People or Profit?

 I wrote some thoughts down that have been on my mind lately.  As with most people, I imagine many thoughts are strung together and interweave and connect fluidly within the mind, but trying to articulate their connection verbally or in writing is a bigger task. One of the most common themes I get in feedback is regarding not leaving religion and those who choose to participate in it, alone.  It is usually a simple, Why? Why can't you just let people believe what they want to believe?  Well that was my first response after leaving.  I just wanted to put it behind me and live my life.  After becoming engaged in various support groups and continuing my education regarding faith systems and my own evolving process, I conclude more and more that religion is destructive.  It has proven to be destructive throughout time.  You may consider this as just my opinion.  

I may be repeating some previous thoughts here...

The crack in the foundation for me that led to the fall or whatever analogy you want to formulate, was the biggest picture I could imagine: God. A supreme being that willed everything present before me today.  From there, we are led to scripture, prayer and a moral compass - from the religious point of view.  So I started with God.  With the personal experience and the information I had gathered regarding the world then and now, and what I have been told about the future, and what I have been told regarding what religion provides people, I concluded there was no God.  It was a soft conclusion.  I actually concluded that we didn't know.  We couldn't possibly know because the God that all humans came up with was unfulfilling and irrelevant to what was important to me: being a responsible, loving human being, owning who I am, being authentic and enjoying life without shame.

This thought that humans came up with God because God defined was rather useless to me started evolving.  I looked at everything in this context.  If your religion says God wants this or that, or even that it wills this or that, what is the overall outcome?  Are the followers better for it?  Time and time again I find that adherents to any type of dogma are being controlled.  There are obviously different levels of control, but this is immediately where we begin to have problems about God.  Religions want God to be capable of the whole spectrum of human emotion and possibly more.  It can be perfectly loving or perfectly angry.  Granted, anger is healthy, and religion has always touted God's anger coming from its love.  

Yet there is always plasticity assigned.  How does one know whether God is happy with me or not? Well since religion loses its relevance when they don't have power over you, God is happy with you when you obey religion, since religion speaks for God.  Free will is also touted by religion as coming from God to all humans.  I have the freedom to make choices. What makes the free will of a believer different than the free will of an atheist? Control.  Believers have additional consequences with associated shame attached.  

I have noticed some strong evidence that certain organized religions are not conducive to deep human connections.  Some religions even publicly claim that 'family' is one of their top priorities when in reality, those relationships are only important under the prerequisite of control.  If a family member refuses to be controlled, then directly or indirectly, the controlled, related loved ones are encouraged to distance themselves.  This is true whether one sees it or not.  It is deeply embedded in the cultural rhetoric found in the everyday lives of religious adherents.  Below are the different aspects in life where I see blatant disregard for relationships.  Connecting to another human becomes more and more important to me and it is quite maddening and saddening to see big organizations that pound the pulpit with messages of love, but subvert relationships on every level.

Interfaith relationships: The believing spouse is told in no uncertain terms by their priesthood leaders that their faith comes first.  It can only truly work if there is hope the non-LDS spouse will be brought into the fold.

Sex education: Without regard to their specific situation, the church not only teaches but enforces only abstinence. Abstinence from masturbation/sex and shame for any curiosity about one’s sexuality.  This shame and suppression leads to withdrawal from loved ones, as self-worth is significantly hindered. When a believer does have sex outside of marriage, or even outside of the temple, they are also treated differently.  If a believer gets pregnant outside of marriage, abortion is sinful, so they force the woman to have the child and then give it up for adoption through the church, which often puts the baby in the home of another LDS family, with the biological parents having little if any input.

Empathy and ethnocentrism: The church creates a culture where the faithful are encouraged to reach out and serve primarily their own.  Not very often do they organize service outside of the ‘faithful,’ and when they do, it isn’t anything but superficial charity (i.e., donating to an organization or giving your time or energy to something where the humans being impacted are behind the scenes).

