Carson, I am not raised in the Church but rather I am a “convert”. In deciding, through much prayer and reading, I decided to be Baptized fully aware that I might not have all of my questions answered and not expecting the fullness of the gospel until sometime in the afterlife… I, vicariously, know you as your brother had dated my daughter, Lindsay Baugh, many years ago. I would hate for her to be led astray when she is so bright (IQ of 145) and can study and handle conflicting information just fine. I have three children and by the grace of Jesus Christ, all three of them have strong testimonies. Two of them have convert spouses. I believe they have made the decision, with an adult mind, to be baptized. I accepted the LDS teachings knowing that much was yet to be revealed. I have admitted to my Bishop(s) that I do not usually wear my garments without fear. It has never been a problem except that it is something that I need to work on. I’ve been to MANY Churches seeking the right one for me. Many were hypocritical, or (as the Catholic religion), too symbolic on an every week basis. Many Churches had Sunday members whose congregations did not practice what is taught any day but Sunday.
Part of my acceptance of the LDS Church was the realization that I can’t know everything in this life and I don’t expect to. The church has evolved and expect that it will continue to do so. This will not turn me away. I believe in the core principles and don’t allow the “little stuff” to bother me. Being quite bright myself, I would be very irritated if someone tried to hand feed me discrepancies and contradiction. I don’t have a hang-up with them myself. I feel very sad for you, Marisa, and your families because you could have just quit going rather than becoming an apostate and trying to take other people with you.
God Bless you, Marisa, and your family. God loves you all very much. I hope that I haven’t offended you.
Susan, I don’t know you or Carson and this is not a comment to either of you on a personal level, only my reaction to your words. Despite your mean spirited post to Carson you may typically be a kind and gracious person — I don’t know. In general, I find it condescending and judgmental when someone tells someone else they feel sad for them when that person is not experiencing anything that makes them sad. It is disingenuous. The person receiving that message is unlikely to feel you really care about them. It is not the same as offering empathy to someone who is struggling or going thru a difficult time. Furthermore, referring to Carson’s concerns about the church as the “little stuff” is belittling, not loving or respectful. I see nothing compassionate or Christlike in your message to Carson and his family, only condemnation. I am certain the church teaches us that only God may judge a person.
Also, perhaps a public forum was not your best venue if you are concerned your daughter discovers your behavior.
Being raised in the church, serving a mission, holding stake callings, and seeing all the church handbooks have confirmed my testimony. That testimony being, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is as true as any other church on earth. They are all make believe. Best decision I’ve made in my life…abandon fictional characters and live for today. I’m a better husband and father because of it.
Little stuff? Like 38 year old Joe Smith marrying a 14 year old girl by promising her and her family eternal salvation? Hebephilia and acclesiastic grooming are not little things.
Susan, I’m trying to pin down why I feel bothered by your comment and I think one reason is that you said you “feel very sad” about the way we left the church. It seems like you feel more frustrated or angry because you’re saying we’re doing something bad. We see some of the teachings of the church as harmful and therefore cannot have clear consciences if we don’t tell others. Information was hidden and much was lied about. Because of this there are many bright, knowledgeable members of the church such as yourself (and myself of 2–3 years ago) who still believe the church is true, not because they are stupid or easily fooled, but because they have been lied to and that’s not their fault. But it would be my fault if I discovered the lie and didn’t say anything.
You say you accept the core principles — I still believe in all of those, such as love, compassion, honesty, integrity, kindness, a search for knowledge and truth and charity toward others. But I can believe in all of those things without believing in the LDS church, or even God. You say you don’t allow little stuff to bother you — if by little stuff you mean the stance against LGBT then say that to a gay teenager. They can’t just look past the “little stuff.” Those of us in a privileged situation need to see how psychologically harmful many of the beliefs and practices of the LDS church are to others. I have even been surprised as I move away from it to discover how incredibly harmful many of the beliefs I held close were to my mental health and happiness.
Why would you think your incredibly bright daughter could be led astray? She has the capacity to make a good decision if she has all the information. We would never try to ply her or anyone else with half-truths and flattery. We only want people to know the true history and decide for themselves. Trust Lindsay and trust yourself.
I’m glad we can have this virtual online discussion as it serves as a great way to clear up some common misconceptions that you and others have about us and some information you lack about the church. This reply is more hastily written than I’d like. First off, I remember Lindsay very well. She was such an intelligent, beautiful and fun person. I really wanted things to work out with her and my brother because I wanted her to be a part of our family so much. Also, I remember very well my brother talking so highly of you guys after his trip to Washington. So, with those memories I am assuming you are a kind and wonderful person that just hasn’t received the correct information about our story or the common confirmation biases that come up when cognitive dissonance rears its ugly head have kept you from understanding fully what we now know. I’ll try to explain those better here and look forward to discussing this further with you if you so desire.
