charity wrote:I know some people who really did leave the Church. Walked away. They don't hang around anti-Mormon message boards, they don't whine about how they were deceived. They left.
What do you suppose constitutes the difference between these people and those of you who want to fight and gripe?
Charity, I've said this before.
How do you know they don't post on discussion boards? How do you know what their lives are like intimately?
Do they know that you post on discussion boards?
Trying to speculate on people's own spiritual lives is like trying to speculate on their marriages. When you don't know what goes on inside the person's life, you don't know. You just make assumptions based on what you see on the outside.
Some people are on the Internet; some aren't. Some people quit drinking cold turkey; some need AA. Some people get divorced without incident; some have long drawn out separations. Some people convert to religions practically overnight; others take a long time deciding what is right for them.
You really can't have a one-size-fits-all approach to life, or to leaving a religion or changing religions. And you certainly can't say for certain what goes on inside a person's life without intimately knowing the facts.
Many of those people you think "just left and never looked back" might tell you it wasn't quite that simple. And some of them might even be posting online, and you'd never be the wiser.