Mormonism has 'the' answers

Growing up in the LDS Church I was taught very early on that we had the answers to all the big questions. You know the ones I'm talking about - THE big ones:

1. Who am I?
2. Where do I come from?
3. Why am I here?
4. Where am I going?

For those of you who aren't LDS or have somehow forgotten the answers, they're simple:

1. You are a literal spirit child of the Everlasting God! who loves you and has a Plan for you!
2. You came from God's presence...
3. to be born into a physical body and prove your faithfulness to God by living according to His desires and commandments.
4. Sometime after your physical death your body will be made immortal and reunited with your spirit. Then you will be judged and assigned to your eternal kingdom - a brilliant and golden sun, silvery moon, a tiny wink of bronze or the cold obsolete of pure darkness.

I have no doubt that these answers have lifted the fog of existential confusion from your heart and mind and you're now ready to move forward in life with undaunted assurance of God's love and your place in the Universe. Please contact your local LDS missionaries for further light and knowledge.

Hang on. A big blond family? You guys have to be Mormon already.

No? That's strange, usually the Spirit confirms these words of truth in the hearts of the sincere. This is a bad sign. You might be a two-faced piece of shit destined for Outer Darkness. Believe me, the above answers all make perfect sense when you grow up hearing them every week in church.

Repeat it enough and hopefully it will become second nature.

So what seems to be the problem? Are you maybe wondering what a god is and how he procreates to produce literal spirit children? Maybe you don't quite understand what a spirit is. Or maybe you're skeptical of how this information came to our knowledge in the first place. If this is the case, we can tell you that God has a body of flesh and bone (but not blood for some reason); that he has sex (a lot) with a goddess (or two) that we're not allowed to speculate on or talk about; that a spirit is eternal (but only after conception or birth or something) and, believe it or not, physical somehow (but we don't know how and don't know any specifics); and that we got all of this from a very reliable source named Joseph Smith. It doesn't get any clearer or logical than that!

On to where we come from, you might be wondering where God is. That answer is easy: Kolob! Where's Kolob? Um... we don't need to know that, actually. Why should anyone believe God has a physically restricted presence? Because Joseph Smith said so, duh! Is this star or planet named Kolob found within our Universe? Probably. Why wouldn't God reside outside of Creation? Why is he summer homing on a planet he made? Um... It's nice there. Hm...

The important thing is the present though. What you do right now in this life is crucial! You've got to let God know you're on his side! Because he doesn't already know if we are or not? No, because, well, we can switch sides at any time, you know? Because... Satan! But doesn't God know the future already? Doesn't he know if we'll one day succumb to Satan and forsake him? ...Well, sure, probably, but we don't know that. We fricking fought a war with Satan and his followers while still in the presence of God about whether or not we'd follow God's Plan which was to let us live mortal lives in general ignorance. We chose the Plan, that's why we're here enjoying our bodies and all the rebellious spirits, like Satan, will never get a body. Wait! You're saying we already chose to follow God and helped him conquer Satan before we were born? Definitely! So how the hell does God not already know that we chose to follow him? Why are we taking a second fidelity test? Does God not trust those who fought for him? Hey, whoa! Not so fast! That wasn't a real test because it didn't involve faith! No? No, we were living with God, so we had a perfect knowledge of him, not faith in him. We had to be born on earth to learn to develop faith. Why? Because that's the way God likes it. Oh dear god.

Hey, man, how's God going to know whether or not you deserve gold? Because he knows everything already and because I helped him fight off Satan. No, but God has to judge your faith in Him! Which wasn't required when I chose to fight a war for him? Nope. So why did other spirits fight with Satan if they knew God would win? They were just stupid assholes, man. Ah, obviously. So tell me about this super-sunny, magically awesome kingdom. What's so great about it? Yes! Now we're talking! The Celestial Kingdom is the best! You get to live with God forever and YOUR WHOLE FAMILY! Why would I want that? Is God really funny or something? Does it matter that no one in my family would ever believe anything you're telling me here? Will my brother still be a wife-beating dick? You don't understand! Remember how we're all God's literal offspring? Well, the Celestial Kingdom is where we grow up to be full-blown gods! We will make worlds and universes and have billions or trillions or more babies (think how much sex that is!)! We'll have tons of power and glory and love and it'll be so great FOREVER! Uh, yeah, no thanks. Bye!

