i'm going to start writing about my process of leaving the lds church. this will look very drafty and sketchbooky until it is polished.
BACKGROUND
* born and raised member in WA, USA. my mother was a convert just prior to my birth. my father is not a member. i have 3 brothers, all of them went inactive early on, then 1 became active and served a mission in japan in his early 20s and is still active, as is my mother.
* 32 years membership
* valid temple recommend since i was 19 (post 1990, 1996-2009) [but i'm aware of some of the changes between the various versions]
* full tithe payer my entire membership
* served "honorable" 2 year mission in norway (1996-98)
* studied 3 years at BYU, Provo, before moving permanently to Norway
* have served as
--deacons president
--sunday school teacher
--zone leader (mission)
--financial secretary
--bishop's secretary
--"faithful" home teacher
--the church's webmaster for norway (jesukristikirke.no -- i set up/configured their content management system)
* i resigned mentally/emotionally/"spiritually" from the church in 2009, then officially, in writing in 2011.
i am a co-webmaster at exmormon.org and built their new forum software. i also run my own website with information about the church in norwegian: http://mormonerne.com
SHORT VERSION
one part of my de-conversion was really realizing that these threats/punishments/bad spiritual consequences never happened when i did something wrong or didnt pay tithing, etc. e.g. like when i had masturbated one day as a missionary and baptized a lady the next day without having confessed it to my mission president and the lady still "felt the holy ghost" and everything seemed so fine, as if i had been the prophet myself who had baptized her. the same with masturbating and giving blessings and "healings"--i still felt "inspired" and felt like i was "given words". the same with every day life, even when i wasnt "worthy" i still felt like i had the "holy ghost" "guiding" me, "inspiring" me, etc.
then after reading about human psychology/social psychology, etc, i could see how easily people are tricked into believing things and feeling things and recognized things the church did that were straight out of these psychology videos.
then just talking with other exmos, e.g. on exmormon.org and hearing their stories and personal research about all the contradictions and changes in church history and evidences against the book of mormon and the book of abraham, etc, just made things even clearer, how the church is just a fraud.
and like i said, the church's *positions* on sex (pun intended), telling married people what they can and cant do, claiming that no one is born homosexual, that masturbation is evil, etc, just made it even easier to get out. all these things just repulsed me and seemed completely not fitting with the "god" they preach about.
after realizing the church was a sham i then turned to the occult to see if there really was anything "spirit" that existed and spent thousands of dollars on books and did experiments with "demons" and "devils" and did things people in that field said were totally dangerous and possibly deadly and nothing every really happened. the results were pretty much similar to things i had experienced in the church--it was just psychological.
then i turned to science and rational thinking and listening to debates with people like christopher hitchens, sam harris, richard dawkins, etc, and decided that i wasnt going to subscribe to any claim of truth unless there was "sufficient evidence"...
---------------------------------------LONG VERSION----------------------------------------------
TIMELINE
(still incomplete)
as a teenager i was told that masturbation and looking at the naked human body is wrong and that i should feel ashamed, but i liked it (like everyone else does) and it made me feel good, so the church made me feel bad. i never stopped liking those things. go figure...
i’m not sure where this fits in, but many years of experience with not always being able to do everything i should, in the church’s eyes, yet still giving blessings and healings to people, and still feeling inspired or able to “heal” showed me that lds “worthiness” had no affect on these types of things.
the next big clash was when i was married and different bishops were telling me and my wife contradictory things about what we could and couldnt do between each other in the bedroom and some required that we repent for some specific (yet normal in the rest of the world) things! eventually (over a span of a year or two) my wife and i had the good sense to stop listening to these people. this was an official beginning of a breaking away, however small. we started to take control of our lives and do what we felt was best for us and our relationship despite what the church said.
