But I'm a Terrible Mormon Husband.

     "I just have to be honest with you,  I don't believe in the LDS Church.  Not even a little." 

     I couldn't believe I was blurting this out over rib tips at Famous Daves.  This was a conversation I had been preparing for and dreading for months now, and this was not how I planned this.  My wife of nearly 20 years sat across the table in stunned silence as I stumbled through a confession I wasn't quite ready to deliver. 

Everything I had learned told me this was NOT how to do this.
Never in a public place.
Not until you are ready.

     I had decided that March was the target zone.  My wife's birtheday was the Feb. 6,  Valentine's  Day was out, and now here I was on President's Day coming out of the closet as a non-believer in a public place when I wasn't ready.

     We had been talking about friends of ours who had been dealing with marital problems and other issues that led to divorce and she was saying how ". . .when they have these problems and they don't talk about things that are bothering them and they just let things bottle up.  When you have these things that bother you, you have to communicate and share. . .etc."(She is a counselor for LDSSS).  And so I did.

     She sat quietly and listened as I tried to explain how I had been studying church history.  She smiled as I  explained how I had realized that I really did love her so much that I had to be honest with her and with myself. She held my hand as I wept telling her about the last ditch temple session that was the final nail in the coffin of my pitiful testimony.  When I finished she was quiet for a bit and then she finally spoke. 

     "But you're still a good man.  You still love me and I still love you,  that doesn't change."  She was a little sad, but not really surprised, and since that day she has reacted to me with the most amazing kindness, love and understanding.  I am so very lucky to have such an amazing woman.   After years of faking even a minimum of interest in the church, I couldn't do it anymore, and my Primary President wife was completely ok with it. She was supportive, loving and I still well up everytime I think of how truly lucky I am to have her.
     I was never the model 'Peter Priesthood' type.  I had hated the church since  I was a kid, and somehow I had ended up married into it, serving callings, paying tithing and wasting my Sundays.   For the last couple of years I had only gone to Sacrament.  Once I had completed all 500 crosswords on my little hand held game, I started reading to get through the 75 minutes of mind-numbing tedium that I resented every minute of. I would slip into the clerk's office and write down the count and print whatever reports or certificates needed printing and walk the Hell home. My Home Teaching record was nearly perfect, I had 17 straight years of never doing it before I finally messed up and answered the phone before checking the caller ID.  I listened to Thrash Metal rather that all those 3-named LDS artists.  I drank coffee at work.  I watched R rated movies and said the 'Fuck' word. I peeked during prayer.  I always thought Joseph Smith was a fraud.  I stayed in bed until my wife went to the bathroom in the morning and then quickly dressed in my 'real' underwear.  I couldn't tell Boyd B. Oaks from Henry F. Packer, and I didn't care.  I couldn't quote scripture.  I didn't know the diference  between Abinadi and Abagofsmashedassholes.  I was a bad Mormon. 

    I was also a loving and caring husband.  After 19 years of marriage we still held hands and snuck kisses.  I suffered through all that church crap because I loved her and it was important to her.  I blessed and baptized my son and daughter, and  held my tongue and went along with bogus teachings that were foisted upon my kids because I didn't want them being faithless doubters like their evil old man and because it was important to my wife.  As I entered the world of the disaffected and  read many stories of marriages ruined because of one spouse's doubts, I realized how much I truly loved my wife and didn't want to lose her.  I committed myself to showing her that love everyday.  This wasn't to butter her up for the bad news, this was earnest, caring love.  When I began to see hope of getting out from under the oppressive, narrowminded stranglehold of the church, I began to see that the resentment and anger that I felt towards my wife was just sublimation of my feelings about the church.  I stopped seeing her as the reason for my unhappiness and began to recognize that she was the one thing I did believe in. 

     I had been creeping around behind her back with another way of thinking and I felt shitty about it.  Now that things were out in the open, I began to feel a sense of happiness and freedom that I hadn't felt in years. We were connecting at a level of honest communication that had always seemed out of reach. We talked about my feelings and beliefs or the lack thereof.  We talked about our marriage and our kids and our future.  We cried, we held each other and we affirmed our love for each other.  We came to an understanding.  We set ground rules and boundaries.  We promised to work through things together.

