Article: Confessions of an Ex-Mormon

[lambdacoug]

Of the people in the 25 - 60 age bracket (CUF peers), a very large portion (70%?) of Utah is Mormon or was Mormon at one point in their lives. Yet on any given Sunday, a much smaller portion (30%?) of the state attends an LDS church.

This leaves you with let's say 300K adults in Utah that were once Mormon and are not attending church. Of those maybe half are just wishy washy inactives who still strongly relate to Mormonism and maybe attend church once a month or at least a few times a year.

Of the remaining 150K, how many do you think are fairly represented by the bitter, angry internet exmo? I'm going to say no more than 20%. That number might be high.

IMO, there is a vast difference between those that just don't attend and those that actively leave, and which I would classify as exmo/postmo. If you are including people that haven't been to church in forever and slowly faded away, then I agree that I know far more of these people, and they are not angry, bitter, etc... However, that isn't the group I think of when I think of exmormon.

[SeattleUte]

But he isn't bitter!

Actually, my piece wasn't bitter. I'd say it was more like strutting. You think I'm not proud of every detail of my mo and exmo past?

[UtahDan]

Would it have been better if I preceded it with a disclaimer that I honestly had no intention of mocking the pussies of this world?

File my comments to you away under:

[Goatnapper'96]

Here is the problem I have with what you are saying old pal, you are taking a very common, normal, human reaction that I dare say most people have when they leave and sort of looking down your nose at it as though these people are weak somehow. That is just a slightly softer version of people leave because they are weak, want to sin, etc., the gist of it being to put the speaker on a higher plane somehow. I have a lot of respect for people who have been on this road for a while and for people who have walked up to the edge and had to make tough choices about what direction they will go, thought about what they might have to give up, and made a choice to stay in. That takes some brass and comes at a cost.

When someone in that camp says "here is a better way to get at peace" I perk up and listen. Because as Bob Dylan put it, the wheel is still in spin for me. But a lot of the confident assertions that I hear on this board about what people think they would do or what others ought to do are made from a place of profound ignorance, even if it is sincere and well intended. If anyone wants to say to me "when you do X, I feel Y and that is something you ought think about" I should listen because in life each of us experience things in a way valid to us. We should respect that in each other (the best example of this I know of is the holocaust victim proxy work where the church has essentially said, we're not trying to offend you but the fact you are offended is sufficient reason for us to stop). But when someone who has never been in the neighborhood of walking in my shoes says "here's what I'd do, here's what you should do" and the implication is they would do it better....like I say, that is profoundly ignorant.

On a serious note I don't think I meant to say those who quit the church want to sin. I do believe there are those who just don't want the demands of the lifestyle. For example I think you and I really want to look like Arnold and we both know how to get there but the reality is that we are unwilling to do what it takes to get there - not to mention our womenfolk won't stand for the shortcomings that come as a result of following the Jason Buck St Anthony Idaho pipe moving diet. It ain't my domain to conclude if what they do is a sin but I do believe some want what mormonism offers but are unwilling to pay that price. It is a cost-benefit analysis from this perspective. How others interpret that is not something I can control and don't really care much about.

Now as for the comment I made above about those that whine about the mormon church having such a profoundly negative impact on their life, I still tend to believe that many will continue to look for other such bogeymen who are to blame for their problems.

[Jacob]

I'm not making that claim that all people are angry. Let's be clear on that. I am claiming that most people go through a period where they are hurt or upset or angry or some or all of those and they have to work through that. Most people who leave also have some criticism or they wouldn't be leaving. Maybe what this guy is typical of is the convert who is in for a while then drifts off consequence free. So to the extent people are saying, there is a large group who has no negative feelings who just left because it cost them nothing...that makes sense to me. That is probably north of 80% of the people on the rolls on the church in south America. But to then extrapolate that to people who are lifers and call the lifers outliers because of their reaction is not a fair comparison.

I mean, do you know a lot of exmormons who left the church, upsetting their families, damaging their relationships often including their marriages who are serene and philosophical and complimentary of the church? I would love to know how that is achieved without the aid of narcotics.