Victim blaming: When a faithful individual goes to their priesthood leader with a legitimate issue or claim regarding another faithful member of the congregation, it is often dismissed out of hand and the ‘issue’ is then turned around onto the victim.  This damages relationships in that person’s family and friends, as they are now labeled and treated differently. This also damages the position and the trust the congregation is supposed to have in their leaders who represent not only the church, but is supposedly representing Christ. A current prime example is BYU rape culture where the victim is immediately investigated for breaking the honor code in lieu of taking any action or making any investigation into the perpetrator. A big aspect of victim blaming is making the victim feel alone and isolated in their victimhood. Power and control is more easily maintained this way.

LGBT policies: More popular, the LDS church recently came out with a small change to their LGBT policy that ultimately excludes children of gay parents from fully participating in church services.  Although I agree to a point with this policy, they shouldn’t make just those children the exception, they should broaden this policy to all children: they should not get baptized at the age of 8, no matter the status of their parents.  This suppresses a child’s natural instinct to love all family members who love them.

Patriarchy: The LDS culture also teaches the male population that they rule.  Females are subservient because the men hold the priesthood.  The inequity and inequality then shows its ugly head in every facet of their lives: marriage, dating, misogyny, even raising daughters differently than sons.

Feminism: Any woman who speaks out as either wanting to be equal or not putting up with the patriarchal system in general is considered apostate.  The men in her life are admonished to get her under control.

Critical thinking: anyone who asks ‘hard’ questions are dismissed out of hand.  Questions either get ignored or sidestepped and often made to look absurd or not legitimate by strawman or other types of logical fallacies.  Like the other situations, people close to the person asking questions are faced with the dilemma of choosing their relationship first or their faith.  Because the church frames this situation to make it easier on family and friends, the dilemma goes unnoticed, as they make you think you are looking out for their salvation, etc.

Abuse: Although it is exceptional and/or rare, abuse is subtly accepted to a degree. As previously referenced, victims’ claims will often be shrugged off, dismissed or turned around and placed on the victim.  This tells the perpetrator they are safe.  Often the leader that the victim goes to already knows about the perpetrator, and there may be an entire, working abuse system within that local community.  The rarity of these instances is stressed by the church, claiming “one bad apple…”, but it highlights the culture that is in place that puts humans second or third and the corporation first in priority.

Salvation-fixation: Because the emphasis is on the hereafter and how wonderful our joy will be if we ‘endure’ this life, believers will fixate on that goal and disregard their lives now (to differing levels or degrees).  They will tell themselves that their relationships will be made whole in the next life, if they are broken here. It often leads them to a ‘fuck it’ type attitude for mortality, if not a superficial attempt at a superficial relationship.  The church’s cultural rhetoric permeates every facet of life in this regard.  Enduring this life is the preemptive baseline with any struggle, and because of the anti-relationship vector they have established, all relationships tend to be naturally superficial in comparison to the ideal. 

The Mormon Mental Health Association - News/Events

The Mormon Mental Health Association - News/Events

More on Sexuality

My children will not grow up like I did:

https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comments/4dbcoh/lets_talk_about_sex/

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland

Recently, Jeffrey R. Holland of the LDS quorum of the twelve apostles spoke at a coalition on pornography after Utah was the first state to officially label it a public health crisis on March 11 of this year (http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865649944/Elder-Holland-speaks-at-the-Utah-Coalition-Against-Pornography-conference-The-Plague-of.html?pg=all ).

Before I grace the world with my infinite wisdom, I want to be clear about a couple things.  Firstly, I welcome rational thought from others that will enhance the conversation of something that tends to lean more on cultural bias rather than science and human nature.  We will be doing nobody any good if we feed into extreme thinking on something like pornography.
Secondly, even though it may not seem like it, I try to only use my blog for subjects that are important to me. I try not to use it to incite emotion or grandstand, or rub anything in anyone's face. I hope to never come across that way.

