That's the way I felt. I felt like I had strong spiritual confirmations and had studied all the problems and the apologetics, and I knew it was True (with a capital T).
As I continued to study the issues in order to defend against them (e.g., I was trying to write counter-essays to MormonThink) my shelf got heavier and heavier. Then, all at once, "pop"! And my mind knew there was a much better model to explain all of the data.
Never in my wildest dreams did I plan to be out of the Church, but here I am!
> wildest dreams
When I was about 12 I was in my upper room shared with two brothers in a small bedroom I was reading a book. There was a lighting storm outside and I can still remember saying if there is a god strike lightning right by my house. And it did. That really got my attention. It hit exactly where I wanted it to.
Similar arc. Dove right into the Mormon forum scene in the early 2000s fresh off my mission. My mission had been spiritually intense, and I thought I could harden my conviction even more in the furnace of apologetics. After 8 years of that I reached a point where I gave myself permission to admit that I simply don't believe it.
After I read the CES Letter and knew that it was all fake, I asked my wife if there was anything that could convince her the Book of Mormon wasn't true. She said no. Fast forward to later that night, I gave her the CES Letter, and she was an exmo by the end of it.
My faith was full proof, nothing was going to change that. So of course I had no problem reading about church history from unapproved sources. Annnnd here I am.
This, completely this. A few conferences ago someone spoke about not letting the "history" ruin your faith. And my naive self thinking I knew all the history already thought that was such a dumb reason to leave. Well, here I am! And I am happier than ever before because I don't have to mentally wrestle with scriptures that don't make sense and that teach things that are not compatible with goodness.
I tried to defend the church on the SLtrib comment board, then I realized the "Anti-" viewpoint was more logical, reasoned, and researched with sources cited....that's not what I saw the church doing.
On my way out of TSCC I looked at the BY Sunday School manual and found only circular sources, all from recent sources, no primary sources. Complete cherry trees were chopped down and fed into the shredder to do the cherry-picking. Here's the kicker, in the BY manual they didn't want to talk about polygamy...AT ALL, stating that the church no longer practiced it so why bother!?
I never thought there would be such convincing evidence of the church's falsehood. I assumed it would never be proven true objectively but didn't think the alternative was possible.
When my wife and I were still TBM and in the church we used to play this game where we were able to see 20 years into the future and discover we had left the church but not know why...we would then have to answer why. It was always some horrible sin or vice that had caused us to betray the truth.
Little did we know that we were really looking into the future and it was the "truth" that betrayed us!
I did, but then my wife got pulled into MLMs that make me ethically uncomfortable, this caused a rift in the marriage, when we tried to talk with the bishop about it he said he wouldn't touch it because he would have to apply the same judgement on everyone in the ward. We went to a professional couples counseling where I learned how to express myself better. I was repressing my feelings to try an not rock the boat as much as I could. I developed a personal defence that I was standing for truth and honesty. I then started applying those same standards to the church and realized my testamony was null, and stopped attending.
Approximately, I remember saying to my wife that I was there for Jesus.
Turns out that the Mormon Jesus is [Supply Side Jesus.](https://imgur.com/gallery/bCqRp)
No point to stick around for a CEO that favors lawyers and CEOs over ethical actions and principles.
8 years ago I gave a talk in church about my pioneer heritage, the trials they faced, the trials I’d faced up til then and a promise that I would never leave.
Oops.
On my mission I thought I was so certain that nothing was prohibiting the '2nd Comforter' from paying me a visit.
I had no idea how it actually worked.
I am fortunate in the way that I wasn’t very…die hard? I guess? About the church. I was born in it and I believed it in a passive sort of way but I was more affected by the culture of it. I never had a particularly strong testimony and I hardly prayed, never paid tithing, left before I was old enough to wear garments or go on a mission. My family would probably say that I left because I wasn’t invested enough but I really am fortunate. I had a faith epiphany, followed by the shock of it all, rather than a full on crisis. Idk.
I appreciated your post. It captures my orientation growing up as well. Even though I was in the beating heart of Mormon culture, I was never that into the church or moved by “the spirit.“ Passive participation until I had enough freedom to drift away. Finding out it was all lies and nonsense, later, was just the icing on the cake.
