My name is Brian!

When in my early 30s I began to wonder about the nature of suffering and the role of prayer. Suffering seems to abound in an intensity, frequency and distribution which did not align with the idea of a compassionate, loving deity. Why would god help me drive safely in a snowstorm, but not help a terrified mother while her children are murdered in front of her before she is gang raped, like many women are in Africa? A local story in the news was of a child that was raped and buried alive. A tsunami in Indonesia killed 250,000 people.

Nature is clearly indifferent to suffering. Was god indifferent, too?

Those horrific events left me to question the existence of god. I understood basics of geology, astronomy and physics to a degree which left the possibility of a naturally occurring universe without the need of a creator. I prayed. I went to the temple and prayed. I prayed in the car, I prayed at my bedside. I prayed for years feeling that after 30 years of compliance I had demonstrated my willingness to obey the truth. I prayed with all the faith I could muster, with a sincere desire to believe and follow, knowing I had excercized my faith first.

Having a son of my own I understood that a loving father would not ignore a child’s sincere requests. A loving father would at least tell a son that his question was heard, even if the son wasn’t ready for the answer.

No answer came. Why? I had committed no major sins. Never smoked, never touched drugs or alcohol. I read scriptures and prayed and served. I felt worthy of my temple recommend. I had as much faith as I knew how to have.

I was bothered that it was so hard to tell the difference between “the spirit” and my own thoughts. Whatever answer came from god had to be clearer than my own muddy imagination. The answer would have to be better than a mind-game, which humans are very prone to. I sought the counsel of my bishop. While we spoke I realized that all his advice depended solely on mind games! The arguments were either anecdotal, or simply an appeal to ignore the problems and just keep believing.

Realizing that Thor, Odin, Osiris, Zeus and ten thousand other gods were human constructs who had fervent and committed followers, I realized that the reason I was getting no answers is because the deity of my youth was almost certainly just another man-made tall tale. This explained the unanswered prayers, why people suffer disproportionately, why creationists get tripped up over science. The god of the Bible was a myth.

I’m done with superstition. God, astrology, tea-leaf reading – it’s all the same to me. Pass.

The fallout in my personal life has been one of heartache, struggle, and personal satisfaction with my own integrity and a profound awe at the majesty of life and the universe.

Once free of my presuppositions, I was able to give an objective look at the church. When I discovered the whitewashed history, doctrinal changes and outright deception I was absolutely crushed. I had been fooled, and badly. The church’s contradictions and hypocrisy are starkly apparent to an objective observer. They asked me to be honest in all my dealings, and they hadn’t even come CLOSE to holding themselves to the same standard toward their loyal members. The leaps you have to make to swallow dozens of problematic, foundational issues are only acceptable to someone willing to fool himself. It’s one thing to believe in something which can’t be proven; quite another to believe in something which can be disproved.

I’m a more complete person and I’m living a life of reality and compassion – not because I’m compelled, but because I choose to. As my late grandfather would say, “I’m good for nothin’.”