For me, outgrowing Mormonism was really a process of moving from a magic worldview to a view of reality where natural laws govern.
As an LDS missionary in Florida back in the ’90s, I was confronted with “anti-Mormon lies” about Joseph Smith using a peep stone to find hidden objects and buried treasure. But I knew it was slander. Joseph Smith had explained how these rumors got started in his history, and that was good enough for me. It was canonized by the church.
When it came to light that this was all actually true, you might think that it caused a bit of a faith crisis in me. It’s coming out that around 40% of members have stepped away, and one of the biggest reasons for this is a faith crisis caused by troubling parts of church history.
But as I have mentioned before, my shelf was pretty unbreakable. Philosophically, I had decided that things wouldn’t make sense until the next life, when we had all of the facts.
For me, the process of deconstruction was philosophical. There were two worldviews growing up side by side in my mind: one was supernatural, and one was objective. Eventually, they had to battle it out.
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