I don't necessarily believe that your claim in the bolded portion is correct. I suspect most just fade away.

As to your last paragraph, I can't say I know a lot of such non-believing mormons. This is because, in my experience, most mormons who leave the church don't "upset their families and damage their relationships" at least not to the extent that you seem to believe. I've seen people who have left the church and damaged relationships at the same time, but that was typically a result of other actions. I've no doubt that some, even many, people struggle with leaving and relationships are damaged only because of the separation with the church, I just don't believe it is as typical as you claim. And you have claimed that it is the norm.

[Goatnapper'96]

Actually, my piece wasn't bitter. I'd say it was more like strutting. You think I'm not proud of every detail of my mo and exmo past?

I found it funny. It reminded me of how I would respond to some wanker complaining after his first El Jefe suspension back in my late Cougarboard days.

[Jeff Lebowski]

He never said he knew the dogma, the magic world view, was true. On the contrary; he was very dismissive of it. Actually, he's lamenting he doesn't have a fortitude to be your plain vanilla unbelieving progressive Mormon. He's standing on its head my refrain that progmos are weak.

He's a writer in need of an angle. That's all. It's hard to keep saying something new. Just look at all the garbage in magazine and newspaper op-eds.

He's also a fiction writer. I've noticed that even among the most brilliant or successful many are dopes outside their craft, certainly not exceptional. Just look at Orson Scott Card.

Careful. Your jealousy is showing again.

[UtahDan]

I don't necessarily believe that your claim in the bolded portion is correct. I suspect most just fade away.

As to your last paragraph, I can't say I know a lot of such non-believing mormons. This is because, in my experience, most mormons who leave the church don't "upset their families and damage their relationships" at least not to the extent that you seem to believe.

What experiences are those? My experiences are reading hundreds if not thousands of stories of people breaking the news to their families and things unfolding pretty predictably within a range. Not much "oh, interesting...what is for dinner." These are things that both the disaffected and the family must work through. You are telling me that most people don't experience disaffection this way. What evidence are you relying on? Does it really make sense to you that when something like that is announced that there will not be any repercussions within a family of lifers?

[Green Monstah]

Primarily, how many people in religious organizations have a dogmatic concern about "doctrine?" Honestly? Most like the community and identify with some form of the results of the ideal lifestyle the community encourages and facilitates. That is all this guy did. He said that he loved the endstate as he defined it, but then and now he openly admits his unwillingness to give himself to it. The reason for that unwillingness has nothing to do with the doctrine or history that are categorized as strange/absurd by our modern world but by the fact that he just doesn't want to live the lifestyle even though he lusts after the endstate.

It is my totally unscientific opinion that there are many ex-mos in this world like him. I personally think it unhealthy to dwell upon the issue but in my opinion/experience there are people who quit the mo church just because of how demanding the perceive it to be.

Did you miss the page and a half where he determined he simply couldn't believe that Adam and Eve lived in Missori (and how that was the watershed moment re: the Church?)

I think the social aspect of any church is a big reason that people participate, but for a significant minority (may 35% of people who are "active" in their churches) have a deep committment to the doctrines.

[Goatnapper'96]

Did you miss the page and a half where he determined he simply couldn't believe that Adam and Eve lived in Missori (and how that was the watershed moment re: the Church?)

I think the social aspect of any church is a big reason that people participate, but for a significant minority (may 35% of people who are "active" in their churches) have a deep committment to the doctrines.

I read that but I also recall him being clear that that was not the reason he left. He left because he just didn't want the demands that come along with it. Saying that I do include in those demands the cognitive dissonance and emotional trauma caused by the desire for intellectual integrity amongst those who do not believe in either the doctrine of historical claims of the LDS Church.

[lambdacoug]

Did you miss the page and a half where he determined he simply couldn't believe that Adam and Eve lived in Missori (and how that was the watershed moment re: the Church?)

I think the social aspect of any church is a big reason that people participate, but for a significant minority (may 35% of people who are "active" in their churches) have a deep committment to the doctrines.

