I'll Go Where You Want Me to Go

[Minyan Man]

Hazy, this sounds like a good start. Now there is the follow through. By that I mean, to develop the friendships to the point where you feel
comfortable talking openly without judgement by either side. I know members in my circle of friends that feel the way your brother does.
My brother & sister have very open discussions. They are not in the church & maybe that is why we are so open.
You described your brother as follows:

...I was planning on discussing it with my brother, until he mentioned that our other brother leaving the church last year was basically his worst nightmare come true.

To me, this is a great opening. My personal response would be: is there anything else you could imagine that's worse?
You can imagine what my list would be.

You can ask the question without being judgmental or argumentative.
IMO, the purpose of this life is to have experiences that we could not experience in our previous life, make inspired choices for ourselves,
live the consequences of those choices, make corrections along the way and answer to Jesus Christ when we're done. The other part of this
is to allow others the same privilege.

To make all this happen, I need friends that I talk to, bounce ideas off of, receive insight & wisdom (that I don't have). I wish that I could say
that prayer does that for me. It usually doesn't. For me, answers to prayer are rare or it comes through conversations with close friends.

[Old-Timer]

Friendship and a sense of belonging is incredibly important to most people. I have found that acceptance is more important than "belief purity" (my own phrase, so if it doesn't work . . . Oh, well. ) When the expectation is to attend a specific congregation, that expectation can cause difficulties if the match is not strong or even healthy.

For a very long time, I have attended more to provide a sense of belonging to people who won't feel it naturally than for education or doctrinal edification. I get a lot out of good, deep discussions at church - but I have had to initiate a decent percent of them over the years. Luckily, others do it in my current ward quite regularly, but that hasn't always been the case.

I recognize not everyone is as comfortable sharing non-traditional thoughts in church as I am, so take that for whatever it is worth to you - without any pressure whatsoever.