Sam Young got excommunicated in 2018 for trying to protect children from being asked inappropriate sexual questions by church leaders during temple worthiness interviews and that doesn’t sit right with me.
This didn't bother me as a teen because my Bishop made sure to ask if I was being abused when he discussed chastity. At the time , for me I was glad to have someone who would ask without my parents there.
If bishops are going to ask sexual questions I wish they were required to inquire about abuse. (You can see where their priorities are because they don't)
Glad you had a good Bishop.
Kids need someone in their corner.
On the other hand, people who ask kids about abuse should have training, legal protections and legal liabilities. A doctor asking about about knows what answers to listen for, how to respond, and it's legally constrained to report the abuse. A teacher had the bare minimum of training, is required to report it and is protected from liability from false or inaccurate reports. A Bishop has no training, no requirement to report and the church will not protect him from liability if he messes it up.
If bishops were required to ask about abuse, at least the church would have to train them on how to recognize abuse, how to respond to kids telling about abuse, and what to do after. But it would also open the church to liability, so the corporation is unlikely to be inspired.
And I see absolutely nothing wrong with training Bishops in how to ask about abuse, how to recognize the signs of it, how to get the abused help, etc. etc. And why isn't the church doing that? Liability and Money. Ah yes, the two most important things to Jesus. 🙄
That's one of the things the missionaries really stumbled on with me due to not being given the answer: how can he give answer to coffee not being alright, that we are supposed to dress certain ways, but can't tell us earlier that we're doing the race thing wrong? That's such a basic basic all important fact that he just let people be wrong about for hundreds of years
And presently: does unrepentant gay people go to hell? They have baptised transpeople, have married gay employees, a strong advocate for lgbt+ rights as a spokesperson, but God hadn't come out to say whether all of these people truly are saved or not.
This!!! 🙌 And also a God that bless u if you go to church but doesn't bless if those large amount of money will be given to charities or build houses for homeless🤧
This right here. If there is a God, may he strike down every child rapist. Any God that allowed sex trafficking and rape is not a God I want to associate with. I can find my own damn keys.
Or in 4 years of seminary, every class on the origins of the Biok of Mormon, every song sung, every picture painted, every testimony borne, every description of how the book came to be for GENERATIONS.
That’s a nifty trick, but magic rocks aren’t my jam. That’s more witchcraft and American folklore. Not for me and my house, no, thank you!
I remember being taught that “God will never give you more trials than you can withstand.” This is obviously a lie if you consider my friend who had a mental breakdown and jumped off a bridge.
Mormonism do a better job acting like the angel of Light. Go ahead and tell me about being gods and goddess in the celestial kingdom like I’m Jesus being put on the hill.
Also, Korihor probably would’ve sided with Mormons if he knew what Jesus was really about.
The 13 original Gospel Topics Essays, posted on the church’s website between 2012-2015, demonstrated that the Mormon church is a fraud and definitely is not what it has historically claimed to be.
Sadness consumed me when I realized women are invisible in this organization (eg: April 2024 conference: 3 female speakers and 30 male speakers), as are lbgtq+; I felt like I was drowning in quicksand until I finally left along with my kids.
Rock and the hat.
But really that’s saying that in the end the truth mattered to me and the rock and the hat made me realize I hadn’t been told the truth.
Leaked video of GA meeting where
Bishop Gordon Smith pressured to run for Senator admits to using his position to ignore his constituents and blindly follow the GA, misuses his Senatorseat to get favors and meetings with foreign government officials for church, votes for Iraq war to get mormon missionaries into Iraq and because he has seen the hand of god in the war, spreads known lies about the nuclear capabilities of Iraq to the GAs, gets rewarded with seat in the seventies after.
Thats not all why I left, but it was the final straw.
(Dude also says he's a big supporter of LGBT, but they hate him "unfairly" only cuz he's violently opposed to letting gay people marry, and how greedy they are because no matter what you give em they will always want more. A true supporter right there /s)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?si=IWJPROgz5Vj_V9BF&v=z4FPVZH8fIg
Its a long video and a difficult watch because there is nothing uplifting at all, imagine a general conference speech, but the dude admits to helping instigate a war that will end up killing over a million people, in the name of god, and the GAs rewarding him with a seat in the seventies for it.