You start off by mentioning that you were baptized despite not having all the answers to your questions. I assume, and please correct me if I’m wrong, that you are suggesting my disaffection from the church came because I didn’t get certain questions answered. Its actually exactly the opposite, I had some very clear and undeniable answers to questions. Answers that I can’t unknow now and answers that many choose to ignore and not learn. In other words, what keeps many people in the church is intentionally ignoring people like me or outright illogically dismissing them when we try to explain those answers. I had several questions that I couldn’t get answered for decades and that is why I stayed a member until almost the age of 40 despite questioning since an early teenager! For example, some of the less important questions I had a hard time with were why was Joseph so wrong about the Book of Abraham facsimiles or why did Joseph lie to Emma when he married a 14 year old girl after telling her that her family couldn’t get into heaven unless she did marry him, or the hundreds of other questions that never made sense when I learned things growing up (for more see this top list http://bit.ly/7LDSquestions).
In the end, I wasn’t tricked. I gathered all the evidence and weighed it without a confirmation bias towards the church being true. 100 times over, the easiest, most obvious, simplest, more coherent answer was that the church wasn’t true. Be that because Joseph was a total fraud or a self deceived good person or whatever is irrelevant. It doesn’t matter how Joseph came to say and do the things he did, they are obviously not from God when you learn them all and process that information without a bias.
In your second paragraph you further state that your acceptance of the church was realizing that you can’t know everything in this life. This is obviously true. What is also true is that you can know much more about the church than I assume you do. Do you know all those documented problems I list in the 7 Questions document I listed earlier? If not, why would you not try to learn things you CAN know about the church when you believe the gospel is the most important thing in ETERNITY!?
Do you think all those items listed in the 7 Questions document are “little stuff.” If so, I’d be afraid to deal with you in business or be married to you if you think secretly marrying young girls and already married women behind your spouses back would be a little thing. Do you think having the prophet say you should kill your mixed race baby and black wife to atone for the sin of mixing races is a little thing? I choose to see those as terrible and BIG things and my moral integrity won’t allow me to make excuses for such terrible things. I’ve left all that bad of Mormonism, kept the good and moved on to a happier and more moral place. I invite you to do the same 🙂
I find it ironic that you like many other Mormons who put a lot of effort into missionary work to proclaim what you feel is the truth and brings you happiness, criticise me for doing the same thing. Try to do something that might be impossible for you. Sorry to sound smug, but I think we both agree this might be impossible. Imagine the church is not true and Joseph was a fraud (intention fraud or unintentional, doesn’t matter like I said above). Now, if the church isn’t true, wouldn’t you want to know? Wouldn’t you want others to know so they could avoid some of the bad things that believing it would cause? Anything from avoiding the undeniable health benefits of coffee to the wasting hours and money on temple work when that could be put into helping those that suffer here on earth. Remember, if the church isn’t true there is no mandate from God to avoid coffee or do Mormon ordinances to save the souls of those who have died. How could you publicly chide me for helping others learn the truth if that is the truth?
I feel sad for you, but not in the same way. Life is so much happier on the outside. Keep all the good or Mormonism and drop the bad. Move on to a kinder, happier, less mental gymnastics of justifying why a 36 year old man would lie to his wife and marry a 14 year old girl in a time when 36 year old men didn’t marry 14 year old girls, 18 year old men did. If Mormonism is really making you happier despite those problem than you could be outside of it then by all means stay, but please don’t infer that you have all the right answers and mine are wrong, especially when I have logical evidence to counter your claims that you don’t even know or are not willing to put the time into learning.
Don’t worry, you haven’t offended me. I understand what its like to be on the inside having been there for several years myself. I understand what its like to think you have the ultimate truth that would make you feel comfortable in making the judgments you have. I now let people live the life they feel makes them the happiest, especially when they have the full information to make that decision. If they don’t, I’ll definitely suggest that they take a look, but will leave them the caveat that if they choose to stay, they are free to make that decision.
