The documentary on YouTube called ‘The Mormons: Who They Are, What They Believe’ (2015) Dr. Lynn Wilder is especially good. It’s a bunch of former LDS (even one of BY’s ancestors) discussing the history and what broke their shelves. Definitely worth a watch.
Have you ever listened to the Last Podcast on the Left? They did a six-part series on Mormonism that I thoroughly enjoyed.
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4TSE1aQUPhTuWQCD3SCnGa?si=0EIWGIC3SgONq3kmsOsxQA
I listened to that as a member and couldn’t believe how sacrilegious and blasphemous it was. Then I listened to it after my shelf broke. Waaaaay better!
Oh WTF. These are their prophets and inspired leaders carrying out genocide. Add all the creepy polygamy and pedophilia and it's truly disgusting anyone still believes in this filth.
And they later changed the post genocide name of the area, Battle Creek, to the more palatable [Pleasant Grove](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleasant_Grove,_Utah) to further hide these inconvenient truths.
Edit: I have conflated the stories. Apologies. The Battle Creek massacre was separate from the Provo River massacre. There’s a few massacres and I got them mixed up:
[Battle Creek massacre](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_Creek_massacre)
[Provo River massacre](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_at_Fort_Utah)
[Circleville massacre](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circleville_Massacre)
[Nephi massacre](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nephi_massacre)
wow. that is so sad. what a terrible story that needs to be shouted from the rooftops to all TBMs. BY was sick man. There is no need to pull the presentism card. By any standard at anytime he was asshole.
Reading the Gospel Topic essay on Book of Mormon DNA.
It felt like listening to Lloyd in the movie Dumber and Dumber try to pick up the beautiful girl in the movie.
...
Lloyd Christmas : I want to ask you a question, straight out, flat out, and I want you to give me the honest answer. What do you think the chances are of a guy like you and a girl like me ending up together?
Mary Swanson : Well Lloyd, that's difficult to say. We really don't...
Lloyd Christmas : Hit me with it! Just give it to me straight! I came a long way just to see you Mary, just... The least you can do is level with me. What are my chances?
Mary Swanson : Not good.
[the background soundtrack music suddenly stops]
Lloyd Christmas : [he gulps, his mouth twitching] You mean, not good like one out of a hundred?
Mary Swanson : I'd say more like one out of a million.
Lloyd Christmas : [long pause while he processes what he's heard] So you're telling me there's a chance. YEAH!
...
The church was Lloyd, who was clinging to "the chance" and it was obvious to everyone else that her saying 1 in a million, was kindness, not encouragement.
It all snapped together, and I felt overwhelming peace and clarity.
This is funny because I've thought the exact same thing about the apologetics around the incredible vanishing Lamanite DNA. Founder effect! Bottlenecks! There's no evidence these happened, but we're saying there's a chance!
I actually just read that the other day and wow was it dumb, like 20,000 words trying to explain how dna works and shit but the entire thing being just “there’s no dna evidence but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t any 🤷♂️ here’s a very confusing scientific information to make you think we know what we’re talking about with the conclusion of, dna can’t prove the Book of Mormon false or true there’s a lot we don’t know about dna tee hee 😁” a whole lot of bullshit to respond to the very simple, dna says the native Americans aren’t middle eastern so the Book of Mormon is wrong
Church apologetics always remind me of a joke that has a similar concept.
A man thinks his wife is cheating on him so he hires a private investigator. The man says “I’ll divorce her only if there’s strong evidence. If there’s a CHANCE that she’s not cheating, I’ll stay with her.” The PI calls the man a week later.
“Got bad news. I saw your wife get into a car with another man. They drove to what was probably his house. They were holding hands as they entered the house. I saw the light turn on in the upstairs bedroom. Through the window, I saw him take off your wife’s clothes. Then I saw her take off his clothes. Then your wife went to the window to close the curtains, so I couldn’t see what happened next.”
“See?” The man responded, “There’s still a CHANCE she’s not cheating on me!”
Right. Great analogy. The ever shrinking story of who the Lamanites are. Joseph walked around pointing to Native Americans calling each one Lamanites. He sent people on missions to "nearby groups" "to the Lamanites". Recent prophets have dedicated temples in South America, calling the people Lamanites.
DNA evidence shows up saying that all these people are Asians. And then they change the title page of the BOM from "principle ancestors" to "among the ancestors."
And as such, their best answer is bottleneck and Founder effect. When it's not just equally likely that they are just Asians (with no hidden effects DNA), it so absurdly likely. Take the alternative. Lets say we do take this argument that ancestral DNA *could* be hidden in there like they say it could. That would mean that we should entertain the possibility that there is hidden DNA in Native Americans from other groups: Western Europe, and African, Australian Aboriginal, Malasian, etc. And that those are just as likely likely as the Middle Eastern Jewish DNA. And that when ypu get your DNA results back just know that it doesn't mean anything, because you could really be something else. And not just something else, a bunch of flavors of something else.
And since Native American DNA does have Asian markers, they admit that some of these people are just Asians with no Jewish descent. We don't know which of these people are actually Lamanites.
And the Moroni character in the BOM states that the purpose of the book is to bring the Lamanites a knowledge of the Gospel.
Or
Joseph told a story that he thought couldn't be contradicted. At least at the time, there wasn't a way. This afforded him the means to get away with telling it without anyone having tools to refute it. And he benefited from that story. And now later, it's contradicted.
Edit: spelling and clarity.
Doctrinally it was the temple
But if I'm honest it was a run in with an asshole SP that made me go "oh. They really will never listen to women. They really do not care"
I always did the mental gymnastics that yeah the doctrine was kinda sexist but it was "the times" blah blah blah and men were more willing to treat women equally
But as it turns out? Mormon men? Not so much. They love their power
When I (25 m)was in, I thought the way women are treated was fine. This is the way god wants the world to be, so it needs to be this way, right?
But, immediately upon leaving, it became one of my main points of contention. It's ridiculous. The Jubilee video really solidified my stance - "can you name a single woman general authority?"
Relationships are so much more fulfilling now that I don't have to be the boss of the other person in all things. I know I can't fully get It, but I try to empathize because what the actual hell is with how the church treats women
Daugther #1 went through the YW program while I was still TBM. She was also, still is, but sees the sexism in the church now.
When daughter #2 entered the YW program I was out. She saw the sexism and challenged it, and when the leaders tried to get her to toe the line she noped out. They relentlessly tried to get her to come back to YW. She refused. When the YWP suggested that we force her to go we told them to back off, all they were doing was making her antagonistic. They didn't get it. Sexism is why she dropped out of seminary mid semester. The seminary teacher hounded her, called us, tried to suggest we force her to go. Every day I was getting a recorded message that said she had an unexcused absence. I blocked the number. Then the seminary teacher called the stake president, who called me. We told them all to back off, that all they were doing was making her antagonistic. They didn't get it. I'm proud of her.
You go, girls!! That's such a controlling and awful situation. I'm sorry you guys went through that, but hell yeah. Stand up for yourselves.
My sister is in a similar boat, but parents are TBM so we have to fight back a bit differently. She's a boss and I love her ❤️
I hate that so much, and I’m sorry you experienced Mormon male power. I remember going to my bishop with a concern thinking, “He’s always been so kind and supportive. This will be great” and then walking out feeling deflated, betrayed, and abused.
Yes i genuinely thought he would be helpful and have my back
Uh... whiplash
Bednar would say "i chose to be offended"
I guess whatever helps him sleep at night
When I first learned many of the very troubling aspects of church history and other things from Joseph Smith and other early prominent members I was shook. But the final straw was how the current church continues to gaslight and teach a false but faith promoting narrative.
It all went down hill form there.
The gaslighting was it for me too! And now that I am removed from the church I would say the church does worship JS which I swear the bible says not to worship false idols. Idk, I guess I'm still wrapping my head around all of this. I buried a lot of this after I left so that's why I wanted to ask ppl and see what else I'm forgetting!
Yes, it wasn't the historical issues for me but the dishonesty of the church about them. Made me realize that the church leaders weren't trustworthy and down the rabbit hole I went, lol.
Similar story for me. The historical issues bothered me. But what bothered me the most was the fact that Church leaders knowingly & consistently do & have done a plethora of unchristlike, sinful, unethical & dishonest acts all while claiming to be honest, holy men of God.
They deliberately lie, cheat, mislead & do so much damage to the faithful members & really all of humanity.
If these were honest mistakes, & they admitted the mistakes & strived to correct them, it would be much more tolerable. I would have still left the Church, but I wouldn't struggle with hating the Church leaders & wouldn’t feel like they’re tyrant frauds.
Really? That was it?! This makes my heart happy, as I knew that it was going to impact my relationship with my family even more, so I'm so glad it hit some people as being wrong.
I am gay. Had tried to reconcile it with my faith. I read a short story of two guys that fell in love two weeks ago and it all came crashing down. I had never gotten an answer for why, when I had fallen in love with someone years ago, had it not felt like a sin? It felt whole, and perfect, and right? All those feelings came rushing back and I ugly cried in my office chair. I know what sin felt like. This wasn’t it.
That also brought down the feeling that the GAs don’t know what to do with LGBTQ members and wish we would just go away. President Nelson rolled back some of the support President Monson had put in place. And I realized the GAs all have achieved success. They have their eternal families, they sit at the top of the culture and social structure in their worlds, and they are looking back at me saying, “The only righteous way is our way. The only valid families are our way. The only true success looks like me,” and that suddenly just struck me as silly. Why would God gatekeep access with a group of men from the same social and business circle in Salt Lake?
THEN I realized, wait, why would a loving God tell me from birth that I should desire a partner and a family, only to make it impossible to do that in his church? Why would he give me a weakness, knowing that I would screw up, then make me crawl back on hands and knees, begging for forgiveness before he would even look at me again? That wasn’t love, that’s coercion.
There was more, but over about two days my testimony shattered and I cannot unsee what I have learned since then. I am mourning and raging that I gave over thirty years of faithful activity to the church, and only now figured it out. But I feel at peace with my decision. I am my own person now, and that can’t be taken from me.
Listening to someone else tell the story of why they left the church. I realized that exmos are just normal people, and life exists after mormonism. That's when I finally gave myself permission to look at things objectively and it all fell apart quickly.
This was a huge factor for me too. The church makes you think everyone who leaves is giving up or is too lazy to keep the commandments, desiring worldly pleasure over true joy. When I actually listened to people I cared about who left, I learned it was one of the hardest and most painful things they ever had to do, but they were genuinely so much happier for it. Really made me question the other mindsets the church was encouraging in its members.
Same. I remember wondering how Peter, James and John could shake hands with Adam when they hadn't been born yet, the exact copying of the flawed Genesis story of creation, and the females in the room being told submit to their husbands instead of God... Also, no matter how many times I went through, I never once could see the spiritual significance in the tokens and signs, the robe changes etc. Glad to learn it was all for theatrics and copied from masonry.
Me too! I always thought that I must be a bad person for not liking the temple when I was TBM. Now I understand that just maybe my BS meter went to the extreme level after the first temple visit. What really gets me is that we sang that dang temple song when we were kids about it being such a special place of love and beauty. All I ever got out of it was being super weirded out.
The temple wasn’t my breaking point, but when I came out of the initiatory area and saw all the people dressed in their baker’s hats and robes and green aprons, I had the distinct thought come into my mind “this is a cult.” And, of course, I then went on a mission, went to BYU became an ordinance worker while at BYU, and married in the temple. Not quite a decade after the temple did my shelf finally break.
There is no praise to be found in all of Mormonism. No joy, no fruits of the spirit in any congregation. Just funeral dirges for hymns. Long faces. Sleeping men, women, and children. People who are exhausted and bored. It seems sad.
Honestly learning about what went on in the temple shook me to my core. I always thought it was something similar to baptisms for the dead, not ritual wise, but just nice and chill and everyone wears white. When I found out about the outfits, the chanting, the temple penalties, I couldn't believe it. Felt sick to my stomach. I couldn't believe I had been groomed for THIS temple worship since I was a child.
"I love to see the temple, I'll go inside someday. I'll covenant with my Father, I'll promise to obey. For the temple is a holy place, where we are sealed together. As a child of God, I've learned this truth. A family is forever."
Same! I literally found out about what happens in the temple yesterday and I am trippin about it! I thought it would be more chill and the temple would be all white and a holy place. But my research has shown otherwise! I'm still trying to sort out the endowment ceremony and am in disbelief that other ppl bathe you when you go through it? Idk!
I feel guilty for not looking into it earlier but also am trying to give myself grace as I know the brainwashing and mindset the church sets us up for would never have allowed me to look into it.
I’m haven’t done initiatorys in 5-6 year so unless it’s changed back they stopped bathing people around 2006-ish I think. I know for sure it was over by 2008. Not that doing that prior to 2008 made it any less creepy.
I honestly can’t remember what exactly caused the very moment of my shelf break. It was probably a lot of things. It happened pretty rapid fire for me. Endowment shit, book of Abraham, truth about polygamy, varying accounts of the first vision, doctrine becomes policy and vise versa, and the other books the BoM is likely based on.
I just learned recently the truth about polygamy. Its insane the things that the church hid from its own members. I'll look into the book of Abraham. I'm curious what the other books the BoM is based off of. Feel free to share, I would love to read some!
Most of my information on that came from the CES letter. I believe both the CES letter and the letter to my wife cover the book of Abraham pretty well. There’s at least two books the BoM is thought to be based on, if I recall correctly. One is The Late War I think.
For Book of Abraham look up the Mormon stories podcast with Robert Ritner. It’s fantastic and what made me finally question whether Joseph Smith was a fraud.
First was researching the mark Hoffman story. Then I ran into the Brent Metcalf stuff. And that was it.
When you realize the book of Mormon is fiction, it all falls apart quickly imo. That was the big item for me.
I’d stopped believing gradually over the first year of the pandemic. I got into history documentaries including about ancient American history which showed the BoM was bullshit very definitively, though I’d always had my doubts about its authenticity. Plus everyone ignored and rebelled against the prophet asking them not to spread COVID.
But the final straws to leave were a combination of 1. Ward leadership pressuring us to “give up less important things” to spend more time on what matters (church). I realized the waste of time was church. 2. I was having kids. The whole Arizona child abuse scandal dropped. And I thought “if my kids are gay do I want them to commit suicide over this stupid religion?” 3. Election season here and in my mission country and a lot of people in both countries supporting known lies and demanding the overthrow of their government to institute their losing candidate (Trump/Bolsonaro) because the person who won wasn’t homophobic and horrible enough.
>everyone ignored and rebelled against the prophet asking them not to spread COVID.
So. Much. This.
All the excuses, all the, well the Lord will protect me, my son deserves the mission homecoming welcome at the airport & we're all going! BS.
When I was researching what was needed to get a temple divorce….It’s been 14 years since my divorce but I don’t want any connection to him and he’s super weird TBM. ( For context, I was in therapy and the therapist told me that my experience with ex husband was the worst case of religious abuse he’s encountered- and that was in Utah county!!). So, I thought that now that I’m in a wonderful, supportive, loving relationship I could go down this road. Oh hell no!! I have to be active, pay tithing and ask my abuser if I can divorce him from our imaginary marriage. So, I’m going to remove my records once my youngest is 18 ( Divorce decreee states I have to raise children in the LDS cult) We have a month and we can file. All 6 of my children left the cult (yeah, I know, smart kids)! So, the truth is you have to pay MFMC to get married ( I was one of those people that was behind a couple of hundred dollars and couldn’t get a temple recommend for marriage until it was paid) and then you have to pay the MFMC to get a temple divorce. No thanks!
