Leaving The Church, Part 4
My six-month search for an answer from God that the Mormon Church was true culminated in divine silence.
Although I was sure after my hours-long quest in the temple that it was false, I had not actually been expecting that conclusion. It came as a surprise I wasn’t ready for.
So the grand finale of that six-month search became the beginning of another six months of continued church involvement, a smidgen of hope for the slightest reason to think I was wrong, along with the question of where the truth was, if not in the Mormon Church.
I wondered which Christian religion was closest to truth. Would I find one I could be comfortable in?
And then the new year came around and the adult Sunday School class began studying the Old Testament.
Our discussion and reading of the great and wacky O.T. was probably what planted the idea that it was all wrong: the Mormon Church, Christianity, the entire Bible, and God in general (that changing god who evolved from one personality to the next depending on the culture and popular understanding).
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
But let me back up a bit. If you’ve ever studied the Old Testament with Mormons then you know that the introduction of every O.T. class is not actually on that particular book of scripture, but on one of the Mormon scriptures, The Pearl Of Great Price.
Part of The Pearl Of Great Price is, according to Joseph Smith, a “complete” version of certain scripture that supposedly went missing from the first five books of the O.T.
Another part of The Pearl (excuse my shortcut-nickname) is the writing of Abraham, himself. It was this part of our gospel study class that got interesting. Actually, it is where I began to get angry.
We started our study of the writings of Abraham with a review lesson on how Joseph received it. The teacher reminded us that some guy came traipsing about Mormom-Town in Illinois selling ancient rolls of papyrus and mummies from Egypt.
Joseph Smith took a look at them, and God told him the rolls were the writings of Abraham himself! So he bought them and “translated” them.
Now I realize God may have maneuvered this transaction. But it all sounded so very opportunistic to me. It was the kind of line I would have pulled out as a kid when I used to tell my friends I wasn’t really Noell, but her twin Dutch sister.
I went home feeling angry that I hadn’t seen through this story before.
It was no more than a couple days later when my son, Blake, brought me a kids magazine he was reading and he asked me to explain a page to him. I looked at it, and my jaw dropped open. It was a picture of papyrus with drawings of ancient Egyptian burial rites. It was almost exactly the same picture as this one in The Pearl.
While Joseph Smith explained that the drawing was that of Abraham almost to be sacrificed as a child by his father who was a priest, the authentic one in the magazine explained very well what these drawings really were.
What made this experience all the more enlightening was that I had seen pictures of these before, probably in high school. And I never made the connection between them and the drawing in the Pearl.
Many ex-Mormons know all about this doctrinal dilemma. I am leaving out all the many details of how wrong Joseph’s make-believe translation is, now that Egyptologists have a greater knowledge of those ancient artifacts. And many Mormon apologists have given bizarre justifications for it. But this was all new to me. It was almost like divine intervention. An answer from on high that all of it was. . .stupid.
By this time, though, I was done with thoughts of a Being from on high. Over the previous months, since that last temple visit, I watched my relationship with what I thought was Heavenly Father slip away. I had grown far distant from that god who had seemed always at my side.
I didn’t see this as tragic or lonely. It was empowering! All the strength that I had derived from this imaginary god-partner growing up had really come from within myself!
For example, I have always been a happy person. It takes a lot to get me down. And I bounce right back. When I was younger people often asked me how I was so happy. This is embarassing now, but I actually used to tell them it was because I was a Mormon. And because I had such a close relationship with God.
I felt a little guilty saying this because I knew plenty of devoted Mormons who were miserable. But I continued with that story nonetheless. It was my missionary tool.
When God disappeared from my side, I realized I was still the same me in every way. I was still a happy person. And all the sides of me that I thought were God supporting me, or God’s gifts to me, were actually me.
I had now come to know myself and appreciate myself more than ever before in my life.
It was good.
This affected my interpretation of things people would say at church. I remember when a member of the bishopric, who apparently didn’t know about my waning spiritual state, expressed to me how I had inspired him with something I said and that I “had such a strong testimony.”
I smiled and thanked him but knew inside that it was just my happy nature that he was misinterpreting as my testimony shining through. There was no testimony.
My new paradigm of self also contrasted with the guilt and self-criticism I witnessed in many of the women at church. They never felt they were good enough. They could never meet the demands and expectations of religion.
