What started your questioning?

[_zzyzx]

The information on Marion 'duff' Hanks came from two sources. One was a friend who was in the County Attorneys office. Another was the Stake President in Sandy, Utah who specifically mentioned it in Stake Priesthood Meeting in talking about leadership. He talked about Paul Dunn and Marion D. Hanks and finding out leaders were not perfect. Quite a while ago. It was a hit to belief in 'The Brethren' as religious leaders and examples.
The Stake President was an Attorney in real life and seemed quite frustrated by the facts that were coming out at the time.

[_Trevor]

The beginning of my march out of belief was my degree in Comparative Literature. Once I started to read more carefully it was only a brief time before I saw that I had taken way too much for granted. Upon further investigation, it was clear that Mormon history was extremely problematic in that one view was put forth, while the facts pointed in many other interesting directions.

The Adam-God thing was a big deal for me though. I had two religion professors who really impacted me. One was Hugh Nibley, who quite clearly believed Adam-God. The other was Joseph Fielding McConkie, whose father argued that A-G was never taught, and then retreated to the position that Brigham was simply wrong. With so much disagreement, confusion, and obfuscation on a single, basic point, it was hard for me to ascribe any authority to any doctrinal position the prophets took.

If people are going to take such inflexible positions on what is true, then they oughta be damned sure they have it right. Otherwise, their authority, which they explicitly tie to their teachings, is fatally compromised. It would be one thing if they had not made such a big deal about having THE TRUTH, and about being right when the rest of the world had it wrong, but Mormonism has touted its special corner on correct doctrine from early on.

The response to the failure of doctrine, however, is even more pernicious than the problem. The solution has been to deify the principle of authority above all else. Authority for the sake of authority, with no solid justification of any kind whatsoever. I simply can't take that seriously, and, furthermore, find it to be both noxious and dangerous.

On the other hand, let it not be said that I am simply attacking Mormonism. I am not. I am criticizing certain developments in the faith that I cannot abide by. For those who find Mormonism works and who are able to work around the emphasis on authority and obedience, I say more power to you. I believe that the most important thing is charity, which, oddly enough, is what the scriptures say. Am I failing in charity? Yes. I admit I am, but that does not mean that I am required to chase the idol of authority. It only means that I have to be wary of my own passions against those who do. The latter would be my cross to bear.
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[_ktallamigo]

zzyzx

thanks for the information.

I googled Marion D. Hanks and he apparently gave talks on abusive family relationships.

Perhaps he really knew what he was talking about.

[_MsJack]

Women and Authority: Re-Emerging Mormon Feminism by Maxine Hanks (ed.)

I love that book!

I thoroughly enjoyed it myself, harmony. It's a pity the feminist movement within Mormonism hasn't grown longer legs.

Guess all the people who got excommunicated for feminist advocacy is an efficient de-motivator.

[_Tchild]

Most of the seeds were planted on the mission.

1) Rules that would send the Holy Ghost away in my mission, wouldn't bother him at all in the next; Listening to music or watching pg videos on P-day. Such activities were forbidden in the South mission and caused the HG to withdraw his spirit (according to my Mission pres.) but was allowed in the North mission, and the HG would sit (invisibly of course) with the North missionaries and enjoy their music and videos and provide ceaseless Holy Ghost presence.

I started to realize the arbitrariness of the rules that made God seem as idiotic and arbitrary as the humans defining those rules who were claiming to speak on God's behalf.

2) Meeting two, young, non-LDS Christian missionaries. They looked happier, more balanced and were as committed to their mission as were we. There and then I realized that my faith did not make me special. I was especially burdened by the fact that they had more freedoms than we did, and looked positively glowing and happy, while me and my companion were miserable unhappy wrecks (of course, we would never have admitted it).

3) Inspiration - personal revelation that fell flat on its face. Our AP had a "revelation" about a group baptism for the zone and all missionaries were to bring all their investigators for a mass baptism. The AP had inspiration all the way down to how to arrange the seats. The whole affair was a total fiasco and I was embarrassed as hell. However, due to my natural instincts, I kept my good investigators home and away from the other crackpot missionaries.

4) Life experiences - Everything I saw, felt, intuited and experienced in real life conflicted with my LDS paradigm as viewed through the narrow Mormon filters. Like looking through red colored lenses, take them off, and the world shows its natural colors. The whole world wasn't tinted, the stupid glasses I wore merely colored the world an artificial red.

[_Seven]

Polygamy.

Even as a little girl I was not satisfied with the "more women than men" and "to take care of the widows" answer.

