For the full context, see Eve's post: Recovering from Seminary.
I oscillated between trying to like it, trying to believe the bizarre things I was taught and being unable to, by turns frustrated in ways I could hardly articulate and afraid that my distaste was evidence that I was one of those evil people who asked too many questions and was destined to fall away.
Maybe I'm reading this wrong or something, but by contrast with all of the negative stereotypes and generalizations about people who stop believing, I can't help but see it as a compliment when believing Mormons say that those who "fall away" are the ones that "asked too many questions."
(Okay, so I'm not so keen on the "evil" part, but I like the characterization of exmormons as the type of people who respond with lots of questions when taught bizarre things.)
So, thanks Eve!!!
I couldn't have said it better myself. :D
4 comments:
I hope I don't get in trouble for this one. I'm not trying to be snotty, even if it might come off that way...
The thing is that after hearing so many times about how people who leave the church are so full of anger and just want to do anything to justify their naughty lifestyle, etc., it's kind of nice to see Mormons acknowledge that sometimes the problem is just thinking about it too hard....
LOl... yea... I was very happy to fall away. My brain hurt less. ;-)
I was told at age 14 that I asked too many questions and was going to end up an apostate. I couldn't help pointing out that at age 14, Joseph Smith had had a lot of questions too.... Well, as you can imagine, that comment often didn't help matters. But really, why was it OK for him to ask questions, but not the rest of us?
And I also hated how, if you got an answer that told didn't completely match church doctrine, you were told it was because you hadn't asked SINCERELY enough, or had lacked faith while you waited for an answer. Plenty of people tried to help me see how it was OK to ask questions; it just wasn't OK to get an answer that didn't replicate what you'd believe/think if you DIDN'T ask questions.
That's so funny -- I got in trouble for trying to follow Joseph Smith's example too closely too!!!
Here's the story: Girlhood Dreams
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