This Inspirational Story About a Doubting Mormon is Horrific

[NeoGreen]

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2017/07/20/this-inspirational-story-about-a-doubting-mormon-is-horrific/

This “Inspirational” Story About a Doubting Mormon is Horrific
July 20, 2017 by Hemant Mehta

Last year, the day before Kaydin Alabbas was set to begin his traditional two-year mission for the Mormon Church, he was on vacation with his family in Utah’s Bryce Canyon when he told his family something that had been weighing heavily on his mind: He didn’t want to go.

[Alabbas] informed his family that after a lifetime of planning for a mission, he wouldn’t be serving one. “I told my dad first,” Alabbas said during a telephone interview… “We went for a walk and I said I definitely was not going to serve. He was disappointed, of course, and told me I would have to tell my mom myself.”

So he told his mom. And how did she react?

When the tense moments blew away, his mother walked to the family van, opened the door, removed her son’s suitcases, set them on the ground, and invited her husband and two younger children to load up. In a matter of seconds, they were gone.

Dumbstruck, Alabbas stood alone at the campsite.

I asked Alabbas what was going through his mind that night. “I’ve just been left at Bryce Canyon… By my own family!”

Seriously. They just left him there. Because he was having doubts about his faith and he wasn’t sure he wanted to dedicate the next two years of his life to something he wasn’t fully committed to.

Alabbas walked to a gas station and called his grandparents. Since they couldn’t pick him up until the next morning, the people who ran the gas station were kind enough to give him a place to stay.

Here’s the messed up part of all this.

This isn’t a story about the trauma some people have to deal with because they tell their religious parents they no longer believe in the faith.

It’s supposed to be an inspirational story about Mormonism. Really. In fact, when reporter Jason F. Wright published it yesterday, here’s how he portrayed Alabbas’ reaction to his family deserting him:

I asked Alabbas what was going through his mind that night. “I’ve just been left at Bryce Canyon,” he laughed. “By my own family!”

He laughed! It’s so funny!