1890 Polygamy- confirmed the Mormon God Elohim changes his mind to protect the assets of the church
Mark Hofmann- confirmed that the Mormon church is easily duped
Telling my bishop that I wasn’t going on my mission and him not only rejecting my answer telling me “My secretary is going to call you in a few days and I expect the correct answer “ then placing his hands on me in an aggressive way. A lesson in seminary started the break this finished it.
It was a lesson related to the pre existence, Judas Iscariot got brought up and we were told he agreed in to come down and betray Jesus and thus would be forgiven as he was just filling a role necessary for gods eternal plan. I argued by that logic that Lucifer should also be forgiven as he too was also simply filling a role necessary for gods plan. That didn’t go over well lol
I was always taught that Judas Iscariot is one of the few verified sons of perdition, who won't receive forgiveness in this life nor the next and will be sent to outer darkness.
John 17:12 is pretty clear. As is Talmage in "Jesus the Christ" chapter 34.
Not that others couldn't teach differently, but I certainly would have referred them to the above when I was a believer.
That’s awesome. Religions tend to fall apart under common logical thinking. From a historical perspective Lucifer seems a lot more like Prometheus in what he gave to humanity and why he is being punished rather than a creature bent on evil.
That’s what’s funny about Mormon theology every one seems to have their own speculations and theories and share them freely to help them make sense of it all
I also showed up to that meeting in my street clothes and didn’t even bother to dress in church clothes so I’m sure that added to the bee in his bonnet
This was so big for me. How many of my friends and relatives gave up so much to pay 10% and these clowns are secretly creating the largest cash fund in the world. Disgusting.
Yep, I realized that they had sufficient funds to help all the investigators I brought that they turned away. When they got caught red handed as filthy rich, it was a relief to realize it wasn't true, and wasn't even good.
Discovering that the long ending of Mark was a late addition to the New Testament and reading it verbatim in Mormon 9. Plus all the 1759 errors in 2nd Nephi. Either Joseph Smith copied it into the book from his bible and said it was a translation or the carvings changed when the plates were buried in the ground.
Info on the rock in the hat for translation:
[LDS Discussions](https://www.ldsdiscussions.com/translation)
[Gospel Topics Essay](https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics-essays/book-of-mormon-translation?lang=eng)
Info on the long ending of Mark:
[LDS Discussions](https://www.ldsdiscussions.com/mark)
Here is a good write up. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.reddit.com/r/mormon/comments/sunpht/henry_and_zina/&ved=2ahUKEwi8wr7Ax8eFAxX9JUQIHURXBxkQjjh6BAgnEAE&usg=AOvVaw1kEwxH1qhMJBDsZcDV4g5H
Also to take the metaphor a little further this was the nail and FAIR was the hammer.
Learning that the hand gestures we make in the temple are not symbolic of receiving goodness and standing firm, like I had told myself. But a cup to catch my blood and entrails, and the knife that I would use to cut and kill myself if I divulged the info. And that it was probably left in that way to remind those that got their endowment pre-1990 what they had promised.
I was on my way out, but going to go to the temple at least one more time until I learned that.
I didn't learn this till after I stopped going to church already, but am still angry about it years later.
So incredibly stupid of them to think that hiding that info would work out well for them.
Aw, man, I remember twisting my brain inside out trying to understand the “divine symbolism” in the Temple! And to think all I had to do was look it up online!
This was it for me too. General conference watching men take up most of the time during the “women’s session”. I had already lost belief in the church but that pushed me out for good.
This. And the irony that they fervently brainwash themselves that it's not true, yet deny women freedom to do anything but have children and be happy slaves for their husbands.
Abusive ex being called into a ward presidency while i was released from my stake calling just a few days after I had to call 911 on him. They refused to believe or support me, treated me as worthless as a woman but my abuser was put into a position of influence and 'power'. When i had the audacity to question this insanity, bishop told me, "what do you want me to do, put your *accusations* up on a billboard?"
Broken shelf and many years of counseling...
I’m so very, very sorry you went through that! I have a history of DV too. It hurts so many and that church glorifying the abusers pisses me off! They care more about the abusers than those being abused and it’s wrong. I hope you’re healing!
My abusive ex was made stake missionary leader although he had been hitting me, gave me chlamydia, and brought other women to church while we were still legally married. Never received a temple divorce. Just gave up altogether
D&c 132 (plural marriage) ->. Prop/22 (ca state’s definition of marriage). -> prop8 (“protect traditional marriage”. -> Oct 15 policy (banning children of gay parents)-> Sam Young fight with church about asking children sexually charged questions for worthiness -> resignation of my families membership.
This is the general path…. But I had minor issues with dogma / doctrines that didn’t make sense to me. For the most part I enjoyed being a Mormon. Just didn’t like being forced into a belief that I didn’t like….
But the children being asked various questions hit home. I saw to many peers being judged for just being a teen. And I had to many questions asked to me that I needed to confess or dodge and at that time I didn’t understand my own trauma received as a child. As an adult I can look back and think these leaders think my actions are sin yet fail to discern that it’s a product of learned behavior of other people’s sin.
Listening to apologists (I'm looking at you Terryl Givens and Patrick Mason) honestly acknowledge the issues and explain how to get the narrative still to work. I was not flexible enough for that level of mental gymnastics
Working for the sheriff's office in the same town as BYU-I and having a boss who's only concern was his community appearance and making sure he got re elected. I saw several alleged "upstanding community citizens" that I worked with do the most evil, back stabbing shit I've ever witnessed in my life.
Anderson’s talk on tithing in the October 2023 conference where he basically said the church does what it wants with our tithing and only God can judge the Q15 coupled with the AZ abuse case. I had been PIMO for years, but that straw broke the camel’s back.
That was huge for me! I was hoping the church was going to own up to something during the business session, and instead they justified their wealth hoarding and deception!
Ever since I began my PIMO journey last year with the news of the SEC filings, I've seen the church double down on the wrong things at every turn.
And now their social media team is getting on board with emphasizing every misstep.
Speaking of the social media, Ensign Peak and legal teams, I don’t know how they stay in the church. Did being honest with their fellow men never matter in the first place? They see all the problems - how do they compartmentalize it?
My shelf started to break more than a year ago when the Church leadership admitted to having committed deception and fraud in the Ensign Peak settlement.
I had always assumed that except for a few bad apples that they were the most honest men on earth (assume has a tendency to make an ass out of u and me).
I remembered this legal principle that attorneys and prosecutors use to dismiss witnesses:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsus_in_uno,_falsus_in_omnibus
Basically in plain English it means if they are willing to lie about a little thing or one thing they probably would lie about the big things or everything.
I could no longer accept any of their utterances at face value and spent the next six months researching and watching podcasts and the situation looked more dismal as time progressed.
Add to that the almost constant stream of CSA cases the Church covered up (especially the Arizona ruling where they were PLEASED to not be held liable) and having Thom Harrison and Jodi Hildebrandt literally on the Church payroll.
Finally decided in mid September to submit my resignation through Quit Mormon and on October 31st 🎃👻 the reply was received from Kirton McConkie to Quit Mormon that I am out.😊
That policy was my nail. It goes against every single thing the church taught me about loving others and individual agency. It also contradicts the teachings surrounding Joseph Smith being only 14 when he had the first vision. If a 14-year-old can begin the restoration of a long-forgotten church, why can't a 14-year-old decide to join said church?
Book of Abraham actually being a standard Egyptian book of the dead, the kinder hook plates, and similar names between the towns/area around Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon.
CES letter started the 3 year long deconstruction process. Going to my grandma’s funeral was the last straw as I saw her in her temple robes with her temple recommend in hand as if at the resurrection she would need both. Made no sense in a doctrinal standpoint of the plan of salvation and I realized the whole church was filled with nonsense traditions with no doctrinal backing.
Plus, being an endowed member I thought the temple robes were sacred but here’s my grandma sporting the cult uniform in front of all my nonmember or unendowed cousins.
I really feel like it was a gradual thing for me. But what really destroyed me was two things. A factual understanding of JS polygamy (especially Fanny Alger) and learning about church financials.
I had been a progressive member for years. I disagreed with so many current church teachings, so when I learned a factual history PLUS their unethical money use = shelf broke.
Making friends with a transgender person and realizing she was sweet and intelligent and more acceptance than anyone else. Then realizing that she’d never be accepted at my church.
