By warmfuzzylogic

I'm not angry about my feelings about my LDS past. Believe me when I say that I have been angry many times, but I don't feel it anymore. What I feel now is very different from anger, but I can't really describe what I feel as "peace". Other people may use that word for it, but the word "peace" has been ruined for me. It has been ruined like many other words such as "spirit", "faith", "testimony", "love", "righteous", and "true". In my mind these words are forever tied to experiences that mean negative things. Things like giving up my individuality, crawling in guilty feelings, and being an outsider. Even though I don't have a one-word description for what I feel now, I can say that I am past the anger. Instead of anger I now feel a comfortable confidence that the remainder of my life will be lived at a level of happiness that I didn't know existed in my youth. I believe I finally get to feel like a normal person.

It is my intention to write out my experiences in the LDS church from the perspective I have now as I am preparing to send in my resignation letter. I am not sure how interesting what I have to say will be to anyone but myself. I am not a professional writer so my presentation may be weak, so if you keep reading, keep in mind this is mostly for personal therapy.

My parents must have taken the church advice on having large families to heart because they started having children when my mom was 18 and didn't quit until she was 40. This baby factory churned out 9 kids and 2 miscarriages. In thinking about the miscarriages I doubt that adding two more children to the nine would have made things any different. I can't definitively say at what point too many children becomes a real problem, but I believe for my family it started shortly after three. We lived in the Idaho Falls suburb, Ammon and like many places in Idaho it was made up mostly of Mormons. It is interesting to note that most of the Mormon families around us didn't have huge families like we had. There were a few similar sized households and one or two that were even larger, but we were considered very large compared to the surrounding community. Even other Mormon kids thought our family was huge.

Now I've heard the argument that says, "So, which of your siblings should your parents have not had". I was child number 5 and I think that my parents would have been fine having only 3. This thought shocks some people, because it means that I would not have been born. Believe me, I am okay with that. A better thought for me is, "How about the first 3 or 4 of children having the resources and attention they should have had". Now I know this gets into questions I can't answer like would I have been born somewhere else and to some other family. I don't have these answers, but I am still confident that I would rather have not existed if it meant that my parents would have given a few children all that they needed rather than give so many children so little.

Living in a large family meant less money to go around. I remember thinking at a fairly young age how unfair it felt that other kids had much more than we had. This shortage was compounded when my dad got some sort of personal revelation that he should quit his stable and first-chosen career with the US Forest Service and become a sales person. My mother did not agree with the decision, but she did follow the typical Mormon practice of letting the father's inspiration guide the family. The following years of shortage meant plenty of disagreements between them. It was especially volatile when he moved into more skeptical sales projects like Amway, life insurance, and vacuums. Dad even took a second mortgage on the house to finance the purchase of stock in some revolutionary new company that the "big thinkers" in the sales world introduced him to. The stock ended up being worthless. I wonder if he had a personal revelation for that decision, also. Still, mom always followed the church advice of letting the man take the lead, even if it meant constant arguments after-the-fact. The root of the disagreements was always money.

In looking back I struggle with how much of the responsibility for the depressed state of my childhood belongs to my parents and how much belongs to the church for its lousy teachings and advice. It makes my head spin to consider that my parents may have never had a family this big if they hadn't been under the influence of the LDS religion. They were persuaded by a belief system that sells an idealistic picture of some frontier family with a father at the head of a large table sharing his vast wisdom to an eagerly awaiting wife (or wives) and a mass of obedient and faithful children.

I doubt there are many people that can handle a huge family. The resources needed would have to include the financial means to provide for all the children's physical needs as well as the time and wisdom to provide for all their emotional needs. It is my opinion that my parents were, like most people, unequipped to handle this and that they had neither the finances nor the wisdom necessary to provide for a family of nine children. My wife and I have decided that we only have the time and resources to responsibly provide for two. I believe we have wisely and intelligently stopped there. We have always taken having children very seriously and waited until we were ready. We have often been given the disappointed look for waiting for eight years to begin a family. We wanted to be sure that our marriage was one that would hold up under the pressures that children bring. We also spent much time considering how many children we could provide for. Once again, we were given guilt trips for limiting our family to the size it is. My wife and I feel we are being prudent in only taking on what we feel confident we can afford. But then again, we are using logic and being careful. We don't believe that any magical force is going to take care of things for us. We won't risk our children's future like that.

