15) Atheist vs. Believers

I hope that i can make sense of all the feelings and thoughts i have going on right now.
Recently i have been digging deep into learning how to navigate relationships in my life with those that believe in God. I found a podcast where a Christian man wanted to open a dialect with his atheist friends and talk about how they are able to bond and share genuine experiences. I was really intrigued and wanted to hear more. In the beginning it all sounded great, these Christians really wanted to love others and really felt the love of Christ as they were saved. I was feeling encouragement that hey maybe it wont be as difficult as i have feared it to be.  One of the guests was sharing a lesson that was taught to her by one of her preachers, he said " When you are a true follower of Christ you needent worry about non believers contaminating you, your light will shine and they will become more clean."
It dawned on me in that moment. Believers will always see me as "contaminated" that's just the very nature of religion. It doesn't matter how kind i am, how loving, generous, forgiving, or open minded. I -- in their eyes am " contaminated" Now maybe not all religious people would use that word but the idea is the same. Without believing in God, where is my light? where do i find my purpose? I could be knee deep in serving another human just as valiantly, and with as much love as the religious person next to me, and they will say " If only she had the light of Christ in her", "If only she were saved". So why do i try to be kind, loving, generous, forgiving and open minded? Because that is the world i want to live in. Because it makes me happy, because that is who i am, who i choose to be.

When someone you love or care about goes through something difficult, or experiences a loss in some way its normal that most people ( especially mormons ) respond with " Prayers" or " Sending prayers your way" something along those lines. When i was a TBM ( True believing mormon) i said this a lot, but guess what? I never actually did it. Don't get me wrong, i prayed. I had just as much faith as the next person, i was all in. At the end of the day when it came time to pray I was focused on my immediate family and callings.  I have asked many others and they said the same thing. Its something that most ( not all ) people say to connect with those in their tribe. Makes sense, no big deal. Where do non believers fit into this scenario? What happens when a really religious person that you care about experiences something significant and the non believing friend shows concern?
Ill tell you how it feels. I was in this exact scenario recently. It hit me like a frickin freight train. I sat and allowed all the feelings i felt to wash over me. In that moment i envisioned a picture in my mind of me standing in the rain. My Religious friend whom i so deeply and dearly love was inside and all of the members of her tribe, ya know.. the ones that say " prayers" were all welcomed in and gathered in her embrace and gratitude for uplifting her with their " prayers" ?? while i was left standing in the rain crying " But i love you too".
Lord this really hurt. The pain was surprising and unexpected. It didnt matter that 2 days before i knew something was off. I thought about my friend ALL day, i have reached out and we both shared and our friendship grew even more. From an atheist perspective when someone you care about shares on social media or in person an experience, my mind doesnt jump to my beliefs about God. I have to think outside the box so to speak. I look deep into the person that i care about and i share genuine and honest feelings. I dont lean on a comfort that God will take care of them. I dont lean on faith. I use my heart. My love and concern for this person is my only focus and my reply to them comes from that place. That human, raw, real place.
It hurts to be left out in the rain. I am fully aware that i voluntarily of my own choice left my tribe. I walked away from my community of believers. But these moments have nothing to do with religion, i am not contaminated. I am worthy of being invited into the circle to share love and concern and friendship to my believing friends and family. I deserve a seat. I earned it. This world that i want to live in, there is a seat for everyone. Believers, atheists, LGBTQ, men, women, old and young. I am not all  great qualities all the time. My anti-self rears its ugly head sometimes, but i do try.
One more thought before i end here, I in no way am saying that all religious people dont have the ability to be real, and genuine. I am simply sharing my experience to perhaps shed some light into the feelings of an atheist trying to strengthen, build and navigate relationships with the believers in my life. I will never stop trying to be better, to grow and learn. I love all my friends and family both believing and non.

14) Speak No Evil.