Showing emotion

A recent Infants on Thrones episode got me thinking once again about my internal response to the tears of general authorities in General Conference and other venues. I WOULD CRINGE.

My response had nothing to do with masculine insecurities about crying in public or anything like that; instead, it had everything to do with the seeming lack of authentic emotion in the tears. In other words, IT FELT LIKE THEY WERE FAKING.

Only slightly less convincing than a general authority.

Even if my gut told me I should be suspicious of a leader sharing his tender side, my brain told me I should believe. I blamed myself for not feeling what the speaker was feeling (the Spirit, of course) and buried my skepticism. These men were on a higher plane than me. I needed to trust them. Why would they be faking it anyway? What would these men in high leadership positions, with hundreds, thousands, or millions of people following their every word, possibly have to lose?

Self-censorship

The third family of groupthink symptoms covers "Pressures toward uniformity". One of those pressures is the impulse to self-censor. "Ideas that deviate from the apparent group consensus" are kept to oneself.

In the Mormon world fear of expressing a dissenting opinion comes from a few places, I'm sure. A few might fear the wrath of God, some might fear Church discipline, most seem to fear confrontation within the ward or branch, and all probably fear disapproval from family members.

Mormons don't want to appear to be out of touch with the Spirit, they don't want to be contentious, and they don't want to take heat for stepping out of line. So what do we do? We keep our iffy thoughts to ourselves and toe the line. At least when people are watching.

Meeting Mormons

Everyone is so eager to meet the Mormons and the missionaries are so overbooked that the Church has decided to turn their "I'm a Mormon" campaign into a super-spiritual full-length feature film called "Meet the Mormons" (not to be confused with "Meet the Mormons," a documentary the Church would probably like to bury)! Be prepared to feel the Spirit. And brace yourselves for the flood of new converts.

HeartSell (TM)

Church-owned Bonneville International has done it! They've found a way into your heart! Not only can they get in there, they know how to move and motivate you to action. They've even given this communication strategy a creepy, trademarked name.

It's almost like you don't even need the Holy Ghost to feel the truth anymore.

Babies and the Veil

It's often said in the LDS Church, as it is in others, that newborns and very small children are very close to God and enjoy greater spiritual perception than adults, teens and older children. In Mormon speak we say the Veil of Forgetfulness that keeps us from remembering our pre-Earth life is very thin for new arrivals here on Earth. I don't think it's official doctrine or anything, but it is a widely held belief. I always thought this special sensitivity was an awesome baby power that deserved our admiration and respect. Babies were closer to God than the rest of us. They didn't have to doubt about God and his plan. They remembered things. Special things.
 
But I also couldn't help but wonder why the hell they didn't seem to have a clue about what we were doing when we prayed as a family. It seems like they would at least show some excitement about our attempts to commune with God and even more excitement for God's attentive listening in. Instead of smiling up at Heavenly Father's loving face and basking in the window of spiritual bliss we've just opened, babies act like total heathens during prayers. In church too. They cry, they scream, they play, they eat, they shit, they hit, they sleep, and many other non-spiritual things. It was enough to make me doubt they had any connection to pre-Earth memory at all.

Heavenly fatherliness #29 - Good teacher

According to popular wisdom, a good father is a good teacher.

Heavenly Father is constantly teaching us through things - his living prophets, dead prophets (scriptures), trials, our life experiences, and all the people he puts in our path - but he doesn't just defer teaching opporuntities to his other children - no, no! - he happily addresses us directly THROUGH THE HOLY GHOST.

The funny thing about the promptings of the Holy Ghost, the disembodied mind and voice of God that is somehow its own separate, bodiless being, is that they're very hard to understand. Good thing God's crystal clear when he goes through everyone else. It seems like everyone's really getting the same message, doesn't it?

