For the last few days, my beautiful and sexy wife and I have been watching Sabrina, an old Audrey Hepburn movie from the 1950’s.  In one scene, Hepburn’s character makes a failed soufflé at a cooking school in Paris.  The next day I woke up, filled with the urge to cook a soufflé myself.  In particular, chocolate.  In particular, to impress said beautiful and sexy wife, whoc like most beautiful and sexy wives, loves chocolate.

Unfortunately, it took me several days to gather the requisite ingredients and equipment (finding a soufflé dish is trickier than you might imagine, especially if you’re not interested in paying a bajillion dollars for one at a specialty cooking shop), but this morning I baked a lovely chocolate soufflé which we ate for brunch.  It was light, fluffy, and sinfully delicious.  I was so impressed with myself (and the product of my endeavors), that now I want to bake another one, perhaps cheese.  Thus, the title of this post.  It has bitten me.

Incidentally, I am a devoted Audrey Hepburn fan, and currently own twelve of her movies on DVD.  I intend to own them all.  We also have a large picture of her in our kitchen, which I got from a guy who was moving out of his apartment here in the building.  The picture belonged to his girlfriend, and he personally hated it, and when I commented on it, he proposed to give it to me and tell her that it was destroyed accidentally in the move.  I went home happy.

Also incidentally, the movie amuses me because of the obvious early 1950’s portrayal of capitalism and business as virtuous and beneficial, which is interesting to me because we have been discussing the Red Scare and its effect on Hollywood in one of my seminar classes at law school.

By the way, here’s the recipe I used.  It was easy; you should try it.

I have some posts I’ve been wanting to write that I’ve been procrastinating.  The new semester has started, and my beautiful and sexy wife is in her busy season at work (as well as fairly far along in pregnancy), and there’s been some extended-family drama.  That’s all to say that I haven;t had time really to sit down and compose myself enough to write about some of the things I’ve been thinking about.  I haven’t fallen off the earth, I’m just kinda busy at the moment.

One of the funny things about this blog, wherein I document my spiritual journey to some kind of truth or meaning or whatever, is that whichever twist or turn I take, there’s always a chorus of cheerleaders telling me I’m doing the right thing. That’s why when my journey then takes me away from whatever detour it had me wandering through, I’m often reluctant to say so, in fear of disappointing the people who were excited that I stopped by.

I first noticed this with paganism. When I was looking into neopaganism and druidry, I attracted many neopagans and druids who were excited by the path my journey was leading me down. When it then led me back away from paganism, they mostly kind of faded into the woodwork (with some exceptions- I’ve picked up some good friends along the way). And I was sad to say that I didn’t think paganism or druidry was going to be where I ended up, because I knew those people would be let down in a sense. On the other hand, pagans tend to be really nice, nonjudgmental people, and as long as I’m not making fun of them or damning them to Hel, I’m pretty sure they’ve still got my back.

However, this dilemma was much more acute with atheism. When I ultimately spiralled into nonbelief, I was greeted with accolades and cheers from some of the internet’s atheists, for finally freeing myself from the shackles of atheism and being a mature human being who didn’t need deities as crutches anymore. When I decided that atheism wasn’t going to really work for me, I was reluctant to say so. For starters, accolades are nice. And the opposite of accolades is scorn, and I didn’t really want that.

Of course, I wasn’t really going to let how other people decide how I believe or don’t believe, but there was a minute where I was at least a little bit cagey about saying anything. I was getting so much support for declaring my atheism, and when I recanted, that support would probably vanish.

I say all of that by way of introduction tot his post. My goal hereis to explain why I stopped believing in God and why I started again. This might be a long post, so hang on to your hats.

When I first started seriously questioning the Mormon church last summer, my initial criticisms were centered around my feeling that Mormonism wasn’t Christian enough- Mormonism and Mormon scripture didn’t track closely enough with what I thought Christianity was all about (based on the New Testament, Church history, and the true Christians that I had come across over time). I felt like Mormonism was not leading me closer to Christ, but actually keeping me away from Him. Thus, in leaving Mormonism, my initial question was “what kind of Christian should I be?”