thankfully our children never really believed everything we taught them about church doctrine, even though they were only a couple of years old, they were bright enough to reject it, generally. or were they just being kids? =) no matter what, church was always stressful because the kids didnt always want to go and when we went, there were usually problems, protests and in the eyes of many others... “irreverence” =) sunday == stress, anger, etc.
later on i had some intelligent, creative and good friends from byu and my mission (to norway) tell me that they left the church. some of them told me a couple of reasons why and i got the courage to start thinking outside the box and reading about former members of the church’s experiences and why they left. i found out that anti-mormon literature is actually just mormon literature and church history and facts. nothing more.
around this same time, during christmas of 2009, i decided to read something about the exact opposite of the lds perspective: satanism. now settle down, it *isnt* what you’ve been told by christianity and the media that it is. they dont for example do human sacrifices, one of their creeds is to not harm children and according to the church of satan, “the devil” doesnt even exist. they dont worship him (because he doesnt exist). i read the satanic bible by Anton LaVey during christmas break. i found out that satanism (according to the satanic bible) is merely atheism, humanism and iconoclasm (making light/fun of and “blaspheming” religions, especially catholicism). the satanic bible was just a book of philosophy (and some silly ideas) and is not scary at all. much of it was plagiarized from the writings of earlier philosophers like Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Ragnar Redbeard, et al. the one main point i took with me from that book was this (which is undeniably true):
The false doctrine of Hell and the Devil has allowed the Protestant and Catholic Churches to flourish far too long. Without a devil to point their fingers at, religionists of the right hand path would have nothing with which to threaten their followers. “Satan leads you to temptation”; “Satan is the prince of evil”; “Satan is vicious, cruel, brutal,” they warn. “If you give in to the temptations of the devil, you will surely suffer eternal damnation and roast in Hell.”
Anton LaVey later on was quoted in an interview with the FBI saying that he only founded the church of satan and wrote books for publicity and money. satanism isnt based on anything real, its just a way to counter religion and religious fanatics, by using something they are scared of...
so i read the most scary book in existence, according to the christian world, and it was a joke, but it helped me see christianity from a different perspective.
i also started studying lds church history and finding all the inconsistencies that everyone else who has left the church has found, plus just a load of whacky stuff they never EVER teach you in church. (see ISSUES)
i also started reading about science, evolution, anthropology, archeology and dna and that pretty much sealed the deal for me.
ISSUES
"the great plan of happiness".
i NEVER agreed with this claim, that living the life of an lds was the best way to obtain happiness in this life (i cant speak of the next life yet). the church teaches that "men are (exist) that they might have joy", yet you'll be hard pressed to find much joy in the lives of the lds. many members use anti-depressants. homosexual members commit suicide. the church leadership uses guilt whenever they can to get members to do whatever it is they need while at the same convincing many that giving up their time and money makes them (the members) happier.
church leaders and sex:
* masturbation is not allowed, yet there is no scriptural basis for this. anybody who says, "well it was revealed to the prophet X that it makes men and women unworthy". oh ok, so it was fine for 6000 years and then suddenly its not? give me a break. it has also never been upheld and sustained as doctrine in front of the body of the church
* telling me and my wife what we could and couldn't do in the bedroom has been a big source of pain, frustration, remorse, and UNhappiness.
science
* dna, archeology, anthropology and science in general all disprove the bible and everything based on it, including, but not limited to all of christianity, judaism and islam.
undeniable, testable and overwhelming evidence of humans before adam and eve. besides the generally known archaeological evidence, e.g. neanderthal skeletons, etc, here are some additional examples:
-- human “writing” dated 60,000 years old on ostrich egg shells
dna tests of native americans proving that the people of jerusalem are not their principal ancestors (see also rewriting history)
* homosexuality is biological. the church and its leadership are primarily responsible for the great number of suicides brought about by the church's erroneous views and statements about homosexuality.
psychology
the human brain is able to replicate/produce any sensory perception you can imagine.