Missouri.

[SeattleUte]

I think FMCoug would say you have a pioneer ancestor superiority complex. Just because his great-great-great grandparents didn't cross the plains doesn't mean he's not a legit Mormon.

Actually, I think that to a large extent it's the story of the Mormon experience of Joseph Smith's martyrdom and the murders of other innocent Mormons, the terrible ordeal of the trek west, the founding of the intermountain west amid severe deprivations and weather conditions, Indians, fur trappers, etc., and the unique modern culture has sprung from that dire beginning that explains Mormonism's resiliancy against the buffeting of modernism, and its continued draw to many exmos. This is why the latest LDS Church press release, about Church finances, was effective, as it drew on that actually pretty glorious history. This is the truly resonant and enduring founding myth of Mormonism, not that magpie's nest the Book of Mormon.

For those of us whose ancestors were there all along, and therefore this is somewhat of a shared experience, all the more so. I think it enhances the intensity of the mo and exmo experience. (I should caveat that with that I don't really know what motivates a convert because I can't get inside their heads. The LDS convert experience is not mine.) When I was a kid those old stories were very much a part of my personal Mormon experience. My maternal grandmother was an amateur hagiographer and historian, obsessively self-publishing stories of our ancestors and distributing them to us kids, and telling the tales orally around campfires at my granddad's ranch bordering Zion's Park. No offense, but it's easy to see how a nuveau Mormon can feel a little out of place and an ousider against that context.

[Jacob]

What experiences are those? My experiences are reading hundreds if not thousands of stories of people breaking the news to their families and things unfolding pretty predictably within a range. Not much "oh, interesting...what is for dinner." These are things that both the disaffected and the family must work through. You are telling me that most people don't experience disaffection this way. What evidence are you relying on? Does it really make sense to you that when something like that is announced that there will not be any repercussions within a family of lifers?

I'd expect there to be hurt feelings, at least at first. But I expect most "lifers," as you say, to continue to treat the disaffected as the loved family member they have always been, assuming that the disaffected doesn't become a jerk about it.

[Green Monstah]

I'm curious, how old are they? I think the idea that people like me interact with a self selecting group is a fair point. On the other hand, I also think that the whole phenomenon of support communities or places to talk about experiences is relatively new. At very least it is much, much larger than it has ever been and has moved from solely being the extremely angry exmo boards that were the only game in town for a while to a lot bigger variety and a lot more people (still come back to the fact that probably the most critical podcast out there has 100K downloads monthly, give or take, to refute the idea that the critical crowd is actually quite small. All my anecdotal experience is that if anything it is much larger than who we see interacting directly).

I think part of this may be that there is a silent group of people who just slip away and never feel the need to commiserate about. But I am also suspecting that there are a lot of people out there who are perceived to be in that group who simply had no opportunity to connect with anyone else when their disaffection occurred. So in some ways their experience might not be comparable to someone who has left in the last few years, because given the option to commiserate, talk, and yes bitch, they would have done it.

Mom was pre-internet.

Sister #1 left in 2000. Stumbled on RfM in its early days, but didn't find any value in it. Was U-U for a while, but doesn't really participate in any religious activity anymore.

Sister #2 left in 2003. Goes to a Baptist church occassionally.

Sister #3 left in 2007. Agnostic.

[lambdacoug]

I'd expect there to be hurt feelings, at least at first. But I expect most "lifers," as you say, to continue to treat the disaffected as the loved family member they have always been, assuming that the disaffected doesn't become a jerk about it.

That will depend on the family. In general, the threshold of what a mormon considers "being a jerk" and what an exmo in the midst of their angst (ie, when they're likely to confront parents) considers "being a jerk" are vastly different. I didn't think I was being a jerk when I spoke to my parents, but they did, to the tune of modifying their will. Therein lies the problem, IMO, mormonism is assimliated into many mormons' lives to the point that voicing any dissent and discontent is perceived as a personal affront. This is all fueled by talks in GC that people have to crawl over, under or around the BoM to leave, among others.