When I started this blog, my wife and I had only recently decided to actually leave Mormonism behind us, after struggling with it for some six months. I had also just read Donald Miller’s Blue Like Jazz, and I felt like becoming a Christian was something I wanted to do, but I wasn’t sure how to go about doing it. For some reason I didn’t feel like I already was a Christian, like I was already really committed to Jesus.

The problem was that my reasons for believing in Jesus, and in fact my reasons for believing in God at all, were basically the same reasons I believed in Mormonism. That is, I had simply been raised to assume that they were true, and this assumption was backed up by emotional “spiritual” confirmations. In deciding that those bases were insufficient for continued belief in Mormonism, I also took out the foundation, as flimsy as it may have been, for my entire belief in God. In other words, the same conclusions that made me question my belief in Mormonism made me ultimately question my belief in Jesus Christ and in any kind of God whatesoever.

I was waiting for some kind of mystical experience, some kind of contact with the divine that was the real deal, not the easy “warm fuzzy” self-delusion of Mormonism’s Holy Ghost. I was waiting for God to reach out and shake me, to let me know that he was real, to give me some kind of contact. But it kept not happening.

With that in mind, I began giving a loud voice to my innner skeptic. I started reading Ebon Musings’s essays on atheism, which are honestly extremely compelling and very difficult to dispute. Eventually, I was in a place where I had to admit that I had no real reason to believe in God other than wishful thinking, and if I was to be honest with myself, I would have to admit that I simply did not believe.

It seemed like a destination of sorts. It wasn’t what I was shooting for when I set out towards Byzantium, but maybe the place we intend to be is often a lot less realistic than the place we really wind up. I wasn’t a nihilist or anything; I still had some core beliefs that I was more or less confident in. But I could not say that I affirmatively believed in God.

The thing was, I wasn’t happy. I didn’t really want to be an atheist. I actually like religion! Specifically, I was (and still am) convinced that while an aheist can be a very good and moral person, and that a religious person can be a complete jerkwad, nevertheless for me personally, religion in general and Christianity in specific were going to have a much greater potential to make me the kind of person that I wished I was. I could be a good person and an atheist, that was never in question. But no atheist philosophy was going to actually transform me into a New Man. And Christianity made that promise.

But my problem was that if I was going to believe something, it would have to be more intellectually honest than my beliefs had previously been. No putting doubts on the shelf. No convincing myself until I was convinced. Nothing like that. I wanted to believe, but I didn’t want it so bad that i was willing to delude myself into believing.

So I went about tentatively trying to figure out how I could believe in God despite my loud internal skeptic (but without squashing him and pretending he didn’t exist) and despite the very good and compelling logical arguments against God’s existence, and the generally weak and limp logical arguments for God’s existence.

I read some Kierkegaard. I thought about how God and logic would interact, if there was a God. I thought about doubt, and whether there was a place for it within faith. I read Brian McLaren’s Finding Faith. I thought about hope.

In the end, I made a place where I thought I could theoreticaly believe in God. I had room for God in my framework again. However, having room for God, i.e., acknowledging the possibility of God, doesn’t equal belief in God. If, at that point, I had simply declared myself a believer, I would have been guilty of doing the very thing I was most loathe to do: talking myself into believing. Instead, I let it simmer for awhile.

At the same time, I started thinking seriously about Jesus Christ, and I found him extremely compelling. Christianity still kind of gave me the heebie jeebies, so I was still reluctant to even express interest in the religion. But the man? The more I thought about Jesus, the more I felt like there was something to him. Something more. I wasn’t really sure what it was, but I knew I liked it, and maybe I even needed it.

I then let this stew for a bit. The more I thought about God, the more I thought that maybe God exists after all, despite my efforts to logic him out of existence. And the more I thought about Jesus, the more he seemed electrifying, powerful, important. Much more so than a simple wise moral philosopher, however great he may have been.