Meh, I don't know. Maybe none of us have any idea what life's about and what we're supposed to get out of all of this.

*These attributes represent the popular thoughts of Ask Men’s Jullian Marcus, examiner.com’s Tanya Tringali, and Open Talk Magazine’s Glenn Silvestre as per their respective articles on what makes a good father.

My testimony moments

I experienced the testimony-making moments of Mormonism. I felt the burning, I felt the tingles, I felt the rush, I cried the tears, I found the relief, I found my answers, I was overcome with love, I was truly converted to the Jesus and his One True Church. At least I was pretty sure.

The fact is it was always a little hard to tell what was going on in those moments. Was I sweating profusely because I feeling the Spirit or because I was standing in front of a large crowd of judgmental peers? Was my heart racing because I was in tune with the Spirit or because I was embarrassed that the only thing I could think to say were those same pronouncements everyone else has said when they've stood to bear their testimony? Was the relief I felt after prayer due to the Spirit  offering me celestial support or was it due to not hearing God tell me 'no'? (Hearing nothing is better than hearing 'no'!) When I prayed to feel God's love, did I feel it finally descend upon me or was I overwhelmed from asking?

I really really wanted to have these moments. I wanted to have my conversion story. I needed one to be an effective missionary. More importantly, I wanted to be a true convert. My point here is that my interpretive approach involved a whole lot of DESIRE.

Conditioning EXPECTATIONS also played heavily into my interpretations of testimony moments. I was taught that the Spirit communicates differently for everyone and that essentially anything could count. Once someone told me that they had experienced a sensation similar to an orgasm while praying and wanted to know if that was the Holy Ghost telling him the Book of Mormon was true. My companion wasn't so sure but I said it absolutely was an answer. The thing is that essentially any emotional response should be considered an answer in the affirmative by most Mormons' standard.

I however started to consider my answers a little more carefully. Were the emotions I felt coming from psychological stress? Were they generated within myself or did they feel like they had come from outside my body? Was what I had felt more than mere emotion? Was another personage, spirit, or presence involved, or was it all just me? Why was it the answers always felt so vague? Does God want me to be sure but not too sure? Were they really answers or did I make them answers? How would I have viewed those experiences had I not felt any cultural pressure?

Then again, maybe I was wrong. Maybe I needed more faith. Maybe God was answering my prayers and I wasn't recognizing them. Of all the doubts I had, the strongest were about myself.

Getting answers to doubts

Prayer is the only way you will ever conquer your doubts. You have to know with a certainty for yourself that the Church is true and you can only know for sure through the confirming power of the Holy Ghost. Pray about it. A ghost will tell you its all real.

Here's how it works:
1. The Church is true.
2. Kneel in humble prayer as ask God if it is.
3. God will tell you it is through the Holy Spirit.

Easy!

But if you're having trouble getting to #3, just keep repeating #2 and everything will work out because #1 is what it is.

You're welcome.

What? God told you the Church isn't true and that you should keep your previously held beliefs? That doesn't make any sense! You must be doing #2 incorrectly. Be brave. Try again.

Huh? You don't think this is a very effective method of determining truth because the conclusion is maintained at all times, even in the cases of the absence of evidence and contradicting evidence? Is that a problem? Should we be worried?

Surviving church

I couldn't help but question my participation in the Church when it became painfully obvious that I couldn't enjoy church meetings. Every talk, every lesson, every hymn, every nod to authority, every Sunday smile made me hurt inside. I wondered constantly what I was doing in church. I wondered what any of us were doing in church. Nobody really enjoyed being there. There must be a reason half the congregation shows up late even though the meeting house is all of two minutes away from home.

Not enjoying church meetings is a common problem in Mormonism that is frequently addressed (for example, the January 2013 New Era featured an article about how to never have a boring church class ever again and by November of the same year they're soliciting readers for more info on the same topic for an upcoming issue - not being bored at church). The problem, according to Church leaders and publications, is that we the members are not preparing ourselves properly. We're not seeking the Spirit the way we should. It's our fault church sucks, not the lesson manuals, not the repetitiveness, and certainly not the banality of what's taught or the blatant dismissal of numerous facts.

