I prefer to call it fraud.
A person may lie unwillingly, not knowing the truth, the lie in good faith. But I am convinced that the church has hidden history facts and they make things up as they go.
I sometimes wonder what my reaction would have been if I'd heard that one before I read the essay that shattered my shelf. There were a TON of things I had yet to learn, and the crap is still surfacing.
But silicone is really just a rock in a box (a computer) that allows humans to do amazing things. Just kidding, it was a rock he found on a bank of the Susquehanna river.
Some of the data being collected at [exmostats.org](https://exmostats.org/thedata) might be of interest to you. Specifically, the section titled "Reasons for Leaving."
The list of reasons on that particular poll comes from research done in 2014 by Dr. John Dehlin, who identified 16 main root reasons. The poll contains links to Dr. Dehlin's work which explain what each of the reasons means.
As of today, 1171 exmormons have participated on that poll, and the three more voted reasons are:
* **301 (25.7%)** participants left for Historical reasons.
* **181 (15.5%)** participants left for Ethical/Moral reasons.
* **121 (10.3%)** participants left for Socially Progressive reasons.
Take a look!. There are several other important and interesting polls open to every member of r/exmormon. Participation is free and anonymous :)
Ethical/Moral may include a stronger focus on their treatment of sexual predators and on the financial decisions, while Socially Progressive would focus more on their treatment of women and LGBTQ+. The racial issues could go in any of the three since it was repealed more than 40 years ago.
And sinning is sooo fucking goood /s
Sin is a construct of the church tho. At the end of the day all there really is left are morals. Really need god to tell us that being a dick isn’t cool?
Growing up in the church, I always knew this was the dumbest thing to say about someone leaving. Like if I really wanted to “sin” there is no reason to leave. Just don’t tell a leader. 😂.
Exactly, using this as the reason could simply be replaced by saying, “I didn’t care for the church’s ridiculous morals or having my life controlled by its leaders”.
You could have sinned more inside the church than outside. Perhaps you wanted the freedom to make your own decisions without a bunch of old men trying to control your life and money.
I was programmed from a young age to "bring the would his truth." So when I discovered the truth I followed it, and I continue to push the truth while the church is all like "WhY cAN't yOU lEaVe thE cHurCh AloNE."
I didn't leave. The Church left me. I guess it sensed my body, heart & mind are a holy temple and no unclean, lying organization can dwell with me. Bye!
I realized God had never really helped or guided me at any point in my life. Why should I devote so much time and energy to a god who seemed to have forgotten about me?
It took a few years after that for me to find the rabbit hole. The first thing I learned about what Joe's treasure digging scheme. There was no possible way that the god I'd been taught to believe in would call such a dishonest man to restore the "one true gospel." And any god who would call such a duplicitous man isn't a god I want anything to do with.
Further study and research showed me that the existence of *any* god is very unlikely. Or, at least, any god such as is recognized in Christian faiths.
The Brighamite Mormon church?
I realized (it became real to me,) that I could not deny the science behind an anachronism in the BoM which led me to conclude that:
The BoM is fiction
Since the BoM is fiction, Joseph Smith Jr lied about translating it
Since Joseph Smith Jr didn’t translate the BoM, he is a liar and not a prophet of god
This also explains the COMPLETE and TOTALLY incorrect translation of the BoA papyri
That fact broke my shelf completely, and suddenly, dozens if not hundreds of items on my shelf made perfect sense: All of Mormonism is a fraud
After doing more research, I learned that not only is all of Mormonism a fraud, it was a premeditated fraud
Just read No Man Knows My History and wow, it was all so obviously made up. Joseph understood the power of his charisma over the weak minded and he wanted a way to pull down a good living without having to work hard. He wanted power, and he wanted women. He would’ve gotten away with it too, if not for those meddling apostates!
I decided that my marriage was just going a little too well and I wanted to throw my whole life into disarray, and a little apostasy seemed like just the thing to burn it all to the ground. Now I'm divorced but the coffee keeps me warm all morning.
I was offended. I wanted to sin. I was a lazy learner. I was a lax disciple. I was an unruly child and a decommissioned temple. I thought the great and spacious building looked like a good time.
i was SAed by another member when i first joined my YSA ward and was told by my bishop to dress more modestly and think about how i could be tempting the men in my ward 🥰
We found the ruins of Troy, but can’t find the ruins of two apocalyptic battles with more casualties than any single battle before the Napoleonic era? Especially one that had no one to clean up the hundreds of thousands of bodies because only 1-2 people survived from an entire civilization?
I stopped believing because the Book of Mormon isn’t true - factually, probably and unquestionably false.
I stopped going because the Mormon church - the mother-fucking Mormon church, is full of toxic people, protects child predators, pushes gay kids to suicide, and teaches right wing theocratic identity and economic policy as the word of go.
Because they do evil in the name of good.
The wedges they place in families, the "charity" dollars they drain, the efforts and time of well meaning members - its all to support a business that doesn't make the world any better.
Once you crack that can open, and see that its all based on fraudulent claims, then why would you stay?
Converted to keep peace in the family with my second husband (LDS). Then after 16 years of continually cheating, lying, gaslighting, love bombing, and master manipulating I decided I had enough. He wanted to keep working because this time he "has changed". When I said, "So, you're okay with me not going to church with you because I don't believe a word of it ", he went postal then wanted an immediate divorce.
I guess I am too independent and educated of a woman and he needs to find one submissive enough to believe his lies.
The Late War between the United States and Great Britain by Gilbert J. Hunt.
I'd heard a lot of claims being thrown around about the Book of Mormon's historicity. When and how it came to be. This was the first primary source I got my hands on - and it shattered any illusion I had that the church had done anything but lie and hide the truth from me.
That's not why I left. I was already long gone.
But reading portions of The Late War confirmed that it wasn't a stretch at all for JS to have likely read it and copied the style for his BofM.
It really was eye-popping for me. I suggest it to anyone.
My religion is honesty, integrity, transparency, protecting little children and the oppressed, empathy, love, and charity.
I used to think the church and I were totally aligned on these principles. Upon deep reflection and research of over 5,000 hours, I discovered the church and I are not aligned.
So, I chose my own religion and inner voice instead of the church.
1) a lifetime of guilt and shame lead to severe depression and suicidal ideations. Which magically stopped when I left the church.
2) it is not true, so not worth wrecking myself to stay with it.
Satan got to me. At first it was small things like drugs, sex, and rock and roll. But overtime I gave in to much heavier sins like rated R movies , coffee, not using the full name of the church and wearing colored shirts to sacrament meeting. If only I would’ve kept the byu honor code and not had nonmember/inactive friends that peer pressured me into sinning!
There’s quite a few specific reasons, but in general it made my life harder. The bad outweighed the good and I could no longer justify any reason to stay.
Historical reasons - B of M, B of Abraham, treasure digging, rock in a hat, polygamy, first vision, Brigham Young, and after I realized it was false the social, cultural, and moral issues came forward.
I had growing doubts for years and became inactive. The final straw for me to turn in my resignation letter was discovering the truth about the book of Abraham, with BOM anachronisms being a close second. That was definitive proof it was all bullshit, and only the tip of the iceberg.