My doubts started as a child and I had questions that bothered me on Mormon doctrines taught in church. Many of them were on the three kingdoms and sealings. I’ve always been an analytical thinker, so during church lessons I would be skeptically picking them apart and going home with a truck load of questions for my parents. For example, the first time I remember hearing the Martin Harris lost pages story, I felt troubled by it and didn’t understand why God couldn't have given him the scripture again. The TBM explanation wasn't good enough. I caused my TBM mother a lot of grief with my doubts and questions but my father loved those conversations.

I was also bothered by the certainty Mormons expressed in testimony meeting since I had not received that sure knowledge, and beat myself up over it when I was growing up in the church.

But.......despite those concerns, I really desired more than anything to have that eternal family and temple marriage so I tried my best to gain a testimony and shelve those questions.
I couldn't imagine my life without the church, and I felt that if the Mormon religion wasn't true, then there was nothing else that could be.
I would end up becoming an atheist.

As an adult it was after reading McKonkie’s Mormon Doctrine that I began to really have some nagging questions that would surface every so often and cause me a lot of distress. (on polygamy returning at the second coming, and eternal placement in a kingdom without progression) I would question my husband a few times a year, asking if he would follow the command to practice polygamy should it return. His answer was "I don't know" and that it was wrong for me to pit him against God like that.

I normally would have never googled anything on my questions for fear that an anti Mormon site would come up. I had avoided anything negative on the church my entire life and would get very defensive if I heard someone say something about Mormons and polygamy.
Well, after a TBM friend shocked me with information on Fanny Alger (I didn’t know Joseph Smith practiced mortal polygamy). I finally took that leap and typed the word “polygamy” into my search engine.
I remember how anxious and sick to my stomach I felt at searching for information on something I had always been taught to view as anti Mormon.

The very first thing I came across were some newspaper articles describing the church's cover up of polygamy. It mentioned Joseph Smith asking Heber C. Kimball for his wife Vilate and other information I had never heard before. I was stunned to say the least, and went to my husband in tears of agony.


I think a few days later I bought Van Wagoner’s “Mormon Polygamy” book but was terrified to open it. My husband helped me find more balanced LDS polygamy books, checked with FARMS and FAIR first to see if what I had learned was true, and he ordered "In Sacred Loneliness." I also read "Mormon Enigma."

[_huckelberry]

After thinking this was an interesting question, what started the questions, I found myself thinking I might not know the answer. The evolution question fascinated me in Junior High age. A friend very interested in science and I used to argue the matter for hours. Curiously he started with a church view rejecting evolution,I supporting evolution and faith working together. Neither of us stayed in the church in the long run.

I think there are associated problems that my curiousity proceed to look at more over the following few years. Problems like the flood, tower Of Bable and where are all the indians in the Book of Mormon. Officially my memory says there was some studies about corn developement that were hard on my belief in Book of Mormon.

I do not think there was ever a time that I felt that no questions were possible. There were many years I assumed it was true, at least most of my mind. I remember at about age 12 or 13 I ran into a couple books, Howe and Bennet at Navoo in the public library. Staggering and frightening different views of Mormon history. They felt like reading something from Edgar Allen Poe who I like at the time. Except it was a little hard to be sure they were fiction. But I discovered then I could be the apoogist and reject the antimormon lies. I did so but could never again imagine questions to be impssible. I went through some years of being an entheusiastic believer before conflicts all came together with that corn developement to cause my belief to come down like a house of cards.

Looking back I wonder how much influence both Polygamy and the issue of Blacks and priesthood had. I remember being troubled by comments about blacks in church but while believing it seemed the issue could be kept buried. Taking a step outside of belief and a sense of offense over those two thing came clearly into my awareness. It is a relief to no longer have to endure being taught garbage like the Blacks stuff. On the other hand, how can one endure such?

[_MsJack]

Are you ex-Mormon, huckelberry?

I seem to recall that you are evangelical (or at least Protestant). Am I remembering wrong?

[_huckelberry]

I was raised in the Mormon church. Parents LDS. I left at age 17 and spent some fourteen or so years as an atheist. I refound the pieces of Christian faith over a period of time but found it more satisfing and believable in a Protestant context. I have not been back to LDS church for a good long time now. Parents siblings aunts uncles etc are Mormon. Fortunately I am not married to a Mormon so have avoid the tensions and conflicts of that situation.

It took some time and study for me to adjust to Christianity from a non LDS viewpoint.

[Guest]

The bottom line is the ultimate failure of the Moroni 10:4 test.

I never was fully convinced that I had ever truly received an answer to a prayer, and eventually concluded that probably nothing was even there to provide answers. The suspicion that they were one-sided conversations started at a young age, and the fact that even trying so hard as a missionary didn't provide the assurance I thought I was supposed to get, finally tipped the scales.

It also didn't help that so much of what I learned in school (age of the earth, natural selection, language development, migration of early Americas, etc.) contradicted church teachings.