Tuesday, August 5, 2014

Doctrinal Reasons for Leaving

Here are the doctrines of the Church that I didn't believe were true while I was still a member of the Church.  Some of these things were recent thoughts and feelings, while others had bothered me for many years.  I will expound on them and I will put in bold letters the outside sources that affected my decision to leave.

1) Three Kingdoms of Glory (recently stopped believing).
The LDS church teaches that there is not one Heaven but rather three Kingdoms of Glory that people will be assigned to once they've died and been judged for their actions by God or other dead leaders of the Church.  The doctrine for this is found in the Doctrine and Covenants section 76 and it was written in 1832.  As far as I've been able to research, the LDS church is the only one that teaches this, and even its own Book of Mormon speaks of "heaven", not of three kingdoms.  It seems to me that if there really were three kingdoms rather than just one Heaven and Hell, then it would have been revealed to prophets of God long before 1832.

2) We can build our own worlds (never really believed in).
The Church teaches that in the highest of the three kingdoms of glory—the Celestial kingdom—there are "degrees" or levels, and if we can achieve the highest degree then we can become like God and have numberless spirit children of our own and create worlds of our own like he did.  I don't want any more kids than the two I already have—as much as I love them both—and I have never had a desire to create my own world.

3) Perfection is needed for the Celestial Kingdom (always had issues with).
The Church teaches two sides to this issue of perfection.  It teaches that one must be perfect to live with God once they die.  It acknowledges that we cannot possibly become perfect in this life, and yet it also teaches all the time in lessons that you need to "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." (Matthew 5:48).  We were constantly being told that we need to be perfect, and we were given lists of all the things we should be doing.  As someone who has a perfectionist nature and a desire for approval from God, this always caused me a lot of stress.

4) Polygamy was a commandment revealed to Joseph Smith (always had issues with, and recently developed different views).
To be honest, I could write an entire blog post on this topic alone!  This is one of the main reasons I had that made me want to leave the Church.  I remember back in college searching the scriptures, trying to reconcile in my mind why polygamy was okay in the Old Testament but then forbidden in the Book of Mormon but commanded in Joseph Smith's time and then forbidden again a decade or two later.
My views, in short: many members around the world think polygamy started in Utah under Brigham Young because that's when it was declared in an official announcement to the whole Church, but it actually started in Nauvoo under Joseph Smith.  I was always told, "Only a few men were commanded to practice it, and many of them hated the idea but reluctantly did it anyway," as if that was somehow proof that it was a real commandment from God.  But polygamy was only practiced by a few members of the early Church because only a few of them KNEW about it.  I read a book called Emma Hale Smith: A Mormon Enigma because after a Sunday School lesson about her (D&C 25) I wanted to know more about her.  It isn't what I would call a great scholarly work and there are some flaws with the book, but among other things it covered polygamy extensively because Emma was in the middle of it all.  The book said what I had begun to suspect: that Joseph Smith made up the "revelation" about polygamy so he could sleep with a bunch of women (and girls) under the pretense of a commandment from God, and he wanted his fellow leaders to do it too so he could be justified in doing it.  Saying it like that sounds harsh, and if you've never thought about it like that before then it can be hard to digest.  But the more I've thought about it, the more I'm convinced it's true.

5) Garments offer physical protection (always doubted).
This always seemed like a superstition to me, as if they were fire-retardant or something.  Garments are made from regular pieces of cloth, there's nothing special in the material or how they're made.  They have little markings on them—one covering each nipple, one over the belly button, and one over the right kneecap—which are supposed to remind us of covenants made in the temple.  But no temple covenant with God will change regular clothing into special flame-retardant clothing.  They're just poorly fitting, ugly, sex-appeal-killing layers of clothing that are only meant to be a reminder of the temple endowment ceremony (and also a way to ensure members dress "modestly"), but they do not offer actual physical protection.

6) Temple sealings to multiple spouses (had issues with this for years).
The rules of temple sealings are that one man can be sealed to more than one woman "for time and all eternity", but a woman can only be sealed to one man.  So let's say you've got a young couple who was recently sealed in the temple, and the woman dies.  The man can remarry and get sealed to his new wife, and so he'll have two wives sealed to him in the eternities.  But if the young man dies, the young woman can get married to someone else but she can't be sealed to him because she already "belongs" to someone else.  In the eternities, the woman is essentially the property of the man, and the man can have more than one piece of property, but the piece of property can't belong to more than one man.
**Addendum.  I just read about this in the Church Handbook of Instructions, book 1 (it's only available for the Stake Presidencies and Bishoprics to read; average members don't have access to it.  I found it online).  I will update this information here if I find out the Church made changes.  This is from the 2010 handbook, section 3.6.1, and I will quote these specific parts directly.
Sealing of Living Members After a Spouse's Death
Women.  A living woman may only be sealed to one husband.
Men.  If a husband and wife have been sealed and the wife dies, the man may have another woman sealed to him if she is not already sealed to another man.  In this circumstance, the man does not need a sealing clearance from the First Presidency unless he was divorced from his previous wife before she died (see the previous heading for the policy in cases of divorce).
Sealing of Deceased Members
Deceased Women.  A deceased woman may be sealed to all men to whom she was legally married during her life.  However, if she was sealed to a husband during her life, all her husbands must be deceased before she may be sealed to a husband to whom she was not sealed during life.  This includes former husbands from whom she was divorced.
Deceased Men.  A deceased man may have sealed to him all women to whom he was legally married during his life if they are deceased or if they are living and are not sealed to another man.

Yeah... try figuring that out.  The conditions and restrictions are much greater for the women than for the men.**


7) Know each other's new names (had issues with this since going through the temple for the first time 5 years ago).
This kind-of ties in with the previous reason.  In the temple we're given a new name that comes from either the Bible or the Book of Mormon, and this new name is used when going through the ceremony and it is only to be spoken in the temple.  (Side note: it turns out that there's no personal significance to the name at all.  When I went through the temple for the first time, I was given the same name as all the other women who went through on that day as well; the names are on a rotation.  Before then I had hoped that my name would have a personal significance for me, but nope.  I even looked up that name in the Bible, and what she's known for has nothing to do with me; I was really disappointed.)  Anyway, in the temple the husband finds out what the wife's new name is, but she is never allowed to know his new name.  My husband knows my new name, but I still don't know his.  He knows my new name so he can "have claim" to me after we die (whatever that means), but I'm only allowed to "be claimed".  Again, it made me feel like property and not an equal partner with my husband.

8) Children are baptized into the church at 8 years old (had issues with this for years).
Children are too young to make a lifelong commitment to a church.  They don't understand religion enough, they haven't been exposed to other religions if they grew up in the Church, and they're only doing what they've been taught their whole lives by Church teachers and parents that they're supposed to do.  Eight years old is too young to make that kind of life decision.

These are the points of doctrine that I didn't believe in anymore.   Next I'll cover the practices that I didn't agree with.

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