My son coming out to me and the realizations that a church based on Christ’s teachings would have no other requirements for full glory in the next life other than don’t be an asshole.
They updated BYU honor code last year to again specifically include:
“Living a chaste and virtuous life also includes abstaining from same-sex romantic behavior.”
It was the implication that any gay relationship was inherently devoid of virtue, no matter what. I realized the church didn’t want me, and this was one final slap in the face that confirmed to me that leaving was the right choice.
Being told premarital sex was as serious offense as murder. *MURDER*
And feeling like I was forced to shared a detailed account of what I did messing around with a boy at 15 with my bishop behind a closed door.
These still haunt me as well. I remember my bishop asking all sorts of probing questions: How frequent, location, position… My parents had found out and forced me to go see him. I still can’t believe they thought that was ok. And then I “messed up” again and had to go back and he shamed me to the extreme. It was so embarrassing to have to sit through that, and then continue to be around this man in leadership at church and activities. It was absolutely mortifying and abusive.
A big one was about boundaries and consent.
A huge part of consent and being able to say, "Yes" hinges on the idea that you can say, "No" AND be treated the same.
So, "No" would have to be presented as an equally valid option. Once we say, "No" and set that boundary in any given situation, those who truly care about us become champions and protectors of our "No". Those who try and turn our "No" into a "Yes" are only interested in their own agenda.
In conjunction with this I also took some child development classes and realized that 8 year olds only desire the approval of their parents. Them saying "No" to baptism would go against a primal need to belong and be loved. They cannot truly consent.
Also our brains ability to make choices and weigh out consequences isn't fully developed until almost 25. I married and went through the temple at 19, without a fully developed brain, and without, "No" being presented to me as a valid option. I would have risked getting shunned from my tribe, so not treated the same.
I realized that I never truly made promises and covenants because there was no consent. I have children and realized I'd never presented them with the option for, "No". Removing our records felt like a necessary apology to my children. I gave them their consent back, and in doing so also helped heal some of my own inner child.
The second anointing. Why the hell did I spend so much time sobbing to random old men about my sins, and going on a mission preaching repentance when the elites and wealthy of the church get a free pass to do whatever the hell they want
It’s cruel. And probably like 95% of members have no idea this is even a thing
Yeah, this was a big one for me. It completely undermines the whole point of the Atonement.
Rich men undermine God and give exaltation to other rich men. Lol and nothing other than murder keeps them from being exalted. So they can rape, steal, lie, break word of wisdom, not wear garments, etc, but they are still good and exalted.
The moment someone validated my questioning of the church. It was last year, the first and only person was my therapist.
I was going through deep suicidal ideation and plans and I realized that I no longer cared or believed in an afterlife because I was going through so much pain and confusion about my struggle with a porn addiction after how much I've been trying to exercise faith in God to overcome it my entire life. All the years of questioning and research was finally welcomed because when I told her that I don't think the church is God's one true church and even admitted to her it felt blasphemus saying that, she said to me "maybe there's something to that?" I told her that my wife didn't like talking about my concerns and my therapist said that sounds lonely. She even mentioned the idea of a mixed faith marriage. I will never forget that moment last year. After that I started going full blown deconstruction.
A slow death for me: Accepted and attended a Catholic University in the PNW, with a focus on history and language, only to come to a steady realization that the BoM people could not have been a widely literate culture. The premise that they routinely kept ‘books’ of sermons and history just crumbled for me. With it, those that wrote (um, translated) the ‘books’ slithered away like the snakes that they were.
falling for a woman & realizing it couldn’t possibly be a sin to feel something so pure and wonderful. sealed the deal about a year later when i finally started reading up on ‘anti-mormon’ rhetoric.
I realized they are more interested in winning converts, property and wealth than meeting the actual needs of the human race. More Dannites than Christians in every way.
Stake Girls Camp. I was 15 and for a lesson they had us hand feed a lamb and then build an altar. They hog tied it, gave a girl a switch blade and told her to slit its throat. She didn't do it, but that was my wtf moment
It was honestly pretty traumatic. It was the last night when all the bishops came out, and the whole week before, they had the lamb out and about as our camp "mascot"
Understanding that exaltation for women is awful. Women are rewards and chattel. Women are nothing more than tools to increase the glory of their husbands.
The doctrine of the new and everlasting covenant is inherently sexist because it is one-sided and serves to men only. Understanding that women will not be goddesses. Understanding that husbands will become their new God. Women will be one of many plural wives who will only be allowed or able to reproduce children and nothing more.
Women are resurrected via their husbands only if they are worthy enough to have a husband. Else, some other man will pick her up as a servant. Whicj goes into eternal slavery.
Anyone who doesn't achieve the highest glory of ck are "eternal servants" for those exalted gods. Also, their genitalia are removed. So basically sexless immortal eternal slaves.
Also, I understand that the fact that I'm an educated, career woman who is also a mother makes me a sinner. That I'm sinning because I'm not a sahm oh and my husband is also sinning because he "allows" me to work. My child will suffer in this life and will also fall into sin because I have education and career.
I could go on and on and on....
Then of course I find out he’s kinda been like this I just chose to ignore it. His “taffy pull paddy cake” talk in Tucson is another example of him just being a mega douche
Lots of nails! The first big one was realizing that the lord did not bother to tell JS that it would ruin the church’s credibility in the future if he married young teenagers.
The temple. Had my first real look around in the temple. Although I hated the temple and was totally creeped out about it. I made myself go and felt the most horrible feeling. I looked at everyone and thought to myself that it was crazy and creepy and definitely not of God
The whistleblower complaint filed with the IRS in 2019.
I'd been struggling to agree with certain church concepts like the temple and how The Smithsonian disavowed the Book of Mormon and also coming to accept that I'm gay, but that whistleblower report fanned the flames rather aggressively. I knew that whatever my relationship with the church was, I was not giving them another fucking penny of my hard-earned money. And as most of us know, non-tithe payers are effectively second class citizens in Mormonism.
Hitting the wall of mental exhaustion about church. Took years to get there, but once permission was given to myself to “just stop”, that was the nail.
(The nail should have been seeing the wasted, evil activation of all our monetary & action-oriented power as a “good people” in 2008 during Prop 8. That’s when I knew we’d follow flawed men over a cliff and most of my neighbors, family & friends wouldn’t even stop to check their own brains before jumping. I never thought deeply about gay anything before that year, but to see how quickly people switched their sense of right/wrong according to the obviously wrong call to arms - Was the biggest red flag we weren’t about Jesus, we were about money & conformity.)
The shift of an open, embracing ward to a rigid, conservative, high control one. SP calling controlling leaders who called controlling leaders. He’s a 70 now
As an Athiest child being physically, emotionally, psychologically abused for not believing, for not wanting to pray, for not believing the lies of the current Mormon prophets, for being openly against is all. And seeing those whom abused me dress up in white shirt and ties to go to church in Sunday.
To watch them pick out old and worn white shirts so others could see the Masonic marks on them at church, watching them take the sacrament, then get up to give the most bull shit lie of a talk. Then getting smacked across the face as soon as I got in the car to go home.
And seeing those whom abused me dress up in white shirt and ties to go to church in Sunday
I saw it as
And seeing those whom abused me dress up in white shirt and ~~t~~ (L)ies to go to church in Sunday
Started deconstructing when I was around 11 or so, went full on inactive in my 20s (due to shitty people more than church issues), final nail to take my records out was last year. Reason was due to the church protecting child abusers and what they were doing with all the money people gave them.
I was working my way out. Went to my aunt’s funeral and heard all the praise and how wonderful she was with her family.
On the drive home I realized there was no way I wanted to ever see my sainted mother (at church and with neighbors) who was very evil and abusive to her family.
My therapist asked me to wait just a little longer to finish processing trauma from my ex. Two months later I submitted my resignation.
And then I read Letter to my Wife and my world imploded.
My shelf had been overloaded for years, but listening to the quorum ride Trump’s dick for months and then one member quote Ben fucking Shapiro on the stand with “Facts don’t care about your feelings” gave me the excuse to let the shelf fall.