When I read C. S. Lewis’s Till We Have Faces, I finished the book and realized that after reading it, there was no way I could ever say that I do not believe in God. I can’t explain it very well, because the book touched me on an extremely personal, maybe even primal level. But it completely evaporated all of my defenses. It didn’t resolve my concerns or wipe away all of my doubts or anything, but it spoke loud and clear to me: nevertheless, there is a God. It was a life-changing experience that I can’t do justice in writing or even in speaking- it was so strange and powerful that I have a hard time articulating exactly what it was about the book that changed my whole way of looking at God.

Once I had made room for the possibility of God, Till We Have Faces showed me that God was a sure thing.  All of my anger, my logic, my insecurity, my waffling, and my careful arguments are made completely insignificant when faced with God’s existence.

In any case, that’s where I am now. I am sure that there is a God, and I suspect that Jesus might actually have been God. I’ve not got a lot more than that. I suppose it’s a start. I can’t really be the poster child for honest atheism anymore, but I probably never should have been. I’m not at my destination yet- in fact I don’t know if I’ll ever really “have arrived”- but I like where I’m sailing right now, and I’m interested and excited to see what’s ahead.

I had a great discussion with my mother a few days ago (she’s a true believing Mormon) about the difference between faith and testimony in Mormon theology, and I’ve been mulling around some thoughts about it ever since.

“Testimony,” as commonly used by Mormons, is an unfortunate term. It’s an umbrella term, a thought-construct composed of several different distinct but related concepts, but they’re all blurred together into one conglomerate noun in the Mormon vernacular. When the Holy Ghost bears witness of the truth of x, a Mormon calls that your testimony. When you tell others the religious things you believe or “know,” that’s also your testimony. Those two I can handle, but the third main use is the most vague and elusive, and the one least based in (even Mormon) scripture and theology. It’s this idea that a testiony is a thing, a noun, an intangible object that you actually have and need to nurture and work on so it grows.

It’s not the same thing as Faith, which is given some pretty clear and basically consistent definitions in the New Testament and the Book of Mormon. Paul (or whoever wrote Hebrews) said “faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” (NIV). In the Book of Mormon, Alma said faith “is not to have a perfect knowledge of things; therefore if ye have faith ye hope for things which are not seen, which are true,” and Moroni said faith is “things which are hoped for and not seen.” None of those are really the same thing that Mormons are talking about when they talk about their testimony. Testimony is the assurance of the truth of Mormonism via mystical experiences.

Faith is consistently couched in terms like “hope.” Your testimony is the things you know. You might talk about faith in terms of certainty, but you would never describe a testimony using the word “hope.” Sure, the terms are similar, but they’re not identical.

In Mormon theology, such as it is, the requirments for salvation are faith, repentance, baptism, the gift of the holy ghost, and enduring to the end (which includes getting the necessary ordinances and priesthood, and continuing to develop faith, repent of sins, and renew your baptismal covenant by taking the sacrament). Testimony per se is not a requirement for the Celestial Kingdom. There’s not testimony checker at the pearly gates. Nevertheless, Mormons constantly talk about the necessity of having a testimony, as if it is basically the most important thing in Mormonism.

It has no real connected place in Mormon theology, so why is it necessary? All of the critical steps (the principles and ordinances of the gospel) for salvation are obtainable without ever once feeling the Holy Ghost, much less Getting a Testimony.

There’s a weird inconsistency yhere that bothers me. Basically, what it boils down to is that Mormonism in practice focuses almost obsessively on the need for the individual to experience successive, ongoing conversion experiences. No wonder Mormons are able to simply ignore their doubts and criticisms of the church that they hear! They are spending their time and effort constantly converting themselves. Why? I think it’s because without constant conversion-as-reinforcement, Mormonism doesn’t really hold up to scrutiny. Testimony may not actually be a requirement for salvation in Mormonism, but if you aren’t constantly cultivating mystical confirmations of the Church’s truth, you’re far less likely to stay a member of a Church that is heavy-handed, authoritarian, wildly implausible, and extremely demanding.

