Confused Pros and Cons

Tonight I am feeling so incredibly confused. I start to feel like I have the whole religion thing figured out and then I'll hear something or a thought will come to me and suddenly my whole paradigm shifts again.  As I earnestly prayed tonight, I felt inspired to make a list outlining how I truly feel about Mormonism. I need to sort out my muddled thoughts. How can I listen to the Spirit of God and recognize truth when my mind is swimming with 1000 different ideas? So, because I don't have a pensive like Prof. Dumbledore, I'm turning to Blogger to clear my head.

Pros:
- It is how I was raised. My brain thinks in Mormon-ese.
- My entire family is Mormon. Leaving Mormonism would be a huge disappointment to all of them and could lead to strained relationships. Is a religion worth losing relationships? Is it better to fake it til you make it?
- I like the community that Mormonism provides.
- I have had spiritual experiences. I always put a lot of stock in these experiences, but now I don't know if they're reliable or not.
- Book of Mormon is complicated and interesting.
- Church teaches good morals.
- It is a religion where you don't have to think. They have an answer to everything. Comforting to believe that there are real answers.
- If it is true, I would be a fool to leave it. (But how do you figure out if it's true?!)


Cons:
- Joseph Smith's treasure digging bugs me
- I don't like that a seer stone was the method for the translation of the BOM
- I don't like that I'm required to wear Masonic symbols that are like magic talismans of protection.
- I don't like wearing garments. I think they're unattractive and uncomfortable.
- I feel like the temple is extremely Masonic and I struggle believing that it holds the power it professes to have.
- I don't like the way the bureaucracy of the church is run. It feels more like a corporation and it seems like a limited amount of money goes to humanitarian work.
- I feel confused about the LGBT issues.
- I abhor polygamy. Brigham Young said that polygamy was required to be in the highest level of the Celestial kingdom and that makes me not want to go to there.
- I hadn't realized how largely polygamy defined the foundational organization of the church. I always thought it was a weird, temporary episode but it was an enormous part of our history.
- I feel like Joseph Smith's treatment of Emma (marrying other women without her consent and then remarrying them after she finally gave her approval) was deceitful and disgusting.
- Tithing
- I don't feel the same respect and awe for the current prophet that I have felt in the past. I look at him as someone trying to run a religion, not as a person who talks with God.
- I don't like the sexual shaming that the church puts on people, especially youth. I worry about my children and the way they might be affected by overemphasis on sexual morality.
- I don't want my children to be taught things that I don't know are true.
- I don't want my children being interviewed by men in private.
- I don't like the authority given to bishops and stake presidents. I feel like there is insufficient training for the significance of the the position of trust they obtain.
- I'm afraid to rely on feelings alone. (I watched a video on the Heaven's Gate Cult mass suicide and it terrified me. Those people claimed to have received spiritual confirmation of the truthfulness of their beliefs and were so convinced that it was true that 39 of them committed suicide. The scary thing is, I know many Mormons who would not hesitate to take their own lives if the prophet came to them and told them it was God's will. I am terrified to let one person have that kind of psychological power over me and my family. Maybe that makes me spiritually weak, but it is a major fear nonetheless.)
- The similarities between the BOM and several other 19th century works is significant.
- The BOM expresses a very similar theory about the origin of the mound builders to what was common at the time it was written.
- When Christ was on the Earth, He freely displayed His power by healing and blessing any who sought him. Why would the same God who was so transparent on Earth go to such great lengths to hide His identity with the gold plates?
- I don't like how the doctrines of the church (and even the temple ceremonies) have changed so much since the church began. If Joseph restored all things, shouldn't it have been right the first time?