13-17 April 2022 - I began listening to the Mormon Stories Podcast

As I continued my journey of reassessing my faith, I stumbled across the Mormon Stories podcast through my YouTube searches. I believe it came up in my suggested videos. And I like to start things at the beginning, so I went to the very first episode where John Dehlin talked about his missionary experiences, and some of the unorthodox things that happened there involving something called football baptisms, where missionaries would play football or soccer with young kids and then go “cool off” in the baptismal font. This was recorded while John was still a member of the church and so was presented with that in mind. I appreciated the positive and progressive tones the podcast had, and so I listened to a few more episodes. 

While listening to episode 3, I began to consider if I should give prayer another go as I undertake this spiritual investigation. Very quickly, my mind waved a red flag; that this is my conditioned response when I have questions, that I need to ask God. From the time I was very young, we were taught through song and lessons and just a lot of repetition that when in doubt, ask God. I think this is one of those things that as a believing Mormon, I praised and did not shy away from calling this a good type of brainwashing. I believed it was part of a tool kit for members to use when in doubt, and since 'the world' was full of opinions, god surely would be the source of own truth. Here lies the problem.

How to talk to god as a Mormon

When you are taught to seek answers from god, you are taught to follow a few steps to ensure you get the best chance at an accurate answer:

1. Study out the question in your mind - I suppose this meant, consider if the question is legit. I remember teaching many times that we need to seek for answers that matter and quoted scriptures like James 4:3 which teach that if we receive not it is because we "...ask amiss..." 
2. Ask god - Pretty straight-forward.
3. Wait to receive answer - This is the problematic part that is given so many anecdotal examples and is explained in such specific but also diluted ways where you need to just know what your answer is. And I believe it is taught like this by design, on purpose. Some scriptural passages are used to explain a warm and burning feeling to mean 'yes' and a stupor of thought to mean 'no'. But because no one can explain how you feel, you can feel whatever you want. One might equate this to a gut feeling, but a Mormon will tell you it'us more than that. They will look, I would look, to confirm that answer in everything. 'This situation over here isn't working out, maybe that means my answer is this.' Or 'this person said this to me and I felt like this, which must mean the answer means that.' Then when the person feels they have their answer, it is encouraged by the leaders of the church to never forget it. Write it down (Richard Scott), because spiritual experiences have a shelf life (Jeffery Holland). Oh, but it is also taught that God can lead you to feel the answer is one thing, it will turn out to be wrong, but it is so you know the other option was right (Holland again). Oh and one other thing; the answer you receive needs to align with the church policies and its doctrine, otherwise it is wrong.

I believe this principle and concept of the LDS church is one of the most misunderstood teachings, and probably has the most conflicting anecdotal evidence that leaves almost every member free to interpret anything to mean anything, to to question every feeling they get and sometimes are left wondering if it is them or the Spirit.

While my mind flagged these thoughts, I stopped to give them space to exist and evolve. I then had this thought and wrote it down:

I hope God and Jesus are real in the way I’ve been taught about them. And I don’t know if I think they’re real or not. I did believe them to be real. Their existence makes logical sense to me. Gives me more hope and reason to live than to think that this life is it. But because I’ve been taught to believe certain things. At the moment, my mental processing method is being reassessed, and because of that, I don’t know if I have a reliable way to sift through truth in both what I hear and how I feel. Although, I try to be logical and use some heartfelt discernment as best I can. I don’t think it would be helpful to be told that Ive lost the spirit and that’s why I can’t detect truth. I think that the church taught me to sift truth through a framework, and that if information I came across didn’t fit that framework, then it was to be cast aside and that it was the spirit telling you it’s not true. That brings to mind the scripture that if you have any a stupor of thought it must be wrong. I think that framework is bias. 

It was quite confronting to have this thought train enter my mind and reconsider the perceived reality of God and Jesus. I had been taught through stories, particularly from the Book of Mormon, that to deny Christ was to deny the spirit which is one of the unforgivable sins. This fear of committing that sin certainly had some hold over my mind as I thought about these things; another little nugget of Mormonism.

The unforgivable curses... I mean, sins.

1. Deny the Holy Ghost - Once you have received your answer from the spirit or Holy Ghost that something is true, you now have the prerequisite to commit this sin, especially if you receive a witness that Jesus is real, God is real, Jospeh is a prophet, the church is true, the Book of Mormon is true .. etc. All you have to do is inverse these witnesses and deny that they are true. If you received a witness the Book of Mormon is true, and then deny it, you commit this sin and have place marked out for you in Mormon hell. So, me writing this blog would constitute committing this sin. Maybe this sin can be called the Imperius Curse.
2. Shed Innocent Blood - Pretty straight-forward, but when you commit murder you also signal to god where you will end up at judgement. This one is pretty well acknowledged by everyone on Earth so I still think it belongs here. This sin is definitely called the Killing Curse.
3. Commit a sexual sin - Yes, you read that correct. Thanks to the Book of Mormon, which is 'the most correct book,' sexual sins are listed right next to murder and denying the Holy Ghost. What are sexual sins? This is another principle that can either be explained really explicitly, or watered down so much that simply thinking about having sex counts. It depends on who teaches it to you. If I was to list a few that might count, they might include the following;

• Premarital sex (penetrative only; 'Soaking', 'ATMing', and 'Durfing' apparently doesn't count in Utah)
• Masturbation (thanks to a little booklet called For Young Men Only)
• Porn Use
• Adultery
• Rape
• Incest
• Premarital Passionate Kissing (thanks to a little booklet called For the Strength of Youth)
• Premarital Groping, with or without clothes, with or without consent.
• Any type of homosexual interaction, before or after legal marriage

A podcast I listened to recently compiled a list of sins that are less offensive than these sins, and they included fraud, embezzlement, torture, domestic abuse, emotional abuse, just to name a few. Of course these are terrible things, but if we take what is being taught as the most offensive sins to god, these other ones rank lower than the 3 unforgivable sins. 

In the LDS theology, there are many things to do and not to do. But there are three which are described to fast track you to outer darkness (Mormon hell):