It got to the point where I left every church meeting angry about something someone taught. I had resigned to continued church attendance, not out of belief, but out of a desire for spiritual sustenance. Instead, church was becoming a spiritual vacuum.
At one point, our congregation split and a small handful of us, including only one of my real friends, got reassigned to a different one. I knew almost no one in church now, which made it easier for me to become more anonymous and less involved. My one remaining good friend, who I really admired (because she and her husband were extremely intelligent and the only Mormons I knew who went to prestigious universities) inspired new hope in me. She told me she wanted to go to the temple with me, and asked me to get my recommend.
This friend was normally so busy, I was thrilled to have an opportunity to spend time with her. This really motivated me. At the same time I had a sister whose temple wedding was coming up the following month, so it really was vital for me to get a glimpse of a testimony back so I could get a temple recommend.
My new motivation drove me to a two-week, two hour-a-day scripture study and prayer obsession. That’s right. I read and prayed for two hours. Every day. In the process I lost any remaining hope that it might be true. I couldn’t believe it when later my mom suggested I didn’t show enough faith to get an answer from God. Two hours a day for two weeks isn’t enough? How about a year of desperate searching?
Around this two week period I flew up to Utah for a weekend to meet with my parents and family. We took a trip to the center of the Mormon organization in Salt Lake City, Temple Square. We ooh’d and ahh’d at the new Conference Center. It was an amazing and magnificent building. The woodwork was unmatched. And while my family interpreted the building’s beauty as another testament to the truthfulness of the Mormon Church, all I could think about was the money it took to build the thing.
I remembered when my husband and I were struggling with a baby, sometimes unable to buy groceries. Yet there was the obligation to give an entire ten percent of our income to the Lord. So that he could erect this building. Nevermind the many poorer families who don’t have money for food or medicine. They need to help provide for the Church’s desire to build more buildings.
We left the gorgeous wooden money pit and went outside where my parents showed me that the Church convinced the Mormon-dominated legislature to give them the city’s main road so that they could build over it. The main road through temple square is no longer a road. Commuters now have to circle around Temple Square and then veer back to the road, as I understand it.
“Were a lot of the non-members around here furious when they did this?” I asked.
“Oh, they just need something to be angry at the Church for. It’s really nothing,” was the response of one of my family members.
Seemed like quite a lot to be upset about to me.
This trip to the new and improved Temple Square both impressed and disgusted me.
Between that experience and my two-week devotion to get an answer once-and-for-all, I was now ready to accept the facts: it was all bogus. I was ready to add the “ex” to Mormon.
It was exhilarating. Life was exhilarating. So much to learn! So much to explore! New paradigms to view my world through. New questions to ask.
I walked into the most exciting time of my life.
And everything about it became better. My husband and I are stronger friends, closer than we’ve ever been.
I appreciate the fragile lives of my children more.
I can accept people for who they are.
I can be honest about who I am without pretending to live up to another person’s ideal. Because of this I am finally able to make real friends. I hadn’t had real friends since high school. You can’t be a real friend when you have a picture you have to portray.
I was a happy Mormon. I am a happier agnostic.
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July 19th, 2006 @ 11:13 pm
I appreciated reading your journey out of Mormonism so much. M. Scott Peck in ‘The Road Less Travelled’ suggests that some of us need to be healed from religion and some of us healed to religion and that both of those might be true for us at different time of our lives. If believing comes with guilt, not feeling good enough, having to leave ones brains at the door etc then it seems to me only a good thing to get out!
I’ve heard the stories from a number of Christians who felt betrayed by some of the – let’s be honest here – absurd things they were being taught and that they felt they had been ‘duped’ into believing. The best thing for each of them was to break away from the church and the system altogether. Some have returned, perhaps to a different group of believers who view the Bible and the faith a little more liberally or alternatively, others have continued on a journey away from the church.
