Have been watching the news about Egypt and the change that is taking place there. Wael Ghonim, the Google executive who was arrested then released, talks about how the internet was instrumental in precipitating the revolution there.

This got me thinking about the internet and the quasi-revolution taking place within the Mormon church. 20 years ago, how many of us would have believed what is taking place right now. We are making change in the church in that we are undermining the power the church has. With less members, there is less money. Too, more and more people world wide are refusing this small UT religion. Missions are being closed, wards consolidated, leaders leaving.

Thank you google god, if it weren't for you or the internet, I could still be paying tithing; doing home teaching; sitting for 3 hours in church; cleaning it on my Saturday, volunteering to put up temple lights; work at the cannery, church farm; saving for missionary funds; starving myself once a month; endless meetings; being guilted into not watching TV on Sunday. And recounting faith promoting stories to help neutralize cog dis.


P.S. how many people here besides Richard Packam and some others, left the church without the use of the internet?

due to what I stumbled onto via the internet.

But, what I love about the internet is that it's helping to flush out (pardon the visual) the "best and brightest" in the church. Those people that Packer so sneeringly calls "intellectuals."

Personally I just did it the old fashioned way in the early 80s, equal parts boredom, temptation, and intellectual inquiry. ;-)

I left before the internet, but not because I researched or found anything out. I just got tired of everyone else running my life for me. I also loved Beer and Sex(still do) and was willing to risk damnation for them. Later on I realize how stupid everything was.

I left without the internet due to reading Jerald & Sandra Tanner's books. I heard about these famous "anti-Mormons" and was curious what they could POSSIBLY have against the "true church." I assumed I could rebut their stuff because, as you know, anti-Mormons only write "lies and half-truths." Well, it was all documented and true and couldn't find anything to rationalize it away. My testimonkey quickly vanished and could no longer believe in it.

This was on my mission, but I guarantee I would have left sooner had the internet been available. It still blows my mind that millions of Mormons today still have not had the intellectual curiosity to simply browse a couple critical websites like this one and discover the truth.

I found my way out sans the web trough library searches after some exmo's handed out materials at open-house for the Chicago Temple. I thought they were mormons LOL. Hey! Why should only mo-mishies have the monopoly. I'm glad they were there.

but I just knew it was boring and stupid, but had not begun to be disgusted by it. I didn't know about the fraudulent history or the morg's bad practices until I came here. Now I wouldn't even go back to visit.

Before you make Google God --in itself and/or as a synecdoche--, please consider, at the least, this article:

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2011/02/14/110214crat_atlarge_gopnik?currentPage=all

if not read some Nicholas Carr:

http://www.roughtype.com/


In a nutshell, the same tools used to revolt can be used also to oppress. (I guess the same goes for religion, come to think of it.)

Human

(I found my way out of LDSinc sans internet and even sans "anti-Mormon" literature. Without doubt, the internet makes it easier. I can't underestimate how comforting it was to have my doubts and experience confirmed by others.)

I am now 74 years old. I was BIC. My great grandfather was an apostle. I was the first of 16 grandchildren to leave.

As a boy I just knew that something wasn't right. I read "No Man Knows My History" and that was the beginning. This was long before the internet.

Somehow, I believe that some people are just born with no religion in their DNA. I was one of those.

apfvrf, I think there is something genetic about religious tendencies. I never had any use for "The Church" from the time I was little. I skipped primary classes and argued about going to meetings. I always hated the racial doctrine. My father tried to physically beat the religion into me, but it just made my backside sore. Joseph Smith was nowhere in my tears.

I agree about the genetics. I never liked church and left as soon as I could move out of my parent's house. I didn't do any research until years later.

So we have quite a few here who have left without the internet. However, of course the vast majority of us, I would think, have left due to going online, eh?

I lost my faith without the use of the internet. But I felt stuck, like I was in Mormonism for good, and couldn't do anything about it. After all, I made promises, right? but sites like NOM, Post-Mo and this site made me realize I was not alone. Thanks to RfM specifically, I learned that I could resign if I wanted to. It honestly never occured to me before that I could resign.

to the Internet and quite by accident I came across reader reviews of Simon Southerton's book. I ordered it online from amazon and within two weeks I knew the religion I grew up in was a total fraud.