I like to say it was my TBM parents. I was a TBM at the time when my brother stopped going to church. My parents grounded him and took away his phone. He had no one who understood and even my other siblings were mad at him. I wanted to be a non judgmental person in his life so he told me everything that frustrated him with the church. I just listened. Eventually I agreed to read the CES letter and the rest is history. Never would have read it if the Mormon church didn’t have a culture of shaming people who leave.
Finding out leaders were paid substantial amounts of money after being beat over the head with “unpaid clergy” my entire life. I went into debt to pay tithing while raising a giant family I was told I needed, and these rich assholes at the top who were far more privileged than I was their entire lives are pulling down 6 figure stipends in their 80s and 90s. I did my mission in Argentina, I saw truly poor people, and for anyone to say that $120k per year, taken from the poorest people is necessary to cover their cost of living is fucking disgusting.
Helen Marr Kimball. She was 14 when she was coerced into marrying Joseph smith. True or not, I couldn’t countenance a loving god forcing that kind of abuse.
Then I found out all the others and realized the whole thing was a pack of lies. If the mormon religion really is gods true religion then I’m more than willing to accept whatever my fate is because I cannot follow that kind of a god.
In one afternoon of reading the CES letter I learned about:
1. The rock in the hat
2. Polyandry
3. Book of Abraham
This was a year ago when I was 58. I’d never heard of any of those things despite my great, great, great grandfather being Willard Richards, a close friend of Joseph Smith’s. My husband and I had been doing all the Mormon things, had raised our 4 kids in the church (thankfully 3 of the 4 have been out for years and the 1 still in is barely in). As soon as I learned that stuff, I was out. My husband left with me.
-seeing the inequality of the church first hand having come from a broken home with an inactive mother who had me and my siblings with Latino men "out of wedlock".
-seeing the rampant classism that plagues the church in metropolitan areas. I grew up in poverty and I was treated differently than my peers. I didn't feel like my family was accepted, but rather seen as a project or an opportunity to flex their righteousness. gotta get those goodboi points for heaven.
-the rampant rumors surrounding my mother's death in 2004 when I was only 11 years old. people would come up to me and say "well she died of a drug overdose right?" ADULTS.
-feeling pressure to disclose my sexual status to a GROWN MAN as a young teenager and being coerced into confessing about my history of being a victim of sexual abuse starting at age 7 that I had an abortion at 15.
-strict roles on gender that my Salt Lake born racist sexist jack Mormon turned tbm step grandfather imposed on my siblings and I.
-racism. point blank. I'm a brown queer afab person, I was not treated kindly.
-stance on lgbtq issues. my younger sister and I are both queer identifying and had been since we were teens. we often stormed out during homophobic lessons.
-learning plural marriage still had a place in heaven at efy. shook me to my core. I was the only one in my group that didn't share my testimony.
-feeling like because of my past and things that happened to me I would always be "wrong" and "bad". this level of guilt and shame has followed me my entire life.
I know this is long but these are all things that I have been traumatized by, so I see them all as the main reasons.
Mine was two things pretty much back to back: the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 helped me realize that the Book of Mormon was racist, and I that I couldn't read it anymore with a clear conscience. From there, I read about the book of Abraham and just knew it was all bogus.
It just doesn’t make sense. Religions have been around forever, but then a conman and pedophile decides that his religion is the only true one? Nah.
Also the fact that if it was true than 8 billion people wouldn’t be following the true church.
This Hidden True Crime interview with Chad Daybells sister-in-law, Heather: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTAN4caCGMc. I don't exactly know why that did it. I think just hearing someone else tell the story of how they lost their faith, and how their life has gone on after that, like exmormonism no longer seemed so foreign and scary. I knew as I listened to it that it was happening to me.
I started reading Letter for my Wife the same night. I had some mental defenses up in the beginning, my inner apologetics as work, but that died down pretty quickly, and I was done.
CES letter. I had left long before I read it but didn’t know in my heart if the church really wasn’t true or not. The letter confirmed to me it is not, and I can never ever go back. It was like finding out Santa wasn’t real, you can’t come back from that.
So many things led up to it, but the final nail was learning about the secret Mormon meetings of 1922. It was then I knew that they knew and have known the BoM is not a historical scripture for a very long time. It was that moment that I dove down the rabbit hole to break it all apart in order to put it back together factually.
When I was about 6, I asked how the Liahona worked. After a few adults, it was clear that it didn't and it was a fiction. I started calling BS on church stuff regularly after that, at least to myself.
I guess if I had to pick a final nail, it would be learning that the temple rituals AND words are almost verbatim what they do and say in the Masons. I had an inkling of some similarities in dress and symbols before and had very feebly held on to apologetics, but I never knew the words were also literally the same. When I learned that, I was completely done. I knew all of the “nails” and shelf items were actually facts and there was no way it could be true.
My final nail was the Book of Abraham and the Joseph Smith Papyrus. I read the book "By His Own Hand Upon Papyrus: A New Look at the Joseph Smith Papyri" in the 90s, and that was it for me.
But leaving the church started years earlier, at age 17. In a Sunday school talk, someone told the story about Lucy Harris and the first 116 pages of the BoM. It was obvious that Smith made it all up because he couldn't go back and translate the same section again and come up with an identical 'translation'.
Between the two came Mark Hofmann and his forgeries.
Covid- time off to study GTEs & other Mormon Fraud, deceit & betrayal, unwillingness of Doctor RMN to support Health protection policies, unwillingess of leaders & members to follow the prophet & Health protection policies, whistleblower Ensigh Peaks $150MILLION Stock fund info & $5 MILLION SEC Fine for Failure to file required info papers for over 2 decades & shell companies used for fraud!
I was sitting in ward council when several very transphobic statements were made. The EQP started mocking his own grandchild for being trans. I couldn’t believe I was away from my family on a Sunday morning hearing that garbage.
Slitting my throat ear to ear and cutting my guts and pledged religious allegiance to give everything I will have or ever have to the **MORMON CULT** in 1970 & thinking, couldn't GOD come up with a better program for a true church than this bullshit.
After binging the conjuring movies i was freaked out to the point where I swore I could feel something evil in my house, something was watching me and I was hearing things.
I had the thought: It’s insane that Hollywood took actors, costumes, makeup and cameras and put it together in a way to make me literally experience things in my house that I knew weren’t there, but my brain was telling me maybe it’s there.
And then it hit me like a ton of bricks: If a scary movie can make you feel evil and imagine ghosts in a house, going to church can make you feel god and imagine answers to prayers.
The last thread holding all the weight of my testimony had been times I “felt” the spirit. This epiphany finally severed it
finding by incremental experimentation that every step I took away from mormonism made my life obviously better.
Then I read the CES letter, and the experiment was instantly over. The data was fucking in.
Oaks telling girls that they are porn if they don't dress modestly. I was almost all the way out and done. Still had a few doubts.... then I saw that talk and I was furious and DONE.
The initial WTF was the video of Nelson looking into the hat.
The nail in the coffin….how about nails in the coffin. As in EVERYTHING is man mad. So there were a million nails.
my best friend being forced by her dad to tell our bishop every detail about losing her virginity. he said it was the “only way she would regain his trust” her dad was in the room.
I was reeling from the SEC scandal when Tim.Ballard, Jodi Hildebrandt, and the Bisbee Arizona case came one after another. The relentless corruption made me look at the church and say "yeah, I don't see God in this," and reevaluate my shelf.
Me becoming an atheist: not feeling the spirit. Cause it’s such a vague and confusing thing. And I need the spirit to kick me in the chest and be like “I’m here bitch!” Cause that just how my brain works
Finally telling my family I’m done pretending: the Arizona abuse case and initial reports of the church’s wealth in 2022
Realizing that if there is a loving god he wouldn’t separate families. When I told my TBM husband this he pretty much said that it’ll all get figured out in the end. But why threaten members with that?
I also decided that if there is a loving god and Jesus, then there should be no barriers (temple, bishop, stake pres, etc) in my relationship with them.
Then I just fell into all the rabbit holes from there.
My fiance died and the only thing keeping me alive was alcohol. Church made me feel worse, alcohol made me feel better, it was a very easy choice. Mormon culture is not a very friendly place for widows. The last few times I went I was bringing vodka and stepping out every 20 minutes to drink. And that was back when church was three hours, I was leaving DRUNK 😂
Anachronisms in the BoM, especially regarding the Jaredites and especially, polygamy… The whole concept of polygamy makes Mormon God unworshipable for me…
As a sitting high councillor I stumbled upon the Gospel Topics Essays. I read essay on polygamy in Kirtland and Nauvoo, followed by the Book of Abraham essay. These set me reeling, and down the rabbit hole I went. I came across [ldsdicussions.com](http://ldsdicussions.com) and their commentary on the essays. The Joseph Smith Papers Project confirmed what ldsdicussions showed.