Either way, I cannot imagine – if there is a divine being who is love
– that he would want us to remain in a system that would counter us being able to grow to our full potential. For me the warning signs go up the moment it seems to me someones self development is being stunted – either because they have to fit into some tight moral mold, or because they aren’t allowed to ask the questions that our brains naturally ask out of curiousity, or because they have to suppress enormous parts of themselves in order to fit in. I had the sense, for example, that Kevin would not have been able to continue his growth/development/whatever you call it inside of the church. That’s not to say that at another point in his life (or anyone’s life) they may be able to reconnect with the Christian faith in a meaningful way again…
July 20th, 2006 @ 12:47 am
Noell,
Your story connects with many people on many levels. My story mirrors yours in many ways, tho I haven’t put the ex before mormon yet, I have come to the same conclusions as you. For me, I have always had small doubts nagging at me that I suppressed due to my programming. It wasn’t until I got a satelite dish 2 years ago (I know I’m cheap) and started watching the History Channel, Discover, National Geographic, and the Science Channel, that things really started turning for me. Watching meso-american archeology shows that didn’t support BofM stories at all, to National Geographic’s migratory studies, based on DNA, disproving the mideast migration doctrine of american inhabitants, was the clincher. Of course, each time I watched one of these shows I spent countless hours doing my own research only reinforcing what was taught in these shows. I hope that some day I will be able to completely walk away from the Morg and fully appreciate life without those Mormon-colored glasses.
July 20th, 2006 @ 5:25 am
Noelle: “I didn’t see this as tragic or lonely. It was empowering! All the strength that I had derived from this imaginary god-partner growing up had really come from within myself!”
Many things in your post that I relate to in my own journey in putting ‘ex’ in front of Christian. Your above quote here is something I could have wrote.
July 20th, 2006 @ 10:10 am
What a beautiful story!!!
I love your description of how empowered you felt when you realized that things you had been giving God credit for were coming from within yourself.
One thing I dislike about religion is that you’re encouraged to give God credit for everything that is good and yet never blame Him for anything bad…
July 20th, 2006 @ 11:06 am
Noell,
Thank you for sharing your story. I have had so many of the same thoughts but I don’t have your talent for putting them into words. Like Bishop Rick, I am an agnostic that still attends the Mormon church to keep the peace at home. We live in the bible belt of the deep south so I’ve found that the only thing worse (in most people’s opinion) than being a Mormon is being an agnostic/atheist! I have not shared my feelings with anyone other than my husband and that went over like a ton of bricks. Reading your story has given me hope that if I follow my heart, everything else will fall into place. I really love your blog. I love that you don’t concentrate on who you were but who you are now and when your former religion comes up there is very little anger or sarcasm. I’m curious to know how your extended family took the news that you were leaving the church. Did it come as a complete shock to them? How is your relationship with them now? I have so many more hurdles to jump before I get to where I want to be. I know you are busy at home right now so don’t worry if you can’t reply. I mostly just wanted to thank you for giving my heart a voice. I don’t feel so alone in the world.
July 20th, 2006 @ 1:31 pm
Noell,
I would love to hear more on this, if there’s more to hear. Was it a straight shot for you, from Mormon to agnostic? Or were there any other steps between ex-Mormon
and ex-religious-believer?
July 20th, 2006 @ 2:37 pm
Thanks for sharing your story. I was raised in the Mormon church and have since left. I’ve been snooping on your blog for a few days and have been enjoying it. Keep up the good work!
July 20th, 2006 @ 4:32 pm
Logging…
Agnostic Mom has been posting her deconversion story. It’s interesting – very…. Perhaps not surprisingly, the stories Agnostic Mom pointed us at were all Mormon deconversion stories. I’m not, and never was, Mormon, and perhaps that’s why I find th…
July 20th, 2006 @ 4:33 pm
This is fascinating. Thanks for sharing … I never was a Mormon, but there are points of similarity between our stories.
July 20th, 2006 @ 4:55 pm
Noell,
Excellent continuation! Your story has me so intrigued because, while the end result is probably about the same, mine was not an entirely difficult or time-consuming journey from belief to non-believer.
But I am curious; what’s a Morg?
July 20th, 2006 @ 6:18 pm
I have been reading your blog foe a while now. I have been enthralled by this story of yours from part I. Your story is so much like my own when I left my fundamentalist Christian upbringing. Thank you so much for sharing.
July 20th, 2006 @ 9:06 pm
Lily – speaking from experience, I can say it’s ok to be an atheist in the Deep South. Well, I suppose that really depends on where you are, eh? I was in Montgomery, Alabama and found enough like-minded people, or open-minded religious people, that my circle of friends was warm and accepting. Naturally, some of them thought I was mistaken and I thought they were insane in one area of their lives, but – hey – such is the nature of friendship.