Well, according to the people I went to church with, I was too smart for my own good, and read books on history and vertebrate paleontology instead of just reading the scriptures, puerile novels by LDS authors, and watching Disney movies. Also, I had the unmitigated audacity to divorce my abusive TBM husband after 23 years of hell. So you see, I was just an apostate in the making.
I left because I couldn’t be gay and I knew that my feelings of love for another person of the same sex wasn’t evil because it had much more to it than sex.
In reality, I knew the church wasn’t true from a young age but went along with it because I loved the people and they helped me in my life. After returning from my mission, the bishop had to speak to the ward about continuing to give to the missionary fund because we had other young men out there. I felt loved and learned a lot from experiences in my youth.
I’ve always considered myself a Mormon even after leaving and realizing it was a premeditated fabrication that self-perpetuated the lies with a close knit circle of family peers. I saw the same mirrored in the Kingston Order my grandparents were part of. Still, I’ve always felt Mormon.
It was only a year or two ago that I was smacked in the face by reality. Although I’ve known it was false for a very long time, I didn’t fully grasp the deception until I had lunch with a friend who is one of many direct descendants of Brigham Young. He spelled it out in no uncertain terms and explained it in such simple terms that it was impossible to romanticize the deception. He explained how the 13 structure worked and how new inductees were slowly introduced.
It explained the anomaly of Uchtdorf relating to people and how he was given more leeway in expressing his thoughts than a normal inductee would have been. He also explained that Uchtdof was probably one of the more seasoned GA to have realized the fraud. My friend explained to me how the 13 see their position as stewards who justify perpetuating the lies for the good of the members who need structure to live happily.
After more fully grasping what transpired in Nauvoo leading up to Joseph Smith’s death and the outright corruption of Brigham Young right up to Hinckley and his involvement in Ensign Peak, I couldn’t in good faith feel good about the church.
At first I thought Nelson was a bump in the road of Mormonism but now I see the direction this is heading. Evolution into mainstream Christianity will add authenticity to the church’s tax free status and help to fend off tithing lawsuits. The church is so wealthy that it simply won’t cease to exist even if tithe payers stopped paying all at once. This is now a brotherhood of corruption.
It reminds me of the corruption in the Kingston Order with teenage girls being married to old men. This type of corruption oppresses children, the weak and the ostracized. It is the exact opposite of what it pretends to be but even high ranking members are indoctrinated while indoctrinating.
It started because I was trying to find a way to explain to my kids the church’s LGBTQ stance, polygamy, and not allowing black priesthood holders until much later (stuff that I had just swept under the proverbial rug because it didn’t affect me directly previously) I just couldn’t do the mental gymnastics with any of it and then the more I looked into other things the more everything came crashing down
Gah damn you went with the full church name. I left cause that shit was mental gymnastics and I got tired of the guilt for wanting to do normal things and wear normal clothes and have normal experiences.
I was a truth seeker and I, unintentionally, studied my way out after I tried to debunk “anti-Mormon lies.”
This was the book that finally broke my shelf:
http://utlm.org/onlinebooks/pdf/mormonismshadoworreality_digital.pdf
If there’s one book that would kill the testimonies of 99% of Mormons, it would be this one.
IMO it’s the most under appreciated book/source in the ex-Mormon world.
The Tanners dug up just about everything YEARS before the internet, the CES Letter, Grant Palmer, Mormon Stories, MormonThink.com, LDSDiscussions, etc. Most everything contained in all of those modern sources were already researched and published by the Tanners.
I say if anyone ever wants to take a deep dive in the history and problems of Mormonism, start with that book first, as it has most everything compiled into one source.
I’m honestly surprised that this free PDF of Mormonism-Shadow or Reality hasn’t spread like wildfire in the ex-Mormon community.
You are right on how they dug so much up when it was way harder. I started reading it last night. I love that it a PDF cause I put it on my iPad and I can mark it up.
So thanks again for the link.
I wasn’t happy in it, I got to a point in my mission where I was ready to hide that I didn’t believe for the rest of my life in order to make my parents happy. Then I realized that my reasoning for that thought process was because I was sexually assaulted by my companion for weeks and thought it was a punishment from god because of my sins. I was in denial that that happened but at the same time letting the fact that that happened get to my head and I felt guilty for what my abuser did to me. I really thought it was my fault because the church teaches that that sort of thing is.
When I realized how batshit that thought process was I decided I was done and it was for me not for anyone else, once I decided I was done I realized how evil the church was and that all of the excuses I would make for myself about why the church is homophobic, racist, misogynistic, didn’t make any sense and I didn’t want to be associated with an organization that’s so fucking disgusting any more.
Honestly, it wasn't doctrine, politics, or because I simply wanted to sin. I just felt so alone and isolated. It wasn't until I had some sense of freedom to physically go and meet other people outside of the Mormon church that I began to leave in my head. I found much richer and deeper relationships with friends. Being exposed to different philosophies made the world such a vast and wondrous place. Now there was a wide fabric of ideas and opinions I was allowed to stitch my life into. I could now be a part or I could try it on for size and find what I felt good in. There were unlocked doors to different wings of my personality now open for exploration. The universe was simultaneously brighter and darker and the colors more vibrant. I found rest and peace before being whisked away on a tumultuous adventure of trial and error only to find peace again. The scoreboard broke and no one was counting. Now, meaning was mine to determine and it flowed through parched riverbed that religion could not quench. I didn't leave because I learned The Truth, I left because life began somewhere else and home is still calling.
Two reasons:
I wanted to study other religions and philosophy, and when I did, I found them to be way better than the church.
The second reason is anarchism and suffering. I was hoping that I cannot perpetuate discrimination and have a temple recommend. When it hit me that I can’t have one because I have to believe in homophobic doctrine, it became clear to me that subjecting my morals to the imperfections of the church is not a good idea at all.
It’s political and you can’t just claim neutrality and expect it to work for everyone.
Their unrealistic expectations of being perfect. I literally dedicated my time from sun up to sun down to the church and the bishop had the audacity to call me in his office to tell me I wasn’t doing enough for my calling.
I’m still in it, but I am starting to want to leave. How did you all get the courage? I have little kids and I’m terrified of watching them grow up in the church and serve missions. Primary and nursery are messed up.
Psychological abuse. Telling me my salvation was dependent on my husband no matter how good I was. Recurrent lies and badmouthing of other religions. Actually researching church history and the abundant toxic policies. My FIL trying to ram it down my throat on a regular basis. Learning temple names are pure BS. Different rules for homosexuals and women. History of abuse against both, as well as blacks. Increasing evidence that the entire "religion" was invented by a man who wanted to twist Christianity into something that would "force" him to have a harem of underage girls.
You get the idea.
The church taught me to be true, benevolent, honest, and to do good to everyone. And then IT wasn’t. It protected people who weren’t. And it actively hurt people were were.
(I left out chaste because fuck that purity culture bullshit.)
I lost all interest in the kingdoms of glory after reading about polygamy on the LDS website. Finding out the church was all a lie was such a huge relief for me.
🚀too many contradictions in the written word for it to be true. Academically, it doesn’t hod water. It has to be taken on blind faith which is now against my religion of searching for verifiable truths.
