keyword analysis

Now and then I save the search terms that people used to link to my blog. I find it entertaining.

These are some from the last while:

backslider drink alcohol
how to have a wedding if I’m not Mormon and my family is
Mormon lies
symbol of adulthood

backslider testimonies restored
scared to leave Mormon church
emerging from the ashes
women manipulated

right of passage symbol
arc-steadiers
marriage regrets
Mormonism native Americans motive

can I be Christian while doubting Jesus
lds married regret
ex mormons speak out
pioneer trek songs

what does excommunicated from the church mean?
temple garment
prom symbol of adulthood
lds ex mormon stories garments

why we shouldn't sing battle hymn
temple garment thighs
sexy garment symbolism
mormon underground

mountain meadow massacre
damu and mormons
lost patriarchal blessing, received new bless
wedding regrets

grief as blessing
lds stories of atonement
what does mormon mean
south park creators excommunicated mormon

embarrassed by my past
exiting the church
mormon, alcohol, coffee
spouse manipulated into thinking angry

atheist ex-mormons

holiday travels

Sorry this post is much later than I usually get my posts out. I've been on the road, and I'm not sure I'll be able to keep up my post-a-day pace while out of town. I'll try.

BTW, I'm in the Salt Lake area. If anyone wants to meet up, do email me.

a sleep-induced conversation with a Mormon, or dreaming about blogging

I had a dream the other night. I was sitting at work in a cafeteria-type room, trying to work on a project. A co-worker came up and sat across from me, obviously wanting to talk to me, like she knew who I was, she had heard of me. To me, she was vaguely familiar, only enough to recognize her as a colleague, but I didn’t know her name. She was blonde and very happy, friendly. The thought occurred to me that she must be Mormon, and from Utah. I was sure of it. Wasn't there a newly hired employee from Utah? I wanted her to leave me alone so I could work, but I wasn’t going to be rude and say so. I certainly wasn't going to bring up anything that would highlight our common backgrounds.

She opened up a conversation, out of the blue, saying, “So, you’re a Christian, white woman—“ as if that was a prelude to a question, but I cut her off.

“I’m not a Christian,” I interrupted. She was surprised. “I consider myself an ex-Christian,” I continued. I knew this would be a strange idea to her, but I didn’t care to elaborate further.

“Really?” Then she asked her question anyway, something about the robes priests wear.

“Robes?” I asked.

“Yeah, you know, like Catholic priests…” she expanded.

“Oh, yeah,” I answered, and, deciding to rile her up a bit and test if my Mormon theory was right, continued, “kind of like the temple apron and all that.” I wanted to list more of the temple clothes, but couldn’t think of their names in my dream.

She stared at me, shocked.

“I’m from Utah,” I explained. “I’m not just an ex-Christian, I'm ex-Mormon too.”

She stared at me, speechless, for a good thirty seconds.

I smiled back at her, as if I had just told her I got an A on an exam, and hoped she’d stop staring at me.

“Don’t you know Mormon?” (That’s what she said in my dream, but I suppose she meant, “Aren’t you familiar with Moroni’s challenge from Moroni 10:4-5?”)

“Mormon, the compiler of the Book of Mormon? Of course I know of him. I’ve read the Book of Mormon over a dozen times.”

She was flabbergasted. I’m not sure if the shock was from the fact that I’d read the book that many times, or from the fact that I read it that many times but still left. She thought that if it wasn’t because of a lack of understanding the Book or Mormon that caused my unbelief, it must be something else.

“Well, it must be that you haven’t been to the temple,” she tried.

“No, I’ve been to the temple. I was married in the temple, and went many times since then,” I countered.

Then she asked me something about abuse—-I must have been abused, or I abused my kid. That must have been the reason for my leaving, right?

“I’ve never hit, and I’ve never been hit,” I answered. I decided it would be best to end this inane line of questioning and just explain to her why I left.

“Listen, let me explain why. I won’t say anything to shake you up. Too much. First, I don’t believe. I don’t believe Joseph Smith’s claims, the Book of Mormon, etc.”

“Okay.”

“And second, I don’t think it’s good for me and my family.”

“You and your family,” she repeated.

“Yes, for us. I think everyone can weigh the good and the bad for themselves, and if the good outweighs the bad, then…” I said, shrugging my shoulders to imply the conclusion.

“Yeah,” she said, “that’s how it is for me,” like she recognized there were some bad points with the church, but not enough to make her leave.