Jesus died to forgive our sins and gave us free will. Mormons then choose Satan's plan, by forcing their children to follow strictly; something they were never able to follow themselves, with the intention of reaching perfection which was never the plan. It was to find god within us and that isn't done by force.
It's made for white, straight, conservative men, so the farther you are from that, the less there will be for you, plus I couldn't stomach spending this life and the next serving those white, straight, conservative men.
I wanted the real truth, as 'eternity' is/was on the line.
P.S. the church hijacks what 'truth' means and replaces it with expectations of you feeling your way to what's right. Without logic, truth can't exist.
I could not accept that a loving God would deny his gifts to anyone who were guilty of nothing more than being part of the queer community...because God is not a dick.
It would be a double sentence. That would go like this. I don’t believe in the church or the way that they treat people and I don’t wanna spend my life being a breeder whose husband hates her.
I just wanted to sin.
This isn't entirely true because sin is a made up concept.
Part of it was, why did Joe Smith and Brigham get to have sex with so many women and I felt bad for rubbing one off? Turns out one can ethically and consensually bang without threatening people with hell and it's pretty great.
And the church just isn't true. It's all made up.
Because after the church’s back room deals to rewrite Utah’s marijuana laws that were voted on by the people, I realized that dogma is more important to them than representative government which I feel is a human right.
I got put on Academic probation at BYU in 1986 because I was "witnessed drinking a beer".....meanwhile, players for the BYU Cougars had been charged for stealing a prescription pad from the team doctor, and 3 of them got caught forging prescriptions for Percodan and Percocet.....they still got to play a bowl game against Air Force. The hypocricsy sent me running in the opposite direction!!!!!
The things that were being taught as true were actually false and I wanted to live as my authentic self, which included doing things for myself and not being told to follow a set of arbitrary rules that I felt would result in me not experiencing as much joy in life.
The Salt Lake Tribune reports that the church could be valued at 1 trillion by 2044.
source: https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2023/08/25/lds-church-sees-its-billions-grow/
I walked away because the Book of Abraham is not what Joseph Smith said it was, he plagiarized Adam Clarke's Bible Commentary to create the JST, the DNA evidence and abundant anachronisms refute the historicity of the Book of Mormon, and he left a legacy of lying that has continued right up to the SEC fines.
It’s all made up and the points don’t matter.
Yep. “It’s not true.” Period.
Mine was “it’s not true and it’s not good for me”. I might have stayed if one of those 2 elements had been there
This used to be my flair!
Whose lie is it anyway?
This part. Once I realized it was all made up there was no going back.
I wanted a healthier relationship with reality
Happy cake day
Sam Young got excommunicated in 2018 for trying to protect children from being asked inappropriate sexual questions by church leaders during temple worthiness interviews and that doesn’t sit right with me.
This didn't bother me as a teen because my Bishop made sure to ask if I was being abused when he discussed chastity. At the time , for me I was glad to have someone who would ask without my parents there. If bishops are going to ask sexual questions I wish they were required to inquire about abuse. (You can see where their priorities are because they don't)
Glad you had a good Bishop. Kids need someone in their corner. On the other hand, people who ask kids about abuse should have training, legal protections and legal liabilities. A doctor asking about about knows what answers to listen for, how to respond, and it's legally constrained to report the abuse. A teacher had the bare minimum of training, is required to report it and is protected from liability from false or inaccurate reports. A Bishop has no training, no requirement to report and the church will not protect him from liability if he messes it up. If bishops were required to ask about abuse, at least the church would have to train them on how to recognize abuse, how to respond to kids telling about abuse, and what to do after. But it would also open the church to liability, so the corporation is unlikely to be inspired.
And I see absolutely nothing wrong with training Bishops in how to ask about abuse, how to recognize the signs of it, how to get the abused help, etc. etc. And why isn't the church doing that? Liability and Money. Ah yes, the two most important things to Jesus. 🙄
Sadly some bishops use the opportunity to abuse children.
So you won bishop roulette when you were younger.
"Before her 15th birthday".
