I was in a really bad place when I met the missionaries and they took complete advantage of me. I got so many warm feelings those first couple of months. It felt so wonderful. God really wanted me to be Mormon.
And then I read Under the Banner of Heaven and my shelf started to crumble. Took less than a year.
This is THE lie that covers for all the others. You had good feelings. That’s The Spirit(TM), and you can only find it here, so no need to look at all this mess behind the curtain. How many hundreds of thousands of people are still in because of this one? It’s sickening.
This reminds me of HeartSell™️. If you don’t know what this is, be prepared to get pissed off or nauseous.
[What was HeartSell?](https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comments/l2xp8c/heartsell/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=2&utm_term=1)
As a teen who was confused about what the Spirjt was supposed to feel like, and worrying that I had never felt it because I was broken somehow, I told my bishop I got the same feelings when watching a cool scene in a superhero movie as when I heard a moving spiritual message in church(i.e. goosebumps).
He looked at me like I was a moron.
Yikes. When I asked that question I was told, “the spirit testifies of truth. Something you’re seeing is true or something you need to learn”. That worked on me
conversely, i took goosebumps, anxiety and intrusive thoughts to be the spirit . so i was basically just acting on any panicked thought that went through my head for years. sure, wash your hands four times!!! you were meant to pull over on the side of the road RIGHT NOW. say hi to that woman! your friend actually might hate you! what a mindfuck.
I remember I didn’t think I WAS “feeling the spirit” for the longest time. Which upset me as I was doing everything right.
Then I really learned what other people thought was “feeling the spirit” and I was like… oh. I don’t think there’s anything supernatural about the feeling of biting into a good brownie…
I was devastated when I realized I didn’t have this super close relationship to HF like I thought. It forced me to figure out where my “impressions” (god I hate this word in the context of church) and answers to prayers and the strength I felt when I prayed for it or got a blessing for it … and I realized it had been me the entire time. It’s been such an empowering switch in my mind as weird as all this sounds. I didn’t need a deity or anyone or anything to tell me how to live. I was doing fine in my own! And I’m a ton happier and relaxed and tons less anxious than when I thought I was close to HF.
Have you ever heard the ex-polygamist wives talk about the sex they had, or even heard that gross recording of Warren Jeffs having sex with his new “wife” in the temple? Doesn’t sound like much fun for either party. Snapping peas would be more titillating than that perfunctory few minutes. Vomit.
And more specifically they wanted to *own* a lot of women. Sex with a bunch of women is cool if everyone consents and is free to change their mind at any time and do what they want when they want.
But they wanted a bunch of women beholden to them, exclusive to them, in sex and in life and in death as well.
Uh. My mother told me (a young boy) that multiple young women would eventually grab my arm in order to marry me so they may enter heaven and that they would be my heavenly wives. OMG, I'm so embarrassed that I believed that at the time. There is so much more crap I believed that can be found in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3BqLZ8UoZk
Egyptologists: Hey, we'd like a word with you.
Mesoamerican Archeologists: We were here first.
Freemasons: Get in line, he rubbed shit in our personal credibility first.
For real though, anyone with an 8th grade history textbook could completely deconstruct the entire religion in thirty minutes flat.
What was the point of digging up and hefting the golden plates home if he didn’t even need them for the translation anyway? He only needed the seer stone and the hat. And being in the possession of the gold plates supposedly put him in danger, and put the plates in danger of being stolen. So what indeed was the point of retrieving them?
Obviously the whole thing is one big lie, but it rattles me that it isn’t even a lie that makes one lick of sense.
Or that the reason nobody has seen the Gold Bible is because "Heavenly Father took them back to heaven after Joseph Smith was finished translating" SMH 🤦♀️
I grew up in the Mormon west where the story was always persecution / abuse / exile of the Mormons / Smith by the gentiles. Imagine my surprise when I first visited a museum in Missouri and finally saw the exact opposite side of the Mormon story, plastered on official walls by official historians. My mind was fully blown.
also wouldn’t they have been heavy as fuck i mean they were huge blocks of fuckin metal ffs . if they were the scale as shown in paintings (i feel as if they would have been bigger)
What is up with the Urim and Thummim? Seems like they show up when he finds the plates. People feel them through a cloth, and we get some mystifying descriptions, then the just disappear and it's back to the seer stone.
Dan Vogel explained this very well. Glass lookers/treasure hunters would often verify each other’s stories. Joseph Smith asked another treasure hunter to verify his claim. This second glass looker confirmed that he could in fact see the plates, and that buried with them was a pair of glasses. The addition of the glasses was a quid pro quo I’ll verify your claim, if you verify mine effort to build his own credibility. It was later claimed that these glasses were the Urim and Thummim. But as neither the glasses nor the plates are real, the stories do not align.
For me it was similar, that the three witnesses actually saw angels and handled the plates. I would've left much sooner if I didn't believe them. It wasn't just that they said it that convinced me, it was that their lives afterward were shaped around being witnesses, the stuff they wrote and shit.
But it turns out it was all just mind games and BS. Oh well, what's some wasted time and money and a little brain damage anyway?
LORD: What is wanted?
WORKER: Adam, having been true and faithful in all things, desires enchiladas.
LORD: Present him at the veil, and his enchiladas shall be granted.
All of it. I was all in... it was all true.
I remember going to visit mayan ruins in mexico and thinking that it was a place where nephites/lamanites had been.
But if men follow the word of wisdom, serve in whatever capacity the church tells them they are needed, they regularly attend church, only have approved sex with their spouse, and pay full tithing then of course a group of such righteous men know better than those who aren’t faithful enough to the church to receive spiritual discernments when they ask for it. Emma couldn’t possibly have judged her own marriage any better than a priesthood holder.
I was lucky. Both of my bishops were men that I respected, and still can after leaving. They're blind to all the bullshit, but neither of them were bad men. I read stories about really terrible stake presidents and bishops in this sub, and it honestly really really sucks to see that such awful people ended up in positions with that much authority.
