I have been on here for a few years now and the journey has not gotten easier for me... actually it has gotten harder. So hard, that I honestly am exhausted and am afraid to die. I wish I could say I have left and have never been happier, or I know it isn't true, but that is not the case. I still believe. I know it all too; The polyandry, the history, the book of Abraham... and still part of me cannot disbelieve. I have narrowed it down to why. I am a believer. I believe stories. I believe people's truth. I credit people's feelings.

Google 3 Nephite stories. Lots of early Saints claim that they had a supernatural and spiritual experience when they encountered a messenger of God. Read near death experiences and you will find hundreds if not thousands have experienced similar experiences that both contradict and support Mormon doctrine. Some Mormons have claimed to have seen "Paradise" (there is a book called "The Messenger" if you are curious).

So am I gullible? Or maybe there is truth? I have close family and friends who have told me they prayed on a mission with all intent to know if the church was true. They said they received a witness so strong they can never deny it. I guess to hear that from one person... well.. its a feeling. But I keep hearing the same thing over and over. Have I read the BOM and prayed about it? Yes, twice. Did I get a powerful witness, NO... but why did they?

I guess the OCD in me just wants to know why. I believe in God. No matter what religion I choose to follow in my life, I believe in God. I have had experiences that I will not deny. But I am so tired. Joseph Smith saw God and Jesus or he did not. He wrote the BOM or he didn't. It is that simple. I hate how complicated this has become, but I get it, because it is ruining my life. If I leave, I could be an apostate constantly in fear, and if I stay, I am letting an organization control my finances, clothes, and marital status. anyone relate? Thanks for letting me vent.

Dear tmg,
You do know that feelings are not facts. It's like your 14 year old daughter Knowing she is in love because some boy kissed her.

Joseph Smith called God a liar. I do not believe a true
prophet of God would do that. Alma 34:36 says, “And this I
know, because the Lord hath said he dwelleth not in unholy temples, but in the hearts of the righteous doth he dwell;” II. Cor. 6:16, “And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? For ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, “I will dwell in them and walk in them and I will be their God and they shall be my people.”

I. John 4:12, “No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us.” and John 14:23, “Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words; and my Father will love him and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him." As opposed to the words of Joseph Smith in D&C 130:3. “…and the idea that the Father and the Son dwell in a man’s heart is an old sectarian notion and is false.” Silly sectarians! They believed what God said.
God said He would. Joseph said He won’t. That’s calling God a liar!
Also, see II. Corinthians 13:5
“Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?”
_______________________________________________________________
Complete apostasy Joseph Smith said the true church had been withdrawn into Heaven and he, himself had been ordained by God to restore it. However, if you believe that, and you believe the BOM story of the three Nephites ( III. Nephi, 28) and the D&C statement that the Apostles John and Peter are still alive(D&C 7)— you must either believe the Three Nephites apostatized or that Christ went back on His word, because in vs. 7-9 of III Nephi, Christ promised the three Nephites that they could remain on earth to “preach His Gospel” until He returned in His glory. It is obvious that if there are 5 apostles of Jesus Christ on earth, (the 3 Nephites plus John the Beloved and Peter) there could have been NO complete apostasy. Would you rather believe Jesus lied, or Joseph lied?

If Jesus Christ himself said that God is a spirit and a spirit does not have flesh and bones, (Luke 24:39) then Joseph Smith is calling Jesus a liar when Joseph says God does have a body of flesh and bones. Again, who do you want to call a liar? Also, God created every creature to “reproduce after its own kind.” If God has a physical body, how could he produce spirit children?

Mormonism has so many holes in it, I'm always surprised anyone believes it.

I appreciate your response and understand why you my question belief. However, the church taught me all of the Christian principles and I felt God's love and changing power in my life even as a Mormon, because God judged my heart and knew that my faith in him was the best I had with what I had been given.

