What’s helped me is to realize that “sad” and “wrong” are different dimensions, and don’t need to be correlated at all.
I grew up in a less-community-intensive church than LDS, and my intellectual beliefs have been purely atheist since my mid-teens. My professed beliefs among some groups of family and community is more agnostic, and I’m very comfortable with others believing things that seem unlikely to me, as long as we can still cooperate in having fun and improving the world (which means I’m not part of groups that demand explicit declarations I don’t believe).
Happiness for most humans does require community and love from other humans. It may or may not require (it doesn’t for me, nor for a lot of people I know, but it could for some) having a strong belief in supernatural meaning. Helping to improve the lived experience of existing and near-future-probable-humans is meaningful and wonderful. Reality is enough.
But don’t sleep on community and personal relationships. These often require compromise and even some unresolved disagreement on things that seem important. From what I can tell, LDS is among the more effective community-building religions, and does seem somewhat accepting of socially-compatible unbelievers.
This is very good. I’d argue that “sadness” and “wrongness” are irreversibly correlated in this context—it’ll always be easier to create joyful illusions like eternal families than it is to face hard truths like inevitable death—but it’s worthwhile to explore options that would decouple them.
I’m a bit nervous about making my beliefs (and lack thereof) public knowledge for now. The Church wouldn’t necessarily ostracize me, but I could be labeled “inactive” (even if I still participate in events like Sunday services) and my family could be the target of unwanted attention as (well-meaning) people try to “fix” me.
I will definitely explore options for social support, though. Thank you for your suggestions.
What’s helped me is to realize that “sad” and “wrong” are different dimensions, and don’t need to be correlated at all.
I grew up in a less-community-intensive church than LDS, and my intellectual beliefs have been purely atheist since my mid-teens. My professed beliefs among some groups of family and community is more agnostic, and I’m very comfortable with others believing things that seem unlikely to me, as long as we can still cooperate in having fun and improving the world (which means I’m not part of groups that demand explicit declarations I don’t believe).
Happiness for most humans does require community and love from other humans. It may or may not require (it doesn’t for me, nor for a lot of people I know, but it could for some) having a strong belief in supernatural meaning. Helping to improve the lived experience of existing and near-future-probable-humans is meaningful and wonderful. Reality is enough.
But don’t sleep on community and personal relationships. These often require compromise and even some unresolved disagreement on things that seem important. From what I can tell, LDS is among the more effective community-building religions, and does seem somewhat accepting of socially-compatible unbelievers.
This is very good. I’d argue that “sadness” and “wrongness” are irreversibly correlated in this context—it’ll always be easier to create joyful illusions like eternal families than it is to face hard truths like inevitable death—but it’s worthwhile to explore options that would decouple them.
I’m a bit nervous about making my beliefs (and lack thereof) public knowledge for now. The Church wouldn’t necessarily ostracize me, but I could be labeled “inactive” (even if I still participate in events like Sunday services) and my family could be the target of unwanted attention as (well-meaning) people try to “fix” me.
I will definitely explore options for social support, though. Thank you for your suggestions.