I don’t really believe there is such a thing as “having a testimony.” I think that you can experience God through the Holy Spirit, and I think you can yourself bear witness to things you believe are true, but as far as this nebulous thing that you have, I think it’s a mental and cultural construct with no real existence. It’s a doublespeak term tat obscures what’s going on. Faith is something that you have. Testimony is something you hear or give.

Given that opinion, why then does it bother me when people say I must not have ever really had a testimony, seeing as how I left the Church. I mean, if I don;t believe that testimony exists, at least the way they’re talking about it, why do I care if they say I never had one? Again, it comes down to the nebulous doublespeak use of the term. When someone says I never had a testimony, they’re actually questioning whether I ever was really ommitted to the Church, and that pisses me off. I was raised in the Church, and I was a faithful member. I scrupulously tried to keep the commandments. I graduated from early morning seminary. I served an honorable mission and I worked incredibly hard, both physically and spiritually. I read the Book of Mormon again and again, not as a skeptic, but as an earnest believer. I married in the temple, which took great personal sacrifices on my part and on my wife’s part. I always paid a full tithe, and I gave generous fast offerings. I magnified my callings. I prayed daily. When doubts came, I did my best to resolve them. I tried to me a member-missionary, and I even tried my best to do my home teaching. I did everything I was supposed to do to “get a testimony,” and I did it with pure intentions, because I honestly thought it was all the right thing to do.

The Church promises that if you do this stuff, you’ll Get A Testimony. Thus, when people say I must not have had a testimony, they are insinuating that I never did the things that were required to get one, and that impugns my integrity and my earnestness, and that bothers me a lot.

I have to say that I believe that the Church is simply not true, at least it is not true the way it claims to be. It may be a fine place for some people, but it is certainly not God’s one true church, restored in these latter days in preparation for the second coming, led by living prophets, etc. I have no problem with people disagreeing with me, but I do have a problem with people assuming that the only reason I came to the conclusion I did is that I wasn’t really genuinely committed and faithful in the first place. That’s just insulting.

I’ve been thinking about what kind of Christian I want to be if I decide to be Christian after all.  I’m kind of torn.  I currently got o Cedar Ridge Community Church (the one founded by Brian McLaren) with my wife.  She likes it a lot, and she’s looking to settle down in a congregation and make it her home.  I can’t say I blame her.  She’s pretty solid in her Christianity, and just wants to get on with living a Christian life, being part of authentic community, and worshipping God, and I can’t say I blame her.  In many ways, my religious search is probably frustrating as I nervously flit back and forth between all kinds of different ideas and theologies.

There’s much about emergent Christianity that appeals to me.  The sermons at Cedar Ridge are dynamite- I agree with the theology being presented 100%.  However, I’m not incredibly excited aboutt he mode of worship.  Actually, I think it’s innovative, relevant, and a fantastic idea, but I don’t know that it’s the mode of worship that really appeals to me and connects for me.

I’d be much more comfortable in a more traditional liturgical service- Episcopal, Lutheran, or even Eastern Orthodox (I’m looking forward to trying out a Greek Orthodox service in the near future).  I like the liturgy.  I prefer the music- I’m not all that enthusiastic about contemporary praise music.  Some of it can be great, but not all the time; it just doesn’t mesh with my preconceived notions about what “church” and “worship” are supposed to be like.

In some ways, because of it’s broad tolerance for vastly differing theological approaches, the Episcopal Church would be almost ideal.  I really enjoy a good Episcopal service.  However, I prefer the sermons at Cedar Ridge by a factor of maybe a million.  And Cedar Ridge seems like one of the most friendly, welcoming places we’ve come to (other than maybe the Quakers).

The other factor is that I’m not excited about going to church separately from my wife.  I feel pretty strongly about that.  We should be together at church.  Even if I decide to be a committed atheist, I still plan on going to church with my wife every Sunday for the rest of my life.  It just feels right to me.

I don’t dislike anything about Cedar Ridge.  It’s just not my ideal fantasy church.  I don’t mind going to Cedar Ridge (and I certainly get something- quite a bit actually- out of it when I go), but I’m not so sure that in terms of worship it’s a perfect match for me.