I agree that members half-ass the vast majority of their talks and improvise most of their lessons, but couldn't that be indicative of how uninteresting the material is? Sit down and write a little something about following the prophet and see how compelling it is. Isn't there at least a chance that church is boring because of what we're told to talk about?

Whatever the case my be, I accepted that it was principally my fault I wasn't cuckoo for church and kept rededicating myself to a better attitude and a more open heart. That is until I just couldn't anymore. How many times do you have to eat shit sandwiches before you realize it's not the Thanksgiving feast you were told it would be?

A noble and great one

The following story is without a doubt one of the major causes of my more serious doubting. Like many of the doubts I've mentioned, this goes back to my days as a missionary.

My companion and I were working on reactivating a guy in his late 20s. The man had some serious hygiene problems but he had quite a brain. He and his father (then diseased) had converted from the Jehovah's Witnesses about a decade earlier only to both go inactive a few years later. My companion and I were thrilled to be in contact with him because (1) we didn't have many solid contacts, (2) we wanted to get more Priesthood holders into the branch, and (3) we fucking hated Jehovah's witnesses and didn't like that this guy had (supposedly) returned to them.

I had never seen the kind of enthusiasm this guy had ever before. He was all about Joseph Smith and the Restoration. He loved all the visions, all the revelations, all the visitations - everything. He wanted to hear it all. He had studied a number of the American religions that had sprung up in the early 19th Century and apparently had found Mormonism extremely convincing.

We would come to us having read sections of the Doctrine & Covenants and testifying of their truthfulness. The man was on fire with the spirit. Hungry for the Restored Gospel. Eager to share the confirmations of the spirit.

In fact, he was the most spiritually sensitive person I had ever taught by far. One day he told us about a dream he had in which his diseased father appeared to him in a dream bearing testimony of the Church. In the same dream he even heard the voice of Joseph Smith confirming that he would once again be with his father in the Celestial Kingdom.

It was amazing! Visions! The voice of the Prophet! I was so excited for him, not to mention jealous! Holy shit, it's all real! Our guy is living it the way it was meant to be! My companion and I were sure he was going to be leading the local church within a decade. Shit, this dude was going to be an area authority by the time he was 45! He was going to lead the church in that country with the power of the Spirit unlike anyone before him! Every meeting with him was magical. Our meetings with him always ended on a high note.

We loved this guy and loved what he was going to do for the Church, so when he called us in desperation one day asking for some financial help we were ready to assist. We weren't too thrilled that he had asked us for money, though he had promised to pay us back the next week, but my companion and I talked it over and prayed about it and eventually came up with $120 that we compassionately handed over.

As you likely suspect, we didn't hear from him for a long time, and when we did hear from him a month later he was telling us that he had up and gone to the UK for some English course. We knew he had scammed us and we knew he was lying to us. We knew that he had always been lying to us about everything. That for whatever reason he had been trying to wrangle as many copies of the Doctrine & Covenants from us as possible. Then he wanted our money.

We could have killed him, but we kept that to ourselves. Once we finally managed to convince him to meet us again we called him out on his bluff. He, of course, got upset and a shouting match ensued, after which he stormed out of the church. Our problems with him continued for a time. At one point he threatened to call the police on us because we still had the Discman he had left in the church the day we had our big fight. It wasn't a pretty scenario.

The most troubling thing about the whole situation was that my companion and I had felt the Spirit the strongest we had ever felt it before while listening to this guy's stories. Considering the fact that he had made everything up, what was it that we had felt? Why had God allow us, his humble and dedicated servants to be so badly conned? What did this whole experience mean with regards to the other experiences I had with the confirmations of the Spirit? And what did it mean with regards to God's personal investment in our work (his work)?

It's not that I had never doubted the power of the Spirit to communicate before, but now things had somehow become much more serious and real. Could I trust God? Was the Spirit a load of bullshit,  nothing more than happy feelings of confirmation bias?