     That was almost 6 months ago, and a lot has happened since then.  The first amazing thing was just a couple of weeks later when she came with me to a Post-mormon meeting.  It was a little awkward, but everyone was very nice and respectful.  She has since gone so far as spending my birthday weekend with ex-mos 300 miles away just so I could attend a book club on "Insider's View of Mormon Origins."  She even made a pie!  The reception and treatment we have gotten from them has been amazing.  I have been able to attend Mormon Expression live events, go to Atheist book clubs and she even has allowed me to drink the occaisional adult beverage now and then.  I know I am truly lucky, and I try to express that to her every day.  Yes, the snuggling is much better and more frequent too!
     While I have had my Facebook groups and ex-mo meet-ups for support, she doesn't have that much support.  She isn't much for on-line stuff, and  can't really discuss this with her Primary counselors.  We decided to confide in one of her brothers and one of her sisters so that she could have someone to talk to about this.  That has resulted in a distance and awkwardness between us and them, and in me being 'unfriended' because of some of my Facebook posts.  The most notable of those was the one that I felt was a great story of unconditional love and acceptance, but was referred to as me 'preaching false doctrine,' a nice little article with a catchy title from Salon.com.  We are holding back from talking to the rest of her family for now.  There will be issues arising as we face nephew baptisms and other church events, and we will face them (and her family) head on, together.

     My wife has a testimony of the Church and what it does for her in her life, and doesn't care about historical issues or doctrinal inconsistencies, and doesn't want to know.  I respect that and as much as we talk, we don't talk about those issues.  I know that she has a deep and abiding love for Heavenly Father and her Savior, and I would never do anything to destroy that.  She is not a TBM  (True Believing Mormon).  She is fairly liberal, and the Church is a large cultural part of who she is, and as much as I want her to understand and recognize what I see as complete horseshit,  I will keep my promise and not try to drag her out of the Church with me.  But if and when she asks, I have started this blog with the hope that someday she will  read it and follow the information to the conclusion that she too can be free from the lies.  She may not, and if I can accept that with  even half of the grace, love and beauty she has accepted me with, we will be just fine.


      I'm not pretending anymore. I can openly read whatever I want.  I can enjoy my Sundays.  I got a 10% raise!  I can enjoy a fine cabernet with my steak instead of a Diet Coke.  I am free to seek after God or not in my own way.  I can now be authentically who I am without trying to abide (or at least pretend to abide) by the dictates of a bunch of octegenarians or the charismatic hillbilly with an Abraham fetish  and his make-believe golden bible.

     I was a terrible Mormon husband, now I am a wonderful apostate Hubby!

My Disaffection Part 2- I find out how the sausage was made.

     For those of you following along, you will remember that my last post, I shared the story of my discovering the world of Atheism and how I was enlightened by the top figures in this area, Hitchens, Dawkins and Harris. 
     The introduction to critical and logical study of religious claims let quite naturally to looking at the religion I had spent the last 19 years grumbling through because it was important to my darling wife.  Now I was essentially cheating on her with another way of thinking.  I was faced with a crisis of personal integrity.  I knew that I didn't believe in the church anymore.  It would be pretty hard for me to have believed in it less.  I had to be honest with myself and with her, and I had to stop all this philosophical philandering.  The big question was:

How do you tell your LDS wife that you might be an Atheist?

      I started googling variations on the following:  "Atheist married to Mormon"   I was looking for a way to maintain my marriage in the light of my rapidly dying (it was never very healthy) testimony. 
     That is how I found Mormon Expression podcast (you can find it Here).  I found a group of Mormons of varying degrees of disbelief, from angry ex-Mormons who had officially resigned, to the infuriating yet admirable TBM (True Believer Mormon) Mike Tannehill.   John Larson and his lovely wife Zilpha have, over the course of several years and over 200 episodes, explored Mormonism from nearly every angle with the help of a cast of wonderful friends and dozens of notable experts.  These were amazing.  Here I found others who felt and thought as I did.  This was not a group of outsiders spreading 'anti' propaganda, these were people who grew up in, served missions for, were married in the temples of and believed in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (COJCOLDS).  Now they were coming out and sharing the view from the inside and the problems they found that led them to conclude that everything they once believed was a lie.  When I wasn't reading, I was listening to these podcasts.  My MP3 player had the option to play podcasts at a slightly faster speed, and I flew through episode after episode as they informed, amused and amazed me with their earnest, chipmunk voices. 

      I could go on and on about them and recommend about 100 episodes, which have helped me along my way.  But for now, just a few all time faves that will give you a good intro:

175-top-10-reasons-to-stay-in-the-church     176-top-10-reasons-to-leave-the-church  These two present the challenge that faces someone who loses their belief.  The humor  and frank discussion blend well to present a well thought out case.