The whole issue is pretty much unripe though, given that I still haven’t decided that God exists anyway.  But if I do decide to be a theist, it’ll be an issue.

As you may have gathered, I’m some sort of ill-defined post-Mormon. I grew up a faithful, committed memebr of the Church. I went on a mission and worked hard. I married in the temple. I always tried hard to keep the commandments, etc. But in the end, I came to the conclusion that the Church simply is not what it claims to be, and I have been in the process of moving on for almost a year now.

In fact, growing doubts about Mormonism were what really started my spiritual journey in the first place. Unfortunately, I started this blog well after my wife and I came to the decision (after months of soul-searching) to leave the Church, which means that this blog is not necessarily a very complete record of why I left Mormonism.

However, I have gone back every now and then to comment extensively on my problems with the Church and to talk about how I left and why. Since I’m becoming more involved in the disaffected Mormon slice of the bloggerverse (Outer Blogness), I think it might be worthwhile to gather the most relevant Mormonism-related links into one place. Here it is. I have also added this post as a permanent page, soit will be perpetually accessible to newcomers.

(These are in more of a thematic order than a strict chronological order)

Why I Am Leaving the Mormon Church (The Short Version)

Incoherent Eternal Families

“Not Important For My Salvation”

The Fullness of the Gospel
Mormon Criticism Classics: Theology and Debate

The Bishop

Why It Was Easy To Leave, Introduction

Why It Was Easy To Leave, Part One

Why It Was Easy To Leave, Part Two

Why It Was Easy To Leave, Part Three

What I Have Gained And What I Have Lost

I Don’t Worry

Disclaimer: This is by no means any kind of an exhaustive catalog of my problems with Mormonism. Like I said, most of my coming-out-of-Mormonism dialogue happened before I started this blog, so it never got written down.

Apparently I think. At least, I think I think. Also, Kay of Songs Of Unforgetting thinks I think, and so does Brendan of Off The Beaten Path. I am, of course, flattered. Since my natural tendency is to be an arrogant sonofabitch, I’m trying to not let it go to my head. The flattery, that is, not the thinking. Thinking belongs in the head. For the most part.

As a thinking blogger, it is now my duty to tag five other thinking bloggers. My geas, if you will. My onus. Kay and Brendan are of course thinking bloggers, but in honor of playground rules, I observe the ironclad law of “no tagbacks.”

Thus, I chose the following five:

First, my favorite thinker is my beautiful and sexy wife, Katyjane. Is that rank favoritism and perhaps nepotism? Sure it is. I make no excuses. Also, my wife is brilliant, and her opinion means more to me than anyone else’s. I sometimes get frustrated when she doesn’t think exactly like me (did I mention the arrogant sonofabitch part?), but she definitely thinks. I hold her in the highest esteem.  Her blog is funny, offbeat, and thought-provoking.

Second, is my friend Bryant over at Make Me A Commentator!!! It’s a liberal blog where he mostly just pokes holes in conservative columnists’ arguments. But he’s dang good at what he does.

Third, I tag Halcyon over at Halcyonedays. She doesn’t post as often as I do, but I admire her for being willing to think through some scary, imposing, difficult stuff. She’s got guts. Regardless of what conclusions she ultimately comes to, the fact that she’s really, honestly trying to work through life, the universe, and everything instead of just going with the flow and taking the easy pill impresses the heck out of me. It must be her good genetics.

Fourth, I tag Adam over at Daylight Atheism. His analysis is incredibly incisive, and it makes me sit up, take notice, and seriously think things through. He is both reasoned and reasonable, in a way that would make any honest reader take serious stock in what they think and believe- and he tackles tough issues while remaining sensible and nonconfrontational. I would be lying if I did not admit that his essays at Ebon Musings had an incredibly profound effect on me.

Fifth is tough. There are probably a half-dozen other bloggers I would like to tag (and part of me is tempted to give the fifth award to all of them simultaneously as joint tenants, but that’s just the part of me that is taking a Property exam right now). But instead, I’ll give the fifth to Dando at Mormon and Evangelical Conversations, for his even-handed and thoughtful religious dialogue.