Book of Mormon - Christ the Father

Remember how the Book of Mormon is so great because it clarifies the Gospel so well, eliminating all confusion and room for debate? Mormons are so lucky to have it! Thanks to its inspired writings we don't have to worry about how that whole Godhead thing works because WE KNOW that God the Father is the big boss daddy god, Jesus is his literal son and perfect soul clone, and the Holy Ghost is... something... without a body... who's... out there... somewhere... inspiring, teaching, and comforting people! We love the Holy Ghost!

Anyway, the Book of Mormon has such powerfully clear explanations of who Christ is, like when Abinadai teaches that the Messiah, meaning the "Anointed One" (usually referred to with the Anglicized version of the Greek word "Χριστός" (Khristós) "Christ") is "the Father... and the Son" (Mosiah 15:3). With scripture like that it's only obvious that the God and Jesus are two different people. But if that's not clear enough, perhaps you should hear it straight from the horse's mouth. Nothing makes the nature of the Godhead more clear than when Jesus himself explains it to the brother of Jared: "I am the Father and the Son" (Ether 3:14). It's so obvious they're totally different people!

And it's not like anyone's gone back to mess with Joseph's excellent translation to correct any confusing Godhead talk, right? Sure, adding "son of" to verses like 1 Nephi 11:18, 1 Ne. 11:21, 1 Ne. 11:32, or 1 Ne. 13:40 might seem like whoever wrote the Book of Mormon wasn't exactly clear on who was Who, and maybe you might be tempted to point out that the original version of Alma 5:48 said that Jesus was begotten of himself, but that's really splitting hairs! Anyone who fails to understand the clarity of the Book of Mormon must not be reading with the Spirit.

Even if there were changes made later on in an effort to rewrite the relationship between God and Jesus, why should that cause anyone to doubt the scriptures? It's not like Joseph Smith was a Methodist-influence trinitarian in his early days of leading the Church only to change his mind years later! He had seen God the Father and Jesus Christ in the Grove what back in 1820, remember? No one needed to tell him God and Jesus were separate!

And yet when I read Mosiah 15 and Ether 3 I can't help but wonder if there's a little more going on beneath the surface. Oh, whatever! I'm sure those prophets just meant that Jesus is our adoptive father after we're baptized, that's all. Doubt not, dear Mormons, and press forward with faith!

My baptism and confirmation

I can't believe I forgot to mention this before. I had no serious doubts going into my baptism. Even if my bishop had asked me my thoughts about the Creation and the Flood, I know my 8-year-old self would have shrugged the question off and pushed for baptism anyway. Not that I would have had to push, usually Mormon adults take care of all the required pushing.

I was told that I would feel the burden of my sins be lifted (which is odd considering Mormon doctrine teaches that we are incapable of sinning until we reach eight years old, the age of accountability), that I might possibly feel physically lighter, and that I would feel overwhelmed with God's love and know that I was accepted by Him. What I actually felt was quite different. I felt like it was over so fast that I didn't even know what happened. When I came out of the water I basically felt the same as before, just a little more embarrassed than usual because everyone was watching me and my underwear was probably showing through the wet white jump suit I was wearing. I felt hurried in the changing room and weird about the other boys and their fathers all changing together (I was raised a prude). I felt like I had missed something, but I was sure the good feelings were waiting for me around the corner. 

I also felt nervous that now everything I did could count against me. Everyone told me I would screw up and sin and it was bad but it was also okay because Jesus suffered and died for all our sins so we can repent, but keep in mind that repentance is hard and painful, so just don't screw up, okay? Okay.

Admittedly there was one more thing about my baptism that I wasn't too keen on. The font wasn't very cool. It was just the typical tiled box with stairs that you see above. What I really wanted was to get baptized in a natural body of water like Jesus in the River Jordan or all those converts in the Waters of Mormon. This baptism picture still kicks the shit out of any baptism I've ever seen.