* dreams - you really believe what is happening around you when you're dreaming and anything is possible in dreams
* brainwashing - parents telling their kids what to say when their children "bear their testimony", things like "i know that joseph smith was a prophet", "i know that the book of mormon is true", etc.
i remember the first time i realized what they were doing in primary was brainwashing. it was a little while after i started my journey out of the church and had been reading a lot about psychology and watching videos about psychology experiments. this experienced accelerated the process. i was in the primary with my youngest son and the primary teacher said that they were now going to say the closing prayer so she had her son come up in front and "pray". she whispered in his ear words like "i *know* the book of mormon is true" + bla bla bla, stuff a 2 year old would have no idea about what he's saying and i was like "holy shit, this is brainwashing, why the fuck have i never noticed this before?"
* life after death and near death experiences
in a national geographic program called moment of death they showed that tests with jet fighter pilots in a g-force simulator experienced similar “tunnel of light” and “life flashed before me” visions due to a lack of oxygen to the brain and a panic state of the brain.
also, death is a process and NOT only when the heart stops. people who have been pronounced “dead” and think they’ve come back to life, in certain cases, were not necessarily dead at all. if the brain is still functioning, you are still technically alive. decomposition is the only time-tested way of telling if someone is REALLY dead.
* holy ghost testimony chills, feeling of happiness - i got the same feeling mormons describe as the holy ghost testifying to you when you hear something good/true, when i watched Carl Sagan's influence on Neil Tyson when Tyson was telling about Sagan’s response to Tyson’s Cornell application and inviting him to come have a tour of Sagan’s laboratory, i got the same exact chills as members describe when they “feel the holy ghost”. i watched a top gun clip the other day where maverick had saved iceman by shooting down some russian migs and when the 2 remaining migs “bugged out” and flew home and everybody on the aircraft carrier shouted hurray and we’re happy and the guitar music kicked in i got the holy ghost chills then too =)
suppression of information
missionaries and church leaders not telling the whole story. there's no mention of polygamy or polyandry in the missionary discussions (today there are no set transcripts the missionaries are supposed to follow, like there were in previous years, they are just supposed to “follow the spirit”). members and converts look like fools when confronted by non-lds about issues and historical facts they've never been taught before. this happened to me when i saw a video on youtube about the content of the older temple endowment sessions. i was arguing with the poster and other viewers that this video was bogus since i've been through the temple many times and never heard any of this. then i ask my mother if it was true and she told me yes, the endowments have changed several times over the years. i was like "WTF?!” the church "hides" information they know will cause people to question, but think about it, if there was nothing to fear, then there would be nothing to hide. the "truth" of the church would prevail. the church finances were another aspect of this same issue. the church does all they can to hide information about the use of church finances.
boyd packer, president of the quorum of the 12 “apostles” has even threatened church education system employees for “telling the truth”:
"There is a temptation for the writer or teacher of Church history to want to tell everything, whether it is worthy or faith promoting or not. Some things that are true are not very useful." Arguing that teachers should "give milk before meat", he stated that "some things are to be taught selectively and some things are to be given only to those who are worthy." Packer's opinion applied to all historians who were members of the LDS Church: he stated, "One who chooses to follow the tenets of his profession, regardless of how they may injure the Church or destroy the faith of those not ready for 'advanced history', is himself in spiritual jeopardy. If that one is a member of the Church, he has broken his covenants and will be held accountable."
read also the talk by will bagley
use of church finances
finances are paid to the church even by poor, hungry members in 3rd world countries. there are stories of members in south america selling their gold teeth fillings to be able to afford to go to the temple and the church did nothing about it to discourage it nor to help fund these people who were sacrificing everything they had. the same with members who, during the prop 8 scandal, were ask to donate money to the cause. some even donated their whole life savings! by retelling stories like this in general conference and meetings, they are encouraging such behavior because they use it as an example of great faith and to guilt members into doing and giving more. then the church has the audacity to build a 4+ billion dollar shopping mall in SLC. the church could be doing amazing things with their money to help the world instead of hording it away, investing in worldly building projects, firing members from janitorial jobs and making members do their work for free, etc. i shouldnt say this, but i think if the church wanted to save some face and win the world over this is what they would need to do first:
* make up a revelation that says that tithing is no longer necessary, with some message like "there is sufficient meat in the lord's house"
* start using the majority of church funds to help the poor of the world, non-lds poor included.