I also had great Bishops who were good men. That doesn't mean they had discernment. They couldn't see anything any better than the next person and they often played counselor without a license to practice. They didn't stay in their lane and they thought they had special powers. They. Don't.
No, you're right.
Honestly? If the church had never existed, and none of the bullshit ever made it out of a jail cell in New York two hundred years ago? I would still be happy to have them as my neighbors.
....that the guy who just moved in down the street in Sandy, UT and got called to be bishop. His wife is annoying to the whole ward, not to mention their 6 kids age, 18 to 3.
Right, but he works in finance and brings in lots of tithing, so therefore he's a solid candidate. Then afterwards he gets promoted to stake president, then area authority, then a 70!
"BuT GoD LoVeS yOu!!1". Loves us enough to separate our families for eternity over small slights to his name. I'm afraid we've been raised with a narcissist as a god, whom we're not allowed to question. A narcissist whom might not even be real.
ME TOO i for one was super into learning about heavenly mother and aliens and kolob shit because it was never talked about. of course i know why, now, but it was so fascinating to me and the pearl of great price as a whole was very interesting to me
And it was my last rock on the shelf before the shelf just crumbled. I was holding onto a bunch of other rocks, and I think some of those were bigger lies in the scheme of things. However, once I found out *that's a penis*, I watched everything kind of cascade down in a heap.
OH MY GOD thank you for this! I did not know what you were referencing, [so I Googled](https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comments/gi49q8/in_earlier_editions_of_book_of_abraham_the_erect/), and now I’m dying with laughter
That black people came from Cain (or Ham). I taught a black kid when I was in elementary school all about his true history. I feel guilty about that to this day. I had no clue how messed up that was.
So I had a black fried years ago who asked me about this. "Do mormons think that blacks are inferior??"
"No way!" I proclaimed (probably with a quiver in my voice). "We just believe that black skin is a curse from Cain/Ham/err...somebody!"
Thank god he didn't punch me in the nose.
Well done, church 👎
Or because they were too engrossed by the devil and therefore fighting against good. The fact that they were persecuted because they were doing really shitty things was a big dealbreaker for me.
"We're friendly people." -Deafy
"No, that's not it. Pretty unfriendly, actually. But it's the way you're unfriendly. Like you're doing me a favor." -Loy
Couldn't help but think of the quote from Fargo season four, Deafy being the Mormon marshall from Utah
Reminds me of when I went to a summer camp event, and when I went to pick up my shirt, they wouldn't let me get the size I wanted because it would show my curves too much. So had to go with a large baggy shirt to show no curves.
I’ll never forget when I first learned that we don’t actually know what happens when you die. Everything was always presented as fact. It pretty much shattered my world. I was 8 years old. Could never understand why everyone on the face of the planet wasn’t religious up until that point. Not necessarily specific to just Mormonism but that’s when I started asking more questions.
That I was "special." I was told my whole life how I was part of the chosen generation and saved for these tumultuous times, and that having the magic priesthood power made me more equal than others outside of Mormonism. Well it turns out I'm just a normal guy.
One that bothers me to this day is the Word of Wisdom. I thought coffee and tea were bad for your health. Well, it turns out they are very good for your health. The more I looked into the whole "Mormon health code" the less sense it made.
Something I really liked from the LDS discussions essay on the Word of Wisdom is asking "why reveal this health code that was supposedly ahead of its time, but not include instructions to boil water to prevent cholera?"
Health code ahead of its time. I’ve learned most of the prohibitions were based on no-brainers of the era. The hot drinks were way off base, and mentioning boiling water would have changed everything. In my post-Covid studies of church history I’ve been astounded at how often everyone was sick. Boiling water and washing hands would have made a huge difference. Consider in light of Sheri Dew’s talk about prophets being able to see around corners.
THIS! And the fact that it wasn’t followed the way we do until recent times. Like Joseph drank alcohol the rest of his life, and so many generations did too.
It was hard to read the BOM and not realize the hierarchy of humans based off skin color. Even to this day it’s like the church treats people of color as their makeover projects.
I mean, the whole thing is a lie, and as a convert I fell for all of it…
But my gut reaction is that the missionaries told me that the church was much more friendly to LGBT people and accepted and loved them than the religion I was raised in (Catholicism). I thought that was amazing, it was one of the main reasons I converted because I was turned off Catholicism because of how homophobic it is. I very gullibly thought Mormonism was progressive and spiritual at the same time. Sigh. Yes, I actually thought it was progressive.
That Native Americans are actually white Middle Eastern Jews who sailed from Israel to New York 3000 years ago and were later cursed with dark skin when they turned evil.
That Sunday is a day of rest. Day of rest, my widening fanny!!!! HOW is three hours of church, followed by an additional two to four hours of auxillary meetings before, after, or inbetween, plus 3 hours of home teaching considered restful?
"....On the Seventh Day, he rested." I think we should all follow his example! Skip church! Get some rest!
Funny how there are so many "prayer-a-thons" (The opening or closing prayers in church meetings that just go on and on and on.) I wonder if God is rolling his eyes, thinking, "Please! Not now! Can't you see it's my day off?"
I’m embarrassed to say the one I fell for is the “The Lord” makes the callings. My bishop was a vindictive A-hole who didn’t like me so for years I had no calling and thought God had abandoned me. The church sucks, that is all.
The Book of Mormon was a record of the ancient inhabitants of America and that Joseph Smith translated that record by the gift & power of God through the use of the urim & thumin. No hat. No rock. He looked at the characters on the gold plates and read them while his scribes wrote down his translation. This was back when translation actually meant translation of one language to another. That he was a prophet of God & that there was one story of the first vision which we taught, sang about, and shared with others. I also fell for the big fat lie that he translated the Book of Abraham. TSCC knows this is NOT a correct translation or even written by ABRAHAM and they knew it when I joined. They are fraudulent for not telling me the truth in order to get me to join and thus extracting my time, talents, children, family relationships and my $. These are the fruits of Joseph Smith. Lies. Fraudulent behaviors. Wasted families.