I know I can't change my childhood. I know what they say about hindsight and we could spend our whole lives saying "if this had been different" or "if that had been different". Not having much was part of my childhood and I can't change it. I do not feel that poverty is something that people should to be ashamed of, but if that poverty is the result of choices made because a life-dominating religion pushes beliefs that lead to poverty, then the poverty is not justified. I can't look at the shortages in my childhood without assigning some blame. I don't know how much my parents are to blame, but I hope that someday they realize the damage that following this selfish religion has done to their children. I can, however, put some blame on the LDS religion and I hope that more people use the information that is now available to see how this religion is not a foundation to build a family with. It is more like a recipe for dysfunction.

What I am going to do next may be a bit selfish, but my whole purpose in writing this is to look at myself and hopefully get some perspective. It really is therapy for me. So, I am going to list some of the unfortunate things that I feel are a result of my parents following poor advice and having as many children as they did.

• Hand-me-down and second-hand clothes are rarely in style. After years of owning nothing but, I felt like I wasn't worth as much as other children around me that got new clothes from time to time. I believe that growing up in a huge family and lacking the basic items that most children around me had degraded my self-worth. The church teachings say to go ahead and pop out more children and that "God will provide". The truth is that the welfare system ended up doing a lot of providing. The welfare system does not provide self-esteem.
• Food and clothes are not the only things a child needs. What if a child has a special talent? Most kids do. These talents require nurturing for them to grow. And by nurture I mean lessons, supplies, coaching, equipment, and car rides. These items cost money and can be expensive for even just one child. How did my parents expect to provide for nine? The reality is that unless they would have come into some sort of financial windfall they couldn't. Sure the first and second children got some opportunities, but with each new child being born the likelihood of our talents being noticed and developed shrunk. What if our adult future could have been completely built around our talent? Instead our talents went largely unnoticed or undeveloped because of the lack of resources. It is very likely that some of us did not get a shot at the future we could have had. My opinion is, the only reason a church would tell you to keep pushing children out when you have no assurance of providing for them is because that church has an agenda that has nothing to do with children's well-being.
• I think children notice where they fit in society at a younger age than what many people might think. For instance, I was aware of who got the cool toys for Christmas and who got the secret-Santa charity. I'm not downing charity here, but if children feel like they are on the bottom of the world because they aren't enjoying the same lifestyle of the average child around them it should be a concern. Oh sure, you can say that we were better off than third-world children living in the streets, but I believe my self esteem was built by evaluating my situation as compared to the world around me. I remember when I realized that I was getting some of our neighbor's old toys as my new Christmas gifts. I know my parents were just trying to make Christmas happen somehow, but the feeling of inferiority still causes me to cringe. I know I have a habit of compensating in my adult life by over-spending on myself and on my kids. I also know that these compensation issues are my problem to deal with, but I can't ignore that the roots of the problem are in the thoughtless and uncaring plan to have a huge family and promise that God will pay the bill. God didn't. Nobody did. We just went without.
• Kids need attention. I don't have any formal education in child development, but I know that my kids need a certain amount of individual attention. Even though they have different personalities and have different attention needs, they must have their attention. I can tell you from experience that if they don't get enough, they will do all kinds of crazy things until they get enough. They will even resort to behavior that they know they will be punished for. Now, I know that there are some very good multi-tasking parents out there, but we only have so many hours in a day. Even if parents are wealthy enough to afford a nanny, that will not make up for quality time with mom and dad. And don't tell me that the older children make up for it in large families by helping the younger ones. The choice to have a huge family may make sibling-help a necessity, but time spent with older brothers and sisters is not the same as time with mom and dad. So, maybe there are a few parents out there that don't have to be at a job and don't have any other time obligations. I imaging that there may be a few parents out there that have all day every day to give to their children. The reality is that most parents don't have these luxuries and don't have the attention resources to provide for a big family. I still doubt that anyone has enough time to provide for the individual attention needs of nine kids.