Somehow the conversation ended there, she was interrupted by friends or something and left the table. I thought it would be a good idea to jot down some notes from the conversation. As I scribbled on a notepad, she walked back over and noticed me writing our conversation.

“What are you doing? Are you writing down what I said?” she asked, a little freaked out.

I explained to her that I keep a journal, and like to write this kind of stuff down in it. I knew in my dream that this was a slight fib—-really, my “journal” would be my blog, online and public.

Just then, lots of people were suddenly coming into the room, including my sister and brother. I introduced my sister to the woman I’d been having the conversation with, thinking she’d be glad to meet someone else from Utah.

“This is my sister, Janet, and this is…?” I realized this whole time I didn’t know the woman’s name.

“Christine,” she said.

“Christine,” I continued the introduction. “Janet is from Utah.”

Christine looked like that bit of information didn’t phase her. So I turned to talk to my sister, who, oddly enough, in my dream, had just gotten out of two months in jail.

I woke up just after the dream finished, and I realized I hadn’t actually written it down. That part had just been in my dream. So I grabbed a piece of paper and jotted down notes. I rarely write down dreams, and rarely remember them with any clarity. But I thought it so strange that I had written it down in my dream, and that as I did so, I had thought, “This will be good for my blog.”

I’m dream-blogging. Or blog-dreaming. I’m dreaming about blogging. And I'll admit this wasn't the first time, either.

As I wrote in my dream, I thought to myself how experiences of ex-Mormons and questioning Mormons should be documented and talked about, not shushed up and ignored.

So what does the dream mean? I’m sure my mind is dealing with my anxieties about visiting faithful Mormon friends and family over the holidays, and playing out a possible scenario. One in which I was bold enough to speak up, and the Mormon was civil and accepting, even if she didn’t agree. That would be nice. We'll see how it actually goes.

more on "truth"

In response to Zarathustra's explanation of "truth," I wrote (with minor edits):

"I still don't think that Mormonism boils down to pragmatism or taste, though.That is ultimately why I stopped going, but it is not why I stopped believing. Perhaps my reasoning for stopping to believe is faulty, but I think there are some of Joseph's claims that can be put to the test of correspondence.For example, the Book of Abraham translation: we have the papyrus that he "translated" from. We have evidence that shows that he used the very papyrus that was recovered, and it doesn't match up to what he wrote.

Or if we can't go that far, then some of his claims can be reasonably argued against with what "data" we have that make his claims overly suspicious. The happenings of the first vision cannot be known, for example, but his several stories of them, matched up to what was going on when he told or wrote them, make them look suspicious. Perhaps this is something like being in a "he said--she said" court trial, where the lawyers "prove" a case through circumstantial evidence and casting doubt on the witness's reputation and credibility.

I'm not pulling this to the extent that would say, "Since Joe committed adultery numerous times, he has no credibility as a translator of ancient texts." But because he thought the Kinderhoek plates were authentic, and correspondence evidence shows he didn't translate the Book of Abraham or Book of Mormon in any way that can be reasonably called translation, I doubt his credibility as a translator."

These, among other things, led me to believe that Joseph Smith had no special conduit to God. Now, does that mean everything he ever said (or wrote into scripture) should be thrown out the window? No. Why? Because correspondence truth is not the best conception of truth by which to discuss theology. The church's teachings should be measured on, as I've said before, a different yard stick. Which is why, I suppose, for me, "realizing" the "untruth" of
Mormonism didn't, in itself, make me leave. First it was a matter of "true or not," then a matter of "good or not." And I decided, given many things, (the top three of which are the church's approach to women, homosexuals, and blacks, but the list doesn't end there) the church wasn't good.

Given Zarathustra's argument, I want to revise that last sentence to read "the church wasn't good for me," but I still hesitate. Because it's not good for a lot of people. For example, of the top three gripes I have with the "goodness" of the church, I only fit into one of the categories.
And, I suspect, that there are people in the church who gush about how great it is for them, while it is hurting them at the same time (women who internalize their supposed inherent inferiority, for example).

I'll have to chew on these ideas some more.

"truth"

Continuing from my previous post, chocolate and vanilla, regarding my interesting, enlightening, but sometimes frustrating, conversations with a fellow ex-Mormon...

I asked him to explain to me different philosophical conceptions of "truth." And upon reading his explanation, I understood another reason we were talking past each other. We were operating on different ideas of "truth," and I had even been hopping back and forth within different conceptions of truth without realizing that they all been distinguished from each other and given different names by various philosophers. I'll try to summarize, relying heavily on his explanation.

