Ten years ago, in April 2007, my shelf was not only broken but vaporized. They, meaning the Internet, Satan and the Spirit, you guys and many others, got to me at my point of strongest resistance, which was Joseph Smith.

I had often thought that Joe was the only real prophet the church had ever had, and the other guys just weren't worthy or something. And then I figured out that they were largely superstitious and opportunistic, but sometimes just halfway decent men who were trying to clean up the monumental mess that Joe had left without lying too much. And overall they didn't demand nearly as much as Joe had. The Word of Wisdom is nothing compared to sharing your wife.

It was not pleasant, rejecting the foundations of the church. My most prevalent emotion by far was just feeling so sorry for active and committed Mormons, which thankfully was not me at the time. lol

And for some reason I just felt so much contempt for the guys who were still pretending to be apostles. I felt instantly, automatically, and vastly superior to them simply by using ordinary logic once in a while. I do try to think deeply sometimes, get down to fundamentals like Descartes, but I think I got carried away with that too.

And sometimes I would revert back to defense of the church, but not really taking it seriously as divine revelation or a series of miracles, and certainly not wanting to earn my salvation or signal my belief to the other members. I just found it reassuring in a way, kind of like an old Italian neighborhood that I had left but enjoyed visiting occasionally. And I still enjoy good LDS hymns far more than I have a right.

I think that stuff lasted for about five of the ten years. I really thought it was important to prove--at least to myself, no one else really cared and I couldn't go too far with family--that I had been a really good Mormon, better than the people who had despised me. And that's the part I really don't care about any more. Let them do it, let them pretend they're God or something. I can pretend to be Hamlet occasionally.

And the second five years? Hard to pull together in my mind, but I'd say I just think about things on my own terms now. I don't see many things as they're framed by the church. I think about religion a lot, but more cognitively than metaphysically. Maybe it's all in our minds, but that's important, and our minds (as opposed to their contents) are very real as far as I can tell.

And Damn!! It's fun to think for myself. To think about cosmology, evolutionary theory, subhuman primates, the agricultural revolution, Adam and Eve, Jews and Egyptians, Catholics and Protestants, without some crazy clubhouse narrative making me feel anxious, reluctant, or guilty. I can just think and enjoy it. I absolutely love that stuff. And I'm letting the Mormon history slide a bit. Not as important as I had thought.

And I can now despise McConkie, who was a truly bizarre artifact of Mormon culture and a miserable human being. And I can also despise the liberal Mormons, hypocrites with a smattering of science who sneered at him behind his back but "sustained" him as an apostle for years.

And Uchtdorf a few weeks ago, saying Satan gets people to manipulate others using fear? That's a sad commentary on the prospects for any genuine reform in the Mormon church. If he has to lead off by invoking Satan, without even making his argument first, that man is more cynical and more enveloped by darkness than I could have imagined. It's really nice to be free from the toy politics of the various Mormon factions for the rest of my life. Which may continue forever, please give me a break on that.

Interesting take on the stages of your journey. Mormonism informs much of our lives even after we leave I do believe. We always take our history with us. No choice in that.

If I read you right, I identify with what you said because the beauty of life is in not aligning yourself completely with any one group or faction. Not making an investment in any one agenda is the only way to see clearly. I don't know if remaining completely neutral is even possible, but certainly attempting it aids reason. That is why I liked the original title of Cabaret--I Am A Camera. I felt that way when I went to the temple the first time--like I was disconnected and only observing, even as I slit my throat with my thumb. I recorded it more than experienced it and it helped me to see what it really was many years later.

Oh yeah, I forgot completely about the endowment. I just avoided thinking about it most of the time. In some ways it was beautiful or noble, even funny like the preacher...but it was also barren, boring, and terrifying at times. Whatever positive feelings I had about the church after 2007 depended in part on just forgetting about the endowment.