So, after listing some of my frustrations with my childhood I have to wonder, why did it have to be like that? I doubt I will ever have a satisfactory reason. Were my parents always this ready to let religion make their decisions? If I look at my parent's history with the church, my mother was born into it and my dad was a convert who was taught by some members that really liked to discuss the fringe doctrines or deep doctrine, as members call it. This meant we were taught to believe in things that even LDS members weren't so keen on talking about. I must admit that it was fascinating as a child to hear my father talk about a heavenly mother, traveling through space by just thinking it, moving mountains with priesthood power, and dead people retrieving their bodies from the grave. I imagine the fascination with this type of magical world made a great mental escape for my father from the realities of our life. We could have accomplished the same escape with a good story or movie. A good fantasy can be great and most of us enjoy escaping at times. The problem starts when the fantasy is being told by a religion and after the story they are going to give you directions on how to live your life. Once again, I can't say for sure, but maybe my parents followed LDS church teachings to escape the personal issues they have with reality.

Even if I look past the reasons for being involved in the church, I am still amazed at how far members like my family will go chasing the celestial carrot. The belief that you have to be perfect to reach complete happiness is obviously setting yourself up for failure. But I grew up with it and couldn't see outside of it. I didn't understand that the church was controlling everything. The church created the goal and all the steps to reach it. Not only was I suppose to give them a majority of my time and a large share of my money, but I was not to question authority or step outside of the path given me. I was taught great fears for stepping outside the path. It was implied that if I drank alcohol or smoked I would become some nasty picture of poor health, toothless and smelly. I was given the view that everyone outside the church is less happy than me and the best thing I could do for them was to in invite them to join the church. Then there were the more fringe beliefs that my parents seem drawn towards like we should leave our church clothes on all day on Sunday, we should have only one non-church activity a week, we should avoid items like chocolate, soda pop, and sugar, and we should lose privileges for not achieving church sponsored goals like an Eagle Scout award. It felt like the game was, whoever suffered the most in this life would be the happiest in the next life. It didn't leave me with much hope for this life.

So I move on to my teen years. I don't remember having any childhood goals of my own. All goals church or otherwise were set for me and I went about trying to achieve them. I don't remember being asked what I thought or what I wanted. As I got into my teens I remember becoming interested in typical teen subjects like girls, sports, and friends. Each interest was squashed in some way. Here is a quick list of a few.

• I wanted to play high school football. My parents couldn't to afford to pay for associated costs, so I had to save up lawn-mowing money. The school was 5 miles away and car rides were frequently unavailable, so summer practices meant a long bike ride each way. Many of the other players on the team had both moral and financial support from their families. Some of them had played for years in youth teams. Some even had opportunities to attend football camps with access to expert advice and skills training. I did not have any of these options available to me and it was very difficult to compete for positions. I felt lucky just to be able to show up. I then add to this that my mother made it clear that she would prefer my attention were on things more to her liking such as playing the piano and church basketball. I made a sincere attempt to be good at football, but I did not know how to obtain success without support.
• I had a high school girlfriend. She was Mormon also. Dating her was something that the church and my parents could approve of, but there were plenty of guidelines. My parents had restrictions on how frequent I could visit her or call her. My girlfriend had restrictions on what was an appropriate hug, kiss, and dance position. You would think that I would see that it wasn't a fun relationship when she informed me that the French kiss we shared was something she was ashamed of and that she had confessed it to her Bishop. Looking back, the relationship never resembled anything of what a normal one should be. It ended just as awkward.
• I had a driver's license at age sixteen. The summer prior to my senior year the insurance company informed my parents that all licensed drivers living at our home must be insured. The parents let me know that I must pay for the premium or lose my license. I didn't have the money and was forced to surrender my license. I then spent my senior year riding the bus, riding my old bicycle and begging for rides. It is difficult enough to have a high school social life without a car, but without access to even drive a car, I was out of luck.

