The Mormonism I grew up in was polytheistic, which is not a well-known fact. That makes the Mormon Father God a local (in the mathematical sense of local) deity who has a parent, and makes any human and Jesus into siblings. I think they’re trying to de-emphasize this now to get converts, but it still shows up in their hymns and other older materials.
I didn’t so much leave Mormonism as take the natural slide into polytheistic Paganism, with plenty of input from Humanism and atheism along the way.
Now I would say that anything stated dogmatically is a lie. People expect you to “believe in something” in great detail, but there’s always a chance that subjective religious experiences are just all in our heads. And most of them must be, in any case.
But this isn’t agnosticism about the God of Nicene Christianity, which I’ve never believed in. So to such a Christian asking if I “believe in God” my answer must be no. I don’t have a belief in any omnipotent deity.
The rest of my position generally falls under the Pagan umbrella, without my being willing to insist spiritual metaphors are necessarily facts. My working metaphors vary but are generally Heathen, Chaote or Wiccan. I still have a belief in ancestors, which actually is also in Mormonism, but I’m not going to be dogmatic about what that “really is.”
I like what TST is doing - a lot - their core people are all atheists and de facto Humanists. The larger community just outside includes people I want to describe as Gnostics and LHP Pagans. I find this community very congenial.