94-mixed-feelings-for-mormonism  Things to love and hate about the church.  John's rant is epic.

89a-14-fundamentals-following-prophet-for-dummies-part-1   89b-14-fundamentals-part-2  These emphasized the pervasive feeling that we should all just shut up and pray pay and obey.

76-mistakes-were-made-how-not-to-leave-the-church   I heard stories of others who were faced with the prospect of telling their beloved spouse that they no longer believed. I learned from the advice they shared along with the mistakes they made along the way.  I was advised to take this transition slowly, be respectful and show her that I still love her and I am not a different person. I found that overloading my wife with all my issues and the things I found would be a big mistake.

These and many others opened my eyes to a panorama of historical and doctrinal conundrums that were part and parcel of the LDS religion.  They also led to more books and more questions.  Those books led to other books, and more questions and still more books and more questions. 
     You see, in the last 19 years I haven't really given two shits about the church.  I didn't care about Joseph Smith, Nephi, Brigham Young, Korihor, or Hugh Nibley.  I never paid any attention to General conference or read the Ensign.  I just sat through the damn meetings because I had to.  I believed it was pretty much all bullshit anyway, so why waste another second outside of those boring damn meetings?  But now,  I became pretty obsessed with understanding how the so-called 'true church' had failed me some completely and yet sunk its tentacles in nearly every area of my life.  It was fascinating.  It was like a car wreck; you can't help but look at all the gore and destruction. So in addition to listening to ME podcasts whenever I could, I was reading more books, books that I was still hiding from my wife. 

One of the first that I read was John Krakauer's
 Under the Banner of Heaven  
 Krakauer tells the story of the Lafferty Brothers and their brutal murder of their sister in-law, Brenda Lafferty and her 15-month-old baby girl Erica.  Ron and Dan Lafferty were extreme fundamentalist Mormons, and to tell their story, Krakauer had to tell the story of the Mormon Church and other fundamentalist splinter groups from the beginning.   It all began with Joseph Smith.  Krakauer does a good job weaving the story of Laffertys  and their fanatical brethren with an honest outsider's view of Mormonism and it's questionable and sometimes violent past.  He makes some mistakes, and this is by no means a scholarly historical treatment of Mormonism, but it damn well has a lot of information that your standard, tithe paying members probably don't know.  It made me want to know more.

     This led to wanting to know more about that old Primary story they always told us when we were forced to attend Primary.  Thinking back to those quaint songs- "Mountain Meadows Massacre my teacher tells to me are about the Brighamites and the Fancher One-Twent-EE."  Oh, wait, they never told us anything about Mountain Meadows in Primary ever!  I heard all about the handcart pioneers and Haun's Mill, but I never heard this anywhere in church.

     My local Library claims to have Juanita Brooks' classic "Mountain-Meadows-Massacre"    -Amazon but I'm still on the waiting list.  So I went with the next best thing, Will Bagley's
  "Blood of the Prophets" -Amazon  Here I had a historian and scholar of the overland migration explaining how a group of emigrants were slaughtered in cold blood while crossing through the Mormon territory.  This book I read in plain view.  I considered it "safe" to let my wife know I was reading.  It was to be my first breadcrumb on the trail out of the shadows and into the open.  I discussed this book with my family and did my best to present a fair and semi objective summary.  I walked the line between "Brigham Young had them 'Used up' and essentially condoned if not tacitly ordered those people to be slaughtered," and "It was a big misunderstanding and those mean, old lamanites did a terrible thing and made the church look bad."  You can see how well I concealed my personal bias in the matter.  This bit of church history fills me with revulsion and flat out pisses me off.  (Yes I know about Mormons being persecuted, and that is terrible as well, but this was not only a brutal act of religious intolerance or persecution.  This was cold blooded murder compounded by deception, collusion and conspiracy.  The glimpse of the character of Brigham Young (beloved prophet) is just the tip of the iceberg of evil, crazy shit that came from the church's 2nd President.  I have yet to delve too much deeper into studying him. 

     While I was openly reading Bagley at home, in secret I had been pouring through Grant Palmer's

 "An Insiders View Mormon Origins' -Amazon Palmer is not some outside mountain climber/crime writer or cowboy historian, he is a "three-time director of LDS Institutes of Religion in California and Utah, a former instructor at the Church College of New Zealand, and an LDS seminary teacher at two Utah locations. He has been active in the Mormon History Association and on the board of directors of the Salt Lake Legal Defenders Association."  -Amazon About the Author.  If you are going to read one of the books I have read, this is the one I would most strongly recommend.  This book is the most informative and most thought-provoking book about the church I have ever read.  I've read it twice, I have traveled hundreds of miles to attend a book club and discuss this book.  I have listened to several interviews and podcasts with Grant Palmer.  Go Read It.

