At least for me, my Mormon training included a lot, and I mean a LOT of bashing directed at other religions. It started with the great apostasy following the original apostles deaths.
The Catholic church became the "Whore of all the Earth". All of the Protestant offshoots were just people trying to fix the previous set of problems but without any authority etc. There was all kinds of fear about the outside world thrown in there too.
When Mormonism failed it pushed everything else down a notch or two since all other beliefs were already underneath it. I tried for several months to hang onto a belief in God - some kind of God, any kind of God. Eventually they all failed.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/25/2014 12:08PM by koriwhoremonger.
As a TBM we are taught that TSCC is the "one and only true church of God". The other churches may be good in some ways or have some truths, but not the complete truth. When we find out that TSCC is not what it claims, then what do you think logically follows?
I became convinced (via brainwashing) that TSCC is the only true church, then I became enlightened (via personal study) to the truth that it is not. After that the only choice available was . . . nothing.
That's where I am right now. Nothing. And I can't see myself accepting an religion. I honestly don't know how Grant Palmer, Sandra Tanner and many of the people on this board can believe in Christianity. I don't want to discredit them at all. Every person can believe anything they want to believe. I simply find it hard to have any faith in any religion. The only thing I believe in is hard science. My personal God is DNA because every living thing on this earth is related via DNA. If science eventually proves that DNA came from outer space, then I might believe in extra-terrestrials.
After leaving TSCC, my new god became my own brain (and brains in general). What a remarkable organ!! Thousands of years of evolutionary refining.
A close second would be the vast incomprehensible universe.
I'll never WORSHIP anything or anybody again. Were there a god (which I don't believe there is), s/he wouldn't need for me to worship him nor would I benefit from doing so.
I guess it all depends upon how you are rooted in the church. I have seen those that had folks with christian backgrounds bring mormons out and they became Christians themselves, then on the other hand I have seen those that found the truth on their own and had nowhere else to turn and became atheist
My mother in law is convinced that I am "mad at God" after I found that the church wasn't true. How can I be mad at something that I'm not sure exists? I don't currently believe in God because the mormon God was all I was taught to believe in. I dont know Christian God. I knew Mormon God who isn't real. That being said, I find that after 20+ years of brainwashing that speculation is dangerous... so I try not to search for answers I know I'll never find. If I happen to find out one day, I wont be upset, but I'm not going to actively go chasing it anymore. Honestly, I like the mystery. I think it's beautiful that there are things we will never know about our lives. I think if we had everything figured out, we would lose interest in living. But anyway, I do not claim to be atheist because IMHO to claim that there is no God is just as stupid as claiming that there is one. The point is NO ONE KNOWS.
TSCC seems to inoculate many against other churches (like some take a dislike to members of the opposite sex because of a bad relationship). I imagine that if you're based in Utah it can be an all or nothing thing.
I'm not for dictatorial, judgmental churches or dictatorial atheists but personally I've found that some Christians can be good 'travelling companions' but other than that, I reserve the right to fathom out life for myself.
Part of my exit from the church had me studying the New Testament. As I was reading, I found myself rolling my eyes and thinking to myself, this is all nonsense. ALL OF IT!
So now I'm in a place where I'm not sure if there's some kind of higher power or afterlife. But I am disillusioned, at the very least, with Christianity.
And yes, I'm pretty sure some of that has to do with "We are the truth" "No one else has the whole truth" "They have a portion of the truth", etc. Top down kind of thing.
Edit to add: I feel I was tricked by religion. I fell for my feelings of "The Spirit", relied on my parents' and others'testimonies as proof and validation for my beliefs. Then add my lifelong indoctrination and living in a Mormon bubble and I can no longer go with "feelings" and "faith" in things not seen.
Fool me once...
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/25/2014 01:18PM by claire.
Looking back, I had been an atheist all along but had been deeply indoctrinated into Mormonism. My subconscious spent years trying to get my conscious self to realize I didn't believe any of it, including the existence of a supreme being. I finally got it after I escaped the indoctrination factory.
I am an exmo. "No Man knows My History" helped a ton. Since my dad died at a young age from a heart attack (aided by being excommunicated and he wasn't even active), I have been researching life after death personal stories. There is an incredible amount of information on the subject out there.
I have noticed this too. So many BIC Mormons turn to atheism. Haven’t written my bio yet so will save all that for later, but will just say that I found out the truth about 3 months ago after 32 years as a faithful member. I sent in my resignation letter yesterday to SLC.
When I learned the truth, I felt so betrayed and angry that tscc had stolen decades of my life, my labor and my money. In my heart I declared that they would not take one more thing from me again. Though I had lost my faith in the church, I would not let them take away my faith in Christ. I was raised in a Baptist church, became an atheist for years until I found God again as an adult.