Remember, that to all those Mormons on here questioning, they were taught the Bible is missing precious things that have been taken out over time. Even Christian's know there are books missing cause the Bible says so. I am never calling Jesus a liar, nor is a Mormon (atleast meaning too), because they believe that words have been changed in the Bible over time, hence the JST. Again, I am not active, but have been told this is a safe place to question. I was born and raised with family that still tries to get me to come back. It isn't as easy as reading the Bible and knowing its not true when you have been indoctrinated. Wish non members and especially Christians could understand that. Again though, what do you think then of their experiences? Did All those people lie or did they see a false angel? It still begs to question.

Maybe God decided it was time for you to move on. Think of crossing a stream by jumping from stone to stone. If you stay on one stone, you’ll never get across.

The church is based on lies, but I think they may have been the lies of the deranged. In other words, JS believed his own BS because his early traumatic experiences combined with a family predisposition caused him to dissociate from reality.

“Jerry, it’s not a lie if you believe it.” - George Castanza

Your readings of early church history are proof that we create our own reality. I witnessed real miracles as a Mormon. I witnessed miracles after I left. Those were caused by belief, not Mormonism. Miracles happen in all religions.

I view Mormonism as a corruption of Christianity. It hijacked Christ for selfish ends. I don’t think that’s how it’s supposed to work. You can keep God, Christ, and whatever else works for you. Ditch what doesn’t.

Here is what I realized.

Not being a mormon, not being a member of "the church" has nothing to do with your ability to believe in god or an afterlife. They are not interlinked.

You can look at the evidence and draw the conclusion that the book of mormon is not supported by DNA evidence, archaeology evidence, linguistic evidence and the amount of plagiarized material.

You can look at the character of Joseph Smith. Would God choose a prophet that was a liar, thief, swindler, child abuser etc?

You can look at the subsequent revelations and translations, the failed prophecies.

You can conclude that Joseph was a fraud and still believe in God and an afterlife.

Many ex mormons have found faith and community after leaving mormonism. You can too.

Wish you well in your journey.

Child abuser? Where is that document? I understand as he has always been my source of confusion. As an active teenager I did not feel comfortable sustaining him as a prophet in my interviews. I guess though as a believer of God, it is hard to use that logic when Moses was a murderer and God used him to raise up his peculiar people. God does a lot of things I do not understand.

In this case I was referring to having sex with 14 year old girls by telling them if they didn't consent to be his plural wife their families would be denied salvation.

Some of his wives were teenage girls that lived in his home as foster children, house keepers or wards.

Imagine you're taken in by the prophet. Instead of protecting you, providing you spiritual and temporal sanctuary, he announces god has given you to him as a secret plural wife and demands you submit to him sexually.

JS had a habit of marrying teenagers. I suppose it is a matter of semantics as to whether that should be called child abuse or something else. It did get Warren Jeffs a life sentence for doing that.

Besides, it's not like being a liar, thief and swindler is not enough reason to dump his prophetic claims. He's already way over the line without adding child abuse to the heap.

BTW, we have no idea if Moses was a murderer, or if Moses even existed. The Egyptians never bothered to mention all those Jews they supposedly held in captivity for a few generations. Just because it's a story in the bible doesn't mean it actually happened. Arks. Talking mules and snakes. Adam being short a rib.

This happened to me, too, when I first discovered that the Mormon church was not true, and that JS lied. I cried for days, and couldn't sleep. I felt like the rug was pulled out from under me.

I was born into a prominent GA family, and I enjoyed my life as a popular, virtuous Mormon girl--until I grew into a woman and married an RM at BYU, from another GA family. A couple of hours after our temple wedding, my new groom read me D&C 132 (which I also don't believe is true), and told me that I was now his possession, and that he could do whatever he wanted to do to me, whenever he wanted, and that if a woman did not obey her husband, she would suffer in outer darkness, and be separated from her loved ones for eternity. I had been raised a liberal Mormon in California, and was shocked at this disrespect for women's rights. When I wanted to postpone sex for two hours, until after the reception, because I valued my virginity, and wanted to be a virgin bride in a white dress at our wedding reception, he assaulted me and raped me, injuring me so badly that I was in terrible pain at the reception. From then on, he beat me almost every day, for no reason. He strangled me until I stopped breathing, on several occasions, and broke my arm, and shattered my jaw in several places--really, I had to leave him, for fear of my life, but the church blamed me, the woman. for the divorce.