   By this point, the wheels had come off the belief bus completely and I was just trying to find the right time and the right way to talk to my wife.  I had dropped a few more crumbs, slipping little nuggets into the conversations  here and there about the church's misogyny, polygamy and religion in general.

     One of Palmer's main sources was the amazing 1945 biography by Fawn M. Brodie.

 "No Man Knows My History"   -Amazon  A niece of future president David O. McKay Brodie was excommunicated in 1946, a year after the publication of this book that non-Mormon critics praise for its literary style, and thorough  research, and called  a "definitive biography."  It is the big bad biography that all good members know is just anti propaganda and lies.  As you may have guessed, this too, was hidden in my car. 

     I read The Nauvoo Expositor -pdf   and skimmed through The Journal of Discourses -pdf

     I decided to take the open road and got the more 'faith promoting' biography by Richard Bushman,

  "Joseph Smith Rough Stone Rolling" -Amazon  Bushman presents basically the same view of Joseph Smith that Brodie does, with a more apologetic, and less negative slant. He is still a temple attending member and I believe  a Patriarch. So, this book is also sold at Deseret Book, the official Church bookstore.  I could read this in the open.  Hell, I even read it in church.  I found it to be a bit too apologetic and almost seemed like the abused wife trying to sugar coat what an asshole her brute of a husband is.  I eventually gave up and finished "No Man Knows My History." 

     I also displayed this little church sanctioned gem.
  "The Journal of Joseph" -Amazon  Just a quick note on this one.  Boring and a waste of my time, this was my trusty bathroom reading material.  sitting openly on the back of the toilet for all to see.
 
     I read the biographies of  Porter Rockwell,  Wild Bill Hickman, and John D. Lee in the open as well.  Those were some old-timey cowboy Mormon Bad-asses!


     Next came the "Serious Historian", D Michael Quinn.  The end notes of his books are longer than a lot of books others write.  He is one of the famous "September Six," a group of BYU professors and academics who were excommunicated as a part of an "Intellectual Purge."  I got this:
"Early Mormonism and the Magic World View" -Amazon  and one of his Mormon Hierarchy books, big, dry and containing over 400 pages of notes, these books are a hard slog to get through.  Dreary as I found this as a read, it also was every bit the scholarly look at all that wackiness that was part of Joseph Smith's treasure seeking and 'peep stone' adventures.

     Of course, if you know anything about Mormon history, you know about Polygamy.    From Joseph Smith's revelation as contained in the Doctrine and Covenants, Section 132, came one of the most controversial LDS  tenets, that of polygamy.  I soon found that what the church refers today as a minor thing from the past, that has no bearing on today's church was a deep, dark secret that was just as tawdry and appalling as outsiders thought it was.  I next read Todd Compton's

"In Sacred Loneliness' -Amazon and found out all about the at least 34 women Joseph Smith 'Celestially Married" behind Emma Smith (the only wife you ever hear about in church media).  I learned of his marriages to 11 teenage girls, one of whom was 14, only a year older than my own daughter. I also learned a new term, Polyandry, and how the Prophet told some of his male followers that they had to let him marry their wives, or sent them on missions and then swooped in with a 'revelation' that God wanted these women to marry Joseph.  A brief overview of these women can me found here.  From Kirtland to Nauvoo, Joseph Smith cut quite a swath through the women of the early church. 



     I saw behind the curtain at last, and the emperor was butt-assed nekkid!  Not only was the church not what it claimed to be, it had purposely set out to ignore, and at times, actively conceal historical facts they found were not "faith promoting."

      I've barely scratched the surface here, I haven't mentioned  The First Vision, Kirtland banking scandal, Joseph's bid for President, The Book of Abraham, The Kinderhook Plates, the Greek Psalter, The Anton Letter,  DNA evidence, Lack of Archaeological proof of the Book of Mormon's claims, and that Soylent Green is people! 

     That's just the early historical problems, we barely touched Brigham Young and his boat load of crazy.  There is and the Racism, the Marc Hoffman "Salamander Letter" and bombing scandal, Boyd K Packer's homophobic rants, City Creek Mall  and  Prop 8.  This fish is rotten from the head on down, and I'm still giving 10% of my income to these assholes.
     I had to talk with my wife; I had to come clean about my philosophical problems with the Church.  I needed to pick my moment carefully, leave a few more crumbs and eventually when the time was right, I would tell her.