I want to talk about Jeffrey Holland because of some specifics about porn use, the adult industry and religion that largely go unaddressed. Let's get the easy stuff out of the way first. Pornography isn't full of rainbows and unicorns (unless you have a unicorn fetish, I suppose).  The adult industry doesn't necessarily treat their "actors" like a Hollywood A-list celebrity.  Often times, they risk disease, abuse and hostile work environments.  Working with the government, one option responsible humans have is to regulate it, much like we do anything else (more on this later, as religion oftentimes ignores this reality beyond grandstanding against it with broad strokes).

The other "damage" porn has the potential to do (again, not necessarily), is replace a real relationship.  Like anything else in this world, overconsumption will have negative effects.  If I over-consume water, I run the risk of  water intoxication or even hyponatremia. Yes, death by drinking water.  Of course that is an extreme and rare example, but it stands as an example: humans can overdo almost anything.  We have Darwin Award winners that prove this.  Unlike water though, pornography overconsumption may go unnoticed.  If an individual prefers porn over connecting to other humans close to them on a regular basis, those close to that person will notice.

Okay, got through the easy stuff.  I recently became more educated on the Mormon Mental Health Association (MMHA)(www.mormonmentalhealthassoc.org ), which came out and said,

"We have done our research, let our members vote, and taken the following position over at the Mormon Mental Health Association. I am continually concerned at how many people consider themselves sex addicts when in reality what they are dealing with is an inability to adhere to fairly rigid religious standards for sexuality. There is a difference between unwanted sexual behavior due to religious beliefs and out-of-control sexual behavior. And both of those are still not "addiction."

"The MMHA has taken a long time to carefully review and put forth a position on the terms "sex and porn addiction." The MMHA is concerned that due to religious bias, the Mormon population is at higher risk to engage with treatment by practitioners/clinics/programs that is not evidence-based nor best-practice when it comes to dealing with unwanted or out-of-control sexual behavior. This position was put forth for a membership vote and was accepted by over 90% of the membership. The MMHA recognizes that there are many relationships where some sort of sexual betrayal can lead to immense pain and distress. This position is not about minimizing that pain. At the same time, the MMHA wants to be a resource to help LDS/Mormon members find adequate, accurate, helpful and best-practice approaches when dealing with these types of problems."

My personal experience can testify to this.  I have put enough distance between myself and the "rigid religious standards" to know.  This is where I wish I was the god of articulation.  This is a control tactic used by religion.  They identify a sin, then impose shame and guilt for those who partake, then offer holiness or cleanliness in exchange for your loyalty and contrition.  If you find yourself in this vicious cycle, you are not in full control of your mental, emotional and spiritual well-being. 

Let's use Jeffry Holland as an example.  In his address on March 12, He offers an acronym for those "struggling."  FAST stands for flee, ask, strive and triumph.  In his remarks, you find exactly the type of rhetoric that you would expect: it is sin, stop sinning, ask God to help make you clean again, and keep relying on God against this sin your entire life (return customers), then trust in us (religious leaders) to give you your only hope.  It is as plain as the nose on your face what tactics are being used.  This is damaging, oppressive rhetoric that keeps the "faithful" docile and submissive.  

The other thing about Holland's talk is the fact he really isn't concerned about possible damage porn is doing.  His only concern is clearly conveying the need of the faithful to submit to their control.  He doesn't address actual public health, such as possible negative effects on the actors of the adult industry.  He doesn't show concern that we as a society may not be supportive enough of those actual humans that are possibly being exploited.  He doesn't talk about love, and he only mentions mercy and grace once in general terms and only between the sinner and "the Almighty."  He could have easily mentioned it without strong control rhetoric.  He could have easily empathized but did not.

Because religious leaders utilize strong rhetoric like this, and because they place a heavy burden of guilt and shame on the "faithful,"  they hold a large responsibility for the "problem," or health crisis they are identifying.  There very well may be a "health crisis" in Utah, but it is due in large part to religious rhetoric that forces regular sexual humans to try and do something completely unrrealistic.  When they give it an honest try, most of them find themselves compulsively viewing porn until it permeates every facet of their life.  It becomes unhealthy because it has now been incorporated into the guilt/shame, repentance cycle, to which there is no escaping.  Leaders like Jeff Holland know they are culpable.  They know full well the responsibility they should be taking in all this.  Instead, they sit back and let their war machine run while they enjoy a return on their investment.