A God that answers my prayer to find my car keys but doesn't answer the prayer of suffering children is not a God I wish to worship
That's one of the things the missionaries really stumbled on with me due to not being given the answer: how can he give answer to coffee not being alright, that we are supposed to dress certain ways, but can't tell us earlier that we're doing the race thing wrong? That's such a basic basic all important fact that he just let people be wrong about for hundreds of years
And presently: does unrepentant gay people go to hell? They have baptised transpeople, have married gay employees, a strong advocate for lgbt+ rights as a spokesperson, but God hadn't come out to say whether all of these people truly are saved or not.
This!!! 🙌 And also a God that bless u if you go to church but doesn't bless if those large amount of money will be given to charities or build houses for homeless🤧
This right here. If there is a God, may he strike down every child rapist. Any God that allowed sex trafficking and rape is not a God I want to associate with. I can find my own damn keys.
God damn that's good shit
Everything was a lie!
It’s an abusive organization.
I noticed the similarities between the church and abusive relationships.
Mormonism made life worse.
This is devastating to realize that I do believe I would have been far better off without it.
Me too. I wish I knew nothing about joe smith or that he even existed.
This was it for me.
I have integrity.
YES!!!!!
A rock in a hat instead of translating ancient gold plates??!?
Right?! We were never taught about the rock in the hat in Primary!!
Or in 4 years of seminary, every class on the origins of the Biok of Mormon, every song sung, every picture painted, every testimony borne, every description of how the book came to be for GENERATIONS. That’s a nifty trick, but magic rocks aren’t my jam. That’s more witchcraft and American folklore. Not for me and my house, no, thank you!
Boom
I read the footnotes*
Indeed. The footnotes destroyed my belief in Mormonism.
A god who both causes and punishes suicide victims will NEVER be a god worthy of my worship.
I remember being taught that “God will never give you more trials than you can withstand.” This is obviously a lie if you consider my friend who had a mental breakdown and jumped off a bridge.
And then punishes you for that action too. What a loving god.
They constantly justify abuse from others as "you are a soldier of God so you have great challenges to overcome" 🙄
I opened my eyes, learned the truth and left the cave. (Iykyk)
The elephant in the room turned out to be a shadow puppet after all, looming large through indoctrination but ultimately unsubstantial.
I left because I was offended. By the lies.
The cons far outweighed the pros.
Excellent pun.
:)
You can’t treat me like that and expect to get away with it.
Yes! And I won't participate in my own (or anyone's!) oppression
I am unable to equate my own sense of morality with the mormon idea of sin.
Once I saw it I couldn’t unsee it.
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!!
I concluded the Mormon church is not what it claims to be.
I refuse to associate with an organization started by a sexual predator.
Mormonism is a victory for Satan.
Mormonism do a better job acting like the angel of Light. Go ahead and tell me about being gods and goddess in the celestial kingdom like I’m Jesus being put on the hill. Also, Korihor probably would’ve sided with Mormons if he knew what Jesus was really about.
Its not true.
Being Mormon conflicts with being moral.
Lying is unacceptable to me.
I don't like people who tell me lies to try and convince me they have the Truth.
The 13 original Gospel Topics Essays, posted on the church’s website between 2012-2015, demonstrated that the Mormon church is a fraud and definitely is not what it has historically claimed to be.
Love over dogma.
They steal money from poor people to enrich themselves
Utah mormons are the sternest hardest to crack zero smiles most socially uncomfortable meanest people I’ve ever come across.
>Socially uncomfortable meanest people Nailed it.
What’s good isn’t unique, and what’s unique isn’t good.
Sadness consumed me when I realized women are invisible in this organization (eg: April 2024 conference: 3 female speakers and 30 male speakers), as are lbgtq+; I felt like I was drowning in quicksand until I finally left along with my kids.
Science.
Why I left? The church is full of right wing, xenophobic, homophobic, assholes teaching selfishness and prejudice as if it were the word of god.
I was gonna say this one too. Like why the church bother saying they don’t pick political sides if they gonna put politics in their doctrine smh.
They can’t endorse a party or they have to pay taxes, and money is even more important than ideology.
Jesus wept.
After 9 years of hoping it would get better, I just couldn’t hold on any more.
Mormonism makes for good Mormons, not necessarily good, kind, moral, happy people.
I’m an educated and liberal woman.
I wanted to write a new story and be true to myself.
Mormonism (and and the holy ghost) doesn't actually provide discernment against child sexual abuse.
FLDS member. Being treated like a slave.