Next Time, Forget the trail of crumbs, here’s the whole damn loaf of bread!

My Disaffection part 1 -from Atheist to Apostate.

 Previously, on Apostate Fokker, we met the protagonist, a NRBM (Never Really Believing Mormon) who had spent the last 191/2 years married to an amazing and wonderful woman who he deeply loves. For the sake of his wife and family, he has been 'pretending' or 'faking it 'til he makes it' in the "one and only true church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (COJCOLDS)." 

In this installment, I will explore the beginnings of my disaffection, and share with you the sources that I found on way.  It all started with a Book.

     In December I was strolling through the I.F. Public Library looking for some new books; maybe another Vince Flynn style thriller, full of political intrigue; perhaps another Rock Biography/Memoir. Wait a minute, what is this?

'God No!' -Amazon

     I like Penn and Teller, and this looked like just the book I needed to read.  It was.  I surreptitiously got his book home and began reading it at work and when I was alone.  I'll spare you the full review, but basically it is a fairly humorous look at how a loud mouthed, smart-alecky atheist came to be.  The phrase that is used over and over is simple and resonated with me.

I Don't Know.

"Being an atheist means you don't believe in God.  When someone asks if God exists and you humbly say "I don't know." you've answered the question honestly.  Once you've answered 'I don't know'  regarding the existence of a God, the answer to whether you believe in God pretty much has to be 'No.'  That doesn't mean that you are saying it's impossible for there to be a God or we couldn't have evidence of  a God  in the future.   It just means that right now, you don't know, and if you don't know, you can't believe.  Believing cannot rise out of  "I don't know."  -Penn Jillette

     It made a whole lot of sense.  Way more than this whacked out religion I was playing along with.  The book wasn't too deep, yet it definitely made me think as much as it made me laugh. I would recommend it as an intro level atheist book, and for the laughs.  It woke me up and cracked me up. More importantly, it led me to the BIG 3 of Atheism, Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and Sam Harris. 

    

      I put books on hold at the library, and while waiting for them to come in, I began watching  Hitchens' debates and 'Hitchslaps' on YouTube.  The man was a Genius.  Intelligent, well spoken, and firm in his convictions, he was a hero to me.  Hitchens was  an author, journalist, and world traveler.  He has been in war  zones all over the world and was called upon to testify before the Catholic Church on the canonization of Mother Theresa as a Saint.  Of course he liked to drink fine scotch and he smoked, so obviously, nothing he said should  mean anything to anyone.  Isn't that right Mr. Ad Hominem? 

     He is abrasive and in your face, unapologetic, frank and just plain awe inspiring in his intellect.

Finally the next book arrived:

God Is Not Great -Amazon

This book stayed in my car, in the back seat, under a jacket.  This was not a book that I wanted my wife to see me reading and start asking questions about.  I wasn't ready to answer them, for her, or for myself.  I just knew I wanted more of this thinking and frank discussion about the existence of God and the poison of religion.  By the time I was reading this, I had heard most of his arguments from all of the lectures, debates and compilation videos.  As brilliant a book as this is, reading Hitchens pales in comparison to hearing and seeing him in action.  Nonetheless, I eagerly devoured it.  Best of both worlds, I now have the audio book read by the author himself.

This was immediately followed by

'The God Delusion' -Amazon

    Richard Dawkins is the Sciencey Atheist, and a Brit by birth. It could just be that I'm a sucker for accents, but I loved this one too.  He does come across as Mr. Smarty-pants, and  his complete distaste for religion is palpable. Obviously, this shiny book was kept well out of sight as I was delving further into disbelief.

 

I also listened to the audio book of Sam Harris' 'Letter to a Christian Nation' -Amazon.  Harris also takes Religion to task and clearly states his position when it comes to God and believers.

    

     I had discovered a whole new world of thought that made complete sense to me, in every way that the Church and it's teachings did not.  Was I an Atheist?  Could I continue to pretend in something that I found completely untenable?  How would this affect my marriage and my family?

     This is where I really started feeling dishonest and sneaky.  I was hiding books and watching videos with InPrivate browsing and deleting my history.  This was worse than Porn, (and all Mormons know how bad porn is, one peek at a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Magazine and you are an addict!)  I started feeling guilty and I knew I needed to talk with my wife honestly about my doubts-but how?  I spoke before about promising myself I would be honest with my wife.  This was no cup of coffee.  This was A BIG DEAL!!!  And I was sneaking around, hiding books  and sneaking around the Internet.  I had to tell her about this stuff, we had to talk.  I couldn't completely say "I am an ATHEIST!" to me yet, let alone her, but I had to find a way to bridge the gap that I felt was growing between us.    But how do you approach such an important conversation? 