When I try to place why I had so little understanding of self, no direction for my future, and not much experience to start an adult life with, I have to once again place the blame in being brought up in a circumstance that was chosen by my parents and directed by their religion. There really weren't any resources to help me gain experience or direction. There was just so little attention to spare for one child in a family of many.

It feels depressing for me to dwell too long on the frustrations of my childhood. I want to move past it now just as I wanted to move past it when I reached the end of high school. The prevailing thought for me as I neared graduation was how I could get out of Idaho. I felt strongly that there was more to the world that what I had seen. I took the first opportunity to leave that became available. I moved to California to live with one of my brothers. He is the brother that my family considers to be the black sheep of the family. In black-sheep fashion he introduced me to many things that were unavailable before. Now, I'm not talking about harmful things. He introduced me things that most teenagers had already experienced by my age such as meeting fun people, going out with variety of girls, having an occasional drink at a party, and being a part of a group of friends. The problem was that I couldn't truly let myself enjoy the newly available fun. I would participate and have a good time, but shortly after be run over with feelings of guilt. My brother would spend time explaining to me why I shouldn't feel this way, but somehow I couldn't make the guilt go away. Also, it appeared that everyone around me seemed to have a plan for life and preferences for career and fun. I felt very out of place, because I had no idea what I wanted. All those around me seemed to be working hard towards their goals and moving in a positive direction. I didn't have a desire to go in any direction. I couldn't see anything that was worth the effort. The combined feelings of guilt, worthlessness, and confusion began to weigh heavily on me. Life was feeling very depressing and pointless. I felt there was no escape and began to entertain thoughts of suicide.

I thought maybe it was just California, so I moved with a friend back to Idaho. We didn't have much money, but I couldn't bear the thought of living with my parents again. We found a rental house that we could afford, but it was seriously dirty and a poorly kept place. Living in this situation only added to my growing depression and hatred of life. I continued to evaluate ways to commit suicide and openly shared these feelings with others. Looking back I feel this is honestly the most confusing part of my life for me to understand and I was fairly open to anyone that could suggest a solution. I visited with my parent's bishop who said that my problem was that I was living in sin and that if I tried the church suggested reading and prayer I would find my answer. I decided to take this suggestion to a more radical level and combine reading and prayer with not eating or drinking until I either had an answer or died trying. I continued to not eat or drink for three days and as a result became weaker and weaker. Somewhere into my fourth day of reading, praying, and starving I heard a voice in my head say "There can be no other way". Because of the bishop's advice, I had been reading church writings exclusively and I took this experience to mean everything I was reading was right. I immediately contacted family and church leaders and let them know I was going on a mission. It felt wonderful, because for the first time, I now had a direction and purpose for my life. I completely accepted that the voice in my head was God speaking to me. I did not question it and was fanatically preachy of church teachings to all around me. I completely immersed myself in scripture study and saving money for a mission. I did this for a year as I prepared to go. To save money, I even moved back in with my parents.