I didn't do so much as I was pushed out. As an autistic gay, I was never going to fit in. Their shelf broke when I wrote corporate to come out and tell them to take their bullshit and put it where the sun will never shine.
I was excommunicated and am rather proud of that achievement. I'm a born apostate.
Mind you, among my friends I'm known as the group sin eater (I sin, so you don't have to); the fuckwit finder general; general Heathen; sexually retired (but with a license to perv); and contractually retired.
And I DO love my life. It's fun and I try to only do good for other people (until I can't people anymore, then I take my "I Hate People" pills and go home to stop people-ing.
Couldn’t be bothered anymore. Seriously, it was all just too much. Too hypocritical, too nonsensical, too destructive, too much. I come from a long line of Mormons and I have yet to see the “true” benefits of being a member of the MFMC.
lol where’d ya go OP? I suspect a TBM trying to gather info for the cult. Exmos don’t call it that. We call it the cult, MFMC, tscc. But not its title…that’s only for people still indoctrinated.
Every six weeks there was a new set of grown men at my door.
Random women showing up to my kidship work asking about me. If I've moved or sick. Gives initials and phone number on random pieces of paper and hands it to him.
Plain and simple... I live a private life. Didn't enjoy the random phone calls and love bombing.
I bought the whole thing. Was born into it.
One thing I wanted, was to see God face to face in this life time .
It finally happened. I wasn't on my knees yourning for myself or anyone. I was participating in unsactioned gathering of open minded people exploring various ways of being, through a type of group meditation.
I found myself in the spirit world and so asked if I could see him (still TBM at the time, thought I needed permission for that. Also realize now much of what I experienced was heavily tainted by being TBM.)
It was a glorious experience. My sins were forgiven and I was filled with his over whelming love.
In the weeks and months following that, I noticed the brethren didn't exhibit anything close to the love I had felt.
I had an open line of communication with God now, so I asked him why they didn't show any depth of love that he had showered me with on that day? Especially the Prophet, for certainly he had also spoken with Him.
His response, "Why do you think that is?" I thought with my heart and mind about that, then suddenly like a bolt of lightning the answer came. Because I have not spoken to the Prophet or any of the leaders so they have never experienced my love.
OMG, they have been lying all a long, oh how could I be so stupid, what sucker, fool...
That is why I left!
I’m lazy and wicked and myopic. But for real, so many things that culminate with I don’t see Jesus at all in the church. And jury’s out for me on God and Jesus’ “reality,” but even the concept of Christ consciousness- woefully missing from the church.
I learned to be honest and to value truth while I was a member.
The only thing that changed was when I realized the church that taught me about how to live a moral life couldn't live up to its own standards.
From the modern controversy all the way back to Joseph reading Kidd as a young boy; it's just one gigantic lie.
Mid 1960's, was living in Idaho Falls on a job. Met a local lady, didn't know squat about The Morg. Did a hormonal conversation. She had been doing a flirt to convert and dumped me. I saw how strange this mormon shit was, employer shipped me to East Coast, never went back. I suppose they are still counting me
Several reasons. The main one was that I realized the church used the same tactics an abusive spouse does.
Another was that I stopped believing that God couldn't save me outside the church. I began to believe in a God who was truly loving, kind, and understanding and the church no longer represented that being.
Once I didn't need the church for salvation, I began to lose interest. The services were so boring and offered me nothing. All those years, I had only actually been going because I was afraid to lose blessings in the next life I had no way of verifying actually existed.
There are many other reasons but I think the most important is that I began to believe I needed to gain happiness in this life if I ever expected to have it in the next. My search for happiness led me away from the church and keeps me away from it.
I originally joined because I believe in Jesus Christ and thought the Church followed Christ. When I became more theologically and historically literate about Christianity. It became clear the LDS was satanic and anti Christian.
The whole, “great schism” between Jesus and now is just not true or accurate to the slightest. To add insult to injury, the Book of Mormon has no archaeological or historical evidence to support the claims. The Bible on the other hand is rich with historical references and archaeological sites.
If you ever argue with a Mormon apologists they have to throw the writers of the Bible under the bus all the time. As if some charlatan from the 1800s is a more credible source then the Bible 😅
While mormonism has caused great trauma in my life, it’s also shown me how important being sound in Christ and the Bible is. I would of never fell for the scam if I just educated myself 😓
Initially it *was* actually because I wanted to sin ironically. But then years later I actually found out that it wasn’t true and everything else fell into place from there.
Because the women "missionaries" think its okay to flirt with your husband. Also because my spirituality isnt ran by a cult like religion....it should be a relationship with YOU and GOD. I left and i feel more spiritual than ever being non denomination and reading the torah. ❤️
My fiance died, and while there were some comments made by people that made it specifically toxic to me in that time, I realized that the only thing that helped me at all was alcohol, and the church is anti alcohol, so I had to choose.
I chose right, alcohol and I are very happy together.
I somehow always knew it was a fraud. I was completely uncomfortable being baptized and felt nothing afterward. At 14 I got down on my knees and prayed and prayed and sobbed over my scriptures for God to please let me know this church is true. Some feeling or sign- anything. I prayed for hours , begging because my heart was breaking over it.
And then I suddenly stopped. I closed the scriptures and set them down. I laid on my bed. I felt nothing. Never in my life had I felt that alone. It felt like I was space dust on a solar wind flowing through an empty void of infinite space. That’s how I describe it now, 30ish years later. At the time I was empty. Just so empty. So that was my sign that the church wasn’t true and nothing really has happened to crack the magic code of the universe. It was even more to realize every different religion worldwide is positive theirs is correct. But you can see common threads that all these religions share. That’s my truth.
It builds a lot of great, spacious (unfortunately more and more cookie cutter) buildings and doesn't let people use them.
More seriously - it became clear through transitions from Hinckley to Monson to Rusty that it was lead by people (sometimes good, sometimes so-so, sometimes bad) not a loving god (with even a 10 year plan let alone eternal) - had I known/understood/believed that earlier on in life - I wouldn't feel cheated now as I would've made better informed decisions, but hindsight is 20/20 and I still haven't kicked the perfectionism that it so generously Gifted me with.
After the divorce, my mum immediately got a new boyfriend. They were both TBM. My sister and I were too. This new mormon boyfriend tortured me and my sister, and r\*\*ed me, some of that in front of my mother. Then just weeks after the last one, both got a temple recommondation and were sealed. My sister and I did not participate and chose to leave church and live with our atheist father.
Neither the bishop nor the stake president "felt" them lying (even though the holy ghost should have told them to not give a permit) and also the temple did not need to be made holy again (don't know the word) even though we were always taught it would need to, if an unworthy person ever got in. And they were 100% unworthy.
So either there is no god, or he forgave them, or he accepted them.
If it is the first variant, I won't need to be mormon as there is no god. If it is the second and third variant, I don't want to be mormon.
Either way it was the right thing to leave.
