I am an atheist recovering TBM. I have a good relationship with my TBM family who seem genuinely to respect my decision, at least in terms of their treatment of me, continued love and inclusion, and their usual willingness not to confront me or pressure me regarding religion.

Discussing my atheism today with my TBM (but doctrinally troubled) brother, he engaged me respectfully and without judgement. However, he made one comment that I found troubling. He made the point, as so many religious people do, that he would be atheist too "if I hadn't seen so many things..." One of the evidences for the existence of god and the truthfulness of the church was that in my previous life as a TBM, I had given him blessings and made prophecies in those blessings which came to pass.

The truth of the matter is, of course, that even as a TBM, I knew that I was just making shit up. I desperately feared that god would smite me down in wrath for mocking him because, as we know, god will not be mocked. So I would give blessings, careful to prophesy whatever I considered to be the most likely outcome anyway, much the same way palmreaders and fortune tellers do ("Someday, you will be injured!!! And then, after that, you will diiiiiieeeee!"). In the case of my blessings, it was things like "Right now you're sick, but if you read your scriptures and pray harder, I promise you you'll get better," or "You're having a hard time with this class, but if you study the scriptures and pray harder, you'll pass and then eventually graduate and everything will be fine." Then I would pray like gangbusters when I was alone, begging god to honor whatever I had made up on my own. I never heard any voices or had any words come supernaturally to mind, and I knew it. But goddammit he believed me, and now it's difficult to wiggle out of it without looking like a liar and a cheat.

Has anyone else ever had your TBM "prophecies" thrown back in your face? How did you deal with it?

No need to wiggle out of it. Just tell him that his faith is what made the difference.

One time somebody tried to play that card on me saying- Oh you always... and you had such...

My answer to him and the one I use for such cases(because it is true) "I never told you anything as your HT, over the pulpit or teaching class that I did not believe at the time.

when dealing with a religion that bases membership on subjective feelings. Just before I became atheist, the only thing I had left were the "spiritual experiences", and the HG. I decided to look at them rationally, and there is an explanation for all of them, none of which require the supernatural. The most popular one is attributing events in our lives to gawd answering prayers or bestowing blessings when it is really our subjective interpretation of the event. For example, the recent "miracle" of the jeezus picture mostly surviving the fire in the Provo tabernacle. TBM's seem to be oblivious to the fact that the entire building burned.

Also, if you told them to be more faithful, and read their scriptures, then they really did it on their own. You had knowledge of their situation, and unless they were terminally ill, anyone can say such things, and give credit to the supernatural.

How does your brother do his blessings? Do voices come to his head? Anyone can speak extemporaneously, and have words come to them from their subconscious or from their mind. It does not mean it is from gawd. Every day we answer people's questions not knowing what they are going to ask us ahead of time. When there is a blessing you already know what is expected of you, and the template of much of what you will be saying. He has not applied enough objectivity to his religion.

That is a well thought out response. I understand all of those things, and they are the sorts of concerns that led me to atheism in the first place.

My problem is not one of proper critical thinking. I am certainly capable of articulating all of the rational explanations for supposed supernatural occurances such as fulfilled blessings, etc. Rather, for some reason I shied away from confessing to him that it was all a scam, relying on social and psychological cues already present at the time of those blessings, because to do so makes me a liar.

I like the idea of being able to say that I never preached anything I didn't believe at the time, and that's largely true, with the exception of blessings and bearing testimony. In the case of testimonies, I thought it was okay to lie because mormon doctrine teaches that it's okay to lie about your testimony. If you do lie about it, then eventually you'll get a testimony and the lie will become true.

There's not such a neat explanation for lying about blessings, though. I knew at the time that the words were either consciously chosen according to what people wanted to hear, and said vaguely enough that they were likely to be verified, or the words bubbled up from my subconscious. In other words, I knew that they were from me, not god. I just hoped that god would honor the blessings based on the faith of the blessing recipient and maybe based on the magesty of the office of elder that I held, however unworthily.

At any rate, explaining all of this fully to my TBM brother would have been troubling both because it makes me a liar, and because it somehow seemed offensive and not my place to tell him he has deluded himself about imaginary friends and magical happenings.

It seems likely he has also given blessings that way, and maybe has not questioned his own motivations. Surely he has winged it, knows that others do, or does he sincerely think gawd is putting words into his mind to say all the time?

What you mentioned about the blessings being honored is important. One of my problems with TSCC was this contradiction. Many times I heard people say that gawd would honor a blessing, even if the person giving it was unworthy, because it would be unfair to punish the recipient for another's sins. Also, I heard people say that it was dependent on the worthiness of the priesthood holder, which is close to what D&C 121 says about unrighteous dominion. You would have been doing what you thought was right. After all, TSCC built you up with the priesthood myth, and told you that you had a direct line to deity. It is kind of like answers to prayer. When answers or solutions don't come you can acknowledge gawd does not exist, which almost no one does, or rationalize an explanation or way to make it work. One of those would be to do the best you could, and hope gawd would honor it.

I don't know how he defines truth, and lies either. Usually in social situations I am a very literal person, and what people consider polite, social lies, I consider dishonesty. It is really difficult for me to interact with people who do this a lot, because I have to remind myself that much of society does not think it is a big deal, even though I do. If someone told me they lied in a blessing it would have really upset me years ago, and I would have considered them bad priesthood holders. Now I would not be surprised at all, because I think they are all pretending.

Would he consider you a bad member who was unrighteous as a member, and naturally became an atheist or would he acknowledge that the priesthood operates on a spectrum ranging from good intentions to delusion?

My disclaimer is: I am not one to give advice on social situations, because I am not tactful, and have a habit of telling the truth, usually more than people want to know, so I have never been in a situation like that. There must be a way to tell the truth that won't be too hurtful to everyone. Your intent was not bad. Maybe more time needs to pass, because if he has figured out a great deal already, maybe he will arrive at a point of understanding about how blessings are done, and you could apologize then.

Those are some good thoughts. I need to chew on this some more.

From placebo, to self-fulling prophecy, to "it would happen anyway" (I doubt you blessed a lost limb restored).

Each person gets his/her warm fuzzies and/or confirmations from what makes them feel good, which not surprisingly, are the things they've always been around.

Now when somebody statistically can show that mormons are better post-blessing than the standard population, I'll be impressed.

I also "made it all up." I attended JW stuff with a GF for a few years... learned all the buzz words, how to carry myself, so the "witnesses" there thought I was one of them.

So, people thought I was a great mormon, or a (possible) great JW... but it was all an act.

People are easily impressed when they expect or like the outcome.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/25/2010 01:00PM by jpt.