Words

I've been mulling this one over for some time, trying to find just the right way to describe how I feel about it.

Words are just words.  Sentences can move nations, however.  They can bring people up and they can tear them down.  They can bolster self esteem or they can cause lifetime scars.  Sentences can make you cry or get you to laugh.  Sentences can have a lot of power.  Individual words only have power if you give them power and they really only have power in context.  Shit, for example, is just a word.  Like all words, it can be used to describe, or to hurt, or to simply express oneself.  Saying, "You are a total shithead!" can really hurt someone, but on the other hand, "Shit, I'm sorry I forgot to bring that thing with me." is just an expression and causes no harm to anyone.  Focusing on individual words instead of the context in which they are being used is where the power comes from.  I used to have a big problem with cuss words and people cussing around me, but I realized at some point, that I couldn't control those around me, and that by getting mad at them for using language they were used to using, and they saw no problem with using, just made me out to be a jerk and caused me unnecessary stress, so I started simply ignoring the words I found offensive and stopped judging those that used them.  I found I could more completely enjoy people's company in this way and I enjoyed parties and get-togethers much more.  Sometime in the last several years, I really thought about my inability to use certain words and how silly it was and then, one day, I broke my filter, so to speak.  Once this was broken, I realized just how much power I had given to cuss words and I realized they are just words like any other, and it's how they are used, the context in which they are used, where the power truly lies.  Any word at all can be turned into a "bad" word.  What you, as an individual, find offensive is subjective.  I know I mention him a lot lately, but Tim Minchin does a great skit on the subject here.  I completely agree with what he's saying there. 

Like all manners, there are times and places that certain things shouldn't be said or done. I respect that, and, also like manners, choose when and where to use them.  I'm not going to stand in the middle of a crowd and go deep digging for boogers up my nose.  Likewise, I will use please and thank you and not tell people to go shit themselves in polite company.  Being polite to your fellow man and not being a dick is what I respect and live by.  But, at the same time, I will use a variety of words simply because I feel like using them and see no reason why not to.  Words, in the end, really are just words.  If you are offended, it's because you have chosen to be offended. 

A Question

A question for all my religious readers/friends/family.

If it wasn't true, would you want to know?

I did.

Interests and Hobbies

I seem to have developed an ability to make all my interests and hobbies contagious, and I love it! Mwahahaha.

I spent 25 years, give or take, being all alone in my love of Doctor Who, now my husband and most of our closest friends totally love it too because of me!  I've even gotten a few people at work to watch it.

I rekindled my love of aquariums a couple years ago and now two friends have purchased tanks because of my enthusiasm!  They are now addicted and have multiple tanks too.

I fell in love with tea and now a friend is also as much in love with it due to my sharing a pot or two of my high quality gourmet tea with her.

Two or three weeks ago, I started working on my cross stitch again, one that I have been working on for....oh....ahem....six or seven years (but I'm almost done with it now!)....and now guess what?  The Huz bought a kit of his own to work on and a friend wants to work on hers again.  Last time I was working on this project, my talking about it got a different friend to work on hers again too and her husband also decided to try it out at the time.  I need to ask if he ever finished or liked it....

hehe

Camping

As you all know, we love camping.  We just finished our second camp out of the season and it was wonderful.  When we started the season, I went to get our sleeping bags and realized that I did not put them away properly last year and they weren't rolled up.  The cat took the opportunity to rub herself all over them and burrow in them.  This created a huge problem as the Huz is allergic to her and now her hair was all over both of them.  No way could he sleep in them.  I tried the sticky roller, the furminater, a brush, nothing was working, so off to the laundromat we went. I washed each in their own big front loader then thru them both in the same dryer.  It took for ever and we still ended up taking them home damp.  I was instantly worried when I got them laid out at home and some of the batting was now bunched.  We have now found out I had a right to be worried.  The first camp out we went on we had to borrow my sister's tent heater to keep warm, but it was in the 30's so I wasn't sure.  The camp out last weekend proved it.  It was fairly warm and we still got too cold int he night.  My washing our bags ruined their thermal capabilities.  This is so sad cause they were rated down to -5 and the past two years have kept us nice and cozy.  Not to mention they weren't cheap, and I don't want to spend that again to replace them.  We'll have to go back to stuffing blankets inside and borrowing the heater when we can.  Makes me mad. I have a suggestion on how to fix it, but that will be it's own post.