Mormon Sexuality Crisis

There are many topics that Mormonism "infects" that I can get passionate about.  This one hits deeply and personally.  I don't link to other sites or articles pretty much anytime, but this one had many of my own thoughts strewn throughout and I only got through the original post and the first comment.

https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comments/489rt4/the_straight_male_mormon_sexuality_crisis/

Utah has declared pornography a public health crisis.

Simply put: Mormonism has created this crisis.

Sexual repression is at the core of modern Mormonism.  The above reddit thread is a direct representation of me (possibly without a few sidenotes, such as the current porn users becoming the next generation of bishops and other leaders).

There is absolutely nothing wrong with embracing one's sexuality.  Absolutely nothing.  The article linked above focuses on hetero males, but I think it is relevant to everyone.  It may be more relevant to males because males may be more inclined to express their sexuality more intensely and earlier on.
What the "morg" has chosen to identify as a "crisis" is about 180 degrees off course.  It chooses to deflect responsibility and also chooses to lay the blame solely on outside, "evil" forces that seek to upend the work of their God.

I humbly disagree.  While pornography may have the potential to negatively affect relationships, the majority of users don't allow it to do so.  In fact, I posit that only sexually repressed users allow it to consume their lives.  How do they get to that point? Read the linked thread.  There is a religious, authoritarian cycle that keeps them controlled. Because many porn users aren't suppressed by an authoritarian, religious regime, they don't find it to be their only sexual outlet.  Because porn isn't their only outlet, they don't find porn to control their lives.

It is truly saddening that I found myself caught up in this suppression.  I liken it to having Mormon leadership put their polished, leather dress shoe on my head, while my head lays on the corner of a curb and I lay there grimacing for relief.  My only relief would be at the mercy of the leadership.  That is no way to live.

I realize this isn't everyone's experience.  I realize many are capable of suppressing their sexuality and avoiding expressing it normally.  It isn't an absolute.  I will concede that point only to caveat it with the fact that a healthy male does express it.  A healthy male expresses and explores and releases their sexuality during and throughout maturation and beyond.  As TBM parents, you are continuing the cycle.  As TBMs, you are heeding the counsel of ignorance.  You are heeding the counsel of many men likely to have gone through what your teenage boy is going through.

Of course there are boundaries.  I don't expect a "True Blue Mormon," or "True Believing Mormon" to allow their 14 year-old to go have sex on their first date, especially when Mormons don't date until they're 16 (ugh).  Yet, maybe (and I am preaching to myself here, its new ground for me too) we allow our kids to be kids.  Teach them to be safe.  Teach them where real danger lies, i.e., STDs, teen pregnancy... I know, I made a big leap.  Maybe we could meet in the middle.  Education is important, but I know what you are thinking: Educating my teenagers implicates me.  Now they can read between the lines: "If mom/dad thinks it is necessary to  teach me about condoms, does that mean they expect me to use them?"  Silly parent, only suppressed teenagers think this way.

Suicide

Suicide is a very sensitive topic for many, and there is a huge spectrum of subtopics, reasons, philosophy, personal experiences and opinion that shape this conversation for good or for bad.  I want to put some of my own thoughts down and I want to make sure they are conveyed as personal opinion.
I recently saw a facebook post in a support group that I read only 2 or 3 minutes after it was posted.  It was a reaction to another member's post that was brief, but indicated it was one of their last acts while alive.
Immediately, we see multiple facets that play into this topic: Did this person post to reach out?  Did this person merely want to say goodbye?  Not sure what other actions were involved with the person, but they used facebook.  They likely knew the proximity of facebook friends that may or may not be local.  Did that factor into their plan?
Going back to the second post, there were already a few comments, as the second post was asking for the person's phone number.  It didn't take long for someone to forcefully tell the poster to call the police.  Nobody was able to get a hold of the person that indicated suicide, so the facebook community that was quickly growing was mostly just waiting in high anxiety for any news.  If I were to guess, I would ballpark the friend request figure from that hour for this person to be in the hundreds.
Regardless of their intentions, the fact is that they communicated thoughts of suicide to friends and acquaintances before acting upon it makes this conversation turn drastically.  If they had not, we would be talking about how horrible it was that they took their life and didn't reach out to anyone.  People closest would be most affected.  They may question themselves, wondering if they could have done more.  They may replay recent conversations they had with this individual over and over in their heads, beating themselves up for not being more intimate and empathetic to them.