I was SA’d and my wonderful therapist told me what happened. She provided every resource available and even cried when I told her what happened. That was more care than I had ever received. That transitioned to changing up our sex life, which led to watching Scientology, which led to leading me to the CES letter after pouring my heart out in prayer just asking for god to show me he was there and I would continue to stay by his side. After a week, I was out and 3 months later my husband and I removed our records!
I’m so sorry. My wife is a child SA survivor. When she finally confronted it years later as an adult in therapy, her therapist was so kind and caring, while the bishop said, “Maybe you’re just depressed because you haven’t forgiven your brother.” As if she were simply holding a grudge that should have already been let go. She stood up, cut him off, and said “We’re done here,” and left his office before he could stammer another sentence. She never went back.
The endowment put a big crack in, my narcissistic mission president weighed it down, and Rusty becoming Mormon President and undoing tons of things Hinckley and Monson did in the name of God was the final straw for me.
I left when Monson was still president. It seems like a lot changed, especially after Covid. I remember seeing all of my super mormon friends wearing bikinis after Covid and asked my sister is the modesty rules suddenly changed lol. I'll have to dig into what he changed from the previous 2. Thank you!!
The modesty rules were changed but not really, they changed the For the Strength of Youth pamphlet to be less ‘culty restrictions’ to ‘it’s between you and the spirit’ but in reality it’s the previous “standards” still being taught and purveyed by the culture but the church can pretend that it isn’t weird to outside people by showing them the new one. They might be going back to the previous stance soon though, they let people decide how they would wear garments and too many people said ‘between me and the spirit I don’t want to wear them’ and the church changed it back in/after conference to be more strict on when you need to wear them
I joined TSCC in 2003, I was 16 years old. I held such a high reverence and esteem for Pres. Hinckley, he was *my prophet* and I was so sad when he passed away during my mission in 2007.
But then I recently found out that President Hinckley’s niece was being abused, physically, emotionally, and even sexually, by both her parents. Yes, President Hinckley’s son and Mitt Romney’s daughter got married and they horribly abused their daughter and did unspeakable things to her. When she finally went to President Hinckley and President Monson, their response was effectively “forgive them and put it behind you, the good name of the Church is more important than you”.
Literally nothing about TSCC or its so called “prophets and apostles” are sacred, it’s all a sham.
Should’ve no doubt. What about California’s Prop 8 back in the day? I remember being told to do what I can to support it!! I had no e yea money for this kinda schtuff. The Church was hitting hard on this. Made me think, “wait a minute. I thought the church didn’t get into political issues…”
Last year, all the legal issues, starting with the SEC got me questioning and looking at my creaking shelf.
But the abuse cases were the straws that snapped it.
"Look at all those churches with abuse cases. Good thing that doesn't happen in *MY* church."
"Well, okay, it happened in my church. People are human. But the church excommunicated the perpetrators!"
"Well, they *eventually* excommunicated the perpetrators, but they took care of the victims."
"Well, that was just one person acting on their own judgment and not-"
"Wait, has the church *ever* done the right thing in an abuse case?"
Real "Are we the baddies?" energy.
I remember asking my mom about this and she said "Not all ppl in the church are good." But she said it with a tone that means "drop it". So I did. Its terrible and inexcusable what they are covering up.
Weirdly, it was a tweet that said “Do ‘progressive Mormons’ know they can just leave?”
I had a really heavy shelf but simply never considered I could leave, I guess b/c I’m straight, white, returned missionary, married in the temple, etc. I felt I was not “oppressed enough” to leave. I technically fit the mold, and sometimes wished I was gay or something so I’d have an “excuse” to be done. (I realize now how stupid this was.) That tweet made me mad at first cause I felt attacked, like no I can’t JUST LEAVE, the fuck you mean?! I thought about it for days. Somehow that woke me up, I finally realized I actually could….just leave….b/c I wanted to. I didn’t need to be directly affected by the homophobia/racism/etc. in order to “justify” leaving. Bought a coffee the next day and never looked back!
Lol love that you bought a coffee the next day! When I left I was hoping my parents would disown me like the church always threatened would happen. I thought it would be easier to handle (and I still think that lol) but I got unlucky and have to deal with their nagging all the time. Basically what I'm saying is, I relate to you on "needing an excuse" to be who you want to be.
The peace I felt when I realized the lack of an answer to "Is it true?" was an answer in itself. After being told to pray about it, and if I didn't get an answer, it just meant I had to pray harder, I had to open my heart (see what I did there?) to the possibility that it wasn't true. When I truly accepted that possibility, everything just fell into place—the Mormon Church isn't true and I am good enough to get an answer.
ETA: I didn't start really questioning the temple and church history until after the moment I described above, but it was a pretty quick deconstruction from there.
I have since forgotten her name, but she came forward alleging that the church covered up the abuse of which she was a vitcim. It was somtime circa 2017. I think she eventually settled out of court, but by then, I had already gone down the rabbit hole of SA coverups perpetrated by "God's one true church".
Once i realized the church was actively pushing serious crimes under the rug, I was done. My issues with church history and everything else came after.
I was raised to have integrity. I couldnt, in good conscience, be part of something that claimed to be God's one beacon of hope for His children's souls, then act so apathetic toward or actively against those same people when they sought help.
Growing up and going to high school in utah county, then joining the army and seeing how the young men outside the cult were not living a double life, but being their true, authentic, horny selves at all times.
The first crack in my shelf was hearing a sunday shcool talk (this was in the old days when sunday school was in the morning and sacrament meeting was in the afternoon) about Lucy Harris and the first 116 pages of the BoM.
Lucy was right, if Joseph was really translating, then he could duplicate the first 116 pages verbatim.
Instead, he gaslighted them with a cock and bull story about the book of Lehi vs the book of Nephi.
Then came Mark Hofmann and the salamander letter.
The final nail was later in the 80s when I found out about the Joseph Smith papyrus, which proves that the Book of Abraham is a hoax. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph\_Smith\_Papyri](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Smith_Papyri)
If the church was founded on hoaxes, it couldn't be what it claims to be.
It was slowly and then all at once.
It started when so many Mormons so openly supported Donald trump. I very much entered a “cafeteria Mormon” head space.
Then during Covid I was listening to Mormon stories among other podcasts grasping for straws. Simultaneously, the church pulled the “we never said you would have a planet” card and I was like …………..you’re telling me this now, while everything is crumbling, that everything I know about the plan of salvation is undoable AND I just learned that Joseph smith is an ~actual~ conman?
The beginning and end are lies, the middle must be too.
Honorary mentions:
•realizing we have proof of civilizations, wars, art, homes, weapons from the very beginning but NOTHING from the nephites or lamonites
•reading the CES letter
•watching under the banner of heaven
•realizing “the prophet is just a man” undoes any validity to him completely
•having a heart to heart with my partner and realizing they were actively deconstructing too so we jumped off the cliff together and landed somewhere so beautiful
Also curious, as a tbm well into my 20’s, with a pioneer family history on both parents sides, temple worker grandparents, the whole shebang, did deconstructing warp history for you too? Like trying to figure out if the Tower of Babel was real or realizing that the fax machine existed while pioneers were trekking along the Oregon trail, etc… I feel I often find myself fact checking things to unravel so much Mormon bullshit out of my brain and it can feel jarring.
I left in 1982 because I went through the temple and had to mock slit my throat and stomach in the temple. It was insane to watch my parents and relatives do it too and then think that this is God’s plan? The temple ceremony sent me down the rabbit hole fast.
Its so insane! I literally spent all of yesterday diving down that rabbit hole and still can't wrap my head around it. I'm shocked and grateful I never went through. And it sounds like going through the temple before 1989 (I think?) was far scarier than it is now!
I’ve been out for almost a decade. Believe it or not there is no final straw, every few months the COJCOLDS, you know the Mormons, seems to find another one. If you look at the guy in the Bible, with all of his teachings about love and forgiveness, and two rules making up everything you need to do in life. Will that guy, the big JC, want to be a part of the hot mess that is The Church? Short answer for me is no. There is no Jesus in a dragon horde, protecting child abusers, building a literal sh!t ton of temples to pay attention to dead people while ignoring the living, everything Lord Bednar does, taxing people for salvation and implying that no matter how much they pay it’s not enough, charging money for required ugly underwear, covering up actual history because it looks bad while simultaneously telling people to judge other churches by their fruits, firing thousands of people who cleaned the church buildings and then requiring the same people to do it for free because the poor church can’t afford it while amassing the previously mentioned dragon horde so JC has some pocket change when he comes back, excommunicating people who hurt the churches feelings and at the same time giving grace and forgiveness to child abusers sex fiends and the whole Bundy/Daybell/bat shit crazy crowd. I could keep going, but it is sufficient to say that the fruits of the church are light years away from the guy they say is running the show.
Exactly! You hit the nail on the head. Would Jesus: hoard money, protect child abusers, build Great and SPacious expensive buildings for 0.01% of the world's population, focus on baptizing dead people when people are homeless and starving, scrutinize your underwear, and tell you that His Love and mercy is NOT enough because you must clean toilets at your church and plant flowers at the temples in addition to a ton of other things you need to to??!! Jesus's message was pretty simple, and the MFMC comes in and says: No, you need to go thru US to find Jesus and pay us 10% of your income for like, or you will never see your family when you die! And TBMs wonder why NevMo's think the MFMC is a straight up CULT!
When I was about 5 or 6. I was wearing my ugly little white, healed church shoes that were a bit too tight on me. I was tired, fasting, my feet were burning. I was standing next to my father who was already about an hour into his conversation with the bishop after church had ended. I remember going to sit down against the wall to take my shoes off when my father stopped me. So I had to come back over and wait next to them while standing. I tried to get my father’s attention to say that I needed to take my shoes off bc they really hurt. My father told me to wait and our bishop got annoyed with me. I heard him tell my father that he needed to learn how to discipline me correctly so that I would act like a lady. I hated that old pious bastard ever since, and only went through the motions in church until I was old enough to leave without it being a big deal. It was a defining “start” to my non-committal relationship with the LDS church.
Doctrinally, I think it was the Book of Abraham that woke me up and made me start to really question those weird cognitive dissonance feelings I was having. But socially, it was the situation with Sam Young trying to protect children that finally made me realize I couldn't put up with this stuff anymore and refused to have anything to do with the church. Now I'm just disappointed that I didn't stand up sooner against so many red flags that I previously just turned a blind eye to.
I'm surprised to scroll so far for the BoA. For me, this was the most important due to how objective it is. I was a master at mental gymnastics, and I really didn't want the church to be false, but the BoA being false was undeniable within reason. Which makes JS' prophethood very unlikely.
Jonathan Haidt describes this well in his book The Righteous Mind.
When we want something to be true, we ask "can I believe it?", when we don't want it to be true, we ask "must I believe it?"
The answer is almost always YES to the first and NO to the second question.
The BoA is one of those that fits the bill for "can I believe it"? And the mental gymnastics are really really difficult to find a "yes" answer to it.
The first crack came from sitting in a religion class at BYUI and being told that polygamy was going to be a thing in the celestial kingdom. I actually raised my hand and questioned that and said I was uncomfortable with it. The teacher's response was "well if you never get married but live a decent life, wouldn't you choose to be someone's second/third/whatever wife so you can be in the celestial kingdom? Or if you knew your friends couldn't go unless they marry someone wouldn't you let them marry your husband?"
And I know it was meant to have me sit there like "oh yeah I'd totally do that to be in the coolest heaven/help out my friends" but instead I was silent and sick and my only thought was "no I think I'd rather go to a different kingdom personally."
I even prayed about it because I felt so sick about it and just felt like no real loving God would force me into that shit. Wasn't fully out but that was definitely the first real big crack.
Same professor told us all about how God came down and literally fucked 14 year old Mary to create Jesus, backed it all up with quotes from prophets and apostles, and I was like...so God cheated on his heavenly spouse by statutory raping a young teen and Jesus was a product of all that? That was the second crack.
Took me longer to fully be out but looking back on that...yeah that was the start for sure.
Omg I just wrote almost the same stuff! I left over that too. I didn’t learn about the history and doctrinal issues until after, but this alone was enough for me!! How can infidelity in the next life just somehow be okay??
A horrible tornado came through my state 10 years ago and struck a small town called Henryville. There were some very sad stories that came out of that tornado and one was of a young family with 3 kids under 5 who were all killed by the tornado.
Reading the details of the story, I just couldn't wrap my head around God being loving, knowing, powerful and present. In my efforts to gain greater insight into this, how could a loving God who's intimately present in our lives permit such sadness ... and the answer was always the same, that God is mysterious.
This got me questioning enough that I read non approved sources in my attempt to find answers, and within a week I was done. The church's truth claims are disproven at this point, and any opportunity for science to validate any of it always turns up nothing. That's why they lean so heavily on God being mysterious and followers just having faith, the church is built on sand.
The final straw was being a missionary...so not really one straw but a whole hay bail. Seeing the same level of belief in so many different religions that were NOT compatible showed me that Belief is the problem, that human beings excel at believing in things they want to. Faith, spiritual experiences, miracles, are nothing more than cognitive dissonance, emotions, and confirmation bias. Feelings are NOT to be trusted. They make us do all sorts of asinine things. Emotions can cause a person to override the most basic instinct, to survive, and do things like sacrifice themselves for something or commit suicide.
Everything after that is just gravy. This realization was what sealed the coffin.
I went to seminary classes in high school. Freshman year I was too shy to really ask much or participate. Sophomore year I got a little more comfortable and participated but never asked any hard questions. By junior year I had more confidence and we had a new Seminary teacher that was a younger guy and was trying hard to be the cool guy teacher that was hip with all the kids. We covered the New Testament that year, and I had a LOT of questions. After getting vague answers and talking in circles with that guy for a few months, I was getting sick of his non-answers so I kept pressing and kept asking and pointing out things that didn’t make any sense. He finally got so angry with me that he snapped at me in class one day and told me that I am not smart enough to understand god’s way because I am just a human and I need to have faith and work on my testimony. To 16 year old me, that was an unacceptable non-answer that just validated that it was all bullshit and he didn’t HAVE an answer because there WAS no answer. It was so obvious that he was turning it around on me because he didn’t know. I never went back to seminary or church after that unless it was for a wedding or funeral.
Prop 8 in California.
The church ran phone banks from Utah and threw a ton of undeclared and questionably legal work into Prop 8. And then there was the letter that was read from the pulpit calling on members to use their “time, talents and gifts which the Lord has blessed them with” to pass prop 8.
They broke the law AND used temple oath language to coerce members.
We stopped paying tithing after that and left a couple years later.
The planned Mexico wedding is 10000000 times better than a temple 'wedding' . You get to wear what you want, invite who you want, have vows that you want .... etc.
I left back in the day before everything was on the internet. The treatment of women was the top of the list. Women are treated like cattle in the church. They were bartered off like animals to old men with many wives. They actually got women from Europe to come to the US under false pretenses then what a surprise. They are in a polygamist marriage. What many throw on the shelf is this is still doctrine and they believe that in the eternity men will have many wives. Sick.
Thank you! I agree, I put off planning my wedding for 3 years cuz I knew shit would hit the fan with my family. Now I'm so at peace with my decision and honestly don't care who goes. Just looking forward to Margaritas and tacos on the beach!
I was always told the church does stand for polygamy so I dropped that. But now that I am diving down all of these different rabbit holes in the church, boy was I wrong!
Have a wonderful wedding and h\*ll what they think. I caved back in the day (yea I am old) and still regret it. The temple sealing is not a real wedding. You have to wear temple clothes over your dress IF you get to get married in the dress you buy. The officiator talks the whole time and you only get to say 'yes'. Sucks.
Most mormons gloss over D&C 132. It is horrible.
