Before I destroyed the shackles keeping me fuzed to the LDS infrastructure I had this fear in the back of my mind. What was I going to use to determine what is right? How will I be able to lead my family? Will I just become a person devoid of meaning and vice?
I would imagine those are common themes.
The short answer is that none of my fears were founded in reality.
As some of my views have modified a person I know who is a counselor my wife and I have visited with assured her that the base ethical and moral values that I had as a full believing LDS would more likely then not remain part of me. In other words I was not going to go out and become an awful hedonistic womanizer if I chose not to worship as a Latter day Saint.
I became more happy, more involved with the world around me and Ethics replaced morals.
Why would ethics replace morals? The two are not mutually exclusive and often overlap.
My life, once ruled by silly rules and pretentious beliefs was replaced by a calm.
Great.
My family is fine,
Wonderful.
even better now that their father does not hold them to silly and useless standards.
Some of them may be silly others may still be quite useful to you.
My love for my wife is not predicated upon stupid formalities.
How odd that it was in the first place. I know of no special formality the LDS predicate their love for their spouses on.
I love my wife and children for who they are and not what a corporation masquerading as a religion dictates to me.
Gee. If that is the only reason you loved them as an active LDS you were really out in left field then.
I found true peace instead of emptyness. I found happiness instead of sadness. I found myself buried under years of repression and second guessing.
Once again I am happy for you. Really. If you are happier then bully for you.
Once you take the leap and latch onto reason there is nothing that can convince me I made the wrong decision. Learning to recognize the techniques of scam artists, debunking myth and analyzing the cost benefit of silly preoccupations led me out. Oh yah, u too shades. Thanks!
Well I have no interest in convincing you any way if what you have now is working fine for you.
I invite the believers on this board to examine what life would be like outside of Mormonism. I can tell you from experience that life is better, more fulfilling and free of the gymnastics neccesary to choke down the whoppers Nibley and his d-list flunkies currently towing the line for MormonCorp
And this is your problem. You seem as interested in leading people out of the Church as missionaries do in leading them in. But guess what dude. Life is just life. And people have to find ways that work for them. What works for you may or may not work for them. Your way may be horrible for them. You are haughty and arrogant in all your postings thinking that your way is so much better. It may be, or it may not be. Ultimately people have the same problems whether they are LDS, atheist, baptist, muslim, etc. Life just happens and there are all sorts of ways to deal with it. If yours works for you great. Why push it on others though?