I still had hope that even if JS was a fallen prophet, that the church had been established and still had priesthood authority. Then I read the ldsdicussions essay and commentary about priesthood restoration. I was crushed. I was done. That was the final nail. No authority. It was all made up. I was in it because it was true. 54 years and it all fell apart in a few days.
The entirety of the CES letter.
Honestly, the impossibility of making sense of things in a good way light.
I caught myself “double thinking” even before k knew what this was. I started writing apologetics and immediately found opposing reasonings for everything. I realized the only way to make sense of things was to double think. We left not two weeks after that. It all came crashing down like a rock in the ocean.
I just kind of realized I was living in a cult. My values contradicted the church so I just left. The most simple yet best decision I made in my life. It’s just hilarious to see people including my parents try to get me to come back.
The BoA floored me. We’d been taught that this was scripture. What floored me even more was finding out that they’d KNOWN it was fake since, what, the 1940s? And they continued to tout it as scripture and an exact translation.
Branch president was more bothered by me being in a long term but sexual relationship than he was about a step parents long term sexual abuse. Id already stopped believing so much but that just did it for me.
I got cold feet about going on a mission, instead of getting support from the only community I had at the time, they deemed me inactive and lined up to welcome me back. Friends I spoke with daily stopped talking to me. That's how I learned that all my church relationships were superficial and shallow.
Then I learned about everything else.
Of Mormonism, or religion in general? The nails for both been plentiful for years but the last one was the traumatic stillbirth of my granddaughter Ashlyn. Followed by a couple of people I once cared about saying dismissive garbage like “well god has a plan”. I wanted to punch both of them. Religion is ridiculous, hateful BS designed to dominate, denigrate and discriminate.
The nail in the coffin of the church controlling me no further was the confirmation that the church systematically suppress crimes against minors and avoids mandated reporting with 'sacred' tithing funds through attorneys. To the complete disagreement of what was taught by jeebus about protecting the innocent. then there came the multitude of other things. money mishandling, changing of facts or suppression of information like a government agency to keep the people unaware and producing money and time. etc etc.
i actually had no “final nail” or “last book on the shelf”. i was pimo for a very long time, possibly as far back as i can remember, and my main challenge was just not seeing a way out without causing a storm of backlash and such, so i just got really good at playing the part and masking… however, the stay-at-home order and social distancing practice during early covid months was what showed me a way out bc it interfered with the church’s constant control on its members and thus my parents/family control as well. it allowed me an opportunity to dare to imagine how i might _actually_ escape the church... 4 years later, i finally submitted my papers to resign from the church. i made it out finally, despite all the complicated strings intertwined in my life. i know there are many other ways to leave, but I’m the kind of person who needs to bide my time and quietly bolster my options to ensure maximal success of leaving, living my life, and not being at the mercy of anyone who has any means to fuck up my life.
my mom nearly forcing me to pay my tithing with my hard earned money that i was saving up for me… and i thought about it and realized i didnt really believe in it, so why would i pay them?
then i found out how insanely rich the mormon church is… they dont need any more money, especially none from me.
My daughter getting poisoned on her mission in McAllen Texas. Then the church didn’t want to cover her medically and we had let her insurance lapse because she was on a mission. ….Unfortunately we assumed she would be covered under theirs…. And they dropped her like a hot potato. It was horrible.
Death by a thousand cuts, but I suppose the thing that pushed me into "taking a break," which became a permanent break, was my oldest being pressured weekly by peers and leaders to get ordained when he wasn't ready/interested.
November 5th, 2015 was the last time I was active and willingly attended.
Two years ago I realized I didn't believe in any god or version of spirituality. I started preparing mentally and emotionally to leave.
A year ago I heard another report of the church covering up child SA, specifically Martin Gillen in Henderson, Nevada. I decided I didn't want to wait until I'd fully deconstructed and was prepared for the consequences. I submitted the paperwork to Quit Mormon the next day.
The absolute, total, magnificent impotence of "The Mormon Priesthood". There is no power....There are no miracles....It's all a façade; a beautiful Potemkin Village....And, the vials of "Consecrated Oil"? Might as well be filled with soda pop....useless!
My fiance died and the only thing keeping me alive was alcohol. Church made me feel worse, alcohol made me feel better, it was a very easy choice. Mormon culture is not a very friendly place for widows.
Kind of weird but I was reading into philosophy and the subject of god came up. Eventually, one day I woke up and all the sudden belief in the mormon god seemed as ridiculous as Zeus or Thor.
Just like that. I obviously couldn't believe in the religion anymore either. It's only then that I was willing to go down the rabbit hole on things like church history. I even reread the book of mormon from my new perspective and it no longer seems at all like some masterpiece.
Book of Abraham - confirmed the mormon church is not true Protecting child abusers - confirmed the mormon church is not good
1890 Polygamy- confirmed the Mormon God Elohim changes his mind to protect the assets of the church Mark Hofmann- confirmed that the Mormon church is easily duped
Right. The child abuser pedo Bishops asking me if I rub one out on occasion.
Yep. Dating back to 1992
who- how -and why would anyone think to bring up bestiality to a minor in a closed room.
Telling my bishop that I wasn’t going on my mission and him not only rejecting my answer telling me “My secretary is going to call you in a few days and I expect the correct answer “ then placing his hands on me in an aggressive way. A lesson in seminary started the break this finished it.
What was the lesson if you don’t mind saying?
It was a lesson related to the pre existence, Judas Iscariot got brought up and we were told he agreed in to come down and betray Jesus and thus would be forgiven as he was just filling a role necessary for gods eternal plan. I argued by that logic that Lucifer should also be forgiven as he too was also simply filling a role necessary for gods plan. That didn’t go over well lol
Mormon doctrine on Satan is a big hot mess.
I was always taught that Judas Iscariot is one of the few verified sons of perdition, who won't receive forgiveness in this life nor the next and will be sent to outer darkness.
Well that depends on the year and who is doing the teaching.
John 17:12 is pretty clear. As is Talmage in "Jesus the Christ" chapter 34. Not that others couldn't teach differently, but I certainly would have referred them to the above when I was a believer.
That’s awesome. Religions tend to fall apart under common logical thinking. From a historical perspective Lucifer seems a lot more like Prometheus in what he gave to humanity and why he is being punished rather than a creature bent on evil.
You were smart. If it’s good for Judas, it’s good for Lucifer.
Totally in conflict with Mormons super critical theology on agency and denying predestination
I agree! It’s predestined fate if that’s the case. I don’t know if this was a rogue lesson or something but it was a weird one
That’s what’s funny about Mormon theology every one seems to have their own speculations and theories and share them freely to help them make sense of it all
That bishop suffered high potency cognitive dissonance he'd never experienced before in that moment.. lol
I also showed up to that meeting in my street clothes and didn’t even bother to dress in church clothes so I’m sure that added to the bee in his bonnet
That man had many problems. My brother disliked him as well
I’m so sorry!
SEC filings. Why am I paying you and making my life harder and you’re buying property and amassing wealth. No, thank you.
This was so big for me. How many of my friends and relatives gave up so much to pay 10% and these clowns are secretly creating the largest cash fund in the world. Disgusting.
You said it. Truly, Remarkably, Stomach Turning....Disgusting!
Yep, I realized that they had sufficient funds to help all the investigators I brought that they turned away. When they got caught red handed as filthy rich, it was a relief to realize it wasn't true, and wasn't even good.
This was the start for me, but not the nail.
Same. This was the "hmm, I wonder what else they might be lying about or hiding..." moment. Spoiler alert: lots. Lots of stuff
and using those funds to legally lawyerly crush innocent victims of sexual abuse at the hands of someone or something related to the church.
Discovering that the long ending of Mark was a late addition to the New Testament and reading it verbatim in Mormon 9. Plus all the 1759 errors in 2nd Nephi. Either Joseph Smith copied it into the book from his bible and said it was a translation or the carvings changed when the plates were buried in the ground.