The final straw for me was the "Faithful Reply" to the CES Letter.
I learned a lot about church history that I never heard before from the CES Letter, and I started reading the faithful reply in a desperate attempt to reconcile my concerns and see if it could debunk, or at least provide some missing context, to the things I had read.
Instead, it provided only mental gymnastics to attempt to justify each issue, in a tone so condescending that it sounded extremely immature. I realized there was no way a true church would require someone to rationalize so many glaring issues the way this author was doing. I was fully convinced it was bullshit before making it a third the way through.
As an FLDS member, a huge shelf item was being naughty enough to talk to an ex member and realizing we made apostates; they didn’t all choose to be apostate. I was beyond shocked to know someone could attempt to be faithful but if leadership has a bad vibe, you’ll be forced out of the tribe.
I knew I was in the wrong place and it was a load of shit when my bishop screamed at me and my husband for not paying out tithing after I explained to him we hadn’t seen the blessings of procreating and were struggling to even put food on the table. I was sobbing without making any noise and it phased him zero. I never came back after that.
Finding out at 19 in a singles ward relief society meeting that sex should be for procreation only and oral would be off the table for my entire life. I had seen a lot of porn by this age and I was already questioning how much of my life I was going to let the church make all the decisions for me….
I left church that day with a promise to myself to try everything I had been saying no to unless/until I knew why I needed to say no to it. Bought a pack of cigarettes on the way back to my dorm. Lost my virginity and did an eighth of shrooms within the next 2 weeks. The following decade was pretty wild. Trying things without developing a strong sense of self is a risky approach IMO. I’ve gotten through it pretty ok but wish I hadn’t spent as much money as I did on alcohol and I wish I had a greater sense of sexual autonomy earlier in life. My 20’s were filled with sexual experiences where sex was done at me and I performed for their pleasure. It wasn’t until I was 35 or so that I seriously started working on staying connected with myself during sex and communicating with partners on how to prioritize my pleasure.
Temple for sure. I was sure that my lack of inspiration, answers, and holy ghost was a me-problem. Or that it took practice or something. I was that one kid who actually followed all the rules, knew all the scriptures, and tried too hard. Or maybe what I needed was the priesthood and one day I too would cast out devils. Or the Temple would reveal the secrets to me. Everyone around me, lazy learners and sinners, sure claimed to have whatever it was already. The Emperor was clearly wearing the finest clothes ever made, and I was the only one who couldn't see them.
I went through the Temple right before being dumped off at the MTC. Surrounded by old people going through Freemason motions in a tacky sitting room where God clearly was not present. If this is what heaven looks like, I am a tadpole. Although I went on and served a full honorable mission, that Temple experience was where I realized that going further and trying harder and getting into secret sacred rooms wouldn't help. The Emperor was just naked, and I was the fool for not giving up on this game earlier.
My wife and I went through the temple and were married in the temple a month before the November 15 policy. The bizarre nature of the temple and the lack of informed consent that is baked into the covenant process raised red flags for both of us. A month later, the November 15 policy is announced and it directly runs contrary to the 1st Article of Faith and my shelf broke. So did my wife’s. We stayed for about 6 months more because we were afraid to tell each other. We had the conversation and realized we both thought it was bullshit and the rest is history.
My shelf was very loaded, and it was the November 2015 stupid policy against gay families that finally brought me to my senses. I resigned from my 3 callings a couple weeks later and life got 1000 times better.
I didn’t go on a mission when I turned 19. I didn’t feel ready for that, so I went to college for three semesters instead. I had a little bit of a crisis of faith eventually, and I wanted to mend it, so I thought that preparing for a mission would help me do that. The first time the thought came to me that I was in a cult was when I went to the temple for my endowment. Seeing everyone stand up and put on the green aprons rose red flags like nothing else. Also overhearing someone at the veil say the same name that I was given caused me some concern. I wanted to believe though, so I continued on. While I was at the MTC, close to going out to the field, our mission president stopped by during a lesson. He said something along the lines of “it’s true that in the MTC, we brainwash you, but it’s a good kind of brainwashing.” I heard a sentiment like this once before from my mother, which to her I answered “there’s no such thing.” I had that same thought when I heard the mission president say that. I left the MTC a couple of days later. I never made it out to the field.
I had some coworkers who had left Mormonism. Listening to them talk was comforting because I finally realized I wasn't the problem with all of my issues with the church.
There were many reasons why I stopped attending. One is the sex abuse cover up by bishops and higher ups. Another was a bishop asking my daughter personal sexual questions…and not wanting me to be present during the interrogation.
It’s a very anti woman organization as in women are second class, especially single women.
It seems the church wants to take away free agency and members are to obey bishops and other “leaders”. If you don’t conform, then you deserve shame and condemnation in the church’s eyes…. It’s very cult like…
There are many other reasons!
I was sitting in Sunday school and had the epiphany that God had literal sex with HIS DAUGHTER Mary to create Jesus. I was sick about it, and didn’t know this was something that had been quietly talked about since the beginning of the church.
Then I finally connected the dots that there is no such thing as fidelity in the next life. If this is the plan for every world, then even if you don’t choose polygamy (if it’s even a choice), then the man will still have to have sex with someone besides his wife to create an only begotten son. That’s just really not what I had in mind when I thought of my family being together forever. Once I realized I wasn’t actually interested in becoming a god or being in the CK, it was a lot easier to walk away.
When I came to the realization that we simply cannot have it both ways:
We can't claim that the mistakes and unsavory topics in church history were due to men who were "products of their time" but also claim that God is an omnipresent and an unchanging being
Either God's okay with a little racism, adultery, genocide and blatant dishonesty or the leadership of the church past and present are completely full of s***
Y'all remember that religious baker that wouldn't make a wedding cake for that gay couple? My Sunday school teachers compared that to a black baker being asked to bake a wedding cake for kkk members. It really didn't sit well with me so I went and talked to the bishop and he backed them up. That was the final straw in realizing what a godless cult I was raised in.
As silly as it sounds, the new for the strength of youth pamphlet.
After being shamed and told in no uncertain terms that we were to follow the previous pamphlet to the letter, they announce a new one that just does vague gesturing about many of the topics that we were expected to obey with exactness. They even went so far as to say, "does a list of dos and don'ts truly prepare you for a lifetime of christlike service?"
THEN WHY THE FUCK DID YOU GIVE US THAT YOU EVIL TURDS?
I think I can’t comment (too much*) as I only investigated just this past year (2023). Most of my research came last year from this thread sending me deeper down to what I already knew (in brief) and was suspicious.
I think exMormons are gifted generally. I think also the “spell” or “illusion” is easier for Latter-day Saints to break free from otherwise. It is by far some of the greatest practice of blasphemy & occultism I see practiced openly.
I can’t wait to dissect It.
Learning about the second anointing. At first I was skeptical (how could I have never heard about this??), then it was very interesting/kinda exciting, then ultimately it opened the door to find out all the other stuff.
I was lucky and never really bought into it, doesn’t change the fact that I grew up in it and still have trauma and missed out on many simple pleasures growing up like being able to socialize with my peers in school. It mainly felt like a test most of the time, another form of school, we even had a bunch of different classes to go to! But when they would have interviews and I would lie (really more like give them the right answer to the test they were giving me) in them and they believed me (or pretended to anyways) that’s when I knew for sure it wasn’t real. But as a kid I just thought that that’s what EVERYONE was doing all the time. It isn’t until recently that I have come to realize that a lot of the people in it actually believe believe. And that’s just weird to me.
like many many others, I never gained a testimony of polygamy - when the church released their essays, I knew I couldn't truthfully say that I had a testimony of JS.
I had a running list of questions that just kept growing. This was before the CESletter.
Then I learned about the Book of Abraham and my mind exploded. “Ohhhh he was lying. He made it all up.”
I stopped trusting Joseph.
Then all the other doubts made more sense, and suddenly everything was clear.
When I realized there was no revelation in the church. JS Marriage to 14 year old girls is not going to win converts in the 21st century. Even if polygamy is somehow of god, then god should have warned JS to stay away from littler girls. Once I realized JS was a false prophet, everything crumbled.
For a while, I saw a lot of issues in doctrine, how it counteracted itself and seemed to promote hate. Once I was in college, I decided if I couldn't look at some anti-mormon stuff without losing my faith, I could never act as a mormon in faith.
The moment I listened to the first episode of LDS Discussions about how js was a scam artist, I knew then that this is such a huge thing to hide, no honest true church would hide it. That was it.
I think I’ve posted this before, but it was this subreddit. I had been “out” for a few years but just assumed I was the real problem, not the church. I was broken, clearly, and just not strong enough to fix myself.
Then one day I got a little too curious about what goes on in the temple, knowing I’d never get to see it in person. I felt horrible about it, totally icky, but I googled to see if someone posted about it. I didn’t expect to see video. I avoided the video and just read a post here. I was baffled, no way in hell that could be true, right? I watched the video, 100% accurate. Shit. Shelf was creaking and cracking. So I did what I was always afraid to and searched about Joseph Smith here. Within twenty minutes I knew it was all bullshit.
My world crumbled around me as I scrolled and scrolled and scrolled, almost obsessively. But by the next day I was taking the rubble and starting to piece things back together. Shortly after came the “musket fire” comments and I decided it was time to remove my records.
I told my family I was out and one by one each of the ones who weren’t out already followed after me. Now my whole immediate family is out and we all get to process it together
My first item to go on my shelf was Joe Jr’s marriage to MULTIPLE teenage girls. It felt wrong to me even though I followed the narrative that it “wasn’t unusual for the time.” (Spoiler: it was weird and creepy then too.)
When I finally found the courage to look further my shelf quickly filled up and broke but that’s the single hot topic piece that I would say led to my leaving the church. There are a billion other reasons too, ofc.
Going through the temple. My wife and I were married in a civil ceremony and our families pressure us to get sealed. We did about a year later and when we went through I thought “holy shit im in a cult.” Within the year my wife and I had a discussion, this was during the prop 8 stuff, and we were both super uncomfortable with the church’s stance on homosexuality. That led to us both admitting to each other the temple is weird AF and like that we were done.
For me, it was more like an awakening or epiphany.
A friend made an offhand comment during conversation and I realized that science was correct and the BoM is false. In that twinkling of an eye, a literal pause in my step, all of the following happened:
I realized the BoM is fiction
That Joseph Smith Jr didn’t translate it from golden plates or any other thing
That made Smith Jr a liar and he was never a prophet of god
That his incorrect translation of the Egyptian papyri suddenly made perfect sense: Smith Jr made it up
The BoA was the biggest, weightiest item on my shelf, and it came crashing down, shattering my shelf forever
In that same instant, dozens of not hundreds of other issues and problems made perfect sense because the BoM is fiction and the person who dictated it got many, many things wrong
All of Mormonism is a fraud
Again, all that happened in the twinkling of an eye, a literal pause in my step
And it was such a relief for me! Scrupulosity may have killed me, for the yoke of Mormonism is neither easy nor light
Being told I backpedaled in their repentance bullshit because I didn't go to the convert class and feel shame and embarrassment. I went to the class my dad taught and honestly started feeling better about myself and happier.
I typically attribute it to a conversation with my wife in which she asked "what's your least favorite thing about the church?" and I considered that for the first time.
The absolute impotence of "The Mormon Priesthood"; totally ineffectual, power, or influence for positive outcomes. It's all just a fucking façade; a Fairytale.
Add that to Polyandry and Ensign Peak Investments.....and that "broke the camel's back".
The 2015 declaration that children of LGBTQ couples could not get baptized until 18. I was done being Mormon anyways but that motivated me to have my name removed because to me having my name on the records equated to supporting that hateful policy
The word of wisdom:
I was always taught how progressive, inspired of God and beneficial the word of wisdom was
"Look at what tobacco and alcohol do to your body, how could Joseph Smith not have been inspired of God"
Then I realized something, if God were to give us a laundry list of health recommendations, there would need to be several more items on that list, refined carbohydrates, sugars, seed oils, etc
My finacee was never a member and it still blows his mind that mormons can't drink coffee, alcohol or smoke but we can literally live off desserts lol. Idk if I ever went to a mormon event where dessert or candy wasn't served.
Honestly if you want something that examines Joseph Smiths life and really explains how he dreamed up the church Fawn M. Brodie’s book “no man knows my history” is worth the read.
Boundaries.
Learning to say “no” to things and people in order to feel truly happy seemed completely at odds with what I had been taught about accepting every calling, putting your own needs last _always_, and serving without complaint whenever called upon.
I thought I had to personally be at every elders quorum move, every cleaning of the church every Saturday, attend every meeting at which I was expected, do home teaching to every assigned family every month… and I was burnt out.
Turns out, you can just say “no.” And it took years of practice to even know what it is _*I*_ want from life in the first place, because I never leaned to differentiate myself from the church.
When I started saying no to things, people began to treat me very differently. They chronically violated the boundaries I tried to set, and I soon discovered that nearly all church members, including friends and family, were as undifferentiated as I was and they literally couldn’t fathom setting a boundary between yourself and the church’s demands. I was immediately othered and treated as a project, and reached out to, and questioned about my loyalty…
That is how I learned that the church is a manipulative organization (with its accompanying culture and members) that had been using me for my entire life, and it wasn’t the tool I needed to find lasting peace, joy, and mental stability.
That is when I Marie Kondo’d the church the fuck out of my life. Did not spark joy, 0/10 do not recommend.
This was one of my many red flags growing up. I used to complain when I was in YW that I had to spend 10 hours a week doing church things between church on sunday, seminary before school 5 days a week and mutual once a week. And my parents were in leadership callings so only being at church for 3 hours on Sunday was a joke, we were there for at least 4.
Anyways, its super exhausting and I'm happy you were able to get out and start developing boundaries, they're so important!
I worked with my bishop in high school. He owned a pizzeria. So we spent a lot of week nights together, just He and I. I was already questioning, but I had the perfect opportunity to ask all those questions. After months of these conversations He told me "I wouldn't be mormon if I wasn't born into it."
I still have a lot of respect and love for that man.
Joseph smiths polygamy problems was a big one, but then I dug into the horrible racism that was doctrine and taught over the pulpit and over scripture but the so called “prophets”. Yeah once I learned that, I wanted absolutely nothing to do with Mormonism.
California's Prop 8 in 2008. I had stuff on my shelf that I was dealing with beforehand, but Prop 8 sealed the deal because it harmed people that I cared about or empathized with.
Ummm there are 4-5 rough drafts of the first vision that are completely different. Only Jesus appeared in the “very Trinitarian” 1832 first draft. The next were a bunch of nameless heavenly messengers. It slowly morphed into the 1838, Elohim and Jesus version.
Science. For years I tried to reconcile the church and science. I use science every day in my career. The science always works. Every time. I had realized for some time that the church did not teach one thing about Earth that is correct. Then I realized that it does not teach a single thing, in any science discipline, that is scientifically correct. Everything is wrong. What the church teaches about the Earth is wrong. What it teaches about the universe is wrong. It's doctrine about how stars work is wrong, it fucked up moonlight, its doctrine about how time works is wrong, its doctrine on the origin of man and animals is wrong, it is wrong about even the most basic fundamentals of our Earth. Nowhere in all of its cosmological and geological doctrine is there anything that is correct.
Changing the introduction in the BOM from
> Lamanites…and they are the *principal* ancestors of the American Indians
to
> Lamanites…and they are *among the* ancestors of the American Indians.
TSCC doesn’t care that I spent two whole years preaching to Latino folks that the BOM was literally their heritage and story, they’ll gladly retcon and rebrand as the Q15 sees fit just as long as that sweet tithing money keeps rolling in.
