Trinity wrote:Hi Runtu,
Can I tell you that I was just like Charity when I was a believer? Holy cow, I just loved the empowerment that came with believing that it was my energy, my skill that could propel me above all of the other yellow-bellied humans in the universe. I soaked it up. I have pictures in my journal from when I was in sixth grade that showed my world that I was going to get because I worked so hard in this life. I deliberately, DELIBERATELY, chose an academic path with maths and sciences because I felt this was the most practical knowledge I would need to create a world. I lived and breathed from my dayplanner, my to-do lists a mile long, and I always went to bed every night with the dastardly reminder (from those remaining, unchecked items) that I was lacking and ever so far from perfection.
Being a Mormon for me was exhausting beyond belief. I pushed and pushed myself, and got virtually no emotional or spiritual comfort from it. The goal was always just out of reach. And by any standard I was accomplishing far more than the average Mormon in my daily activities.
I will, to this day, tell you that putting a perfectionist-oriented person in a religion that teaches you that you can indeed become perfect (and your level of exaltation is dependent upon how close you get to perfection) is the most mentally and emotionally debilitating system with which to function. There is just no end to the self-flagellation because the perfectionist will always keep their eye on what needs to be done rather than to be comforted by what has already been done.
That's a shame, but for some reason, a whole lot of Mormons (apparently charity included) think this way. We "prove ourselves worthy" and then we get the grace to make up the difference. That is not the gospel as taught in the scriptures. A Gospel Doctrine teacher once passed out a chart showing what you had to do to be exalted. It was a pyramid, with faith, repentance, baptism, and the holy ghost on the bottom, then getting the priesthood, going to the temple, getting sealed, enduring the end, and at the very top was a tiny triangle labeled "Atonement." This is the religion charity is describing, and apparently the one you lived. I'm grateful I never bought that kind of belief.
Of course, saying that charity's theology is wrong does not make Mormonism true. :)