failed prophecies
here’s one i found myself about the second coming of jesus christ (if you read the first list, you’ll see that this is the *second* failed second coming of jesus christ prophecy)
erastus snow, apostle - failed prophecy about joseph smith’s resurrection
another failed prophecy by joseph smith: the corn will grow without a hoe
http://utlm.org/onlineresources/josephsmithmethodist.htm
"
We will add one more sample of his prophetic power and practice, while translating his book. One of the neighbors whom Smith was owing, had a piece of corn on a rather wet and backward piece of ground; and as Smith was owing him, he wanted Smith to help hoe corn. Smith came on but to get clear of the work, and the debt, said: "If I kneel down and pray in your corn, it will grow just as well as if hoed." So he prayed in the corn, and insured its maturity without cultivation, and that the frost would not hurt it. But the corn was a failure in growth, and was killed by the frost.
"
“inspired” prophets/apostles
(see also “failed prophecies”)
* mark hofman fooled the prophet and apostles bigtime (show me a scriptural reference to a prophet of god being fooled by a trickster)
here’s a cool picture of the prophet and apostles wow-ing over his forgeries
* joseph fielding smith announces at a stake conference in 1961 in honolulu:
"We will never get a man into space. This earth is man's sphere and it was never intended that he should get away from it."
a couple of months later the US lands on the moon and the astronauts bring back a flag of UT that they took to the moon to give to prophet smith
rewriting history
62,0000 words added or deleted from the original History of the Church
about 4,000 changes to the book of mormon
note the recent change, in 2007, where the church leaders changed the BOM intro from:
“the Lamanites, and they are the principal ancestors of the American Indians.”
to:
“the Lamanites, and they are among the ancestors of the American Indians.”
this change has nothing to do with spelling or grammar =) it has everything to do with recent DNA research and a PR attempt to get the church out of an embarrassing situation.
joseph smith and polygamy and polyandry + temple
* married to a 14 year old.
* had at least 33 wives while he was alive. here he denies (lies) about being married to more than 1 wife (joseph smith also boasts in that same sermon that he has done greater things than jesus!)
* he married women who were already married to living men (polyandry)
* married (sealed in the temple) to women not even alive in his lifetime!:
--a woman born 195 years before him
--a woman born 15 years after he died
* joseph's first wife emma is sealed in the temple to 3 different men. her second husband who was never a mormon, was sealed (after his death) to 7 different women.
* the lds church made a deal with jews that jewish holocaust victims are EXEMPT from temple ordinances!
book of abraham proven to be a fraud
“healing”
healing is everywhere, in all religions, the lds church doesnt have a monopoly on healing. and i have even healed family members right after i had done something deemed by lds leadership as “unworthy”, before i had repented. one of my member friends says he “doesnt believe in healing outside the church”. its funny. it doesnt matter if you believe it or not, people are “healed” by non-mormons all the time. and define “healing”. and tell about all the times you’ve given healing blessings and it didnt work =)
“carthage”
joseph smith shot 3 people and killed at least 1 person in carthage before he himself was killed, according to apostle parley pratt. joseph smith was a mason and had stolen some of their secrets and used them in his own church’s temples. he knew there were masons in the “mob” and cried for their help to save his life, but they didnt help him.
“translation of gold plates”
joseph smith didnt translate gold plates. he “read” lines from a glowing seer stone inside his hat. all eyewitness accounts tell of this method of translation. yet there is no official church artistic depiction of this in the church media library, but there are fictitious depictions of joseph smith sitting directly across from olivery cowdery, translating the gold plates in plain sight. there is no eye witness account of this.