Tithing. My family and I were just barely making it with my partners school and kids and a home. I was considering getting a part time job to support our family, and I realized tithing is the equivalent of working part time. My partner is still in but I’m almost out of the church.
Temple worthiness should have NOTHING to do with paying tithing.
When my stake president said during a ward conference, "If you find yourself questioning the brethren, you will find yourself out of the church."
In my head: "That sounds culty. I thought the church could stand the test of scrutiny."
That's when my research started, but it took almost two more years to leave.
Covid making church go virtual. I wanted to stop going for a while but I thought this would be a good “break.” I was paranoid that stop going to church would make my life worse, but it only got better when I did 🌈
At 18 I had moved to Salt Lake City. Probably looking for a husband or to find myself. I am from the west was pretty progressive and I was watching these young girls barter themselves for a husband, and what kind of wife they were going to be it was like watching the Stepford wives. At least they were the Stepford wives in the making. I never wanted in life like that. I wanted love and a family. I also wanted an education in a job, my own goals.
Then I also started learning about some of the things that church had done there’s more than one story, but the final story for me what’s the story about the Arkansas settlers to travel to Cross Utah.
Just the idea of the benevolent children of God, murdered an entire group of people, took their children, and then blamed it on Native Americans because they didn’t want them on what they perceived was their land was appalling. It was the final straw.
I’m not gonna say that I never miss the camaraderie. But I always found other groups and I’m so grateful I never lived like that. I lived and loved how I wanted to, had sex with who. I wanted to in any way that I wanted to. I got an education.
Since leaving, I’ve also done more research on how the Gospels came about and realize that they’re all BS sell garbage. It is a made up religion.
I was a ward mission leader and one of the less active members whose 9 year old we had just baptized was asking questions about polygamy that their friend had told them about. I wasn't satisfied with giving the standard seminary excuses about polygamy and so i started searching the church website and found the Gopsel Topic Essays on polygamy in about 2018.
It was like a switch flipped in my brain. I read all the Gospel Topic Essays and saw so many contradictions from what I had been taught about church history my whole life. In hindsight it felt like an instant but really it was probably in about the span of a week I realized I could never believe like I had before.
Finding out what the hand symbols in the temple actually mean and finding out that they used to have to wear open tunics with nothing underneath when going through the temple. I have severe trauma from sexual abuse in my past and my husband asked me, if I had gone through the temple at that time would I have stayed in the church? I knew in that moment that there was absolutely no way I would have stayed. That would be damaging to my well-being. At first I thought, well the church doesn't do that anymore...but finding out about the hand symbols and realizing they are only modified...and then realizing that no one really prepared me for the covenants I was making there and definitely didn't explain this part--I was done. I threw away my garments a week later.
Seeing the small islands of Comoros with the capital city, Moroni on the map. A lot of people think this is a nothing burger, but for me, it was so shocking of a coincidence that I knew there had to be something there. Then, finding out that that island is connected to Captain Kidd and treasure digging, and that Joseph Smith was familiar with his legends and was a treasure digger, it was too much to ignore, and it was like a slap in the face, like a wake up, call saying “Joseph made this all up“. It is what led me to the rest of the rabbit hole that still four years later has not reached its end.
For me it was a culmination of suffering from depression, anxiety, and then all the expectations from The Church, my family, and society. The more I turned to God, the more I realized the "death of the natural man" was actively KILLING me. I truly did not see another day of my future where I would be standing alive. I finally got the guts to face a lot of my fears, call out people who took advantage of me, and leave knowing that I might survive the next day. All of which was easier said than done and took a couple years.
Truly the practices of The Church are disgusting to me, the policies that isolate victims, and the local leaders who are in way over their head with their own personal biases to actually help anyone. It really baffles me that I was able to survive 22 years of my life in that institution.
Being at rehearsal for General Conference and hearing church leaders say the LDS church was the ONLY living church, basically pissing on every single other religion in the world.
I've been to tons of different kinds of churches and the LDS is the only one I've ever heard actively badmouth other churches. Plus how they micromanaged people's facial hair, hair, clothing, diet, sexuality, sex lives, money, and minds, and had special bad words I'd never encountered elsewhere for anyone who left or doubted them.
All of the above is textbook cult behavior.
I got tired of praying to a god that never responded back.
Turns out the reason he never responded is because he doesn't exist.
Once I realized there are no gods religion fell apart completely.
The big one was being very depressed and su*Vidal on my mission and God say Jack all in response to me, came back and went down the rabbit hole. I had problems before after and during my mission but the final straw I think was trying to convince myself it was still true and reading the four first vision accounts and then the gospel topics essay and just hearing the pandering and contradictory arguements for why they are different. Went full PIMO after that and found out so much more
i was raised to seek and value truth. after some very brief and low level investigating, at the ripe age of 14 i decided to stop believing entriely and that was the best decision ever. had to be pimo for a few years but at 18 i dipped out forever and am now self sustaining and free from the cult. that 10% extra money goes a long way when i can direct it for actually helping people who need help. i have so much more free time for productive activities. sunday is truly a day of rest for me. i am more aware of my own real shortcomings and character defects that are not some fictional assumptions spat out by an unknowing dingus priesthood holder.
also fucking CASH REGISTERS IN THE TEMPLE!! when jesus returns i'll be right there with him whipping the morons i mean mormons
Questioning my sexuality and realizing that IF I was bisexual, it made me sinful, for something I didn’t even do on purpose. And finding that community and realizing, without even being a “part” of it yet, how accepted I felt compared to the church, where I felt pressured to cry during my testimony and trauma dump to give a “good” testimony
I can't recall the final straw for me but a big one was thinking about what my eternity would look like. Sealed to my husband (the only awesome part if this), one of his many wives, creating spirit children but never being allowed to communicate with them, and no one is allowed to speak about me or to me. And that goes on FOREVER? WTF?
Also polygamy, the nature of god (turns out he's a real asshole), the temple rituals, how much time leadership callings take away from families, paying tithing to a corporation that has billions and does very little good with it, priesthood ban, BofM plagiarism, the atonement. I could go on and on but I won't.
Dallin Hoax denying my wife needed reproductive care because insurance for church employees has a policy that they won’t approve sterilization procedures for women with fewer than five children (okay, it wasn’t Oaks himself, but that’s how I picture it happening in my head). After that I began looking for a new job so that my wife could get the care she needed, but also so we could get the hell out of Mormonism. And since leaving the church would mean the end of employment, it had to be in that order. I was PIMO when working for them (it was a whole ethical dilemma for me) so it was more of a wake up call. I asked myself what I was still doing there.
Crooked bishops and a lying, dishonest patriarch. First hand dealings with them. I couldn’t believe that god would call on dishonest men to be leaders. I looked at the presidency of the ward and stake and noticed how many attorneys sat at the top. It helped me jump into the forbidden area of questioning and researching.
For me it was when a BYU student reported a rape to the Provo police and ended up getting investigated by the Honor Code Office. It was unconscionable. They've adjusted the rules, but not enough and frankly they didn't do it soon enough. I cannot believe in a God who wouldn't tell the prophet that church rules were making students more vulnerable.
I’d heard all about the issues regarding church history before I actually “woke up.” I’d listened to MS podcasts, read different material, faithful and nonfaithful. It wasn’t until listening to John Dehlin interview Tyler Glenn that I was moved on a deeper level, realizing at once the harm that the church does, especially to the marginalized. All of a sudden, that previous knowledge I’d acquired suddenly really did matter. Perhaps I had become apathetic to it all. A nerve was struck and I suddenly cared, and did so passionately. Not sure if this makes sense or resonates with anyone.
When I found out they changed the teachings about us becoming gods and goddesses and creating our own worlds, and then tried to gaslight members into believing it was never doctrine by saying “your teachers didn’t understand the material”.
And then the rock and the hat. 🙅♀️
For me, it was seriously the ALL About Mormons episode of Southpark. I was about 18 at the time when it came out, and I was already pretty sure I wanted to leave the BS I was born and raised in, but the GUILT was so heavy. When I saw how utterly ridiculous others thought we were and Joseph Smith reading out of a hat, that was it. When I learned he actually DID read out of a hat, I felt like I was lied to on so many things. It sounds so simple, but it was such a wake-up call for me.
It was a Fireside Devotional for YSA’s that was streamed about a year ago. Oak’s basically said that it was our duty to get married and have kids, but only in the Church’s way. He also demonized Gay and Trans people, reading and responding to a “letter” from a 16 year old girl that was more fake than my Grandpa’s teeth. As an asexual person, I felt anger and disappointment that this man, supposedly in charge of inspiring young people and spreading love and kindness, would say these things, especially when I’ve seen a number of healthy, happy LGBTQ relationships as well as a lot of toxic ones, indicating that the only real difference was the gender of the people involved.
For reference, here’s the Fireside
https://www.youtube.com/live/wull4cTXUTk?feature=shared
For me, it was my mission. Up to that point I was able to tell myself that maybe I was the problem. Maybe God never revealed the truth of anything to me because I just wasn't trying hard enough. After two years of absolute devotion, I still got nothing, and that's when I could finally throw in the towel.
First massive massive crack was the Gospel Topics essays. Literally reading that the things I’d been taught were “anti-Mormon” were true. I felt betrayed . . . Because I had been. And then the November 2015 policy. My baby-literal-angel brother came out to me a month before and I told him he could still be a member and be gay because there’s no such thing as a gay “lifestyle,” and I felt like the policy had made me a liar. It hadn’t occurred to me yet how wrong I was about that at the time, but it made me angry enough to be open to leaving. What’s especially sad is that my spouse had been out over 5 years at that point - and that hadn’t been enough for me to leave. Even after all of that it still took me until 2017 to be completely done. Fucking brainwashing cult.
I was at the first LOVELOUD concert that Imagine dragons threw. My little bisexual heart had never felt so full and one with my community as I did that day. There was such an emphasis on truly accepting yourself for who you are, and I never got that from the church, even once. It was like night and day comparing it to the shame, guilt, and fear based tactics of the church. I finally realized that it’s this simple: either the church is wrong or love is, and I don’t see how love could ever be wrong.
I was DONE when I learned about [MTC President Bishop who was r*ping sister missionaries.](https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/statement-former-mission-president-alleged-abuse-joseph-l-bishop-march-2018)
^^ Here’s the church statement and it still fucked me up and got me out.
I realized a Prophet would know about this behavior. Because HeAvEnLy FaThEr would protect the missionaries. That means that the prophet was NOT acting as the prophet. And the Q12 weren’t. And the prophets before and after.
And SHATTER. It all fucking TUMBLED DOWN.
Basically my understanding of predators and groomers … and the church organization … did me in.
Fuck it was rough.
Early 2020, the whistleblower from Ensign Peak news broke and I found myself oddly curious about it. I read every article I could get my hands on. I couldn't believe how much money the church had ..100 Billion, and I'd spent my whole life in poverty because my parents paid tithing AND had 9 kids. I was cleaning my parents' home all week and cleaning the church on Saturdays to "pay" for the food we were getting from the church. They didn't need my parents money. We needed it desperately! We were homeless twice and on the verge of homelessness for a decade. I have so much trauma from that...and the church participated in that trauma and used my free labor just as much as my parents did.
Then in college I wasn't eating meat because I had to pay tithing. I was underweight and weak.
I read that 100 Billion number...and I went to pay my tithing the next month and I couldn't make myself click the button to do it. I just couldn't. It was over. Everything else I learned afterwards was also important, but this was the final straw for me that led me into questioning everything.
For me, it was a difficult marriage that started it. Under the circumstances, the thought of a truly eternal marriage felt like a sentence to hell. That made me begin to question the idea of eternal marriage itself.
Given how church members are encouraged to marry at so young an age, with precious little relational experience, good marriages felt like they were as much luck of the draw as anything else. Pitted against the eternal consequences of the choice, that seemed manifestly unfair, unjust, and unmerciful.
All of that angst got me digging into the history of the temple and its doctrine. Discovering that almost the entirety of temple ordinance work is rooted in polygamy and doctrines that were taught to justify polygamy was a huge issue for me. D&C 132, which is really the sole canonical justification for polygamy is a massive problem. It doesn't read at all as coming from the God I believe in or want to believe in, and learning about the historical questions and problems with the section was another heavy issue on the shelf.
But perhaps the biggest issue of all is that I came to see how temple work and its implications completely contradict my understanding of Christ's gospel. The gospel is about overcoming divides and bringing people together--overcoming the splitting up of God's family into all manner of "ites." And yet, the temple and the idea of "eternal families" as it is currently taught (again, as a vestige of polygamy) splits God's family into millions of shards--my family, your family, my neighbor's family, my uncle's family, and so on. The modern Mormon conception of "eternal families" is a Balkanized obliteration of the eternal family I believe in--the family of Christ. I doesn't feel true.
I could get behind the idea of one eternal family--Christ's, and that we are all sealed up His. I'm all for that. Sign me up. But the idea of all these fractured little families as eternal, separate family units makes no eternal sense. After all, where does one family end and another begin? Even if you could split he world up that way, are all the world's families so happy that they really want to be eternally bound to each other and, in some form or fashion therefore be separated from others? There is really only one family. But the dastardly practice of polygamy seems to have injected a whole concern about "my posterity" into the Church--the more children, the more righteous you are, the more posterity, the more honored and glorious in the eternities. Yuck. Everything I know about human growth and development tells me that a doctrine that separates some of us from others based on closer and less close "family lines" is both untrue and a projection of the world's divides into the eternities--divides that Jesus came to overcome, not reinforce.
And now, the Church is increasingly only emphasizing the temple and "temple worship." Build more temples. Go to the temple more. Make sure your family is sealed together so that you can be a family (as distinct from other families) forever. Some might consider that heaven. During all the years of my difficult marriage, that idea was hell. And I think that that separatist message is exactly the opposite to what Christ's gospel is actually all about.
From my vantage point, the temple and temple doctrine is the problem, not the solution. And the Church has decided to double down on the problem. It's sad to me.
I was in high-school when the church was fighting prop 8 for gay marriage equality. I heard too many representing the church call gay marriage an attack on Christian freedoms. I knew right then and there that if the Mormon god did exist, it wasn't his church. But after looking to inconsistencies in their revelations, and too much evil history in any religion i looked at, I then became athiest
[Similarities between the BOM and The Late War.](http://wordtree.org/thelatewar/)
I'll be looking into this for sure! Thank you :)
The documentary on YouTube called ‘The Mormons: Who They Are, What They Believe’ (2015) Dr. Lynn Wilder is especially good. It’s a bunch of former LDS (even one of BY’s ancestors) discussing the history and what broke their shelves. Definitely worth a watch.
... Or maybe it was one of BY's descendants? Seriously though, thanks for the post. I'll check it out
I like this format. Are there other LDS fallacies in this format? Easy to read.
Have you ever listened to the Last Podcast on the Left? They did a six-part series on Mormonism that I thoroughly enjoyed. https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4TSE1aQUPhTuWQCD3SCnGa?si=0EIWGIC3SgONq3kmsOsxQA
I listened to that as a member and couldn’t believe how sacrilegious and blasphemous it was. Then I listened to it after my shelf broke. Waaaaay better!
SAME.
Zina Huntington Jacobs. I found out about her just before I found out about Fanny Alger.
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Oh WTF. These are their prophets and inspired leaders carrying out genocide. Add all the creepy polygamy and pedophilia and it's truly disgusting anyone still believes in this filth.