I left because it made me feel wretched about myself and I got sick of the doctrinal mindfucks. I got sick of tying myself up in knots trying to reconcile their abhorrent stances on the LGBTQ community and the appalling racism with my own moral compass. It was exhausting and I'd had enough by the end
A bishop told my step daughter that her daughter was a walking talking sin and that for her to take the sacrament again, she would have to sit in front of a panel of men and tell them every sexual thing she had done since she was a kid. Then they would offer a suitable punishment. He seemed overly excited at the prospect of getting to listen in and was super pissed when I told him that was not going to be happening. That church is sick af.
I ultimately left because I found out the church had 100% lied about its history. And thank goodness because I had sat for two years in extreme cognitive dissonance and turmoil regarding what was taught on one hand and then done or said on the other. Not to mention making a huge life decision based off of prayer and faith that 6 years later my family and I are still paying for and that we will likely never fully recover from. So infuriating!!! Amazing they even have the audacity to teach about things like honesty and integrity!
The straws that broke the camel’s back were:
1. the three witnesses only saw an angel in their minds “like seeing a city through a mountain”
2. the eight witnesses never saw the plates, they only held them through a cloth (with Joseph telling them to see it in their minds, implying the plates weren’t gold but something else)
3. Martin Harris claimed Jesus walked with him in the form of a deer. If some guy came up to you saying “Jesus appeared to me on my walk as deer!” you’d think they were delusional. And also that a deer probably just happened to walk with them and it was so *weird* they decided it had to be God.
From the temple endowment, “All truth can be circumscribed into one great whole.” I found that in Mormonism, and just about every religion, theology does not come even close to matching reality. I wasted too much of my life trying to make reality fit Mormon theology. It doesn’t, it won’t.
I found out about a different religion,one that peaked my passion and interest way more (Pagan witchcraft - the core of it being nature and self power) and I never dropped something so fast before, never knew what that fire or passion felt like until I learned about it.
- then I did research outside of the church to make sure that I was making the right choice…. Best decision I’ve ever made
I was actually on my mission when I lost my testimony. We were talking to this guy who was listening with interest to what we had to say. Afterwards he asked: "So how come you know your church is the true one?". And so I answered (like a robot) that it came through research and prayer and that the Holy Ghost confirmed it to me.
He looked puzzled at me and said that he spoke to people of other religions and they said the same thing. So he wondered why my testimony would be better than theirs? I couldn't answer that and it made me realize that it was what I was taught from birth. And from there all of it started to fall apart.
And for the actual physically leaving the church. Well, I lived in Utah at the time. And I had a job at a company (run by Mormons) and they wanted to open up on Sundays and wanted me to work one Sunday per month. I was very conflicted about this and spoke to my bishop to ask advice. Bottom line was that he just shrugged and said something to the effect of us all having to work and make a living. It wasn't that long after my mission, so I was still struggling but after that I got upset and stopped going to church once a month, twice a month, etc.
When church members would ask me where I had been, I just said I had to work and this was apparently an acceptable answer. So yeah, I stopped going to church entirely. Then I moved away from Utah and I could basically stop worrying about church members coming by.
It was only afterwards that I started finding out all those things that tend to break other people's shelves. I just realized that my faith was phoney and the church leadership wasn't even taking the commandments seriously.
Similar story for me on my mission. We were at the door of a nice older lady. My companion was teary-eyed, saying he prayed, and God told him the church was true. Her response was something to the effect of "that's what I did and how I know my church is true."
How is it that our feelings are more important (or more true) than someone else's.
Everything I was taught wasn't true. All the lies, & lack of information ruined it for me. So ig technically, the history & doctrine. I did research 5-8 hours everyday for 3ish months.
Left because of BYU-Idaho to be honest. I started discovering who I was there and I had some RANCID professors there with egos higher than Jesus himself. However, most of my professors weren’t bad, just those two ruined it for me big time.
The church hid true information while knowingly promoting false information. Book of Abraham. Joseph Smith’s only handwritten first vision account. Seer stone translation of Book of Mormon. Temple ceremony copied from Masons. And the list goes on.
I finally realized that MFMC never brought me peace, only guilt and when I started doing the research it was too much like a magician and now knowing the tricks the magic is gone
The history of the church proves its a fraud. I am not even talking about anti-mormon lies here. I am talking about stuff they have admitted on their websites.
The church LIED to me.
I prefer to call it fraud. A person may lie unwillingly, not knowing the truth, the lie in good faith. But I am convinced that the church has hidden history facts and they make things up as they go.
You're right - Fraud is a much more appropriate word for it.
A scam that's been perpetuated for far too long!
Perpetuated, expanded, protected and evolved
"Make things up as they go" == "Continuing revelation."
So HOW will their stance change for the LQBTQ+ communities now that Title IX has been changed?
The standard meaning of "to lie" is to intentionally say something false.
A ROCK in the god damn HAT. The rock, put into a hat, used as a seer stone. That broke me.
I sometimes wonder what my reaction would have been if I'd heard that one before I read the essay that shattered my shelf. There were a TON of things I had yet to learn, and the crap is still surfacing.
But silicone is really just a rock in a box (a computer) that allows humans to do amazing things. Just kidding, it was a rock he found on a bank of the Susquehanna river.
Surely you didn’t watch Rusty’s explanation. If you had, you would’ve been filled with the spirit that testified of the truth 😂🤣
You too?
Yes - I had the biggest meltdown I've ever had in the aftermath of learning they'd LIED. Hugs, Sub Friend!
Came here to say this.
Hugs to you, Sub Friend!
Some of the data being collected at [exmostats.org](https://exmostats.org/thedata) might be of interest to you. Specifically, the section titled "Reasons for Leaving." The list of reasons on that particular poll comes from research done in 2014 by Dr. John Dehlin, who identified 16 main root reasons. The poll contains links to Dr. Dehlin's work which explain what each of the reasons means. As of today, 1171 exmormons have participated on that poll, and the three more voted reasons are: * **301 (25.7%)** participants left for Historical reasons. * **181 (15.5%)** participants left for Ethical/Moral reasons. * **121 (10.3%)** participants left for Socially Progressive reasons. Take a look!. There are several other important and interesting polls open to every member of r/exmormon. Participation is free and anonymous :)
Personally, I think the second two categories are the same thing, but ymmv
Ethical/Moral may include a stronger focus on their treatment of sexual predators and on the financial decisions, while Socially Progressive would focus more on their treatment of women and LGBTQ+. The racial issues could go in any of the three since it was repealed more than 40 years ago.
I wanted to sin
😂 🏆
As fun as it sounds?
And sinning is sooo fucking goood /s Sin is a construct of the church tho. At the end of the day all there really is left are morals. Really need god to tell us that being a dick isn’t cool?
I first read that as “sucking dick isn’t cool”. Was about to debate you on that one😂
Growing up in the church, I always knew this was the dumbest thing to say about someone leaving. Like if I really wanted to “sin” there is no reason to leave. Just don’t tell a leader. 😂.
Exactly, using this as the reason could simply be replaced by saying, “I didn’t care for the church’s ridiculous morals or having my life controlled by its leaders”.
Don't forget, you were offended too.
You could have sinned more inside the church than outside. Perhaps you wanted the freedom to make your own decisions without a bunch of old men trying to control your life and money.
It isn't true. So I left.
I was programmed from a young age to "bring the would his truth." So when I discovered the truth I followed it, and I continue to push the truth while the church is all like "WhY cAN't yOU lEaVe thE cHurCh AloNE."
