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.