Hardly getting over it

I saw an LDS friend from long ago, and had an enjoyable catching-up session, talking about work and kids.

“What else are you doing?” she asked.

“Well, still blogging,” I said.

“Oh, what do you blog about?”

“Actually,” I said, “being an ex-Mormon! Among other things.”

She wasn’t put off at all — she asked a few questions about it, and then said, “So, that’s something you’re still interested in?”

My answer is still an enthusiastic yes! I don’t know why. Some people never want to talk about their deconversion at all. And other people initially do, but then they find that they run dry, they’ve said it all, and they ‘get over it’. They ‘move on’. I think there’s even some kind of expectation that ex-Mormons (maybe even ex-whatevers) will eventually ‘get over it’. If you don’t, then you’re stuck in some phase of your development. There you will stay, not progressing, until you no longer feel the need to discuss ‘it’ anymore.

Not me. It’s been over five years, and I’m still here, but I don’t see my development as arrested. It’s become another one of my interests. I still find Mormonism and issues relating to faith and un-faith fascinating. What is it that makes people believe things just because of ‘faith’? How could I have devoted years of my life to something that had no evidentiary basis? Why do we, as humans, have cognitive blind spots that keep us from examining our beliefs critically? Can we be certain that gods don’t exist? This is a fascinating area that involves psychology, philosophy, and the sciences. How could I not be interested? There’s enough here to play around with forever.

There’s another aspect. As a skeptical rationalist and as an educator, I’m against superstition and ignorance, and I intend to challenge it wherever it may appear. That includes religions. They’re still out there indoctrinating children, filling people up with sexual guilt, worming falsehoods into the educational system, and taking a hefty chunk of people’s money for the pleasure. In some cases, their members advocate violence and try to control the choices of people who don’t believe. As long as religions are operating, I want to be hoisting the banner of reason, as quixotic as that sounds.

I think I owe it to myself not to forget what I learned in my experience with religion. That means not putting it in a box and leaving it there. At this stage, I’m very pleased to not be ‘getting over it’, and I hope I never do.