Anyway, we went camping with a group of exmormons, who are all part of a group called Postmos.  We didn't really know anyone, there were only one or two that we had met once before, but we had a really fun time and it was good to hear everyone's stories and points of view on things.  Everyone was on their own for food and Huz made a pot of his every-pot-is-different-but-oh-so-tasty chili and once we had dished ours up we offered up the left overs to whomever wanted some.  Everyone who had a bowl wanted to know the secret and the recipe and raved over it's flavor.  You just can't beat made-from-scratch chili powder, it's amazing!  He added lamb to it this time, and I really liked the lamb/beef combo. There wasn't very much at all left, maybe enough for one chili dog, when I went to clean the dutch. We all gathered around the fire and guitars were brought out and booze was offered up and passed around.  We sang a bit, talked a lot, and all had a great time well into the wee hours. 

One conversation was really interesting, we got talking about the "do unto others" rule and it got way too literal.  The thought behind it was, if you do unto to others as you would have done to you, the other party may not like it.  For example, you like getting flowers so you buy someone else flowers, but what if they don't like flowers?  If you did to/for others only what you like, it could backfire on you.  Which is true if it's taken completely in it's literal sense.  But it came down to you can't take it literally, that you just need to take the meaning behind it and work with that. You have to take into consideration the other party's needs and wants and really it comes down to just simply being nice to everyone.  If you are considerate and nice to others, they will be considerate and nice to you.  Take their likes and dislikes into account, and they will most likely do the same for you.  So the lesson from that night is, as Wil Wheaten likes to put it, don't be a dick.

In the morning, Huz made a garbage hash breakfast that we also shared the leftovers of, and it went over as well as the chili had.  There was nothing left in the pot to take home.  Those that spent the night talked a lot while we all ate breakfast and broke camp. 

Over all it was a great camp out.

The Aftermath

Everyone was very accepting of my husband being an atheist accept his mom and some friends.  The friends were simply uncomfortable, but his mom could not accept it and still struggles with it.  At one point, she cornered me in my own kitchen and practically demanded that I bring him back to the church.  I flat out told her that wasn't happening, and she backed off.  All three of her boys, and both her daughters-in-law are non believers.  I can understand her heartache, but it saddens me that she can't accept us, fully, for who we are.

So far, everyone has been just as accepting to me being an atheist as well.  When I changed my religious status on facebook to atheist, I did have an uncle unfriend me.  That's okay tho, that's his choice.  I'm curious if it will come up at this year's reunion or not tho, he's just the type to confront me on it.  I have been open about it at work and that's been okay too.  We'll see what happens once this blog is read.

I found a former coworker and his wife have left the church and I have a close friend that was having doubts of her own and I told her my thoughts on everything and that it's okay to question and search for answers.  She has recently expressed that she now wants to leave the church.We have all found two support/social groups that are awesome in helping with this process and to give us back a sense of community, Atheists of Utah and Postmos.

Our neighbor has been very kind and expressed that he will be there for us if we need anything at all.  The bishop expressed the same.

Being an atheist has not changed who I am at my core.  I am still who I have always been, a nerdy, geeky weirdo that has trouble socially with dorkish tendancies, but now I have answers and simply view the world and life differently.  I still strive to be a good person, religion does not own that, and to try and be the best me I can be.  I do not need faith and religion to know what's right and wrong and to be a decent human being, my mother and grandmother instilled that in me and taught me how to be a good person.  I have found balance, and calm in my life and have a better sense of belonging and community and acceptance than I have ever had.  I am happier and more centered and think I am a better me overall.  I still live by the one rule I let define me, because I think all of humanity should live by it.  Do unto others as you would have done to you.  If this was lived by, by all, all else will and would fall into place and I strongly feel this world would be a better place.