I rode this super holy feeling into a mission and was aggressive in teaching others. I was bold when I started my mission and would approach anyone including college professors, other faith's religious leaders in their own buildings, and anyone on the street. I felt I was completely sure of myself and my beliefs and I did not back down when faced with differing religious opinions. I was one of those over ambitious missionaries that can annoy people who aren't interested in a religious discussion. I hope that anyone who had to endure this and my over ambition will realize that this was the first time that I ever felt I had a purpose or a direction in life. It wasn't until I had been on my mission for a few months that I began to realize that my mission experience wasn't the same as the other missionaries around me. I began to realize that the normal mission experience is had by young men that have not had a voice-in-the-head experience or similar event that gives them conviction and focus like I had. LDS missionaries are nineteen to twenty-one year old young men with a desire to do the right thing, but often don't fully understand the circumstance they find themselves in. Because they are at this youthful stage in life they have all the normal desires of young men including looking at girls, buying clothes, primping in the mirror, playing sports, laughing, telling jokes, playing with electronic toys and showing off. Contrary to church member belief, they do not stop being young men or participating in these activities on a mission. They do not just shut off their normal desires. Sure, there are a number of missionaries who are very serious about their missions. In fact, there are all kinds of missionaries; some who start out serious and relax as time wears on and some who do the opposite and become more serious as time goes on. My observation is, however, that there is a large share of missionaries that are only mildly focused on missionary work and spent a large amount of time trying to figure out what to do with the two years. All missionaries have their various reasons for being there and many of those reasons are influenced by family, friends, girlfriends and community. Once the missionary leaves these influences, he now has to decide on his own how to spend each day. He often will bounce between following the rules and spending all day approaching strangers in uncomfortable moments and spending time avoiding this discomfort by doing something else. What else is there? My observation is that they find all kinds of creative things to do with their time including; walking around the mall, riding bikes to random destinations, visiting local landmarks, hanging out at members' homes, or hanging out at their apartment. You would be amazed at the inventive fun some of these young men can create when bored. I'd see them organize football, basketball and volleyball games and have participation from missionaries from all over the area. The missionaries would get to the events any way they could and would leave their designated area knowing that both the event and the leaving the area were against the rules. All this breaking rules and associated guilt can make a missionary feel helpless and frustrated. After my first year, I began to find more satisfaction in trying to help other missionaries from becoming frustrated with their missions than I did at finding new members. Many missionaries needed someone to help them realize that it was normal to feel guilty and confused by all the difficult and unappealing expectations thrown at them. I tried to help them realize that the mission experience was not exactly what the church advertised it to be. I tried to help them find ways to be patient with themselves. It's interesting to look back now and realize that this was my first indication that some of the things the church says can't be completely trusted.

I remember feeling very confused about what to do with the rest of my life when I returned home from my mission. I still had no plan for my future and no idea what I wanted as a career. I had no money for college and I had never been taught how to plan or prepare for a future. I found I was again facing many of the same frustrated feelings that had thrown me into my suicidal depression years earlier. I didn't even know where I was going to live and still couldn't stand the thought of living with my parents. My friend that I had moved back from California with years earlier offered a spare room at his house, so I moved in with him and his wife. My friend is also Mormon, but had bounced back and forth between being active and skipping church. I was surprised that he had a temple marriage, because a few months before his marriage he was living with a girl, having parties at his apartment, and having some pretty wild times. Somehow he had managed to meet a Mormon girl, get a temple recommend, and be married in the temple in a just a few months. Church leaders had me wait an entire year before I was allowed to go on a mission. How could they let him have a temple marriage so quickly? This was another sign that things often do not make sense in the LDS church. Still, I was leaning on the experience of the voice in my head that I had heard years before. I felt the church was my future and I wanted to do the right thing.

My friend and his wife set me up on a blind date with the bishop's daughter who was coming home on weekends while going to college. I won't go into our romance other than to say she was and is the best thing to ever happen to me. We were married in just a few months and unlike my friend, there wasn't a good reason we couldn't be in the temple, so we were married there. Our relationship was built on an immediate friendship and church topics were rarely part of our dating conversation. Marriage in the temple was the normal thing for our situation and we never discussed any other option. We also didn't discuss much about careers and the only future plan I had come up with prior to marriage was to go back to California to take advantage of inexpensive community college. We set out of California to start our new life together.

