Recently, I reconnected with a couple friends I knew through the LDS church. We've emailed back and forth a bit (if you're reading this, I haven't given up - I've just been delayed!).
They were quite dismayed to learn that I had left the LDS church since both families moved to various parts of the world. More so than the fact that I'd gotten divorced since I spoke them last.
Over the past month, I've thought from time to time about my religious and/or spiritual beliefs, but haven't been able to explain them very well to Jill, let alone anyone else. I also find it difficult to explain why I left the Mormon church, or for that matter, why I joined it in the first place. Additionally, as I browse through the long history of this blog, I come to a point where the blog was more of an outlet to vent my frustrations about the LDS church. I even recently remarked on how the blog was my sounding board for frustrations, but never mentioned that one of those frustrations was the realization that my religious beliefs weren't my own. In fact, I even ran another blog that was entirely devoted to my experience, until I'd moved on enough to want to stop devoting so much time to talking about it.
Being unable to explain myself without a long and drawn-out explanation, I found it easier to not talk about it. In fact, there are still some people at work who have no idea I ever was LDS, let alone the fact that I left it.
Today, I was browsing some links when I cam across an interview with Bart Ehrman, author of several books concerning the historical Christianity, and distinguished professor of religious studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In the interview, Ehrman relays some of the reasons he left Evangelical Christianity, and over time, became agnostic. Some of his reasoning is similar to my own for leaving the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. More so, some of his experiences and thoughts following the disaffection of his religious beliefs resonate with my own.
From the interview:
GROSS: And a sense of meaning on life - for life - that life is, just, you know, a kind of stepping stone toward an afterlife, a profound afterlife. So now that you no longer are a believer and therefore, you probably no longer believe in heaven and hell, has it changed your motivation for what you do on Earth? And has it changed your sense of what the meaning of your life is?
Prof. EHRMAN: That's a great question. You know, what happened with me with respect to heaven and hell - I guess is what happened with a lot of the Christian doctrines - is as a historian, I came to see where these ideas came from. And I realized that these ideas didn't descend from heaven one day soon after Jesus's death, that in fact, the doctrines of heaven and hell were human creations -that the humans came up these views of heaven and hell.
And in my book, I explain a little bit how that happened, that doctrines of heaven and hell developed within early Christianity; that they weren't actually the teachings of Jesus or of his earliest followers, but they were later developments, as were the doctrines of the trinity, for example, or the divinity of Christ.
But as to what effect that had on me personally - one of the reasons I was afraid to become an agnostic was - when I was still a Christian - is I thought that if I became an agnostic, I would have no grounds for ethical behavior. Id have no moral compass. And I thought that that would probably lead me to become a completely licentious reprobate.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Prof. EHRMAN: But as it turns out, that's completely wrong. I think I actually have more of a sense of the meaning of life now than I ever had as a believer. There are lots of reasons to behave ethically. I think many of us are simply hardwired to want to love our neighbor as ourselves, and to try and do unto others as wed want them to do unto us. And I think that since life is all there is - this life is it, that after we die, we no longer exist - that we should grab life for everything that it can give us. And we should live life to its fullest and should enjoy it as much as we can because this is not a dry run for something else. This is it. And we should help other people who are suffering now so they, too, can enjoy life. And so, in fact, my giving up on the sense of an afterlife has made this life for me much more meaningful.
Emphasis added.
For me, being LDS meant accepting someone else's interpretation of the meaning of life. The view that I was supplied while a member of the church was not that of gospel, but that of men who had thought long and hard about the issues of mankind. The meaning of life seemed to be one where I needed to do my best, endure the worst, and make it to the end. The problem is, the end has been near for about 2000 years now. Every religious figure since the time of Jesus - and even before - had proclaimed the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven within their lifetime. It's only in the last few decades that such rhetoric has been subdued (though not entirely eliminated). Men speak on behalf of God, claiming to be the mouthpiece of God, only to be wrong more often then they are right.
To me, the meaning of life was much simpler: be a part of this life, be a part of this world.
When you live a life where you're doing whatever it takes to obtain as much of the world as you can, you're simply harming it and yourself. Everything existed before you, and everything will exist after you. You're not so important to his lifetime that you're irreplaceable. But at the same time, you're such an integral part of the world that you are part of the sum of it's being. You and I - we are life itself. We are the world itself. Harm one of the others, and you only harm yourself. Allow others to be harmed, and it's almost as you were also harmed.
In the most basic format, I'm a true believer in the golden rule. I believe that it's hard-wired into our brains. It's instinctive. Killing and harming is fear, not life. Life is existing with the world and with everything in it. You wouldn't want to be killed, so you know killing is wrong. You don't want to be robbed of your existence and the things which define you, therefore you know that stealing is wrong.
I don't need to proclaim this as truth - if you search within yourself, you know it's truth. There's no faith required. You can feel it. It works in conjunction with the universe. It makes sense.
Being LDS, I denied truths I already had. I had to twist reality to fit someone else's explanation of the world. I denied my true self for way too long. Ultimately, with all the twisting of reality, something was going to break: either me, or my religion. Instead of losing myself, I lost the confines of that religion.
It's not to say that I don't believe in something else. I don't necessarily agree with Ehrman that there's nothing left for our entity beyond physical life. The universe doesn't work like that - everything is part of everything. Nothing is wasted, and as such, our sentience must be more than nothingness.
I have faith, of sorts, that there's more to the randomness of existence than being a wholesome part of a greater good. I just don't know. I can feel the truth of my existence within this world, and only guess as to the nature of the world I cannot see or feel. And as such, I won't bother you with what I think we really are. I could blog about that for a lifetime and still not find the words to adequately express myself.
In the end, I understand people like Professor Ehrman. What we know about religion is based on what someone else has told us. Faith is just a way of rationalizing the fact that reality is grossly different than what prophets preach. Embrace truth, and you find a whole new take on the world.
Leaving religion, for me, helped me realize my love for this world and everything in it. I don't devalue my experiences as a Mormon - I simply no longer view the world through those Mormon eyes, but through human ones instead.
.
digg_url = 'http://aneweric.com/index.php/2010/03/26/a-man-unbound?blog=1'; digg_url = digg_url.replace(/amp;/g, ''); digg_bgcolor = '#FFFFFF'; digg_skin = 'compact'; digg_title = 'A Man Unbound'; digg_bodytext = 'Recently, I reconnected with a couple friends I knew through the LDS church. We\'ve emailed back and forth a bit (if you\'re reading this, I haven\'t given up - I\'ve just been delayed!). They were quite dismayed to learn that I had left the LDS church since both families moved to various parts of the world. More so than the';
Original post blogged on b2evolution.