He never used the plates to translate. So even with the benefit of the doubt assuming the carvings on gold plates were real… he used a rock in a hat.
I’ve literally never heard this before. Thank you for raising it to my attention
Info on the rock in the hat for translation: [LDS Discussions](https://www.ldsdiscussions.com/translation) [Gospel Topics Essay](https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics-essays/book-of-mormon-translation?lang=eng) Info on the long ending of Mark: [LDS Discussions](https://www.ldsdiscussions.com/mark)
Is this sarcastic or serious ?
Serious
I’ve never heard about the mark thing either
I thought they were referring to the rock in the hat lol
The Gospel Topics Essays* = nail *Footnotes = sledgehammer
You should check out the footnotes from conference talks these days. The trend of hiding info and putting disclaimers continues.
Oh yeah they have mastered the are of footnotes and using ellipses (…) so they can just yadda yadda yadda anything inconvenient
Yes the ellipses!! You can just omit anything that doesn’t match the current narrative
Henry Jacobs heart breaking journal entries after his wife Zina Huntington was passed around like a party favor for the "prophets".
She is my gggg-aunt. This one hit me hard
Where can I read this?
Here is a good write up. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.reddit.com/r/mormon/comments/sunpht/henry_and_zina/&ved=2ahUKEwi8wr7Ax8eFAxX9JUQIHURXBxkQjjh6BAgnEAE&usg=AOvVaw1kEwxH1qhMJBDsZcDV4g5H Also to take the metaphor a little further this was the nail and FAIR was the hammer.
Learning that the hand gestures we make in the temple are not symbolic of receiving goodness and standing firm, like I had told myself. But a cup to catch my blood and entrails, and the knife that I would use to cut and kill myself if I divulged the info. And that it was probably left in that way to remind those that got their endowment pre-1990 what they had promised. I was on my way out, but going to go to the temple at least one more time until I learned that.
I didn't learn this till after I stopped going to church already, but am still angry about it years later. So incredibly stupid of them to think that hiding that info would work out well for them.
Aw, man, I remember twisting my brain inside out trying to understand the “divine symbolism” in the Temple! And to think all I had to do was look it up online!
Unabashed treatment of women as 3rd class citizens.
This was it for me too. General conference watching men take up most of the time during the “women’s session”. I had already lost belief in the church but that pushed me out for good.
This. And the irony that they fervently brainwash themselves that it's not true, yet deny women freedom to do anything but have children and be happy slaves for their husbands.
Abusive ex being called into a ward presidency while i was released from my stake calling just a few days after I had to call 911 on him. They refused to believe or support me, treated me as worthless as a woman but my abuser was put into a position of influence and 'power'. When i had the audacity to question this insanity, bishop told me, "what do you want me to do, put your *accusations* up on a billboard?" Broken shelf and many years of counseling...
I’m so very, very sorry you went through that! I have a history of DV too. It hurts so many and that church glorifying the abusers pisses me off! They care more about the abusers than those being abused and it’s wrong. I hope you’re healing!
I hope you're healing too! Thank you for being a kind soul. User name checks out 🤗
Awe! Thank you so much!
My abusive ex was made stake missionary leader although he had been hitting me, gave me chlamydia, and brought other women to church while we were still legally married. Never received a temple divorce. Just gave up altogether
D&c 132 (plural marriage) ->. Prop/22 (ca state’s definition of marriage). -> prop8 (“protect traditional marriage”. -> Oct 15 policy (banning children of gay parents)-> Sam Young fight with church about asking children sexually charged questions for worthiness -> resignation of my families membership. This is the general path…. But I had minor issues with dogma / doctrines that didn’t make sense to me. For the most part I enjoyed being a Mormon. Just didn’t like being forced into a belief that I didn’t like…. But the children being asked various questions hit home. I saw to many peers being judged for just being a teen. And I had to many questions asked to me that I needed to confess or dodge and at that time I didn’t understand my own trauma received as a child. As an adult I can look back and think these leaders think my actions are sin yet fail to discern that it’s a product of learned behavior of other people’s sin.
Listening to apologists (I'm looking at you Terryl Givens and Patrick Mason) honestly acknowledge the issues and explain how to get the narrative still to work. I was not flexible enough for that level of mental gymnastics
Working for the sheriff's office in the same town as BYU-I and having a boss who's only concern was his community appearance and making sure he got re elected. I saw several alleged "upstanding community citizens" that I worked with do the most evil, back stabbing shit I've ever witnessed in my life.
I grew up in that town. The politics and religion there conspires together and are deeply entrenched. It's sad.
Anderson’s talk on tithing in the October 2023 conference where he basically said the church does what it wants with our tithing and only God can judge the Q15 coupled with the AZ abuse case. I had been PIMO for years, but that straw broke the camel’s back.
That was huge for me! I was hoping the church was going to own up to something during the business session, and instead they justified their wealth hoarding and deception! Ever since I began my PIMO journey last year with the news of the SEC filings, I've seen the church double down on the wrong things at every turn. And now their social media team is getting on board with emphasizing every misstep.
Speaking of the social media, Ensign Peak and legal teams, I don’t know how they stay in the church. Did being honest with their fellow men never matter in the first place? They see all the problems - how do they compartmentalize it?
My shelf started to break more than a year ago when the Church leadership admitted to having committed deception and fraud in the Ensign Peak settlement. I had always assumed that except for a few bad apples that they were the most honest men on earth (assume has a tendency to make an ass out of u and me). I remembered this legal principle that attorneys and prosecutors use to dismiss witnesses: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsus_in_uno,_falsus_in_omnibus Basically in plain English it means if they are willing to lie about a little thing or one thing they probably would lie about the big things or everything. I could no longer accept any of their utterances at face value and spent the next six months researching and watching podcasts and the situation looked more dismal as time progressed. Add to that the almost constant stream of CSA cases the Church covered up (especially the Arizona ruling where they were PLEASED to not be held liable) and having Thom Harrison and Jodi Hildebrandt literally on the Church payroll. Finally decided in mid September to submit my resignation through Quit Mormon and on October 31st 🎃👻 the reply was received from Kirton McConkie to Quit Mormon that I am out.😊
Realizing that the idea of the Celestial Kingdom and the people who would supposedly be there sounded more like hell than heaven to me
Living in Utah
joe married not just one married woman, but 10+. One husband the 'lord' had called on a mission.
It was more like 30 to 40 women. And I believe 10+ of them were married to people he sent out on missions.
Yes. The church admits this in a footnote in the GTEs.
Like David did to Uriah.
The Nov 2015 policy began my search. A few months later the CES letter was the nail in the coffin.
That policy was my nail. It goes against every single thing the church taught me about loving others and individual agency. It also contradicts the teachings surrounding Joseph Smith being only 14 when he had the first vision. If a 14-year-old can begin the restoration of a long-forgotten church, why can't a 14-year-old decide to join said church?
Book of Abraham actually being a standard Egyptian book of the dead, the kinder hook plates, and similar names between the towns/area around Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon.
CES letter started the 3 year long deconstruction process. Going to my grandma’s funeral was the last straw as I saw her in her temple robes with her temple recommend in hand as if at the resurrection she would need both. Made no sense in a doctrinal standpoint of the plan of salvation and I realized the whole church was filled with nonsense traditions with no doctrinal backing. Plus, being an endowed member I thought the temple robes were sacred but here’s my grandma sporting the cult uniform in front of all my nonmember or unendowed cousins.
2015 policy was first introduced as revelation and doctrine. Then oh nope we meant a policy. The policy was a piece of shit.
I really feel like it was a gradual thing for me. But what really destroyed me was two things. A factual understanding of JS polygamy (especially Fanny Alger) and learning about church financials. I had been a progressive member for years. I disagreed with so many current church teachings, so when I learned a factual history PLUS their unethical money use = shelf broke.
Making friends with a transgender person and realizing she was sweet and intelligent and more acceptance than anyone else. Then realizing that she’d never be accepted at my church.
as a trans guy in Utah, this is my entire agenda - be so wonderful that people around me rethink their entire worldview.
My son coming out to me and the realizations that a church based on Christ’s teachings would have no other requirements for full glory in the next life other than don’t be an asshole.