My confirmation was very much the same experience. I had been told marvelous things about being confirmed a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and so I had a few expectations. I specifically expected to feel the Spirit come over me and confirm my decision to join the Church. I remember trying so hard to open up and tune in. I wanted to do it right. It was serious business. What I felt that Sunday morning was the nervousness of having all eyes on me and a sincere desire that the dudes confirming me would lift their hands a bit more because the weight of all their arms was making my neck tired. Please, dad, lay off a bit or wrap it up! Name a Jesus Christ AMEN!

Where thoughts come from

Mormonism, like so many other religions out there, puts a lot of emphasis on how we desperately need to control our thoughts. That's typically manifest through expressions like "guard your thoughts" and "keep your thoughts clean". This is because Satan, the fallen Star of the Morning, Lucifer the Great, the Devil himself, is always out there looking to temp and corrupt you. It's a horrifying idea that keeps a lot of us constantly on edge. Even now Satan and his minions are almost definitely chiseling away at your brain case in an attempt to infiltrate your every thought and desire. No one wants to lose his or her mind and will to the Enemy of All Righteousness, so we question our thoughts constantly, doubt our logic, second guess our impulses, and think twice before acting all because it might be coming from the wrong source.

In addition to putting up serious defense mechanisms against the Bad, Mormons are instructed to yield to the Light of Christ (our conscience) and learn to "open up to the Spirit", a.k.a. "follow the promptings of the Holy Ghost" once we have been baptized and given the gift of the Holy Ghost. It's all simple enough, right? Reject the bad, embrace the good.

Unfortunately for me, I could never quite sort out my thoughts so neatly partially because there was a little more to the story. In church I was taught time and time again that Satan had no power to know my thoughts but God knows my thoughts perfectly. I remember puzzling constantly from before I was baptized to the day I said my last prayer how the hell Satan managed to carry on such a wonderful debate with the Holy Ghost when the debate in question was all in my head. God's fine in this situation because He's got his Spirit alter ego tracking my every thought, but how could Satan have any ability to offer counter points to the inspirations of the Spirit if he has no idea what I'm thinking? How could Satan even know what the topic of debate was at all? As far as I knew the Devil & Co. were just bombarding me with everything they had at all moments hoping that something - anything! - they had to say would stick. The only way "those unhappy spirits" would have any idea that they got through to me was if I immediately did what they suggested. I can only imagine their disappointment when all they could get me to do was sneak a bowl of Blueberry Crunch instead of killing my entire family and torching the house. The Spirit must have been very strong with me!

Actually I never really felt like I was dialoguing with the Holy Ghost. Seriously, not once. I wanted to so badly. I wanted to have at least a story or two about how God inspired me to hurry home and upon arriving home I find an emergency situation that I'm able to resolve before it gets out of control. Or at least a story about finding some lost car keys! But I got nothing. There was never a Still Small Voice inspiring me to do kind things or filling me with greater light and knowledge. It was always me and the Devil fighting over stupid shit like sneaking a snack vs. waiting for dinner. That's one of the worst parts about the way Mormonism teaches resistance to evil: it almost always has something to do with "physical appetites".

In my experience the temptation Church leaders warned us about the most by far was sexual desire. Enticing your sexual pleasure was Satan's ace in the hole, and it was your job to fight off all improper thoughts of an erotic nature. Sexual acts, which rank just below murder and the denial of the Holy Ghost, were grievous enough to warrant a trip to the bishop's office for a very uncomfortable confession. Remember, guys (and gals), that "the natural man is an enemy to God!" so please don't do anything you're biologically inclined to do.

And yet other bodily impulses were not so severely monitored. Sneaking sugary cereal wasn't going to win me any points in the Celestial Kingdom, sure, but unless you're fasting you really shouldn't refrain from eating. Urinating and defecating are always okay and should be taken care of in a timely fashion. Washing up when you feel uncomfortably sweaty or dirty is encouraged and so is sleeping when you're tired. Oh, you should also clean out your nose if you have a little something up there giving you problems.

I could never sort out what was temptation, what was inspiration, what was natural me, what was brain me, and what was spiritual me, which all resulted in doubting myself ALL THE TIME.