The atheist hiding within the Mormon

I’ve been reading some really good articles today, and it just makes me feel so warm and fuzzy. First is Kullervo’s article at Songs from the Wood entitled “I Have Always Been A Pagan.” And the second is a comment from Jonathan Blake at Green Oasis entitled “Mormon Me vs. The Infidel.”

I wonder how I can do these topics justice, but realize I probably can’t. I’m not good at writing warm and fuzzy stuff.

I guess this kind of mood came about earlier. I was having an email conversation with JTJ, who has commented here a bit and also has been around Mormon Matters and other places, and he had asked me when I doubted and what caused it.

And I must admit…my story of apostasy and doubt isn’t very exciting.

I didn’t have any one event or another that sent my faith hurtling to the ground, because in a way, I have always doubted…and I have never really (that cross-out will make sense later) believed. (So, there is that stereotype of ex-mormons as people who have “never had a testimony.” While I am sure this is a baseless stereotype for most, I will admit…I never had that fire and couldn’t pretend to lie and say I did. [Geez, I bet this is going to come back to bite me…]).

So it is just so serendipitous that both Jonathan and Kullervo would have posts that seem to pay homage to my experiences. For me, like with Kullervo, I had a process where I had to fit into my own skin. I knew I was different, on the outside, but I felt pressure to try to repress that and internalize Mormonism. (So, if anything, I didn’t believe, but I subconsciously granted concessions to the church that kept me in line with the LDS worldview.) Eventually though, I realized I couldn’t keep fighting myself. I had been saying in so many ways, “I don’t really believe in God” and “I don’t really identify with this spirituality,” and those reallys were holding me back. When I would say, “I don’t really believe,” the really would act as a linguistic dampener.

But one day, I was able to drop the ‘really’s. It wasn’t that I didn’t really believe in God. “I don’t believe in God.” When “don’t” and “believe” got so close together, that set off the chain reactions.

How to explain it? I don’t know if I’m just projecting my own feelings onto Kullervo’s story, but I feel like I can empathize with what he must have felt to realize he was always a Pagan. Paganism was the glove that had never been tried on, yet was crafted specifically for that hand. And for me, atheism has been like that, but only after I had the integrity to say it. I do not believe. I am an atheist. From there, I have been able to confront some of the subconscious LDS subroutines I had been faithfully following.

The reason this seems so important to me is not the conclusion. After all, my “conclusion” was different from Kullervo’s, and ours is certainly different from someone else’s. My atheism and Kullervo’s paganism are not the point. Rather, it is the process that is the triumph…the process of discovering oneself and learning to work with oneself rather than against. In the end, I don’t care too much about what a person believes…rather, I’d ask a question: does whatever you believe fit you or are you trying to “break” yourself into a belief system?

If you are Mormon and it fits you, great. If you are atheist and it fits you, great. If you are anything and it fits you, great. I only lament for the great number of people who persevere and toil, fighting against themselves, because instead of being aware of themselves, they annihilate themselves for some ideology that is larger than themselves that they have been led to believe should taken primacy over themselves. (Disclaimer, being aware of your belief “fit” doesn’t mean you stop growing and do whatever [seriously guys, remind me to write an article fully addressing that BCC post I just linked] — we still have infinite opportunities to grow. The thing is we need to become acutely aware which ones we value out of this infinity.)