Kishkumen wrote:candygal wrote:I hear everyone on this..but as Kish said that I finally understand in all my arguments with Scott Lloyd..that I am not ex-mormon..but perhaps more ex ..LDS. It wouldn't make sense to anyone but all of us. You guys keep me real.
Thanks for pointing this out, candygal. In my view this is a very serious issue, perhaps one of the most serious issues that so-called ex-Mormons grapple with. As I have argued in the past, and continue to work out, one of the unusual aspects of the ex-Mo experience is the intertwined issues of identity and religiosity. The LDS Church has been so successful at isolating its members from the outside world
in certain ways that many come to feel that freedom from the LDS Church must mean freedom from Mormonism and freedom from religious belief altogether. What does one do in this conundrum?
Well, I don't want to overdramatize it, as many find their way and it would be wrong to consider ex-Mormon identity or a-religiosity to be negative outcomes. Not everyone, however, is personally satisfied with such outcomes. I fall into that category. Others may too. Speaking for myself, this has sent me on a personal quest to re-contextualize Mormonism, and interrogate LDS assumptions about what that means. Steven Shields'
Many Paths of the Restoration is helpful in that regard, and so is a broader education on the history of Christianity and religious debates in the centuries leading up to Joseph Smith.
I feel like there are other options. Obviously it is baked into the LDS point of view that there are not. But inasmuch as the LDS mindset tries to hold its members captive by making them feel like there are no other options, and that there is no dignified way to depart from LDS authority, I feel it is absolutely necessary to elucidate the landscape that falls outside the smoke and mirrors the LDS Church has set up.
When I say this, I am not accusing the LDS Church of some kind of conspiracy, or saying that this kind of thing was perpetrated with malicious intent. From another perspective one might call this part of the genius of LDS Mormonism--that it succeeds at monopolizing the mindset of its members to an extent that is likely to hold them in the faith.
The problem, of course, is that the explosion of information has undermined that once formidable doctrinal and social matrix. And yet, it still succeeds to the extent of making Mormon people feel like their aporia, the block or void they feel upon discovering the brittleness of their old belief system, is actually the emptiness of all things Mormon and religion in general. So, what to do but not to do religion anymore?
And that's OK. If that is what you want. It is perfectly valid. Others remain unsettled, however, and they should have better options.
