in or out

I know that a lot of people operate effectively in a liminal state with the church for various reasons, but for me, my personality, I’m either in or out. The transition from in to out was quite short for me. Once I stopped believing, I only attended a couple times.

So when I was in, I was in. I had a temple recommend, I read the Book of Mormon, I attended church weekly, I followed the word of wisdom. I didn’t let that stuff go until I was a non-believer. Sure, some things decreased in the months before. I didn’t read scriptures every day; I only went to the temple for weddings; I watched rated-R movies that I thought were worth my time.

The things that most obviously and significantly mark a believer from a non-believer happen to be the most superficial, too. Garment-non-safe clothes, alcohol, coffee. Those are the things I only tried as a non-believer. I’m not trying to be self-righteous about it. I’m just saying it to show how utterly indoctrinated I was, and how completely warped the church’s priorities are. The mental block against questioning the authenticity of the church’s origin claims was weaker than the mental block against questioning “alcohol is evil.”

Hello?