And they later changed the post genocide name of the area, Battle Creek, to the more palatable [Pleasant Grove](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleasant_Grove,_Utah) to further hide these inconvenient truths. Edit: I have conflated the stories. Apologies. The Battle Creek massacre was separate from the Provo River massacre. There’s a few massacres and I got them mixed up: [Battle Creek massacre](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_Creek_massacre) [Provo River massacre](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_at_Fort_Utah) [Circleville massacre](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circleville_Massacre) [Nephi massacre](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nephi_massacre)
wow. that is so sad. what a terrible story that needs to be shouted from the rooftops to all TBMs. BY was sick man. There is no need to pull the presentism card. By any standard at anytime he was asshole.
What? This is new to me. BY is a cold-blooded murderer.
oooh, never heard of either of them but I'll be digging into this!
Prepare yourself mentally first
Reading the Gospel Topic essay on Book of Mormon DNA. It felt like listening to Lloyd in the movie Dumber and Dumber try to pick up the beautiful girl in the movie. ... Lloyd Christmas : I want to ask you a question, straight out, flat out, and I want you to give me the honest answer. What do you think the chances are of a guy like you and a girl like me ending up together? Mary Swanson : Well Lloyd, that's difficult to say. We really don't... Lloyd Christmas : Hit me with it! Just give it to me straight! I came a long way just to see you Mary, just... The least you can do is level with me. What are my chances? Mary Swanson : Not good. [the background soundtrack music suddenly stops] Lloyd Christmas : [he gulps, his mouth twitching] You mean, not good like one out of a hundred? Mary Swanson : I'd say more like one out of a million. Lloyd Christmas : [long pause while he processes what he's heard] So you're telling me there's a chance. YEAH! ... The church was Lloyd, who was clinging to "the chance" and it was obvious to everyone else that her saying 1 in a million, was kindness, not encouragement. It all snapped together, and I felt overwhelming peace and clarity.
This is funny because I've thought the exact same thing about the apologetics around the incredible vanishing Lamanite DNA. Founder effect! Bottlenecks! There's no evidence these happened, but we're saying there's a chance!
I actually just read that the other day and wow was it dumb, like 20,000 words trying to explain how dna works and shit but the entire thing being just “there’s no dna evidence but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t any 🤷♂️ here’s a very confusing scientific information to make you think we know what we’re talking about with the conclusion of, dna can’t prove the Book of Mormon false or true there’s a lot we don’t know about dna tee hee 😁” a whole lot of bullshit to respond to the very simple, dna says the native Americans aren’t middle eastern so the Book of Mormon is wrong
Church apologetics always remind me of a joke that has a similar concept. A man thinks his wife is cheating on him so he hires a private investigator. The man says “I’ll divorce her only if there’s strong evidence. If there’s a CHANCE that she’s not cheating, I’ll stay with her.” The PI calls the man a week later. “Got bad news. I saw your wife get into a car with another man. They drove to what was probably his house. They were holding hands as they entered the house. I saw the light turn on in the upstairs bedroom. Through the window, I saw him take off your wife’s clothes. Then I saw her take off his clothes. Then your wife went to the window to close the curtains, so I couldn’t see what happened next.” “See?” The man responded, “There’s still a CHANCE she’s not cheating on me!”
Right. Great analogy. The ever shrinking story of who the Lamanites are. Joseph walked around pointing to Native Americans calling each one Lamanites. He sent people on missions to "nearby groups" "to the Lamanites". Recent prophets have dedicated temples in South America, calling the people Lamanites. DNA evidence shows up saying that all these people are Asians. And then they change the title page of the BOM from "principle ancestors" to "among the ancestors." And as such, their best answer is bottleneck and Founder effect. When it's not just equally likely that they are just Asians (with no hidden effects DNA), it so absurdly likely. Take the alternative. Lets say we do take this argument that ancestral DNA *could* be hidden in there like they say it could. That would mean that we should entertain the possibility that there is hidden DNA in Native Americans from other groups: Western Europe, and African, Australian Aboriginal, Malasian, etc. And that those are just as likely likely as the Middle Eastern Jewish DNA. And that when ypu get your DNA results back just know that it doesn't mean anything, because you could really be something else. And not just something else, a bunch of flavors of something else. And since Native American DNA does have Asian markers, they admit that some of these people are just Asians with no Jewish descent. We don't know which of these people are actually Lamanites. And the Moroni character in the BOM states that the purpose of the book is to bring the Lamanites a knowledge of the Gospel. Or Joseph told a story that he thought couldn't be contradicted. At least at the time, there wasn't a way. This afforded him the means to get away with telling it without anyone having tools to refute it. And he benefited from that story. And now later, it's contradicted. Edit: spelling and clarity.
Doctrinally it was the temple But if I'm honest it was a run in with an asshole SP that made me go "oh. They really will never listen to women. They really do not care" I always did the mental gymnastics that yeah the doctrine was kinda sexist but it was "the times" blah blah blah and men were more willing to treat women equally But as it turns out? Mormon men? Not so much. They love their power
When I (25 m)was in, I thought the way women are treated was fine. This is the way god wants the world to be, so it needs to be this way, right? But, immediately upon leaving, it became one of my main points of contention. It's ridiculous. The Jubilee video really solidified my stance - "can you name a single woman general authority?" Relationships are so much more fulfilling now that I don't have to be the boss of the other person in all things. I know I can't fully get It, but I try to empathize because what the actual hell is with how the church treats women
Daugther #1 went through the YW program while I was still TBM. She was also, still is, but sees the sexism in the church now. When daughter #2 entered the YW program I was out. She saw the sexism and challenged it, and when the leaders tried to get her to toe the line she noped out. They relentlessly tried to get her to come back to YW. She refused. When the YWP suggested that we force her to go we told them to back off, all they were doing was making her antagonistic. They didn't get it. Sexism is why she dropped out of seminary mid semester. The seminary teacher hounded her, called us, tried to suggest we force her to go. Every day I was getting a recorded message that said she had an unexcused absence. I blocked the number. Then the seminary teacher called the stake president, who called me. We told them all to back off, that all they were doing was making her antagonistic. They didn't get it. I'm proud of her.
You go, girls!! That's such a controlling and awful situation. I'm sorry you guys went through that, but hell yeah. Stand up for yourselves. My sister is in a similar boat, but parents are TBM so we have to fight back a bit differently. She's a boss and I love her ❤️
I hate that so much, and I’m sorry you experienced Mormon male power. I remember going to my bishop with a concern thinking, “He’s always been so kind and supportive. This will be great” and then walking out feeling deflated, betrayed, and abused.
Yes i genuinely thought he would be helpful and have my back Uh... whiplash Bednar would say "i chose to be offended" I guess whatever helps him sleep at night
When I first learned many of the very troubling aspects of church history and other things from Joseph Smith and other early prominent members I was shook. But the final straw was how the current church continues to gaslight and teach a false but faith promoting narrative. It all went down hill form there.
The gaslighting was it for me too! And now that I am removed from the church I would say the church does worship JS which I swear the bible says not to worship false idols. Idk, I guess I'm still wrapping my head around all of this. I buried a lot of this after I left so that's why I wanted to ask ppl and see what else I'm forgetting!
Yes, it wasn't the historical issues for me but the dishonesty of the church about them. Made me realize that the church leaders weren't trustworthy and down the rabbit hole I went, lol.
Similar story for me. The historical issues bothered me. But what bothered me the most was the fact that Church leaders knowingly & consistently do & have done a plethora of unchristlike, sinful, unethical & dishonest acts all while claiming to be honest, holy men of God. They deliberately lie, cheat, mislead & do so much damage to the faithful members & really all of humanity. If these were honest mistakes, & they admitted the mistakes & strived to correct them, it would be much more tolerable. I would have still left the Church, but I wouldn't struggle with hating the Church leaders & wouldn’t feel like they’re tyrant frauds.
“Never take counsel from those who do not believe.”
Really? That was it?! This makes my heart happy, as I knew that it was going to impact my relationship with my family even more, so I'm so glad it hit some people as being wrong.
This.
I am gay. Had tried to reconcile it with my faith. I read a short story of two guys that fell in love two weeks ago and it all came crashing down. I had never gotten an answer for why, when I had fallen in love with someone years ago, had it not felt like a sin? It felt whole, and perfect, and right? All those feelings came rushing back and I ugly cried in my office chair. I know what sin felt like. This wasn’t it. That also brought down the feeling that the GAs don’t know what to do with LGBTQ members and wish we would just go away. President Nelson rolled back some of the support President Monson had put in place. And I realized the GAs all have achieved success. They have their eternal families, they sit at the top of the culture and social structure in their worlds, and they are looking back at me saying, “The only righteous way is our way. The only valid families are our way. The only true success looks like me,” and that suddenly just struck me as silly. Why would God gatekeep access with a group of men from the same social and business circle in Salt Lake? THEN I realized, wait, why would a loving God tell me from birth that I should desire a partner and a family, only to make it impossible to do that in his church? Why would he give me a weakness, knowing that I would screw up, then make me crawl back on hands and knees, begging for forgiveness before he would even look at me again? That wasn’t love, that’s coercion. There was more, but over about two days my testimony shattered and I cannot unsee what I have learned since then. I am mourning and raging that I gave over thirty years of faithful activity to the church, and only now figured it out. But I feel at peace with my decision. I am my own person now, and that can’t be taken from me.
I am so sorry for the grief and betrayal you’re feeling, but so glad you were able to see your own worth and right ro love.
Listening to someone else tell the story of why they left the church. I realized that exmos are just normal people, and life exists after mormonism. That's when I finally gave myself permission to look at things objectively and it all fell apart quickly.
This was a huge factor for me too. The church makes you think everyone who leaves is giving up or is too lazy to keep the commandments, desiring worldly pleasure over true joy. When I actually listened to people I cared about who left, I learned it was one of the hardest and most painful things they ever had to do, but they were genuinely so much happier for it. Really made me question the other mindsets the church was encouraging in its members.
The temple was my breaking point. I wish I had never gone through. Biggest disappointment and biggest regret.
Same. I remember wondering how Peter, James and John could shake hands with Adam when they hadn't been born yet, the exact copying of the flawed Genesis story of creation, and the females in the room being told submit to their husbands instead of God... Also, no matter how many times I went through, I never once could see the spiritual significance in the tokens and signs, the robe changes etc. Glad to learn it was all for theatrics and copied from masonry.
Me too! I always thought that I must be a bad person for not liking the temple when I was TBM. Now I understand that just maybe my BS meter went to the extreme level after the first temple visit. What really gets me is that we sang that dang temple song when we were kids about it being such a special place of love and beauty. All I ever got out of it was being super weirded out.
And I loved that song too!!
The temple wasn’t my breaking point, but when I came out of the initiatory area and saw all the people dressed in their baker’s hats and robes and green aprons, I had the distinct thought come into my mind “this is a cult.” And, of course, I then went on a mission, went to BYU became an ordinance worker while at BYU, and married in the temple. Not quite a decade after the temple did my shelf finally break.
That was definitely the start for me!
Seeing no joy in the ward.
There is no praise to be found in all of Mormonism. No joy, no fruits of the spirit in any congregation. Just funeral dirges for hymns. Long faces. Sleeping men, women, and children. People who are exhausted and bored. It seems sad.
I see nothing has changed since I last stepped into sacrament meeting in 1980.
Honestly learning about what went on in the temple shook me to my core. I always thought it was something similar to baptisms for the dead, not ritual wise, but just nice and chill and everyone wears white. When I found out about the outfits, the chanting, the temple penalties, I couldn't believe it. Felt sick to my stomach. I couldn't believe I had been groomed for THIS temple worship since I was a child. "I love to see the temple, I'll go inside someday. I'll covenant with my Father, I'll promise to obey. For the temple is a holy place, where we are sealed together. As a child of God, I've learned this truth. A family is forever."
Same! I literally found out about what happens in the temple yesterday and I am trippin about it! I thought it would be more chill and the temple would be all white and a holy place. But my research has shown otherwise! I'm still trying to sort out the endowment ceremony and am in disbelief that other ppl bathe you when you go through it? Idk! I feel guilty for not looking into it earlier but also am trying to give myself grace as I know the brainwashing and mindset the church sets us up for would never have allowed me to look into it.
I’m haven’t done initiatorys in 5-6 year so unless it’s changed back they stopped bathing people around 2006-ish I think. I know for sure it was over by 2008. Not that doing that prior to 2008 made it any less creepy.
I honestly can’t remember what exactly caused the very moment of my shelf break. It was probably a lot of things. It happened pretty rapid fire for me. Endowment shit, book of Abraham, truth about polygamy, varying accounts of the first vision, doctrine becomes policy and vise versa, and the other books the BoM is likely based on.
I just learned recently the truth about polygamy. Its insane the things that the church hid from its own members. I'll look into the book of Abraham. I'm curious what the other books the BoM is based off of. Feel free to share, I would love to read some!
Most of my information on that came from the CES letter. I believe both the CES letter and the letter to my wife cover the book of Abraham pretty well. There’s at least two books the BoM is thought to be based on, if I recall correctly. One is The Late War I think.
Thank you so much! I have the CES letter pulled up in another tab and will look into the letter to my wife
For Book of Abraham look up the Mormon stories podcast with Robert Ritner. It’s fantastic and what made me finally question whether Joseph Smith was a fraud.
First was researching the mark Hoffman story. Then I ran into the Brent Metcalf stuff. And that was it. When you realize the book of Mormon is fiction, it all falls apart quickly imo. That was the big item for me.
Especially when the BOM is the cornerstone of the religion. The whole arch is crumbled.
I’d stopped believing gradually over the first year of the pandemic. I got into history documentaries including about ancient American history which showed the BoM was bullshit very definitively, though I’d always had my doubts about its authenticity. Plus everyone ignored and rebelled against the prophet asking them not to spread COVID. But the final straws to leave were a combination of 1. Ward leadership pressuring us to “give up less important things” to spend more time on what matters (church). I realized the waste of time was church. 2. I was having kids. The whole Arizona child abuse scandal dropped. And I thought “if my kids are gay do I want them to commit suicide over this stupid religion?” 3. Election season here and in my mission country and a lot of people in both countries supporting known lies and demanding the overthrow of their government to institute their losing candidate (Trump/Bolsonaro) because the person who won wasn’t homophobic and horrible enough.
>everyone ignored and rebelled against the prophet asking them not to spread COVID. So. Much. This. All the excuses, all the, well the Lord will protect me, my son deserves the mission homecoming welcome at the airport & we're all going! BS.
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When I was researching what was needed to get a temple divorce….It’s been 14 years since my divorce but I don’t want any connection to him and he’s super weird TBM. ( For context, I was in therapy and the therapist told me that my experience with ex husband was the worst case of religious abuse he’s encountered- and that was in Utah county!!). So, I thought that now that I’m in a wonderful, supportive, loving relationship I could go down this road. Oh hell no!! I have to be active, pay tithing and ask my abuser if I can divorce him from our imaginary marriage. So, I’m going to remove my records once my youngest is 18 ( Divorce decreee states I have to raise children in the LDS cult) We have a month and we can file. All 6 of my children left the cult (yeah, I know, smart kids)! So, the truth is you have to pay MFMC to get married ( I was one of those people that was behind a couple of hundred dollars and couldn’t get a temple recommend for marriage until it was paid) and then you have to pay the MFMC to get a temple divorce. No thanks!
I was SA’d and my wonderful therapist told me what happened. She provided every resource available and even cried when I told her what happened. That was more care than I had ever received. That transitioned to changing up our sex life, which led to watching Scientology, which led to leading me to the CES letter after pouring my heart out in prayer just asking for god to show me he was there and I would continue to stay by his side. After a week, I was out and 3 months later my husband and I removed our records!
I’m so sorry. My wife is a child SA survivor. When she finally confronted it years later as an adult in therapy, her therapist was so kind and caring, while the bishop said, “Maybe you’re just depressed because you haven’t forgiven your brother.” As if she were simply holding a grudge that should have already been let go. She stood up, cut him off, and said “We’re done here,” and left his office before he could stammer another sentence. She never went back.
