Road to Apostasy/Inactivity?
 

I have very few friends or acquaintances that have fallen away from the Church and are self proclaimed apostates. Interesting to me, the majority first broke their covenants and then began to recognize the fallacies of the Church or its leaders and eventually fell away or turned away from the Church. I believe one can break their covenants yet still have no doubt the Church is true

For those of you willing to share that consider yourselves apostates, inactives, or on your way there, what came first, the breaking of covenants or your doubts about the Church?

This follows the belief, that apostates are bad, sinful people and thus adherents are good, sinless persons. It's a nice bedtime story but isn't true. I'm not an apostate.

The problem with your question is that you assume that these are discrete events, i.e. there's a specific point where you break your covenants, a specific point where you suddenly turn apostate, etc. In people I've known, both events tend to occur slowly over a long period of time. Occasionally, even often, they occur simultaneously, which shouldn't be all that surprising--if you're starting to see your covenants as sort of silly or meaningless, you're certainly more willing to break them. I think the typical Mormon sees this as a copout in that people screw up and then retroactively try to rationalize it, but IMO, that rarely happens.

I also know plenty of people who are very good people and have "apostasized". I guess I don't know them well enough to say that they didn't "break their covenants", but there's nothing to suggest that they did.

I'm inactive. The only "covenants" I have broken is the WOW and that came after being inactive for several years. I started drinking coffee for the health benefits. Diabetes and colon cancer are risk factors in my family and studies had shown that there was a lower incidence in coffee drinkers. I also wanted to replace my gallon of day Coca-cola habit with something with less calories and cheaper. Water wasn't an option. :)

I should also say that since my covenants were made under duress, I don't consider them valid.

Rarely? Based on experience........very, very common. But you know best.

Why can't you just respect your friends' personal beliefs and choices? Does it surprise you that the overwhelming majority of educated people when confronted with claims of angels and Christ appearing in shafts of light dismiss it as myth or fabrication? Does it surprise you that Mormon culture seems, well, banal if not farsical and sacarin, to most people not raised in it? Check out the threads here that discuss sacrament meetings. Seems to me most Mormons capable of critical thought roundly dislike LDS meetings with really rare exceptions (the consensus seems to be maybe 2-3 sacrament meetings a year are not a total waste of time).

Most people who aren't in Mormonism's thrall also don't see anything wrong with a glass of wine or intercourse between unmarried consenting adults. This facile conclusion--"they didn't want to keep the covenants so they invented a brief against Mormonism"--assumes Mormonism has a lot more going for it on the merits than it does and that anyone who opts out of the ultra-conservative Mormon way of life is immoral. It's a parochial and self-deluded view.

By the way, I'd never tasted alcohol or had extra-marital sex when I announced my apostasy as a college student.

LOL. I can envision this announcement as having been made with a few college chums at a crappy bar on SLC's west side, and while it led to the elimination of the first barrier, I'm sure it was no help whatsoever with the second.

I picture it more like a Signing Day announcement.

SU holds a press conference at the Hunstman Center. Media and students flock in attendance.

SU comes out and there are 2 hats on the table, indicating his final two choices. After a strategic bit of silence, SU eschews the zephyr "RULDS2?" cap and puts on the mesh John Deere trucker cap, indicating his full commitment to alcohol and sex.

SU takes a few minutes to walk the press through the usual cliches.....

1. I have done all I can here at the U. I feel like I am ready to take my apostasy skills to the next level.
2. I need to consider my family. By chosing apostasy, I will be able to feed my wife and kids with an instant 10% more income a year, not even counting generous fast offerings.
3. It has always been a dream of mine to be apostate at the highest level. Even as a kid, I had posters of Ed Decker on my wall and I knew that if I was lazy enough, I could make my dream come true.

The press conference disperses, with lots of excited Ute coeds rushing to buy condoms at the U pharmacy next to the Pie Pizzeria.

If you knew my family you would realize how funny this is. There was a time when I felt like every major life decision had to be attended with such a formal announcement and fanfare. Often controversy that seemed like meat for talking head shows. Big Mormon families can be oppressive, can't they.