chocolate and vanilla

I have an on-going in-real-life discussion with a friend about our different reasons for leaving the church and our different recoveries from leaving. Whenever we get together, the talk always seems to move toward Mormonism. Our respective spouses are a bit bored with it, I think. They just want to move on, but our conversations and debates go on into the wee hours of the night.

One recurring point in our debate has revolved around me saying stuff like, "After I decided the church isn't true...," and him countering with, "What is 'true'? You can say the church isn't true for you." Then he'll tell about how he explains his leaving to faithful, believing Mormons with something like, "Church is an aesthetic experience for me. And the Mormon church is ugly." or "It's a matter of taste. You like vanilla; I like chocolate. It's pointless to try to debate or prove whose opinion on ice cream is truer. Your beliefs suit you; mine suit me. You can't argue with that."

To which I might answer, "Trying to get a TBM to compare religions as as matter of taste is pointless. They don't see it as a matter of taste; it's a matter of True and Not True. Even if I like chocolate better, I'm wrong. I'm supposed to like vanilla; they say that vanilla is the Only True Ice Cream and that I can never be happy without accepting vanilla."

or, if I'm feeling feisty and angry,

"But it's not a comparison between chocolate and vanilla. Chocolate and vanilla is Methodist or Episcopalian. With Mormonism and another religion, you are comparing vanilla and shit. And the Mormons are trying their hardest to convince you that you like shit."

Sometimes I think that our fundamentally different views are because he was a convert and I was a born-in. This reflects in our different analogies of leaving. For him, his leaving was like getting off a bus--one that he voluntarily got on. The church served him well for a time, took him someplace, but then it was time to get off again. My leaving was like coming out of a building--a permanent structure that was not going anywhere, and was decrepit, dark, and confining. It makes sense, then, that I'm angrier, and he has a more positive view of the church, one that he even defends against ranting, hyperbolic posts made by ex-mos like me. (Even while he'll say the church is ugly.) I've told him so, basically saying, "You just don't get me because you're a convert." That's not to say that he has nothing valuable to contribute or that converts don't have equally as valid viewpoints as born-ins, but just that it is different. Very different. He escaped the majority of the indoctrination; and even what he did buy into, he did so as an adult, knowing there were other buses he could get on. He had a choice. I was indoctrinated since I was one. Each experience comes with its own baggage.

Or maybe our differences are because he is a man and I am a woman. Like the other night, we were talking about purpose and direction in life. (Note that he'd had several beers by this point and he doesn't even remember this conversation, so this is entirely my interpretation of what I remember from the conversation.) Mormonism gave him a very strong sense of purpose in life. Proclaiming the Gospel; redeeming the dead; perfecting the saints. Achieving eternal life. That's direction. The church was powerful and compelling enough that it convinced him to give up sex, drugs, and alcohol and go on a mission. It had enough purpose and direction to bring people across the great plains to settle in the desert. He was saying "purpose," I was thinking "manipulation." I just couldn't relate.

The church gave strong enough direction, he said--becoming a god, ruling over your own worlds--that it could get him to do anything to achieve that. And now that's gone for him; if he doesn't get to become a god, where is his direction going to come from? And that's where my aha! moment came in that conversation. The version of eternity Mormonism gave him, as a man, had involved being a king and priest, Ruler of Worlds, holding power and dominion over (according to Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, John Taylor and D&C 132 as it stands to this day) wives and countless children. The version the church gave me? Not so powerful: I would get to be a queen and priestess unto my husband, one of many wives, popping out countless spirit babies. [sarcasm] Yeah, I was going to try really hard to achieve that. [/sarcasm] Sorry, that failed to give me purpose and direction. So maybe my sense of loss of direction isn't quite as piercing.

Then, for another reason, I asked him to explain to me different philosophical conceptions of "truth." And then I understood another reason we were talking past each other. But that'll come in another post...