I am happy, and I am proud of my life so far, and I have the greatest best friend and husband I could have ever hoped for, and I am so happy we were able to find each other in this crazy, mixed up world we all live in.

My Journey to Atheism - Part 4

With the realization that heaven is not real, everything else became unstable.  I had started calling myself an agnostic. If heaven isn't real, how can religion be real?  The whole point and promise of religion is heaven.  It is beaten into our heads from the beginning.  Be a good person, don't sin, do what you are told, follow all the teachings and you will be rewarded in the afterlife.  If that promise cannot be fulfilled, then what's the point?

Once this thought entered my head, I couldn't get rid of it.  It was there to stay and it grew and grew.  My beliefs finally toppled like a house of cards that caught a breeze.  And then, it hit me, and saddened me, and depressed me, if heaven isn't real, and religion is a lie...then so is God.  My whole world unraveled and I started the grieving process that my husband had only recently went thru. I now understood.

In the course of all of this I found documents and old newspapers from when the church was new, and personal accounts and videos people have posted from current days.  Not all of what the church does or stands for is bad, the church, and the people in it, do a lot of good things, but I think it's based on falsehoods. I have learned that Joseph Smith wasn't what he was always said to be.  I have read numerous accounts of him not being upfront with people, even his wife, and especially his followers   The church encourages it's members to only read "church approved" material and church history.  Their is a reason for this, the truth is out there.  If you want to look into some of this, this thread on reddit is incredibly useful.

I now know why my husband left the church.  I no longer wanted to be a part of it all either.  I feared telling my family, but for some reason I was able to freely tell my friends.  At Christmas, I finally told my sister after my husband steered the conversation there and I had little choice.  I finally told my mom about three months ago.  Three and a half months ago, I put in my request to resign and talked to my bishop.  A few weeks ago, I received my confirmation letter.  I am no longer a Mormon. I am an atheist.

My Journey to Atheism - Part 3

After my husband put in his papers, while he was coming to terms with his new existence, he came out to our friends and our families that he is atheist and it was taken with varying degrees of confusion and acceptance. We had lots and lots of very long and deep conversations during the months after, and I started asking questions.  Lots and lots of questions. And he started giving me answers.  Answers that, for the first time in my life, actually made sense!  I would mull over and contemplate each of his answers to my questions and realized that he made sense.  My husband started making more sense than anyone ever had to me.  He started showing me web pages and videos he had found from other ex-mormons and atheists, and then I started looking on my own.  I started finding my own answers.  I had answers to questions I forgot I ever asked while growing up.  I had answers and confirmations to doubts, fears, and concerns I had shoved to the back of my head! I started asking more and more questions and the world started making more sense.

Then the Huz shared a link to a blog post about heaven. Even though I was finding answers, I was still hesitant to do so as it went against my upbringing, but I clicked it and read the post.  This women explained heaven in such a way that it hit home and I could no longer believe in it.  It hit hard.  I didn't realize how much of my thinking and beliefs revolved around my belief in heaven and an afterlife.  This blog shook that to it's core.  Basically she pointed out that for heaven to be real, we would have to lose who we are.  We would not be able to be ourselves any more.  She pointed out that we are promised that we will be surrounded by those we love, but that they will also be surrounded by those they love and so on.  We would end up being surrounded by every human being that has ever existed.  I hate crowds, even when they are full of people I know.  Then, she pointed out, what about conflicts in our current lives?  If you have a problem with someone close to you, are you still going to have that problem with them in heaven?  Say, your father can't stand your husband, you'll want your husband by your side, but also your father right?  In order for that to happen, they would both have to change who they are so that problem no longer exists and they could be happy which would also make you happy, cause we are all supposed to be happy in heaven right?  Then she brought up hell.  What if your child went to hell and you went to heaven?  How could you be happy knowing your child is burning for eternity?  You would either have to forget that child exists, forget they went to hell, or be incredibly miserable knowing they are suffering.  The first two changes who you are, the last contradicts what heaven is supposed to be.  Or you could shrug them off saying that they got what they deserved and then skip off to blissful happiness.  Again, I think we would all have to change our core selves to be able to do that and be happy.  This plagued my thoughts for months.  In order for heaven to be real, I would have to change my core self, one way or another, to have the perfect, blissful promise be true.