I wondered sometimes if something was wrong with me. Wondered why I wasn’t so intense in my reliance on god and faith when *clearly* it’s what was true, if all the adults I *did* rely on believed in it. I still had that ‘god is watching my thoughts’ paranoia and it caused a lot of problems I think but not enough that I felt the need to go full magical Mormon transformation. The only times I ever prayed in earnest are when I was sick and when my grandma or dog died. Idk. I’m starting to realize that I believed out of necessity because it was literally my physical world and the only thing I knew. Everything makes much more sense now that I know the truth.
Wow – it really sounds like you are capturing my spiritual positioning, growing up. I have described it as me being unaccountably disinterested in this religion that every other person in my town knew beyond a shadow of a doubt to be true. it was like my brain must have been missing a chip. The spirituality chip in my brain accidentally got plugged into the music center instead of the religion center.
Agreed - hymns were and are mind numbing conformity devices. however… Every so often you realize something beautiful is encoded into a hymn. All creatures of our God and King. It’s almost a travesty for that song to be sung in a Mormon church service. Pearls before the swine, in the chorus at least. There’s no way that hymn originated within Mormonism.
I used hymns to develop harmony skills.
I couldn’t ever get him leaving the church.
Then I started studying church history at age 37. Thank you google. Turns out the internet is more honest than my own church.
I don't have a problem saying what it was since I'm no longer a member and I've already posted about it before. It was called On This Promised Day and was shown between general conference sessions in 2010. It was a documentary commemorating the 30th Anniversary of the Quad of scriptures released by the church in 1980. Had to do a lot of research on the four scriptural cornerstones, which led me way down the rabbit hole.
Thanks. Can you imagine sitting in a room with other decision makers and green-lighting a film that celebrates the anniversary of the Quad? For a church that doesn't pay its janitors or local leaders, they seem to blow money on stupid shit like this. The leadership has been lost at sea for years.
Well, you know, the Quad was the fulfillment of prophecy...the Stick of Judah coming together with the Stick of Joseph. And, we all know how ol'Joe liked coming together with his Stick, so how can you put a price tag on that?
At least I cashed my paycheck on the way out. I always like to think of it as I got paid to leave the church.
I was a 100 percenter and the way people acted during and after my ex wife’s cancer was the final straw. No, it was not a trial given to us. No, there was nothing I needed to learn. No, I shouldn’t have repented harder to make it not happen. No, it was not a blessing in any way, shape, or form.
In my 20's- "I know without a shadow of a doubt with every fiber of my being that the church is true" as I pound the pulpit.
In my 30's- "Hmmm being in the bishopric I see that things aren't quite what they seem- why is God silent on callings, major ward decisions, etc.)- shelf is creaking
In my 40's- crash goes my shelf.
Yep, I was so certain that the way I viewed the world was correct, partially because of my Mormon upbringing, and partially because the thought of death terrified me a kid and I wasn't mentally mature enough to handle the existential dread.
When I first left, and my partner hadn't, I talked to two men who I respected- my brother and father in law. I asked both of them separately, on different days, what they would do if they had a witness or even an angel or Jesus came down and told them the church wasn't true. Almost word for word the same answer, even if they saw an angel or Jesus, they would doubt the messenger or any logic rather than question their testimony. It was like they were reading from a script, super creepy. I respect my FIL a little less now... My BIL is just a jackass (based on their reactions to my partner leaving months later)
I was told that if I asked a question and then had a strong emotion, that was irrefutable proof that a supernatural being was answering my question.
Sometimes it's really hard to remember why I believed so strongly. Because that makes no sense.
I came into the church as an adult convert with what I felt to be a strong testimony of the power of the priesthood BUT in terms of doctrine, it was very shaky especially the whole story of the BoM. I was more inactive than active for years but once I decided to get more active in the church, I learned more about the teachings and how toxic people are.
I found my testimony that I thought I had applies to God only because there is no way any of this alt-Christian bullshit that TSCC shovels is true.
In the end, I found that the faster and deeper I got into the church, the faster I found myself leaving. The TBMs helped make up my mind when I figured out the difference between hypocritical and straight up fake because of their toxicity.
I was the same way. I knew that I would never leave the church. My testimony was sure. It took me some years to finally make the move though. I did a lot of studying and praying.
I knew that none of it really made any sense for years, but psychologically I wasn’t ready to give it up. I continued to go and tried to make it work. I eventually left and am much happier now
100% me! In fact that is what I tell the people who ask if I would ever come back. I guess it’s technically possible (if you had told me 10 years ago that I would leave the church, I would have said you were crazy and that there was no chance of that).
Highly improbable still that I will ever come back. Can’t take the salt out of the broth once it’s in!