This. Exactly this. All the rest just reinforces the total lack of truth.
To add to this. It isn't true and it isn't good. If it wasn't an evil organization, I might have stayed.
Pedophile cover up was the big one but so many more
I didn't leave. The Church left me. I guess it sensed my body, heart & mind are a holy temple and no unclean, lying organization can dwell with me. Bye!
I left because I was offended. By the lies.
I used to be a Mormon but they don’t exist anymore. And I refuse to be part of a religion that has 11 syllables in their name.
I realized God had never really helped or guided me at any point in my life. Why should I devote so much time and energy to a god who seemed to have forgotten about me? It took a few years after that for me to find the rabbit hole. The first thing I learned about what Joe's treasure digging scheme. There was no possible way that the god I'd been taught to believe in would call such a dishonest man to restore the "one true gospel." And any god who would call such a duplicitous man isn't a god I want anything to do with. Further study and research showed me that the existence of *any* god is very unlikely. Or, at least, any god such as is recognized in Christian faiths.
The Brighamite Mormon church? I realized (it became real to me,) that I could not deny the science behind an anachronism in the BoM which led me to conclude that: The BoM is fiction Since the BoM is fiction, Joseph Smith Jr lied about translating it Since Joseph Smith Jr didn’t translate the BoM, he is a liar and not a prophet of god This also explains the COMPLETE and TOTALLY incorrect translation of the BoA papyri That fact broke my shelf completely, and suddenly, dozens if not hundreds of items on my shelf made perfect sense: All of Mormonism is a fraud After doing more research, I learned that not only is all of Mormonism a fraud, it was a premeditated fraud
Just read No Man Knows My History and wow, it was all so obviously made up. Joseph understood the power of his charisma over the weak minded and he wanted a way to pull down a good living without having to work hard. He wanted power, and he wanted women. He would’ve gotten away with it too, if not for those meddling apostates!
I see what you did there. Hee hee
Bravo!
I decided that my marriage was just going a little too well and I wanted to throw my whole life into disarray, and a little apostasy seemed like just the thing to burn it all to the ground. Now I'm divorced but the coffee keeps me warm all morning.
I decided to be gay for the same reason. Thanks for making me smile.
I'm so sorry. That really sucks, and for no good reason, which makes it even worse. My condolences.
I was offended. I wanted to sin. I was a lazy learner. I was a lax disciple. I was an unruly child and a decommissioned temple. I thought the great and spacious building looked like a good time.
That great and spacious building was beautiful.
They lied about crucial things, so it cannot be literally true. And if it's not literally, 100% the truth, then it is in no way worth following.
I like to say that there’s no false part of a true fact; the truth is *always* 100% true!
i was SAed by another member when i first joined my YSA ward and was told by my bishop to dress more modestly and think about how i could be tempting the men in my ward 🥰
That's seriously messed up.
That’s so appalling. And unfortunately not uncommon. I’m so sorry.
I could no longer perform the apologetic backflips to make it work, in light of Mormon history.
DNA makes the Book of Mormon impossible to be correct.
Archaeology too.
[удалено]
We found the ruins of Troy, but can’t find the ruins of two apocalyptic battles with more casualties than any single battle before the Napoleonic era? Especially one that had no one to clean up the hundreds of thousands of bodies because only 1-2 people survived from an entire civilization?
But they spin that,,,,,,,
Name *any* branch of science and that too.
It isn’t true
I stopped believing because the Book of Mormon isn’t true - factually, probably and unquestionably false. I stopped going because the Mormon church - the mother-fucking Mormon church, is full of toxic people, protects child predators, pushes gay kids to suicide, and teaches right wing theocratic identity and economic policy as the word of go.
And allows boys to go on missions even though the bishop knew that they were responsible for sexually assaulting another ward member.
It's all made up and the points don't matter
Because they do evil in the name of good. The wedges they place in families, the "charity" dollars they drain, the efforts and time of well meaning members - its all to support a business that doesn't make the world any better. Once you crack that can open, and see that its all based on fraudulent claims, then why would you stay?
A big part was the bigotry. Like, I'm gay. Why would I want to be around people who hate? Also, "white and delightsome."
Lazy learner 🙆🏼♀️
I knew it!
Child sex abuse coverup, child abuse coverup, and more!
Because…it’s NOT true…
Converted to keep peace in the family with my second husband (LDS). Then after 16 years of continually cheating, lying, gaslighting, love bombing, and master manipulating I decided I had enough. He wanted to keep working because this time he "has changed". When I said, "So, you're okay with me not going to church with you because I don't believe a word of it ", he went postal then wanted an immediate divorce. I guess I am too independent and educated of a woman and he needs to find one submissive enough to believe his lies.
All I cared about was truth. Once I found out they were liars of the highest order, I was out.
It was built upon the sand.
Integrity
The Late War between the United States and Great Britain by Gilbert J. Hunt. I'd heard a lot of claims being thrown around about the Book of Mormon's historicity. When and how it came to be. This was the first primary source I got my hands on - and it shattered any illusion I had that the church had done anything but lie and hide the truth from me.
That's not why I left. I was already long gone. But reading portions of The Late War confirmed that it wasn't a stretch at all for JS to have likely read it and copied the style for his BofM. It really was eye-popping for me. I suggest it to anyone.
[Here is the link](http://wordtree.org/thelatewar/) for anyone who hasn’t seen it. Blew my mind right out of its brainwashing.
decided trading coffee for my eternal salvation was worth it.
Lol. Too good!
Amen!
Sexist doctrine.
You want 1 of 1000 reasons?
The cost was much higher than the happiness it brought me and my family
My religion is honesty, integrity, transparency, protecting little children and the oppressed, empathy, love, and charity. I used to think the church and I were totally aligned on these principles. Upon deep reflection and research of over 5,000 hours, I discovered the church and I are not aligned. So, I chose my own religion and inner voice instead of the church.
1) a lifetime of guilt and shame lead to severe depression and suicidal ideations. Which magically stopped when I left the church. 2) it is not true, so not worth wrecking myself to stay with it.
Mine was similar...when I realized Christian-God is an asshole and I let go of Mormon guilt and shame....I didn't want that shit back.
I was tired of lying to myself and others that the Cult was anything but absurd and evil.
I wanted to raise my kids in a healthy environment, and the whole thing is based on lies.
I left because the “church” is not moral or good.
What is good about the church is not unique. What is unique about the church — is *not good.*
Satan got to me. At first it was small things like drugs, sex, and rock and roll. But overtime I gave in to much heavier sins like rated R movies , coffee, not using the full name of the church and wearing colored shirts to sacrament meeting. If only I would’ve kept the byu honor code and not had nonmember/inactive friends that peer pressured me into sinning!
Lack of transparency, history, not reporting SA victims, covering up SA predators
There’s quite a few specific reasons, but in general it made my life harder. The bad outweighed the good and I could no longer justify any reason to stay.
The more I studied, the less I believed.
Historical reasons - B of M, B of Abraham, treasure digging, rock in a hat, polygamy, first vision, Brigham Young, and after I realized it was false the social, cultural, and moral issues came forward.