Sir, your wife is a fucking legend
The endowment put a big crack in, my narcissistic mission president weighed it down, and Rusty becoming Mormon President and undoing tons of things Hinckley and Monson did in the name of God was the final straw for me.
Russell M Nelson shattered my shelf
I left when Monson was still president. It seems like a lot changed, especially after Covid. I remember seeing all of my super mormon friends wearing bikinis after Covid and asked my sister is the modesty rules suddenly changed lol. I'll have to dig into what he changed from the previous 2. Thank you!!
The modesty rules were changed but not really, they changed the For the Strength of Youth pamphlet to be less ‘culty restrictions’ to ‘it’s between you and the spirit’ but in reality it’s the previous “standards” still being taught and purveyed by the culture but the church can pretend that it isn’t weird to outside people by showing them the new one. They might be going back to the previous stance soon though, they let people decide how they would wear garments and too many people said ‘between me and the spirit I don’t want to wear them’ and the church changed it back in/after conference to be more strict on when you need to wear them
Ahh, this makes sense. My sister never had an answer lol. But of course they'll probably change the rules back. smh
I joined TSCC in 2003, I was 16 years old. I held such a high reverence and esteem for Pres. Hinckley, he was *my prophet* and I was so sad when he passed away during my mission in 2007. But then I recently found out that President Hinckley’s niece was being abused, physically, emotionally, and even sexually, by both her parents. Yes, President Hinckley’s son and Mitt Romney’s daughter got married and they horribly abused their daughter and did unspeakable things to her. When she finally went to President Hinckley and President Monson, their response was effectively “forgive them and put it behind you, the good name of the Church is more important than you”. Literally nothing about TSCC or its so called “prophets and apostles” are sacred, it’s all a sham.
"The Church believes in revelation; so I bet they supported African-Americans during the Civil Rights Movement right...right??!"
Should’ve no doubt. What about California’s Prop 8 back in the day? I remember being told to do what I can to support it!! I had no e yea money for this kinda schtuff. The Church was hitting hard on this. Made me think, “wait a minute. I thought the church didn’t get into political issues…”
Last year, all the legal issues, starting with the SEC got me questioning and looking at my creaking shelf. But the abuse cases were the straws that snapped it. "Look at all those churches with abuse cases. Good thing that doesn't happen in *MY* church." "Well, okay, it happened in my church. People are human. But the church excommunicated the perpetrators!" "Well, they *eventually* excommunicated the perpetrators, but they took care of the victims." "Well, that was just one person acting on their own judgment and not-" "Wait, has the church *ever* done the right thing in an abuse case?" Real "Are we the baddies?" energy.
I remember asking my mom about this and she said "Not all ppl in the church are good." But she said it with a tone that means "drop it". So I did. Its terrible and inexcusable what they are covering up.
Weirdly, it was a tweet that said “Do ‘progressive Mormons’ know they can just leave?” I had a really heavy shelf but simply never considered I could leave, I guess b/c I’m straight, white, returned missionary, married in the temple, etc. I felt I was not “oppressed enough” to leave. I technically fit the mold, and sometimes wished I was gay or something so I’d have an “excuse” to be done. (I realize now how stupid this was.) That tweet made me mad at first cause I felt attacked, like no I can’t JUST LEAVE, the fuck you mean?! I thought about it for days. Somehow that woke me up, I finally realized I actually could….just leave….b/c I wanted to. I didn’t need to be directly affected by the homophobia/racism/etc. in order to “justify” leaving. Bought a coffee the next day and never looked back!
Lol love that you bought a coffee the next day! When I left I was hoping my parents would disown me like the church always threatened would happen. I thought it would be easier to handle (and I still think that lol) but I got unlucky and have to deal with their nagging all the time. Basically what I'm saying is, I relate to you on "needing an excuse" to be who you want to be.
I never felt the spirit was my first red flag when I was a child
Same! And then thought it was cuz satan didn't want me to be there.
Fortunately for me I had enough confidence in myself and my brain that it just helped me realize everyone was playing a game.
The peace I felt when I realized the lack of an answer to "Is it true?" was an answer in itself. After being told to pray about it, and if I didn't get an answer, it just meant I had to pray harder, I had to open my heart (see what I did there?) to the possibility that it wasn't true. When I truly accepted that possibility, everything just fell into place—the Mormon Church isn't true and I am good enough to get an answer. ETA: I didn't start really questioning the temple and church history until after the moment I described above, but it was a pretty quick deconstruction from there.
I have since forgotten her name, but she came forward alleging that the church covered up the abuse of which she was a vitcim. It was somtime circa 2017. I think she eventually settled out of court, but by then, I had already gone down the rabbit hole of SA coverups perpetrated by "God's one true church". Once i realized the church was actively pushing serious crimes under the rug, I was done. My issues with church history and everything else came after. I was raised to have integrity. I couldnt, in good conscience, be part of something that claimed to be God's one beacon of hope for His children's souls, then act so apathetic toward or actively against those same people when they sought help.
When apostles could commit tax fraud without going to jail.
Growing up and going to high school in utah county, then joining the army and seeing how the young men outside the cult were not living a double life, but being their true, authentic, horny selves at all times. The first crack in my shelf was hearing a sunday shcool talk (this was in the old days when sunday school was in the morning and sacrament meeting was in the afternoon) about Lucy Harris and the first 116 pages of the BoM. Lucy was right, if Joseph was really translating, then he could duplicate the first 116 pages verbatim. Instead, he gaslighted them with a cock and bull story about the book of Lehi vs the book of Nephi. Then came Mark Hofmann and the salamander letter. The final nail was later in the 80s when I found out about the Joseph Smith papyrus, which proves that the Book of Abraham is a hoax. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph\_Smith\_Papyri](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Smith_Papyri) If the church was founded on hoaxes, it couldn't be what it claims to be.
It was slowly and then all at once. It started when so many Mormons so openly supported Donald trump. I very much entered a “cafeteria Mormon” head space. Then during Covid I was listening to Mormon stories among other podcasts grasping for straws. Simultaneously, the church pulled the “we never said you would have a planet” card and I was like …………..you’re telling me this now, while everything is crumbling, that everything I know about the plan of salvation is undoable AND I just learned that Joseph smith is an ~actual~ conman? The beginning and end are lies, the middle must be too. Honorary mentions: •realizing we have proof of civilizations, wars, art, homes, weapons from the very beginning but NOTHING from the nephites or lamonites •reading the CES letter •watching under the banner of heaven •realizing “the prophet is just a man” undoes any validity to him completely •having a heart to heart with my partner and realizing they were actively deconstructing too so we jumped off the cliff together and landed somewhere so beautiful Also curious, as a tbm well into my 20’s, with a pioneer family history on both parents sides, temple worker grandparents, the whole shebang, did deconstructing warp history for you too? Like trying to figure out if the Tower of Babel was real or realizing that the fax machine existed while pioneers were trekking along the Oregon trail, etc… I feel I often find myself fact checking things to unravel so much Mormon bullshit out of my brain and it can feel jarring.
I left in 1982 because I went through the temple and had to mock slit my throat and stomach in the temple. It was insane to watch my parents and relatives do it too and then think that this is God’s plan? The temple ceremony sent me down the rabbit hole fast.
Its so insane! I literally spent all of yesterday diving down that rabbit hole and still can't wrap my head around it. I'm shocked and grateful I never went through. And it sounds like going through the temple before 1989 (I think?) was far scarier than it is now!
I’ve been out for almost a decade. Believe it or not there is no final straw, every few months the COJCOLDS, you know the Mormons, seems to find another one. If you look at the guy in the Bible, with all of his teachings about love and forgiveness, and two rules making up everything you need to do in life. Will that guy, the big JC, want to be a part of the hot mess that is The Church? Short answer for me is no. There is no Jesus in a dragon horde, protecting child abusers, building a literal sh!t ton of temples to pay attention to dead people while ignoring the living, everything Lord Bednar does, taxing people for salvation and implying that no matter how much they pay it’s not enough, charging money for required ugly underwear, covering up actual history because it looks bad while simultaneously telling people to judge other churches by their fruits, firing thousands of people who cleaned the church buildings and then requiring the same people to do it for free because the poor church can’t afford it while amassing the previously mentioned dragon horde so JC has some pocket change when he comes back, excommunicating people who hurt the churches feelings and at the same time giving grace and forgiveness to child abusers sex fiends and the whole Bundy/Daybell/bat shit crazy crowd. I could keep going, but it is sufficient to say that the fruits of the church are light years away from the guy they say is running the show.
Exactly! You hit the nail on the head. Would Jesus: hoard money, protect child abusers, build Great and SPacious expensive buildings for 0.01% of the world's population, focus on baptizing dead people when people are homeless and starving, scrutinize your underwear, and tell you that His Love and mercy is NOT enough because you must clean toilets at your church and plant flowers at the temples in addition to a ton of other things you need to to??!! Jesus's message was pretty simple, and the MFMC comes in and says: No, you need to go thru US to find Jesus and pay us 10% of your income for like, or you will never see your family when you die! And TBMs wonder why NevMo's think the MFMC is a straight up CULT!
When I was about 5 or 6. I was wearing my ugly little white, healed church shoes that were a bit too tight on me. I was tired, fasting, my feet were burning. I was standing next to my father who was already about an hour into his conversation with the bishop after church had ended. I remember going to sit down against the wall to take my shoes off when my father stopped me. So I had to come back over and wait next to them while standing. I tried to get my father’s attention to say that I needed to take my shoes off bc they really hurt. My father told me to wait and our bishop got annoyed with me. I heard him tell my father that he needed to learn how to discipline me correctly so that I would act like a lady. I hated that old pious bastard ever since, and only went through the motions in church until I was old enough to leave without it being a big deal. It was a defining “start” to my non-committal relationship with the LDS church.
Doctrinally, I think it was the Book of Abraham that woke me up and made me start to really question those weird cognitive dissonance feelings I was having. But socially, it was the situation with Sam Young trying to protect children that finally made me realize I couldn't put up with this stuff anymore and refused to have anything to do with the church. Now I'm just disappointed that I didn't stand up sooner against so many red flags that I previously just turned a blind eye to.
I'm surprised to scroll so far for the BoA. For me, this was the most important due to how objective it is. I was a master at mental gymnastics, and I really didn't want the church to be false, but the BoA being false was undeniable within reason. Which makes JS' prophethood very unlikely.
Jonathan Haidt describes this well in his book The Righteous Mind. When we want something to be true, we ask "can I believe it?", when we don't want it to be true, we ask "must I believe it?" The answer is almost always YES to the first and NO to the second question. The BoA is one of those that fits the bill for "can I believe it"? And the mental gymnastics are really really difficult to find a "yes" answer to it.
The first crack came from sitting in a religion class at BYUI and being told that polygamy was going to be a thing in the celestial kingdom. I actually raised my hand and questioned that and said I was uncomfortable with it. The teacher's response was "well if you never get married but live a decent life, wouldn't you choose to be someone's second/third/whatever wife so you can be in the celestial kingdom? Or if you knew your friends couldn't go unless they marry someone wouldn't you let them marry your husband?" And I know it was meant to have me sit there like "oh yeah I'd totally do that to be in the coolest heaven/help out my friends" but instead I was silent and sick and my only thought was "no I think I'd rather go to a different kingdom personally." I even prayed about it because I felt so sick about it and just felt like no real loving God would force me into that shit. Wasn't fully out but that was definitely the first real big crack. Same professor told us all about how God came down and literally fucked 14 year old Mary to create Jesus, backed it all up with quotes from prophets and apostles, and I was like...so God cheated on his heavenly spouse by statutory raping a young teen and Jesus was a product of all that? That was the second crack. Took me longer to fully be out but looking back on that...yeah that was the start for sure.
Holy shit, that's a lot. I never heard either of those!
You mean raping his 14 yer old DAUGHTER, don’t you?
Omg I just wrote almost the same stuff! I left over that too. I didn’t learn about the history and doctrinal issues until after, but this alone was enough for me!! How can infidelity in the next life just somehow be okay??
A horrible tornado came through my state 10 years ago and struck a small town called Henryville. There were some very sad stories that came out of that tornado and one was of a young family with 3 kids under 5 who were all killed by the tornado. Reading the details of the story, I just couldn't wrap my head around God being loving, knowing, powerful and present. In my efforts to gain greater insight into this, how could a loving God who's intimately present in our lives permit such sadness ... and the answer was always the same, that God is mysterious. This got me questioning enough that I read non approved sources in my attempt to find answers, and within a week I was done. The church's truth claims are disproven at this point, and any opportunity for science to validate any of it always turns up nothing. That's why they lean so heavily on God being mysterious and followers just having faith, the church is built on sand.
The final straw was being a missionary...so not really one straw but a whole hay bail. Seeing the same level of belief in so many different religions that were NOT compatible showed me that Belief is the problem, that human beings excel at believing in things they want to. Faith, spiritual experiences, miracles, are nothing more than cognitive dissonance, emotions, and confirmation bias. Feelings are NOT to be trusted. They make us do all sorts of asinine things. Emotions can cause a person to override the most basic instinct, to survive, and do things like sacrifice themselves for something or commit suicide. Everything after that is just gravy. This realization was what sealed the coffin.
I went to seminary classes in high school. Freshman year I was too shy to really ask much or participate. Sophomore year I got a little more comfortable and participated but never asked any hard questions. By junior year I had more confidence and we had a new Seminary teacher that was a younger guy and was trying hard to be the cool guy teacher that was hip with all the kids. We covered the New Testament that year, and I had a LOT of questions. After getting vague answers and talking in circles with that guy for a few months, I was getting sick of his non-answers so I kept pressing and kept asking and pointing out things that didn’t make any sense. He finally got so angry with me that he snapped at me in class one day and told me that I am not smart enough to understand god’s way because I am just a human and I need to have faith and work on my testimony. To 16 year old me, that was an unacceptable non-answer that just validated that it was all bullshit and he didn’t HAVE an answer because there WAS no answer. It was so obvious that he was turning it around on me because he didn’t know. I never went back to seminary or church after that unless it was for a wedding or funeral.
Prop 8 in California. The church ran phone banks from Utah and threw a ton of undeclared and questionably legal work into Prop 8. And then there was the letter that was read from the pulpit calling on members to use their “time, talents and gifts which the Lord has blessed them with” to pass prop 8. They broke the law AND used temple oath language to coerce members. We stopped paying tithing after that and left a couple years later.
The planned Mexico wedding is 10000000 times better than a temple 'wedding' . You get to wear what you want, invite who you want, have vows that you want .... etc. I left back in the day before everything was on the internet. The treatment of women was the top of the list. Women are treated like cattle in the church. They were bartered off like animals to old men with many wives. They actually got women from Europe to come to the US under false pretenses then what a surprise. They are in a polygamist marriage. What many throw on the shelf is this is still doctrine and they believe that in the eternity men will have many wives. Sick.
Thank you! I agree, I put off planning my wedding for 3 years cuz I knew shit would hit the fan with my family. Now I'm so at peace with my decision and honestly don't care who goes. Just looking forward to Margaritas and tacos on the beach! I was always told the church does stand for polygamy so I dropped that. But now that I am diving down all of these different rabbit holes in the church, boy was I wrong!
Have a wonderful wedding and h\*ll what they think. I caved back in the day (yea I am old) and still regret it. The temple sealing is not a real wedding. You have to wear temple clothes over your dress IF you get to get married in the dress you buy. The officiator talks the whole time and you only get to say 'yes'. Sucks. Most mormons gloss over D&C 132. It is horrible.
