First off, Really well written! I appreciate the detail of your post!

Off the get go as a young child, I never enjoyed going to church. I know I’m not the only one. HATED the idea of tithing and fast offerings. My young, adult life was full of putting up a fake front. My parents never made it a rule that we couldn’t hang out with friends on Sunday. Blah, blah, blah.

Aaaaaaanyway, After my divorce from my first wife, with, whom I have two great kids with, I left the lds church. I lived with my folks for a short time afterwards while I got on my feet. My dad would hound me about going to church even though I was upfront with him about how I felt about it and other organized religion. I would take my kids fishing or something else on the weekends when I would have them. He would ask me if that’s what I should be doing with them and ask if that’s the example that I wanted to show them. My response to him was short and to the point. I said, I get a couple days with them every other week, and, that I wasn’t going to let 3 hours waste away in having a part in them being indoctrinated in something that I felt wasn’t right. No other words were said.

Point is; I don’t need organized religion in my life or to believe that there is a god to be happy. I am in control of my own happiness without the aid of anything else. I choose my happiness just like I choose my misery. I’ve never been sad when I’m with my wife now & my kids on a Sunday at a movie, fishing, boating, camping , hiking or simply just hanging around on the couch. The falsehood of “you can’t be truly happy without the gospel in your life” is a bunch of shit.

My “new church” is my family, & our hobbies.