I will never see my grandma again.  Once I finally reconciled what that blog meant to me, this thought, more than any others, hit me hardest.  I broke down and cried in the car in our driveway after work.  I had a full on melt down.  I grieved my grandma's death all over again. I then grieved other loved ones I've lost.  I grieved for my little dog, for my cat from long ago.  I cried.  I hurt.  And all the while, my husband held me and let me let it out.  Heaven can't be real.

Once I came to my senses, I realized two things:  I now had answers to all my questions about heaven, how old will I be there? What will my happiest moments in life be? Will I live those moments again?  What will heaven be like?  How will our pets fit in and will all of them be there? The answers, no longer matter.  The second thing I realized is that my life and all the lives around me are now that much brighter, that much more important, and that much more special. My memories of those already lost are so much more precious to me as well.  That is my heaven now, getting lost in remembering .  My memories of my grandma, even the last one, will always bring me happiness. My grandma was awesome, awesome enough to pull herself out of a coma so she could say goodbye to her whole family.  We held our reunion near the hospital and we all told her about it and what day, and it got through to her, she heard, even tho she was out cold. She was that strong. I miss her so much.

 This life is the only life we have, and that makes it all the more amazing. 

My Journey to Atheism - Part 2

My husband and I weren't sure what we wanted out of life when we first got married.  We were both unsure where we wanted to go in the church but knew our families wanted us to go to the temple and that the church expected that of us.  Early in our first year together, we decided we needed to try to go to church as much as we could and try to get some direction and maybe end up in the temple where we should be.  We happened to be living within my sister's ward which made it easier to get started.  The ward is a great ward and we met lots of really great people.  We went pretty consistently for quite some time, but then we looked at each other one Sunday as we were getting ready and asked each other if we really wanted to go, and we decided not to.  This lead to lots of talks between us and we both decided we didn't really care if we went to the temple nor to church, so we quit going and life was good and back to normal.

This worked out great until about two years or so ago, give or take.  My wonderful husband said to me one night, "I'm not sure if the church is true.  I'm not sure if I believe in God."

This rocked my world.  I had no idea what to make of it. How could you not believe in God? The church is true, I've been told my whole life it's true.  How can it not be true? We had lots of discussions and life got mostly back to normal for a bit, but we had more angry and uncomfortable conversations than we've ever had in our marriage during those following months, but some really good, deep ones too, but then, he dropped another bomb on me.  He wanted to leave the church. What?!?!  How can this be?  What do you mean?  I don't remember all my thoughts and fears from the time, but I know I thought about the afterlife a lot.  How on earth could we be together when we die if he isn't LDS? What is this going to do to us? How will this work? I flipped out!  I remember a lot of yelling, and tears and lots of hurt and we just don't do that to each other.  I remember hitting the kitchen floor in a stupor at one point, and bawling and crying for hours, not sure what to do, what to say, how to deal with it.  Thoughts of divorce went through my head and what would I do then?  This is the love of my life, and I was considering leaving him.  I remember him coming to me in the kitchen and holding me and somewhere in those many, many hours, it hit me.  I don't go to church.  I don't want to go to church.  I don't like church.  Why the hell would I give up the best thing that has ever happened to me for something I have never made a big part of my life? Why give up my happy life because of what someone else tells me is right? I decided as long as he could still accept me for who I am, I could still accept him for who he is, and I would have to wrap my head around this new husband of mine. He sent in his papers and he was no longer Mormon or a believer.  My husband is an atheist.  He went through a lot during this process and I supported him and stood by him, and helped him as much as I could, all the while trying to understand, but seeing him become a calmer, happier, more stable person than he had ever been since I met him at the same time.  I watched him go through all the psychological stages: confusion, depression, anger, acceptance and all the ones in between, just as if he had lost someone or something catastrophic had happened to him.  I now know that that is almost exactly what happened.  He went through the grieving process.