Soon after that I found RfM in 2007. I still laugh out loud at the obvious lies and marvel at how effective the morg's brainwashing was on me and so many others.

I was going on a handcart trip with my ward. I decided to prepare myself for the trip by reading up on the Martin and Willie handcart companies.

I went to the internet, and somehow got onto the website The Wives of Joseph Smith. I couldn't believe it!! I read all teh stories, and then I went to the church geneological site and confirmed the names and dates!!

So, while everyone else in my ward was having a great spiritual experience on the handcart trip, I was freaking out over Josephs Smith's polygamy and polyandry.

When I was finally ready for the truth, a few years later, I started with the internet, and then went to the books.


If it hadn't been for the internet, I probably would never have dared to buy and read the books.

I left last Jan. 2010, I went to internet about the BOA. and then the rest was history...... wow thank-you google god too.

I would still be cleaning the bathrooms in the ward, picking up the rotten cheerios out of song book holders in the chapel. Taken the many trash bags full of smelly diapers to the back of parking lot, eweweweeewewe!!!

I left without the Internet. A brain is a terrible thing to waste.

I am a never-mo, but have many mormon friends. I live in the morridor, and I first became interested in the philosophical and/or doctrinal underpinnings of mormonism when I saw the negative impacts it had on my friend's lives.

My first ah-ha moment was not internet-related. I was walking around downtown Salt Lake City, more or less in tourist mode, when I noticed that the sculptures of male mormon historical figures bore the names of the men represented. There were far fewer sculptural representations of women, and most of those were iconic, i.e. mother and moral guide to male offspring. The women remained, for the most part, nameless. The level of misogyny was shocking.

It was cold in Temple Square, but the male missionaries were comfortably dressed. Female missionaries wore thin tights and thin low-heeled or flat shoes. They were freezing their feet and legs, all the while smiling like stepford wives.

Men who looked like FBI agents congealed around my brother and I like mormon jello when we took out cameras. "There's a guy here with a beard. He's taking photos." This was delivered quietly into a wrist microphone, while the guy adjusted his earpiece. Apparently, he thought I was deaf and wouldn't hear him rounding up the troops.

Downtown SLC felt like a theocracy. It didn't feel like the USA. I remember thinking, what is this, Iran?

After that, I did spend some time on the internet. Mormonism never disappoints. It always turns out to be worse than you imagined.

I NEVER went online until I decided to leave and proclaim to family and my bishie my unbelief. I only read church approved sources. We owned the 26 volumes of the J of D, the 7 volumes of JS history of the church and 6 volumes of BH Roberts History of the Church. I read most of those and a few books I found at DB that they no longer sell: Emma Smith, Mormon Enigma and Todd Compton's In Sacred Lonliness.

I was SO indoctrinated I really was afraid to go on line, that the devil lived there or some stupid thing, MOSTLY that all I would find were anti mormon lies, and I only wanted the truth. I started my studies at age 51, I know, very old , and finally came out and left at age 56. It took me 5 years of study to get the courage and absolute certainly that the church was false, although I pretty much suspected that in only one week. It was just all very scary.

@think4u:
"I only read church approved sources. We owned the 26 volumes of the J of D, the 7 volumes of JS history of the church and 6 volumes of BH Roberts History of the Church. I read most of those and a few books I found at DB that they no longer sell: Emma Smith, Mormon Enigma and Todd Compton's In Sacred Lonliness."

Those materials should have given you a clue right there!

Maybe I did not make it clear, but those sources ARE the reason I am out, the exact reason I left. That is how I studied out, not with the help of the internet, which would have been far easier. It just took me a while to get the courage to tell my family and leave, but those sources early on made it very clear the church had much to hide, and that it could not be true.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/10/2011 05:56PM by think4u.

For me it was a combination of things -- books, podcasts, kindle ...

BUT, echoing what "Human" said -- the church is starting to play the online game too. I see disinfo from the BYU roundtable podcast and other official church sources.

I don't think they can win in the end. Information is like water. It will find a way out.