Dr. Shades wrote:What, specifically?
I can't speak for Shulem, but it requires a lot of introspection on my part to answer this question.
Somebody in the comments section of RFM asked a similar question, as to how I could remain in so long knowing what I know.
For me, the first thing to realize is that Mormonism captures a lot of people, including me, who want to know the answers to all things spiritual. It is this idea of knowing what those outside of Mormonism don't know that was a big attraction.
To be frank, it allowed me to look down judgmentally on others who believed differently from the Mormon religion. Sometimes I would watch TV shows of other denominations and think how stupid they were to believe such dumb things. (I am being brutally honest here with you and with myself.)
Then, as I got into apologetics, I began to learn things about Mormonism that the average Mormon didn't know. At the same time, I was very "into" learning the correct faith-promoting answers to these issues that destroyed the faith of other Mormons.
I became the "go-to" guy on these types of issues, and even though not a lot of people came to me to get their questions answered, still some did, and I took a great deal of pride in that fact.
Additionally, now I was inside a group inside of Mormons; it was a special "inner-circle" of its own. Not only was I a Mormon who had the inside scoop on the true answers to religious questions who could look down my nose at non-Mormons, I was a "super Mormon" who had the inside scoop on "Mormon issues" who could look down my nose at other Mormons who were not in the know.
Did I actually look down my nose at the other Mormons? Maybe not. But I have to say I definitely felt superior to them. Here I knew all this stuff about problematic issues with Mormonism that they didn't know, and yet I also knew the answers to those problematic issues and could help them if they ever got into hot water.
The fact a lot of these problematic issues were advocated by "anti-Mormons" also helped solidify my position as a Mormon. There is nothing like "enemies" attacking your faith to make you more committed to your faith. In Mormonism, I found this to be especially true. In Mormonism, my religion was completely tied up in my personal identity. Anything good about Mormonism made me feel better as a person. And any attack on Mormonism I felt as a personal attack on my very being. It was not for many, many years that I obtained enough distance as a Mormon to be able to look at Mormon issues objectively.
When the time came, and it took a long time to come, that I could begin looking objectively at these issues, I still had my personal spiritual experiences to hang onto, and to keep me going for another few laps around the track.
When I started realizing, and accommodating, the fact that others in different faith traditions have similar spiritual experiences, I had to modify my position.
I still remember on this board discussing the issue with another poster (whose name I am having trouble remembering right now, but his avatar had a picture of a character from the Life of Brian, I think), and finally having to acknowledge that the spiritual experiences of others were just as valid as mine, even if theirs didn't tell them Mormonism was true. Their experiences were not binding on me any more than my experiences were binding on them. But I still held onto the idea that my experiences were binding on me.
Along the same timeline, I came to view church leaders differently. I started off by seeing them as what they proclaim--prophets, seers and revelators with a direct pipeline to God. I saw them as what they insinuate--people who have had personal one-on-one's with Jesus; every Thursday on the fourth floor of the Salt Lake Temple.
Over a long time, I began to see that they were not really prophets in any meaningful sense; that they had no special connection to God. How did I see this? By paying attention to what they said at General Conference.
I shifted my view to considering them "good men," and contenting myself that although I was not listening to the voices of prophets, seers and revelators at General Conference, at least I was listening to the voices of "good men," and that if "good men" were running the church, that was enough for me.
As things continued to unfold, though, I found that just having "good men" leading the church was not good enough for me; that it was the same as could be said about a multitude of other churches; and that numerous instances presented themselves where the leaders were not acting like "good men."
An obvious instance of this would be the November 2015 POX. But that is just one instance that is easy to point to in time. My change in viewing the leaders had occurred several years before this.
One of the nagging thoughts was whether "good men" who were not prophets, seers and revelators would nevertheless hold themselves out to be prophets, seers and revelators.
Another was whether "good men" would try to make the membership believe they had personally seen Jesus Christ when it was getting more and more obvious that they really hadn't and didn't, but were selectively crafting their words in many instances in order to get the members to believe it anyway.
There is more that could be said, but this is a good start at a rough outline of my own personal experiences that helped me keep my testimony for many, many years longer than I otherwise would have done, as well as some of the experiences that ended up in my becoming disaffected from the church.
Hope that helps!
--Consiglieri
