I can't pinpoint the exact day on the calendar, it must have been about 20 years ago, but I remember the euphoria that engulfed me when I realized that Joseph Smith Jr concocted everything out of his imagination, including his visions and other metaphysical claims. There were no so-called Golden Plates. No translations. He made it all up. He plagiarized other works to create the Book of Mormon which is about imaginary people, places and things.

Suddenly, it all became clear. I jumped up from my computer punching the air: yes, yes, yes. I knew there was something wrong with this picture. The core was rotten.

I had been researching and reading books and on line web sites for months, when it hit me like a bolt of lightening. Every single Mormon ordinance from baptism to temple covenants were devoid of substance, not binding in any way, just religious costuming wrapped around bastardized Masonic rituals to extract money and time. Poppycock. Smoke and mirrors.

That began my Very Personal Exit Process from Mormonism. I changed my mind. I would give myself permission to allow a new World View to evolve. I'd been trying to reconcile what I had experienced and observed for years.

I officially resigned in 2002, about four years after that moment when I knew I had to extricate myself from a religion I could no longer accept or believe, even by faith. I'd place my faith in reliable evidence from here on. I was a convert. I had changed my mind about religion and a lot of other subjects.

Did any of you have a kind of epiphany? A moment of clarity?

I know just how you felt.

Before that, I was like this:

No BoM archeology...ignore, believe, put on shelf.
"Gold Plates" make no sense...ignore, believe, put on shelf.
No "reformed Egyptian"...ignore, believe, put on shelf.
1978 "revelation"...ignore, believe, put on shelf.
Joseph polygamy/polyandry...ignore, believe, put on shelf.
BoA "translations" flat-out wrong...ignore,believe, put on shelf.
Shelf...getting...full...

Then came the day I simply accepted: "None of it's true."

My shelf never really gave in, I did. And then I pulled all that cog-dis-shelf-stuff off, one by one, and tossed 'em. Left with a light, clear, clean, empty shelf.

Oh, what a feeling! :)

I was reading the book written by Joseph Smith's mother to prepare to give a talk. When I read how his father had a dream similar to the one that Lehi had, it occurred to me that maybe Joseph had incorporated events that he knew about into the Book of Mormon. Once I started down that path, everything that I accepted previously began to evaporate.

When I was discussing my *doubts* with the bishop, the first question from him was, "Have you been reading anti-mormon literature?" I had to laugh. I said no, just the faith promoting stuff.

Lowpriest

Anti-Mormon stuff is useless. The real Mormon history is where the reliable information is found! Those people wrote everything down. Again and again and again. The more I read, from as close to original sources as I could get, the more bizarre it got.

I found the best info in the Institute Library reading the Reference Books they won't let anyone check out. So I sat and read for a couple of hours. Apparently, my giggling could be heard by the Institute Director and he came in on the lame excuse he wanted to a reference and needed a D&C, and was one section off. Ya. Right. My BS detector went off, again! Beep, beep, beep! Liar liar pants on fire. I just smiled and gave him the correct section.

I have the whole set of the B.H. Roberts Comprehensive history in paperback. If the members read those books, they would wonder what those other stories were all about, those "lets white wash the history so it sounds plausible" stories!!

You made me remember a line that Captain Hook said in the movie Hook. He did not need to lie because, "the truth is far too fun."

Was verified by document files historical information then I knew.

The thing was how could one possibly justify feeling guilt or shame and harassing oneself with endless church generated commands orchestrating your life your weekends your investment limiting options opportunities for yourself forward and for your entire family....that day I knew.

I had struggled for years with all the things that had transpired in my life over my marriage and my dealings with church leaders. After my ex had been gone about 10 years, I had time to start walking. I used to try to figure out how I got where I was while I would walk.

My friend's daughter was getting married. Every time something would go wrong with her marriage plans, she'd say, "The church is still true, so what does it matter?" My friend had told me that. I was walking at the track and all of a sudden it occurred to me,
"IT MATTERED TO ME." I went home and wrote how I saw it all down in a journal. Never second guessed. I was JUST DONE.

My therapist sent me here a few years later because I was still wearing garments and I had had several people ask me why (in my family), so my therapist sent me here. The doctrinal issues wree just icing on the cake.

I can certainly stay for SURE that the temple rites are devoid of substance. I have to admit I thought that from day one, but I was in a mess of a life at the time, but I couldn't bring myself to go back more than a few more times even if it was up to me to save my husband. (They all are devoid of substance, but the temple took the cake.)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/17/2018 06:05PM by cl2.

I'm happy for us that your therapist sent you here.

My shelf was cracked and broken before learning the doctrinal stuff. The doctrinal issues helped it to crash. It helped to solidify all that what wrong with the cult.

For years, I would find, usually accidentally, shocking Mormon tidbits on the internet. Farms and Fair could not assuage my horror, but Jeff Lindsay's apologetic site had just the right touch; he was so clever at maneuvering the details so I could keep believing in Mormonism in spite of the absurdity. But this could not go on forever. There were just too many crazy absurd facts piling up. The little cracks in my shelf gave way to a huge break. Early in March, 2015 I proclaimed to my husband that I no longer believed in Mormonism. He wanted to know why, and after a few weeks he no longer believed, either.

