Being Mormon is a learning experience, whether you stick with it or not! (Unfortunately, too much of the experience seems to involve questionable chats with the bishop that parents aren’t always happy about — remember privacy? Of course, the stuff the LDS church teaches girls about their privates, etc. isn’t always pretty.)
Of course there are plenty of other potential learning experiences out there! For example trying out veganism, finding out about Santa, being held prisoner by a crazy person, looking around during the prayer, praying for real things to happen, feeling the Holy Spirit, going to heaven, strange psychic coincidences, software engineering, reading the Deseret Book catalog, or just getting older. Seems you can learn for just about anything, except writing a letter to the the LDS church leaders.
A lot of insight seems to come from contrast in perspectives, such as when atheists meet theists in three acts.
Actually, when it comes to keeping your mind open and ready to learn, Hawkgrrrl has has summarized some pretty excellent advice (from a book on being wrong). In other books, Aerin was pleasantly surprised to find some worthwhile insights in Eat, Pray, Love, and Mormon Heretic found some surprising stories in the Lost Books of the Bible. (Speaking of books, how’d we all do on NaNoWriMo?)
So, there’s some food for thought to go with your Thanksgiving leftovers! đ
p.s. Here’s some more follow-up on the discussion of why young people are leaving the CoJCoL-dS.
My post was more like “crashing and burning on veganism after several years,” but yeah. đ Thanks for including me! Looks like I’ll have some good reading for today.
Chandelle — I found your post (and your whole experience) quite fascinating. I tend to agree with your position that just by living, there’s massive devastation wrought by our simple need to eat. We can absolutely make a huge difference by making good choices, and meat (in general) is far more environmentally costly than eating plants. However, it’s not just a simple “meat=harm, vegetables=harmless.” It’s really not that simple. Your blog is great for capturing the nuances (and joy!) of responsible eating! đ