Yesterday i was reading something from a member who expressed an open mind about people of all religions and how God loves them all regardless of what religion they came from. He then ended with saying that "If you want to post about your religion (or other world views) and promote it, that's great. But why not just focus on promoting what you have and believe, instead of tearing down others' beliefs or religions in the process?"

This got me thinkin. As " Ex-mo's" we share Church History as a way to hopefully open members' eyes up to this religion, that it might help them understand why it hurts like it does when we discover the truth of the history. The problem is that most of the members have either heard this history told from the Church leaders and are not interested in hearing it from different sources, or they have found a way to square it in their mind and are building their testimonies around this belief. They are able to see the good and use it as faith building blocks to apply in their lives. My journey out of Mormonism didn't begin with church history. A huge huge part of all this that the members don't see and are not a part of is the community of ex-mo's. These people are raw, they are in pain and we listen to each others stories and offer support. When you leave Mormonism, and i can imagine any other organization that has such a significant influence into every facet of your life, you begin to recognize all the ways in which this religion has played a part in your life. Those moments are the true reason behind all the layers of why so many of us leave. Church history plays a huge part, but for a lot of us it is the last part, the final nail in the coffin if you will. 

This is a day of electronics, the web, and social platforms. I don't think there is anything wrong with this at all, we just adjust to the changes in how the world communicates and we go along our merry way.  One of the largest platforms is Facebook. In my time with Facebook it has evolved, i started off just sharing pics of my kids with family and really close friends. Then opening up to letting more people, perhaps people you don,t know all that well but you share commonalities into your fb world. Now we share funny videos of animals and we take silly quizzes. We use fb as a podium to express ourselves and our opinions. Like most things there are ways in which social media has its drawbacks: cyber bullying, predators and disconnect from one on one human interaction. One thing i have noticed is that some Members of the Mormon faith love to try to kick Ex-mo's off their podium. Likewise, some ex-mo's do the same when members share their testimonies and promote their faith. I have been the member who was hurt by ex-mo's seemingly "tearing down" my faith. I understand the confusion and said myself "why cant they just leave?  If i left the church i would just go and leave it all behind."

When you are born and raised into generations of Mormonism and you leave... Your entire family is still in. They believe that you have destroyed your family!  They fear for your eternal salvation. Tempers rise, tears are shed, relationships changed and in some cases ended. The reactions from loved ones still in triggers a roller coaster of "revelation" into how Mormonism has effected your life. As you then walk away from your community and everything that you have ever known, there is a big wide world out there to discover and in the center of that is you. Immense possibilities are open that were not before and the journey to discover who you are without Mormonism begins. 

Every Ex-mo's story is different. I know people who have been disowned by family, some who were sexually abused by "trusted" leaders, some that suffered in Bishop interviews, some that endured years of shame and guilt. Some just heard the history and pulled the plug not having had any real serious qualms beforehand. Like every person, our experiences shape how we handle life and beliefs. In the beginning of the journey out of Mormonism, you feel anger. We feel lied to.  Every decision we have ever made was based on our belief system. We can no longer see the church as a good and positive place. We want to use our podium to speak about it, we have a lot to say and a lot of healing to do. I understand.  I truly, truly understand that to the believers it feels terrible to see and watch people you care about tear down something you hold dear. Some are more aggressive than others at doing it, but you know what? Perhaps their experience within Mormonism was more damaging. Perhaps they are receiving more blow-back from family and they are in pain.  Part of healing as i have learned in overcoming sexual abuse is that you have to let it all in. In order to heal you have to face it, get angry, learn and grow, process and make changes. It is all the process in finding ourselves and defending our right to speak from our podium. Please don't try to kick us off our podiums, we don't have to just promote "good."  Your beliefs invalidate my need to speak out. You dont have the right to shame my voice, and process to healing. We both have a right to speak out, to share our experiences, our beliefs , and to share our truth.  

