Do Maklelan, BC, MG & Co Ever Have Doubts?
Posted: Tue Sep 30, 2014 3:20 pm
When I was a hard core TBM I knew beyond doubt that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was everything it claimed to be, that God lived in His heaven above, that he had Prophets whom He communicated with on earth, that He loved His children whom He had created etc etc etc.
When someone challenged me or my beliefs I was firm in my knowledge that NOTHING could or would ever convince me that the church was anything but what I knew to be true. Despite KNOWING that the church was true…in my heart of hearts there was something I kept secret and shared with no one. I probably didn’t even allow it to enter my sub conscience…but I still knew it was there. It was doubt.
Even when my testimony was at its most fervent peak, if truth be told, I wanted the church to be what it claimed but I never really honestly knew it beyond a shadow of doubt despite my having claimed such. There was something…something at the heart of my testimony…that I never ever wanted to engage…something I kept buried, hidden from both myself and everyone else in my life...because the mere thought of it chilled me to my core. It wasn’t a question on some specific issue, it hadn’t even grown to become a question yet…it was something much more subtle…a feeling, a sense, an awareness that something just wasn’t right….but it hadn’t even risen to become a question or a knowledge…it was still very much just an almost imperceptible impression. Like a shadow at night…that is there but then quickly vanishes into the darkness.
Fortunately for me I had been trained well. Raised in the best of LDS families, taught from my earliest memory the foundational stories of Mormonism. I knew them by heart. And doubt had no place in this worldview of certainty. Yet it lingered…that whisper in the wind that something just didn’t add up…
Throughout the years as seemingly random disturbances in my LDS understanding presented themselves …I would not allow myself to even entertain the thought to feed my hidden doubts…I never wanted to feed that beast…so I built a vault in my mind to hide the random issues when they became cognizant. As with many others, as I matured in the church, took on various priesthood assignments and was exposed to a greater understanding of church history…the issues I needed to hide away increased. They eventually grew to a point were I had no choice but to confront them and well as they say the rest is history.
So why was I able to come to a different understanding of reality than the above mentioned Maklelan, BC, MG and company who remain believers? Do they have a larger mental vault, were they better at nuancing Mormonism’s truth claims, are they better at parsing and reconstructing their faith to make it believable than I was? Have they found a better way to resolve doubt…Certainly they have doubt.
They know the same issues we are all aware of and yet they remain believers…not in a traditional sense…but still they believe. Obviously, every individual is unique and processes information differently…so why did that same information lead me out of the church and kept them in…and why would this information not have the same impact on all of us? Why doesn’t it cause them to lose belief? Do they have that lingering something hidden within the walls of their colelctive minds...that something just doesn't add up, that somethings is wrong...and yet they successfully ignore it?
When someone challenged me or my beliefs I was firm in my knowledge that NOTHING could or would ever convince me that the church was anything but what I knew to be true. Despite KNOWING that the church was true…in my heart of hearts there was something I kept secret and shared with no one. I probably didn’t even allow it to enter my sub conscience…but I still knew it was there. It was doubt.
Even when my testimony was at its most fervent peak, if truth be told, I wanted the church to be what it claimed but I never really honestly knew it beyond a shadow of doubt despite my having claimed such. There was something…something at the heart of my testimony…that I never ever wanted to engage…something I kept buried, hidden from both myself and everyone else in my life...because the mere thought of it chilled me to my core. It wasn’t a question on some specific issue, it hadn’t even grown to become a question yet…it was something much more subtle…a feeling, a sense, an awareness that something just wasn’t right….but it hadn’t even risen to become a question or a knowledge…it was still very much just an almost imperceptible impression. Like a shadow at night…that is there but then quickly vanishes into the darkness.
Fortunately for me I had been trained well. Raised in the best of LDS families, taught from my earliest memory the foundational stories of Mormonism. I knew them by heart. And doubt had no place in this worldview of certainty. Yet it lingered…that whisper in the wind that something just didn’t add up…
Throughout the years as seemingly random disturbances in my LDS understanding presented themselves …I would not allow myself to even entertain the thought to feed my hidden doubts…I never wanted to feed that beast…so I built a vault in my mind to hide the random issues when they became cognizant. As with many others, as I matured in the church, took on various priesthood assignments and was exposed to a greater understanding of church history…the issues I needed to hide away increased. They eventually grew to a point were I had no choice but to confront them and well as they say the rest is history.
So why was I able to come to a different understanding of reality than the above mentioned Maklelan, BC, MG and company who remain believers? Do they have a larger mental vault, were they better at nuancing Mormonism’s truth claims, are they better at parsing and reconstructing their faith to make it believable than I was? Have they found a better way to resolve doubt…Certainly they have doubt.
They know the same issues we are all aware of and yet they remain believers…not in a traditional sense…but still they believe. Obviously, every individual is unique and processes information differently…so why did that same information lead me out of the church and kept them in…and why would this information not have the same impact on all of us? Why doesn’t it cause them to lose belief? Do they have that lingering something hidden within the walls of their colelctive minds...that something just doesn't add up, that somethings is wrong...and yet they successfully ignore it?