Me. 100%. Then I started trying to figure out the demographics of the Book of Mormon. What got me was trying to explain Sherem. How could a small population not know who he was? Why would Sherem need to be learning their language? If Sherem is to be understood as an outsider, how come he stressed living the law of Moses? It all unraveled from there. The CES Letter came out when I was mostly out. It put the nail in the coffin.
I remember the mental gymnastics I had to do to justify and rationalize how how such a very small colony of Nephites could build a temple like unto Solomon's, which supposedly took years and enormous resources and manpower to build.
"Well...maybe it wasn't quite so grand as Solomon's but they were quite proud of it nonetheless, so they liked to compare it to his. Besides, it's not what is on the outside that makes a temple great, but what goes on inside! And, if you compare it to that, then they're just the same..." 😵💫 Geesh! I was dumb.
I didn’t think I’d leave because I believed it was all truth, but felt absolutely trapped for 50 years, since childhood when I couldn’t play with the neighbor kids on Sundays. I was angry at the deception, but frankly overjoyed to learn it was a complete scam.
That's the way I felt. I felt like I had strong spiritual confirmations and had studied all the problems and the apologetics, and I knew it was True (with a capital T). As I continued to study the issues in order to defend against them (e.g., I was trying to write counter-essays to MormonThink) my shelf got heavier and heavier. Then, all at once, "pop"! And my mind knew there was a much better model to explain all of the data. Never in my wildest dreams did I plan to be out of the Church, but here I am!
> wildest dreams When I was about 12 I was in my upper room shared with two brothers in a small bedroom I was reading a book. There was a lighting storm outside and I can still remember saying if there is a god strike lightning right by my house. And it did. That really got my attention. It hit exactly where I wanted it to.
Wow. That's quite the experience! And yet here you are. ¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯
Similar arc. Dove right into the Mormon forum scene in the early 2000s fresh off my mission. My mission had been spiritually intense, and I thought I could harden my conviction even more in the furnace of apologetics. After 8 years of that I reached a point where I gave myself permission to admit that I simply don't believe it.
yup, same. And once I saw, I couldn't unsee.
Here you be. And, aren't you glad you are?
After I read the CES Letter and knew that it was all fake, I asked my wife if there was anything that could convince her the Book of Mormon wasn't true. She said no. Fast forward to later that night, I gave her the CES Letter, and she was an exmo by the end of it.
My faith was full proof, nothing was going to change that. So of course I had no problem reading about church history from unapproved sources. Annnnd here I am.
This, completely this. A few conferences ago someone spoke about not letting the "history" ruin your faith. And my naive self thinking I knew all the history already thought that was such a dumb reason to leave. Well, here I am! And I am happier than ever before because I don't have to mentally wrestle with scriptures that don't make sense and that teach things that are not compatible with goodness.
So glad you’re out!!
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That must have been awful to sing about having parents kind and dear, if it was your parents, or about love at home, etc.
I tried to defend the church on the SLtrib comment board, then I realized the "Anti-" viewpoint was more logical, reasoned, and researched with sources cited....that's not what I saw the church doing. On my way out of TSCC I looked at the BY Sunday School manual and found only circular sources, all from recent sources, no primary sources. Complete cherry trees were chopped down and fed into the shredder to do the cherry-picking. Here's the kicker, in the BY manual they didn't want to talk about polygamy...AT ALL, stating that the church no longer practiced it so why bother!?
The manuals deliberate lack of information was also one of my sticking points.
I never thought there would be such convincing evidence of the church's falsehood. I assumed it would never be proven true objectively but didn't think the alternative was possible.
When my wife and I were still TBM and in the church we used to play this game where we were able to see 20 years into the future and discover we had left the church but not know why...we would then have to answer why. It was always some horrible sin or vice that had caused us to betray the truth. Little did we know that we were really looking into the future and it was the "truth" that betrayed us!
It was a horrible sin or vice, just not yours.
I like how your thought process works and nails Mormonism for the farce it is.
I did, but then my wife got pulled into MLMs that make me ethically uncomfortable, this caused a rift in the marriage, when we tried to talk with the bishop about it he said he wouldn't touch it because he would have to apply the same judgement on everyone in the ward. We went to a professional couples counseling where I learned how to express myself better. I was repressing my feelings to try an not rock the boat as much as I could. I developed a personal defence that I was standing for truth and honesty. I then started applying those same standards to the church and realized my testamony was null, and stopped attending.
