Which deity did you lose belief in first -- God or JS?

In a brilliant post, Amos2 wrote:
"Realizing God is bogus, IMO, is on a steeper glideslope than Mormons realizing their sect is bogus with respect to God.
I think in 100 years God will be fighting for His Holy Life. Joseph Smith may still be around too...a small fish to fry...and thus the SS Minnow goes down because it was tied to the Titanic."
http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,756028

I lost faith in JS first, and God and Jesus followed about 24 hours later.

But, in retrospect, I had doubted God long before I doubted JS. God was the one behind the whole shaky affair, God was not delivering no the various promises I was supposed to have by being a righteous individual. God seemed to have bizarre, difficult-to-swallow rules and regulations pertaining to this life on earth, etc.

But I think I believed in God *because* I believed in The Mormon Church and JS. In the end, it took JS to fall before God fell, in my beliefs.

*********

Amos2 proposes that with upcoming generations God is going to have a much tougher time of it than in the past. I grew up in the 70s and 80s, lots of folks believed in God, God had a role for many of my Christian friends in HS, etc.

I take great joy in Amos2's theory that God may be on his way out, which will undermine the whole Mormon affair in ways that will be difficult for it to reckon with.

Your thoughts, your experiences?

RG



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/10/2013 03:44PM by reinventinggrace.

For me there were two sides of the same coin - both beliefs eroded in parallel.

In my case I felt like things didn't add up for years but the thing that kept me partially believing was that multiple spiritual experiences I had. So in order to not believe I hand to firmly conclude that those feelings came from myself and not from God.

Once I finally came to terms that those feelings were from myself and not from God (largely because their were so many problems with the church that I couldn't believe it) my belief in both God & Mormonism were gone.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/10/2013 03:57PM by bc.

I addressed this issue at some length in one of my very first posts on RfM. I thought it was a very interesting discussion the , and I still do now. So as not to hijack your thread, I'll just post the link here:
http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,28068,30256#msg-30256



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/10/2013 03:51PM by resipsaloquitur.

First the Church with the BoM.
Than the New Testament measuring the NT at the same measurements as the BoM.
Well - I still believe in a god.
But like a old man and TBM and big wig of my ward once told me.
God is not in a Religion, Church, Synagogue or any scriptures.
God is in your spiritual thoughts, is more a very intimate experience.

I think for me it was my faith in the LDS institution that fell first. I didn't really think much about JS. And I gave God another couple of chances.

In fact, for my final few years as a TBM I had secretly believed that JS was a fallen prophet. Loss of belief in God came over the next few weeks and was much, much more difficult.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/10/2013 04:06PM by stbleaving.

Joseph Smith fell first. After 5 years, I'm still God-haunted.

As the novelist Graham Greene once said: “The trouble is, I don’t believe my unbelief.”

reinventinggrace Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> But, in retrospect, I had doubted God long before
> I doubted JS. God was the one behind the whole
> shaky affair, God was not delivering no the
> various promises I was supposed to have by being a
> righteous individual. God seemed to have bizarre,
> difficult-to-swallow rules and regulations
> pertaining to this life on earth, etc.
>
> But I think I believed in God *because* I believed
> in The Mormon Church and JS. In the end, it took
> JS to fall before God fell, in my beliefs.

That's almost exactly how it was for me. It occurred to me that there is probably no God when I was about seven years old. It was the possibility of Smith being true that kept the door open for God. Once I was able to discount Smith, that closed the door on God, which should have been closed all that time.

Yep.

For me it was - God doesn't make sense.
The church doesn't make sense.

But I've had all these feelings that I've been taught means God is read and the church is true...

Technically I suppose it was god, but once that belief was gone there was no reason to hold on to JS, so I guess it was simultaneous.

I've shared this before on this board, but once more can't hurt... :) Over the course of approximately 2 minutes, I transitioned from being a miserable mormon with a "weak testimony" who hated herself for being so wicked that god wouldn't answer her fervent prayers for more faith, to happily abandoning the whole idea of religion. All it took was a lightning flash of self-worth ("I'm a good person") to realize that maybe the problem wasn't with ME, but with TSCC. I found myself thinking, "What if it's not true? What if I left the church?" Immediately I resolved to make absolutely certain it WASN'T true before I did anything drastic. I figured the best place to start, to make sure I had a complete understanding of the gospel, was with the Bible. So I picked up my OT and started reading Genesis, Chapter 1. A few verses in, I shut the book and never went back.