This person reached out.  From all indications, it looks as if reaching out ultimately saved their life.  Police found them and took them to a safe place.

Many emotions play with a person that is suicidal. One aftermath emotion may be anger.  Anger it didn't work. Anger someone cared enough, so it might invalidate other thoughts like, "Nobody cares."  Anger at self for wanting death.  Anger at close friends who didn't see the signs that may have been too subtle. There is a plethora of emotions.  This one just may be a little more difficult to handle, as suicidal thoughts often point to emotional imbalance which implies possible lashing out with personal attacks.  When death has become the only option, being nice to anyone may not be a consideration.

I find the philosophy behind suicide fascinating.  As humans, we are social animals and we bond with those around us.  However competent and inclined a person may be to be social or open up emotionally to others, we all still need to connect to other humans at some level.  When we bond, we find it hard to let go.  We have developed trust in the person we bond with and we emotionally connect.  We sympathize and grow to empathize with them.  They can eventually become part of you.  You think about them when you are apart.  Death marks the end for everyone.  It hurts when a loved one dies.  We even see it in other animal species.  Our bond was symbiotic and not it is only one-sided.  We cannot communicate on any level, we cannot be intimate on any level.  All our emotion that wants to unload on our loved one needs to get out of us, but it has nowhere to go. It hurts. It is painful. It is agonizing.

This is why suicide is nearly 100% negative in our minds.  We see not only a huge loss to loved ones, we also rationalize that it isn't the answer that that person is looking for.  We rationalize that life sucks, but it gets better.  This is where I find it hard to articulate my thoughts.  Suicidal thoughts tend to be selfish.  A person wants release from pain.  They can't handle whatever is going on in their lives, they may think very little of themselves and wish to take themselves out of others' lives.  They often are thinking very unclearly.

But why isn't it the best answer for that person?  Why is our answer, "life gets better."  Does it always get better?  We don't know that.  Just because someone feels death is the only answer left doesn't mean life gets better.  Lets take a less-desirable circumstance as an example.  A child is raped by their most trusted adult in their life for over a decade and their second-most trusted adult allows it to happen.  As a teenager, this person's spirit is finally broken and they muster up enough courage to attempt suicide.  They fail and get outside help.  Part of their therapy is this notion that life gets better.  They spend their life in therapy, have huge trust issues, have a hard time connecting to anyone other than on a superficial level, may have addictive behaviors and even find themselves in trouble with the law.  Their life still sucks.  They were convinced it gets better but it hasn't.  They are miserable and may be full of hate.  Ultimately, the people that saved this person as a teenager, has helped create a monster.

This is only an example.  It probably doesn't happen in the extremes like that very often.  But it is a believable story pointing to the argument that life doesn't always get better.  We don't know if it will get better.  We only hope it will.  We want that person to stick around and be in our lives, no matter how hard it is for them.  Even though we can do little to make their lives better, we hope they can see our side of things so that we don't have to deal with the loss and all its ramifications.  We also believe sticking around to see if life gets better is worth the risk.  With the finality of death, you know for certain that life will not get better or worse.

Even with "right to die" being very controversial, I hate to even mention the possibility of the human race allowing loved ones the option of suicide.  I can see myself being in favor of humane practices like allowing doctors and patients the "right to die" under certain circumstances, but I'm not sure I would be ok with the concept of having a loved one know the intentions of one who is suicidal and not only not doing anything about it, but even encouraging that person to do what they feel is best.