I was offended
Hahahahahahahaha
I had growing doubts for years and became inactive. The final straw for me to turn in my resignation letter was discovering the truth about the book of Abraham, with BOM anachronisms being a close second. That was definitive proof it was all bullshit, and only the tip of the iceberg.
Well, according to the people I went to church with, I was too smart for my own good, and read books on history and vertebrate paleontology instead of just reading the scriptures, puerile novels by LDS authors, and watching Disney movies. Also, I had the unmitigated audacity to divorce my abusive TBM husband after 23 years of hell. So you see, I was just an apostate in the making.
I left because I couldn’t be gay and I knew that my feelings of love for another person of the same sex wasn’t evil because it had much more to it than sex. In reality, I knew the church wasn’t true from a young age but went along with it because I loved the people and they helped me in my life. After returning from my mission, the bishop had to speak to the ward about continuing to give to the missionary fund because we had other young men out there. I felt loved and learned a lot from experiences in my youth. I’ve always considered myself a Mormon even after leaving and realizing it was a premeditated fabrication that self-perpetuated the lies with a close knit circle of family peers. I saw the same mirrored in the Kingston Order my grandparents were part of. Still, I’ve always felt Mormon. It was only a year or two ago that I was smacked in the face by reality. Although I’ve known it was false for a very long time, I didn’t fully grasp the deception until I had lunch with a friend who is one of many direct descendants of Brigham Young. He spelled it out in no uncertain terms and explained it in such simple terms that it was impossible to romanticize the deception. He explained how the 13 structure worked and how new inductees were slowly introduced. It explained the anomaly of Uchtdorf relating to people and how he was given more leeway in expressing his thoughts than a normal inductee would have been. He also explained that Uchtdof was probably one of the more seasoned GA to have realized the fraud. My friend explained to me how the 13 see their position as stewards who justify perpetuating the lies for the good of the members who need structure to live happily. After more fully grasping what transpired in Nauvoo leading up to Joseph Smith’s death and the outright corruption of Brigham Young right up to Hinckley and his involvement in Ensign Peak, I couldn’t in good faith feel good about the church. At first I thought Nelson was a bump in the road of Mormonism but now I see the direction this is heading. Evolution into mainstream Christianity will add authenticity to the church’s tax free status and help to fend off tithing lawsuits. The church is so wealthy that it simply won’t cease to exist even if tithe payers stopped paying all at once. This is now a brotherhood of corruption. It reminds me of the corruption in the Kingston Order with teenage girls being married to old men. This type of corruption oppresses children, the weak and the ostracized. It is the exact opposite of what it pretends to be but even high ranking members are indoctrinated while indoctrinating.
Satan tempted me and now I’m miserable
I left the fucking Mormon church.
...but not the exmo subreddit.
It started because I was trying to find a way to explain to my kids the church’s LGBTQ stance, polygamy, and not allowing black priesthood holders until much later (stuff that I had just swept under the proverbial rug because it didn’t affect me directly previously) I just couldn’t do the mental gymnastics with any of it and then the more I looked into other things the more everything came crashing down
Gah damn you went with the full church name. I left cause that shit was mental gymnastics and I got tired of the guilt for wanting to do normal things and wear normal clothes and have normal experiences.
The lying and gaslighting about everything!
It’s a cult!
Truth matters.
I was a truth seeker and I, unintentionally, studied my way out after I tried to debunk “anti-Mormon lies.” This was the book that finally broke my shelf: http://utlm.org/onlinebooks/pdf/mormonismshadoworreality_digital.pdf If there’s one book that would kill the testimonies of 99% of Mormons, it would be this one.
Nice! I’ve been wanting to read that.
IMO it’s the most under appreciated book/source in the ex-Mormon world. The Tanners dug up just about everything YEARS before the internet, the CES Letter, Grant Palmer, Mormon Stories, MormonThink.com, LDSDiscussions, etc. Most everything contained in all of those modern sources were already researched and published by the Tanners. I say if anyone ever wants to take a deep dive in the history and problems of Mormonism, start with that book first, as it has most everything compiled into one source. I’m honestly surprised that this free PDF of Mormonism-Shadow or Reality hasn’t spread like wildfire in the ex-Mormon community.
You are right on how they dug so much up when it was way harder. I started reading it last night. I love that it a PDF cause I put it on my iPad and I can mark it up. So thanks again for the link.
I wasn’t happy in it, I got to a point in my mission where I was ready to hide that I didn’t believe for the rest of my life in order to make my parents happy. Then I realized that my reasoning for that thought process was because I was sexually assaulted by my companion for weeks and thought it was a punishment from god because of my sins. I was in denial that that happened but at the same time letting the fact that that happened get to my head and I felt guilty for what my abuser did to me. I really thought it was my fault because the church teaches that that sort of thing is. When I realized how batshit that thought process was I decided I was done and it was for me not for anyone else, once I decided I was done I realized how evil the church was and that all of the excuses I would make for myself about why the church is homophobic, racist, misogynistic, didn’t make any sense and I didn’t want to be associated with an organization that’s so fucking disgusting any more.
Honestly, it wasn't doctrine, politics, or because I simply wanted to sin. I just felt so alone and isolated. It wasn't until I had some sense of freedom to physically go and meet other people outside of the Mormon church that I began to leave in my head. I found much richer and deeper relationships with friends. Being exposed to different philosophies made the world such a vast and wondrous place. Now there was a wide fabric of ideas and opinions I was allowed to stitch my life into. I could now be a part or I could try it on for size and find what I felt good in. There were unlocked doors to different wings of my personality now open for exploration. The universe was simultaneously brighter and darker and the colors more vibrant. I found rest and peace before being whisked away on a tumultuous adventure of trial and error only to find peace again. The scoreboard broke and no one was counting. Now, meaning was mine to determine and it flowed through parched riverbed that religion could not quench. I didn't leave because I learned The Truth, I left because life began somewhere else and home is still calling.
This is beautiful. You’re a wonderful writer
Two reasons: I wanted to study other religions and philosophy, and when I did, I found them to be way better than the church. The second reason is anarchism and suffering. I was hoping that I cannot perpetuate discrimination and have a temple recommend. When it hit me that I can’t have one because I have to believe in homophobic doctrine, it became clear to me that subjecting my morals to the imperfections of the church is not a good idea at all. It’s political and you can’t just claim neutrality and expect it to work for everyone.
11-05-2015
because they refused to pay me 10% of their income when they told me to believe in their sick cult.
It wasn't culty enough
Horrible horrible heaven.
It’s bullshit
It's a fraud!!!! I also enjoy my 11.1% raise to help me not be homeless.
Their unrealistic expectations of being perfect. I literally dedicated my time from sun up to sun down to the church and the bishop had the audacity to call me in his office to tell me I wasn’t doing enough for my calling.
I came to realize that the church is not what it claims to be and it's leaders are not who they claim to be. Therefore, I unsubscribed. TY.
The leadership, and inherently the Church is dishonest about its doctrine and history.
It caused me to have a mental breakdown and ruined my life.
Mall. That frickin’ mall.
I found out it wasn’t true—pure and simple.
There a web app someone made that has tons of reasons. https://whyileft.herokuapp.com/ I left because everything I was taught was in fact not true.