Find out how I did it in the next installment of  'My Disaffection.'

  

Rant No 01- The Name of this Fokking blog.

     Let it be know to all nations, tongues and kindreds that I am not a fan of those Ben Stiller movies.  I saw the 1st one years ago, and that was enough.  This blog will have no relation to those films.  They spell it 'Focker' anyway. 

     I am new to the blogotubes, and I'm learning as I go here.  I have been taken under the wing of a charming and fabulous yet mysterious and anonymous benefactor, and I am  sub-letting her spare domain name.  She 'owns' the Apostate Fokker name.  I am just lucky enough to have a place to stumble around the interblogs and I am truly Thankful to her for this opportunity. 

     The problem is this, the nasty old landlady of this blog stuck me with this name.   (Apostate Fokker, it sounds like some lame church superhero: "You apostates better look out, or the Apostate Fokker will get you!"  Or maybe some kind of kinky ex-mormon, S&M swinger site.)  Now she won't let me change it.  I hate her!!  Oh sure, she passes off  the blame to some lame, old story about how her hands are tied by trademarked, copywrited legalese, but I know she just secretly wants to offend those earnest seekers of truth who come to my blog to be inspired and enlightened by my heartwarming stories about grandmas making quilts and fluffy kittens by shocking them with such crude language.  I vow to destroy her.

What shall I do?
     I shall  rise above the pseudo-pottyword and embrace the reference to the Red Baron's Plane, the Fokker Dr.I.   Like Baron von Richthofen, I will take to the air and rain down fire from the skies upon all those who dare to oppose me.  The Evil Landlady will taste the cold steel of my  Spandau MG08s. 

     I'm sure the kind, anonymous benefactor would spring for a plane, she's cool like that.

     So, just in case you were getting prepared to  get all huffy because your dirty mind  can't read Fokker without thinking of what Ralphie Parker refers to as "the queen-mother of dirty words,"  You can relax.  It's just a plane.  There will be no fokking profanity here.  Well, maybe a little tiny bit.  Mostly in the rants.  But it will be very tastefully used in a colorful and colloquial way to provide emphasis,  hammer home points and to piss off uptight Fokkers.

A Welcome and a Warning to the readers of this blog

NOTE-I imagine that there are 2 types of readers of this blog,

1-My new disaffected friends from the interwebs and the facebooks who have had, and in some cases, shared with me, similar tales of how they came face to face with a crisis of faith (say that 3x fast!). These dear new friends will laugh (hopefully) and maybe cry (we'll see how mushy I get) and mumble "I've been there." To you I say welcome, and enjoy.

2-The second type of reader of this blog will be old friends and family members who, at some point, have expressed a sincere desire to know what it is that I do and do not believe, and why. If you fall into this category, I have invited you here to share with you that which you profess to desire. If you follow me down this rabbit hole you will probably have one of two reactions:

• Reaction A: You will start with the unshakable "knowledge" that the church is TRUE and I am wrong. You will think I am under Satan's influence, preaching false doctrine and run screaming, never to go beyond these first few posts. You will disregard any evidence that I may present, judge me unrighteous and shun me or rage against me and condemn me. If this is you, you should go ahead and fuck off now.

or

• Reaction B: You REALLY want to know those things that led to my turning away from the Mormon Church.  You will continue to read the blog posts, possibly go on to read some of the books I list, listen to the Podcasts I link to, watch the YouTube videos I share , and check out the websites I reference. If, dear reader, this is you, go forth with caution and this warning, This could rock your testimony. You could be presented with enough cognitive dissonance provoking information to severely damage your belief in the Church Of Latter-day Saints, Joseph Smith, the Book of Mormon and the Easter Bunny. Take your time and carefully investigate the claims I make, the sources I provide and evidence you find. I ask you only to have an open mind and be willing, just for a little while, to allow yourself to ask, "What if he is right? What if the Church isn't what I believed it was?

I know that it isn't realistic to expect people to read all the books that I did, listen to the hours upon hours of podcasts and watch all the videos.  I know it isn't realistic to expect some of you to read anything. 
    
  What it comes down to is this; 
     I spent a lot of time and energy looking into my beliefs and the history and doctrines of the LDS church.
     I found out A LOT of facts that made me realize that the LDS Church is not what it claims to be and  I cannot be a person of any kind of integrity if I  continued to pretend that I believed in any of it. 

