I am currently transitioning out of the Mormon church. I am definitely leaning towards atheism. I was hoping someone could relate to or explain this phenomenon. When I am away from church, I feel very strongly that the church is not true. When I interact with the "scripture" I know in my heart that it's bs. I have been attending church every week with my husband even though we have all but removed our records. I hold a role in the church and do not want to go through the awkward conversation where I explain why I don't want to be a church member anymore.
This strange thing happens when I go to church. I feel this strong urging to strive for righteousness again and to read the scriptures. I would give up anything for the church to be true. So I tell my husband that we should strive to hold a recommend again. When I get home, we usually read scriptures and it's like I have been lifted out of a trance. We start reading and I am like "wtf am I reading? this shit is crazy." I feel guilty for a few days and then I decide I am against the church until Sunday rolls around. It's this weird cycle and I feel crazy. I feel like I am a sinner and like I need to do better even though I know it's not true.
Did anyone else experience this? How did you navigate that?
I would suggest following Alyssa Grenfell's YouTube channel, and she also wrote a book on this topic about the process of leaving Mormonism, which probably applies to someone in your position. Exmo Lex is also a very entertaining channel about someone who has left Mormonism, and now looking back on the experience. You can probably listen to these videos audio only while you do something else, and they'll probably help you process your unique indoctrination and upbringing to put it behind you better. They have a lot of good old videos on the
Indoctrination is something very hard to shake off. Many of the memories and feelings are programmed deeply into your psyche to trigger response. I guess that's a form a brain washing.
I have never been Mormon, but I think you should probably stop doing things that force you back into old ways of thinking, and keep your thoughts free until you're willing to put the religion behind you to a greater extent.
Investigate parts of Mormonism that make it untrue or evidences unreliable, and do the same for mainline Christianity if you need to. I think Alyssa Grenfell I previously mentioned could give you some places to start, as she states what evidences she found that it's nonsense.
Also atheist and exmormon.
I've always thought of our psych as layers of behaviors and environmental factors made over our neurons. Introducing one factor can often involve the others.
It's not uncommon for people from strict backgrounds to fall back into toxic environments because that's also where their inner child loves and grew up.
Basically take a walk through a children’s hospital.. that makes it completely obvious there is no God.
I've worked with children, some of them neurodivergent, and some of them with disabilities. Even if very demanding, that work has reinforced a lot of faith in humanity for me, and I never stopped to consider whether that had anything to do with god.
"The world sucks, so I believe in nothing" won't do OP any favors.
I was raised in a strict atheist household. Never been in a church with family. They all died now and I've never been to a funeral.
Got involved with "church gigs" in high school because I play trombone and was a little curious. That continued into my 20's and then I couldn't take it anymore and stopped.
Then got pulled into church stuff from music people in my 30's. Terrible stuff.
A partner got me involved with Unity Church in my 40's. It's all been terrible. I wrote them a letter to dissolve my association with them and hand delivered. I felt a little better. It's about all I can do.
Sting describes the imagery feeling of having been brought up in a Catholic environment. I adopted a solitary Zen practice in my teens and that is the only thing that works for me.
I had a partner drag me into a Buddhist Church as well. Again, it doesn't work for me.
Not sure how many are raised atheist. There is some indication online that some religious people make it their mission to convert you. Some hobby, right?
That being said, some religious concepts are interesting to me and I'm a huge fan of the Little House on the Prairie TV show. I guess I'm more into how Charles reads the carpentry book and Caroline is at home hauling water.
Uh, being raised as an atheist can be disorienting. Maybe religion is disorienting for everyone?
They say that like only 1% of people were raised as atheists. Is that true?
Well, the neighbor kids I played with were obviously raised Catholic. They went to the Catholic school. It's like 100% they knew they were raised Catholic and likely attended church services of some kind.
My best friend in high school too. The other prominent musician I went to high school with was raised Jewish. Again it's 100%. He likely attended Jewish congregations.
My brother and I did bowling League for a couple years.
We knew we were raised atheist. Again, it's disorienting. There is nothing to fix. Nothing to convert to. It's simply my way. The zen way is what I call it. Perhaps the religious people being so proactive with recruiting or whatever it is is a way to produce anxiety in people like me so that we may "grow a thick skin" and promote our atheist and zen ways? I don't know. It could be that "they" are like 95% of society and you really can't even survive on planet Earth unless you take their mental abuse?
I don't want to get overly paranoid.
Just sharing feelings in an atheist forum, right?
Two things I can speak to: being an atheist and an ex Mormon.
I'd highly recommend reading the CES Letter. You aren't crazy and you get the sense that the Mormon's doctrine and scripture is false because it is. When you are ready to remove your records, go to quitmormon.org and they make it easy to remove your records. Your feelings and how they shift makes sense. The church is good at using group psychology to fuck with you. If you haven't already, start writing down the questions you have and look them up. I'd suggest going to r/exmormon, you will find some great resources (including what I've provided) and support there. Don't listen to what the leaders say such as "doubt your doubts" or that ex Mormons are "angry and rebellious children."
For me, I committed a sin that was one you couldn't seek forgiveness by yourself and had to involve a bishop. Well I didn't involve the bishop but I felt an overwhelming feeling that I was forgiven. That got me thinking, if I could convince myself that I was forgiven for something that should have involved the bishop for forgiveness, what else could I convince myself of? That spurred inner conflict where I prayed and begged God that that turmoil would end and those voices be silenced. Well, ironically, that's one prayer that was answered. I stopped believing and so did that turmoil. Imagine that. There were also things in the book of Mormon and Bible that I couldn't reconcile and had to incorporate science to make certain concepts make sense but I was warned that using logic and reasoning was a tool that Satan used to deceive people. There are many ex Mormon archaeologists who have left the faith because they couldn't find archaeological evidence to support the church or BoM's claims. The book talks about horses being here in the western hemisphere during the time of the events, yet the only living horse relative at that time was the tapir. The horse as we know it was introduced when the conquistadores arrived.
And if you want to know how to be a good person in the absence of religion, Penn Gillette said it best when he said "I rape and steal and kill as much as I want. And that number is 0! If it were any higher than that, I would have a problem."