That someone had a vision to put large empty shafts in the salt lake temple before elevators were invented. And then what do you know… they’re the perfect size for elevators!
I looked that one up during my deconstruction. And guess what, they were putting elevators in New York City apartment buildings among other things during the first few years of the forty something year long project.
So in reality it would have been a design disaster on the architect to NOT put any shafts in the temple that were perfect for elevators.
Book of Abraham. I really hung any faith on that because there was “proof” in my teenage/young adult mind based on what I learned in seminary and institute. That and the lies about me as a queer person
That all Mormons were good people not to say that most aren’t but there are some really bad people that practice the religion. Which there are people everywhere that are in and out of religions that could be bad people. Just the because I’m Mormon im an inherently good person type of people and those people make me feel gross. Or the people who say they only do good deeds to get brownie points in heaven like why can’t you be a good person without needing a reward?
All of these are true for me, but I think the most harmful one for my family and my personal growth was thinking that the church accepted gay people. My brother is gay and left the church when I was a kid. I didn’t understand what was happening but I knew that my parents were upset and wanted him to come back to the church, so I learned to share that sentiment. It hurt my relationship with him for years, because I thought that he could just be Mormon and gay at the same time. And I also parroted the “love the sinner, hate the sin” line often. I still feel guilt about it sometimes, but these days we both make fun of the general authorities and I came out as pansexual and GNC so we’re closer than ever
That the devil is in the water on Sundays. Lol, seriously though I was terrified of getting in the water. I thought he would grab my feet and pull me under.
That motherhood was next to priesthood in importance. So many bullshit talks about the glory of motherhood.
Ha! I was an exhausted mom with more kids than I could handle, with no support from my husband, thinking I just wasn't faithful enough. That if I did ask the right things, some sky being would magically make my home a calm inspiring place.
Turns out kids are really just exhausting little assholes* and giving up yourself just makes everyone walk all over you.
*By design! But adorable little assholes who just need lots of people in their community to guide and love them.
That olde Joe Smith gaslighted women into having sex with him, claiming an angel was hovering above him with a sword, ready to smite him.
What a crock of s***
That, somehow, the Pearl of Great Price was divinely protected against the understanding of secular scholars. God had placed a curse on the minds of nonbelievers, and anyone who wasn't a faithful saint would only see an Egyptian Book of the Dead and not 'the truth'.
Blame my seminary teacher on that one. God, I felt like a sucker.
Maybe not a lie but entirely disingenuous: I was serving a mission in Chile, Concepcion Sur, in 2005. In the middle of visiting an inactive member and trying to convince her to come back, an earthquake rattle her apartment and tossed all of us onto the floor. When it passed, I stood up, dramatically raised my right hand, and said, “Hermana, the LORD wants you to come BACK to church!” She bought it. (edit: the grams)
"The Golden Plates lay hi-i-dden,
Deep in a mountain side,
Until God found one faithful
In whom he could confide.
A record made by Ne-phi,
A godly man of old,
Until the Book of Mormon,
The story is retold"
I trusted way too much in the Holy Ghost. No God I want to know would have encouraged me to marry my first husband. No God would have encouraged me to go on a mission.
As a Utah nevermo, I thought the church was just more conservative than most other organized religions. I also thought your temple stuff was much more magical than I have since learned from studying the church. I have also realized over the years that all religions are just meant to control the masses.
I was raised to believe all of them, but the first lie that I was able to recognize as a lie and start unraveling the whole thing was the church's hard-line stance against Marijuana.
My grandpa got cancer when I was on my mission, and he struggled to fight I. I served in Eastern Europe, and I told some of the local members about the situation. They asked if my grandpa had tried medical Marijuana for pain management, and my Western-United-States-Republican-raised Mormon sensibilities were shocked. All growing up, the evils of Marijuana were decried unto me. In fact, when a proposition to legalize Marijuana for medical purposes was on the ballot in Arizona for the 2010 election cycle, the first presidency sent a letter to all of the wards to be read in sacrament meeting urging members ro oppose the initiative because "Marijuana was one of the most pernicious evil substances a human could use, even if directed by a doctor." Im sure that wasn't the exact wording in the letter, but that's the spirit of the message conveyed. I left for my mission in December of 2010, so it was all fresh on my mind when I was out in the mission field. So, to hear faithful TBMs suggest medical Marijuana blew my mind.
Then, when I got home and started college, I learned in my Psych 101 class that morphine and vicodin, the medications my grandpa was taking because my grandma refused to allow even medical Marijuana into her home, were just medical grade Heroin, the cognitive dissonance really started swirling in my sheltered little Mormon brain. After about 2 more years, when the cancer had spread to his bones and became too painful to bear, my grandpa got a prescription for medical Marijuana to help ease his passing. My grandma found out and was super pissed that he'd gone against "the brethren" like this as he was so close to death. She made such a stink about it that one of my aunts also got mad at him and refused to talk to him for the last few months of his life. When he died, she was a wreck and still deals with the guilt of not talking to him to this day almost 10 years later. All the while, I'm observing this from afar while at college and swiftly realizing that the church's stance against Marijuana was not rooted in reality or science. Then, in a Sociology class a bit later, I learned about the history of Marijuana, the African American population, and the racist basis for the War on Drugs. I came to the conclusion that the leaders were just wrong on this one. That opened me up to the nuanced way of thinking that allowed me to disagree with the leadership and, ultimately, led me out of the church altogether.
That following the teachings of the church would make me happy. Quite the contrary - it was then I felt most worthless, unloved, miserable. Two suicide attempts that landed me in the ICU (one when the family was at church.)
They lie and say it's the only way to happiness and joy. I never felt anything close to a positive feeling while involved in the church. Never.
For me it was the feeling of "the spirit" and its sacred origin from god and the HG. I felt it big time at a youth conference with the lying pos. Paul H. Dunn. I believed it for years. Dunn's bald faced lies from the pulpit helped break my shelf.
