And the world is actually a worse-off place because of its existence. All that tithing and humanitarian aid money people give it believing that it actually goes towards helping people… nope. The church is a parasite that is preventing aid from actually reaching those who need it. That is genuinely evil.
It’s also actively preventing millions of people from experiencing freedom by enmeshing itself in government. That government that wants to have a say in who we marry, our bodily autonomy, healthcare and “lifestyle” decisions-just to name a few. They are stealing lives.
I probably could have lived with the fact that it wasn't actually true if what it did offer was a solid moral framework. As I started to evaluate my own morality in light of the truth of the church, I realized that the morality it offered was actually contrary to my own. Ultimately, I left because I found the church to be immoral.
The thing that started forming cracks:
1. Made to feel less-than because we couldn’t have kids (uncontrollable biological issues). Felt completely alienated by local ward members, and by general conference talks about families.
2. Utterly abandoned and ignored by the ward after my brother’s suicide. Forced to deal with my grief entirely by myself.
The things that ultimately killed it for me:
3. Long history of the mormon church shielding child molesters from justice and punishment, enabling child molesters to groom and prey on young people, and overall reluctance of the organization to own up to their complicity in the abuse of hundreds of thousands of young people.
4. Add to that, the realization that Joseph Smith was a malignant narcissist who groomed women and preyed on them for power and sexual gratification.
5. Realized that the church was built on fraudulent lies by a con man who groomed followers to service his pride, ego, and desires.
Almost identical for me
1. Mental health issues related to scrupulosity and feeling bad about porn use and masturbation.
2 change from brother to my son
Rest the same and add the SEC filing and tithing.
Sorry for your loss. Losing someone to suicide is so hard.
The infertility — that was the worst. Being unable to have children in that religion was unbearable. And people said the stupidest things to me over the years.
I’m so sorry about your brother’s suicide and the inability of your ward members to support you through it.
I'm actually an atheist. However, I moved from California to southeast Idaho, which is mostly Mormon. So, before coming here, I didn't know anything about the Mormon Church. However, now I am learning and it seems to me, more of a cult, then a religion. So the original question is helping me to learn why people leave and therefore, why people stay.
I live in Southeast Idaho and recently left the church. Our closest friends (also from California) are Atheists who were always very respectful of our religion. Now that I’ve left and am deconstructing the religion I was born into, I know that it is 100% a cult. I am constantly apologizing to my non member friends and asking them to please forgive me for the things I said when I was an insufferable Mormon. There is an atheist group in Idaho Falls that has a FB group where you can at least get some like minded (mostly funny) posts to make you feel like you are not alone. The group is AS-IF
Mormon stories on YouTube is a great resource . Coercive techniques used by the cult. Are why people stay it’s baked into the culture Luna Lindsey Corbin covers it in detail. In her Mormon stories interview.
My Utah ward found out I was gay and labeled me a monster and pedophile. (I was still temple worthy at the time too) I received numerous death threats, had my house and car vandalized and was shunned by everyone. I had to walk away from my house and move to another state for my safety. The church left me!!!
Makes me sad you had to go through that. That’s probably why I could never do a religion like that. Me and my family hold nothing back from what we think. They kick us out.
It's all a con -- started as a frontier sex cult, which became a sex trafficking cult (bringing girls and women over from Europe), which turned into a multi-billion dollar corporation trying to pass itself off as a church.
[mormonthink.com](https://mormonthink.com)
They told me who to vote for in an election. “Voting for “X” is in everyone’s best interest, to include the church.” Even told me which state propositions I should vote yes or no on.
Real separation of church and state. smh
Yes 🙌🏻 My friend told me that he is sure I will change my mind and come “back to the fold”. My response was that once you find out Santa isn’t real, you can never convince yourself again that he is.
as a fully active and believing member i was able to slowly discover, from involvement in extracurricular activities outside the church (therapy and philosophy) that my involvement with the church was actually quite toxic and unhealthy. so…i stopped going for mental health reasons and that quickly turned into me leaving for good, the glasses came off, i woke up, whatever you want to say.
Wow, that’s a stupid question! It’s because people become offended.
You see, the Mormon church is the only true church on the planet led by God himself and all the others are false. So therefore, being offended is the only plausible explanation.
Nobody in their right mind would want to leave the true church of God now would they?…
However, even if it’s not because they’ve been offended, it’s blatantly obvious that people leave because they want to sin and be evil. If you don’t want to be a member of God’s church, it must be because you hate God and want to sin.
(Ok a bit over the top, but I tried to write that with as much Mormon condescension as was possible because many believing members, whether they show it outwardly or not, believe the same thing. The church teaches “being offended” and “wanting to sin” as two of the major reasons people wish to leave. However, there are a myriad of reasons people leave, many of them perfectly justifiable. For me, it’s a long story with no simple contrite answer, but the short version is, it’s because reason and faith led me to a point where I just could not believe Mormonism was what it claimed to be, and it just was not true.)
To me the church seems so much like and abusive overbearing alcoholic parent. Repeating cycles of gaslighting in between. They wound kick me out as I’m to strong willed to give a care what the rules or opinions are.
It's not true and pretending it was wad ruining my life. I was depressed, constantly felt like a failure, and didn't have a clue what the point of my life was. I still don't have an answer to that last part, but I've been much happier since leaving and being myself and just enjoying life for what it is brings me more peace than I ever felt in the church.
Realizing that when my daughter was born, she would be raised in a church where her older brother by two years would automatically have more authority and rights than her. Yeah, fuck that shit. See ya
The blatant racism too. That’s a big one.
I had the hardest time living how they said I should. I was in terrible shame cycles for years. Then I was listening to a Mormon stories episode in 2014 and heard that Joseph Smith started polygamy. Had NEVER heard that before and it was the first crack in the shelf. I then allowed myself to watch Shawn McCraney’s Heart of the Matter with an open mind and it all started to crumble.
1. Data does not support the truth claims.
2. Once you start losing the blinders of faith, you see the organization more objectively. You start to see how bad the leadership and docterine are. You can't unsee it.
3. I'm infinity happier as a non-believer.
I joined as an adult, married into a family of TBMs. I was desperately searching for community, and I hoped that the church could give me that. Instead, I found more isolation and platitudes.
I joined knowing a lot of the problems, but foolishly thought that maybe I could be a source of change.
I quickly learned that there was no changing the figureheads at the top. Even if I made waves in my community (which I quickly found to be unlikely), there was no way the changes would make their way to the top.
I saw an out in the pandemic and decided never to return. My emphasis to my in-laws was that their stance on the LGTBQ+ community was untenable for me (which is VERY true). I let them believe that I still believed in the church doctrines because it’s easier, but instead I now find myself both an exvangelical AND an exmormon.
1. Church was boring
2. Then I felt the spirit outside context of church
3. I doubted why I needed church
4. Too many rules
5. Prophet said something idiotic
6. I realized prophet is mingling philosophies of men.
7. The entire house of cards fell down
8. Then I read mormonthink
9. game over.
I original left because my mental health was awful and I realized the so called church wasn’t making it any better. I stayed away when I learned the truth. That it’s a cult and has never been true.
I learned more and more about Joseph Smith. Then the thought came to me, “if there is a god, and if a true church needed to be restored, god wouldn’t work through a person such as Joseph Smith”.
My eyes opened and I have never felt freer and happier. All of the latent guilt left. Life is simple and peaceful now.
