Internal Apologist

[Linked]

There are lots of issues with the church and the leadership and the teachings. For the first 30 years of my life I had an internal apologist to adjust my thinking about the issues. The internal apologist made bad things be for good reasons and really bad things someone else's fault. Then my shelf broke and the internal apologist disappeared and suddenly the issues were shocking and disturbing.

[blazerb]

Absolutely! There was always this voice telling me that this had to be ok. There had to be answers for the dysfunction that I saw around me. It was the young woman who made it know that when someone reports a rape at BYU, the Honor Code Office starts an investigation into the victim's life that made my internal apologist say, "Peace Out!"

I will add that all the questions and all the doubts were suddenly resolved. The struggles went away when I allowed myself to realize that the church was not "true." What a relief.

[alas]

When you are bludgeoned from childhood with the idea that any disagreement is because you are sinful/lazy/don’t understand, then your mind will go to great lengths to agree because you want to be good.

[Linked]

Absolutely! There was always this voice telling me that this had to be ok. There had to be answers for the dysfunction that I saw around me. It was the young woman who made it know that when someone reports a rape at BYU, the Honor Code Office starts an investigation into the victim's life that made my internal apologist say, "Peace Out!"

I will add that all the questions and all the doubts were suddenly resolved. The struggles went away when I allowed myself to realize that the church was not "true." What a relief.

Yeah, once the internal apologist is gone there's suddenly no more mental gymnastics needed to hold it all together. And it's like seeing everything for the first time again.

When you are bludgeoned from childhood with the idea that any disagreement is because you are sinful/lazy/don’t understand, then your mind will go to great lengths to agree because you want to be good.

Totally. It's interesting that just letting go of the ideas you are adhering to eliminates the badness. But that's much easier said than done.