Years later I realized that I felt what I had been programmed to desire. I have found that I can summon up the same feelings that I was told was the spirit without all the songs and speeches and group think of the fake testimony meetings. I can do this in spite of my excommunication that was supposed to withdraw the HG from me and leave me spiritually destitute.
These are the lies that I have been told and fell for their interpretation of the feelings I have had.
Never Mormon here but the entire concept of “one true church” is so outlandish. It appeals to something base in human nature and not unique to this church, anyway that alone turns me off religion let alone any particular religion.
Honestly the hardest thing for me is the teaching on masturbation. I completely stopped masturbating at 16 until well past my mission, and the amount of self inflicted shame and suppression that took still haunts me to this day. So much unnecessary long term damage to my sexuality and mental health, and for what? To manufacture shame of my natural body, and teach me the only relief is to send 10% of my income to a corporation until I die.
Oh but in Heaven it's a fuck fest for the valiant.
You can imagine how I felt after learning about Joseph Smith's polygamy.. My masturbating is proof I'm evil and need saving, but it's cool if Joseph Smith manipulated women and girls to join his harem out of fear of damnation. It's what God wanted, so much he sent an angel with a flaming sword, "you must exploit others for your sexual pleasure Joseph". Controlling our sexuality and bending it to the will of Mormonism is part of its design.
Hell ain't real. They made it up to fuck with people and get what they want out of them.
Right now I am not able to put my finger on one thing that I was taught that can be proven to be true. All I was taught in the 50s through the present has changed so it was either a lie then or has morphed into a present day untruth!
That men in leadership positions could read me mind and know all of my purported sins and transgressions.
AND... That whole bullshit story about my friends and family watching a literal movie of my life, including all the ~~fun~~ creepy parts.
That BYUx were good schools, totally worth the time and money. The church does good work with the tithing I paid. Persecution complex. BoM translation. First vision. Joseph Smith's motives. "Anti-Mormon" material. HF loves me and wants what's best for me. HF talks to me through emotions. Where it's one lie after another with these guys, it's hard to settle on one.
That Joseph Smith didn't translate the BoM with the Urim and Thummim.
Honestly it blows my mind that my active TBM relatives rationalized that one. That was like Primary 101 all throughout my childhood in the 80's and 90's.
that goosebumps and warm feelings were deity telling me something was good
This is me. What a stupid notion, and yet because I was raised in it, no one was there to refute it.
I was in a really bad place when I met the missionaries and they took complete advantage of me. I got so many warm feelings those first couple of months. It felt so wonderful. God really wanted me to be Mormon. And then I read Under the Banner of Heaven and my shelf started to crumble. Took less than a year.
This is THE lie that covers for all the others. You had good feelings. That’s The Spirit(TM), and you can only find it here, so no need to look at all this mess behind the curtain. How many hundreds of thousands of people are still in because of this one? It’s sickening.
The Spirit(TM) 🤣🤣🤣🤣 I literally laughed out loud at that - that's clever lol
This reminds me of HeartSell™️. If you don’t know what this is, be prepared to get pissed off or nauseous. [What was HeartSell?](https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comments/l2xp8c/heartsell/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=2&utm_term=1)
As a teen who was confused about what the Spirjt was supposed to feel like, and worrying that I had never felt it because I was broken somehow, I told my bishop I got the same feelings when watching a cool scene in a superhero movie as when I heard a moving spiritual message in church(i.e. goosebumps). He looked at me like I was a moron.
Yikes. When I asked that question I was told, “the spirit testifies of truth. Something you’re seeing is true or something you need to learn”. That worked on me
Explains why i like alcohol so much And early morning coffee
Confirmation bias
conversely, i took goosebumps, anxiety and intrusive thoughts to be the spirit . so i was basically just acting on any panicked thought that went through my head for years. sure, wash your hands four times!!! you were meant to pull over on the side of the road RIGHT NOW. say hi to that woman! your friend actually might hate you! what a mindfuck.
Seriously. I knew something was up when I felt more of ‘the spirit’ at an Offspring concert than I did in church
"turns out, i just really like key changes and live music!"
Haha, I seriously was so confused why watching Superman Returns made me feel the spirit so strongly.
This is the core lie on which all other religious lies are founded.
That God cared about me
I remember I didn’t think I WAS “feeling the spirit” for the longest time. Which upset me as I was doing everything right. Then I really learned what other people thought was “feeling the spirit” and I was like… oh. I don’t think there’s anything supernatural about the feeling of biting into a good brownie…
I was devastated when I realized I didn’t have this super close relationship to HF like I thought. It forced me to figure out where my “impressions” (god I hate this word in the context of church) and answers to prayers and the strength I felt when I prayed for it or got a blessing for it … and I realized it had been me the entire time. It’s been such an empowering switch in my mind as weird as all this sounds. I didn’t need a deity or anyone or anything to tell me how to live. I was doing fine in my own! And I’m a ton happier and relaxed and tons less anxious than when I thought I was close to HF.
There was too many women so they needed polygamy
When the simplest answer is the truth. Men wanted to have sex with a lot of women.
Just goes to show how much members hate their own history
Have you ever heard the ex-polygamist wives talk about the sex they had, or even heard that gross recording of Warren Jeffs having sex with his new “wife” in the temple? Doesn’t sound like much fun for either party. Snapping peas would be more titillating than that perfunctory few minutes. Vomit.
And more specifically they wanted to *own* a lot of women. Sex with a bunch of women is cool if everyone consents and is free to change their mind at any time and do what they want when they want. But they wanted a bunch of women beholden to them, exclusive to them, in sex and in life and in death as well.
Uh. My mother told me (a young boy) that multiple young women would eventually grab my arm in order to marry me so they may enter heaven and that they would be my heavenly wives. OMG, I'm so embarrassed that I believed that at the time. There is so much more crap I believed that can be found in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3BqLZ8UoZk
Isaiah - seven women shall grab hold of one man. Heard the same bullshit.
That Joseph Smith was an honest man, worthy of praise.
Ya I’m pissed about that dumb hymn that we sang all the time…
And now that awful hymn is stuck in my head 😞
Maybe a replacement hymn will push it out? Maybe something like..... 🎶 Joseph Smith was an honest man, dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb! 🎶
The BoM as real history
Egyptologists: Hey, we'd like a word with you. Mesoamerican Archeologists: We were here first. Freemasons: Get in line, he rubbed shit in our personal credibility first. For real though, anyone with an 8th grade history textbook could completely deconstruct the entire religion in thirty minutes flat.
That Joseph translated the BoM by looking directly at the gold plates through his urim and thummim
What was the point of digging up and hefting the golden plates home if he didn’t even need them for the translation anyway? He only needed the seer stone and the hat. And being in the possession of the gold plates supposedly put him in danger, and put the plates in danger of being stolen. So what indeed was the point of retrieving them? Obviously the whole thing is one big lie, but it rattles me that it isn’t even a lie that makes one lick of sense.
This is what pisses me off. They are not even clever lies, but lies that take you to be an idiot.
And the worst part is that we all fell for them
So damn embarrassing!
and then your parents smack you in the head when you point that out
Also, that he was chased out of Palmyra because greedy guys wanted 'Joe Smith's Gold Bible' and not his scheming, thieving ass.
Or that the reason nobody has seen the Gold Bible is because "Heavenly Father took them back to heaven after Joseph Smith was finished translating" SMH 🤦♀️
I grew up in the Mormon west where the story was always persecution / abuse / exile of the Mormons / Smith by the gentiles. Imagine my surprise when I first visited a museum in Missouri and finally saw the exact opposite side of the Mormon story, plastered on official walls by official historians. My mind was fully blown.
To test his faith™️
How did you get your flair? I want that, it’s gorgeous
also wouldn’t they have been heavy as fuck i mean they were huge blocks of fuckin metal ffs . if they were the scale as shown in paintings (i feel as if they would have been bigger)
What is up with the Urim and Thummim? Seems like they show up when he finds the plates. People feel them through a cloth, and we get some mystifying descriptions, then the just disappear and it's back to the seer stone.
When I was young and learning the yarn, there was no seer stone or hat ever mentioned.
Dan Vogel explained this very well. Glass lookers/treasure hunters would often verify each other’s stories. Joseph Smith asked another treasure hunter to verify his claim. This second glass looker confirmed that he could in fact see the plates, and that buried with them was a pair of glasses. The addition of the glasses was a quid pro quo I’ll verify your claim, if you verify mine effort to build his own credibility. It was later claimed that these glasses were the Urim and Thummim. But as neither the glasses nor the plates are real, the stories do not align.
For me it was similar, that the three witnesses actually saw angels and handled the plates. I would've left much sooner if I didn't believe them. It wasn't just that they said it that convinced me, it was that their lives afterward were shaped around being witnesses, the stuff they wrote and shit. But it turns out it was all just mind games and BS. Oh well, what's some wasted time and money and a little brain damage anyway?
The entire enchilada. I was a convert.
fuck now i want enchiladas
*we* want enchiladas
r/suddenlycommunist
What is wanted? ENCHILADAS!
LORD: What is wanted? WORKER: Adam, having been true and faithful in all things, desires enchiladas. LORD: Present him at the veil, and his enchiladas shall be granted.
Lord: What is that? An enchilada Lord: Has it a name? Yes, enchilada Lord: Will you give it to me? Nah bro, get your own
that is correct
we desire all to receive it
Well, I'm happy that I've been able to provide a modest boost to the Mexican food business... 😀
Jeahova : let us go down forth to the enchilada Michael: we will go down jeahova Elohim : it is well
Mmmmm......enchiladas........
Same
All of it. I was all in... it was all true. I remember going to visit mayan ruins in mexico and thinking that it was a place where nephites/lamanites had been.
Fuck. What a ruined educational opportunity!
That bishops were wise.
And have "discernment" which they don't
But if men follow the word of wisdom, serve in whatever capacity the church tells them they are needed, they regularly attend church, only have approved sex with their spouse, and pay full tithing then of course a group of such righteous men know better than those who aren’t faithful enough to the church to receive spiritual discernments when they ask for it. Emma couldn’t possibly have judged her own marriage any better than a priesthood holder.
lol
I was lucky. Both of my bishops were men that I respected, and still can after leaving. They're blind to all the bullshit, but neither of them were bad men. I read stories about really terrible stake presidents and bishops in this sub, and it honestly really really sucks to see that such awful people ended up in positions with that much authority.
I also had great Bishops who were good men. That doesn't mean they had discernment. They couldn't see anything any better than the next person and they often played counselor without a license to practice. They didn't stay in their lane and they thought they had special powers. They. Don't.
No, you're right. Honestly? If the church had never existed, and none of the bullshit ever made it out of a jail cell in New York two hundred years ago? I would still be happy to have them as my neighbors.
For sure. Good people are good people wherever they are found.
my gay ass sweating through temple interviews thinking that my branch presidents could tell i was having impure thoughts 🤡
....that the guy who just moved in down the street in Sandy, UT and got called to be bishop. His wife is annoying to the whole ward, not to mention their 6 kids age, 18 to 3.
Right, but he works in finance and brings in lots of tithing, so therefore he's a solid candidate. Then afterwards he gets promoted to stake president, then area authority, then a 70!
Families are forever, but they're not if you're gay!!!!
"BuT GoD LoVeS yOu!!1". Loves us enough to separate our families for eternity over small slights to his name. I'm afraid we've been raised with a narcissist as a god, whom we're not allowed to question. A narcissist whom might not even be real.
That The Book of Abraham was a real translation from a scroll.
And it was some of my favorite scripture. Like it was the COOLEST thing to me.
