I was raised as a member of Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (commonly called Mormons, though they don't necessarily prefer that term). All along the way I had doubts, even as I was selected for youth leadership roles, I had doubts. People would describe the feeling that one would get when they supposedly communed with the divine. I never felt this feeling.
Never.
Not for a lack of trying, either. So for me, it became a problem with several answers:
- The divine didn't want to commune with me
- I was doing something wrong (that I was aware or unaware of)
- The divine wasn't communing with these people (or anyone), they have just deluded themselves in thinking they were
- There is no divine
The problem is, trying to think about religion in a logical fashion doesn't particularly work. At some point there will be a drastic leap over things that would normally discount, to be in that believer category. For reason 1 & 2, it didn't really follow that even with "sins" that were committed, it didn't follow that for the entire course of my youth that this would be the case. I could see how some "sins" this would follow, but my entire childhood?
For 3, there are clear evidence that there are mass delusions related to many things. These can exist in the realm of the religious or even in the secular world. The desire to want to belong and have that "special feeling" could really lead people to force themselves to believe that it has happened. Since there is no external confirmation that anything has happened, it is easy to convince oneself that it does, if they really want it to.
For 4, it is near impossible to prove the negative. Though when one thinks about the supposed properties of the mainstream divine, they seem to logically contradict each other. Though some could state that the divine doesn't have to be limited by logic, but if they don't, then every thing that exists is arbitrary and meaningless (there are many that have argued this).
As soon as I was no longer forced to go, I didn't. I didn't attend when I was at college, but would attend when I went home, again, due to force.
Occasionally I would vaguely join in activities or etc for the purpose of filling a social void (even though I didn't believe, having people that you were raised in a similar fashion around did provide some sort of comfort). When the need was met, the desire to do anything with that group of people was entirely removed.
The final straw for me, was when I was confirmed in my belief that either there is no divine or the divine cares little in the affairs of the smart monkeys that we are. I as invited to be an activity leader for the singles ward. At this point there were several parts of the word of wisdom that I may have been in clear violation, so to offer a role, was clearly an action not because I was worthy, but to provide me a place of responsibility to bring me back in. There are many many roles in the LDS church. These roles give people a purpose, and when people have a purpose they are less likely to feel left out and probably more likely to feel as if they have a responsibility to complete these tasks.
At that time I completely cut ties. No longer would I go to movies with this group of people or go to eat or etc.
As my opinions on life and how the world should work, kept being formed, I will not deny that many of these could be drawn back to what I saw as the positives of the LDS faith, however, many mormons don't particularly practice or espouse these beliefs and fall more into the political expectations of the more conservative parts of their faith.
As time passed, the LDS leadership took positions that had become more and more offensive to me as time passed. These things usually followed forcing their beliefs into public law (against secular same sex partnerships). It wasn't just LDS leaders that fall into this area, but many people support these position to bring about their religions' version of a Theocracy in the United States.
For me, since we live in a country which should have a clear division of the secular and the divine, if your religion tells you to life should be like X, you then need to work back your logic to prove that X is needed without any reference to the divine. So if you cannot state that X should exist without relying on RSS (Religion Says So), then guess what? It shouldn't apply to other people. You can place limitations on your own behavior, but to place the expectations on others, you need more then just your religion.
At this point LDS leadership just placed a straight up dick move on people that want to believe and be active, but feel as if the LDS church is behind in the understanding in what the divine desires. One could look back on the interpretation of the divine by LDS leaders in relation to black people and how it really was a very slow response to the societal pressure.
Up until this point I've been more then happy to wait until I don't have to have the particular discussion with my father (like after he passed away), but it's been my intention to officially leave for more then a decade.
For me, what really drove this final, official cut off, was my sister. She has her own set of reasons and ideas, but frankly, if someone is going to have to take familial flack over this, I'd rather it be me, then her. Frankly at this point, I'm used to it. I already have a fairly distant relationship with large segments of my family, so adding another factor, is not something I have concern over.
Below is the text of my letter (edited to remove some personal details), that was signed, notarized and sent via certified mail:
