The Planetarium

For every birthday that comes along in our family, we try to do something special. This past week my husband not only celebrated his birthday, but Father's Day followed shortly after. We decided to head down to the Indianapolis Children's Museum, as it was the request of our two daughters and their father loves them enough to give up his fishing plans.

The Indianapolis Children's Museum is huge. It has 5 floors of exhibits, which could fill 2-3 days full of learning fun. It has a working antique carousel, paleontologists on hand, a theater, a library, and a planetarium. It is absolutely awesome.

My girls recognized the building, even though it's been over a year since we had visited. They kept thanking us for bringing them to the museum and became giggly as we parked the car. They skipped across the bridge into the museum, and waited anxiously in the line to get in.

They posed for a few pictures for me, as the museum had an awesome display of famous paintings made with Jelly Bellies, that I just had to capture.

When we headed down to the Dinosphere to check out the dinosaur exhibit, we passed a Super Croc skeleton. A museum employee had a table set up for the children to see and touch the Super Croc's teeth. The museum employee asked the girls where their teeth are, my girls obliged, opening their mouths for the lady to see.

The employee asked Kate if any of her teeth were loose yet, and Kate said no. The employee then told Kate to keep her teeth when they fall out, as she could put them under her pillow for the tooth fairy to collect in exchange for money. Without missing a beat, Kate looked quizzically at the adult woman in front of her and said, "The tooth fairy isn't real." I know that surprised the employee, as Kate is of the age to believe in things like that. But Kate has no reason to, as I have never lied to her.

When they had a choice between going to the Science exhibit or going to the Barbie exhibit, they chose Science. They love dolls, they love to play, but when given the choice, they wanted to experiment, they wanted to learn. And that made me so proud.

Towards the end of our visit we decided to watch the last showing of "Wonders of the Universe", which goes from the beginning of time to present day in regards to the Universe. It uses images captured by the Hubble telescope, and is full of scientific explanations.

In the introduction, the narrator said that watching this show was akin to 'being able to see through the eyes of god'. I chuckled a little because it caught me a little off guard and I almost felt like the science behind it was being apologetic to the potential religious folks in the audience.  Like they had to say something ignorant in order to help the devout religious folks retain interest in the rest of the show.

My girls watched in awe as we saw groups of stars, suns and planets, galaxies and the Milky Way, right up through our Solar System. I was a proud momma, besides a few requests for a drink, my preschoolers watched and asked really good questions throughout.

As we were leaving the planetarium, my girls were bustling about with curiosities and questions. That is when the lady exiting in front of us opened her mouth and loudly stated, "That was all based on that no good Big Bang Theory. We all know that God Jesus created everything." Granted, I am sure she directed that ignorant statement towards the 10 year old boy she was with, but my children overheard it, as did everyone within 100 feet of her, which I believe was her intention.

It wasn't difficult for me to keep my mouth shut. I don't like confrontation, and that lady is free to believe whatever she wants to believe. It kinda saddened me that she was forcing that kind of ignorance onto her 10 year old companion, but it's a free country and not up to me to correct her. What I was able to do was pull aside my own freethinking children and start a little discussion on why that lady said those things.

My girls understand that some people believe in a god, some people believe in gods and goddesses, some people believe in Santa, some people believe in a heaven and some people believe in a devil. They know that I don't.

I don't correct them when they do decide to believe in things that I don't believe in, but they tend to change their mind about what is real and what isn't, as they are still only 4 and 5 years old. Which is fine. I am an atheist, they are not. They are too young to be able to know what they believe in. They are still sketchy about dragons and unicorns, how could they possibly know whether or not there is a divine power that controls us all and decides whether we all live and die? Or whether or not there is life after our bodies stop working?

But as long as I am able to teach them that science can prove many things, but not all (at least not yet), I know I am doing a good job raising my freethinkers.

Picture: The dinosaurs in front of the Indianapolis Children's Museum, trying to break in through the roof.

Losing my Religion

I have thought about my journey many times over the past few months. I have been trying to figure out where or how to start telling my story of loss. Many people say that people don't really ever truly believe in religion. They are tied to the traditions, pressured by the testimonies of their families and ofttimes their duality just gets the best of them.

I would hate to admit that I was ever gullible enough to ever believe in the pure crap the Mormon religion piles on you, but I am afraid to say I must admit I was.

It didn't help that the grandparents that I lived with until I was 12 were Mormon. It didn't help that all my cousins growing up were Mormon. All 52 of them, some through marriage. My 7 Aunts and 7 Uncles on my mothers side were Mormon and both my parents were Mormon.

It didn't help that I went to church almost every Sunday until I was 20. I went to Seminary every weekday from 6am- 6:50am, from my Freshman year in high school until Senior year. I went to Mutual every Wednesday night for a few hours. Went to Saturday morning service projects for a few hours each week, went to Sacrament Meeting and Sunday School for 3 hours every Sunday and Firesides Sunday nights for up to 3 hours.

In college I traded Seminary and Mutual for Tuesday and Thursday night classes at the LDS Institute of Religion. By which they just mean their religion.

I was a devout Mormon all through high school. I believed. I testified. I passed out Books of Mormon to my unsuspecting friends and fellow band members. I mocked people for not being righteous and I lectured my friends on their potty mouths. I was a pain.

How could I not believe? To hear the same thing over and over as fact. To hear adults testify to their truth. To be told that anything other than what the church writes about the church is Anti-Mormon Propaganda. It was difficult to be a doubter when surrounded by family, friends and leaders who were there at a moments notice to tell you that the devil was making you doubt.

But even with all that 'support', with all the indoctrination and peer pressure, my cognitive dissonance won out in the end.

My doubting began when my high school boyfriend broke my heart. I hadn't kept morally clean while dating him over the course of a year and a half. When he dumped me the summer after our first year at college, I was shattered. I dropped weight and chopped off my hair.

I went into the bishop to repent of my sins. He couldn't see me at church, so he asked that I come to his home. He was cold and preoccupied, even though I had made an appointment. He told me that I could never see my ex-boyfriend again, that I couldn't take the sacrament and that he needed to speak with me every Sunday for at least 3 months.

I called his clerk that week and set an appointment for the following Sunday. Sunday came, I skipped partaking of the sacrament and headed to the bishops office after the meetings and classes were done. He told me that he couldn't meet with me that Sunday, and that he would see me the following Sunday. So I went to the clerk and made another appointment.

The next Sunday came. I didn't partake of the sacrament and waited after church to talk with the bishop. I was doing really well on my path to forgiveness. I had started dating a Mormon guy and he was prepping to leave on his Mission to Galveston, Tx. I was reading my scriptures and praying daily. I even started writing poetry to deal with my pain and guilt. I was disappointed when the bishop blew me off again.

After 4 Sundays of being ignored by the bishop, I started sinning again. Not as bad as before, but still sinning. I didn't feel that my progress was being supported the way the bishop told me it would be. The 5th Sunday of not partaking of the sacrament, my mother noticed. When the bread and water (body and blood) are being passed, the chapel is silent. My mother took that opportunity to loudly whisper "You're not a virgin anymore are you?" after her face had contorted in disgust when she noticed I hadn't taken the bread. I just stared blankly at her. I was 19, felt it was none of her business, and I had no clue how to handle her. So I kept staring blankly. She stood up, grabbed her purse and scriptures and left. Yup, she left me and my brothers at church with no ride home.

It didn't surprise me. She had kicked me out of the house for being 5 minutes late for curfew. Then 5 days later asked me to move back in because my younger brothers missed me. When I had turned to her for comfort when my boyfriend of 18 months dumped me, she said, "Well, now you can date a nice Mormon boy.", then went to bed. No hug or comfort. And now she was punishing my brothers for my personal decision.

Walking home from church that Sunday, I started to realize how much perfection was expected in Mormonism. God made us with imperfections, why would He punish us for them? He made us with the ability to rationalize and think, why would He punish us for using said abilities? By the time my brothers and I got home, my testimony was shattered. My mother never comforted me or supported me through trials, pain and tribulations. Her love felt conditional. The bishop, who was supposed to be there to mind God's flock had totally ignored me for over a 1/3 of my repentance process. My mother and father were divorced at the time, so my father was absent and distant.

How could a God that loved His creations, His children, be absent as well? I felt ashamed for doubting God's love. But that walk home, with only my own reasoning in my head started a snowball that would continue to roll until 10 years later, when I walked away from Mormonism, then finally Theism altogether.

I attended church from that point on with my closest friend. We went to a singles ward. We stayed for sacrament meeting (which I never partook of the bread and water), then left to break the Sabbath by eating at a local restaurant called Islands. It became our tradition. It was honestly the only reason why I went to church for the next year, to hang out with her, talking about life and sharing some of the best hamburgers around.

Then my mother kicked me out for being an evil spirit and bad influence on my brothers and I moved to Georgia.

(The picture is my mother and I outside church one random Sunday in the mid-late 80's.)