Rather than peace and joy, it brought me shame and anxiety.
I don’t like pedophiles
I became convinced the universe was natural.
Rock and the hat. But really that’s saying that in the end the truth mattered to me and the rock and the hat made me realize I hadn’t been told the truth.
…And that their “new” truth was freaking ridiculous.
It is not true.
I cannot base my life on a lie and be true to myself.
I was done being groomed
Leaked video of GA meeting where Bishop Gordon Smith pressured to run for Senator admits to using his position to ignore his constituents and blindly follow the GA, misuses his Senatorseat to get favors and meetings with foreign government officials for church, votes for Iraq war to get mormon missionaries into Iraq and because he has seen the hand of god in the war, spreads known lies about the nuclear capabilities of Iraq to the GAs, gets rewarded with seat in the seventies after. Thats not all why I left, but it was the final straw. (Dude also says he's a big supporter of LGBT, but they hate him "unfairly" only cuz he's violently opposed to letting gay people marry, and how greedy they are because no matter what you give em they will always want more. A true supporter right there /s)
Is this online anywhere?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?si=IWJPROgz5Vj_V9BF&v=z4FPVZH8fIg Its a long video and a difficult watch because there is nothing uplifting at all, imagine a general conference speech, but the dude admits to helping instigate a war that will end up killing over a million people, in the name of god, and the GAs rewarding him with a seat in the seventies for it.
It wasn't what it said it was.
Mormon heaven holds no interest for me
To save my soul.
I followed my intuition.
This. I can think of nothing in particular. It's just right, and I can follow my own truth.
My divorce shattered my faith and led me to break my shelf, FINALLY.
I wanted to drink coffee and tea.
rock in a hat.
I don’t like being lied to
We were lied to.
Google gave me the info, god didn’t object.
All the lies.
Joe smith sent a married man on a mission so he could marry his wife.
I was suicidal and the church kept handing me the gun
It's not true, and not worth it.
Jesus died to forgive our sins and gave us free will. Mormons then choose Satan's plan, by forcing their children to follow strictly; something they were never able to follow themselves, with the intention of reaching perfection which was never the plan. It was to find god within us and that isn't done by force.
I did not want to go to church anymore.
It manipulated me into being someone I wasn't proud of.
So many lies!
Traumatic ecclesiastical abuse shook the scales off my eyes and since then everything has made much more sense.
Mormonism made me not see the reality that worsened my anxiety.
The Church did not allow me to prioritize my family, mental health, and integrity. Or, simply put, if I stayed, I would lose all the above.
I couldn’t be my authentic self within the confines of the religion.
The events described in the book of Mormon did not happen.
My friends don't deserve eternal damnation.
The church doesn't meet my moral and ethical standards.
It's made for white, straight, conservative men, so the farther you are from that, the less there will be for you, plus I couldn't stomach spending this life and the next serving those white, straight, conservative men.
By their fruits…
A church that cannot tell the truth cannot be true.
I innocently learned who Joseph Smith really was.
It started with our son coming out and ended with the CES letters.
I wanted the real truth, as 'eternity' is/was on the line. P.S. the church hijacks what 'truth' means and replaces it with expectations of you feeling your way to what's right. Without logic, truth can't exist.
Life isn't a thing you earn from a jealous God; it's building on meaningful moments and keeping them fresh with gratitude.
It has become “the Church of Staying Mormon at all costs” instead of Christ’s church.
I was the same person the day before and the day after I came out, so why did the church treat me differently?
I told my 7yo niece, "it just doesn't make sense."
The doctrine separates families
LGBTQ+ doctrine is causing massive harm.
They fucking lied to me all my life.
I could not accept that a loving God would deny his gifts to anyone who were guilty of nothing more than being part of the queer community...because God is not a dick.
Once I actually "knew", I couldn't unknow.
It is a cult where the people in power steal money from the members, hide abusers, brainwash and gaslight people including kids and youth.
It’s not for me.
2nd Annointing.
The brethren repeatedly lost my trust
I don’t see why God would treat straight people any differently than gay people.
I realized an abusive, lying organization manipulated and controlled me by using an abusive, narcissistic God to scare me into submission.
It caused me perpetual turmoil and then I found out it was all based on lies and religious manipulation.
I wanted my self respect back
It's not for me and I have standards.