I wonder now, why Jeff Lindsay is so clever at holding peoples' belief in the insane LDS church.

Josephina Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I wonder now, why Jeff Lindsay is so clever at
> holding peoples' belief in the insane LDS church.

A few of the many reasons:

a) he frames every criticism -- from reasonable to rabid -- as an "attack" against not just Joseph Smith, not just the church, but church members themselves. Doing so immediately riles up his readers, making them feel like any discussion or criticism is a personal attack against THEM, and strengthening their subconscious bond to the "tribe" of mormons.

b) He "explains" the critical position using hyperbole and inflammatory language, setting up a straw-man to argue against that is already positioned to look mean, vile, and ridiculous to his readers

c) He frames every question/criticism of mormonism that he's not currently discussing in a particular topic as "already settled" in favor of the faithful position, thereby avoiding letting the reader build up a stack of "doubts," and giving the impression (though false) that once he's dismissed the straw-man criticism he's currently discussing, there's nothing more to discuss -- mormonism is all true!

His FAQ pages are full of such tactics. They're blatantly dishonest, logically fallacious, emotionally manipulative...but well-written and appear "authoritative." It's the perfect combination for quelling the doubts of those who WANT to believe, but are troubled. His entire site practically screams, "Don't look at that stuff, look over here -- all is well!"

The worst part is, he knows darn well that he's creating straw-men, he's dishonestly framing his arguments, he's claiming "evidence" that doesn't exist, and he's emotionally manipulating people. He's on par with (though smoother than) Tapir Dan Peterson...he knows he's full of crap, he just doesn't care.

Josephina Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> For years, I would find, usually accidentally,
> shocking Mormon tidbits on the internet. Farms and
> Fair could not assuage my horror, but Jeff
> Lindsay's apologetic site had just the right
> touch; he was so clever at maneuvering the details
> so I could keep believing in Mormonism in spite of
> the absurdity. But this could not go on forever.
> There were just too many crazy absurd facts piling
> up. The little cracks in my shelf gave way to a
> huge break. Early in March, 2015 I proclaimed to
> my husband that I no longer believed in Mormonism.
> He wanted to know why, and after a few weeks he no
> longer believed, either.
>
> I wonder now, why Jeff Lindsay is so clever at
> holding peoples' belief in the insane LDS church.


ificouldhietokolob .... did a great job of explaining what principles of writing Jeff Lindsay uses. The best apologists use one or all of these to support Mormonism's claims. Part of it is found here in this excellent list of Logical Fallacies. Once you understand what they are doing and how they are doing it, it's to spot the logic fallacies. Probably, the most common one that we see everywhere is the ad hominem.

https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/659/03/

For me, I stumbled upon what TBMs call "anti-Mormon literature" and it was just downhill from there. At first I refused to believe it. The church was all I had ever known. It took about 2 years after that moment to realize how culty Mormonism really is. Now I'm here for support because I can't get out.

I like how the church says things like "everyone has doubts" or my favorite, "doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith". It's really stupid if you think about it logically. For example, you are supposed to cite multiple sources when making a claim. Anti vaxxers do this too. They'll want proof but only look for it in one place. In my mind, Mormonism is on the same level as these people and flat earthers.

The day my whole life changed was similar to yours SusieQ#1.
I had read "Leaving the Saints" by Martha Beck because an email was going around the ward not to read it. So of course I DID read it. It was very eye opening. That lead me to RFM which I read for hours and hours each day for weeks. Early on I leapt with joy to realize the church was all a fraud. All superstition fell with it. I experienced such extreme joy and laughed as a weight lifted from my schoulders.

The day I realized I would not make it into the celestial kingdom because the man I married in the temple was not doing his part. It was church doctrine that made me quit. What was the point of doing all that crap and not have the greatest eternal reward? I was worthless without a man. I was not happy about the idea of someone being assigned to me in heaven that was worthy. I decided outer darkness would be better than eternal polygamy and cranking out the babies.

Then with all the extra free time from not attending, I searched church history and realized it was not true. I don't know exactly how long it took. Probably a year of reading things here and there. Then the garments were off sooner than my "sinning" husband.

My epiphany took longer than a day. It was an incremental process of randomized events and insights. Once I finally started reading the actual history instead of the whitewashed version we were spoonfed growing up LDS, was the icing on the cake for me. That was confirmation that any doubts were bona fide, and I could trust my judgment that TSCC isn't what it purports to be.

My wake up call also came in steps. It started by listening to a local radio talk show host that decided before he arrived at the station to change the topic. He talked about "Changing Your Thoughts". After listening to that morning's program, I started looking at the "anti-mormon" sites, and eventually to RFM. Everything came together and I was shocked, angry, and then when I cooled down, lots of loud laughter and speaking ill of the "Lord's annointed"!

It didn’t take long to fall down the rabbit hole and for my shelf to come down, but it took years to sift through the wreckage. There’s a lot to understand about the Mormon way of being. But studying it helped me understand myself.

my shelf broke when I was at Ricks college reading the history of the church. The breaking point was the angel Nephi visiting Joseph telling him none of the churches were true. I went to a 'newer" version of the history of the church that had the same thing in it except a foot note at the bottom saying how the first edition was wrong for having it in their.
The history of the church is the best place to find that the church is false.