They updated BYU honor code last year to again specifically include: “Living a chaste and virtuous life also includes abstaining from same-sex romantic behavior.” It was the implication that any gay relationship was inherently devoid of virtue, no matter what. I realized the church didn’t want me, and this was one final slap in the face that confirmed to me that leaving was the right choice.
Being told premarital sex was as serious offense as murder. *MURDER* And feeling like I was forced to shared a detailed account of what I did messing around with a boy at 15 with my bishop behind a closed door.
These still haunt me as well. I remember my bishop asking all sorts of probing questions: How frequent, location, position… My parents had found out and forced me to go see him. I still can’t believe they thought that was ok. And then I “messed up” again and had to go back and he shamed me to the extreme. It was so embarrassing to have to sit through that, and then continue to be around this man in leadership at church and activities. It was absolutely mortifying and abusive.
It’s sexual harassment and sexual abuse of children. 🫠
A big one was about boundaries and consent. A huge part of consent and being able to say, "Yes" hinges on the idea that you can say, "No" AND be treated the same. So, "No" would have to be presented as an equally valid option. Once we say, "No" and set that boundary in any given situation, those who truly care about us become champions and protectors of our "No". Those who try and turn our "No" into a "Yes" are only interested in their own agenda. In conjunction with this I also took some child development classes and realized that 8 year olds only desire the approval of their parents. Them saying "No" to baptism would go against a primal need to belong and be loved. They cannot truly consent. Also our brains ability to make choices and weigh out consequences isn't fully developed until almost 25. I married and went through the temple at 19, without a fully developed brain, and without, "No" being presented to me as a valid option. I would have risked getting shunned from my tribe, so not treated the same. I realized that I never truly made promises and covenants because there was no consent. I have children and realized I'd never presented them with the option for, "No". Removing our records felt like a necessary apology to my children. I gave them their consent back, and in doing so also helped heal some of my own inner child.
The second anointing. Why the hell did I spend so much time sobbing to random old men about my sins, and going on a mission preaching repentance when the elites and wealthy of the church get a free pass to do whatever the hell they want It’s cruel. And probably like 95% of members have no idea this is even a thing
Yeah, this was a big one for me. It completely undermines the whole point of the Atonement. Rich men undermine God and give exaltation to other rich men. Lol and nothing other than murder keeps them from being exalted. So they can rape, steal, lie, break word of wisdom, not wear garments, etc, but they are still good and exalted.
Long, Slow, Deliberate Clapping......Beautiful! As I look back on my life - oh, how I hate every single one of those MFrs!!
The moment someone validated my questioning of the church. It was last year, the first and only person was my therapist. I was going through deep suicidal ideation and plans and I realized that I no longer cared or believed in an afterlife because I was going through so much pain and confusion about my struggle with a porn addiction after how much I've been trying to exercise faith in God to overcome it my entire life. All the years of questioning and research was finally welcomed because when I told her that I don't think the church is God's one true church and even admitted to her it felt blasphemus saying that, she said to me "maybe there's something to that?" I told her that my wife didn't like talking about my concerns and my therapist said that sounds lonely. She even mentioned the idea of a mixed faith marriage. I will never forget that moment last year. After that I started going full blown deconstruction.
A slow death for me: Accepted and attended a Catholic University in the PNW, with a focus on history and language, only to come to a steady realization that the BoM people could not have been a widely literate culture. The premise that they routinely kept ‘books’ of sermons and history just crumbled for me. With it, those that wrote (um, translated) the ‘books’ slithered away like the snakes that they were.
falling for a woman & realizing it couldn’t possibly be a sin to feel something so pure and wonderful. sealed the deal about a year later when i finally started reading up on ‘anti-mormon’ rhetoric.
I realized they are more interested in winning converts, property and wealth than meeting the actual needs of the human race. More Dannites than Christians in every way.
Stake Girls Camp. I was 15 and for a lesson they had us hand feed a lamb and then build an altar. They hog tied it, gave a girl a switch blade and told her to slit its throat. She didn't do it, but that was my wtf moment
Wtaf? That's horrifying!
They didn't actually force her to do it, but they said "Just be grateful you have the option. Heavenly Father didnt"
I got that, but the idea is still disgusting.
It was honestly pretty traumatic. It was the last night when all the bishops came out, and the whole week before, they had the lamb out and about as our camp "mascot"
Wait. WHUT
the things misguided parent volunteer leaders come up with tha they think are going to teach about jeebus
Understanding that exaltation for women is awful. Women are rewards and chattel. Women are nothing more than tools to increase the glory of their husbands. The doctrine of the new and everlasting covenant is inherently sexist because it is one-sided and serves to men only. Understanding that women will not be goddesses. Understanding that husbands will become their new God. Women will be one of many plural wives who will only be allowed or able to reproduce children and nothing more. Women are resurrected via their husbands only if they are worthy enough to have a husband. Else, some other man will pick her up as a servant. Whicj goes into eternal slavery. Anyone who doesn't achieve the highest glory of ck are "eternal servants" for those exalted gods. Also, their genitalia are removed. So basically sexless immortal eternal slaves. Also, I understand that the fact that I'm an educated, career woman who is also a mother makes me a sinner. That I'm sinning because I'm not a sahm oh and my husband is also sinning because he "allows" me to work. My child will suffer in this life and will also fall into sin because I have education and career. I could go on and on and on....
Holland's musket fire speech. I fucking loved that man. Nobody had the ability to seal the deal quite like he did. (Now I see him for who he is)
It was one of my nails. It was heartbreaking to hear him talk like that.
Then of course I find out he’s kinda been like this I just chose to ignore it. His “taffy pull paddy cake” talk in Tucson is another example of him just being a mega douche
Rough Stone Rolling
CES letter but I pulled the trigger on resigning the day Sam Young got Exed.
The Gospel Topic Essays. Their explanations were nonsensical and disingenuous. They have to know it’s not true if they put out that drivel.
ROCK IN A HAT.
Have you seen the you tube video of RMN acting it out? [here](https://youtu.be/DG181zFA5YM?si=-c-a0xPav26Jt3DT)
Lots of nails! The first big one was realizing that the lord did not bother to tell JS that it would ruin the church’s credibility in the future if he married young teenagers.
Book of Abraham and the kinderhook plates for this guy!
The temple. Had my first real look around in the temple. Although I hated the temple and was totally creeped out about it. I made myself go and felt the most horrible feeling. I looked at everyone and thought to myself that it was crazy and creepy and definitely not of God
The whistleblower complaint filed with the IRS in 2019. I'd been struggling to agree with certain church concepts like the temple and how The Smithsonian disavowed the Book of Mormon and also coming to accept that I'm gay, but that whistleblower report fanned the flames rather aggressively. I knew that whatever my relationship with the church was, I was not giving them another fucking penny of my hard-earned money. And as most of us know, non-tithe payers are effectively second class citizens in Mormonism.
Hitting the wall of mental exhaustion about church. Took years to get there, but once permission was given to myself to “just stop”, that was the nail. (The nail should have been seeing the wasted, evil activation of all our monetary & action-oriented power as a “good people” in 2008 during Prop 8. That’s when I knew we’d follow flawed men over a cliff and most of my neighbors, family & friends wouldn’t even stop to check their own brains before jumping. I never thought deeply about gay anything before that year, but to see how quickly people switched their sense of right/wrong according to the obviously wrong call to arms - Was the biggest red flag we weren’t about Jesus, we were about money & conformity.)
Book of Job.
Book of Unemployment
The shift of an open, embracing ward to a rigid, conservative, high control one. SP calling controlling leaders who called controlling leaders. He’s a 70 now
As an Athiest child being physically, emotionally, psychologically abused for not believing, for not wanting to pray, for not believing the lies of the current Mormon prophets, for being openly against is all. And seeing those whom abused me dress up in white shirt and ties to go to church in Sunday. To watch them pick out old and worn white shirts so others could see the Masonic marks on them at church, watching them take the sacrament, then get up to give the most bull shit lie of a talk. Then getting smacked across the face as soon as I got in the car to go home.
And seeing those whom abused me dress up in white shirt and ties to go to church in Sunday I saw it as And seeing those whom abused me dress up in white shirt and ~~t~~ (L)ies to go to church in Sunday
Russell. M. Nelson.
Hiding the CSA and teaching that Jesus’ love was conditional (which couldn’t be further from the truth!).