If you’d like to learn more about me or what I’ve learned then check out this collection of that information mormonism.calderwood.org
Carson, I write you back with love and respect (if Lindsay knew I wrote anything, she would have aa fit!). I was not raised in church so was never indoctrinated in any way. By about 16, I just “knew” something else was there that I was missing. I went to Young Life and learned about Christ and God and the Holy Ghost in a very non-specific church way. I wanted to know more. I say this in a very “humble” way as I knew that I knew very little and someone answered the blog assuming that I was quite arrogant and judgmental. I had read your and Marisa’s story many months ago and just never fully forgot it. I guess I finally felt compelled to write my story but that did not seem to have been received well. It seems as I either did not express myself well or gave some people the wrong impression. In actuality, within the context of the Church, I kind of believe what “I” believe and I’ve never been spoon fed. Some of what I believe probably does not fit in with strict Mormon Doctrine but I have never felt guilty of this. I have to follow my beliefs as I feel them. I would mostly identify myself as Christian but with the LDS Church as having the best programs for family unity and for the chance to be reunited again choose it. I came to this conclusion by attending, maybe, 10 different churches over about 6 years. When I say I am sad, it’s not that an individual has made a wrong decision but rather that someone may feel they have been lied to or led astray. I think people born in the church and raised with the church as not to be doubted or questioned are more at risk for this. I have, I know, some unique beliefs. God loves all of his children born on earth over the ages and I do not believe that he would reveal himself to just a small sliver of people during a small period of time.I actually believe that God reveals Himself to different groups of peoples or cultures in different ways that they can understand such as Hindu, Buddhist, Muslims, Jews, or other Christian Faiths. God is not selfish.I don’t personally believe we are to know everything spiritually that there is to know in life — otherwise, why would we need faith? I don’t really share my beliefs with many as they are probably unorthodox but I believe in a loving God, and eternal families. Man is far from perfect (including myself) and I never meant to appear judgmental — just sad in that I would assume that at a place in time, you were happy and then felt jaded. I am so happy that you and Marisa’s paths has led you to peaceful and happy place again. I, also, am very at peace, spiritually, even though there might be some idiosyncrasies and teachings that don’t make total sense to me. On my own search, meeting with 4 sets of Missionaries and allowing only Biblical passages to be used in their teaching, I broke from my own family and accepted the LDS Faith as the way I would choose to live. I have some errors of omission which I feel comfortable taking to my Bishop about so I do not feel like a hypocrite. I don’t profess to be anything that I am not. As a Dietitian by profession, I am fully aware of the health benefits of coffee and teach them work (and even mention them, if appropriate in a Church lesson) — but we might not know why we were commanded not to drink coffee. I really don’t think one would be ex-communicated for drinking it. And, just to ease your sense that I may not have empathy, my only sister is a lesbian. That has never been a factor in our relationship.Thank you both for you thoughtful emails. I am truly sorry if I offended anyone or portrayed my self or any member of my family in a negative way. (Also, please don’t share our correspondence with Lindsay, although I would guess you wouldn’t know how to reach her. Love in Christ, Susan
I don’t know you or Carson. I am also just an invisible person on the internet that you will never meet in real life, so I wouldn’t blame you for stopping reading this right now. But for some reason I feel compelled to share my testimony with you.
I would hope that you may some day be able to have a humble heart and see the world through other peoples eyes and truly try to understand their burdens and not just “feel sorry” for them for the choices they have made.
Through your comments, you indirectly imply that the issues with the church are “little stuff” and why would anyone every leave over little things when there so much good.
I would ask if you could have a humble heart for just one moment and consider, that maybe they view these issues as major and directly related to the church’s truth claims and not just “little stuff”?
I am not asking you to agree that they are big deals. But just ask if you have the capacity of humility to acknowledge that they might view them as such?
Do you have this ability?
As for me I have had many personal spiritual experiences with the Book of Mormon. So I have a spiritual witness of it.
But I take my faith seriously. When the church teaches that the Book of Mormon contains the fulness of the gospel, I want to know what that means.
Because of my study, I also have an intellectual testimony that the Book of Mormon is not true. It teaches a false plan of salvation and hence cannot be true and the current mormon doctrine true as well.
Does that sound like “little stuff”?
It is not little stuff to me. It is core and direct to the truth claims of the gospel.
I challenge you to study the plan of salvation as taught by the gospel.
If you don’t have the energy to read it all, just study Alma’s conversation with his son Corianton. All of the key pieces of the plan of salvation are there, which are repeated by other prophets over a 1000 year period of time in the Book of Mormon.
Hopefully you may be humble enough to take the challenge and be honest in your search. If you are, I promise you, that your eyes will be opened.
But only if you truly want to know.
If you just want to believe. The go ahead and believe.
But if you can’t acknowledge that someone else may see the world differently, then you may want to consider who you should be sorry for. And it probably isn’t Carson.
All the best on the journey. Life is an adventure.
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