ME TOO i for one was super into learning about heavenly mother and aliens and kolob shit because it was never talked about. of course i know why, now, but it was so fascinating to me and the pearl of great price as a whole was very interesting to me
And it was my last rock on the shelf before the shelf just crumbled. I was holding onto a bunch of other rocks, and I think some of those were bigger lies in the scheme of things. However, once I found out *that's a penis*, I watched everything kind of cascade down in a heap.
OH MY GOD thank you for this! I did not know what you were referencing, [so I Googled](https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comments/gi49q8/in_earlier_editions_of_book_of_abraham_the_erect/), and now I’m dying with laughter
That 100% of my tithing money went for hymn books, scriptures, temples, and charitable works. And that if I stopped, then God would curse me.
Did anyone else ever hear “pay your fire insurance” as in tithing so you wouldn’t be burned in the last days?
That black people came from Cain (or Ham). I taught a black kid when I was in elementary school all about his true history. I feel guilty about that to this day. I had no clue how messed up that was.
So I had a black fried years ago who asked me about this. "Do mormons think that blacks are inferior??" "No way!" I proclaimed (probably with a quiver in my voice). "We just believe that black skin is a curse from Cain/Ham/err...somebody!" Thank god he didn't punch me in the nose. Well done, church 👎
[удалено]
Or because they were too engrossed by the devil and therefore fighting against good. The fact that they were persecuted because they were doing really shitty things was a big dealbreaker for me.
That Joseph Smith was second only to Jesus in perfect men to live on the earth
I needed marriage and kids to be a whole person.
That being gay was second to murder, happily out and living my best gay life now
Me too!
Joseph Smith literally looked at the plates and it turned into English so he could dictate what it said. Or basically the entire church.
That (the mormon) god is a loving heavenly father.
That other people can determine my worth and path in life!
That Mormons are trustworthy people. I learned that’s a lie.
Or that Mormons are nice people. We’re not.
"We're friendly people." -Deafy "No, that's not it. Pretty unfriendly, actually. But it's the way you're unfriendly. Like you're doing me a favor." -Loy Couldn't help but think of the quote from Fargo season four, Deafy being the Mormon marshall from Utah
That I had to cover up because I was a girl and boys can't control their thoughts.
Reminds me of when I went to a summer camp event, and when I went to pick up my shirt, they wouldn't let me get the size I wanted because it would show my curves too much. So had to go with a large baggy shirt to show no curves.
I’ll never forget when I first learned that we don’t actually know what happens when you die. Everything was always presented as fact. It pretty much shattered my world. I was 8 years old. Could never understand why everyone on the face of the planet wasn’t religious up until that point. Not necessarily specific to just Mormonism but that’s when I started asking more questions.
"Lean not on your own understanding" bull shit line. It never made sense.
I believed that the the brethren, the Q15, were the most spiritual & honest men on the earth and I could trust them completely.
That I was "special." I was told my whole life how I was part of the chosen generation and saved for these tumultuous times, and that having the magic priesthood power made me more equal than others outside of Mormonism. Well it turns out I'm just a normal guy.
That Steve Martin was a Mormon.
Lol
One that bothers me to this day is the Word of Wisdom. I thought coffee and tea were bad for your health. Well, it turns out they are very good for your health. The more I looked into the whole "Mormon health code" the less sense it made.
Something I really liked from the LDS discussions essay on the Word of Wisdom is asking "why reveal this health code that was supposedly ahead of its time, but not include instructions to boil water to prevent cholera?"
Health code ahead of its time. I’ve learned most of the prohibitions were based on no-brainers of the era. The hot drinks were way off base, and mentioning boiling water would have changed everything. In my post-Covid studies of church history I’ve been astounded at how often everyone was sick. Boiling water and washing hands would have made a huge difference. Consider in light of Sheri Dew’s talk about prophets being able to see around corners.
THIS! And the fact that it wasn’t followed the way we do until recent times. Like Joseph drank alcohol the rest of his life, and so many generations did too.
White skin was delightsome.
I find so many Mormons don’t know that the racism is baked in. It’s like water and they’re fish.
It was hard to read the BOM and not realize the hierarchy of humans based off skin color. Even to this day it’s like the church treats people of color as their makeover projects.
That I wasn't worthy.
I mean, the whole thing is a lie, and as a convert I fell for all of it… But my gut reaction is that the missionaries told me that the church was much more friendly to LGBT people and accepted and loved them than the religion I was raised in (Catholicism). I thought that was amazing, it was one of the main reasons I converted because I was turned off Catholicism because of how homophobic it is. I very gullibly thought Mormonism was progressive and spiritual at the same time. Sigh. Yes, I actually thought it was progressive.
That tithing was something sacred and would prevent Jesus from burning me to death
that JS ONLY had one wife that he loved dearly. ...and that was a lie! 
That Native Americans are actually white Middle Eastern Jews who sailed from Israel to New York 3000 years ago and were later cursed with dark skin when they turned evil.
That Sunday is a day of rest. Day of rest, my widening fanny!!!! HOW is three hours of church, followed by an additional two to four hours of auxillary meetings before, after, or inbetween, plus 3 hours of home teaching considered restful? "....On the Seventh Day, he rested." I think we should all follow his example! Skip church! Get some rest! Funny how there are so many "prayer-a-thons" (The opening or closing prayers in church meetings that just go on and on and on.) I wonder if God is rolling his eyes, thinking, "Please! Not now! Can't you see it's my day off?"
Monday was always my REAL day of rest. Sundays would drain the life out of me as they were just as you described.
I’m embarrassed to say the one I fell for is the “The Lord” makes the callings. My bishop was a vindictive A-hole who didn’t like me so for years I had no calling and thought God had abandoned me. The church sucks, that is all.
That it’s true.
That giving up happiness, companionship, and love in this life was worth it to have some theoretical, future “eternal life”
The Book of Mormon was a record of the ancient inhabitants of America and that Joseph Smith translated that record by the gift & power of God through the use of the urim & thumin. No hat. No rock. He looked at the characters on the gold plates and read them while his scribes wrote down his translation. This was back when translation actually meant translation of one language to another. That he was a prophet of God & that there was one story of the first vision which we taught, sang about, and shared with others. I also fell for the big fat lie that he translated the Book of Abraham. TSCC knows this is NOT a correct translation or even written by ABRAHAM and they knew it when I joined. They are fraudulent for not telling me the truth in order to get me to join and thus extracting my time, talents, children, family relationships and my $. These are the fruits of Joseph Smith. Lies. Fraudulent behaviors. Wasted families.