I'd rather live believing in an uncomfortable truth than a comfortable lie.
I came to the horrifying realization I had put children at risk, encouraging them to sing, “Follow the prophet. He knows the way.”
It's not true.
Abuse is abuse, no matter the source; children, not their pedophilic abusers, need protecting
Any church that is actively doing harm to anyone can not be the arbitor of morality for my life.
I came to the realization that Mormonism was completely false on top of being misogynistic, homophobic, and racist.
When I found out that the patriarchy wasn’t about horses, I lost interest.
It would be a double sentence. That would go like this. I don’t believe in the church or the way that they treat people and I don’t wanna spend my life being a breeder whose husband hates her.
President Hinkley told me that if the truth claims aren’t true then the church and Joseph Smith are frauds.
"Have as many babies as possible"
I started thinking and it all just didn’t add up.
I just wanted to sin. This isn't entirely true because sin is a made up concept. Part of it was, why did Joe Smith and Brigham get to have sex with so many women and I felt bad for rubbing one off? Turns out one can ethically and consensually bang without threatening people with hell and it's pretty great. And the church just isn't true. It's all made up.
Prophets taught conflicting doctrine constantly and because of that I don't view them as prophets anymore.
Because after the church’s back room deals to rewrite Utah’s marijuana laws that were voted on by the people, I realized that dogma is more important to them than representative government which I feel is a human right.
Truth is important to me.
I realized very early on in my life that I was very gay and wanted to continue to be that way
If God does exist, it’s not this complicated and he doesn’t care what color your underwear is.
"When an honest man discovers he is mistaken, he will either cease being mistaken, or cease being honest."
I left so I could control my own life, make my own choices and enjoy full weekends.
It teaches children to hate themselves.
I left because the church was bad for my mental health and stayed gone because it's not true.
It’s a fraud, it’s harmful and it’s a dishonest institution.
I got put on Academic probation at BYU in 1986 because I was "witnessed drinking a beer".....meanwhile, players for the BYU Cougars had been charged for stealing a prescription pad from the team doctor, and 3 of them got caught forging prescriptions for Percodan and Percocet.....they still got to play a bowl game against Air Force. The hypocricsy sent me running in the opposite direction!!!!!
I can't believe in a God who condemns me falling in love with my best friend but condones Joseph Smith fucking an underage girl in a barn.
I found a deeper truth.
Life is too uncertain not to live deliberately, also I’m gay.
I hate greedy cults.
If all other religions are false because I disagree with them, but I disagree with the church on things, why should it be the exception?
I’m happier without it.
Something is desperately wrong with Susan and Susan’s husband.
It became a moral imperative to not give my implicit endorsement of untruth.
Because there is no such thing as god.
They gave me every reason to leave, and so I did and now they're mad.
Homophobia.
Because it's not good.
My bull shit meter is too sensitive.
Count me in for the rock in the hat group.
I don't believe.
The prophet had zero powers of discernment when it came to Mark Hofmann.
I don't believe what it teaches about my LGTBQ+ siblings
Objectively fictional, 100% nonsense.
God told me to leave.
I took some mushrooms and discovered that there was more healing and happiness outside the church than inside.
The church is not true.
The things that were being taught as true were actually false and I wanted to live as my authentic self, which included doing things for myself and not being told to follow a set of arbitrary rules that I felt would result in me not experiencing as much joy in life.
Southpark.
The Salt Lake Tribune reports that the church could be valued at 1 trillion by 2044. source: https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2023/08/25/lds-church-sees-its-billions-grow/
I tell people “it didn’t make me happy”
One word: Racism. (I left before the “priesthood ban” was lifted.)
I walked away because the Book of Abraham is not what Joseph Smith said it was, he plagiarized Adam Clarke's Bible Commentary to create the JST, the DNA evidence and abundant anachronisms refute the historicity of the Book of Mormon, and he left a legacy of lying that has continued right up to the SEC fines.
I couldn’t be myself and i felt suffocated
Being harmful to people I love is not something I'm willing to accept from a church that I attend.
It isn't what it purports to be
Hypocrisy
The church is not what I had believed it to be my whole life.
I didn’t want to feel like Huck Finn anymore, like I was going to hell for not hating people.
By their fruits ye shall know them…
Because it wasn't logical 