I have a pretty good imagination, but I don't really think much could have prepared me for telling my family. Especially my folks. Mostly my Mom.
We went to visit my parents and other family in the area, hoping for the chance to talk to Mom and Dad face to face rather than over the phone for this big conversation. I had hoped for a nice conversation with them, but my Dad always seems to dominate the conversation whenever we talk (unless he falls asleep). As per usual, the Dad-dominated conversation turned to politics and why the liberal Left is wrong and why the conservative Right is going to save the country from certain, imminent peril. As I have grown older, there is less and less that I agree with him in these areas, so occasionally, when I could get a word in, I would try to rebut his arguments. On one such occasion, I asked the question, "Do you have to be Mormon to be a good person?" Mom jumped on that immediately and asked "Why?" I think she may have started to suspect something by this point in the conversation. I had tried to move the conversation over to the whole lack of faith thing several times by this point only to fail. Given her tone and a glance at the clock on the wall, I figured maybe our conversation would have to wait until tomorrow. A quick brush off by my sweet wife and the conversation moved on to other topics, like why we don't need to worry about global climate change because God will step in and fix it before it is too late. Yikes.
The next morning after exercise and a shower, Mom confronts me and says she is worried about me and my family. I tell her that we are fine. She moves on to ask how my testimony is doing. I tell her that it is non-existent. I realize that this may have been somewhat blunt, but I couldn't lie to her and I didn't want her to get the impression that I was merely having questions. Remember that by this time, my questions had moved up the food chain from "was Joseph a true prophet of God?" to "does God exist?" So basically any testimony of anything I had before withered in the presence of the larger question. The only question that had no dependencies in the tenets graph.
The conversation with Mom was mostly how could this happen, where did she go wrong, why didn't I speak up sooner, how can I not believe, etc. I tried to reassure her that she did nothing wrong raising me. I grew up strong in the faith. But when I realized that the things my faith was based on were unfounded, I could no longer depend on that testimony. She did not seem to catch this logical conclusion, making it very hard to talk with her. I didn't want to tell her sooner because until the very last straw, I always assumed that I would figure out how to make this all work and would stay a faithful member of the church. Why bring up worries if I was only going to return? I tried to explain the need for evidence and that a feeling does not count as evidence because I can recreate that on demand, thus invalidating all prior foundations based on feelings. As expected she is really worried about my eternal fate, and I told her that *if* God really does exist and really loves us then he will have to find some way to sort out this little misunderstanding. Then, as expected, she pulled out Pascal's wager, saying what do I have to lose by believing? Really my only answer to that is my sanity and integrity. I could not go on as an orthopraxic member of the church with my personal beliefs so widely different than what the church teaches. At one point she said that she could tell even as far as a year back that something was up, but given that I didn't even know it then (because nothing was) I can chalk that up to over-active 20-20 vision. We covered so many topics, but I don't really think she was actually listening to any of my words, because nothing I said seemed to help her. I think the worst part about this is that I can see both sides of the story, having lived on both sides of the fence. But from her perspective, the world outside is too dangerous to even think about, let alone step into even for a second. By this time, we were late for our next engagement and the kids were getting impatient, so we called a truce until later.
That night, we all discussed this some more. Mostly it was bearing testimony by parents, but that really doesn't do anything for me, given that their testimonies are not founded in evidence that I can believe. At times the conversation got heated and I nearly walked out more than once, but came back at pleadings to not leave angry. In the end, it was more a "agree to disagree" sort of thing, but it was over.
Over the next few days, I called all my siblings. The sisters, who I don't have quite as much in common anymore, took it pretty hard. Some had friends or in-laws that had recently left the church and were very worried for me and my family. I know just like my Mom, that they are only showing their love and concern, but really at this stage in my life, I am absolutely sure that I can make these decisions for myself. My brother, on the other hand, said, "Yeah, I could kind of see that coming." Unlike my Mom, he is a 'book friend' and he noticed that I had posted a review for "No Man Knows My History." So we talked for five minutes about my disaffection and then continued on for another forty about the things we usually talk about. Nothing had changed. It was wonderful. This was the only good experience that I had talking with my family about my new beliefs.
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| The storm is brewing... |
The next morning after exercise and a shower, Mom confronts me and says she is worried about me and my family. I tell her that we are fine. She moves on to ask how my testimony is doing. I tell her that it is non-existent. I realize that this may have been somewhat blunt, but I couldn't lie to her and I didn't want her to get the impression that I was merely having questions. Remember that by this time, my questions had moved up the food chain from "was Joseph a true prophet of God?" to "does God exist?" So basically any testimony of anything I had before withered in the presence of the larger question. The only question that had no dependencies in the tenets graph.
The conversation with Mom was mostly how could this happen, where did she go wrong, why didn't I speak up sooner, how can I not believe, etc. I tried to reassure her that she did nothing wrong raising me. I grew up strong in the faith. But when I realized that the things my faith was based on were unfounded, I could no longer depend on that testimony. She did not seem to catch this logical conclusion, making it very hard to talk with her. I didn't want to tell her sooner because until the very last straw, I always assumed that I would figure out how to make this all work and would stay a faithful member of the church. Why bring up worries if I was only going to return? I tried to explain the need for evidence and that a feeling does not count as evidence because I can recreate that on demand, thus invalidating all prior foundations based on feelings. As expected she is really worried about my eternal fate, and I told her that *if* God really does exist and really loves us then he will have to find some way to sort out this little misunderstanding. Then, as expected, she pulled out Pascal's wager, saying what do I have to lose by believing? Really my only answer to that is my sanity and integrity. I could not go on as an orthopraxic member of the church with my personal beliefs so widely different than what the church teaches. At one point she said that she could tell even as far as a year back that something was up, but given that I didn't even know it then (because nothing was) I can chalk that up to over-active 20-20 vision. We covered so many topics, but I don't really think she was actually listening to any of my words, because nothing I said seemed to help her. I think the worst part about this is that I can see both sides of the story, having lived on both sides of the fence. But from her perspective, the world outside is too dangerous to even think about, let alone step into even for a second. By this time, we were late for our next engagement and the kids were getting impatient, so we called a truce until later.
That night, we all discussed this some more. Mostly it was bearing testimony by parents, but that really doesn't do anything for me, given that their testimonies are not founded in evidence that I can believe. At times the conversation got heated and I nearly walked out more than once, but came back at pleadings to not leave angry. In the end, it was more a "agree to disagree" sort of thing, but it was over.
Over the next few days, I called all my siblings. The sisters, who I don't have quite as much in common anymore, took it pretty hard. Some had friends or in-laws that had recently left the church and were very worried for me and my family. I know just like my Mom, that they are only showing their love and concern, but really at this stage in my life, I am absolutely sure that I can make these decisions for myself. My brother, on the other hand, said, "Yeah, I could kind of see that coming." Unlike my Mom, he is a 'book friend' and he noticed that I had posted a review for "No Man Knows My History." So we talked for five minutes about my disaffection and then continued on for another forty about the things we usually talk about. Nothing had changed. It was wonderful. This was the only good experience that I had talking with my family about my new beliefs.
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