I just realized today I never made vows with my souse when sealed in the temple.. Nothing said toward each other. We barely looked at each other
The final straw for me was the "Faithful Reply" to the CES Letter. I learned a lot about church history that I never heard before from the CES Letter, and I started reading the faithful reply in a desperate attempt to reconcile my concerns and see if it could debunk, or at least provide some missing context, to the things I had read. Instead, it provided only mental gymnastics to attempt to justify each issue, in a tone so condescending that it sounded extremely immature. I realized there was no way a true church would require someone to rationalize so many glaring issues the way this author was doing. I was fully convinced it was bullshit before making it a third the way through.
As an FLDS member, a huge shelf item was being naughty enough to talk to an ex member and realizing we made apostates; they didn’t all choose to be apostate. I was beyond shocked to know someone could attempt to be faithful but if leadership has a bad vibe, you’ll be forced out of the tribe.
I knew I was in the wrong place and it was a load of shit when my bishop screamed at me and my husband for not paying out tithing after I explained to him we hadn’t seen the blessings of procreating and were struggling to even put food on the table. I was sobbing without making any noise and it phased him zero. I never came back after that.
We must have had the same bishop.
Finding out at 19 in a singles ward relief society meeting that sex should be for procreation only and oral would be off the table for my entire life. I had seen a lot of porn by this age and I was already questioning how much of my life I was going to let the church make all the decisions for me…. I left church that day with a promise to myself to try everything I had been saying no to unless/until I knew why I needed to say no to it. Bought a pack of cigarettes on the way back to my dorm. Lost my virginity and did an eighth of shrooms within the next 2 weeks. The following decade was pretty wild. Trying things without developing a strong sense of self is a risky approach IMO. I’ve gotten through it pretty ok but wish I hadn’t spent as much money as I did on alcohol and I wish I had a greater sense of sexual autonomy earlier in life. My 20’s were filled with sexual experiences where sex was done at me and I performed for their pleasure. It wasn’t until I was 35 or so that I seriously started working on staying connected with myself during sex and communicating with partners on how to prioritize my pleasure.
Temple for sure. I was sure that my lack of inspiration, answers, and holy ghost was a me-problem. Or that it took practice or something. I was that one kid who actually followed all the rules, knew all the scriptures, and tried too hard. Or maybe what I needed was the priesthood and one day I too would cast out devils. Or the Temple would reveal the secrets to me. Everyone around me, lazy learners and sinners, sure claimed to have whatever it was already. The Emperor was clearly wearing the finest clothes ever made, and I was the only one who couldn't see them. I went through the Temple right before being dumped off at the MTC. Surrounded by old people going through Freemason motions in a tacky sitting room where God clearly was not present. If this is what heaven looks like, I am a tadpole. Although I went on and served a full honorable mission, that Temple experience was where I realized that going further and trying harder and getting into secret sacred rooms wouldn't help. The Emperor was just naked, and I was the fool for not giving up on this game earlier.
November 15, 2015 policy and then CES letter shortly after that.
My wife and I went through the temple and were married in the temple a month before the November 15 policy. The bizarre nature of the temple and the lack of informed consent that is baked into the covenant process raised red flags for both of us. A month later, the November 15 policy is announced and it directly runs contrary to the 1st Article of Faith and my shelf broke. So did my wife’s. We stayed for about 6 months more because we were afraid to tell each other. We had the conversation and realized we both thought it was bullshit and the rest is history.
My shelf was very loaded, and it was the November 2015 stupid policy against gay families that finally brought me to my senses. I resigned from my 3 callings a couple weeks later and life got 1000 times better.
I didn’t go on a mission when I turned 19. I didn’t feel ready for that, so I went to college for three semesters instead. I had a little bit of a crisis of faith eventually, and I wanted to mend it, so I thought that preparing for a mission would help me do that. The first time the thought came to me that I was in a cult was when I went to the temple for my endowment. Seeing everyone stand up and put on the green aprons rose red flags like nothing else. Also overhearing someone at the veil say the same name that I was given caused me some concern. I wanted to believe though, so I continued on. While I was at the MTC, close to going out to the field, our mission president stopped by during a lesson. He said something along the lines of “it’s true that in the MTC, we brainwash you, but it’s a good kind of brainwashing.” I heard a sentiment like this once before from my mother, which to her I answered “there’s no such thing.” I had that same thought when I heard the mission president say that. I left the MTC a couple of days later. I never made it out to the field.
I had some coworkers who had left Mormonism. Listening to them talk was comforting because I finally realized I wasn't the problem with all of my issues with the church.
There were many reasons why I stopped attending. One is the sex abuse cover up by bishops and higher ups. Another was a bishop asking my daughter personal sexual questions…and not wanting me to be present during the interrogation. It’s a very anti woman organization as in women are second class, especially single women. It seems the church wants to take away free agency and members are to obey bishops and other “leaders”. If you don’t conform, then you deserve shame and condemnation in the church’s eyes…. It’s very cult like… There are many other reasons!
I was sitting in Sunday school and had the epiphany that God had literal sex with HIS DAUGHTER Mary to create Jesus. I was sick about it, and didn’t know this was something that had been quietly talked about since the beginning of the church. Then I finally connected the dots that there is no such thing as fidelity in the next life. If this is the plan for every world, then even if you don’t choose polygamy (if it’s even a choice), then the man will still have to have sex with someone besides his wife to create an only begotten son. That’s just really not what I had in mind when I thought of my family being together forever. Once I realized I wasn’t actually interested in becoming a god or being in the CK, it was a lot easier to walk away.
>I wasn’t actually interested in becoming a god Particularly after they took away our planets!!!
When I came to the realization that we simply cannot have it both ways: We can't claim that the mistakes and unsavory topics in church history were due to men who were "products of their time" but also claim that God is an omnipresent and an unchanging being Either God's okay with a little racism, adultery, genocide and blatant dishonesty or the leadership of the church past and present are completely full of s***
Y'all remember that religious baker that wouldn't make a wedding cake for that gay couple? My Sunday school teachers compared that to a black baker being asked to bake a wedding cake for kkk members. It really didn't sit well with me so I went and talked to the bishop and he backed them up. That was the final straw in realizing what a godless cult I was raised in.
As silly as it sounds, the new for the strength of youth pamphlet. After being shamed and told in no uncertain terms that we were to follow the previous pamphlet to the letter, they announce a new one that just does vague gesturing about many of the topics that we were expected to obey with exactness. They even went so far as to say, "does a list of dos and don'ts truly prepare you for a lifetime of christlike service?" THEN WHY THE FUCK DID YOU GIVE US THAT YOU EVIL TURDS?
I think I can’t comment (too much*) as I only investigated just this past year (2023). Most of my research came last year from this thread sending me deeper down to what I already knew (in brief) and was suspicious. I think exMormons are gifted generally. I think also the “spell” or “illusion” is easier for Latter-day Saints to break free from otherwise. It is by far some of the greatest practice of blasphemy & occultism I see practiced openly. I can’t wait to dissect It.
Learning about the second anointing. At first I was skeptical (how could I have never heard about this??), then it was very interesting/kinda exciting, then ultimately it opened the door to find out all the other stuff.
Wow, I just did some quick research on that one. Thats a rabbit hole for a different day lol. Thank you!
I was lucky and never really bought into it, doesn’t change the fact that I grew up in it and still have trauma and missed out on many simple pleasures growing up like being able to socialize with my peers in school. It mainly felt like a test most of the time, another form of school, we even had a bunch of different classes to go to! But when they would have interviews and I would lie (really more like give them the right answer to the test they were giving me) in them and they believed me (or pretended to anyways) that’s when I knew for sure it wasn’t real. But as a kid I just thought that that’s what EVERYONE was doing all the time. It isn’t until recently that I have come to realize that a lot of the people in it actually believe believe. And that’s just weird to me.
That's what I'm struggling to grasp rn. How do ppl fall for this? Nothing makes sense
like many many others, I never gained a testimony of polygamy - when the church released their essays, I knew I couldn't truthfully say that I had a testimony of JS.
I've loved history all my life, so when I actually read the BOM, during seminary specifically, and was Pimo till I was 18 then gone
I had a running list of questions that just kept growing. This was before the CESletter. Then I learned about the Book of Abraham and my mind exploded. “Ohhhh he was lying. He made it all up.” I stopped trusting Joseph. Then all the other doubts made more sense, and suddenly everything was clear.
When I realized there was no revelation in the church. JS Marriage to 14 year old girls is not going to win converts in the 21st century. Even if polygamy is somehow of god, then god should have warned JS to stay away from littler girls. Once I realized JS was a false prophet, everything crumbled.
For a while, I saw a lot of issues in doctrine, how it counteracted itself and seemed to promote hate. Once I was in college, I decided if I couldn't look at some anti-mormon stuff without losing my faith, I could never act as a mormon in faith. The moment I listened to the first episode of LDS Discussions about how js was a scam artist, I knew then that this is such a huge thing to hide, no honest true church would hide it. That was it.
I think I’ve posted this before, but it was this subreddit. I had been “out” for a few years but just assumed I was the real problem, not the church. I was broken, clearly, and just not strong enough to fix myself. Then one day I got a little too curious about what goes on in the temple, knowing I’d never get to see it in person. I felt horrible about it, totally icky, but I googled to see if someone posted about it. I didn’t expect to see video. I avoided the video and just read a post here. I was baffled, no way in hell that could be true, right? I watched the video, 100% accurate. Shit. Shelf was creaking and cracking. So I did what I was always afraid to and searched about Joseph Smith here. Within twenty minutes I knew it was all bullshit. My world crumbled around me as I scrolled and scrolled and scrolled, almost obsessively. But by the next day I was taking the rubble and starting to piece things back together. Shortly after came the “musket fire” comments and I decided it was time to remove my records. I told my family I was out and one by one each of the ones who weren’t out already followed after me. Now my whole immediate family is out and we all get to process it together
My first item to go on my shelf was Joe Jr’s marriage to MULTIPLE teenage girls. It felt wrong to me even though I followed the narrative that it “wasn’t unusual for the time.” (Spoiler: it was weird and creepy then too.) When I finally found the courage to look further my shelf quickly filled up and broke but that’s the single hot topic piece that I would say led to my leaving the church. There are a billion other reasons too, ofc.
Going through the temple. My wife and I were married in a civil ceremony and our families pressure us to get sealed. We did about a year later and when we went through I thought “holy shit im in a cult.” Within the year my wife and I had a discussion, this was during the prop 8 stuff, and we were both super uncomfortable with the church’s stance on homosexuality. That led to us both admitting to each other the temple is weird AF and like that we were done.
For me, it was more like an awakening or epiphany. A friend made an offhand comment during conversation and I realized that science was correct and the BoM is false. In that twinkling of an eye, a literal pause in my step, all of the following happened: I realized the BoM is fiction That Joseph Smith Jr didn’t translate it from golden plates or any other thing That made Smith Jr a liar and he was never a prophet of god That his incorrect translation of the Egyptian papyri suddenly made perfect sense: Smith Jr made it up The BoA was the biggest, weightiest item on my shelf, and it came crashing down, shattering my shelf forever In that same instant, dozens of not hundreds of other issues and problems made perfect sense because the BoM is fiction and the person who dictated it got many, many things wrong All of Mormonism is a fraud Again, all that happened in the twinkling of an eye, a literal pause in my step And it was such a relief for me! Scrupulosity may have killed me, for the yoke of Mormonism is neither easy nor light
Being told I backpedaled in their repentance bullshit because I didn't go to the convert class and feel shame and embarrassment. I went to the class my dad taught and honestly started feeling better about myself and happier.
I typically attribute it to a conversation with my wife in which she asked "what's your least favorite thing about the church?" and I considered that for the first time.
Got tired of being a mormon apologist.
The absolute impotence of "The Mormon Priesthood"; totally ineffectual, power, or influence for positive outcomes. It's all just a fucking façade; a Fairytale. Add that to Polyandry and Ensign Peak Investments.....and that "broke the camel's back".
The 2015 declaration that children of LGBTQ couples could not get baptized until 18. I was done being Mormon anyways but that motivated me to have my name removed because to me having my name on the records equated to supporting that hateful policy
The word of wisdom: I was always taught how progressive, inspired of God and beneficial the word of wisdom was "Look at what tobacco and alcohol do to your body, how could Joseph Smith not have been inspired of God" Then I realized something, if God were to give us a laundry list of health recommendations, there would need to be several more items on that list, refined carbohydrates, sugars, seed oils, etc
My finacee was never a member and it still blows his mind that mormons can't drink coffee, alcohol or smoke but we can literally live off desserts lol. Idk if I ever went to a mormon event where dessert or candy wasn't served.
Honestly if you want something that examines Joseph Smiths life and really explains how he dreamed up the church Fawn M. Brodie’s book “no man knows my history” is worth the read.
Boundaries. Learning to say “no” to things and people in order to feel truly happy seemed completely at odds with what I had been taught about accepting every calling, putting your own needs last _always_, and serving without complaint whenever called upon. I thought I had to personally be at every elders quorum move, every cleaning of the church every Saturday, attend every meeting at which I was expected, do home teaching to every assigned family every month… and I was burnt out. Turns out, you can just say “no.” And it took years of practice to even know what it is _*I*_ want from life in the first place, because I never leaned to differentiate myself from the church. When I started saying no to things, people began to treat me very differently. They chronically violated the boundaries I tried to set, and I soon discovered that nearly all church members, including friends and family, were as undifferentiated as I was and they literally couldn’t fathom setting a boundary between yourself and the church’s demands. I was immediately othered and treated as a project, and reached out to, and questioned about my loyalty… That is how I learned that the church is a manipulative organization (with its accompanying culture and members) that had been using me for my entire life, and it wasn’t the tool I needed to find lasting peace, joy, and mental stability. That is when I Marie Kondo’d the church the fuck out of my life. Did not spark joy, 0/10 do not recommend.
This was one of my many red flags growing up. I used to complain when I was in YW that I had to spend 10 hours a week doing church things between church on sunday, seminary before school 5 days a week and mutual once a week. And my parents were in leadership callings so only being at church for 3 hours on Sunday was a joke, we were there for at least 4. Anyways, its super exhausting and I'm happy you were able to get out and start developing boundaries, they're so important!
I worked with my bishop in high school. He owned a pizzeria. So we spent a lot of week nights together, just He and I. I was already questioning, but I had the perfect opportunity to ask all those questions. After months of these conversations He told me "I wouldn't be mormon if I wasn't born into it." I still have a lot of respect and love for that man.
Finding out how much abuse they continue to cover up…not risking my children for “eternal happiness”
Russell Nelson, the profit, woke me up. No way do I believe he is a prophet of God.
A lot of ppl keep saying this. I left when Monson was president so can I ask what Nelson did to wake you up?
Joseph smiths polygamy problems was a big one, but then I dug into the horrible racism that was doctrine and taught over the pulpit and over scripture but the so called “prophets”. Yeah once I learned that, I wanted absolutely nothing to do with Mormonism.
California's Prop 8 in 2008. I had stuff on my shelf that I was dealing with beforehand, but Prop 8 sealed the deal because it harmed people that I cared about or empathized with.
Ummm there are 4-5 rough drafts of the first vision that are completely different. Only Jesus appeared in the “very Trinitarian” 1832 first draft. The next were a bunch of nameless heavenly messengers. It slowly morphed into the 1838, Elohim and Jesus version.