So, Noelle, when do you make the jump from claiming to be agnostic to embracing the atheist title?
Just asking… I spent a couple of years in my doubting phase calling myself an agnostic until I realized, no, I really didn’t believe in God. At all.
I suppose I’m an agnostic atheist… I don’t think anything that could reasonably be described as a god is knowable in any meaningful way, so that’s agnosticism (the same could be said of any internally inconsistent nonsensical belief). That said, I see absolutely no reason to believe in any gods, hence atheist.
July 20th, 2006 @ 9:52 pm
Vern,
Morg is a term used for Mormon Organization. There is also an undertonal reference to the Borg of Star Trek.
July 20th, 2006 @ 11:27 pm
I think there are a lot of agnostics who are “one more god” atheists* but aren’t flat out convinced that there isn’t something. If you like belonging, there’s always the Universal Church Triumphant of the Apathetic Agnostic: we don’t know if there’s a god and we don’t care, either.
I go back and forth in what I call myself, but in the end it doesn’t matter: I know that no god so far described by any church on earth exists, so I’m an atheist as far as most people (and gods) are concerned. If there’s something out there, we’ll never be able to know, so why worry? It doesn’t worry about us, after all…
* You know: I just don’t believe in one more god than you don’t believe in. Unless you’re a polytheist, of course.
July 21st, 2006 @ 9:17 am
Thank you for the post. I never tire of reading deconversion stories. I love ‘em!
July 21st, 2006 @ 10:15 am
Thank you Bishop Rick, that’s funny.
July 21st, 2006 @ 10:56 am
Noell wrote:
“So much to learn! So much to explore! New paradigms to view my world through. New questions to ask”
This is exactly how I felt when I left Christianity. I can now read and study any subject without feeling some form of guilt (eg, evolution).
This is a fantastic post, Noell. I can relate to much of what you have written.
All the best
Kevin
July 21st, 2006 @ 12:27 pm
I just want to say that that was an amazing story. I am also an agnostic and I love to hear about when people free themselves from the shackles of religion.
Congratulations on finding out where your strength really comes from. Inside yourself.
I can truly relate to everything you have written here.
One of the greatest days of my life was when I realized that I did not need religion to know who I was.
I am glad and happy for you.
July 22nd, 2006 @ 6:03 pm
Thanks for finishing up your story, Noell. It was fun to anticipate the next part each time. One thing that really interested me is when you said you have now been able to make real friends for the first time since high school. That is a comfort to me, because I’ve had the hardest time making friends in my very Mormonized area since I lost belief in Mormonism. They’re still kind, I’m still friendly, but there’s just no real connection there. I’m really looking forward to moving away from here and (hopefully) making some good friends again.
July 22nd, 2006 @ 8:21 pm
Thank you for sharing your journey. It also resonated deeply with me and mirrored my own journey in many ways. I also felt a real sense of empowerment and freedom when I stopped trying to deny what my heart and mind kept telling me. Like you I am also a naturally upbeat person who weathers life’s ups and downs relatively smoothly. I also at points in my life credited faith/God with this personal attribute and yet even then I would feel guilty. I think on a subconcious level I knew this was not true or fair to the faithful who prayed and believed and yet still suffered. When I realized I no longer needed to follow a religion it was like a weight had been lifted from me and if anything I have been an even happier person since.
I have spent the last three years studying religion and the different Christian denominations. As an agnostic I still keep an open mind and seek spirtual truths that feel authentic to me. Thus far though I feel that the problem is Christianity is based on a collection of writings by ancient men, the Bible. I think part of the Bible are beautiful and inspired and worthy lessons for living an ethical life. After reading it cover to cover and reading Biblical criticism however, I have to say there is a lot of chaff in with the wheat and much vagueness that is left very open to frail human interpretation. If the writers were divinely inspired by God it seems to me there were undoubtably times they had a bad connection. Thus, I have drifted from Christianity in general. I do tend to feel that there is a divine spirit that we can be in tune with on a personal level without needing organized religion.
Thank you again for sharing. The only difficulty in leaving my Church is that most of the people I know are still religious which does make one feel a bit of an outsider at times. Its nice to know other people have similar thoughts and experiences.