13) "When in Rome"

            In March good ol "Rusty" aka Russell M Nelson went to Rome to dedicate the new temple and while he was there he spoke with the youth " 5 things to know and do." I wont go into all of them but the ones that piss me off. 

            The leaders of the church are such hypocrites i cant stand it. The first thing he says is "know the truth and stand for it, even if the truth is not politically popular. “As the world grows more and more secular and less spiritual, your growth should be more and more spiritual and less secular. Strive to stand for principle instead for popularity.”

      The church has lied about so many things, this is not an opinion. This is a fact and they keep telling the members to "stand for the truth"! When they dont do that themselves. They instill this fear of people becoming  educated and less " spiritual". The rising generation has a vast amount of information right at their fingertips and they know it. These warnings about staying away from secular things is calculated and manipulative. The top leaders know they cant stop all the information leaked on the internet, they cant stop the members from finding out that there is a mass apostasy going on right under their nose. They cant stop curious free thinking minds from stumbling across the truth. The only thing they CAN do is create fear, and guilt. 

    Next he said "Know you are accountable for your deeds and for your desires."

Okay so my beef with this one is the control over literally every flippin thing in our lives. Accountable for our desires?!

So when they say its not a sin to have same sex attraction its a sin to " act" on it... thats a lie. They put guilt on you for your effin desires people! doesn't matter if you choose not to act on them, you are responsible for having them. What a load of shit. I had a desire to drink coffee all my life, when i was a receptionist i would get the entire office coffee order and go to Starbucks. on the way there i would tell myself okay today's the day, im going to drink coffee. When i got up there i just couldnt do it, i felt so damn guilty about it. So then i would go back to work and secretly resent the fact that everyone else had coffee but i couldnt, even though there is ZERO reasons to explain why. There are next to no negative or harmful effects from it either. No worse than the millions of Mormons addicted to soda and getting fat from having a million babies. Its just ridiculous, accountable for your desires [ insert eyeroll here] give me a break. What they are really talking about here is sex if we wanna be honest. They want to shame you to feel the guilt of your accountability in wanting sex, thinking about sex, looking at porn or masturbating.  Oh boy this is a whole other post hahaha. ;) moving on...

        Now he is talking about things to "do" number one "Prepare for marriage. “Prepare continually to be a wife or a husband. Prepare now to be a mother or a father.” If marriage doesn’t come immediately, “increase your education, your experience, and your emulation of the Lord so you become more desirable with each passing year.”

Heaven help you if you dont want to get married and have a liter of kids. Make sure you are always making yourself more desirable. Its laughable the "kids" going to BYU or just getting off missions and all they can think about is getting married. They dont even know who they are yet! I for one never went to school and got a degree, it is one of my biggest regrets. I graduated HS and set right off to find myself husband. I spent the next 10 years having kids, now obviously i love my family but i am 33 now and just figuring out what i love and who i am, how sad is that? If i had waited i would have discovered my love and talent for cooking. I would have went to school and maybe opened my own restaurant. If i choose to do that now i am 10 years behind everyone else. 

      Prepare and pursue your education. In The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, “education is a religious responsibility.”

Okay this is just laughable. Again education but ONLY what we approve and in our schools. puke, no thanks.

• Be careful with your time. “Time is important; you can waste a lot of it if you are not careful.”  Control, contol, control. Now you have to feel bad about how you spend your time. They are not even warning about what you spend it on here, just to not "waste" it. HAHAHA Omg i cant even with this crap. 

  President Ballard said the future of the Church rests in the hands of the “rising generation in Italy.”

“If they can just continue to see the beauty of the gospel of Jesus Christ and live it and strive to do what Heavenly Father wants them do, they will carry on the leadership of the Church. They will build the kingdom of God here in the great country of Italy and other parts of Europe.”

This i find interesting, what ever do they mean? hmmmmmmm plans are in the making. Rusty told us to take our vitamins! we better not waste our time ;)

12) Forgive!!! or the sin be on YOUR head.