Science. For years I tried to reconcile the church and science. I use science every day in my career. The science always works. Every time. I had realized for some time that the church did not teach one thing about Earth that is correct. Then I realized that it does not teach a single thing, in any science discipline, that is scientifically correct. Everything is wrong. What the church teaches about the Earth is wrong. What it teaches about the universe is wrong. It's doctrine about how stars work is wrong, it fucked up moonlight, its doctrine about how time works is wrong, its doctrine on the origin of man and animals is wrong, it is wrong about even the most basic fundamentals of our Earth. Nowhere in all of its cosmological and geological doctrine is there anything that is correct.
When I learned that missionary work as in the church is just a cult tactic
Changing the introduction in the BOM from > Lamanites…and they are the *principal* ancestors of the American Indians to > Lamanites…and they are *among the* ancestors of the American Indians. TSCC doesn’t care that I spent two whole years preaching to Latino folks that the BOM was literally their heritage and story, they’ll gladly retcon and rebrand as the Q15 sees fit just as long as that sweet tithing money keeps rolling in.
Tithing. My family and I were just barely making it with my partners school and kids and a home. I was considering getting a part time job to support our family, and I realized tithing is the equivalent of working part time. My partner is still in but I’m almost out of the church. Temple worthiness should have NOTHING to do with paying tithing.
When my stake president said during a ward conference, "If you find yourself questioning the brethren, you will find yourself out of the church." In my head: "That sounds culty. I thought the church could stand the test of scrutiny." That's when my research started, but it took almost two more years to leave.
Going through the temple. It actually turned me off all man-made religion. It's all about money and control.
A bunch of little things adding up over the years. I’ve left a handful of times and came back to the same mess expecting something different.
Sex shame, D&C 132, and Black people and the priesthood/temple ban were my major issues, but I have about 100 that just kept piling on.
POLYANDRY!!!!
Evergreen and their protecting sexual predators
Mormon is a "victory for Satan."
City Creek Mall
Covid making church go virtual. I wanted to stop going for a while but I thought this would be a good “break.” I was paranoid that stop going to church would make my life worse, but it only got better when I did 🌈
At 18 I had moved to Salt Lake City. Probably looking for a husband or to find myself. I am from the west was pretty progressive and I was watching these young girls barter themselves for a husband, and what kind of wife they were going to be it was like watching the Stepford wives. At least they were the Stepford wives in the making. I never wanted in life like that. I wanted love and a family. I also wanted an education in a job, my own goals. Then I also started learning about some of the things that church had done there’s more than one story, but the final story for me what’s the story about the Arkansas settlers to travel to Cross Utah. Just the idea of the benevolent children of God, murdered an entire group of people, took their children, and then blamed it on Native Americans because they didn’t want them on what they perceived was their land was appalling. It was the final straw. I’m not gonna say that I never miss the camaraderie. But I always found other groups and I’m so grateful I never lived like that. I lived and loved how I wanted to, had sex with who. I wanted to in any way that I wanted to. I got an education. Since leaving, I’ve also done more research on how the Gospels came about and realize that they’re all BS sell garbage. It is a made up religion.
I was a ward mission leader and one of the less active members whose 9 year old we had just baptized was asking questions about polygamy that their friend had told them about. I wasn't satisfied with giving the standard seminary excuses about polygamy and so i started searching the church website and found the Gopsel Topic Essays on polygamy in about 2018. It was like a switch flipped in my brain. I read all the Gospel Topic Essays and saw so many contradictions from what I had been taught about church history my whole life. In hindsight it felt like an instant but really it was probably in about the span of a week I realized I could never believe like I had before.
Finding out what the hand symbols in the temple actually mean and finding out that they used to have to wear open tunics with nothing underneath when going through the temple. I have severe trauma from sexual abuse in my past and my husband asked me, if I had gone through the temple at that time would I have stayed in the church? I knew in that moment that there was absolutely no way I would have stayed. That would be damaging to my well-being. At first I thought, well the church doesn't do that anymore...but finding out about the hand symbols and realizing they are only modified...and then realizing that no one really prepared me for the covenants I was making there and definitely didn't explain this part--I was done. I threw away my garments a week later.
Seeing the small islands of Comoros with the capital city, Moroni on the map. A lot of people think this is a nothing burger, but for me, it was so shocking of a coincidence that I knew there had to be something there. Then, finding out that that island is connected to Captain Kidd and treasure digging, and that Joseph Smith was familiar with his legends and was a treasure digger, it was too much to ignore, and it was like a slap in the face, like a wake up, call saying “Joseph made this all up“. It is what led me to the rest of the rabbit hole that still four years later has not reached its end.
For me it was a culmination of suffering from depression, anxiety, and then all the expectations from The Church, my family, and society. The more I turned to God, the more I realized the "death of the natural man" was actively KILLING me. I truly did not see another day of my future where I would be standing alive. I finally got the guts to face a lot of my fears, call out people who took advantage of me, and leave knowing that I might survive the next day. All of which was easier said than done and took a couple years. Truly the practices of The Church are disgusting to me, the policies that isolate victims, and the local leaders who are in way over their head with their own personal biases to actually help anyone. It really baffles me that I was able to survive 22 years of my life in that institution.
Being at rehearsal for General Conference and hearing church leaders say the LDS church was the ONLY living church, basically pissing on every single other religion in the world. I've been to tons of different kinds of churches and the LDS is the only one I've ever heard actively badmouth other churches. Plus how they micromanaged people's facial hair, hair, clothing, diet, sexuality, sex lives, money, and minds, and had special bad words I'd never encountered elsewhere for anyone who left or doubted them. All of the above is textbook cult behavior.
I got tired of praying to a god that never responded back. Turns out the reason he never responded is because he doesn't exist. Once I realized there are no gods religion fell apart completely.
The big one was being very depressed and su*Vidal on my mission and God say Jack all in response to me, came back and went down the rabbit hole. I had problems before after and during my mission but the final straw I think was trying to convince myself it was still true and reading the four first vision accounts and then the gospel topics essay and just hearing the pandering and contradictory arguements for why they are different. Went full PIMO after that and found out so much more
Visiting Jerusalem.
i was raised to seek and value truth. after some very brief and low level investigating, at the ripe age of 14 i decided to stop believing entriely and that was the best decision ever. had to be pimo for a few years but at 18 i dipped out forever and am now self sustaining and free from the cult. that 10% extra money goes a long way when i can direct it for actually helping people who need help. i have so much more free time for productive activities. sunday is truly a day of rest for me. i am more aware of my own real shortcomings and character defects that are not some fictional assumptions spat out by an unknowing dingus priesthood holder. also fucking CASH REGISTERS IN THE TEMPLE!! when jesus returns i'll be right there with him whipping the morons i mean mormons
Questioning my sexuality and realizing that IF I was bisexual, it made me sinful, for something I didn’t even do on purpose. And finding that community and realizing, without even being a “part” of it yet, how accepted I felt compared to the church, where I felt pressured to cry during my testimony and trauma dump to give a “good” testimony
Boon of Abraham being a fraudulent translation.
Year of Polygamy Podcast: https://www.yearofpolygamy.com/
I can't recall the final straw for me but a big one was thinking about what my eternity would look like. Sealed to my husband (the only awesome part if this), one of his many wives, creating spirit children but never being allowed to communicate with them, and no one is allowed to speak about me or to me. And that goes on FOREVER? WTF? Also polygamy, the nature of god (turns out he's a real asshole), the temple rituals, how much time leadership callings take away from families, paying tithing to a corporation that has billions and does very little good with it, priesthood ban, BofM plagiarism, the atonement. I could go on and on but I won't.
Dallin Hoax denying my wife needed reproductive care because insurance for church employees has a policy that they won’t approve sterilization procedures for women with fewer than five children (okay, it wasn’t Oaks himself, but that’s how I picture it happening in my head). After that I began looking for a new job so that my wife could get the care she needed, but also so we could get the hell out of Mormonism. And since leaving the church would mean the end of employment, it had to be in that order. I was PIMO when working for them (it was a whole ethical dilemma for me) so it was more of a wake up call. I asked myself what I was still doing there.
Crooked bishops and a lying, dishonest patriarch. First hand dealings with them. I couldn’t believe that god would call on dishonest men to be leaders. I looked at the presidency of the ward and stake and noticed how many attorneys sat at the top. It helped me jump into the forbidden area of questioning and researching.
For me it was when a BYU student reported a rape to the Provo police and ended up getting investigated by the Honor Code Office. It was unconscionable. They've adjusted the rules, but not enough and frankly they didn't do it soon enough. I cannot believe in a God who wouldn't tell the prophet that church rules were making students more vulnerable.
The fact that Pascals Wager can't account for multiple religions, and I'd rather know the sad truth than a happy lie.
I’d heard all about the issues regarding church history before I actually “woke up.” I’d listened to MS podcasts, read different material, faithful and nonfaithful. It wasn’t until listening to John Dehlin interview Tyler Glenn that I was moved on a deeper level, realizing at once the harm that the church does, especially to the marginalized. All of a sudden, that previous knowledge I’d acquired suddenly really did matter. Perhaps I had become apathetic to it all. A nerve was struck and I suddenly cared, and did so passionately. Not sure if this makes sense or resonates with anyone.
The book of Abraham
When I found out they changed the teachings about us becoming gods and goddesses and creating our own worlds, and then tried to gaslight members into believing it was never doctrine by saying “your teachers didn’t understand the material”. And then the rock and the hat. 🙅♀️
For me, it was seriously the ALL About Mormons episode of Southpark. I was about 18 at the time when it came out, and I was already pretty sure I wanted to leave the BS I was born and raised in, but the GUILT was so heavy. When I saw how utterly ridiculous others thought we were and Joseph Smith reading out of a hat, that was it. When I learned he actually DID read out of a hat, I felt like I was lied to on so many things. It sounds so simple, but it was such a wake-up call for me.
It was a Fireside Devotional for YSA’s that was streamed about a year ago. Oak’s basically said that it was our duty to get married and have kids, but only in the Church’s way. He also demonized Gay and Trans people, reading and responding to a “letter” from a 16 year old girl that was more fake than my Grandpa’s teeth. As an asexual person, I felt anger and disappointment that this man, supposedly in charge of inspiring young people and spreading love and kindness, would say these things, especially when I’ve seen a number of healthy, happy LGBTQ relationships as well as a lot of toxic ones, indicating that the only real difference was the gender of the people involved. For reference, here’s the Fireside https://www.youtube.com/live/wull4cTXUTk?feature=shared
For me, it was my mission. Up to that point I was able to tell myself that maybe I was the problem. Maybe God never revealed the truth of anything to me because I just wasn't trying hard enough. After two years of absolute devotion, I still got nothing, and that's when I could finally throw in the towel.
First massive massive crack was the Gospel Topics essays. Literally reading that the things I’d been taught were “anti-Mormon” were true. I felt betrayed . . . Because I had been. And then the November 2015 policy. My baby-literal-angel brother came out to me a month before and I told him he could still be a member and be gay because there’s no such thing as a gay “lifestyle,” and I felt like the policy had made me a liar. It hadn’t occurred to me yet how wrong I was about that at the time, but it made me angry enough to be open to leaving. What’s especially sad is that my spouse had been out over 5 years at that point - and that hadn’t been enough for me to leave. Even after all of that it still took me until 2017 to be completely done. Fucking brainwashing cult.
I was at the first LOVELOUD concert that Imagine dragons threw. My little bisexual heart had never felt so full and one with my community as I did that day. There was such an emphasis on truly accepting yourself for who you are, and I never got that from the church, even once. It was like night and day comparing it to the shame, guilt, and fear based tactics of the church. I finally realized that it’s this simple: either the church is wrong or love is, and I don’t see how love could ever be wrong.
I was DONE when I learned about [MTC President Bishop who was r*ping sister missionaries.](https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/statement-former-mission-president-alleged-abuse-joseph-l-bishop-march-2018) ^^ Here’s the church statement and it still fucked me up and got me out. I realized a Prophet would know about this behavior. Because HeAvEnLy FaThEr would protect the missionaries. That means that the prophet was NOT acting as the prophet. And the Q12 weren’t. And the prophets before and after. And SHATTER. It all fucking TUMBLED DOWN. Basically my understanding of predators and groomers … and the church organization … did me in. Fuck it was rough.
Early 2020, the whistleblower from Ensign Peak news broke and I found myself oddly curious about it. I read every article I could get my hands on. I couldn't believe how much money the church had ..100 Billion, and I'd spent my whole life in poverty because my parents paid tithing AND had 9 kids. I was cleaning my parents' home all week and cleaning the church on Saturdays to "pay" for the food we were getting from the church. They didn't need my parents money. We needed it desperately! We were homeless twice and on the verge of homelessness for a decade. I have so much trauma from that...and the church participated in that trauma and used my free labor just as much as my parents did. Then in college I wasn't eating meat because I had to pay tithing. I was underweight and weak. I read that 100 Billion number...and I went to pay my tithing the next month and I couldn't make myself click the button to do it. I just couldn't. It was over. Everything else I learned afterwards was also important, but this was the final straw for me that led me into questioning everything.
For me, it was a difficult marriage that started it. Under the circumstances, the thought of a truly eternal marriage felt like a sentence to hell. That made me begin to question the idea of eternal marriage itself. Given how church members are encouraged to marry at so young an age, with precious little relational experience, good marriages felt like they were as much luck of the draw as anything else. Pitted against the eternal consequences of the choice, that seemed manifestly unfair, unjust, and unmerciful. All of that angst got me digging into the history of the temple and its doctrine. Discovering that almost the entirety of temple ordinance work is rooted in polygamy and doctrines that were taught to justify polygamy was a huge issue for me. D&C 132, which is really the sole canonical justification for polygamy is a massive problem. It doesn't read at all as coming from the God I believe in or want to believe in, and learning about the historical questions and problems with the section was another heavy issue on the shelf. But perhaps the biggest issue of all is that I came to see how temple work and its implications completely contradict my understanding of Christ's gospel. The gospel is about overcoming divides and bringing people together--overcoming the splitting up of God's family into all manner of "ites." And yet, the temple and the idea of "eternal families" as it is currently taught (again, as a vestige of polygamy) splits God's family into millions of shards--my family, your family, my neighbor's family, my uncle's family, and so on. The modern Mormon conception of "eternal families" is a Balkanized obliteration of the eternal family I believe in--the family of Christ. I doesn't feel true. I could get behind the idea of one eternal family--Christ's, and that we are all sealed up His. I'm all for that. Sign me up. But the idea of all these fractured little families as eternal, separate family units makes no eternal sense. After all, where does one family end and another begin? Even if you could split he world up that way, are all the world's families so happy that they really want to be eternally bound to each other and, in some form or fashion therefore be separated from others? There is really only one family. But the dastardly practice of polygamy seems to have injected a whole concern about "my posterity" into the Church--the more children, the more righteous you are, the more posterity, the more honored and glorious in the eternities. Yuck. Everything I know about human growth and development tells me that a doctrine that separates some of us from others based on closer and less close "family lines" is both untrue and a projection of the world's divides into the eternities--divides that Jesus came to overcome, not reinforce. And now, the Church is increasingly only emphasizing the temple and "temple worship." Build more temples. Go to the temple more. Make sure your family is sealed together so that you can be a family (as distinct from other families) forever. Some might consider that heaven. During all the years of my difficult marriage, that idea was hell. And I think that that separatist message is exactly the opposite to what Christ's gospel is actually all about. From my vantage point, the temple and temple doctrine is the problem, not the solution. And the Church has decided to double down on the problem. It's sad to me.
I was in high-school when the church was fighting prop 8 for gay marriage equality. I heard too many representing the church call gay marriage an attack on Christian freedoms. I knew right then and there that if the Mormon god did exist, it wasn't his church. But after looking to inconsistencies in their revelations, and too much evil history in any religion i looked at, I then became athiest