In the meantime, I shall give a general shout (and very honorable mention) out to the very worthy Peter at For Peter’s Sake (for always having a thoughtful point of view, and having good taste in women), WhoreChurch at Whore Church (for boldly tackling the ugliest bits of religion while maintaining a close relationship with God and a love for Jesus Christ), Jonathan Blake at Green Oasis (for generally being good at what he does, and always being interesting) Bored in Vernal at Hieing to Kolob (for being feminist and Mormon, and brilliant), and Random Goblin at The Goblin’s Lair (for being one of the most intelligent human beings on earth, as well as a cruel, arbitrary, arrogant sonofabitch- of course these days he writes abject nonsense instead of politics). There are probably plenty of others that I am seriously offending by not mentioning. Oh well. I am cruel and arbitrary (much like many people’s conception of God). Really, though, everyone in my Blogroll and/or Links is worth reading. But if somehow getting two thinking blogger awards justifies me in handing out two sets of awards, then they get them. You may decide for yourself. Blogging Law is not one of the classes I have taken at law school.

Normally, I try to keep away from this kind of thing on my blog and stick to the substantive stuff. But hey, like I said- I’m cruel and arbitrary. I do what suits me at the moment. What can I say?

(oh, also- don’t forget Jeff over at Druid Journal. He’s good enough to have gotte nmy third thinking blogger award twice! But I think he’s gotten one before).

I have come to the realization that I do not believe in God.

I don’t deny that God exists.  He (she? it? they?) certainly might exist.  However, at the moment, I simply do not have enough to go on.  I see no gap in the universe so great that it needs a god to fill it, and I feel no personal relationship with any divine being.
I have very few reasons to believe in God at the moment.  I have the testimony of others, sure, but for most people that means a singularly unreliable, subjective kind of testimony.  And it is more than counterbalanced by my sense of skepticism.

By no means do I intend to paint all believers with one broad brush, or to disparage them all.  In fact, one major reason that I leave myself open to the possibility of God if the fact that my wife believes in God.  She seems to have a sweet, humble assurance of divine presence and a sense of relationship with the spirit that I do not have, but would never dare question.  In fact, people like my wife lead me to hope that I might be able to believe in God someday.

The authority of the Bible, like the auithority of any other religious book, is also highly unconvincing.  Again, it it second-hand testimony at best, and largely unsibstantiated.  Furthermore, all of the “Bibles” of the world conflict with each other, and contrary to the protestations of their respective adherents, none of the pack really stands out.

I am naturally inclined toward Christianity, sure.  But it is Christianity that I am inclined toward, not God.  You may think it odd that I would separate the two, but I’m doing it.  I find Christianity appealing and relevant, but I have no reason to think that it is for any other reason than because I grew up in a Christian family in a Christian culture.  So when I make my ad hoc adjustment for cultural bias, I find myself again at the zero mark.

Finally, I admit that I would like to believe, but for the moment at least, that is not enough.  I know how easy it is to manufacture something when you want it badly enough, because I grew up in the Mormon church.  For the time being, I simply refuse to make myself believe.  I’m not comfortable with that, and I would never be able to shake the skepticism that comes from the fact that I would know full well that I had purposely cultivated religious fervor.  That’s not the same thing as a relationship with God.  I know, because I did it for twenty-eight years.

In other words, I have already gone the route of pushing myself toward belief.  I’ve spent years cultivating faith on purpose, readin scripture, praying, testifying until I felt sure of myself.  Immersing myself in religion and spirituality until I convinced myself that it was all true and that it really was God.  Coming out of that, I’m hardly willing to just pick a different flavor of religion and try again.  I have no reason whatsoever to suspect that the ultimate result won’t be exactly the same.  Also, I am reviled by the idea that God is playing some kind of cosmic shell game.

I could change my mind.  I’m open to it.  Right now I have some vague criteria in mind that would do the trick, but they seem to not be forthcoming.  I’m not closed to the possibility that in the future at some point, either those criteria will be met, or I will change the criteria.  I’m hardly so arrogant as to assume that I’ve got the whole universe figured out right now, and I’m hardly so stubborn that I would be unwilling to change my mind about things.