It has been a while since i last posted. With the holidays and Flu season and 4 kids well.... we barely made it out alive ;)

               I have been thinking a lot recently about Forgiveness and the way this teaching as it is taught within Mormonism has affected my life. In the Doctrine and Covenants ( D&C) it teaches us “Wherefore, I say unto you, that ye ought to forgive one another; for he that forgiveth not his brother his trespasses standeth condemned before the Lord; for there remaineth in him the greater sin.

“I, the Lord, will forgive whom I will forgive, but of you it is required to forgive all men.

“And ye ought to say in your hearts—let God judge between me and thee, and reward thee according to thy deeds.” (D&C 64:8–11.) 

           I endured many years with guilt and i felt a lot of pressure to forgive my abuser. There were many times in my life where i saught guidance and help from church leaders with things i was dealing with and it always lead back to my abuse. I was molested by someone i trusted when i was a child, my personal truth was damaged and i was forever changed. Without even realizing the severity of the impact the abuse had on my life, it was always the reason behind every single struggle i had. I was always counseled by leaders that i needed to forgive, forgive, forgive. 

            Forgiveness is a PERSONAL choice, and it is nobody's, i repeat nobody's business how, when, and IF you choose to do so. I didnt ask for the life i was given, i didnt ask to be sexually molested, i didnt have a choice in that. The church's stance that we need to forgive or we commit the greater sin is prosperous! It makes zero sense and i reject that teaching with every fiber of my being. Now im not referring to petty, selfish "offenses" when talking about forgivness, im referring to life altering offenses, things that hurt you and damage your personal truth. Things that destroy relationships and cause a ripple in your day to day life. Forgiveness is not for God, it is not for the offender, it is not for your peers, it is for YOU and you alone. Every single person has their own process, time line, and requirements to be able to forgive in the way that will free them of the burden that the offender put on them. You see, something that i just recently realized, When you hurt someone, you just gave them a job that they didnt ask for. They have to forgive you for that, its not just about forgiving for the offence that rocked their world, they then have to forgive you for the time, and energy that they have to put into healing themselves. For example when i got married and i was intimate with Alan a flood of unexpected emotions, hurt, and pain washed over me and i was pissed off at the work i had to put in to healing myself. I was so angry that my abuser took these experiences from me and ruined them, my first years of marriage were now a job, i had to work to fix me so that i could be a good wife. I didnt ask for that, but i had to do it to be happy and i was angry that i had to work so damn hard at it. So not only did i have to forgive for being abused i had to forgive for the time lost in repairing the damage done.  Forgivness is not a get off the hook free card either. I might forgive someone and never want to see their face again. 

               Mormonism puts all of the offenders responsibility right back on you, to say that if i cant make my life right, i wasnt able to "forgive" someone that tore my soul in two, that i would then "stand condemed before the Lord" is an abusive teaching, I cant tell you how much guilt i have felt over this in my life. 

           Forgiveness doesnt have a start date, you might "forgive" and then one day peel back another layer and say "no, ya know what this really hurt me!" It doesnt mean that all that lead you to the point of forgiving is then undone. Peeling back all the layers and dealing with them is healthy, it is how we truly heal. 

           Now i have also been the offender in my life at some point, we all have. In my case i learned from a front row seat that you dont get to decide when you are forgiven, you dont get to choose how either. I accepted all my responsibility and did what was needed by the person i offended to make them okay again. It very well could have been that i was not ever forgiven and there is nothing i could do about that and it is also not their fault but mine. If someone chooses to forgive it should be to gain control in their own life again and not give their power over, that's it. Guilt and shame and FEAR from God is a religious tactic i will fight against. Do you honestly think that the Lord Jesus Christ as taught in scripture would look into the eyes of his child who he watched be hurt, broken and damaged and say " I condem you because you were not able to forgive, shame on you, depart from me. " ?? 

           When religion gets out of the way, we as humans are more capable of Love and forgiveness all on our own.