One of the things my wife and I have in common was that we were both born into LDS families and are both life-long members. She wasn't in a large or fanatical family like I was, but had many of the same feelings of being overly restricted and inexperienced with life in general. Within days of being married we found that we had a common desire to experience things that were outside of our religious upbringing. Our path to California included a night in Vegas. We played slot machines even though we knew the church is against it. It was a thrill to do something new and out of bounds. It's funny now to think of how nervous we were over putting a few nickels in a slot machine. We had a great time and did our best to ignore the guilt. We didn't do anything else to step outside of church teachings and we continued to stay inside the lines after we left. We found it was stressful to go against the church rules that we learned growing. We felt this same stress once again a few months later when we began discussing how fun it might be to have an alcoholic drink. We didn't dare to actually purchase one, but enjoyed the fun thought. It is obvious to me now that we felt boxed in by our past and really wanted to break free, but had too much guilt built into us to go very far. We felt we were missing out on life, but were unable to see or understand why.

Along with feeling confused about our entertainment choices we were also confused about church attendance. We did not enjoy going. I don't think I have ever enjoyed going. As I think about my history of church attendance I realize that I can't remember ever enjoying church as a child. I always found it boring at best and at worst it could be humiliating. I would pretend to be sick so I could stay home. My parents quickly caught on to my illness scheme and would threaten me that if I stayed home I would have to clean the barn. I chose the boredom of church over the forced labor, but resented being there. So it's not really a surprise that I was having the same boring experience trying to attend church as a married adult. My wife felt the same. We also felt that there were judgmental people and that we didn't fit in socially. Especially annoying were some new characteristics that we hadn't noticed before like bragging added to talks and testimonies where members would compete for status by letting all know about how many temple sessions they did recently or making sure everyone knew about their latest social status achievement like mayor, CEO, lawyer or doctor. We could find nothing worth spending three hours at church when we could be spending that time doing something much more fun together. We worked all week, so time together on weekends was valuable. We did not want to waste that time attending church and listening to the same things we had already heard for our entire life. We began to skip church and take drives to the beach and other fun places. This began a pattern for us that would last for the next ten years. The pattern was; attend church for a short period of time, feel bored and out of place; start spending Sundays doing something much more enjoyable, feel guilty about not going to church, give in to the guilty feelings and start attending again. This pattern continued after we moved back to Idaho Falls. It didn't matter which ward we were in or who the ward leaders were or how nice the members were. We could never make church attendance fit in our life.

The last time we tried to attend church was just after our first child was born and he was old enough to go to the nursery. This attempt was a significant disaster because not only did we not enjoy it, but our child was extremely unhappy to be there, also. In the following weeks he began crying as soon as he realized where we were going. We found it impossible to go in when he would start crying as soon as he saw the church building. This was our last attempt to go. That was five years ago. We intended to try again, but could never find the motivation to even discuss it.

Not attending church brought other things to light that we had overlooked. Over the years of our marriage my wife had expressed on occasion that she missed the type of clothing she wore before going to the temple and being given garments. This was a frustration to her and had had become a growing annoyance as she continually passed on many fun and appealing clothing choices. Since we weren't going to church she started to hint that she really wanted her wardrobe freedom back. She was nervous to take the garments off, but was willing to take the chance. I was surprised to learn that she was more afraid of disappointing me then she was of disobeying any church rule. I chose to support her and encourage her do what she felt best about. After taking the garments off, she struggled with personal guilt as well as some backlash from her disappointed mother. Her fears weren't realized, because nothing bad ever happened as a result of wearing normal clothing. In fact the opposite happened because wearing appealing and stylish clothes gave her a greater desire to work on fitness goals and made her feel better about her personal appearance. Her decision has improved her confidence and self esteem. She looks great in her new clothing choices and we are both happy with her decision. Not long after her choice I followed and took my garments off. Unlike my wife, I wasn't unhappy with my clothing choices, but I did want freedom from the constant reminder of a religion that was serving no purpose in our life. Nothing bad has happened to either of us as a result of this choice. We are more attracted to each other and realize it is a good thing that we don't feel we have to wear those ugly pieces of underwear anymore. We feel a new freedom to look and feel better about ourselves. We have a few regrets that we didn't get to enjoy this feeling when we had younger bodies, but we can look past this because we both enjoy fitness and work to keep our bodies feeling young. We could have been much older before learning this lesson. We are looking foreword to plenty of years of wearing whatever we choose.