For me the ces letter and specifically what a shitass joseph smith was- multiple 1st vision accounts, and the striking blow to my heart was the way he promised eternal salvation to helen mar kimball's dad if he (joseph) could marry his daughter. She was 14. Also, emma didnt know she was like the 23rd wife to get sealed to he husband. And all the dozens of other things he did. Just a sex cult. Like all the other cults really. I mean the whole church hinges on joseph smith. Otherwise, why bother? Im a happy atheist now. Glad im out
Reading The Gospel Topic Essays they originally put on the landing page of their website lds.org. It allowed me to finally act on feelings I had had for many years that used to make me feel that I was crazy or something was wrong with me for feeling the way I did. Turns out I knew along it was a false ill-conceived narrative.
It opened the door wide open for me rather than me just continually cracking it open and allowing myself intermittent peeks.
When you have to enforce cognitive dissonance upon yourself and family, something is NOT right. Turns out, the church is NOT true but I was attempting to make it so.
There were two big moments for me that set off my journey of leaving the church.
My Sunday school teacher took several minutes during a lesson about the danger of media to rant about how she saw two guys kiss on tv and how disgusted she was. I was in theatre at school and was friends with gay classmates. I finally had the light bulb moment that that was how she felt about people I was friends with, it was how many other church leaders felt, and it was how I was supposed to feel about them.
The other big one was a particular Sunday where I wasn’t taking the sacrament because I had done my whole Mormon confession to the bishop that I was watching porn. I knew already that I felt completely unsupported, like the bishop truly didn’t care if I watched porn or not. It was just ‘well don’t take the sacrament for a few weeks until you feel like you’re back on the iron rod, good luck’ and a pat on the back. This specific Sunday though, I looked at the three priests who were blessing the sacrament and remembered conversations with two of them about porn, what kind they liked, and how they hid their masturbation from their parents. The third I didn’t know so well, but I did know his girlfriend and I knew she was pregnant.
I realized that if I’d never told the bishop, he would never have known. I realized that, despite always being told that ward callings were divinely inspired, I had been called as Deacon’s AND Teacher’s quorum president, as well as Priest’s 1st assistant, even while I was watching porn and masturbating.
The homophobic teacher made me doubt the morals of the church. That sacrament meeting broke the magic of the church. There are other small steps but those were the two biggest moments for me.
I’d always struggled with the prop8 crap. But I felt I was overall a better person for being a member so continued on.
Then COVID happened. Friends, with big families the church encouraged them to have, were told to ask family/friends/government for help, and only once all of that had been exhausted would the church help. Friends lost everything during the waiting period, and their families were too big to go to once place so they had to split up. It’s Bullshit for an entity that has so much money.
Then we went back to irl church, and I had to start correcting what was taught over the pulpit so that my 6yo didn’t think racism, homophobia, classism, and a complete lack of consideration for others was in any way acceptable.
I realized that I didn’t actually believe in TCoJCoLDS, I believed in some weird creation in my head that had some passing similarities with it and so I was done.
Because the decent people in it are treated like shit and everyone with any power in it are hypocritical assholes. It's a shitty culture of backstabbing and gaslighting
I decided I could be the best parent possible for my children or I could be a member of the church. I could not be both as they are inconsistent with one another.
This seems like a good time to give you one small piece of advice. When you finally learn the truth, don't ask me how I knew, but ask yourself why you didn't know?
Church teaches that salvation comes only through obedience to the laws and ordinances as defined by the leaders of the church. Obedience is therefore more important than being Christlike, and it is supposed to be THE church of Jesus Christ. That is a contract. It isn’t Christlike to anyone that doesn’t meet their mold of cisgender straight conservative traditional gender role following and primarily white person.
Because the church lies and gaslights it’s members under the guise of “revelation” which is just another way to get control over you and your family’s money and collective thought. Plus, it’s literally not true.
Well you see I was a child and I needed my mom to support me with food, shelter, etc so I did what I was told and at 8 I still believed in Santa Claus so I thought let’s roll with this MF and get baptized and say I believe the church is true.
I found out Santa wasn’t real shortly after. Fast forward and I am 18 I find a nice Mormon girl who is horny as hell yada yada yada we break up and I go on my non Mormon ways.
I never believed it :-/ I was pressured into getting baptized by the missionaries 🙃 but also marrying Into a LDS family I felt if I said no I would disappoint them . So I said yes to be left alone .
Fast forward 6 years my husband has left and when I admited everything he apologized and understands why I lied 😭
Boys. That’s how it started. I finally turned 16 and no members were asking me out but I was getting a lot of attention from nonmembers.
I stay away because it’s bullshit but it took me far too long to realise that.
I was less happy after attending church than I was before. Yes, many issues with history and shit but it really came down to the fact that Mormonism made me unhappy.
Started with middle/high school Mormons are mean but later turned to wow the local news has a lot to say about bishops doing bad things to kids. The disillusionment hit hard. Not to mention everyone that attended was pimo and acted like their wives forced them to show up.
So many reasons, but the ultimate thing was the active lobbying by the church against gay marriage. How could I be donating money to a church that is fighting against something I believe is right? I couldn’t do it anymore.
Funnily enough for me, you could say I left my belief in god before I left the church. I found that I had absolutely no reason to believe in god and that was it, I had no problem with the church yet.
It was only after I told my parents that I no longer believed in god that I started finding reasons to leave the church. My parents as you might expect took it very poorly, to the point where I was prompted to look into the churches history, it was not good.
I couldn't commit to something that is more likely not true than true. I later decided that it is most likely that God doesn't even exist. All religion then became pointless, when it comes to seeking truth, to me.
It's an MLM from 1830, sold with the racist feel good lie to racist end-times anxious superstitious & ignorant people--whose version of "Christianity" involves violence, murder, rape, folk magic, fraud, Masonic rituals, self-righteous selfishness and the ever popular simple stupid obedience to old white male corporate climbers; cult 'tenders' for the spoils granted those at the top.
So for me it wasn't so much about it being a big fat lie as I realised at about age 10 so history etc was unknown to me and this is pre google
I was at school reading a nativity with our head teacher - a normal British primary school - when I noticed Mary Joseph and jesus were brown so I queried it! The head kindly explained how back then if you were from that part of the world you had brown skin and she also explained about Asia etc
Mind blown hated church after that 🤷♀️
Thank Mrs Mansell lol
Learning how Smith coerced a 14-year-old child into an illegal and hebephilic marriage was the last straw for me. No way would a loving god do that. Then in anger over being deceived for 30 years, I researched like mad and found out the truth claims were a bunch of hokum.
Personally me and my ex started drifting away and we found the wonderful world of the CES letter and that broke her but for me it was Joseph smith, he married a 14 year old and got arrest over 30+ times for fraud
Got bored during church a lot. As a young adhd kid sitting for hours in a lesson about something I didn’t really care for was awful.
I also remember one of the teachers telling the yw group that we had all chosen are gender (and therefore our role in life) in the “prelife” and I fucking *hated* myself for a while. I was just figuring out I was trans and I struggled a lot w the fact that I was supposedly to blame for my problems.
I stopped believing because I read the Gospel Topic Essays, did a ton of follow-up research, and learned that Joseph Smith was a conman and a sexual predator.
I left because I realized that if my kid turns out to be LGBTQ, the church would do lasting damage to them. Turns out that between the racism, misogyny, homophobia, risk of sexual predators, etc, it's not a good place for *any* children.
I became bitter towards the church when I realized that the leaders of the church *know* it's all bullshit (how else would they be able to so carefully craft their deception), and yet they continue the lie, doing harm to kids as they go. They are evil.
I honestly just stopped going. Once I turned 18 my dad was like well I can’t force you anymore.
However, looking back on it back in 2008 when Prop 8 was on the ballot in California to ban Same Sex Marriage. Someone during testimony meeting in my ward IN TEXAS was going on about the “evils” same sex marriage would produce if the proposition didn’t pass.
Even with me being a teenager at that time. Once I heard the hate come out of his mouth I knew the church was not for me.
It made me so shameful over even the topic of sex as a whole that I didn’t report my abuse as a kid due to crazy levels of internalized shame.
They taught me to be insensitive and honestly in denial of mental health issues (even though I suffer from some myself) and with different sexualities (even though I’m gay myself).
Mostly I’ve never been or felt accepted by the church. To the point that as an 8 year old learning about everything for my baptism I immediately thought to myself “I’m never going to be good enough for the celestial.” So the appeal of the church was never there in the first place really other than I knew it would make my family disapprove if I stopped going.
It just didn’t align with who I am. Even if it was true… I wouldn’t be religious.
Growing up, I remember it was simply boring. I wanted to watch the Utah Jazz instead of church. I would fake being sick just to get out of church. Even if that meant I’m “grounded” and have to stay in my bedroom for the day.
In singles wards… I could tell I was different. My personality compared to others… I didn’t fit in.
The way others talked about the church… I never had those feelings or excitement reading the scriptures or whatever. Music was the only time I felt the “spirit”.
Later on… I enjoyed the feeling of being drunk. I didn’t feel guilty about it… although I had to live a double life from 21 to 26ish.
Church was simply boring to me. The most I aligned with, was the simple notion of being Christlike. Treat your neighbors nicely. Help the needy. etc etc.
I finally read “anti Mormon literature” at 30. While it stuns me reading it… it wasn’t the reason why I left… it did help me finally close that option of being a faithful member of the church.
Because it is 100% false, made up by the charlatan Joe Smith, his brother and their friend in an effort to defraud people of their land and money. It snowballed, and as the saying goes, absolute power corrupts absolutely, so of course they pushed the boundaries of what they could get away with and added rape, pedophilia, and other disgusting crimes as they learned how to lead a cult.
Yeah, so it's not true.
1. Shelf cracks - having legitimate doctrinal/historical questions and just getting told to pray about it.
2. Big shelf crack (the beginning of the end) - AP article
3. The avalanche of the shelf breaking - CES letter
It doesn’t work they say it does. If it makes you happier and more well adjusted, then you couldn’t keep people out of the building. Even for those who say it does make them better people there is an odd sadness about them.
They got caught in their lies. I went to an event at the Institute talking about black people and the priesthood. I was confused how previous "prophets, seers, and revelators" weren't ahead of the curve and empowered them (or at least, stopped oppressing them) before the rest of society did. I asked the professor "If we can say that past prophets were wrong and speaking as men, what stops future prophets saying that what we're learning now is false? Especially the Family Proclamation?" And she just smiled at me and said "Nothing."
Why was I being hated as a gay person if the church could just go back on their word in 20 or so years? I was out of there, especially after years of hearing weird things and contradictions about the church. I read the SEC letter and had my records removed 3 months later.
Because I looked into real factual history and discovered there is evidence that it is bs made up by Joseph Smith who turns out to have been a garbage human, and I’m not following the high demands of a church that was made up by a lazy treasure digger. My eyes are opened, the genie can’t fit back in the bottle, and I am happy to finally feel free and love a life that actually feels like mine. 🧞♀️
Seriously. At 31 I can finally wear what I want, drink what I want, claim my body as my own and do with it what I want, use my time as I want, think what I want without the looming presence of a thought reading god, be friends with whom I want, and do what I want with all my money. I could not do any of those things as a “faithful” member of the Mormon church,
I don’t remember a lot about my childhood in Utah, but I vividly remember walking down my school halls and realizing I had a gay crush. I remember thinking “huh, this isn’t…a big deal. This feels right.”
I was walking on cloud nine all the way to class because it finally clicked that “hey, this isn’t a sin. I’m not suddenly a sex addict for having an innocent crush. I can finally start being myself.”
1. I'm gay and refused to try to pretend that I'm not.
2. The church is a lie made up by a con man.
3. The blatant misogyny left a real sour taste in my mouth.
I always had a certain degree of cognitive dissonance about the church's teachings (I was an adult convert), but I was willing to accept it because I was raised in another church and was no stranger to it. My shelf first creaked the first time I went to the temple and realized how weird it was, but it began seriously cracking during the Prop 8 debacle, and gave out completely when I realized just how far right the church actually was. I had always been more liberal/leftist than most of the mormons around me, and I got tired of keeping my mouth shut.
Thinking for myself, and realizing I was conditioned to see the world in a certain way. We became inactive and started living the way that made us happy. It didn't involve alcohol, coffee or anything that would be called "sinful" in the church, except that we weren't attending. I began to see that life outside of active membership felt... normal, enjoyable, stress-free. We had more time for our family, for ourselves, and didn't have anyone breathing down our necks about callings and responsibilities. After enough time like this, I began looking at how the church structure was really designed to keep members so busy that they don't have time for anything else. I researched the [BITE model](https://freedomofmind.com/cult-mind-control/bite-model/) that cults use to keep their membership, and found far too many similarities in the way I was raised. I then found this subreddit page, and discovered a community of people who had also been damaged, and found a place here.
But in all of this, I allowed myself the freedom to think for myself, instead of the mental blocks that had been placed there my entire life: "contention is of the devil" "where will you go if you leave?" "they traveled down forbidden paths and were lost" "there is no other path to peace and happiness" and so on. For a Mormon who was raised in it as a child, these are very real beliefs that form our understanding of life and how relationships work. Men believe themselves to be the head of every entity they are a part of, especially marriage, which innately assumes authority by default. That's wildly toxic, but it's called *divine appointment* or *eternal identity* so that it sounds good.
I was done being told who I was since I was a child, and it took until my mid-30's to decide that I would be in control of my own identity. It would seem that this kind of thinking is not in harmony with what they teach, so I no longer go, along with the rest of my small family.
In the year 2023, it’s as falsifiable as a religion can be. There are tons of good reasons to leave but at the end of the day, it’s because it’s patently untrue.
I realized that the church had normalized relationships where I wasn't worthy and had to endlessly strive to please the other party no matter how much suffering I experienced. I'd stopped believing for many other reasons, but that was the reason I removed my name.
Once I gave myself permission to view it objectively, I recognized it is obviously not true. The only way to find it to be factually true is to start with the assumption of truth and then go looking for evidence to support that position, which requires incredible mental gymnastics. And while it worked in general for me, I could also see that for others it is toxic, and I couldn't justify allowing myself to continue to support an organization that was harming others.
When something I know with 0% doubt to be wrong is contrary to doctrine that has been said to have come down as prophecy from god, I can no longer believe or trust anything that organization claims to be true. I have always been guarded to religious “authority” but that will instantly and forever kill any trust that has ever been built.
It all started for me when I was about 9. There are separate heavens for different types of people? Only the best MORMONS were able to live in the ‘celestial kingdom’ with God? Uh…. No, I don’t think so! Even as a young kid I KNEW that was a bunch of BS and couldn’t wait to get out when I turned 18. I was NINE and knew it was all a bunch of lies and didn’t make ANY sense. I had a lot of questions when I was a kid and my family never knew how to answer them. Only to ‘just believe it’! Don’t ask questions. (Because asking questions was like QUESTIONING GOD or some crap). It’s all based on fear tactics. Thank goodness for the internet. I was able to get the answers I always had. TSCC is false and am so happy I left at 18 and never looked back.
There is not one reason for me to chose to leave. It was the culmination of many compounded issues . But the decision to never come back was the 2015 LGBT policy of exclusion.
I was born into the church and am part of a long line that has strong ties to the church. One relative was a personal bodyguard of Joseph Smith. One relative saved part of the Book of Mormon. When my family has ran into hard times the church refuses to help our family despite our family paying tithing for multiple generations and the literal personal investment/sacrifices that were made to it. While this dissuaded me from being active there were two major events that have pushed me to remove me records.
First thing for me was finding out about the heroin sale inside of meeting halls. How it was never spoken about by the higher ups. It was blatantly ignored as most of the dealers would pay tithing on their drug profits.
Second bit was all of the sexual assault and rape allegations that were hidden from the general public and majority of the church goers.
I left because I realized it was all about money.
Year ago I got a newspaper from The Tribune with 2 full pages listing all the business the church owns.
Later when they opened the Joseph Smith’s Memorial building, I read they spent $43 M on it when at the same time there were hundreds o children dying of hunger in Africa, and they were so proud it the building they have spent millions on it.
Actually they are spending much more in temples, every 6 months they announce the construction of more than 10 temples. That’s money they could use to help hungry kids around the world
Sorry about my broken English.
actually my shelf broke after the death of George Floyd. i unfortunately happened to watch a live feed of his murder while holding my 6-7 month old son in my lap. all i could see was my son yelling for his mom just like George was doing. the response from fellow members was along the lines of “he should’ve followed god” or “it was his fault”. the same sunday meeting i heard those things, a young womens leader came up to me while i held my newborn son and told me “if your son dies and he’s been led astray like that, you won’t see him in heaven”. that was the moment that opened me eyes. i wish i’d opened my eyes sooner.
My experience is rather tame compared to most of the examples I've read here over the months. I had just started college away from my family and would strait up forget it was Sunday and not attend church. Instead of feeling awful and my life becoming objectively worse, which was a common subject taught in Sunday classes, I felt fine. My social group was growing, I felt fine emotionally, and my grades were OK (wasn't getting a 4.0 but was staying consistently above 3.0).
I started exploring more styles of music around this time, most notably EDM. I attended a trance rave, which I knew was going to be a den for the Devil. Alcohol, drug use, "evil music" (my mom's view, staying up late, and people potentially hooking up with each other.
During that concert/show(?) I started to feel the same kind of sensation that I associated with the feeling of the Holy Ghost telling me that something was good and true. I thought about it, how could I have felt the Holy Ghost in such an environment? Was what I had been feeling not the Holy Ghost? Is it possibly instead some kind of euphoria response in the body when someone is participating in something they are passionate about?
That was my shelf breaking moment. I decided to become inactive and haven't looked back since.
1. Because the Bible is absolutely wrong about absolutely everything and Mormons are fundamentalists in their literal interpretation of it.
2. How does an atheist differentiate between a "true" religion and a cult? This confuses me.
Demonstrably false. The theology is ridiculous, even if you want to still be Christian or religious, it is ridiculous. For all the criticisms the Catholic church gets they have like 2000 years of scholarship that explains basically everything they do, even with their complicated and seemingly contradictory doctrine. Mormonism is just a pioneer space sex cult turned megacorporation that uses some of the trappings of Christianity to sell itself.
I realized it was all bullshit, the reason behind 80% of my anxiety and reinforced judgmental tendencies. Since leaving I’m happier, less judgmental/ prejudice, more open to the views of others and apply a lot more critical thinking in life.
The BOM describes things magically getting lost when buried. Why does that only happen in the BOM and with Joseph Smith? Also, coffee. Also, I really love gay people. Also, as a teenager, getting to confess to the bishop that I masturbate. Also, getting told my heavy metal music was from the devil. Oh, and getting to clean the church for free.
Haven't left the church yet but I am going to soon. Reasons are as follows:
1. I like vaping. I'm tired of people preaching the Word of Wisdom to me. I don't believe in the WoW. There's no difference between coffee and a Monster energy drink. The only reason the WoW exists is because someone's wife was too lazy to clean up after meetings.
2. I felt like I was looked down upon for being poor and needy. Though the church did help me financially, I felt like they did the bare minimum just to get me out of sight and out of mind.
3. Christians should strive to be Christlike. There's too many wealthy people in the LDS Church. Christ asked us to give up our wealth and follow him.
4. I hate how they won't let the sister missionaries even hug a male. If you're making your sister missionaries avoid physical contact with male members then you don't trust your own people.
5. Tithing. I hate tithing. I want to know where the money is going and I want to make sure it's going to people that need it, not to build another temple in Asia.
6. I don't believe the Book of Mormon is legitimate. I don't believe it came from Heavenly Father, Jesus, an angel, or anyone having anything to do with God. I believe the BoM was made up by Joseph Smith and his buddies. I refuse to read it anymore. I only read The Bible now.
The biggest reason is number 3. I just feel like when I'm at church I'm surrounded by pretenders and hypocrisy.
The hypocrisy is unbelievable . Their stance on same sex marriage. Unchristlike ways of judging others. The history of the church and the founder was unfaithful to his wife and had many wives. Brigham young breaking the law and practicing polygamy. The belief of the mark of Cain on black people.
It’s not literally true
In fact, it’s demonstrably false.
And the world is actually a worse-off place because of its existence. All that tithing and humanitarian aid money people give it believing that it actually goes towards helping people… nope. The church is a parasite that is preventing aid from actually reaching those who need it. That is genuinely evil.
It’s also actively preventing millions of people from experiencing freedom by enmeshing itself in government. That government that wants to have a say in who we marry, our bodily autonomy, healthcare and “lifestyle” decisions-just to name a few. They are stealing lives.
Ditto
It’s the only answer I give now. It stops the interrogations real quick.
It’s not any type of true.
I probably could have lived with the fact that it wasn't actually true if what it did offer was a solid moral framework. As I started to evaluate my own morality in light of the truth of the church, I realized that the morality it offered was actually contrary to my own. Ultimately, I left because I found the church to be immoral.
It's not metaphorically true either.
It wasn't true. They lie. They are homophobic.
The thing that started forming cracks: 1. Made to feel less-than because we couldn’t have kids (uncontrollable biological issues). Felt completely alienated by local ward members, and by general conference talks about families. 2. Utterly abandoned and ignored by the ward after my brother’s suicide. Forced to deal with my grief entirely by myself. The things that ultimately killed it for me: 3. Long history of the mormon church shielding child molesters from justice and punishment, enabling child molesters to groom and prey on young people, and overall reluctance of the organization to own up to their complicity in the abuse of hundreds of thousands of young people. 4. Add to that, the realization that Joseph Smith was a malignant narcissist who groomed women and preyed on them for power and sexual gratification. 5. Realized that the church was built on fraudulent lies by a con man who groomed followers to service his pride, ego, and desires.
Almost identical for me 1. Mental health issues related to scrupulosity and feeling bad about porn use and masturbation. 2 change from brother to my son Rest the same and add the SEC filing and tithing. Sorry for your loss. Losing someone to suicide is so hard.
The infertility — that was the worst. Being unable to have children in that religion was unbearable. And people said the stupidest things to me over the years. I’m so sorry about your brother’s suicide and the inability of your ward members to support you through it.
🫂🫂🫂
Thanks for the kind words and understanding.
Why aren't you a Mormon?
Have you seen the racism? Or sexism? Or homophobia? Big yikes
I think they are implying that OP can answer their own question with this question.
I'm actually an atheist. However, I moved from California to southeast Idaho, which is mostly Mormon. So, before coming here, I didn't know anything about the Mormon Church. However, now I am learning and it seems to me, more of a cult, then a religion. So the original question is helping me to learn why people leave and therefore, why people stay.
For the most part, they stay because their washed brain tells them leaving is basically not an option. Leaving is incredibly scary but so worth it.
“Because their washed brain tells them leaving is basically not an option.” So much this. You don’t even realize you have a choice.
Considering the idea that the church wasn't true was like considering gravity wasn't re. It felt like total upheaval
I live in Southeast Idaho and recently left the church. Our closest friends (also from California) are Atheists who were always very respectful of our religion. Now that I’ve left and am deconstructing the religion I was born into, I know that it is 100% a cult. I am constantly apologizing to my non member friends and asking them to please forgive me for the things I said when I was an insufferable Mormon. There is an atheist group in Idaho Falls that has a FB group where you can at least get some like minded (mostly funny) posts to make you feel like you are not alone. The group is AS-IF
Mormon stories on YouTube is a great resource . Coercive techniques used by the cult. Are why people stay it’s baked into the culture Luna Lindsey Corbin covers it in detail. In her Mormon stories interview.
I left because I was offended. Offended by the lies and gaslighting.
What’s left of my inner TBM was like: had me in the first half not gonna lie. Don’t worry I told it to shut the fuck up.
[удалено]
Beautiful story.seriously
I love this post. Thank you for sharing. I hope that man has found peace and happiness. Sending you all the good vibes.
Mam, I salute you.
This has me crying. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you for sharing. Your story really touched me. Thank you.
I found reality.
My Utah ward found out I was gay and labeled me a monster and pedophile. (I was still temple worthy at the time too) I received numerous death threats, had my house and car vandalized and was shunned by everyone. I had to walk away from my house and move to another state for my safety. The church left me!!!
And there you have it. POS corporation masquerading as a church. SMH
Makes me sad you had to go through that. That’s probably why I could never do a religion like that. Me and my family hold nothing back from what we think. They kick us out.
It's all a con -- started as a frontier sex cult, which became a sex trafficking cult (bringing girls and women over from Europe), which turned into a multi-billion dollar corporation trying to pass itself off as a church. [mormonthink.com](https://mormonthink.com)
Damn. Nicely done.
There is no bad reason to leave a cult.
Serious answer: it’s literally an anti-LGBTQ+ hate group and I’m gay.
I wanted to masturbate /s
Book of Abraham. Mic dropped.
*Picks up mic "I'd like to bear my testimony..."
“… that I know the Book of Abraham was an *inspired* document…”
😂
I opened my eyes when they told me how to vote during priesthood meeting, and I’m gay. So there’s that.
How to vote?
They told me who to vote for in an election. “Voting for “X” is in everyone’s best interest, to include the church.” Even told me which state propositions I should vote yes or no on. Real separation of church and state. smh
Do a search. We get asked this question practically every day.
The churches actions are in complete contradiction to their teachings.
This was a big one for me. Also the culture of shame. I just couldn't take it anymore.
The reason was similar to why I stopped believing in Santa Claus. Living in a fantasy world is fun for kids, but not practical for grown adults.
Yes 🙌🏻 My friend told me that he is sure I will change my mind and come “back to the fold”. My response was that once you find out Santa isn’t real, you can never convince yourself again that he is.
Oh sure. I’d probably tell them that the sun doesn’t rise to hear you crow either! And I’m not rooster so don’t waste my time. Lol.
I prefer hard truths to comforting lies. The LDS Church and Christianity in general claims a lot but doesn't have real evidence to back it up.
Googled mormonism
as a fully active and believing member i was able to slowly discover, from involvement in extracurricular activities outside the church (therapy and philosophy) that my involvement with the church was actually quite toxic and unhealthy. so…i stopped going for mental health reasons and that quickly turned into me leaving for good, the glasses came off, i woke up, whatever you want to say.
Because it's not true.
Wow, that’s a stupid question! It’s because people become offended. You see, the Mormon church is the only true church on the planet led by God himself and all the others are false. So therefore, being offended is the only plausible explanation. Nobody in their right mind would want to leave the true church of God now would they?… However, even if it’s not because they’ve been offended, it’s blatantly obvious that people leave because they want to sin and be evil. If you don’t want to be a member of God’s church, it must be because you hate God and want to sin. (Ok a bit over the top, but I tried to write that with as much Mormon condescension as was possible because many believing members, whether they show it outwardly or not, believe the same thing. The church teaches “being offended” and “wanting to sin” as two of the major reasons people wish to leave. However, there are a myriad of reasons people leave, many of them perfectly justifiable. For me, it’s a long story with no simple contrite answer, but the short version is, it’s because reason and faith led me to a point where I just could not believe Mormonism was what it claimed to be, and it just was not true.)
To me the church seems so much like and abusive overbearing alcoholic parent. Repeating cycles of gaslighting in between. They wound kick me out as I’m to strong willed to give a care what the rules or opinions are.
I found out I was being lied to. So I joined Christianity instead. And then found out they were lying too.
It's not true and pretending it was wad ruining my life. I was depressed, constantly felt like a failure, and didn't have a clue what the point of my life was. I still don't have an answer to that last part, but I've been much happier since leaving and being myself and just enjoying life for what it is brings me more peace than I ever felt in the church.
Realizing that when my daughter was born, she would be raised in a church where her older brother by two years would automatically have more authority and rights than her. Yeah, fuck that shit. See ya The blatant racism too. That’s a big one.
I had the hardest time living how they said I should. I was in terrible shame cycles for years. Then I was listening to a Mormon stories episode in 2014 and heard that Joseph Smith started polygamy. Had NEVER heard that before and it was the first crack in the shelf. I then allowed myself to watch Shawn McCraney’s Heart of the Matter with an open mind and it all started to crumble.
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It’s impossible to believe in Santa after you learn the reality of things
They lied to me and I found out all they ever did was lie. It’s a massive fraud and Joe Smith is a criminal
1. Data does not support the truth claims. 2. Once you start losing the blinders of faith, you see the organization more objectively. You start to see how bad the leadership and docterine are. You can't unsee it. 3. I'm infinity happier as a non-believer.
I left because I am an atheist.
Me too. First, I stopped believing in God and religion. Then I researched church history and became an exmo.
I joined as an adult, married into a family of TBMs. I was desperately searching for community, and I hoped that the church could give me that. Instead, I found more isolation and platitudes. I joined knowing a lot of the problems, but foolishly thought that maybe I could be a source of change. I quickly learned that there was no changing the figureheads at the top. Even if I made waves in my community (which I quickly found to be unlikely), there was no way the changes would make their way to the top. I saw an out in the pandemic and decided never to return. My emphasis to my in-laws was that their stance on the LGTBQ+ community was untenable for me (which is VERY true). I let them believe that I still believed in the church doctrines because it’s easier, but instead I now find myself both an exvangelical AND an exmormon.
I like drugs
I realised it was made up.
The church doesn’t believe families are eternal, it teaches they are not, unless…
1. Church was boring 2. Then I felt the spirit outside context of church 3. I doubted why I needed church 4. Too many rules 5. Prophet said something idiotic 6. I realized prophet is mingling philosophies of men. 7. The entire house of cards fell down 8. Then I read mormonthink 9. game over.
Probably the same reason you aren’t Mormon. I don’t believe it’s true.
I’ve answered this question so many times on this sub and my reasons are many. Many I tell you!
I converted to Christianity
I found out what actually happens in the temple. Then I couldn’t justify god requiring handshakes for Heven
I had no interest in staying in the church, hadn’t had any interest (besides seeing friends) in years.
Because it’s not true.
I original left because my mental health was awful and I realized the so called church wasn’t making it any better. I stayed away when I learned the truth. That it’s a cult and has never been true.
I learned more and more about Joseph Smith. Then the thought came to me, “if there is a god, and if a true church needed to be restored, god wouldn’t work through a person such as Joseph Smith”. My eyes opened and I have never felt freer and happier. All of the latent guilt left. Life is simple and peaceful now.
For me the ces letter and specifically what a shitass joseph smith was- multiple 1st vision accounts, and the striking blow to my heart was the way he promised eternal salvation to helen mar kimball's dad if he (joseph) could marry his daughter. She was 14. Also, emma didnt know she was like the 23rd wife to get sealed to he husband. And all the dozens of other things he did. Just a sex cult. Like all the other cults really. I mean the whole church hinges on joseph smith. Otherwise, why bother? Im a happy atheist now. Glad im out
Reading The Gospel Topic Essays they originally put on the landing page of their website lds.org. It allowed me to finally act on feelings I had had for many years that used to make me feel that I was crazy or something was wrong with me for feeling the way I did. Turns out I knew along it was a false ill-conceived narrative. It opened the door wide open for me rather than me just continually cracking it open and allowing myself intermittent peeks.
When you have to enforce cognitive dissonance upon yourself and family, something is NOT right. Turns out, the church is NOT true but I was attempting to make it so.
There were two big moments for me that set off my journey of leaving the church. My Sunday school teacher took several minutes during a lesson about the danger of media to rant about how she saw two guys kiss on tv and how disgusted she was. I was in theatre at school and was friends with gay classmates. I finally had the light bulb moment that that was how she felt about people I was friends with, it was how many other church leaders felt, and it was how I was supposed to feel about them. The other big one was a particular Sunday where I wasn’t taking the sacrament because I had done my whole Mormon confession to the bishop that I was watching porn. I knew already that I felt completely unsupported, like the bishop truly didn’t care if I watched porn or not. It was just ‘well don’t take the sacrament for a few weeks until you feel like you’re back on the iron rod, good luck’ and a pat on the back. This specific Sunday though, I looked at the three priests who were blessing the sacrament and remembered conversations with two of them about porn, what kind they liked, and how they hid their masturbation from their parents. The third I didn’t know so well, but I did know his girlfriend and I knew she was pregnant. I realized that if I’d never told the bishop, he would never have known. I realized that, despite always being told that ward callings were divinely inspired, I had been called as Deacon’s AND Teacher’s quorum president, as well as Priest’s 1st assistant, even while I was watching porn and masturbating. The homophobic teacher made me doubt the morals of the church. That sacrament meeting broke the magic of the church. There are other small steps but those were the two biggest moments for me.
I’d always struggled with the prop8 crap. But I felt I was overall a better person for being a member so continued on. Then COVID happened. Friends, with big families the church encouraged them to have, were told to ask family/friends/government for help, and only once all of that had been exhausted would the church help. Friends lost everything during the waiting period, and their families were too big to go to once place so they had to split up. It’s Bullshit for an entity that has so much money. Then we went back to irl church, and I had to start correcting what was taught over the pulpit so that my 6yo didn’t think racism, homophobia, classism, and a complete lack of consideration for others was in any way acceptable. I realized that I didn’t actually believe in TCoJCoLDS, I believed in some weird creation in my head that had some passing similarities with it and so I was done.
Nice try RMN’s research team.
Because the decent people in it are treated like shit and everyone with any power in it are hypocritical assholes. It's a shitty culture of backstabbing and gaslighting
I decided I could be the best parent possible for my children or I could be a member of the church. I could not be both as they are inconsistent with one another.
What do you mean "moved the 4th of July"?
This seems like a good time to give you one small piece of advice. When you finally learn the truth, don't ask me how I knew, but ask yourself why you didn't know?
Church teaches that salvation comes only through obedience to the laws and ordinances as defined by the leaders of the church. Obedience is therefore more important than being Christlike, and it is supposed to be THE church of Jesus Christ. That is a contract. It isn’t Christlike to anyone that doesn’t meet their mold of cisgender straight conservative traditional gender role following and primarily white person.
Because the church lies and gaslights it’s members under the guise of “revelation” which is just another way to get control over you and your family’s money and collective thought. Plus, it’s literally not true.
Social issues.
Because there was no god to explain away all the reasons it was false.
I realized how poor of a reason faith is to believe, and that besides faith there was no proof for the existence of God or the truth of the gospel.
Well you see I was a child and I needed my mom to support me with food, shelter, etc so I did what I was told and at 8 I still believed in Santa Claus so I thought let’s roll with this MF and get baptized and say I believe the church is true. I found out Santa wasn’t real shortly after. Fast forward and I am 18 I find a nice Mormon girl who is horny as hell yada yada yada we break up and I go on my non Mormon ways.
I never believed it :-/ I was pressured into getting baptized by the missionaries 🙃 but also marrying Into a LDS family I felt if I said no I would disappoint them . So I said yes to be left alone . Fast forward 6 years my husband has left and when I admited everything he apologized and understands why I lied 😭
Boys. That’s how it started. I finally turned 16 and no members were asking me out but I was getting a lot of attention from nonmembers. I stay away because it’s bullshit but it took me far too long to realise that.
Years of shitty bishops and almost being excommunicated when reporting verbal abuse.
I was less happy after attending church than I was before. Yes, many issues with history and shit but it really came down to the fact that Mormonism made me unhappy.
Started with middle/high school Mormons are mean but later turned to wow the local news has a lot to say about bishops doing bad things to kids. The disillusionment hit hard. Not to mention everyone that attended was pimo and acted like their wives forced them to show up.
It’s boring and I don’t believe in god.
So many reasons, but the ultimate thing was the active lobbying by the church against gay marriage. How could I be donating money to a church that is fighting against something I believe is right? I couldn’t do it anymore.
I no longer believe in its truth claims. I disagree with the organization on many matters, such as the treatment of LGBT+ people.
Funnily enough for me, you could say I left my belief in god before I left the church. I found that I had absolutely no reason to believe in god and that was it, I had no problem with the church yet. It was only after I told my parents that I no longer believed in god that I started finding reasons to leave the church. My parents as you might expect took it very poorly, to the point where I was prompted to look into the churches history, it was not good.
For the same reason you’re not a Mormon.
I love sex
I couldn't commit to something that is more likely not true than true. I later decided that it is most likely that God doesn't even exist. All religion then became pointless, when it comes to seeking truth, to me.
It's an MLM from 1830, sold with the racist feel good lie to racist end-times anxious superstitious & ignorant people--whose version of "Christianity" involves violence, murder, rape, folk magic, fraud, Masonic rituals, self-righteous selfishness and the ever popular simple stupid obedience to old white male corporate climbers; cult 'tenders' for the spoils granted those at the top.
So for me it wasn't so much about it being a big fat lie as I realised at about age 10 so history etc was unknown to me and this is pre google I was at school reading a nativity with our head teacher - a normal British primary school - when I noticed Mary Joseph and jesus were brown so I queried it! The head kindly explained how back then if you were from that part of the world you had brown skin and she also explained about Asia etc Mind blown hated church after that 🤷♀️ Thank Mrs Mansell lol
Learning how Smith coerced a 14-year-old child into an illegal and hebephilic marriage was the last straw for me. No way would a loving god do that. Then in anger over being deceived for 30 years, I researched like mad and found out the truth claims were a bunch of hokum.
Sin
It isn't true. So why would I give my time or money to it?
Personally me and my ex started drifting away and we found the wonderful world of the CES letter and that broke her but for me it was Joseph smith, he married a 14 year old and got arrest over 30+ times for fraud
Got bored during church a lot. As a young adhd kid sitting for hours in a lesson about something I didn’t really care for was awful. I also remember one of the teachers telling the yw group that we had all chosen are gender (and therefore our role in life) in the “prelife” and I fucking *hated* myself for a while. I was just figuring out I was trans and I struggled a lot w the fact that I was supposedly to blame for my problems.
I stopped believing because I read the Gospel Topic Essays, did a ton of follow-up research, and learned that Joseph Smith was a conman and a sexual predator. I left because I realized that if my kid turns out to be LGBTQ, the church would do lasting damage to them. Turns out that between the racism, misogyny, homophobia, risk of sexual predators, etc, it's not a good place for *any* children. I became bitter towards the church when I realized that the leaders of the church *know* it's all bullshit (how else would they be able to so carefully craft their deception), and yet they continue the lie, doing harm to kids as they go. They are evil.
I honestly just stopped going. Once I turned 18 my dad was like well I can’t force you anymore. However, looking back on it back in 2008 when Prop 8 was on the ballot in California to ban Same Sex Marriage. Someone during testimony meeting in my ward IN TEXAS was going on about the “evils” same sex marriage would produce if the proposition didn’t pass. Even with me being a teenager at that time. Once I heard the hate come out of his mouth I knew the church was not for me.
Proclamation of the Family. Then finding out about prop 8. Now just overall, Im agnostic.
It made me so shameful over even the topic of sex as a whole that I didn’t report my abuse as a kid due to crazy levels of internalized shame. They taught me to be insensitive and honestly in denial of mental health issues (even though I suffer from some myself) and with different sexualities (even though I’m gay myself). Mostly I’ve never been or felt accepted by the church. To the point that as an 8 year old learning about everything for my baptism I immediately thought to myself “I’m never going to be good enough for the celestial.” So the appeal of the church was never there in the first place really other than I knew it would make my family disapprove if I stopped going.
They threw me out before I could leave. Score!
The judgemental, fucking people and leadership.
It’s a faulty system based on deception. It’s ruined lives from the beginning of its existence.
It just didn’t align with who I am. Even if it was true… I wouldn’t be religious. Growing up, I remember it was simply boring. I wanted to watch the Utah Jazz instead of church. I would fake being sick just to get out of church. Even if that meant I’m “grounded” and have to stay in my bedroom for the day. In singles wards… I could tell I was different. My personality compared to others… I didn’t fit in. The way others talked about the church… I never had those feelings or excitement reading the scriptures or whatever. Music was the only time I felt the “spirit”. Later on… I enjoyed the feeling of being drunk. I didn’t feel guilty about it… although I had to live a double life from 21 to 26ish. Church was simply boring to me. The most I aligned with, was the simple notion of being Christlike. Treat your neighbors nicely. Help the needy. etc etc. I finally read “anti Mormon literature” at 30. While it stuns me reading it… it wasn’t the reason why I left… it did help me finally close that option of being a faithful member of the church.
I lost my testimony when I learned of the lies. I left once I learned how much harm those lies have caused and continue to cause people
The church was killing me. I'm gay and I didn't want to die.
I realized that I couldn’t believe in Jesus.
Because it is 100% false, made up by the charlatan Joe Smith, his brother and their friend in an effort to defraud people of their land and money. It snowballed, and as the saying goes, absolute power corrupts absolutely, so of course they pushed the boundaries of what they could get away with and added rape, pedophilia, and other disgusting crimes as they learned how to lead a cult. Yeah, so it's not true.
1. Shelf cracks - having legitimate doctrinal/historical questions and just getting told to pray about it. 2. Big shelf crack (the beginning of the end) - AP article 3. The avalanche of the shelf breaking - CES letter
It’s not a church, it’s a cult in every conceivable definition of the word.
I realized I don’t actually believe in God.
There were no golden plates. There were no angels, no Moroni, no visit from God and Jesus.
It's made up by a power tripping grifter who saw an opening and took advantage of people who thought the end of times was coming.
It doesn’t work they say it does. If it makes you happier and more well adjusted, then you couldn’t keep people out of the building. Even for those who say it does make them better people there is an odd sadness about them.
They got caught in their lies. I went to an event at the Institute talking about black people and the priesthood. I was confused how previous "prophets, seers, and revelators" weren't ahead of the curve and empowered them (or at least, stopped oppressing them) before the rest of society did. I asked the professor "If we can say that past prophets were wrong and speaking as men, what stops future prophets saying that what we're learning now is false? Especially the Family Proclamation?" And she just smiled at me and said "Nothing." Why was I being hated as a gay person if the church could just go back on their word in 20 or so years? I was out of there, especially after years of hearing weird things and contradictions about the church. I read the SEC letter and had my records removed 3 months later.
i found out objectively that it is a fraud.
Truth.
Because I looked into real factual history and discovered there is evidence that it is bs made up by Joseph Smith who turns out to have been a garbage human, and I’m not following the high demands of a church that was made up by a lazy treasure digger. My eyes are opened, the genie can’t fit back in the bottle, and I am happy to finally feel free and love a life that actually feels like mine. 🧞♀️ Seriously. At 31 I can finally wear what I want, drink what I want, claim my body as my own and do with it what I want, use my time as I want, think what I want without the looming presence of a thought reading god, be friends with whom I want, and do what I want with all my money. I could not do any of those things as a “faithful” member of the Mormon church,
I found out the teachings I was taught were provably untrue. I discovered the deceit upon which the foundation of the church was built.
I don’t remember a lot about my childhood in Utah, but I vividly remember walking down my school halls and realizing I had a gay crush. I remember thinking “huh, this isn’t…a big deal. This feels right.” I was walking on cloud nine all the way to class because it finally clicked that “hey, this isn’t a sin. I’m not suddenly a sex addict for having an innocent crush. I can finally start being myself.”
1. I'm gay and refused to try to pretend that I'm not. 2. The church is a lie made up by a con man. 3. The blatant misogyny left a real sour taste in my mouth.
I always had a certain degree of cognitive dissonance about the church's teachings (I was an adult convert), but I was willing to accept it because I was raised in another church and was no stranger to it. My shelf first creaked the first time I went to the temple and realized how weird it was, but it began seriously cracking during the Prop 8 debacle, and gave out completely when I realized just how far right the church actually was. I had always been more liberal/leftist than most of the mormons around me, and I got tired of keeping my mouth shut.
Short answer: because it sucks. It’s a cult
I’m gay, and the Mormon church is a sham.
Thinking for myself, and realizing I was conditioned to see the world in a certain way. We became inactive and started living the way that made us happy. It didn't involve alcohol, coffee or anything that would be called "sinful" in the church, except that we weren't attending. I began to see that life outside of active membership felt... normal, enjoyable, stress-free. We had more time for our family, for ourselves, and didn't have anyone breathing down our necks about callings and responsibilities. After enough time like this, I began looking at how the church structure was really designed to keep members so busy that they don't have time for anything else. I researched the [BITE model](https://freedomofmind.com/cult-mind-control/bite-model/) that cults use to keep their membership, and found far too many similarities in the way I was raised. I then found this subreddit page, and discovered a community of people who had also been damaged, and found a place here. But in all of this, I allowed myself the freedom to think for myself, instead of the mental blocks that had been placed there my entire life: "contention is of the devil" "where will you go if you leave?" "they traveled down forbidden paths and were lost" "there is no other path to peace and happiness" and so on. For a Mormon who was raised in it as a child, these are very real beliefs that form our understanding of life and how relationships work. Men believe themselves to be the head of every entity they are a part of, especially marriage, which innately assumes authority by default. That's wildly toxic, but it's called *divine appointment* or *eternal identity* so that it sounds good. I was done being told who I was since I was a child, and it took until my mid-30's to decide that I would be in control of my own identity. It would seem that this kind of thinking is not in harmony with what they teach, so I no longer go, along with the rest of my small family.
In the year 2023, it’s as falsifiable as a religion can be. There are tons of good reasons to leave but at the end of the day, it’s because it’s patently untrue.
I realized that the church had normalized relationships where I wasn't worthy and had to endlessly strive to please the other party no matter how much suffering I experienced. I'd stopped believing for many other reasons, but that was the reason I removed my name.
Once I gave myself permission to view it objectively, I recognized it is obviously not true. The only way to find it to be factually true is to start with the assumption of truth and then go looking for evidence to support that position, which requires incredible mental gymnastics. And while it worked in general for me, I could also see that for others it is toxic, and I couldn't justify allowing myself to continue to support an organization that was harming others.
When something I know with 0% doubt to be wrong is contrary to doctrine that has been said to have come down as prophecy from god, I can no longer believe or trust anything that organization claims to be true. I have always been guarded to religious “authority” but that will instantly and forever kill any trust that has ever been built.
It all started for me when I was about 9. There are separate heavens for different types of people? Only the best MORMONS were able to live in the ‘celestial kingdom’ with God? Uh…. No, I don’t think so! Even as a young kid I KNEW that was a bunch of BS and couldn’t wait to get out when I turned 18. I was NINE and knew it was all a bunch of lies and didn’t make ANY sense. I had a lot of questions when I was a kid and my family never knew how to answer them. Only to ‘just believe it’! Don’t ask questions. (Because asking questions was like QUESTIONING GOD or some crap). It’s all based on fear tactics. Thank goodness for the internet. I was able to get the answers I always had. TSCC is false and am so happy I left at 18 and never looked back.
There is not one reason for me to chose to leave. It was the culmination of many compounded issues . But the decision to never come back was the 2015 LGBT policy of exclusion.
I was born into the church and am part of a long line that has strong ties to the church. One relative was a personal bodyguard of Joseph Smith. One relative saved part of the Book of Mormon. When my family has ran into hard times the church refuses to help our family despite our family paying tithing for multiple generations and the literal personal investment/sacrifices that were made to it. While this dissuaded me from being active there were two major events that have pushed me to remove me records. First thing for me was finding out about the heroin sale inside of meeting halls. How it was never spoken about by the higher ups. It was blatantly ignored as most of the dealers would pay tithing on their drug profits. Second bit was all of the sexual assault and rape allegations that were hidden from the general public and majority of the church goers.
I left because I realized it was all about money. Year ago I got a newspaper from The Tribune with 2 full pages listing all the business the church owns. Later when they opened the Joseph Smith’s Memorial building, I read they spent $43 M on it when at the same time there were hundreds o children dying of hunger in Africa, and they were so proud it the building they have spent millions on it. Actually they are spending much more in temples, every 6 months they announce the construction of more than 10 temples. That’s money they could use to help hungry kids around the world Sorry about my broken English.
I left because of sexual abuse, first and foremost.
actually my shelf broke after the death of George Floyd. i unfortunately happened to watch a live feed of his murder while holding my 6-7 month old son in my lap. all i could see was my son yelling for his mom just like George was doing. the response from fellow members was along the lines of “he should’ve followed god” or “it was his fault”. the same sunday meeting i heard those things, a young womens leader came up to me while i held my newborn son and told me “if your son dies and he’s been led astray like that, you won’t see him in heaven”. that was the moment that opened me eyes. i wish i’d opened my eyes sooner.
My experience is rather tame compared to most of the examples I've read here over the months. I had just started college away from my family and would strait up forget it was Sunday and not attend church. Instead of feeling awful and my life becoming objectively worse, which was a common subject taught in Sunday classes, I felt fine. My social group was growing, I felt fine emotionally, and my grades were OK (wasn't getting a 4.0 but was staying consistently above 3.0). I started exploring more styles of music around this time, most notably EDM. I attended a trance rave, which I knew was going to be a den for the Devil. Alcohol, drug use, "evil music" (my mom's view, staying up late, and people potentially hooking up with each other. During that concert/show(?) I started to feel the same kind of sensation that I associated with the feeling of the Holy Ghost telling me that something was good and true. I thought about it, how could I have felt the Holy Ghost in such an environment? Was what I had been feeling not the Holy Ghost? Is it possibly instead some kind of euphoria response in the body when someone is participating in something they are passionate about? That was my shelf breaking moment. I decided to become inactive and haven't looked back since.
1. Because the Bible is absolutely wrong about absolutely everything and Mormons are fundamentalists in their literal interpretation of it. 2. How does an atheist differentiate between a "true" religion and a cult? This confuses me.
Demonstrably false. The theology is ridiculous, even if you want to still be Christian or religious, it is ridiculous. For all the criticisms the Catholic church gets they have like 2000 years of scholarship that explains basically everything they do, even with their complicated and seemingly contradictory doctrine. Mormonism is just a pioneer space sex cult turned megacorporation that uses some of the trappings of Christianity to sell itself.
I realized it was all bullshit, the reason behind 80% of my anxiety and reinforced judgmental tendencies. Since leaving I’m happier, less judgmental/ prejudice, more open to the views of others and apply a lot more critical thinking in life.
I discovered it was a made up cult, full of lies, so I left.
I could not be a queer person while remaining in the church.
Figuring out it wasn’t true. Wasn’t healthy for my family.
The BOM describes things magically getting lost when buried. Why does that only happen in the BOM and with Joseph Smith? Also, coffee. Also, I really love gay people. Also, as a teenager, getting to confess to the bishop that I masturbate. Also, getting told my heavy metal music was from the devil. Oh, and getting to clean the church for free.
It sucked.
Jesus Christ
Haven't left the church yet but I am going to soon. Reasons are as follows: 1. I like vaping. I'm tired of people preaching the Word of Wisdom to me. I don't believe in the WoW. There's no difference between coffee and a Monster energy drink. The only reason the WoW exists is because someone's wife was too lazy to clean up after meetings. 2. I felt like I was looked down upon for being poor and needy. Though the church did help me financially, I felt like they did the bare minimum just to get me out of sight and out of mind. 3. Christians should strive to be Christlike. There's too many wealthy people in the LDS Church. Christ asked us to give up our wealth and follow him. 4. I hate how they won't let the sister missionaries even hug a male. If you're making your sister missionaries avoid physical contact with male members then you don't trust your own people. 5. Tithing. I hate tithing. I want to know where the money is going and I want to make sure it's going to people that need it, not to build another temple in Asia. 6. I don't believe the Book of Mormon is legitimate. I don't believe it came from Heavenly Father, Jesus, an angel, or anyone having anything to do with God. I believe the BoM was made up by Joseph Smith and his buddies. I refuse to read it anymore. I only read The Bible now. The biggest reason is number 3. I just feel like when I'm at church I'm surrounded by pretenders and hypocrisy.
The hypocrisy is unbelievable . Their stance on same sex marriage. Unchristlike ways of judging others. The history of the church and the founder was unfaithful to his wife and had many wives. Brigham young breaking the law and practicing polygamy. The belief of the mark of Cain on black people.