     If you REALLY want to know why I left the church, it's not the kind of thing I can just explain in a 5 minute speech.  It requires a serious commitement of time and energy to seek out and find the truth for yourself.  Your truth may not be the same as mine, and that's  A-OK, but if you just blindly follow what you have been told since you were a sunbeam and never really explore everything that the church DOESN'T tell you, you will never find your own TRUTH!

What is this ridiculous blog about?

Oh Boy!!

 Another Disaffected Mormon with a blog!!!

Why the hell should we care what this blowhard has to say?

You probably shouldn't.  I'm one of those abrasive jerks who has an axe to grind and a foul mouth.  If you are a TBM or a sensitive NOM or just have a problem with the word Fuck, you should probably stop reading. 

 This blog is my place to rant and rave and express my disaffection through writing.  I have 3 distinct purposes in writing this and they will be expressed in 3 types of posts.

1-Rants. 
These will be the most raw and snarky posts, I will bitch and moan about day to day things that piss me off as well as historical and doctrinal issues that chap my ass.  Random, rambling and raunchy, these will be the ones most likely to offend.

2-Why I Left.
Basically a Post-mortem on my relationship with the LDS church.  Here I will try to explain in my own words and with the help of a variety of links to videos, pod casts, and documents, why I find the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to be a fraud based on a lie and smothered in incongruous deception.  When people ask "Why did you leave the Church?"  This will be where I send them.  To find my answers.  Here I will try to refrain from snark and profanity, and simply present my case.

 My wonderful wife is still an active believer, Primary president and wonderful woman.  She has been so incredibly accepting of me and supportive as I have been going through my disaffection.  She likes the church for what it is currently in her life.   She was raised in it and her family are all very active TBMs.  She has said that she doesn't want to know  and doesn't care about the historical issues that I have learned through reading and studying the church.  I respect and love her and would never want to destroy her cherished beliefs.  Yet,  I  feel that deep down she knows that if she was to be presented with some of this historical evidence she would see that she is putting her faith in a corrupt institution based on the made up stories of a liar. 

If, in time she decides that she does want to know how the sausage was made, and is ready to look at the historical and doctrinal issues that I find so troubling,  these posts will be the way that I share those things with her.  In these posts I will try to be more respectful, clear and loaded with links to outside sources (Mormon Expression Podcast, YouTube videos and documents like the Nauvoo Expositor, Joseph Smith Papers, and the Journal Of Discourses.)  These will also help me to clearly understand these issues myself and why they are so problematic for me.

3-Where I Came From and Where I am Going.  (I could call it "My Journey", but I always hated that term and think it sounds pretentious)
These posts will be where I share the adventures and mistakes of my past that led to who I am, and my struggle with the questions of how I go on after this 'crisis of faith' and deal with the day to day issues of Life, the Universe, and Everything.  I will share with you my thoughts and feelings as I attempt to find out who, or what God is to me, or whether or not I am an Agnostic or an Atheist, or just an Asshole.

This post is one of the latter

I greww up on the periphery of the church,  living in the Mormon Corridor, I was baptised at 8,   and I got enough of the basics as a child in Primary that my concept of God was based in Mormonism.  I was not very active as a youth and eventually began seeking other ideas.  I was looking for something that wouldn't be as oppressive, restrictive and ridiculous and the Mormon God I grew up resenting. 

 My idea of God was Gordon B Hinckley,  A corporate lackey from the mail room who eventually worked his way up to be the Capo di tutti capi,  Boss of all Bosses,  the God of this planet.  If the idea that faithful Mormons can eventually be as gods of their own planet, the circular reasoning leads to and endless regression as was done on other worlds.  It's Gordon B Turtles all the way down.  I used to think that maybe there were other planets with cooler gods, gods  without so many stupid rules and more rockin' party planets, but I got stuck on the planet of the boring, uptight old fart.  I wanted better.

