Mormonism -> Atheism, Why?

[_MCB]

Interesting ideas!!

Yes. A lot of it has to do with intellectual issues.

Mormonism is spiritually abusive. Those who leave because of this, fear getting involved in other religions, for fear of another cycle of spiritual abuse. Those who leave for other reasons (like wacky theology or Book of Mormon), and have not looked into spiritual abuse issues, end up getting involved in other fundamentalist religions, because they like to think that blind obedience to spirtual advisors pleases God.

Those who have gone through an atheist/agnostic phase, and have then joined a non-fundamentalist religion, probably have the best.

I have a lot of compassion for your spiritual searches.

Those like me, who have ignored Mormon-related issues (despite strong warnings) would also benefit from studying it, in order to recognize negative influences in their own churches or spirituality.

My roommate is a backslidden Oneness Pentecostal, and, believe me, I have gained plenty of insights from listening to rants from another nutty tradition.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

Your experience with former Mormons is likely to be unrepresentative by its very nature, so I wouldn't put too much stock in it to draw generalities. It's better to let more complete surveys do that work before drawing any conclusions.

Yes, but if we all waited for better data 99% of what goes on in all boards (including this one) and blogs would disappear. This is water cooler talk, not peer reviewed publication.

Hello Sir,

I would remind you Doctor Peterson finds peer reviews unnecessary.

Very Respectfully,

Doctor CamNC4Me

[_truth dancer]

For me, as Mormonism became increasingly unbelievable I had to start over.

I consciously made the decision to focus on what truly felt right in my heart, what made sense, what I could believe that created peace in my soul. I let go of all the stuff that seemed weird, that felt cruel or hurtful, that didn't fit into my personal sense of beauty and holiness. I let go of any need to be right or find ultimate truth and focused on what worked for me. I admit to the possibility of being completely wrong on every count but for my mental, emotional, spiritual health I needed to live authentically and peacefully. I'm fine if this means I end up in hell or OD.

I ended up with a simple and lovely (to me) way to exist, that doesn't include religion.

At this point, I believe in the mysterious, creative, Source. ;-)

~td~

[_Aristotle Smith]

MCB,

Thanks for the insight on spiritual abuse. That may also account for why some people decide on atheism, because of the strong association between religiosity and abuse that they experience. I think that the Mormon church is largely not abusive, especially outside Utah/Idaho corridor. But, it does happen sometimes and it is devastating to those who experience it.

I also find listening to other's experiences in their religions to be instructive. I learned a lot about by listening to JW exit stories.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

Hello Mr. Smith,

Mormonism provides a solution a la Kierkegaard to an inherent existential crisis most everyone faces, whether he or she understands what he or she is experiencing. With the loss of the God-solution the human is thrust back into the crisis, often choosing atheistic Absurdism over the now debunked God-solution. Why? Because the God-solution has been entertained and found to be lacking in the quest to finding meaning to one's existence. Nihilism and Atheism are two understandable reactions to an existential crisis.

Very Respectfully,

Doctor CamNC4Me

[_Sethbag]

AS, Mormonism had provided me a nearly complete worldview that was designed to be self-confirming, and self-referential. A lot of techniques were taught to me as I grew up to indoctrinate myself, and keep me focusing myself on Mormonism and "strengthening my testimony".

Part of me seeing myself out of this web of misinformation, ignorance (of at least certain things) as a virtue, faith in things contradicted by evidence as a virtue, self-indoctrination techniques, and so forth, involved me actually seeing, and recognizing, many of the techniques, and the doublethink that were involved in my worldview and testimony.

Having now seen and recognized a lot of this bad thinking and indoctrination techniques for what they are, it's trivially easy to recognize them in other religions. None of the other religions is actually true, and they all evolve some subset of a relatively common set of tools for establishing themselves in the minds of their followers and keeping them there.

Recognizing this in the other religions, what's the attraction for me to join up with them and assume their equally-bogus belief systems and worldviews? This would be like jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire.

To sum this up, I would say that it takes so much introspection and recognition of what went on in our minds and thinking practices, to think our way out of Mormonism, that no other religion stands a chance of being able to pull the same wool over our eyes again.

