Only Mormons who are considering an exit. As for us never-Mormons, we've never given it the slightest thought. Outside looking in makes a huge difference.
Not at all, although before I had all the facts it was a little scary.
The safest bet in town is that the church is not true. It's not true because it can't be true. There can be a God. There can be a Jesus. There can even be UFOs and Bigfoot. But the church can't be true because reality and truth don't allow it.
I think we need to determine what kind of truth we are dealing with. There are many different types of truth. In the case of religious claims, it's subjective truth. It's truth that deals with visions, metaphysical and supernatural claims. Those are about believing in someone else's experiences as their "truth." Religion is not about factual truths that are proved by evidences. They are truths held by faith.
It is quite easy to disabuse any notion of ancient records or translations as they have no factual evidence that will stand up to scrutiny.
We can believe almost anything by faith. And we are free to do so. Humans tend to easily gravitate to a deity, savior etc. that teaches love, for instance. It's a place of comfort -- emotionally.
"The Power of Myth" by Joseph Campbell is a very good book that puts religious mythology in the Big Picture as a part of the human experience throughout human history.
I have concluded that I want to place my faith in verifiable evidence that stands up to scrutiny. Sometimes, my lack of knowledge requires that I stick with a good dose of faith. I'm not sure I understand how the earth stays in it's orbit, but I'll accept the scientific evidence, and place my faith in that system.
When thinking about how religions work within humanity it became clear to me that deities/saviors, etc. are the creation of humans and their imagination and how they try to understand their world around them and find comfort in it. Religions are here to stay in some form. Humans need them. They are the framework of most societies.
I did for a long time and that's what kept me going. I wish I would have had the courage to study for myself when I first start realizing that things weren't right. I would have saved myself immense amounts of guilt and anxiety.
If it's all true or semi-true my God will let me back in the house (heaven). Like the best parent you can imagine... That's my God.
It is so easy to see how fake Mormonism is when you begin to study it with a critical eye. Not wanting it to be true. Not wanting it to be false. Just a critical eye.
To all you TBM's out there the Mormon Church is not what it claims. May be some good things. There are some bad things. However if it is not what it claims to be then you are wasting your time.
As a nevermo, I started snickering at, "The angel took the golden plates away." Um, yeah.
Beyond that, Joseph Smith's poor character is all I need to know. He is simply not believable. I have higher standards than to follow someone like that.
I'm pretty sure he was lying about the angel, but angels have their place. In fact, modern science was started by an angel (the Angel of Truth) that appeared to Rene Descartes in his sleep. See http://www.shkaminski.com/Classes/Readings/Roszak10.htm
It's likely that Joseph knew of this and ripped it off too.
Nope. If there was even the slightest possibility, I might still be an active, tithe-paying member. There's simply no chance. The BoM is verifiable fiction, the BoA is not what they claim, the priesthood restoration story was made up after the fact, etc...
I wanted it to be true for a while. I studied and prayed, studied and prayed, etc... The church is condemned by the facts AND by Joe's/Moroni's failed promise.
The motive for mormonism is money. The top leaders benefit from the slave labours of the minions. All those expensive buildings while members pay tithing and go without what they need because church won't help them.
That's the whole reason for its existence. It's got nothing to do with saving the human race.
The church stands a snowball's chance in hell of being true.
You mean like there's actually a Celestial Kingdom where once you get past Joseph at the velvet rope you have to give the secret passwords and handshakes in order to prove that you paid enough money to get there?
That isn't scary that' terrifying. But also too ridiculous to be either.
I had a few of those 'stabbing pains' in the form of "what if" just after I realized the church was a lie. For me it was because I knew none of the facts, or as some call it "anti material." Getting all the facts later made those "what if" moments stop--and they usually lasted one second before my reasonable brain put a stop to them.
They go away as you live a normal life and the brainwashing fades to black.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/28/2015 03:54PM by blueorchid.
Big decisions cause a lot of anxiety for some of us. The anxiety will pass.
The best way to be sure of your decision is to study. The more you read from objective, non church controlled sources, the sooner you will see what really happened. Their is a vast amount of detail that adds up to only one conclusion.
Scared that the church is true. That sentence says a lot. About how it's a cult of fear and force. If it was good you'd expect people to rejoice at the possibility that it might be true.
The church cannot possibly be true because there is so much evidence against it. So it does not scare me at all.
Now I suppose there could be this big conspiracy kind of thing to make the church look false when actually it is true. Let us suppose that God is evil and cruel. Or alternately, let us suppose that God is weak, but Satan is all-powerful. Either way, one of these two evil entities could spend great effort arranging the world so that everything hides the existence of God and Satan and makes it seem like the church is not true.
Suppose the Bible is true and the earth is only 6000 years old. So how can the evil deity get around this and make the world look really old? There are quite a few ways. Plant dinosaur bones that appear to be millions of years old. Have geological features like the Grand Canyon that could not have formed by the action of water in only 6000 years. Create bristlecone pines with 8,000 years of tree rings so that they appear to be older than the earth. Create stars so far away that light cannot reach the earth in 6000 years and also create the light in between so it looks like light has been traveling for more than 6000 years.
Pretty wild conspiracy theory, but if you look hard enough, you can find a sucker who will believe practically anything.
It's very scary at first, thinking of all the threats that 'might' happen if you don't follow 'all' the true-blue rules, but once you awaken to the fact that the rules are man-made, the fear dissolves.
Threats are a tool of the weak, not a tool of a god.