Among the different theories on "truth," my friend, who comments here as Zarathustra, named four: correspondence, coherence, pragmatism, and perspectivism.

Correspondence presupposes that in order for some proposition to be true it must correspond to the way things are in the world. For example, there either is or isn't a Christmas tree in my living room; it's being there or not is verifiable with evidence. Most people, myself included, think about truth primarily within this paradigm. Mormons (and others, I'm sure) use correspondence the think about religion: There is or is not a God, and evidence for His existence can be found, such as in scripture, the existence of the universe, answered prayers, etc. But philosophers and many others would not place theology in this category of "verifiable" or "empirical."

Zarathustra wrote, The trouble with correspondence is that it quickly breaks down in cases where no correspondence can be determined....We can't easily test [if] truth-claims...in fact correspond to the way things are in the world....Truth itself is not necessarily a matter of empiricism; it can be, but it need not be.Theology and moral philosophy do not lend themselves to empirical observation."

This way of thinking about truth is so familiar that we take it for granted; we often think that this is the only way to think about truth. But no so...

There is also the coherence theory of truth. "Coherence theorists do not look to anchor their claims to the truth in the way the world happens to be. Instead, their hope is to construct a view of the world that (a) has the greatest degree of explanatory power, and (b) is able to cohere with itself." They seek to "describe the world's phenomena in an efficient and comprehensive manner" while avoiding "internal contradiction and inconsistency." Think scientific disciplines.

Then there's pragmatism, which "tries to evaluate our claims to truth by their ability to promote some recognized good." Truth becomes a "matter of utility." If it promotes good, it is "true" in a pragmatic way. I know some Mormons that keep up relations with Mormonism in this way; it works for them, it helps them be happy. The actual "truth" of, say, the Book of Mormon story about Lamanites being descended from Hebrews and DNA evidence that shows Native Americans are descended from Asians, isn't important. Whether or not the church is "true" is a matter of it being "good" for them.

Finally, there is perspectivism, argued by Nietzsche, which says that truth depends on your point of view, which in turn can depend on heredity, race, nationality, taste, trends, etc., etc. (but Nietzsche would resist such a list, wouldn't he?).

Upon reading Zarathustra's explanation, I realized one reason why our conversations sometimes go the way they do. There's Zarathustra arguing about chocolate and vanilla (pragmatism and perspectivism), and there's me, making definitive statements like "When I realized the church isn't true..." from within a correspondence paradigm. I feel I weighed the evidence of Joseph's claims and found the evidence against his claims stronger than the ones for them; in this way, I say, "The church isn't true." Zarathustra generally discusses the church from outside the correspondence paradigm, as a matter of goodness or of taste, and thinks that debating the (correspondence) evidence for it is beside the point, and perhaps, useless.

He wrote, "If we insist on correspondence, then Mormons and anti-Mormons are in for a very long fight.(I'm using anti-Mormon in a very loose sense.)But, if we adopt some other conceptualization of truth, Mormonism--as a humanly important truth--may turn out to be true and false, or rather, as I'd like to say, delicious and disgusting, all at once. It will depend on perspective."

Stay tuned for more of my thoughts on this...

have a happy holiday

happy holiday

merry christmas

happy yule


That's all I'll post today, because I'm busy enjoying the day with my precious little family. And I hope you are too.

a religious holiday

Okay, so after all my talk about celebrating Christmas as a secular holiday, I felt the pull toward attending a church service this weekend. I don't know why--socialization, habit--but it felt like the holiday would be more complete if I attended a service.

I felt the same way on Easter, but didn't end up attending because my husband didn't want to go, and I couldn't bring myself to attend alone. Since then, I've come to grips with the fact that my husband will never attend, and that's okay with me. So I decided to attend the congregational church where our good friends attend, because their kids were to perform in the pageant, and I knew the (female! WOOT!) pastor is quite liberal about religion.

I wanted to bring our son with me, but my husband doesn't care to send our son to church when I do get the whim to go. I argued that it was to see his friends; he's only little and won't get what's going on anyway beyond the fact that his friends are up front in silly costumes; and he's going to hear the Jesus story somewhere, probably from his Mormon relatives, so it's better to expose him to the story on our terms, where we can talk about it after. Kind of like parents discussing sex with and introducing alcohol to their kids before their teenage friends introduce them in less-than-safe circumstances.

Yes, I did just compare Jesus to sex and alcohol.

