My frustration from conversations with my family over Thanksgiving have finally manifested in a coherent idea that doubles as a personal revelation about the process I went through when I left the church.  This idea, to me, was the shattering of so many illusions, it also remains the most frustrating aspect to deal with whenever religion comes up with my family. This “revelation” was that the church, Joseph Smith, the Book of Mormon, none of this was the exception. It was the rule.

                I study people; groups actually. How various organizations act with each other and compete is fascinating to me, if those organizations have armies and control large amounts of land, even better. I used to go to BYU-Idaho and was effectively able to compartmentalize my study of people and politics with the church. They didn’t overlay. I saw no inconsistencies with my personal faith and my ideas that Iran should become more secular. I had vague musing about how Jesus Christ would bring about political change during the second coming, but I assumed it would be brilliant and spectacular and not at all like a middle-eastern warlord who finally has the personal power to bring about his political goals.

                Despite my, admittedly limited, education, I believed that the church was the exception. I “knew” that Joseph Smith had seen God, despite the fact that another man with a similar history in a more modern setting would simply have been a crazy. The claims of “modern day prophets” were treated as holy statements from a loving heavenly father, whereas the claims of Shoko Asahara (founder of Aum Shinriko) were simply the ravings of a deluded man who wanted power. All of my faith unraveled in an instant when I realized that there are no exceptions, there is only what is. The LDS church is not the exception to the rule, it IS the rule.

                The personal revelation is unfortunately borne of recent frustrations with my family. When I made the foolish decision to comment that statements like “war on the family” are misnomers, I opened up the doors of my mother’s worst societal fears.  My accumulated knowledge of facts were useless and simply maddening in this sense. She became emotion and I become emotion. Nothing was solved, we simply got very frustrated with each other. When I looked back as to why that entire situation had gone so poor I realized the aforementioned personal revelation. I will not be able to make any progress with any individual in the church until they realize that the church is governed by the same psychology as everyone else. (I also am unlikely to make progress with my family if they feel threatened by me as they obviously do, but that’s a discussion for another time.)