I don’t recall all of the details of the council, since it was an altogether harrowing experience. I was as honest as I could be, telling them that I wanted with all my heart for the Church to be true. I wanted so badly to believe, to return, and to repent, and to go back out on a mission, but I was having such a difficult time with the truth claims of the Church that I couldn’t yet do it. I also assured them that I was fervently praying, fasting, and reading Scriptures and was always seeking an answer from God. They asked me to wait outside so they could reach a verdict. It was all I could do to keep myself from placing my ear against the door.
They let me back in after what seemed like an eternity and asked me to sit. They told me that they believed that my desire to have faith was sincere and that they would suspend any disciplinary action pending a further probationary period. If I attended church regularly, continued to seek after the faith, and did not break any other serious commandments, then the probation would end. If not, they would reconvene, and I could face excommunication.
About a month later, in the spring of 2006, I realized, finally, that I could no longer believe in the Church. It had become clear to me that the Church was not only not based on fact, but that it also did more harm than good. Being excommunicated would feel as if my decision had been made by others for me, and I couldn’t accept that. Thus, I decided that I would ask to have my records removed from the Church. I wrote a long, bulleted list of the problems that I had with the Church and brought it with me to the next meeting with the bishop.
I told him that I had come to the conclusion that the Church wasn’t true, and I just couldn’t will myself to believe it anymore. I showed him my list. As a courtesy to him and my parents, I told him that if he could at least give me reasonable doubt on any two of the issues that I had listed by the next monthly meeting, I would continue to stay and study for another year.
When I returned the next month, he told me that he hadn’t been able to help with the list. He said that whether or not I stayed in the faith shouldn’t be based upon his ability to answer the questions. I told him that I was certain enough. I then took the list, flipped it over, borrowed his pen, and wrote my resignation letter on the back. My affiliation with the Church was officially over.
I received wonderful pieces of mail in the following few weeks — an acceptance letter to the University of Washington and confirmation that my records had been removed from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. My life was moving forward.
No longer a Mormon, I suddenly realized that I didn’t know who I was or what to believe. My studies of Mormonism had included a great deal of study of the Bible, so it wasn’t long before I realized that I couldn’t believe in Christianity either. Islam held my attention for awhile, and I liked many of its core beliefs and tenets, but it still shared many of the same moral dilemmas as Mormonism. I began to drift east philosophically, studying Hinduism, Taoism, and Buddhism. Each faith I studied had elements that I loved, but none of them truly spoke to me, and they all had moral stances that I couldn’t fully agree with. I ended up deciding that I was generically theistic, perhaps agnostic or deistic. I still prayed and still felt that there must be a presence above us or at least something more to this life.
Without Scripture and rules, though, I no longer had the moral rudder of Mormonism. I still had a strong desire to be a moral person; I didn’t want to make choices that I would regret, that would harm other people, or would otherwise leave my heart unsettled. I sat down with a pen and paper and began listing all of the rules, prohibitions, and virtues that I had been taught in Mormonism, leaving nothing spared. Some moral questions, such as masturbation, I had already reasoned through and was able to categorize quickly. What about alcohol, though? Drugs? Cigarettes? Coffee? Giving to the poor? Obedience? Tithing? One issue at a time, I built a personal code based on empathy, love, and reason.
I also began reading about atheism as a philosophy, new and old, famous and obscure. The more I read, the more I realized that it fit the patterns that I had seen in my life. I slowly began to realize that a small part of me had always doubted, had always known that I didn’t fully believe. It was the only philosophy I had read that I didn’t have to do mental gymnastics in order to accept. It felt right.
Very similar to Julia Sweeney’s description in her hilarious and wonderful monologue, “Letting Go of God,” I remember the very moment when I let go. It felt as if I said goodbye and watched this little old man fade off into nothingness. It wasn’t sad or mournful, but it did feel nostalgic, not unlike the feeling of putting your childhood teddy bear in a box as you packed your things to move away to college.
I had to let go. I let go of the afterlife, and with it, all of the loved ones I had lost. Letting go of my grandfather was, for me, much, much harder than letting go of God.
It took a very long time for guilt to fade any time I did something I had previously thought of as immoral, such as having a glass of wine. Every time I was struck with guilt, I would bring out my list and reason through the morality of what I was doing, just to be sure.
The most difficult thing to move beyond was the idea that everything that occurred in my mind was observed and that I would be judged for it. I recall being at the mall and seeing an attractive girl walking by in a skimpy outfit. My imagination immediately ran wild before I caught myself thinking, “No, that’s a horrible thing to think. I’m filled with lust, and that’s evil. I have to stop!” I paused for a moment, smiled, and thought, “Wait — there is nothing immoral about thoughts. There’s no rational reason to judge a thought as immoral.” Feeling liberated, I lusted the hell out of that girl and enjoyed every damned minute of it. Honestly, I didn’t even feel that much sexual desire toward her. I was just thriving in the knowledge that I could have sexual thoughts without shame and guilt!
It hit me as I was walking home — I could think anything! I could have any opinion on any subject, and it would be my own! No longer would I have to check against Scripture and other doctrine to make sure that my opinions were in line with God; I could decide my opinions with my own reason! I could believe that humans evolved from apes; I could believe that homosexuality isn’t a choice. Hell, I could believe that we’re living in the Matrix, and no one could tell me I couldn’t. That moment was one of the most liberating, beautiful, and happy experiences of my life.
The next fall, I enrolled at the University of Washington in Seattle. Mormons hold approachability and niceness as a virtue, making it easy to enter a new area and make friends. But without being surrounded by people who exuded that layer of artificial niceness, I simply didn’t know how to act. Thus, for most of my first year there, I was very much alone and fell into a dark and numb state of depression. Believing my pain and isolation to be a result of having been raised Mormon, I became bitter and venomous toward faith in general and Mormonism in particular. If only everyone could know what I knew, I reasoned, then they all would believe what I believe, and they could all escape their religions before they caused any more pain. Using tactics taught to me as a Mormon, I would bring up religion in totally unrelated conversations in order to share what I knew. This didn’t exactly help me make friends.
I then joined a group on campus called the Secular Student Union. There, I met with other students who were going through something similar, just as estranged from the world as I was. The group held weekly meetings, where we discussed current events, shared stories, and debated moral questions. I was particularly excited to explore questions of ethics and morality from a nonreligious standpoint, and the meetings quickly became the highlight of my week — and sometimes, the extent of my social interaction.