth and I never felt anything.
Some things I like about the Mormon church:
1. This life isn't the only form of existence in which a person can find salvation. The Church believes that those who were never given a fair chance to accept or deny the truth of the religion will have the opportunity after they die. This is one HUGE plus, in my opinion, because other Christian religions believe that you have to be baptized and you have to accept Christ as your savior in order to find salvation, whether or not you're some decent, honest person who, say, lived in some remote part of the world and never even heard of Christ. According to other Christian denominations, such a person, who never even had a chance to accept Christ as their savior is damned to hell. Now, this belief does not give a member of the church free reign to do whatever they want, as if they'd have a chance to truly convert post temporal death. For those who have the truth and good access to it, they are held to a higher standard.
2. Discipline and temperance in what you consume. The 'Word of Wisdom' dictates restraint from using certain substances, such as alcohol and tobacco and has grown to include other things not explicitly mentioned like drugs (as in the abuse of).
3. Chastity. I am no prude, and I have no problem with the discussion of sexuality, however, where some people think the notion of refraining from premarital sex is old fashioned, I think it has quite the valid place in modern society. While I don't feel that it is necessarily wrong to have sex out of wedlock, I do think that too many people have sex with others where the emotional complexity and issues that can arise when there's little meaning behind it. My beliefs on the subject are more about respecting other people, not viewing them solely as a vehicle to experiencing some pleasure, and avoiding behavior that can become extremely complex, emotionally, when there really isn't any interest in the person in a deeper, more meaningful sense. I had asked church leadership about whether or not the church frowns on the use of birth control and each time I asked, the answer was that a family should only have as much children as they can reasonably take care of. Therefore, to plan out child-rearing most responsibly, birth control is acceptable. However, birth control is not acceptible if the married couple uses it with the intent to NEVER have children. The church believes that the central purpose of the family is to have children. And no, the church does not look down on infertile couples, but makes it relatively easy to find children to adopt.
I've heard people attack the idea of chastity as being oppressive and whatnot, but I don't see it as such. I've also heard people ask why premarital sex is so bad in the eyes of the devoutly religious (not just Mormon, Christian, or Muslim). You have to think about it from the religious perspective. First off, sexual intercourse is the act by which children are born, or as the religious believe, as soul is united with a body. Naturally, such a thing will be looked down on as it become more or less a commodity that is used more for a pasttime than either an effort to have children or bond with someone you really love.
4. Just in my personal experience, the bishops I've had have always been pretty level-headed and practical. Even now, when I think about what they've said and done, I can't view any of them as having been radical, fundamentalist, or anything else that defines a non-pragmatic, narrow-sighted type of mentality.
5. The church has its own welfare system that uses tithes to provide disaster relief, as well as more conventional personal welfare when some member and/or their family has hit really hard times. As any welfare system, it gets abused by some but is, in my opinion, a demonstration of care for the members (and others in the case of disaster relief).
6. The church hierarchy, including bishops, stake presidents, etc. aren't paid for the time they spend toward their responsibilities. This is a good thing, in my opinion, because the people in those positions do what they do because they believe in it and want to. There are exceptions, of course. Others in the upper echelons do get paid, but only because their duties are more full-time or more.
Some things I don't like about the Mormon church:
1. The tendancy for people to accept everything the prophet says as de facto law. The prophets have said not to watch R-rated movies. Well, there are pleny of R-rated movies that have far less corruptive material in them than other PG-13 films. My sister refuses to watch R-rated movies, including such harmless ones as '13th Warrior'. There's hardly anything in it about sex, and what there is is so lightly touched that it's hardly worth mentioning. Far as the violence goes, I am a big believer that the context in which violence in film falls has a great deal of impact on how it may be perceived by an impressionable audience. It's not careless, heartless brutality, rather people defending their homes and families against bloodthirsty marauders.
2. Cliquishness. Go to a family ward and amongst the youth, if you pay attention, you may notice something of an 'aristocracy' or upper class. I don't mean this in money terms, rather popularity, credibility, and 'coolness' terms. As the outsider more often than not growing up, I had a hard time really enjoying it. The best time I had was in Alaska. They were the most open and interesting members I'd ever known.
3. Inconsistency and contradictions. I really don't know if this is worth listing since EVERY belief system or ideology has varying degrees of adherence. Nonetheless....
4. The typical problems associated with second coming doomsayers.
I'm going to leave it at that right now. I need to get to bed. Ask and I'll expand. Or ask me about other things about the religion and I'll try and answer. But anyway, I'm an agnostic and see no religion in my future.
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