[_MCB]

MCB,

Thanks for the insight on spiritual abuse. That may also account for why some people decide on atheism, because of the strong association between religiosity and abuse that they experience. I think that the Mormon church is largely not abusive, especially outside Utah/Idaho corridor. But, it does happen sometimes and it is devastating to those who experience it.

I also find listening to other's experiences in their religions to be instructive. I learned a lot about by listening to JW exit stories.

Yeah-- I generalized too much, there. It got worse as I got closer to the Moridor. My experience was so bad because Brighamites tend to assume I have ancestors who were members of a "vigilante mob". I was always taught that who your ancestors were doesn't matter, it only matters that you live your life with integrity today. I was flabbergasted when I found out what was going on.

Mormonism is just one example of those religions which tend to abuse.

[_Aristotle Smith]

AS, Mormonism had provided me a nearly complete worldview that was designed to be self-confirming, and self-referential. A lot of techniques were taught to me as I grew up to indoctrinate myself, and keep me focusing myself on Mormonism and "strengthening my testimony".

Part of me seeing myself out of this web of misinformation, ignorance (of at least certain things) as a virtue, faith in things contradicted by evidence as a virtue, self-indoctrination techniques, and so forth, involved me actually seeing, and recognizing, many of the techniques, and the doublethink that were involved in my worldview and testimony.

I agree, I have largely the same experience growing up (I am now in my mid-30's). I think this type of experience is what I was trying to get it in the 5th bullet point in my original post.

Having now seen and recognized a lot of this bad thinking and indoctrination techniques for what they are, it's trivially easy to recognize them in other religions. None of the other religions is actually true, and they all evolve some subset of a relatively common set of tools for establishing themselves in the minds of their followers and keeping them there.

Recognizing this in the other religions, what's the attraction for me to join up with them and assume their equally-bogus belief systems and worldviews? This would be like jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire.

To sum this up, I would say that it takes so much introspection and recognition of what went on in our minds and thinking practices, to think our way out of Mormonism, that no other religion stands a chance of being able to pull the same wool over our eyes again.

I agree with you that most fundamentalist religions employ the same techniques and that once you see the techniques it easy to avoid them. That explains why few Mormons jump ship to these types of religions. But, that doesn't explain why ex-Mormons avoid non-fundamentalistic religions. They don't employ the indoctrination techniques, they don't make exclusive truth claims, they support science 100%, etc. Perhaps this is a case of once you buy into a religion as all consuming as Mormonism all the others seem wimpy and useless by comparison?

[_Some Schmo]

Perhaps this is a case of once you buy into a religion as all consuming as Mormonism all the others seem wimpy and useless by comparison?

Or perhaps Mormonism turned you off religion altogether. That's how it was for me, anyway.

I think the crux of it is this:

Mormonism says, "I know this church (and everything that goes with it, including the Mormon version of god) is true."

Agnostic thought says, "You can't know one way or another whether there's a god (and everything that goes with it, including his favored church, if any)."

So when you leave a world view where you think you know something and realize that what you thought you knew, you didn't know at all, you realize that knowledge is illusory, and you're logically forced into a position of agnosticism.

Atheism isn't that big a step from there.

[_Sethbag]

A religion that doesn't make some kind of exclusive truth claims, and supports science 100%, hasn't really got much of a point, unless their point is just to act as a sort of social club.

A religion which supports science 100% is a religion which relegates itself to nearly utter irrelevancy. That's because the science they support explains so much about the world, and the universe, and how it works, that there aren't really any compelling "how" questions about how we got here that such a religion can purport to answer.

And as far as "why" questions having to do with ethics and morality, who needs religion? The religions pick and choose, and invent their own ethics and morality anyway - why bother with the religious facade when one can do that as just a normal human being?

So long as religions purport to know things they cannot reasonably know, they cannot hold my interest. They call atheists arrogant, then stand up and represent to the world that not only do they know that an omnipotent deity exists, despite a lack of evidence, but in fact they are privileged to know his/her/its very mind and will. What part of "I speak for the ultimate authority in the universe, and he wants you to do such and such, oh, and he wants you to give us some of your money" is not just dripping with arrogance?

Like this article EAllusion just pointed us to, religions employ the ultimate argument from authority, when they give us their opinions, but couch them in language with attempts to grant their words the very authority of the Creator of the Entire Universe. If that's not arrogance and imposition, I don't know what is.