DiscussMormonism.com

Back when Romney was running for president, I read an article in the Deseret News about Ugo Perego's research on DNA testing for Joseph Smith descendants. I suddenly realized that I had no idea how Mormon polygamy started. I went to Wikipedia and read the article on Joseph Smith which linked to "Wives of Joseph Smith" and "Book of Abraham." Thought to myself, "If these things are true, Joseph Smith was a fraud." I confirmed that the issues were indeed true at some apologist websites. I was done. My faith was lying on the floor next to me shattered into a million pieces with no way to put it back together.

All within about an hour I went from believer to nonbeliever one day at lunch at work.

The ‘revelation’ that reversed the racist priesthood/temple policy.

Seeing the policy suddenly change under public pressure, having bought into the previous explanations from GAs (as well as their insistence that it could never change until the second coming), was disillusioning. It seemed that they might not have the pipeline to deity they claimed.

I had been looking ever since I stumbled upon some e-book during a lunch break, back around 2004-ish (I think). It was a basic exit narrative, that ended up outlining all of the evangelical-type criticisms (“hey, the Book of Mormon has adieu, and that’s a French word!”). But to me, it was all new and different stuff that I hadn’t really thought about at all, and that caught me off guard.

I still remember when I mentioned the adieu criticism to my Dad, thinking it had weight. His response was simply “You should see how many French words are in my Book of Mormon from my mission” (he served in France). That sling-shot me back from thinking the criticisms had weight to becoming an apologist of sorts. I was content to rely on the testimonies of family members. After all, they are smart, and sincere, so there was no reason to doubt them. With my first encounter to “anti-Mormonism” being the Mittens/Servant/Ed Decker/et.al. kind, I kind of assumed that all the criticisms were likely shallow, silly, or dishonest. That provided an internal buffer that made it really easy to shelve the really troubling things.

Surprisingly, it wasn’t my ventures into the “true” history of the church that finally tipped the scales. I had boxes of copies of early LDS journals, shelves of BYU Studies editions, shelves of priesthood manuals from the 60’s-80’s, books written by GA’s in the 1920’s, etc. etc. For every apologetics book I read, I had an anti-Mormon book too (or, as I later realized... books that were simply written by historians).

It ultimately wasn’t really any of historical discoveries and adventures that finally tipped the scale for me -- it was an exchange on this board. Or more accurately, it was a simple question someone asked me.

I wish I could remember who it was, but if memory serves, it was DrW.

In an exchange, I had mentioned that there was a lot within the Book of Mormon that stood out to me as 1800’s American Protestantism; but, there were also things that undeniably pointed to antiquity.

This was met with “How many of those ancient aspects can’t be explained by a 19th century production, though?”

And that was it. Being provided the opportunity to ask myself that question changed everything. I don’t know why that was what did it. I had constructed “plausible” explanations and workarounds for just about everything, and was largely content to have my mental shelf -- but somehow that question was what got my noggin’ heading in a totally different direction, and started to cause me to see a lot of things in a different light.

I had a porn problem and wanted to smoke weed and felt like studying church history was the best way to deal with the obsession.

Later on, when my dad asked me if the reason for my questioning was porn, I was able to tell him he was absolutely correct! Both my dad and Neal Maxwell were both correct!

Reading the Book of Mormon and discussing it in seminary in High School cracked open the lid on the box of lies for me. The Church History course the following year sealed the deal as far as non-belief in the fundamental truth claims of the LDS Church was concerned.

The catalyst for terminating any association with the Church was the behavior of the top leadership of the LDS Church in response to the Mark Hoffman murders in 1985.

One scene in the book The Mormon Murders, by Steven Naifeh, described a Mormon SLC police officer who participated in the investigation sitting alone in his patrol car openly sobbing with the realization of what kind of arrogant and fundamentally dishonest men were leading the LDS Church - a clear and apparently shocking indication to him that it was all a scam. The image of that distraught police sergeant stuck with me for decades.

I was a closet NOM for several years, trying to process and re-frame some of the history, Book of Abraham and other troubling things that I had been stumbled upon. Then the Bishop called me to be the Elder quorum instructor. I was handed the then new manual, Teachings of the Presidents of the Church: Brigham Young.

he manual had a disclaimer right up front that you didn't need to reference source material, that the citations in the manual were sufficient. I had been studying church history for years, and my library contained most of the source material, including a full set of Journal of Discourses. It didn't take very long for me to discover how blatantly dishonest the correlation committee was. I knew the church had always played a little fast and loose with the telling of it's history, but this was shocking to me. The manual went beyond quotations out of context, and source material manipulated. There were out and out lies. Stuff made up from whole cloth.

I started bringing my source books to Elder's quorum. Instead of reading the quotes from the manual, we read them from the original source, which was usually Discourses of Brigham Young or Journal of Discourses. Needless to say, the discrepancies were obvious. In a couple of weeks, a Bishopric member started showing in my class, and a few weeks later I asked to stick with the manual. I told them I was, and I was using approved church published material. I was then released. A couple of months later I left. The only times that I have been back is to attend funerals. In 2016, two months after the policy of exclusion was announced, I officially resigned.

zeezrom wrote:I had a porn problem and wanted to smoke weed and felt like studying church history was the best way to deal with the obsession.

Later on, when my dad asked me if the reason for my questioning was porn, I was able to tell him he was absolutely correct! Both my dad and Neal Maxwell were both correct!

I find it hilarious that porn saved you from indoctrination.

I probably shouldn't have said that about porn and weed because it's not true. I mean, I did have guilt for looking at the swimsuit and underwear sections of various clothing catalogs like Lands End, Mervyns, and jc penny. The guilt was bad enough that I really believed I had a serious enough problem that would send me to hell for a good burn, followed by a movie for everyone to watch me commit the sins and then life on the Telestial. I also never tried weed until 2 years ago at the ripe age of 42.

Leaving the church definitely helped me navigate life though. No doubt about it!

zeezrom wrote: followed by a movie for everyone to watch me commit the sins and then life on the Telestial.

I remember someone telling that too. All the bad things you ever did are going to be displayed on a big movie screen for everyone to see.

Oh, GAWD, Stupid damned Mormons.

These posts are terrific- keep it up!

Thanx
k