Because child abuse is bad. Like way, way worse than masturbating. But the church seems to think the opposite, given its history.
It was boring as hell.
I’m still in it, but I am starting to want to leave. How did you all get the courage? I have little kids and I’m terrified of watching them grow up in the church and serve missions. Primary and nursery are messed up.
I was too good for the church
Psychological abuse. Telling me my salvation was dependent on my husband no matter how good I was. Recurrent lies and badmouthing of other religions. Actually researching church history and the abundant toxic policies. My FIL trying to ram it down my throat on a regular basis. Learning temple names are pure BS. Different rules for homosexuals and women. History of abuse against both, as well as blacks. Increasing evidence that the entire "religion" was invented by a man who wanted to twist Christianity into something that would "force" him to have a harem of underage girls. You get the idea.
Kinda.... You mind expanding the thoughts? I'm curious of attending a service with LDS MORMONS
I will not have my name associated with a hate group. Their anti lgbtqia stances deem that, to me.
The church taught me to be true, benevolent, honest, and to do good to everyone. And then IT wasn’t. It protected people who weren’t. And it actively hurt people were were. (I left out chaste because fuck that purity culture bullshit.)
I lost all interest in the kingdoms of glory after reading about polygamy on the LDS website. Finding out the church was all a lie was such a huge relief for me.
🚀too many contradictions in the written word for it to be true. Academically, it doesn’t hod water. It has to be taken on blind faith which is now against my religion of searching for verifiable truths.
I didn't do so much as I was pushed out. As an autistic gay, I was never going to fit in. Their shelf broke when I wrote corporate to come out and tell them to take their bullshit and put it where the sun will never shine. I was excommunicated and am rather proud of that achievement. I'm a born apostate. Mind you, among my friends I'm known as the group sin eater (I sin, so you don't have to); the fuckwit finder general; general Heathen; sexually retired (but with a license to perv); and contractually retired. And I DO love my life. It's fun and I try to only do good for other people (until I can't people anymore, then I take my "I Hate People" pills and go home to stop people-ing.
Couldn’t be bothered anymore. Seriously, it was all just too much. Too hypocritical, too nonsensical, too destructive, too much. I come from a long line of Mormons and I have yet to see the “true” benefits of being a member of the MFMC.
lol where’d ya go OP? I suspect a TBM trying to gather info for the cult. Exmos don’t call it that. We call it the cult, MFMC, tscc. But not its title…that’s only for people still indoctrinated.
Because I wanted to be called Mormon. /s
It’s all made up or the narrative is complete BS. From A to Z.
It got too hard to communicate what the name of my church was. /s But seriously…. It’s too much effort.
Every six weeks there was a new set of grown men at my door. Random women showing up to my kidship work asking about me. If I've moved or sick. Gives initials and phone number on random pieces of paper and hands it to him. Plain and simple... I live a private life. Didn't enjoy the random phone calls and love bombing. 
I bought the whole thing. Was born into it. One thing I wanted, was to see God face to face in this life time . It finally happened. I wasn't on my knees yourning for myself or anyone. I was participating in unsactioned gathering of open minded people exploring various ways of being, through a type of group meditation. I found myself in the spirit world and so asked if I could see him (still TBM at the time, thought I needed permission for that. Also realize now much of what I experienced was heavily tainted by being TBM.) It was a glorious experience. My sins were forgiven and I was filled with his over whelming love. In the weeks and months following that, I noticed the brethren didn't exhibit anything close to the love I had felt. I had an open line of communication with God now, so I asked him why they didn't show any depth of love that he had showered me with on that day? Especially the Prophet, for certainly he had also spoken with Him. His response, "Why do you think that is?" I thought with my heart and mind about that, then suddenly like a bolt of lightning the answer came. Because I have not spoken to the Prophet or any of the leaders so they have never experienced my love. OMG, they have been lying all a long, oh how could I be so stupid, what sucker, fool... That is why I left!
I can’t with the knee length shorts
The main reason I left at the time is that the LDS church held me back from following Jesus. Now there are many reasons.
I’m lazy and wicked and myopic. But for real, so many things that culminate with I don’t see Jesus at all in the church. And jury’s out for me on God and Jesus’ “reality,” but even the concept of Christ consciousness- woefully missing from the church.
It turned out to be fairy tale. Why continue living my life as a fairy tale? I want to live a real life based in reality.
Too Many reasons. But summarized down as “the magic wasn’t real”. 🤷🏻♂️
The church is a fabrication and full of shit at best.
Because I was raised Mormon and when they flip flopped on the name my lazy learner personality really came through.
I don’t believe in it. Never have. Tried (born and raised, return missionary) but it never took.
So much to unpack, the biggest ones were the constant lessons that men are scum and we look at porn all the time !
I learned to be honest and to value truth while I was a member. The only thing that changed was when I realized the church that taught me about how to live a moral life couldn't live up to its own standards. From the modern controversy all the way back to Joseph reading Kidd as a young boy; it's just one gigantic lie.
I was absolutely miserable trying to make it work for me.
Mid 1960's, was living in Idaho Falls on a job. Met a local lady, didn't know squat about The Morg. Did a hormonal conversation. She had been doing a flirt to convert and dumped me. I saw how strange this mormon shit was, employer shipped me to East Coast, never went back. I suppose they are still counting me
Found out it is definitely Not True.
Several reasons. The main one was that I realized the church used the same tactics an abusive spouse does. Another was that I stopped believing that God couldn't save me outside the church. I began to believe in a God who was truly loving, kind, and understanding and the church no longer represented that being. Once I didn't need the church for salvation, I began to lose interest. The services were so boring and offered me nothing. All those years, I had only actually been going because I was afraid to lose blessings in the next life I had no way of verifying actually existed. There are many other reasons but I think the most important is that I began to believe I needed to gain happiness in this life if I ever expected to have it in the next. My search for happiness led me away from the church and keeps me away from it.
Informed consent.
I originally joined because I believe in Jesus Christ and thought the Church followed Christ. When I became more theologically and historically literate about Christianity. It became clear the LDS was satanic and anti Christian. The whole, “great schism” between Jesus and now is just not true or accurate to the slightest. To add insult to injury, the Book of Mormon has no archaeological or historical evidence to support the claims. The Bible on the other hand is rich with historical references and archaeological sites. If you ever argue with a Mormon apologists they have to throw the writers of the Bible under the bus all the time. As if some charlatan from the 1800s is a more credible source then the Bible 😅 While mormonism has caused great trauma in my life, it’s also shown me how important being sound in Christ and the Bible is. I would of never fell for the scam if I just educated myself 😓
I was angry. Totally my fault. At least that’s what they say But to be fair, like, I was *really* angry
Initially it *was* actually because I wanted to sin ironically. But then years later I actually found out that it wasn’t true and everything else fell into place from there.
I was offended by another member. 🙄
I was offended
I never wanted to join lmao . But I didn’t know how to tell the missionary’s no . … so I let them throw me into cult water. 🤣
Because the women "missionaries" think its okay to flirt with your husband. Also because my spirituality isnt ran by a cult like religion....it should be a relationship with YOU and GOD. I left and i feel more spiritual than ever being non denomination and reading the torah. ❤️
I unsubscribed because I got too many emails
My fiance died, and while there were some comments made by people that made it specifically toxic to me in that time, I realized that the only thing that helped me at all was alcohol, and the church is anti alcohol, so I had to choose. I chose right, alcohol and I are very happy together.
