Theophan

I appreciate the reply. I suppose the issue for me has always been that if such experiences of enlightenment aren't unique to Mormonism, it follows they can't be used as evidence for Mormonism. It only makes sense to conclude that spiritual experiences that build LDS testimonies must be available only within an LDS context. What's a person to do if the exact same spiritual experience results from prayers about the truth of Book of Mormon, the Buddhist Heart Sutra, and the Koran? All that does is confirm that God is part of all three.

Yes, I suppose you're right if dad became an atheist or a non-Christian. In the LDS case, however, it's not sufficient for the doubting dad who is still a Christian to only take the lead in prayers at home and attend church with the family. The fact that I refused to baptize and ordain the kids had consequences and that kind of terrible choice is never faced by men in most other Christian churches.

Hmm..how about the aha! moment I experienced when I finally grasped the meaning of red-shift, how it's measured, and how the measurement is used to establish evidence for the Big Bang. A light bulb went on. I've had similar moments reading the New Testament, Buddhist texts, science books, Plato, and the Book of Mormon. These are just flashes of insight. My experience of such moments was not unique to mormonism, hence their inadequacy for me during my faith crisis to establish whether the church was true.

The LDS church is structured to produce an especially acute form of the heartache when the father has doubts and/or leaves. LDS dads are the priests of the family, baptizing and ordaining, giving blessings, etc. This is unique to Mormonism and only has parallels in certain rare instances (e.g., when an Eastern Orthodox priest, who can marry and have children, leaves the faith). When the dad leaves, there's a huge, gaping hole that cannot ever be filled until/unless the dad returns to his priesthosod duties. In most other churches, the doubting dad can still go with the family to be with them, to support them, sitting there quietly with them during services with no one the wiser. There isn't remotely the same kind of pressure on dads in those churches as exists in the LDS church. That pressure is what caused me to lie when I agreed to bless our babies and give my wife blessings, even though I no longer believed the church was true. That lying just about killed me. Once I came out of the closet as a non-believer to friends and family, I experienced another form of dying inside. But at least I was no longer lying to family and friends.

Nope. Not once in relation to anything idiosyncratically LDS, and not for lack of trying. Alas. I've had many intellectual aha! moments in and out of the church, during both spiritual and non-spiritual study, but those are not the same.

@anddenex. I don't have a clue anymore. I was looking for something, anything. A feeling of peace or certainty, a burning bosom, a prompting, serenity, unbidden thoughts, whatever. You know, the same kinds of spiritual experiences you hear church members talk about experiencing in varying forms all of the time, every single Sunday in every single meeting, no matter where you are in the world, that 'aha!' moment church members take note of when they feel something after they pray or when they hear or witness something that moves them at church or in the temple to say "I feel the spirit so strongly today." The kinds of experiences my pioneer ancestors wrote about in their diaries. That kind of thing. Other people were having these kinds of experiences. All I needed was something, anything remotely, recognizably distinct from the pounding of the blood in my ears, which is all I ever experienced during the countless times I would pray and listen for the same whisperings of the Spirit I was taught I would receive if I prayed in faith. That's what I was looking for. The exact same thing other church members look for when they pray for guidance and what investigators supposedly receive when they pray sincerely in response to Moroni's Challenge.

I left because, despite years of faithful service, mission, temple marriage, tithing, callings, tearful prayer, and sincere desire, I never once, ever, felt the spirit in any recognizable way. I also eventually discovered disturbing things about church history and doctrine from church-published sources as I delved into the history of my ancestors and the early church. I hung in there for years anyway, like many I suppose, hoping in the promises that were made, believing that one day, in time, God would answer my prayer like everyone else I knew, and that I would receive that confirmation I so desperately needed and wanted. Eventually, as the angst and frustration over my failure to gain a testimony mounted, I opened up and approached family members, ward members, and church leaders in confusion and a hurting heart and was advised again and again in multiple wards that maybe I wasn't really truly sincere in my desire; maybe I wasn't listening when the spirit whispered; maybe there was a secret, unrepented sin I was harboring; maybe I wasn't praying hard enough, with real intent; maybe God was withholding the Spirit from me to test me; maybe deep down, God knew that I wasn't truly willing to commit all of myself to the Gospel. Some expressed outright disbelief and accused me of lying to myself. At first hearing all of this was depressing; then I got angry. It got to the point where I could hardly bear to hear statements like "I know this church is true", "I'd like to bear my testimony", "I know the Book of Mormon is true", etc., without severe anxiety. I had to stop attending for my own wellbeing. A year or so later, I was persuaded to give it a try one more time and, ironically, the topic in EQ meeting that day was "How to Receive Personal Revelation". I asked point blank: "If someone prays for years and doesn't feel anything at all, is it always that person's fault?" Every single man in the room nodded their heads or said "Yes" audibly. That's when I knew I was done with the church forever. I still go to sacrament meeting on occasion with the wife and kids, but I haven't been to General Conference, Fast and Testimony Meeting, or EQ for seven years and have been to Gospel Doctrine only a couple of times over the same period. It's just too much for me to handle. I've seen relatives baptize and ordain my kids, which really, really sucks. Things have been strained for years at home due to all of this. For people like me, the Church can be a family destroyer and a cause of depression.