I prayed this afternoon that God would tell me that he exists.  I didn’t get an answer.  I guess that’s all for now.  I don’t know what this means, or how long it will last, but here it is.

Right now I’m wondering whether science leaves room for metaphysics.  Science hasn’t figured out everything, but do we have a reason to believe that science won’t eventually figure everything out.  If I fill in little gaps with my own metaphysics, am I really any different than someone who fills in the big gaps with God?

I would like to believe in Christianity, actually.  But I am unwilling to make myself  believe in something.  I have a strong skeptical side that I have traditionally ignored, but it was conscious ignoring that I’m not willing to do anymore.  Specifically in terms of life after death and future prophecied events, I have always had a problem really believing that that stuff was going to happen.  It all just seemed too unlikely.  It’s not that I think there is no extension of consciousness after death, but that I am very skeptical that it is all going to turn out the way any given religion claims it will.  I am willing to believe, but I need something more to go on than just the desire to believe plus the testimonies of other people (who I don’t necessarily believe are any more sure than I am).  I’m not saying that I need to have something perfect that has no holes in it whatsoever- I am in fact willing to cover a lot of ground with faith.  I’m just saying that it can’t be a matter of wanting to believe, and then looking so hard for evidence to validate that belief that I read mystical import into perfectly mundane things.  I’m willing to take some risk, but not huge risk based on nothing but an essentially random choice.

And please don’t tell me “God has already given you evidence!  He sent his son to shed his precious blood, etc.”  That is unbelievably unhelpful.  I am aleady familiar with basic Christian theology, thank you.

I want to believe, but I don’t want to believe so much that I am willing to abandon all reason to do so.  If you go back and read this blog from the beginning, you’ll see that it started as a place for me to chronicle my journey towards Jesus Christ, not my journey away from him.  Around Christmas, I was very keen on being converted to Christianity, but I was also wary.  I was not about to force myself to believe, or to tell myself that I believed until I realy did, or to want evidence for belief so badly that I’d find it wherever I looked.  Maybe I was not open-minded enough, but with those constraints in place, I found my belief in Jesus Christ slowly unravel.  I wanted to enter into a relationship with him or to realy be converted ot him, but I was just never quite able to make it happen, and to this day I don’t understand how that happens without falling into one of the Mormon-search-for-truth traps that I am unwilling to fall into.  Once burned, twice shy, I guess.

I’m certainly not saying that nobody else is able to be converted or to  have a relationship with the divine.  I’m just saying that I myself have been unable to do so in a satisfactory way, and that indeed I don’t even know where I would start (and before you tell me to start by reading the Bible and praying, you can keep it to yourself- I’ve done that).

So, if I decide that I believe that there is no God, what kind of framework do I formulate that accomodates people that I respect and care about who do believe in God?  I guess it’s not that big of a deal, since I certainly am not denying the existence of God, but merely stating that I myself do not believe that he exists.  And given that I myself admit that I would be willing to believe if I had a little bit more to go on, I have no reason to doubt people who say that they in fact have a little bit more to go on.

My beautiful, smart, and sexy wife claims she has a relationship with God, and she loves Jesus.  She doesn’t claim this because the Bible Tells Her So, or because some off-the-shelf religious dogma includes God in the package, or because she has interpreted fortunate happenstance as miracles.  She claims it because of experiences that she has had and changes in her life that have accompanied a growing belief in God that have provided her with a great deal of comfort and reassurance.  I’d love to have that myself, so I’m in no position (and I have no desire) to say she’s crazy or deluded, or even that she is misled.

All I have to personally go on is what I’ve got, and it is painfully little.  I don’t feel like I can adhere to a religion, or even say I believe in God, and still be true to myself. So for now, this is the way it’s got to be.

I’ve been reading a lot of ex-Mormon (Exmo) and disaffected Mormon (DAMU) blogs lately, and I had a realization. I’m one of them.