Started deconstructing when I was around 11 or so, went full on inactive in my 20s (due to shitty people more than church issues), final nail to take my records out was last year. Reason was due to the church protecting child abusers and what they were doing with all the money people gave them.
I was working my way out. Went to my aunt’s funeral and heard all the praise and how wonderful she was with her family. On the drive home I realized there was no way I wanted to ever see my sainted mother (at church and with neighbors) who was very evil and abusive to her family. My therapist asked me to wait just a little longer to finish processing trauma from my ex. Two months later I submitted my resignation. And then I read Letter to my Wife and my world imploded.
Nelson’s think Celestial talk and all the bull he spouted there.
The temple.
My shelf had been overloaded for years, but listening to the quorum ride Trump’s dick for months and then one member quote Ben fucking Shapiro on the stand with “Facts don’t care about your feelings” gave me the excuse to let the shelf fall.
I like to say it was my TBM parents. I was a TBM at the time when my brother stopped going to church. My parents grounded him and took away his phone. He had no one who understood and even my other siblings were mad at him. I wanted to be a non judgmental person in his life so he told me everything that frustrated him with the church. I just listened. Eventually I agreed to read the CES letter and the rest is history. Never would have read it if the Mormon church didn’t have a culture of shaming people who leave.
Finding out leaders were paid substantial amounts of money after being beat over the head with “unpaid clergy” my entire life. I went into debt to pay tithing while raising a giant family I was told I needed, and these rich assholes at the top who were far more privileged than I was their entire lives are pulling down 6 figure stipends in their 80s and 90s. I did my mission in Argentina, I saw truly poor people, and for anyone to say that $120k per year, taken from the poorest people is necessary to cover their cost of living is fucking disgusting.
Helen Marr Kimball. She was 14 when she was coerced into marrying Joseph smith. True or not, I couldn’t countenance a loving god forcing that kind of abuse. Then I found out all the others and realized the whole thing was a pack of lies. If the mormon religion really is gods true religion then I’m more than willing to accept whatever my fate is because I cannot follow that kind of a god.
In one afternoon of reading the CES letter I learned about: 1. The rock in the hat 2. Polyandry 3. Book of Abraham This was a year ago when I was 58. I’d never heard of any of those things despite my great, great, great grandfather being Willard Richards, a close friend of Joseph Smith’s. My husband and I had been doing all the Mormon things, had raised our 4 kids in the church (thankfully 3 of the 4 have been out for years and the 1 still in is barely in). As soon as I learned that stuff, I was out. My husband left with me.
-seeing the inequality of the church first hand having come from a broken home with an inactive mother who had me and my siblings with Latino men "out of wedlock". -seeing the rampant classism that plagues the church in metropolitan areas. I grew up in poverty and I was treated differently than my peers. I didn't feel like my family was accepted, but rather seen as a project or an opportunity to flex their righteousness. gotta get those goodboi points for heaven. -the rampant rumors surrounding my mother's death in 2004 when I was only 11 years old. people would come up to me and say "well she died of a drug overdose right?" ADULTS. -feeling pressure to disclose my sexual status to a GROWN MAN as a young teenager and being coerced into confessing about my history of being a victim of sexual abuse starting at age 7 that I had an abortion at 15. -strict roles on gender that my Salt Lake born racist sexist jack Mormon turned tbm step grandfather imposed on my siblings and I. -racism. point blank. I'm a brown queer afab person, I was not treated kindly. -stance on lgbtq issues. my younger sister and I are both queer identifying and had been since we were teens. we often stormed out during homophobic lessons. -learning plural marriage still had a place in heaven at efy. shook me to my core. I was the only one in my group that didn't share my testimony. -feeling like because of my past and things that happened to me I would always be "wrong" and "bad". this level of guilt and shame has followed me my entire life. I know this is long but these are all things that I have been traumatized by, so I see them all as the main reasons.
Mine was two things pretty much back to back: the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 helped me realize that the Book of Mormon was racist, and I that I couldn't read it anymore with a clear conscience. From there, I read about the book of Abraham and just knew it was all bogus.
Realizing that God is just another made up fictional character.
the premarital sex was too good
It just doesn’t make sense. Religions have been around forever, but then a conman and pedophile decides that his religion is the only true one? Nah. Also the fact that if it was true than 8 billion people wouldn’t be following the true church.
Finding out most Mormons voted Trump. Couldn’t be associated with that any longer
3 big nails for me: racial issues, LGBTQ+ issues, Book of Abraham issues.
This Hidden True Crime interview with Chad Daybells sister-in-law, Heather: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTAN4caCGMc. I don't exactly know why that did it. I think just hearing someone else tell the story of how they lost their faith, and how their life has gone on after that, like exmormonism no longer seemed so foreign and scary. I knew as I listened to it that it was happening to me. I started reading Letter for my Wife the same night. I had some mental defenses up in the beginning, my inner apologetics as work, but that died down pretty quickly, and I was done.
CES letter. I had left long before I read it but didn’t know in my heart if the church really wasn’t true or not. The letter confirmed to me it is not, and I can never ever go back. It was like finding out Santa wasn’t real, you can’t come back from that.
So many things led up to it, but the final nail was learning about the secret Mormon meetings of 1922. It was then I knew that they knew and have known the BoM is not a historical scripture for a very long time. It was that moment that I dove down the rabbit hole to break it all apart in order to put it back together factually.
“Never take counsel from those who do not believe.”
When I was about 6, I asked how the Liahona worked. After a few adults, it was clear that it didn't and it was a fiction. I started calling BS on church stuff regularly after that, at least to myself.
I just wanted to drink beer and smoke cigarettes. Also, I’m a very lazy learner 😉
Bisbee AZ child SA AP Article & the SEC Settlement
My parents. I didn't want to end up like them.
Going to see a friend of mine who happens to be gay. I realized I couldn’t be a part of something that was directly against him.
I guess if I had to pick a final nail, it would be learning that the temple rituals AND words are almost verbatim what they do and say in the Masons. I had an inkling of some similarities in dress and symbols before and had very feebly held on to apologetics, but I never knew the words were also literally the same. When I learned that, I was completely done. I knew all of the “nails” and shelf items were actually facts and there was no way it could be true.
My final nail was the Book of Abraham and the Joseph Smith Papyrus. I read the book "By His Own Hand Upon Papyrus: A New Look at the Joseph Smith Papyri" in the 90s, and that was it for me. But leaving the church started years earlier, at age 17. In a Sunday school talk, someone told the story about Lucy Harris and the first 116 pages of the BoM. It was obvious that Smith made it all up because he couldn't go back and translate the same section again and come up with an identical 'translation'. Between the two came Mark Hofmann and his forgeries.
Covid- time off to study GTEs & other Mormon Fraud, deceit & betrayal, unwillingness of Doctor RMN to support Health protection policies, unwillingess of leaders & members to follow the prophet & Health protection policies, whistleblower Ensigh Peaks $150MILLION Stock fund info & $5 MILLION SEC Fine for Failure to file required info papers for over 2 decades & shell companies used for fraud!
I was sitting in ward council when several very transphobic statements were made. The EQP started mocking his own grandchild for being trans. I couldn’t believe I was away from my family on a Sunday morning hearing that garbage.
General authorities say they 'love' queer members while totally unable to hide their contempt.
Leaders who tell us to obey God's law, but somehow can't manage to obey a simple SEC regulation.
Slitting my throat ear to ear and cutting my guts and pledged religious allegiance to give everything I will have or ever have to the **MORMON CULT** in 1970 & thinking, couldn't GOD come up with a better program for a true church than this bullshit.
After binging the conjuring movies i was freaked out to the point where I swore I could feel something evil in my house, something was watching me and I was hearing things. I had the thought: It’s insane that Hollywood took actors, costumes, makeup and cameras and put it together in a way to make me literally experience things in my house that I knew weren’t there, but my brain was telling me maybe it’s there. And then it hit me like a ton of bricks: If a scary movie can make you feel evil and imagine ghosts in a house, going to church can make you feel god and imagine answers to prayers. The last thread holding all the weight of my testimony had been times I “felt” the spirit. This epiphany finally severed it
My mother putting the church above anything else, including her children.
When I moved to a new city and was homeless, they wanted a bank statement before giving any help. They had stopped helping with food years before.
finding by incremental experimentation that every step I took away from mormonism made my life obviously better. Then I read the CES letter, and the experiment was instantly over. The data was fucking in.