Peace. =)
July 24th, 2006 @ 10:33 am
Noell,
What a great story! And so well written. Can you please, please, post it (all four parts) on my church’s website: http://www.apatheticagnostic.com? I don’t want your story to get lost (I am already having difficulties finding Part I on your blog). That website has been around for 10 years now, and now has a decent search function. There’s a special section called “Agnostic Testimony” where your story will fit perfectly. I am only suggesting it because I want to preserve your story. Thank you for sharing it with all of us!
July 29th, 2006 @ 2:21 pm
Noell I always think of you when I walk across the ASU campus and past the place where they are building a newer, bigger Mormon church. The church land used to be at the very edge of campus, but as the ASU campus has expanded, and the LDS held onto the land, it is now a small pocket within the larger campus. They tore down the old church at the beginning of summer, and a new, very large building is going in its place. A sign out front capitalizes on the location, a thinly-disguised attempt to associate the legitimacy of the university with that of the church, the sign says: LDS Institute of Religion at ASU.
August 1st, 2006 @ 8:16 pm
Noell, I have been fascinated by your story. Thank you so much for sharing!
The one thing I don’t get a clear sense of is your search *after* you figured out that Mormonism is a hoax. What made you so sure that the idea of a Source of Divine Energy in the universe is just another illusion? Is that in other posts in the “religion” thread? Or do the other posts in that thread mainly pick up much later when you’ve already defined yourself as a humanist?
What’s coming across to me, just from the 4 parts about leaving the church, is that even though you “see through” Mormonism (that’s clear), and through Christianity (less clear), you still weigh everything by these standards. Like the only way to get away from the grip of these illusions, is not to go anywhere near anything at all “spiritual”.
Am trying to put this vague sense into words, but I’m getting the feeling that you are healed enough to move on with your life and be happy, but not healed to the extent that you could accept a spiritual event or intuition without immediately thinking about it in the old Christian/Mormon way, with a consequent need to reject it. You’ve taken off the hat (mostly), but maybe not the glasses–at least not all the way. That’s how it seems to me. So I’d like to hear more about that side, if possible. (I know a lot of folks at this point join some exotic cult–just to fill the void. I’m not asking about why you didn’t do that.)
Someone else asked about how your development affected your family relationships. I guess that’s really a touchy one. But I can share their curiosity . . .
December 30th, 2007 @ 4:23 pm
Great read!!! I am so happy for you. I wasn’t a Mormon, but I was studying from the Hebrew Scriptures OT and was appalled by the way God was depicted. Like some vindictive, tempermental, evil tyrant. There are some parts of the OT that I find totally disgusting and I knew in my heart that that couldn’t possibly be the “real” and “true” Creator of all. Suffice to say, I no longer believe in the Bible nor any man made religion. I will pray for you and your family and may blessings abound to you and yours for waking up to Truth.
April 15th, 2008 @ 4:00 pm
Thank you for your example, I was a good member of the church since birth. I am 44 yrs young. Last summer I saw a UFO. I am not saying it was anything other then that a UFO with the “U” being the main idea. My bishop and friends just said it all fit. I started studing things on the internet and down the rabbit hole I went. It took many months of searching to find any truth here in the whole arena of UFO, God, Man, and the universe. Slowly I realized that there is truth here and much of it can be proved. However, the Mormon church isn’t one of them. It has many good teachings, and somany good people, and I own a lot of who I am to the teachings. I could not get the last part of the 13th artical of faith out of my mind where it states a line of good things, then states as a way of life for Mormons is to seek all good things and truth. How disappointed I was to realize that the church leaders go against Joseph Smiths own words, and ex-comunicate anyone that finds truth that doesen’t fit into the dogma of the church. God is love, God is light, God is knowelge.
I am more spiritual then before. I taught for 30 years in the mormon church, they teach that in the Millenium there will be no need for religion because the knowelge of heaven will be open for all to see. The truth is there should be no religion now. Jesus taught us all we needed to know: love your nieghbor: love your fellow man: forgive all: and do good works…etc. Mormons teach that all will be saved but the reward you earn is based on your good works, but they never get it that we must each find our own good works and stop doing the churches good works. I will get off my soap box now and just say thank you.
Mormons aren’t going to hell, but were ever they are going I will be somewhere else, the snacks are better.