The further we have grown away from the church the more we have questioned why a church that was supposed to be the source of happiness was never happy for us. Occasionally we would try to talk through possible explanations. We were able to identify a few problems. The first came from looking back on our longest span of church attendance during which I was called to be in the elder's quorum presidency. I was unhappy to learn that I was expected to put a considerable amount of time into it. I couldn't understand why a family organization would ask me to spend so much time away from my family. Weekends and after-work hours are often the only time we have together and the church wanted to claim a large portion of that time. I gave it a try, but realized I wasn't going to be happy giving up this important time. I asked to be released. Along with time priorities issue was another big concern for us, "the word of wisdom". I've always felt strongly about maintaining my body with fitness and it has been good for me mentally as well as physically. This church sponsored law of health seems to have no real proven benefit. Common sense says you should avoid excesses of pretty much anything, but the church is saying that even one item off the list of no-no's will send you to hell and poor health. I don't see members in a state of superior health, though. In fact they seem to look the same as the rest of the population. There are healthy ones and unhealthy ones. But, I can see some church leaders that are the opposite of health. I can't understand a church law of health being preached by some leaders that look like they have never turned down a second helping of anything. Why are they in leadership if they aren‘t healthy? Isn't that against "the word of wisdom"? They won't drink a beer, but they will smear butter all over their toast and eat greasy fried food for every other meal.

My biggest concern hit me about a year ago. I was surfing the internet and was curious what the population of the church was in comparison to other churches. The population charts I found showed the Christian population at about 1/3 of the world. I had always assumed it to be bigger. I looked at the breakdown of various Christian organizations and couldn't see the LDS church. I finally found the LDS church in a side note that put them in a group of small organizations that included Christian Scientists and a few others. This group totaled less than one percent of all Christians. It suddenly hit me that if the population of the Mormon Church is less that one 1 percent of Christians, then its global percentage is so small that it isn't worth taking notice. Thinking this way, if I look at the church compared to the whole history of the world the percentage becomes microscopic. As insignificant as its population is, the LDS church claims to be the only one to have the complete truth from God. How could that be? There is no way a god of the whole earth would be that exclusive to such a small group of people. A god of this entire planet would have to care for all people no matter what their culture or religious belief. Would this god be so powerless as to be only able to lead and communicate with these few people? It is my opinion that any clear thinking and rational person has to say no.

If there is one item that has held me close to the church since my marriage it is the voice-in-my-head experience that had pulled me away from suicide years before. I have not known how to feel about it since I quit going to church. How could I possibly understand an experience that had me completely dedicated to church years before, but now I couldn't stand to attend. After the experience I honestly felt that I had heard god speak to me and I had never doubted it. Now, I felt I needed to better understand what happened, but I did not know where to look. Then about a year ago my brother from California came to live in Idaho Falls for awhile. He is been struggling with an ever-increasing problem of bi-polar mood changes. Watching him go through mood swings from a god complex to depression to euphoria to childish innocence was amazing. He told me of times he had heard voices in his head and had seen crazy things when his mind has gone far enough. He also told me about the short time he spent in an institution where he saw people's minds do much more extreme things than he had experienced. My brother has been to many doctors and has a deep understanding of how the mind works. He told me about how truly powerful the mind is and how dependent it is on certain chemicals released from the body to create moods and emotion. My brother explained how his chemistry is not working correctly and has to be regulated with drugs. It hit me that if his mind could do all these frustrating things, why couldn't my mind be responsible for my experience? I had starved my body for over three days and had inundated it with constant Mormon ideology. Under these extreme circumstances my brain could have been capable of all sorts of things. If I had continued to starve myself maybe I would have heard or seen even more unexplainable things. Isn't it our most basic instinct to survive? If one part of my mind was trying to destroy me because of depression then another part of my mind could have been trying to keep me alive. The truth is that I don't know what happened. I may never fully understand that experience, but at least I can have some other possibilities than the original conclusion. I believe that is most likely that I misunderstood it. I don't regret the experience because it is probably the reason I made it through that depression without killing myself. If I had committed suicide then I would have never gotten to meet my wife or our children. I choose to focus on the good from the experience. With all the possibilities considered I will no longer assume that the voice I heard was God. I will no longer assume that because of this experience I should let the LDS church run my life. My future and the challenges it will present will have to be understood using information and resources that do not come from an unexplainable experience.