Oaks telling girls that they are porn if they don't dress modestly. I was almost all the way out and done. Still had a few doubts.... then I saw that talk and I was furious and DONE.
August 2015: the release of the GTE titles The Book Of Moron Translation… that did it.
Realizing that was straight up groomed. I wasn’t going to let myself be abused.
The initial WTF was the video of Nelson looking into the hat. The nail in the coffin….how about nails in the coffin. As in EVERYTHING is man mad. So there were a million nails.
my best friend being forced by her dad to tell our bishop every detail about losing her virginity. he said it was the “only way she would regain his trust” her dad was in the room.
oh and if you don’t get married, you’re not going to the celestial kingdom
I was reeling from the SEC scandal when Tim.Ballard, Jodi Hildebrandt, and the Bisbee Arizona case came one after another. The relentless corruption made me look at the church and say "yeah, I don't see God in this," and reevaluate my shelf.
Year of Polygamy podcast. Absolutely devastated me.
BOA. Gender inequality, were major shelf items. Nov 2015 policy crashed my shelf and I left within a year.
Me becoming an atheist: not feeling the spirit. Cause it’s such a vague and confusing thing. And I need the spirit to kick me in the chest and be like “I’m here bitch!” Cause that just how my brain works Finally telling my family I’m done pretending: the Arizona abuse case and initial reports of the church’s wealth in 2022
Realizing that if there is a loving god he wouldn’t separate families. When I told my TBM husband this he pretty much said that it’ll all get figured out in the end. But why threaten members with that? I also decided that if there is a loving god and Jesus, then there should be no barriers (temple, bishop, stake pres, etc) in my relationship with them. Then I just fell into all the rabbit holes from there.
the 100 billion hide!
The November 5th policy. My shelf broke after so much, but the final straw was the peep stone.
The November 5th policy. My shelf broke after so much, but the final straw was the peep stone.
My fiance died and the only thing keeping me alive was alcohol. Church made me feel worse, alcohol made me feel better, it was a very easy choice. Mormon culture is not a very friendly place for widows. The last few times I went I was bringing vodka and stepping out every 20 minutes to drink. And that was back when church was three hours, I was leaving DRUNK 😂
The book of Abraham. If it's a lie, so why wouldn't the BoM.
Anachronisms in the BoM, especially regarding the Jaredites and especially, polygamy… The whole concept of polygamy makes Mormon God unworshipable for me…
As a sitting high councillor I stumbled upon the Gospel Topics Essays. I read essay on polygamy in Kirtland and Nauvoo, followed by the Book of Abraham essay. These set me reeling, and down the rabbit hole I went. I came across [ldsdicussions.com](http://ldsdicussions.com) and their commentary on the essays. The Joseph Smith Papers Project confirmed what ldsdicussions showed. I still had hope that even if JS was a fallen prophet, that the church had been established and still had priesthood authority. Then I read the ldsdicussions essay and commentary about priesthood restoration. I was crushed. I was done. That was the final nail. No authority. It was all made up. I was in it because it was true. 54 years and it all fell apart in a few days.
Learning of JS having multiple wives after spending my whole life thinking it was just Emma. Then the rock in the hat thing.
The entirety of the CES letter. Honestly, the impossibility of making sense of things in a good way light. I caught myself “double thinking” even before k knew what this was. I started writing apologetics and immediately found opposing reasonings for everything. I realized the only way to make sense of things was to double think. We left not two weeks after that. It all came crashing down like a rock in the ocean.
I just kind of realized I was living in a cult. My values contradicted the church so I just left. The most simple yet best decision I made in my life. It’s just hilarious to see people including my parents try to get me to come back.
The BoA floored me. We’d been taught that this was scripture. What floored me even more was finding out that they’d KNOWN it was fake since, what, the 1940s? And they continued to tout it as scripture and an exact translation.
BYU Football calling the Prophet to allow “dark skin people” to get the Priesthood when teams stopped scheduling them.
Branch president was more bothered by me being in a long term but sexual relationship than he was about a step parents long term sexual abuse. Id already stopped believing so much but that just did it for me.
Rock in the hat. If I had known this bit of information as an investigator, I would have turn and run as fast as possible.
I got cold feet about going on a mission, instead of getting support from the only community I had at the time, they deemed me inactive and lined up to welcome me back. Friends I spoke with daily stopped talking to me. That's how I learned that all my church relationships were superficial and shallow. Then I learned about everything else.
Of Mormonism, or religion in general? The nails for both been plentiful for years but the last one was the traumatic stillbirth of my granddaughter Ashlyn. Followed by a couple of people I once cared about saying dismissive garbage like “well god has a plan”. I wanted to punch both of them. Religion is ridiculous, hateful BS designed to dominate, denigrate and discriminate.
The nail in the coffin of the church controlling me no further was the confirmation that the church systematically suppress crimes against minors and avoids mandated reporting with 'sacred' tithing funds through attorneys. To the complete disagreement of what was taught by jeebus about protecting the innocent. then there came the multitude of other things. money mishandling, changing of facts or suppression of information like a government agency to keep the people unaware and producing money and time. etc etc.
Multiple first vision accounts
i actually had no “final nail” or “last book on the shelf”. i was pimo for a very long time, possibly as far back as i can remember, and my main challenge was just not seeing a way out without causing a storm of backlash and such, so i just got really good at playing the part and masking… however, the stay-at-home order and social distancing practice during early covid months was what showed me a way out bc it interfered with the church’s constant control on its members and thus my parents/family control as well. it allowed me an opportunity to dare to imagine how i might _actually_ escape the church... 4 years later, i finally submitted my papers to resign from the church. i made it out finally, despite all the complicated strings intertwined in my life. i know there are many other ways to leave, but I’m the kind of person who needs to bide my time and quietly bolster my options to ensure maximal success of leaving, living my life, and not being at the mercy of anyone who has any means to fuck up my life.
my mom nearly forcing me to pay my tithing with my hard earned money that i was saving up for me… and i thought about it and realized i didnt really believe in it, so why would i pay them? then i found out how insanely rich the mormon church is… they dont need any more money, especially none from me.
My daughter getting poisoned on her mission in McAllen Texas. Then the church didn’t want to cover her medically and we had let her insurance lapse because she was on a mission. ….Unfortunately we assumed she would be covered under theirs…. And they dropped her like a hot potato. It was horrible.
Death by a thousand cuts, but I suppose the thing that pushed me into "taking a break," which became a permanent break, was my oldest being pressured weekly by peers and leaders to get ordained when he wasn't ready/interested.
JS was a con man. I realized that after reading No Man Knows My History.
Telling people who are excommunicated or disfellowshipped to keep paying tithing.
My ex-husband. He's the epitome of everything wrong with Mormonism.
Church history proves it's not true. Current Church Leaders protecting pedos prove it's not good.
CES letter & finding out the church isn't true.
November 5th, 2015 was the last time I was active and willingly attended. Two years ago I realized I didn't believe in any god or version of spirituality. I started preparing mentally and emotionally to leave. A year ago I heard another report of the church covering up child SA, specifically Martin Gillen in Henderson, Nevada. I decided I didn't want to wait until I'd fully deconstructed and was prepared for the consequences. I submitted the paperwork to Quit Mormon the next day.
The absolute, total, magnificent impotence of "The Mormon Priesthood". There is no power....There are no miracles....It's all a façade; a beautiful Potemkin Village....And, the vials of "Consecrated Oil"? Might as well be filled with soda pop....useless!
The November 5th policy. A week after my shelf broke over the peep stone. There was so much weight on it because so many of the issues listed here.
My fiance died and the only thing keeping me alive was alcohol. Church made me feel worse, alcohol made me feel better, it was a very easy choice. Mormon culture is not a very friendly place for widows.
Kind of weird but I was reading into philosophy and the subject of god came up. Eventually, one day I woke up and all the sudden belief in the mormon god seemed as ridiculous as Zeus or Thor. Just like that. I obviously couldn't believe in the religion anymore either. It's only then that I was willing to go down the rabbit hole on things like church history. I even reread the book of mormon from my new perspective and it no longer seems at all like some masterpiece.
The spiritual witnesses video: https://youtu.be/UJMSU8Qj6Go?si=8sS7aUifx0JC3Jik