It’s weird. Since deciding I no longer believed in the Mormon church, I’ve mostly thought about myself in terms of the present and the future: what do I believe now, and what am I moving toward? It’s the whole point of the “Sailing to Byzantium” motif. I’ve felt like I left one port behind completely and now I’m sailing to a different one.

Maybe it’s because I’m not particularly angry or bitter towards the Church. I don’t necessarily feel the need to lash out or strike back. At the same time, I do spend a lot of time talking to my (equally not-excited-about-the-Church) wife and brother about how false I think the Church is, and I write about it often enough here on my blog- though it is not really the major focus.

In one sense, it’s ridiculous to try and pretend that I can just walk away from Mormonism with no scars or marks. I grew up Mormon- it was my identity for twenty-seven years. It made me different from my peers. I went on a mission and worked hard. I got married in the temple (to my beautiful and sexy wife- read her blog now). My worldview was fundamentally Mormon. My thought processes were Mormon. Most of my family, immediate and extended, are still faithful true-believing members. In fact, there’s a lot of tension in the family because my brother and I and our wives have decided to leave. There’s the possibility that relationships are permanently damaged because of it.

At the same time, I didn’t grow up in Utah. Most of my friends growing up were non-members, and as an adolescent I wasn’t usually particularly excited about the church. I went on Sundays to keep the peace, but Imore or less openly admitted to having no testimony. I “shaped up” to go on a mission, and then basically coasted for the next six years.

I haven’t had my name removed, and I haven’t been excommunicated, so I’m still technically a member. But I don’t think of myself as a member. We don’t go to LDS services at all. In fact, we actually regularly attend an emerging/nondenominational church. I don’t wear garments anymore. I no longer follow the Word of Wisdom. And I don’t feel guilty about any of it because I don’t feel like a member (among other reasons- I also reject the entire concept of arbitrary commandments, but i’ve been through that a couple of times recently so I won’t spell it out here).

We have friends in the church. Our babysitter is a member. We don’t mind home teaching visits. I don’t think we’l let the bishop come back, though. And the missionaries haven’t called us in a long time, but I’m pretty sure if they wanted to come over I’d tell them exactly why it’s not worth their time, but that we wouldn’t mind cooking dinner for them.

I didn’t watch conference. I’m just not interested. I don’t read Mormon books anymore, because I’m not really still trying to figure out if the Church might be true after all. I’m pretty sure it’s not.

So I don’t feel like a Mormon. I don’t feel like I’m defined by Mormonism, either, so I wouldn’t label myself as an exmo or a DAMU. In fact, when it comesup in conversation with people, I’m never sure what to say. Usually I just say I was raised Mormon. My good friends all know the score: I was Mormon until fairly recently, and now I’m in transition.

I tell myself I don’t feel the need to keep proving the Church untrue, but at the same time, I wind up talking about it and reading about it all the time. If I tried to pretend like the Church still didn’t play some kind of defining role, I’d be doing just that- pretending.

I find myself defending the Church in discussions as often as I do criticizing it. I still think it’s a false church, but I’m not going to try to pretend that it’s evil to the core, and when people criticize stuff stupidly, I call them on it.

So… what am I? Who am I? I don’t have a handy belief syste to substitute and claim as identity in place of Mormonism. Religiously, I’m not really anything. Am I an “exmo?” Not technically. I mean, I’m still on the records. I’m not a NOM because I neither attend church nor have any interest in doing so. I don’t feellike I’m a “disaffected Mormon,” because I don’t feel like a Mormon. Usually.

I’m also not really a part of the “Outer Blogness” community. Most of the blogs on my blogroll are pagan or Druid. Or family. And since I really mostly talk about religious issues in general, and about my own search in specific, rather than about the process of leaving Mormonism, I don’t know that I really feel like I’m doing the same stuff as the Outer Blogness community. And even if I did, is “Outer Blogness” my identity? I don’t know.

I’m very quickly heading into repeat-myself-in-a-circular-fashion territory, so I’m going to wrap this up. But the question lingers.