It was the 4th of July, 2016, just three years ago, when I was sat on the front porch thinking about life, Independence, and the importance of being properly represented in life by oneself, really. Mom had only died that April, sort of suddenly, and unexpectedly. I had expected to be able to see her again, but life did what it does best, and surprised us. Independence is just a quality of the holiday Americans tend to think of at this time of year.
The last issue, representation of self, is a lot more complex than I can put into a sentence or two. But I had been continuing a lie by giving false hope to someone whose feelings I no longer cared to preserve over my own sense of being.
When I was in my late 20’s I had finally wrestled with the question of religion and the existence of divinity long enough to boil the issue down to a last test. That test was “what if not God?” I had tried every argument available to my mind to try to decide if there were a God. I had done as the religion of my youth had asked, and prayed feverently for an answer to the question. But I had never conceded to the possibility that I was just setting up a false imagination in my mind and looking for things to fulfill it. The final test was to try understanding life, the Universe, and everything through a paradigm that did not assume any kind of God. From that moment on, I found it all made so much more sense. For the first time I was able to be really and truely happy. Instead of questioning the bedroom ceiling at night for the reasons why horrible things happened, I was able to focus on what it takes to fix those things. I had spent my life before as a victim of religion through a willing proxy, me. They put the ideas in my head, I perpetuated them, and I was onder their control. By my late 20’s, Ifinally decided to try setting myself free.
But in all the time from then till my mid 40’s, I had not truely sey myself free of the Church that I had been taught all my life was the only true Church on Earth, a powerful claim, if it were true. I had been brought up Mormon, and taught that I had to pay my money to the Church, and give my time to the Church, and spend my every moment looking beyond all that to the God that supposedly stood behind the Church. It’s a great diversionary tactic as old as religion itself. “You keep your eyes on the big guy, while we rummage through your life, your wallet, and your belongings to take what we want. And if you look at us, then we will point our finger at you and tell you something you are doing wrong to distract you while we carry on.”
Because I had not set myself free of them, they managed to send two of their people to my door to ask for me by name, which would not have surprised me so much if I had not been living in another country at the time. Luckily God must have been on my side, because I was sick in bed that evening, and my wife came to the door and had no trouble shoeing them off like a couple of flies at her picnic.
I kept my membership in the Church in tact because of my grandmother. I did not want her to lose her last shred of hope in having brought me up right, or at least, how she thought was right. But by the time of three years ago, grandma and I had already had ‘the talk,’ where she asked me, “so, you don’t believe in the Church, or you don’t believe in God altogether?” From the moment she got my answer, she started to treat me with utter contempt and disrespect, and in turn, our whole relationship fell to pieces.
Fast forward to Independence Day, 2016. I was sat on the front porch thinking, and it occured to me that I was no longer in posession of the concerne for grandma’s hope. I had been living the same lie that I was when I was still going to Church and trying to convince myself that it was all true. Instead, I was now keeping myself associated with a dreadful organization to preserve someone else’s hopes! Yet, I knew for myself that it was not even close to something I wanted to be associated with, and moreover, I did not want members of that Church to think in any way that they had any power over me, which they tend to do when you subject yourself to them by allowing your name to be on their rolls. I am confident that the change in status from member to non-member is nothing more than a check-box in their extensive records, and that those records are kept in tact, even though I would much rather they not. I am as confident of that as I am that at some point after I die, they will perform a proxy baptism in my name during one of their Temple ceremonies, in order to put me back where they want me, on their rolls. This too, I would rather they did not do. I totally reject it!
Is it important that they try to make me a Mormon after I die by doing a proxy baptism in my name? They told me that Jesus overcame death, and that because of it, everyone would live forever. Yet, they are the ones who overcome death, and put people in their religion, by doing baptisms for the dead. It is clever, and true, it does nothing for me. But it does something for them, and that, I object to. It is a ceremony usually done by teens in the Church, and it is put upon them as some sort of critical ritual that they have to perform for the sakes of those who have passed on. In other words, they guilt kids into doing it. The act itself reinforces to the kids that what they are doing is not only right, but that everyone, dead or alive, is coming to the Church. In othr words, it hardens their resolve to stay in the Church, even against logic.
In my area, there are lots of people who die, and whose obituary touts Church service. Often times, most of the article is about what the person has done for the Church. When my time comes, I would like it to read quite differently. I want it to talk about a life lived true to self, and in helping others to be true to themselves. My experience is that that is where happiness is found. Living up to false ideas is only a cause for stress, self-doubt, and judgement of others. I would rather be remembered for setting my own good standard and living up to it using logic, reason, and the obvious moral obligations of social living. In fact, nevermind those, “don’t kill, don’t steal, don’t hurt others.” I prefer to do good, and make better. But to do that requires no religion.
On July the 4th, 2016, I sent an electronic communication to a lwayer to request he take action to cause the Mormon Church to remove my name from their membership records, at last setting me free of that organization, and the control of its henchmen. My life would be my own, just as I hope that eventually my death will also. If they finally do come to get me in the end, then let that act speak for itself, because that is the act of a shark, a monster, a dicatator, or a killer, not an act of benevolance. It is not kindness that forces someone to be something they don’t want to be.
Three years I have been free of the Church. My sense of self, and my ability to claim my own identity has never been stronger, or healthier. I am responsible for me, and I am clear about that to anyone else because I am not subject to the creeds, doctrines, and imaginations of any religion. And that is deeply satisfying.