Regardless of the best options, I'd like to think that typing out my thoughts help me evolve to eventually arrive at the most emotionally mature place I could be.  I think talking about it as frankly as possible and validating all human emotion regarding it is healthy and should be encouraged.

Some limited observations on cultural belief structures.

I am a member of many groups on Facebook that typical, True Blue Mormons (TBM) would not be a part of.  At first I didn't find value in many of them.  Because my transition out of belief was so gradual I often didn't realize the void of the social aspect, as I am inherently anti-social and find my peace in solitude.  When I finally did engage I found support and realization that I wasn't alone in that aspect of my life.

What I have further realized is a big problem with rhetoric that creates culture within a belief system.  Ethnocentricity is the belief that is taught within Christianity and its subgroups that one's culture or ethnic group is superior. Racism shaped Christianity almost as much as Jesus himself did.  Ignorance is another big one.  Because one culture adopted another culture's beliefs without properly interpreting language, motive or practice, we end up with a biblical dichotomy (i.e., Israelites in the first temple period did not look at the faith stories they created as literal vs. a contemporary Christian culture that refuses a major aspect of science because they think it goes against their God that they adopted). That's just one simple example of the damage caused by ignorance.

I don't want to get into the weeds too much.  I want to get to my point of rhetoric that creates culture.  When reading posts and comments on threads on various support groups of those that leave a particular faith or those that leave faith altogether I realize something.  Many loved ones that choose to stay either successfully or unsuccessfully bite their tongue regarding how they feel.  If they are successful, many relationships are strained regardless.  Some stories literally hurt to read.  I have a hard time when related humans treat each other the way they do.  Let's put a pin in that for a moment.

I have to acknowledge the feelings and the complexity of such a strong reaction when a loved one leaves a belief system.  Due to the rhetoric one has bought into and sincerely believes, a believer sees a soul leaving the fold of their God.  Due to the literal interpretation on all the stories, this believer is then led to believe eternal unhappiness is inevitable if their loved one stays on this path of unbelief (simply put, Hell and the Devil await them).  This is natural when one is entrenched in a belief system of any sort, so I understand an initial alienation.

After many "blow-ups" I've had with loved ones, we end up reconciling.  Why? Because our human connection is greater than our disagreements.  This is too simplistic though.  I like to look at belief differences logically.  Step one is the realization that your belief structure has stayed straight and true, while your loved one decided to veer off where it has been told unhappiness abides.  Step two is the decision to show your disapproval on a scale from, "I disapprove but still love you," to "get out of my life you unloved heathen."  So now they feel possibly lost and alone in their feelings that have not been validated by their most trusted humans.

Step three requires introspection.  Because of this, logic doesn't always win as it is subjected to a vast array of trains of thought that may seem logical but in reality are rabbit holes.  Every human is vulnerable to this.  But if a belief system is all about families, what good does it ultimately do to alienate a family member?  Can rational human beings not live in peace with loved ones over differences much like they live in peace around perfect strangers?  For a belief system centered on the value found in the core family structure that also believes in an omnipotent, omniscient God who loves and knows all his children and will work out everything perfectly in the end, the volatile, eruptive reaction should give way to reconciliation.  Ultimately, this is what an emotionally mature person would end up doing, which leads me to believe that the belief system has a significant role in emotionally stunting its believers.  But correlation doesn't necessarily equate to causation, so I will merely suggest the possibility with the caveat that I am not concluding such a connection.

My only other current thought in all of this is appreciation.  As my unbelief and the realization of its implications come out slowly to tbm family members, I see strain but no disowning or disaffecting. Although I am not as emotionally mature as I know I could be, I think the roundedness and nurturing we received growing up and the friendships we enjoyed through our formative years combined with the liberal pliability adopted from my dad helped me and my siblings have more or less a healthy emotional state. As far as the strain goes, I won't go as far as to imply I expect it to go away.  After all my optimism, I know my family is more or less one that would prefer not to talk about the fact they have a black sheep within their midst, or even talk about subjects that would potentially bring up disagreement.  Like many other families that choose to keep a basic relationship intact, the end result may be the same: avoid it.