“anti-mormon literature”
the church teaches its members to not read anti-mormon literature, but the funny thing is that “anti-mormon” literature is the church’s own literature, writings/sayings of their prophets and church history =)
“special witness”
there is not one instance on lds.org of any modern-day prophet or apostle giving a “special witness” that he has seen or met jesus christ in a conscious state. the church teaches its members that apostles and prophets are “special witnesses of jesus christ”, but the actual wording (which is NOT taught in sunday school) is “special witnesses OF THE NAME OF jesus christ”. the church apostles and prophets imply in their general conference talks that they KNOW jesus christ, when in reality none of them have ever seen him.
in his talk An Apostle’s Witness of the Resurrection, President (why wouldn't they write Prophet instead?) Howard W. Hunter says:
Paul bore his apostolic witness of the Resurrection again in his letter to the Saints at Corinth:
“Am I not an apostle? am I not free? have I not seen Jesus Christ our Lord? are not ye my work in the Lord? … For the seal of mine apostleship are ye in the Lord.” (1 Cor. 9:1–2.)
“But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept … in Christ shall all be made alive.” (1 Cor. 15:20, 22.)
I humbly testify of my privilege to bear the holy apostleship and to work daily with a modern Quorum of Twelve Apostles who are disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ. We are to go forth as “special witnesses of the name of Christ in all the world.” (D&C 107:23.) And so have the Apostles always testified.
In our own day, Apostles and prophets are carrying on the work of bearing witness to the world of Jesus Christ.
you would expect Hunter to say something like:
I humbly testify that I too have seen Jesus Christ. Am I not an apostle? (Am I not the prophet of jesus christ's one and only true church?)
the lds institute program teaches that all apostles and prophets have knowledge of jesus christ (the church also teaches that knowledge is different from faith):
Remember that Amos had seen the Lord and received His message. All the prophets through the ages have had a knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ and have testified of His mission
read also this thread: have the mormon apostles seen christ?
i also just found this in the primary literature:
Explain that even though we have not seen Jesus Christ, we believe he is there. We see evidence of his existence everywhere as we look at the world that he created, as we see the stars in the heavens, and especially as we read the scriptures. We also have prophets who have told us that they have seen him. Tell the children that today they will learn of someone from the Book of Mormon who had such great faith that he actually saw Jesus Christ.
"such great faith that he actually saw Jesus Christ". interesting. this implies that if an apostle/prophet today has not seen jesus christ, it is because he has not great faith.
Q. can someone please send me a link to where an lds apostle (or even a prophet) after/besides joseph smith testifies that he has physically seen jesus christ, as paul testified and as the book of mormon prophets testified?
i cannot find any evidence of this on lds.org by searching for the following phrases:
read also have you ever seen the lord? there are references to persons in ancient scripture who say they have seen the lord and also joseph smith, but no mention of anybody after joseph smith.
the same example is also found in the seminary program:
Ether 12:38–41 . We should “seek this Jesus of whom the prophets and apostles have written.” (10–15minutes)
Write Nephi, Jacob, Isaiah, brother of Jared, and Moroni on the board and ask what they have in common. Have students search 2Nephi 11:2–3 ; Ether 3:7–8, 13 ; 12:38–39 to find the answer. Display a picture of the Savior. Ask:
* Why is it important that there be people who are witnesses of the Savior?