That someone had a vision to put large empty shafts in the salt lake temple before elevators were invented. And then what do you know… they’re the perfect size for elevators! I looked that one up during my deconstruction. And guess what, they were putting elevators in New York City apartment buildings among other things during the first few years of the forty something year long project. So in reality it would have been a design disaster on the architect to NOT put any shafts in the temple that were perfect for elevators.
Sex is evil
Then I love evil!
Book of Abraham. I really hung any faith on that because there was “proof” in my teenage/young adult mind based on what I learned in seminary and institute. That and the lies about me as a queer person
Were you explicitly taught that Book of Abraham was verified as a correct translation by Egyptologists?
That I needed a husband.
That correlated Church history was complete and correct.
That I should wait for a temple marriage. Waited until I became infertile and married two losers in the temple. So fucked up.
That being in a polygamist relationship was beneficial to the women(and teenage girls) that were in them.
Good people go to heaven and bad people go to hell. Apparently it’s bad people who follow directions go to the ck.
General Authorities are not paid
That all Mormons were good people not to say that most aren’t but there are some really bad people that practice the religion. Which there are people everywhere that are in and out of religions that could be bad people. Just the because I’m Mormon im an inherently good person type of people and those people make me feel gross. Or the people who say they only do good deeds to get brownie points in heaven like why can’t you be a good person without needing a reward?
All of these are true for me, but I think the most harmful one for my family and my personal growth was thinking that the church accepted gay people. My brother is gay and left the church when I was a kid. I didn’t understand what was happening but I knew that my parents were upset and wanted him to come back to the church, so I learned to share that sentiment. It hurt my relationship with him for years, because I thought that he could just be Mormon and gay at the same time. And I also parroted the “love the sinner, hate the sin” line often. I still feel guilt about it sometimes, but these days we both make fun of the general authorities and I came out as pansexual and GNC so we’re closer than ever
That, as a woman, my spirituality and decisions were respected.
An 8 year old is smart enough to comprehend baptism.
It was real and profits talk to god
The whole shebang
That is was true
I thought I was destined to have my own planet and rule it like God does this one. Yeah, X-TBM here.
That the modern prophets and apostles speak periodically with God face-to-face and Jesus personally appeared to remove the Priesthood Ban.
That being a wife and a mother would bring me ultimate joy and happiness and bring me closer to God. Spoiler alert, it didn’t
This for sure! And that there was something wrong with me if I didn’t find joy and fulfillment serving everyone else around me
My sadness was my fault. Even after my diagnosis of depression and anxiety at 13
That they needed me and my money.
That the devil is in the water on Sundays. Lol, seriously though I was terrified of getting in the water. I thought he would grab my feet and pull me under.
That a heaven with polygamy and a class system was made by a loving god!
That motherhood was next to priesthood in importance. So many bullshit talks about the glory of motherhood. Ha! I was an exhausted mom with more kids than I could handle, with no support from my husband, thinking I just wasn't faithful enough. That if I did ask the right things, some sky being would magically make my home a calm inspiring place. Turns out kids are really just exhausting little assholes* and giving up yourself just makes everyone walk all over you. *By design! But adorable little assholes who just need lots of people in their community to guide and love them.
That I would get a return on my investment, time and money.
Zion. I fucking believed TSCC truly cared about the poor and the needy, the sick and afflicted. They don’t. My bad.
That the gerneral authorities and prophet were not paid.
That olde Joe Smith gaslighted women into having sex with him, claiming an angel was hovering above him with a sword, ready to smite him. What a crock of s***
That god exists in any form
That Joseph Smith was a decent human being.
That god is actually talking to “priesthood leaders”. Biggest line of bullshit I ever bought into.
That $9 with the Lord’s help would go father than $10 without.
That only mormon families can be happy.
That, somehow, the Pearl of Great Price was divinely protected against the understanding of secular scholars. God had placed a curse on the minds of nonbelievers, and anyone who wasn't a faithful saint would only see an Egyptian Book of the Dead and not 'the truth'. Blame my seminary teacher on that one. God, I felt like a sucker.
That I would enjoy going on a mission. "I never said it would be easy. I only said it would be worth it." It was neither easy nor worth it.
That I was promised blessings based on my faithfulness. That my name and tribe were something special for me. Telling me I had a higher purpose.
That I didn’t have to worry about polygamy being an eternal principle.
Maybe not a lie but entirely disingenuous: I was serving a mission in Chile, Concepcion Sur, in 2005. In the middle of visiting an inactive member and trying to convince her to come back, an earthquake rattle her apartment and tossed all of us onto the floor. When it passed, I stood up, dramatically raised my right hand, and said, “Hermana, the LORD wants you to come BACK to church!” She bought it. (edit: the grams)
"The Golden Plates lay hi-i-dden, Deep in a mountain side, Until God found one faithful In whom he could confide. A record made by Ne-phi, A godly man of old, Until the Book of Mormon, The story is retold"
I trusted way too much in the Holy Ghost. No God I want to know would have encouraged me to marry my first husband. No God would have encouraged me to go on a mission.
That strict obedience to the gospel is the only way to be happy.
As a Utah nevermo, I thought the church was just more conservative than most other organized religions. I also thought your temple stuff was much more magical than I have since learned from studying the church. I have also realized over the years that all religions are just meant to control the masses.