This brings me my most recent experience. I'm not sure why, but I had some available time and the idea popped into my head to look into opinions of people that do not believe in the LDS church. The easy search was to look for anti-Mormon websites. I expected to find plenty of hate-filled stories with hostile intent. I expected this because of the stories my family had told of ex-Mormons that persecute members. Also, I had argued with a few people on my Mission that felt passionate about putting the LDS church in the evil category. I have a friend at work that makes it well known that he feels Joseph Smith is a "very bad man". With these expectations in mind, I was surprised to find several non-threatening websites with well-researched and fact-focused information. Instead of angry people talking about personal issues with their local bishop or elder's quorum president, I found information that was worth close inspection. I found plenty of documents that point out flagrant problems with the LDS church including its origins, rules, teachings, morals, claims to authority, and so much more. I have been completely engrossed in reading this information and following reference links. It is overwhelming that there is this much evidence out there that shows the LDS church to not be what it claims. I admit that I have been sent into emotional and mental overload at times. I am blown away to read evidence that shows the history of the church to be something that started out as a con for money and power; and has mutated and been changed over and over to become the current incarnation of the LDS church. I am shocked at the many changes made to core beliefs. I am amazed at how little members of the church know about their own history. I am disgusted at some of the terrible deeds that certain individuals have gotten away with in the name of this religion.

So what will I do with all this information and the new perspective I have gained? I really want to remove myself and my family from this religion and be able to say I am not a Mormon. I am still nervous about the backlash from friends, family, neighbors and the community around me. Many people that are a part of my world are firmly entrenched in the LDS church and I don't know how my world will change when they learn I have left. Even with the possible backlash, I want my children, who are still young, to know that they have a future that isn't restricted. I want them to know that I will make sacrifices to protect their options for a happy and successful future. I want to move foreword and face challenges and obtain goals using the best possible information and advise that is available. I want information that is not tainted with a questionable organizations agenda. I want my wife and I to get past the guilt that has been piled on us since we were young. I want to feel like I am not a part of some odd cult. I want to finally feel like a normal person.

• Update:  Sent notarized resignation letter for myself, wife, and 2 kids on July 5th 2007.
• Update:  Got final letter from church, but not until refusing a request from the bishop for an interview (we declined nicely, bishop is a family friend).
• Update:  Have read tons.  Especially helpful was No Man Knows My History - Faughn Brodie, Leaving the Saints - Martha Beck, The God Delusion - Richard Dawkins, & Letter to a Christian Nation - Sam Harris.  I can't believe how much information there is to help me to realize that this life is the only provable one there is.  There is no reason to save your happiness for the next life.  This life is my ONLY provable one and I plan to live it in happiness.  I love the Discovery Channel show called How the Earth was Made (Its about the real history of the earth, spoiler - no God involved, only science, physics, geology, and evolution)
• Update:  Family is seriously annoyed by my ever increasing strength with knowledge of facts of real earth history (including origins of religion) and rejection of ignorance and blind-faith.  I do have one brother that is moving quickly to embrace reality.  Family blames me (of course).