I guess what I’m saying is that I am sad to see so many turn from faith in God because they lost their faith in that stinking lie of a church. I don’t blame you for feeling like you can’t trust Him anymore. I felt that way too once. Now that tscc is out of the way, I feel closer to Him than I ever have in my life. I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving this week. Your comments have helped me so much in my ongoing recovery.
My theory, and I'm sure it's not just mine, is that most exMormons will return to what the were before they were Mormon. Converts often go back to their various Christian churches. What does a BIC go back to? Atheism. All children are born atheists. They lack belief in God until someone tells them to believe it.
Even as a TBM I thought the God of the Bible was a despicable asshole. The God of Mormonism was only slightly better. When I left the church, I tried to stay in the church of Overeaters Anonymous and keep my squishy "force for good in the Universe". When my daughter died, I asked the God of my understanding for a smidge of comfort, no miracle, just a spec of something. NOTHING. NOTHING. So there it was.
Fool me once shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
Being duped by Mormonism left me with a deep desire to examine everything closer than ever before and never be fooled again. So far I have seen nothing in any other religion that didn't seem to be just almost the same thing, just a different brand--Mormon Lite--seemingly a little less toxic, but still not good for you. I like science where being wrong about something is considered an exciting new discovery.
Statistically I would guesstimate a higher likelihood of BIC mormons ending up nonreligious than converts. But it is merely an educated guess for statistical outcomes, it cannot tell you anything about specific people even if true.
I'd also suggest that it depends on your affinity within mormonism. From my experience there are two kind of orientations within mormonism. One is toward Heavenly Father and the other is towards Jesus. For people like me, HF-oriented, the Jesus parts of mormonism never made any sense and never played a big part in my religious outlook. Thus already from the start of my exodus I was not a christian. Not that that should be confused with atheism, but it does make a difference.
After letting my never-mo aunt know that I no longer believed in the mormon church, she gave me a book to read with her hand written note that she wanted me to know where she was coming from. The book was called Unveiling Grace by Lynn Wilder.
It was an interesting book for me, because she absolutely nailed the mormon experience. The second half of the book I had trouble with, because she seemed to be doing the same "feeling based testimony" with her belief in more mainstream christianity.
It was the same thing, just a different verse. I myself don't know if there is a god out there. Agnostic I guess. If there is a god out there I don't think he interferes with us in any way. Otherwise I would have to conclude that he is a jerk, and I wouldn't want to worship him.
There was never bashing of other religions in my upbringing. My Mom was Presbyterian when I was a kid (she joined the Cult when I was 11), and I had uncles, aunts an cousins who were Catholic, Presbyterian and Anglican in addition to the Mormons on Dad's side. My dislike of religion in general and Mormonism in particular led me to just not care about having any religion in my life.
I looked into other religions and simply found them to be based on similar ideations that are illogical, dogmatic and silly. They all seem to depend on faith, so I began to deconstruct faith and figure out what it really is. To me, Peter Boghossian describes it best. "Pretending to know things you do not know." I now reject faith and walk in the light of reason. There's no evidence that God exists. The universe appears exactly as it would if there was no god. A careful study of the bible and the origins of the christ story shows stong evidence that the bible isn't true, just made up and Jesus probably is a myth. He never existed either, just a trope like many other similar beings imagined before him.
Once I was able to completely deconstruct an entire religion, it wasn't hard for me to completely deconstruct god n the bible. Im atheist now and quickly became so as I saw the light.
Just because I was raised in TMC - a fantasy of con man Joseph Smith - means nothing and has no bearing whatsoever on how I believe or what I believe in, or don't. It simply means I don't believe in Mormonism, it's lies and patterns.
As some others have pointed out, we don't know Christian god. Mormon god was different from Christian god.
When I left Mormonism, there was simply nowhere to go. I couldn't be Protestant. I didn't and couldn't believe in the Trinity in the way that mainstream Christianity did. That never made any sense to me at all.
I was left with a blank slate. Back to square one.
A big part of realizing Mormonism isn't true is realizing the Bible is not true. I put more weight in the bible than I did in any other LDS scriptures as a TBM. So It is not Just Mormonism I became a non believer of, anything with a biblical base receives my skepticism.
There is more to it than "I won't be fooled again." The atheist mind set at the end of the line is a tribute to the "one true church" brainwashing that continues to exist at a subconscious level long after you determine the church is a fraud.
Nice try. But, you really don't understand atheism if you frame it like that. Most atheists I know don't believe there is one true anything. The whole idea is to remain open minded while leaning toward fact and evidence--at least for me.
You are once again confusing atheism with your own Christian surety since you do believe their is one true way--the Christian way.
YOU are more like Mormonism.
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/26/2014 11:11PM by blueorchid.