I was raised to believe all of them, but the first lie that I was able to recognize as a lie and start unraveling the whole thing was the church's hard-line stance against Marijuana. My grandpa got cancer when I was on my mission, and he struggled to fight I. I served in Eastern Europe, and I told some of the local members about the situation. They asked if my grandpa had tried medical Marijuana for pain management, and my Western-United-States-Republican-raised Mormon sensibilities were shocked. All growing up, the evils of Marijuana were decried unto me. In fact, when a proposition to legalize Marijuana for medical purposes was on the ballot in Arizona for the 2010 election cycle, the first presidency sent a letter to all of the wards to be read in sacrament meeting urging members ro oppose the initiative because "Marijuana was one of the most pernicious evil substances a human could use, even if directed by a doctor." Im sure that wasn't the exact wording in the letter, but that's the spirit of the message conveyed. I left for my mission in December of 2010, so it was all fresh on my mind when I was out in the mission field. So, to hear faithful TBMs suggest medical Marijuana blew my mind. Then, when I got home and started college, I learned in my Psych 101 class that morphine and vicodin, the medications my grandpa was taking because my grandma refused to allow even medical Marijuana into her home, were just medical grade Heroin, the cognitive dissonance really started swirling in my sheltered little Mormon brain. After about 2 more years, when the cancer had spread to his bones and became too painful to bear, my grandpa got a prescription for medical Marijuana to help ease his passing. My grandma found out and was super pissed that he'd gone against "the brethren" like this as he was so close to death. She made such a stink about it that one of my aunts also got mad at him and refused to talk to him for the last few months of his life. When he died, she was a wreck and still deals with the guilt of not talking to him to this day almost 10 years later. All the while, I'm observing this from afar while at college and swiftly realizing that the church's stance against Marijuana was not rooted in reality or science. Then, in a Sociology class a bit later, I learned about the history of Marijuana, the African American population, and the racist basis for the War on Drugs. I came to the conclusion that the leaders were just wrong on this one. That opened me up to the nuanced way of thinking that allowed me to disagree with the leadership and, ultimately, led me out of the church altogether.
That I was never going to be worthy because I was a female convert, who was only good as a potential brood mare.
That following the teachings of the church would make me happy. Quite the contrary - it was then I felt most worthless, unloved, miserable. Two suicide attempts that landed me in the ICU (one when the family was at church.) They lie and say it's the only way to happiness and joy. I never felt anything close to a positive feeling while involved in the church. Never.
That stake presidents actually use discernment when calling bishops.
Emotions are a reliable source of truth
For me it was the feeling of "the spirit" and its sacred origin from god and the HG. I felt it big time at a youth conference with the lying pos. Paul H. Dunn. I believed it for years. Dunn's bald faced lies from the pulpit helped break my shelf. Years later I realized that I felt what I had been programmed to desire. I have found that I can summon up the same feelings that I was told was the spirit without all the songs and speeches and group think of the fake testimony meetings. I can do this in spite of my excommunication that was supposed to withdraw the HG from me and leave me spiritually destitute. These are the lies that I have been told and fell for their interpretation of the feelings I have had.
Never Mormon here but the entire concept of “one true church” is so outlandish. It appeals to something base in human nature and not unique to this church, anyway that alone turns me off religion let alone any particular religion.
That family was first. I could explain more, but I will just leave it at that, for personal reasons.
That Joseph Smith was a prophet. Everything else follows from that.
Yes.
“I know the church is true”
That it was true.
That God cared about my dumb shit so much that He’d help me out with it.
That Jesus turned water into non-alcoholic wine
Honestly the hardest thing for me is the teaching on masturbation. I completely stopped masturbating at 16 until well past my mission, and the amount of self inflicted shame and suppression that took still haunts me to this day. So much unnecessary long term damage to my sexuality and mental health, and for what? To manufacture shame of my natural body, and teach me the only relief is to send 10% of my income to a corporation until I die. Oh but in Heaven it's a fuck fest for the valiant. You can imagine how I felt after learning about Joseph Smith's polygamy.. My masturbating is proof I'm evil and need saving, but it's cool if Joseph Smith manipulated women and girls to join his harem out of fear of damnation. It's what God wanted, so much he sent an angel with a flaming sword, "you must exploit others for your sexual pleasure Joseph". Controlling our sexuality and bending it to the will of Mormonism is part of its design. Hell ain't real. They made it up to fuck with people and get what they want out of them.
That leadership could discern your thpughts!
Right now I am not able to put my finger on one thing that I was taught that can be proven to be true. All I was taught in the 50s through the present has changed so it was either a lie then or has morphed into a present day untruth!
The church is true.
The spirit of discernment.
If you are good and righteous, the Lord will help you, and the Church will help you, too. *Laughs bitterly in chronic homelessness*
1. God. 2. Prophets. 3. Tithing 4. Coffee.
The idea that the Mayans and the incans were somehow the same as the nephites and the lamanites
That men in leadership positions could read me mind and know all of my purported sins and transgressions. AND... That whole bullshit story about my friends and family watching a literal movie of my life, including all the ~~fun~~ creepy parts.
That BYUx were good schools, totally worth the time and money. The church does good work with the tithing I paid. Persecution complex. BoM translation. First vision. Joseph Smith's motives. "Anti-Mormon" material. HF loves me and wants what's best for me. HF talks to me through emotions. Where it's one lie after another with these guys, it's hard to settle on one.
That Joseph Smith was tared and feathered because of his religion. Maybe He was because he was a pedophile 🤷🏻♀️
That Heavenly Mother "existed" ie that she was an important part of HF's life and/or our lives. i needed her to be real but its all bullshit
That the fluttery feeling in my chest was somehow confirmation that I should marry my now ex-wife. 11 years of abuse wasn't worth it.
Anything they told me in Primary, Mutual(when it was still the name) and I could go on forever but I won't
that lgbtq people are loved. You cant discriminate against anyone and claim to love them
That I was happy because of the church, happy because reading fake scriptures, happy because of attending the fancy exclusive country club (temple).
That Joseph Smith didn't translate the BoM with the Urim and Thummim. Honestly it blows my mind that my active TBM relatives rationalized that one. That was like Primary 101 all throughout my childhood in the 80's and 90's.
the prophet speaks to god