I ended up taking our son, and he cried and screamed and pulled me back down the street toward the car, demanding we go home. Our friend met us on the sidewalk and told my son that there would be a goat and a dog in the church for the pageant, and that got him to calm down a little. It took some more coaxing at the back of the church before I could get him to sit down without screaming, but he did sit through the service. Bored as hell. He liked the goat and the dog, and he liked that he got to stand up and sing. But since he didn't know any of the words, he faked it and sang nonsense, or better yet, naughty, words. By the time the pastor got to the sermon, he was asking, too loudly, to leave. But he survived his first church service in well over a year, and he really liked the treats and the running up and down the aisles at the end.

And I had a nice time, too. It was the first time since leaving that I sang songs about Jesus without cringing. I guess it's just the Christmas spirit.

Have a happy holiday.

it

Some days I don't even think about it. On those days, I keep up posts by post-dating drafts I wrote before. On those days, I wonder if I can keep up the pace of daily posting. On those days, I wonder if I can even keep up the blog. I wonder if I have said enough. That just by telling my story I've had the therapy I sought after in creating this blog. On those days, I sit at the computer to type, if I've ran out of drafts, but my fingers just gently drum away, not spelling anything. I speak aloud to my husband, "Give me a topic," and he teases me, "You've run out of things to say?"

This isn't one of those days.

Some days it grips me. It grips me like a vice around my chest, heavy and tight. Squeezing me, threatening to squeeze tears out of my eyes. I breath deep, but it doesn't help. It remains, heavy and tight, there, deep in my chest. I take my bike to work to get fresh air and exercise, but it doesn't help clear the sadness out of my mind. I clock in at work, but I can't work. The thoughts push into my head. Not even thoughts, really, more like a mess of dark emotions that doesn't let me do any thinking because the cloud is too thick.

I don't want to feel it. But it is there. I can't shake it. Part of me wants to fight it. To hide quietly in another room and silently scream into a pillow, then get a hold of myself and walk out, act like everything is perfectly normal. Part of me wants to embrace it, let it come until I am just a heap of sobbing on the bed, curled up behind my husband. Let the sobs and wails escape uncontrollably from my normally stoic form, lashing out with sadness and pain in every heaving breath.

And I wonder, which is better?

Note: I wrote this days ago, and the mood passed. It always passes. If it didn't, I'd be seeking professional help.

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...

winter solstice and ritual

I grew up thinking that pagans were the epitome of evil. Worse than Catholics or Muslims, because at least they believed in God. My exposure to pagans and paganism was extremely limited, of course. My only exposure, I think, was from the movie Dragnet with Dan Aykroyd. Those pagans partied, did drugs, stole police cars, dressed in animal skins, and sacrificed virgins. And wasn't there something about playboy bunnies? They were bad. Okay, so I still think sacrificing virgins or anyone else is definitely not a good idea, but my thoughts on paganism have changed.

Not that I've studied about it. A few pokes around internet sites like Beliefnet. The idea of something pre-Christian appeals to me, though. I like the idea of appreciating and caring for the earth and nature, marking the seasons, even to the point of worship, finding peace and fulfillment in it.

And I kind of like the idea of running half naked around a campfire at midnight. (I saw some more-than-cool Irish folks doing that in National Geographic. Jealous!)

Anybody in? Maybe that could accompany a sEXMObile party (thanks Gluby and Degenerate Elite)?

So for this holiday season, I decided to look up some winter solstice activities. I found some ideas at Circle Sanctuary and thought they looked interesting. Trouble is, I think it would feel so forced and artificial if we just started adopting random rituals. Kind of like how lighting the Hanukkah candles felt.

Christmas rituals have so much history with me; there are so many memories tied up into them. The building anticipation, sneaking around the house looking for presents, having a giant sleepover with my siblings, pretending to sleep while really listening for the sound of my parents bringing out the gifts. Cooking Christmas treats, opening one present on Christmas Eve, having a little Christmas program with relatives. Thrashing through the wrapping paper, making a huge mess. Spending all of Christmas day in pajamas, eating junk and snacks, playing with our new toys. Breaking the most popular ones by the end of the day, because we played with them so hard.

These are the reasons I want to keep up the holiday with my son. The secular, Santa side is a great holiday in itself. It managed to be more appealing to me as a kid than the Jesus story. The nativity story factored in only because my parents forced it in; we had to listen to them read Luke 2 before we could go downstairs to see the presents. Their little effort to keep the "true meaning of Christmas" in our minds. Yeah, yeah, let us get to the presents!

I suppose my son is young enough that if we did start some new rituals, they would feel like heritage and tradition to him. So why not? Bring on the Yule wreath, and celebrate with awe how the sun (S-U-N) brings us life.