I have always been somewhat of a seeker. I read what would be called 'Anti-Mormon' books from the library.  I read books of magic, myths and the occult.   I read the Bhagavad Gita, The  Tao Te Ching and books on Zen and other Eastern religions.  I eventually moved outside of the Mormon corridor, living in Hollywood and sewing wild oats in sin city.  I found the famous New Age bookstore, the Bhodi Tree and began reading new age books and explored a few New Age religions in the area.   I  was shakabuku-ed and went to a Buddhist Temple in Ranch Cucamonga and received my Gohonzon and tried chanting" Namu-Myoho-Renge-Kyo"  I explored "They Psychedelic Experience" and other writings by Timothy Leary and Robert Anton Wilson.  When I was 'seeing at a cellular level' I came up with the theory of the Big Pink Everything (the nuclei were pink, floating in a green protoplasm).  I delved into the writings of Aleister Crowley and MacGregor Mathers, exploring Magick and Khabblah.  All of this was interesting, but none of it filled the void that I was trying to fill.  I knew the Mormon Church was wrong, but I wanted to find what was right, and I never did. 

I ended up moving back to Idaho and ended up marrying a wonderful young LDS girl.  I knew it would be easy to de-convert her and bring her around to my way of thinking.  15 months later I found myself in the Idaho Falls Temple. I had rebelled against the church so long and found no real answers, so, because I said I would, I took my beloved wife to the temple. I hated it.  This was supposed to be IT, the super duper, A number 1, Holiest of Holy.  It just seemed strange and silly.    We took the prep classes and I tried to cram the Big Pink Everything into this tiny Mormon box.  It wouldn't fit.  We struggled through those first years as I continued to rebel.

 In time we had a son, and and a few years later, a daughter. At this point my mom had begun telling me that one of her biggest regrets was not instilling us with a religious foundation and love of God and Jesus.  I didn't want my kids to grow up drifting about without some idea of God, and my wife's religion was as good as any, even if it was all made up.  I dutifully went to church on Sunday and eventually gave the temple another try.  I still didn't like it, but by then I was at the point where I had started thinking that there was just probably something wrong with me, I wasn't spiritual enough or too stiff-necked.

I am admittedly too damn intellectual,  I am all up in my head, and I over analyze, over think and over use  3 patterns.  I struggle to feel the spirit in any form.  I cannot sit and meditate without the constant intrusions of Monkey mind.  I know that.  I also know that you cannot intellectually understand the things of the spirit.  It is said that a testimony of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is not something to which  you can reason your way.  God must be in you heart as well as your head. I used to think it would be nice to just believe it all, to have that burning in the bosom testimony that I saw so many stand and profess.  If only I could get beyond all the cognitive dissonance and just knuckle under to the idea that a kind and loving Heavenly Father sent his beloved son to be nailed to a chunk of wood so that I could get away with masturbating or going to Taco Bell on Sunday. 

I basically have been "faking it until I make it," as the saying goes.   For the last 20 years I have been a quote 'Mormon' end quote.  Admittedly not a very good one, but a Mormon all the same.  I held callings-Primary Teacher, 4th Sunday EQ teacher, Activities Committee, I am still officially the assistant Membership Clerk. I wore the garments that I hated and found uncomfortable, ugly and stupid.  I failed to do my home teaching.   I watched football on mute while the in laws blasted conference.  I avoided volunteering to sort potatoes or work at the cannery.  I loved Funeral Potatoes served on my ham.

As my wife began serving in the YM program and then the Primary presidency, 1st as a counselor and now as president, it became harder and harder for me to stay at church.  I would go to sacrament with  her and the kids and then I would be alone to kill 2 hours.  I would use my clerk calling to hide in the office and avoid Sunday School and then sit through EQ meeting.  Soon I couldn't stay, and would just walk the mile home after Sacrament and my clerking.  By this time I had completed all 500 crosswords on the little handheld game my mom had bought me and I began using Sacrament meeting as my reading time.  I would pour through thrillers and mysteries as the High council reps droned on about tithing or temple work. 

I spent a lot of time at the YMCA and that was a good enough reason to wear my 'real' underwear whenever possible.  I would stay in bed until my wife left the room and then quickly dress for work so she wouldn't see me put on my BVDs.  I was living a lie and resented it. 

One day a year or so ago, my wife found out that I drank coffee at work.  It wasn't so much the coffee, as what she felt was the dishonesty.  I just never told her about it,  she drinks cocoa and tea all the time, so I didn't see it as a big deal.  I knew she wouldn't like it, but it wasn't like it was beer, it was just coffee.  (You guessed it, I never bought into the Wof W)  It was kind of a big todo over nothing as far as I saw it, but to her it was about trust and honesty.  I love my wife and didn't like hurting her, and vowed to myself  to be honest with her no matter what. 

This was the setting into which a monkey wrench was thrown, in the form of a book.  This book led to many more, and was the first straw on a very weary camel's back.  It was the spark that lit the fuse that led to my 'coming out' to my wife as an apostate. 

Next time: My Disaffection.