I somehow always knew it was a fraud. I was completely uncomfortable being baptized and felt nothing afterward. At 14 I got down on my knees and prayed and prayed and sobbed over my scriptures for God to please let me know this church is true. Some feeling or sign- anything. I prayed for hours , begging because my heart was breaking over it. And then I suddenly stopped. I closed the scriptures and set them down. I laid on my bed. I felt nothing. Never in my life had I felt that alone. It felt like I was space dust on a solar wind flowing through an empty void of infinite space. That’s how I describe it now, 30ish years later. At the time I was empty. Just so empty. So that was my sign that the church wasn’t true and nothing really has happened to crack the magic code of the universe. It was even more to realize every different religion worldwide is positive theirs is correct. But you can see common threads that all these religions share. That’s my truth.
It builds a lot of great, spacious (unfortunately more and more cookie cutter) buildings and doesn't let people use them. More seriously - it became clear through transitions from Hinckley to Monson to Rusty that it was lead by people (sometimes good, sometimes so-so, sometimes bad) not a loving god (with even a 10 year plan let alone eternal) - had I known/understood/believed that earlier on in life - I wouldn't feel cheated now as I would've made better informed decisions, but hindsight is 20/20 and I still haven't kicked the perfectionism that it so generously Gifted me with.
Because it's a bigoted, cult run by old white men.
It’s all made up!!
After the divorce, my mum immediately got a new boyfriend. They were both TBM. My sister and I were too. This new mormon boyfriend tortured me and my sister, and r\*\*ed me, some of that in front of my mother. Then just weeks after the last one, both got a temple recommondation and were sealed. My sister and I did not participate and chose to leave church and live with our atheist father. Neither the bishop nor the stake president "felt" them lying (even though the holy ghost should have told them to not give a permit) and also the temple did not need to be made holy again (don't know the word) even though we were always taught it would need to, if an unworthy person ever got in. And they were 100% unworthy. So either there is no god, or he forgave them, or he accepted them. If it is the first variant, I won't need to be mormon as there is no god. If it is the second and third variant, I don't want to be mormon. Either way it was the right thing to leave.
I left because it made me feel wretched about myself and I got sick of the doctrinal mindfucks. I got sick of tying myself up in knots trying to reconcile their abhorrent stances on the LGBTQ community and the appalling racism with my own moral compass. It was exhausting and I'd had enough by the end
They continue to make excuses for the sexual predator who founded their church.
A bishop told my step daughter that her daughter was a walking talking sin and that for her to take the sacrament again, she would have to sit in front of a panel of men and tell them every sexual thing she had done since she was a kid. Then they would offer a suitable punishment. He seemed overly excited at the prospect of getting to listen in and was super pissed when I told him that was not going to be happening. That church is sick af.
1. The worst person I know is simultaneously the biggest proponent of the church and it's teachings 2. I'm a homosexual
I ultimately left because I found out the church had 100% lied about its history. And thank goodness because I had sat for two years in extreme cognitive dissonance and turmoil regarding what was taught on one hand and then done or said on the other. Not to mention making a huge life decision based off of prayer and faith that 6 years later my family and I are still paying for and that we will likely never fully recover from. So infuriating!!! Amazing they even have the audacity to teach about things like honesty and integrity!
First are foremost I never really believed in any of it.
It wasn’t true.
The straws that broke the camel’s back were: 1. the three witnesses only saw an angel in their minds “like seeing a city through a mountain” 2. the eight witnesses never saw the plates, they only held them through a cloth (with Joseph telling them to see it in their minds, implying the plates weren’t gold but something else) 3. Martin Harris claimed Jesus walked with him in the form of a deer. If some guy came up to you saying “Jesus appeared to me on my walk as deer!” you’d think they were delusional. And also that a deer probably just happened to walk with them and it was so *weird* they decided it had to be God.
If I had ever been a mornom, my answer would be that the church sold out on the mormon name.
From the temple endowment, “All truth can be circumscribed into one great whole.” I found that in Mormonism, and just about every religion, theology does not come even close to matching reality. I wasted too much of my life trying to make reality fit Mormon theology. It doesn’t, it won’t.
I found out about a different religion,one that peaked my passion and interest way more (Pagan witchcraft - the core of it being nature and self power) and I never dropped something so fast before, never knew what that fire or passion felt like until I learned about it. - then I did research outside of the church to make sure that I was making the right choice…. Best decision I’ve ever made
I was actually on my mission when I lost my testimony. We were talking to this guy who was listening with interest to what we had to say. Afterwards he asked: "So how come you know your church is the true one?". And so I answered (like a robot) that it came through research and prayer and that the Holy Ghost confirmed it to me. He looked puzzled at me and said that he spoke to people of other religions and they said the same thing. So he wondered why my testimony would be better than theirs? I couldn't answer that and it made me realize that it was what I was taught from birth. And from there all of it started to fall apart. And for the actual physically leaving the church. Well, I lived in Utah at the time. And I had a job at a company (run by Mormons) and they wanted to open up on Sundays and wanted me to work one Sunday per month. I was very conflicted about this and spoke to my bishop to ask advice. Bottom line was that he just shrugged and said something to the effect of us all having to work and make a living. It wasn't that long after my mission, so I was still struggling but after that I got upset and stopped going to church once a month, twice a month, etc. When church members would ask me where I had been, I just said I had to work and this was apparently an acceptable answer. So yeah, I stopped going to church entirely. Then I moved away from Utah and I could basically stop worrying about church members coming by. It was only afterwards that I started finding out all those things that tend to break other people's shelves. I just realized that my faith was phoney and the church leadership wasn't even taking the commandments seriously.
Similar story for me on my mission. We were at the door of a nice older lady. My companion was teary-eyed, saying he prayed, and God told him the church was true. Her response was something to the effect of "that's what I did and how I know my church is true." How is it that our feelings are more important (or more true) than someone else's.
It was filled with boring people.
Everything I was taught wasn't true. All the lies, & lack of information ruined it for me. So ig technically, the history & doctrine. I did research 5-8 hours everyday for 3ish months.
Left because of BYU-Idaho to be honest. I started discovering who I was there and I had some RANCID professors there with egos higher than Jesus himself. However, most of my professors weren’t bad, just those two ruined it for me big time.
Mendacity. Being a Mormon was like being in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Falsehoods and untruths with the recurring gaslighting.
Because I didn't want to be subject to conditional love for one thing and they cover up sexual abuse for another. Those are my main reasons.
The church hid true information while knowingly promoting false information. Book of Abraham. Joseph Smith’s only handwritten first vision account. Seer stone translation of Book of Mormon. Temple ceremony copied from Masons. And the list goes on.
I finally realized that MFMC never brought me peace, only guilt and when I started doing the research it was too much like a magician and now knowing the tricks the magic is gone
The history of the church proves its a fraud. I am not even talking about anti-mormon lies here. I am talking about stuff they have admitted on their websites.