TBMs, anti-Mormons and beliefs

Sometimes I really laugh at how Google connects people to my blog. Most of the people that end up here are Mormon in one form or another. One particular search that cracks me up a bit is when people will search things like “anti-Mormon” or like today “anti-LDS blogs”. They end up on my blog because of a pretty unremarkable post that I titled “That’s right folks my blog is ‘anti-Mormon’lit”.

More often than not “anti-Mormon” is a cultural label that believing Mormons slap onto apostates, heretics or anyone that says anything critical of the church at all. Many of the people that end up getting labeled anti-Mormon really and truly aren't... Many blogs that would be considered "anti-Mormon" will NEVER show up on a google search because most people writing such things don't view themselves that way so the word "anti-Mormon" will not link to their blog. 

I personally really hate the term anti-Mormon because whenever it has been applied to me it hurt and it did not fit. Just because I left the church does not mean that I hate it (most of the time). Just because I left the church does not mean that I don't see good and valuable things in the church. Yet that is what the term anti-Mormon seems to indicate... 

One of the problems with religious belief in general, not just Mormon religious belief, is what Dawkins hits on in The God Delusion. Religious belief is not up for questioning. It is not something that you can comment on or talk about without someone getting upset. They often get upset even when you were not hostile or targeting people. Simply by targeting ideas or targeting beliefs and being critical of those, people assume that you are angry, “negative” or attacking them personally. Perceived personal attacks often elicit personal attacks in return. Thus discussing the religion in mixed groups of belief levels almost always results in someone feeling hurt.

I remember that mentality. When I believed anything negative said about the church felt like an attack on me myself. It happens because those beliefs become such a integral part of your idea of yourself. You are the church. The church is you. Saying something critical about the church felt like someone saying something critical about you. When I remember that I can feel a bit better about the actions and reactions of people on forums. (I also have to remind myself that often those that have left the church probably fuel those conversations too because after leaving belief behind we still retain a need sometimes to “set the record straight” and testify of our new found truths and ideas… We are all, both sides, a little overzealous at times and that is unfortunate.)

I sometimes feel that the ex/post/uncorrelated Mormon’s equivalent comeback when being confronted with the word “anti-Mormon” is to refer to someone as a TBM (true believing Mormon). I have used the phrase TBM for quite awhile and never thought anything of it. To me it expressed a person’s belief level, but over the months and years I have started to see that it could be an insulting word. People have pointed out that TBM seems to imply blind belief.

Much of the research I have very casually read seems to indicate that we don’t choose our beliefs. The most fervent believer did not choose to be that way. On the flip-side of that many an ex-Mormon describes their unbelief as being a "loss of belief" NOT as a deliberate action or goal, but more as a process of uncovering truths that drove their belief out. Belief in the Mo-world seem to be more of a result of what information you did or did not get or how well you fit into the prescribed Mormon mold. The mold is true if you fit it, if you don't fit it you end up searching a bit and often find a new mold...

Belief or lack thereof seems to more or less result from experiences and environment. Not to say that we can’t control those things to one degree or another. We choose what books we read. We choose to go or not go to church and all of those things are things that are going to expose us to things that influence our beliefs. 

Some battles between TBM and anti-Mormons really just start to feel circular afterawhile and could really, no matter what the topic of discussion starts out being, comes down to an argument of "I believe" vs. "I don't believe". That is not really a discussion at all. 

In some ways it is starting to seem strange to me to argue with each other especially if research shows that we don’t really directly control our own beliefs at all. Why the need to defend positions that we ultimately did not choose or did not earn? Most of us, our faith or lack thereof just sort of happened to us and we are left to deal with it and sort it out on our own. 

I feel a need to embrace my Unitarian beliefs a little bit more and leave behind this TBM vs. anti-Mormon battle. I need to prioritize people over their beliefs (and over my beliefs) and try and see the good and positive in them as a person whether I agree with them or not. I lament that our brain likes labels so much. Often the moment we place a label on someone else or even when we label ourselves it means we have already decided a whole host of things about that person that may or may not be true... I don’t have to agree with their beliefs, but I should strive to understand and love the person.