My Journey to Atheism - Part 1

I was born and raised in the LDS faith and have always thought of myself as Mormon.  Growing up tho, I hated going to church. It was boring, and long, and I never really got much out of it. As soon as I was old enough to be left home alone I started fighting my mom on going at all.  From that point on, my going to church was varied and sporadic and little to none at times.  I can probably count on just my two hands how many times I've ever paid tithing.  I never liked just giving away that much of my income.  But, I was raised to believe, I was raised to feel guilty for not going, for not paying, for not having enough faith.  The church instilled this as much or more than my mom, but it was still part of me, and so I have felt guilty for a lot of that, a lot of my life.

I have always been fascinated by nature and I watched nature programs and NOVA and things like that.  When I was old enough to put two and two together, nature often contradicted church.  I couldn't comprehend some of the contradictions and couldn't find answers to my questions, or didn't get answers I could live with that didn't bring up more questions, and started using circular reasoning to try and ease my discomfort.  TV and school told me the big bang happened and started everything, church and the scriptures say God made everything.  To reconcile this in my own head, I would tell myself, and others, that no one knows how God created everything, so maybe he used the big bang to do it.  This made both true and made me feel better. I came up with similar answers to evolution and things of that nature as well.  I could never reconcile every living thing being in the garden of Eden and Adam naming everything, however.  Fossil records show that man did not exist in the time of dinosaurs, that right there contradicts that.  I put it in the back of my head and simply tried not to dwell on it.  I realize now that I did that a lot, putting things in the back of my head.  I would simply not dwell on them or question them because the church told me differently and I was taught the church was true.  In doing this, I was able to live the life of a jack Mormon, not being different in any way other than not going to church, and that worked out for me.  Most of my family and a lot of my friends were/are jack Mormons. I was never very comfortable in church, praying often added to the discomfort, although it did give me comfort too, and I often sided with church views even tho I wasn't too sure if that's really where I stood.  Gays are a good example of this.  I have gay cousins and had gay friends in school, but I liked all of them and considered them all good people, but the church and scriptures, at the time, said that being gay is evil.  The first time I learned that, I prayed and prayed and read and studied the scriptures.  I couldn't accept that.  God created man, why would God create an evil man?  The church says it's a choice.  Well, okay, but then why are my cousins good people?  If they chose to be evil, wouldn't they be bad people?  I went round and round with that in my head for years.  I couldn't come to terms with it either way.  Later, after I was married, my husband asked, "When did you choose to be straight? When did you choose to like guys?"  That question changed really changed my thinking.  It's not a choice, they are just simple people too, they should have the same rights as I do.

So I lived my life, and I lived it as close to how I thought I should as I could without adding boredom and discomfort to my life, but still be Mormon.  I never did drugs, I never smoked and I never wanted to do either.  I hit a rebellious stage in my early twenties (I do everything late for some reason) and had alcohol for the first time.  I would drink here and there with friends after that, but never very much nor very often, but I lived within the Word of Wisdom as best I could other than that. I always told myself that if I was a good person, lived my life as best I could to my definition of what a good person was, and others thought I was a good person, then God would also consider me to be a good person and things would work out on the other side after I died. So that's what I did and that's what I defined myself by.  Do unto others, became a big part of my personal philosophy, for this and other reasons.

I was never very social and always had trouble dating and interacting with others.  When I finally decided to get serious about looking for someone, I really wasn't sure what I wanted.  I based this process on my Mormon upbringing and knew I should go to the temple.  That going to the temple is what my Mom and the church wanted of me, but the thought of going to the temple never truly appealed to me.  I decided I needed someone who was as close to my beliefs as I could get.  Someone who was Mormon, believed in the church, but wouldn't make me go to church unless I wanted to go.  Having struck out in the date department, pretty much my whole life, someone suggested I try chat rooms online.  This freaked me out, but I decided to go for it.  I didn't have any money and didn't want to pay to chat anyway, so I ran searches for free LDS/Mormon chat rooms and got started there, and eventually I found what I was looking for and have been incredibly happy ever since.