It was all nonsense, and now that I was reading it with a "let's find out of it's true" attitude rather than a "let's make myself believe it's true" attitude, it was evident. The JudeoChristian/Abrahamic version of god was nonsense. He didn't exist.

I didn't even have to consider Joseph Smith after that. He was a nonissue.

I love this story, Judy. It's amazing to me how easy and refreshing it is to wave sky daddy off with utter disregard, and how one suffers no ill effects from doing so, despite all the promises of hell and torture.

To be fair, I did hold on to some kind of supernatural belief system for a few months. I have lost loved ones, and the idea of losing that comforting afterlife assurance was difficult. So I thought there might be some kind of spiritual presence that lingers after we die, or some bigger plan. But once I shut my bible that day I never again believed in any kind of Sky Daddy or active deity.

I don't see the difference. Even though in linear time I realized Joseph Smith was a fraud before I realized theism was illogical, it was the universal application of critical thinking skills that easily disposed of both.

Folks who realize Joseph was a fraud and still continue to believe in a form of deity are simply being dishonest with themselves. Any argument made to defend a deity can just as easily be applied to a belief that Joseph Smith was a prophet.

I was never a worshiper of JS. I never saw him as more than a church leader. I had been inactive for about 10 years when my old nonmo boyfriend came back into my life. He DID NOT believe I had lost my beliefs as I was such a perfect little mormon girl when he dated me years before. One late Friday night while talking to him, he dropped the name JS--afraid that I'd take exception to anything he had to say. Basically, JS had disappeared from my consciousness. It blew my mind to hear that name. He was never anyone I saw as being special.

and the jury's still out on belief in a god. Joseph Smith was just some bloke who dreamed up a scam.

Briggy

Joseph Smith fell first, but God didn't. I kept the two separated.

By the end, the only thing I really like about the TSCC was the whole 'eternal progression' thing. No other church had anything like that. It really made sense to me that if you were going to live forever, you should be continually learning and getting better. I found that appealing even after the church started losing some of it's 'glamour'.

So then when I realized the church was a lie, I had no reason to shift believe to anything. I'd already studied and discarded the rest.

So for me--- it was J.S. by a nose.

JS and the BoM in tandem, then the Old Testament (sans most of Ecclesiastes), finally gave up on gospel of John and God entirely. Happened over course of 3 months or so at end of my mission.

That my local leaders were inspired by God.

Joseph Smith definitely fell for me first. There were some things about him that had been on my shelf for a long time, like the "Joseph Smith or the sword" quote, and polygamy. He always looked like a narcissist to me. But I convinced myself that God has to work through imperfect people.

Then I became aware (thanks, MormonThink!) of how ridiculous Joe's translations of the facsimiles were, and the whole thing just crumbled. There was just no way I could continue believing that he was a prophet, or in contact with God in any way.

I spent a couple of weeks trying to figure out if I could still be a Christian, but then I realized that I just didn't have anything anymore on which to base a belief in God. And without a reason to believe in God, I just didn't.

Even when I was a believing Mormon, I never liked the Joseph Smith worship that went on. After all, according to Mormon dogma, we were supposed to worship Elohim and only Elohim, right?

So Smith was never that big of a deal to me. I left Mormonism long before I really studied it. After I did, Mormonism and Joseph Smith both collapsed. I then applied the same techniques to the Bible and Christianity fell.

However, I still believed in some sort of a God after that. It took some more researching in cosmology to realize that the entire universe works - and could have begun - without a god.

That's when I became atheist. Ever since, I've really only seen information that confirms it for me.

Both at the same time. It all sounded made up to me, even as a young child of 6 or 7 years old. It also never matched up to my experience as a living human being at that age. Used to drive my TBM dad nuts with my non-belief as a child not even baptized....Satan isn't supposed be able to get at kids under 8 years old!

Mormonism spent a LOT of time trying to convince me its version of Christianity was valid. So, ironically, that's where my skepticism started. If they had just told me the JS story a couple of times when I was little and then moved on, I probably would have seen it as something as certain as gravity. But, no. They kept telling me over and over and over that the church is TRUE. Really really really it is! Okay, but there's no need to bear witness of the reality of gravity, only of things that are in doubt. So, why would there be doubt? Who doubted? They say a lot of smart people believe in Mormonism, but millions more smart people say it's baloney. Hmmmm...

JS first, then god a year later. Bliss. Liberation. Validation. And best of all...inner peace.

JS, the Devil, Jesus, God in that order