* Who are some others who have seen the Lord? (Answers might include the Nephites who survived destruction [see 3Nephi 11:8–10 ] and the Prophet Joseph Smith [see D&C 76:22–24 ].)
what?! no mention of the current prophet and apostles?
i posed the first question to the people on mormonapologetics.org, but it looks like they took away what i wrote. they gave me a link of david haight saying he had seen jesus in a dream. haight admits he was unconscious and jesus appeared to him. everything haight told of was already public knowledge and was things he had either previously heard, read or seen. it was by no means a “special witness” and besides, if i dream about gordon hinckley, can i say that i have seen him? no. how about superman? you get the picture.
the devil
if the plan of salvation is dependent upon satan tempting people, it makes little sense that he would play along and help god’s plan...on the contrary, he would want to frustrate god’s plan BY NOT DOING ANYTHING...
http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,19672,21312#msg-21312
church leaders would have little power over their followers without the threat of the devil, sin and punishment. the church is nothing without “the devil”.
list of illogical/unreasonable elements of the lds church
some extras from a post of mine on mormonapologetics.org
[quote name='Robert F. Smith' timestamp='1292313715' post='1208951738']
a religion which is both reasonable and logical
[/quote]
CFR. i would be interested to see a poll of random people answer logical/illogical or reasonable/unreasonable to the following issues:
* blessed is he who believe without seeing (good recipe for getting scammed). its more like "foolish is he who believe without seeing."
* adam and eve being transplanted here from outer space and being the first male and female on the earth
* pay us 10% of your income and you wont be burned at jesus' second coming, and dont ask us how we use the money, we're not going to tell you
* church members are not allowed to write directly or call *general authorities*, any communication will be redirected to your local stake president/leaders
* mark hofmann tricking the prophet, first presidency and apostles into buying false documents/artifacts. getting convicted of murder, then offered a plea bargain by utah state so as to not have to bring the church leaders to the stand to testify, so as to avoid embarrassment for being tricked
* joseph smith and polygamy and polyandry
* joseph smith being sealed to at least 203 women, one of which was born 169 years before him and 1 woman who was born 15 years after his death (these are only the most extreme cases, but there are many instances of this)
* the church's need for an apologist organization
* faith is necessary for god to perform "miracles" supported by the laws of science
* immaculate conception
* jeffrey holland saying he is holding hyrum's copy of the book of mormon in general conference when there is proof he wasnt
* joseph smith refusing to tell about the translation process when asked in public by his brother hyrum (HOC)
* joseph smith claiming to have done greater things even than jesus did (HOC)
* joseph fielding smith proudly proclaiming from the pulpit that man will never get to the moon
* 170 years of "native americans are lamanites", but then the church changes the BOM intro in 2007 from "the principal ancestors" to "among the ancestors".
* baptism of 8 year olds, as if an 8 year old is in any position to make a life-binding decision
* whispering to small children what they should say they "know" when bearing a testimony in church (brainwashing)
* missionaries (young and old, even mission presidents) who already pay 10% of their income must also pay themselves to serve their church, full time, for 2 years (still 1.5 years for young women? 3 years for mission presidents?)
* great inconsistencies among church leaders regarding sexual practices within marriage. some say oral sex is forbidden, others say it isnt.
* the principle of faith: if there's too much evidence that the church is true, then faith would be destroyed (god has to keep some things hidden/unproven)
* no public testimonies of living apostles/prophets ("special witnesses") saying they have seen/personally met jesus christ
* members asked in the temple to give their own lives if necessary to build up the kingdom of god
* lds campaigning to be identified as christians, yet denying flds to be identified as mormons
* denying blacks the priesthood until 1978, (note: the Civil Rights Act was passed in the US in 1964, 14 years earlier)
* no church art of joseph smith with his head in a hat, "translating" the gold plates
* boyd packer telling the church educational system teachers "There is a temptation for the writer or teacher of Church history to want to tell everything, whether it is worthy or faith promoting or not. Some things that are true are not very useful."
* church prophets giving supposedly sacred handshakes to powerful political leaders who are members of other similar secret societies: monson+bush, hinckley+cheney. lay members would most likely be excommunicated for this and bring upon themselves the judgements of god, "for god will not be mocked"
* jesus christ's church suing people for copyright infringement who post church materials online
no apologetic responses required here because that would disprove the apparent logic/reasonableness of these points