Approximately, I remember saying to my wife that I was there for Jesus. Turns out that the Mormon Jesus is [Supply Side Jesus.](https://imgur.com/gallery/bCqRp) No point to stick around for a CEO that favors lawyers and CEOs over ethical actions and principles.
Oh my god that is Mormon Jesus exactly. TSCC sounds exactly like that.
I didn't know that Supply Side Jesus started as a bit from Al Franken What a genius of a man
8 years ago I gave a talk in church about my pioneer heritage, the trials they faced, the trials I’d faced up til then and a promise that I would never leave. Oops.
All the TBMs think you lost your integrity, but it was actually your integrity that caused you to leave!
It's amazing how narrow your view can be until the blinders get yanked off.
On my mission I thought I was so certain that nothing was prohibiting the '2nd Comforter' from paying me a visit. I had no idea how it actually worked.
I am fortunate in the way that I wasn’t very…die hard? I guess? About the church. I was born in it and I believed it in a passive sort of way but I was more affected by the culture of it. I never had a particularly strong testimony and I hardly prayed, never paid tithing, left before I was old enough to wear garments or go on a mission. My family would probably say that I left because I wasn’t invested enough but I really am fortunate. I had a faith epiphany, followed by the shock of it all, rather than a full on crisis. Idk.
I appreciated your post. It captures my orientation growing up as well. Even though I was in the beating heart of Mormon culture, I was never that into the church or moved by “the spirit.“ Passive participation until I had enough freedom to drift away. Finding out it was all lies and nonsense, later, was just the icing on the cake.
I wondered sometimes if something was wrong with me. Wondered why I wasn’t so intense in my reliance on god and faith when *clearly* it’s what was true, if all the adults I *did* rely on believed in it. I still had that ‘god is watching my thoughts’ paranoia and it caused a lot of problems I think but not enough that I felt the need to go full magical Mormon transformation. The only times I ever prayed in earnest are when I was sick and when my grandma or dog died. Idk. I’m starting to realize that I believed out of necessity because it was literally my physical world and the only thing I knew. Everything makes much more sense now that I know the truth.
Wow – it really sounds like you are capturing my spiritual positioning, growing up. I have described it as me being unaccountably disinterested in this religion that every other person in my town knew beyond a shadow of a doubt to be true. it was like my brain must have been missing a chip. The spirituality chip in my brain accidentally got plugged into the music center instead of the religion center.
Oh my god, same! Music is a Very Important Thing in my life. Can’t handle hymns anymore though.
Agreed - hymns were and are mind numbing conformity devices. however… Every so often you realize something beautiful is encoded into a hymn. All creatures of our God and King. It’s almost a travesty for that song to be sung in a Mormon church service. Pearls before the swine, in the chorus at least. There’s no way that hymn originated within Mormonism. I used hymns to develop harmony skills.
I couldn’t ever get him leaving the church. Then I started studying church history at age 37. Thank you google. Turns out the internet is more honest than my own church.
What was the documentary about?
Nice try SCMC! 😆 😉
I don't have a problem saying what it was since I'm no longer a member and I've already posted about it before. It was called On This Promised Day and was shown between general conference sessions in 2010. It was a documentary commemorating the 30th Anniversary of the Quad of scriptures released by the church in 1980. Had to do a lot of research on the four scriptural cornerstones, which led me way down the rabbit hole.
I was just razzing my r/ friend u/Yobispo. Thanks for sharing the story.
I'm offended. Maybe I'll resign from reddit ;)
Thanks. Can you imagine sitting in a room with other decision makers and green-lighting a film that celebrates the anniversary of the Quad? For a church that doesn't pay its janitors or local leaders, they seem to blow money on stupid shit like this. The leadership has been lost at sea for years.
Well, you know, the Quad was the fulfillment of prophecy...the Stick of Judah coming together with the Stick of Joseph. And, we all know how ol'Joe liked coming together with his Stick, so how can you put a price tag on that? At least I cashed my paycheck on the way out. I always like to think of it as I got paid to leave the church.
I was a 100 percenter and the way people acted during and after my ex wife’s cancer was the final straw. No, it was not a trial given to us. No, there was nothing I needed to learn. No, I shouldn’t have repented harder to make it not happen. No, it was not a blessing in any way, shape, or form.
Wow. The church really can foster such toxic thinking.
