Have you ever wondered what it would be like to have your foundation for determining right and wrong crumble? Or, perhaps that has happened? What would you do in a case like that? How would you make decisions? Do you think you’d become someone completely different? 

As someone who grew up in a religious home and believed the religion she’d been taught, I gained a lot of my foundation for understanding right and wrong from the LDS church. Right equaled God’s way, and so, I needed to understand what that was. I wanted to be good. I wanted to do what was right. I am not naturally rebellious, so I figured that understanding the Gospel as taught by the LDS church was the best way for me to become someone I could be proud of. It was my compass and instruction manual. 

For years I didn’t have to struggle that hard to figure out what was right and what was wrong. I just had to learn what the LDS church said and see how to apply it in my own life. I liked this. It made things pretty easy. Sure, there were some things that confused me a little, but I could find ways to make sense of them. When there seemed to be an issue, I often came to the conclusion that the fault was with the people, not the Gospel. The Gospel had been misunderstood, we (the people) didn’t have all the details yet, or we just couldn’t understand everything and weren’t meant to. 

The Gospel as taught by the LDS church was pretty much my foundation for how to think and reason through things. 

But, my faith crisis made me lose that. 

Even as I started losing faith in the LDS church, I feared what it would mean for me. How would I still be good? Was “good” really what I was taught growing up? How could I know? 

For the first time, I was really left to think for myself. That was daunting. 

My entire life I’d been taught to rely on others (who were supposed to be speaking for God, like the prophets) for how to determine good and bad. I thought I had been relying on God, but now I can’t help but see how much my faith was being asked to be put in men. After all, it was men who wrote the scriptures. Even if they claim to be given revelation by God, that is something they claimed. The prophets I’ve been told to believe in are all men, not God himself. I’m asked to trust that they are speaking for and have spoken for God and that what they say is really what God says. And, honestly, I really wanted to trust what prophets said. It was easier, but that no longer felt honest or smart. I felt like I had been misguided by doing this.

I think I may have been asking the wrong question. For all I know, there might not really be a right and wrong— at least like I was taught there was. Suddenly I realized that trying to determine right from wrong might not even be the right place to start. I don’t know if right and wrong are absolute, but there are consequences (good and bad) for everything we do. 

Understanding that there are natural consequences for things helped me have something to use to measure how I felt about an action and how to make decisions. I found myself thinking about how we can’t often control the consequences we will have to face, but we can learn what they are likely to be. I still want to be a kind, loving person that adds positivity and light to the world. That didn’t change when I had a faith crisis. So, even though I lost being told what is ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ I’ve still been able to see what things accomplish this goal and what don’t. 

Another thing I found myself thinking about is how we are the ones who have to live with the consequences for our decisions. For example, if I take drugs, I’m the one who has to deal with what it does to my body. If I yell at someone, I’m the one who has to deal with how they react. If I don’t eat right, I’m the one who has to live with what that does to me. This isn’t anything new (I’d believed in natural consequences while being religious), but now that I have to face that possibility that this life could be it, I can’t help but find myself thinking differently about what this means. Instead of having my focus on ‘eternal consequences’ and ‘rewards’ I can focus on now and how to make my life better right now, during this life. 

I may not have an existence after this life, and even if I do, who is to say it will make up for any of the bad that happens now? Do I want to put off my happiness for the chance of future happiness? I know that this can feel like a sinful, dangerous mindset for someone who believes in a God. It certainly felt that way for me when I believed. But, now I can’t help but wonder if I was taught to fear thinking that way and thus encouraged to put up with frustrating things in my life instead of question them, because it would be worth it later. 

I believe that those who taught me to be wary of the mindset “eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die”, genuinely believed what they shared was truthful and best, but that doesn’t mean that it is the truth. I still believe I should think about the future consequences that there are for making a decision. In that sense I want to be cautious of how I seek happiness, but I don’t see merit in someone putting up with something that makes them miserable now because they’ve been told it will pay off later (for example, someone who is gay living alone forever and feeling miserable because of it). If God does exist and is really as loving as I’ve been told, would He even want that for someone? I’d like to think He wouldn’t, but that may just be wishful thinking. 

Anyway, perhaps I am getting a bit long winded. I guess my main point for what I was just saying is that I now think of consequences as pertaining more so to this life (the one thing I feel is guaranteed) instead of viewing them with the lens of a next life and what I’ve been told that is supposed to have. 

One last thought that I had is that there are people in our lives who will be affected by what we do. For example, a husband who quits his job and is the breadwinner of the family forces his family to live with that decision as well. It changes their lives too. I believe that the effect that I can have on others is something I want to take into consideration as I make decisions. 

So, going back to what I first asked, what was it like to have my foundation for determining right and wrong crumble? At first it was confusing, scary, and hard. But, I’ve learned to live with it and do not feel worse off because of it. I feel more free to think for myself and make sense of the world around me. 

How did I respond to losing the way I used to determine right and wrong? As I said, I ended up even questioning if claiming something was ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ was the correct question to ask. I had to realize that that may be a man-made concept. I then had to strive to build a new foundation on which I could base my decisions. Which leads me to the next question: how do I make decisions? I partly do this by considering the consequences of my actions. Personally, I also like to live my life by being empathetic and considering the effect that my actions will have on others. I still consider what I was taught as I grew up, but I don’t just use that to make my  decisions. 

Lastly, did I become someone completely different like I feared? I think that at my core, I am the same. I still have the same desire to be good. I didn’t lose that part of myself. I became different in how I look at life, and I had to adjust how I navigate it a little. But, I believe that the most important part of me stayed the same. I’d hope that others could see that as well.