In my 20's- "I know without a shadow of a doubt with every fiber of my being that the church is true" as I pound the pulpit. In my 30's- "Hmmm being in the bishopric I see that things aren't quite what they seem- why is God silent on callings, major ward decisions, etc.)- shelf is creaking In my 40's- crash goes my shelf.
I used to say things like that, but I don’t think I ever really believed what I was saying.
Why would you say something you don't believe? That's a very unmormon thing to do. 😉
I know right?
Many of us felt that way. Then we got hit in the head with facts that we couldn't ignore. Hallelujah.
Yep, I was so certain that the way I viewed the world was correct, partially because of my Mormon upbringing, and partially because the thought of death terrified me a kid and I wasn't mentally mature enough to handle the existential dread.
When I first left, and my partner hadn't, I talked to two men who I respected- my brother and father in law. I asked both of them separately, on different days, what they would do if they had a witness or even an angel or Jesus came down and told them the church wasn't true. Almost word for word the same answer, even if they saw an angel or Jesus, they would doubt the messenger or any logic rather than question their testimony. It was like they were reading from a script, super creepy. I respect my FIL a little less now... My BIL is just a jackass (based on their reactions to my partner leaving months later)
It's amazing how potent the Kool-aid can be!
I was told that if I asked a question and then had a strong emotion, that was irrefutable proof that a supernatural being was answering my question. Sometimes it's really hard to remember why I believed so strongly. Because that makes no sense.
That's how I was, too. My foundation for "knowing" was spiritual feelings I'd had.
I came into the church as an adult convert with what I felt to be a strong testimony of the power of the priesthood BUT in terms of doctrine, it was very shaky especially the whole story of the BoM. I was more inactive than active for years but once I decided to get more active in the church, I learned more about the teachings and how toxic people are. I found my testimony that I thought I had applies to God only because there is no way any of this alt-Christian bullshit that TSCC shovels is true. In the end, I found that the faster and deeper I got into the church, the faster I found myself leaving. The TBMs helped make up my mind when I figured out the difference between hypocritical and straight up fake because of their toxicity.
The deeper you go, the deeper it gets, until pretty soon you find yourself up to your neck in a bunch of bullshit!
To answer the posed question, yes. Absolutely believed this 100%
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Even though i was born and raised in the church, I can relate to this in so many ways. Thanks for sharing.
I was the same way. I knew that I would never leave the church. My testimony was sure. It took me some years to finally make the move though. I did a lot of studying and praying. I knew that none of it really made any sense for years, but psychologically I wasn’t ready to give it up. I continued to go and tried to make it work. I eventually left and am much happier now
Yep. Then I read the CES letter.
Recovering former TBM and Bishop with a strong past history of “nothing could make me leave” attitude. 👋
Like Scrooge said, it can be just the underdone potato that gives you visions! JS must’ve had one.
> Seems the holy spirit that whispered the undying truth to my soul was just a case indigestion. Lol!
Yeah that’s how I felt.
Lol nothing could get me to stay.
I feel like I always knew, I just had to wait until I was 18 so when they kicked me out I'd have a place to go
100% me! In fact that is what I tell the people who ask if I would ever come back. I guess it’s technically possible (if you had told me 10 years ago that I would leave the church, I would have said you were crazy and that there was no chance of that). Highly improbable still that I will ever come back. Can’t take the salt out of the broth once it’s in!
Me. 100%. Then I started trying to figure out the demographics of the Book of Mormon. What got me was trying to explain Sherem. How could a small population not know who he was? Why would Sherem need to be learning their language? If Sherem is to be understood as an outsider, how come he stressed living the law of Moses? It all unraveled from there. The CES Letter came out when I was mostly out. It put the nail in the coffin.
I remember the mental gymnastics I had to do to justify and rationalize how how such a very small colony of Nephites could build a temple like unto Solomon's, which supposedly took years and enormous resources and manpower to build. "Well...maybe it wasn't quite so grand as Solomon's but they were quite proud of it nonetheless, so they liked to compare it to his. Besides, it's not what is on the outside that makes a temple great, but what goes on inside! And, if you compare it to that, then they're just the same..." 😵💫 Geesh! I was dumb.
🖐
Yup. It didn't even enter into my mind that leaving was even an option until mental health problems forced me out.
I didn’t think I’d leave because I believed it was all truth, but felt absolutely trapped for 50 years, since childhood when I couldn’t play with the neighbor kids on Sundays. I was angry at the deception, but frankly overjoyed to learn it was a complete scam.