I wonder if some of us need something quite extreme to jolt us out of our brainwashed stupor! I'm one of those people who say that "leaving the Mormon cult was the best thing I ever did." and "I have been sooooo much happier outside the church". It was life over death!

I have PTSD, and am unable to feel comfortable in any kind of church setting, but early on, I made a conscious decision to keep my beliefs in God and the teachings of Christ, which included much of the Bible.

The temple rituals, the BOA, the BOM, the D&C, the contradictory fake church history, the fairytales, and the cultish made-up rules and threats seemed obviously false to me.

For me to give up God and Christ might have been too much for me to bear, back then. Now, about a decade later, I often question the divinity of Christ, but not his wisdom. God is an intelligent creator, but that's about all I know. I believe that God does not intervene or prompt us or move us around like chess pieces. I believe that God is bound by death (He doesn't save starving children), time and space and dimention (He doesn't visit us or talk to us). Prayer does work, but only in our mind to clarify what we already have felt and learned and experienced. Blessings come from those prople who love us, and those with great knowledge and know-how, like doctors, rescuers, workers, teams of human beings trying to make life better, and all those good things (which God also created.)

Relax and be patient! You might come to the conclusion that you are free to believe anything you WANT to believe--whatever brings you happiness, peace, love, success, or whatevr you are looking for. What's most important is how you live your life. I have investigated other religions and philosophies, which have been interesting and enlightening, but I haven't deviated in my basic values, morals, integrity, lifestyle, and main goals in life. I am living a great life, but without any Mormon abuse, contsraints, mysogyny, racism, gossip. Hopefully, no one is lying to me anymore, or trying to take my money anymore. I'm proud that I saved my children from Mormon abuse and brainwashing.

Respect your own gut feelings! Keep your own motives pure (do you really want to escape the cult, or do you merely want revenge or to rebel?). Do you really want to find another relibion to take the place of the cult you just left? Find out who you really are.

I don't believe in the Mormon God (MorGod), who was once a man, and is a God that needs Mormons' money and temple work, and a God who chose the likes of JS to represent Him, and who cares how many earrings women wear. I like things simple and clear. It's all the ADDED-ON mumbojumbo and superstitions that I was never able to swallow--especially the ever-changing Joseph Smith Story. My kids never believed it, either.

There are as many versions of God as there are people. We each have our own.

Concentrate on wiping your mind clean. That's what I did. I worked hard to forget the false teachings and get rid of the fear that the Mormon cult inflicts on its victims. De-program! Therapy helped me. Read Hussein, and other books on the subject of brainwashing. Replace old myths with NEW FACTS. Try on new ideas, like Buddhism, Deism, The Force. Religious thoughts can be crowded out with anything at all--trivial factoids, new hobbies, new people in your life, a new major in college, your career, travel, learning in general, sports, even video games.

"Man is that he might have JOY!" This can be an adventure for you--finding your own personal Truth.

"There is no One Great Truth; it's all true."
--Ernest Hemingway.

@ Breeze

I am so so sorry to hear this happened to you. Thank-you for being honest about your experience and responding to my post.

As an outsider, I don't believe for a minute that Joseph's story is true. I find him to be a liar, a con artist, and a thief.

But I'm going to quote the Dalai Lama - "The purpose of life is to be happy." If going back to the Mormon church represents your best happiness, then I think that's what you should do. I just wouldn't give them a dime of your money (they have more than enough already,) accept a calling if you don't really, really want it, wear the garments if you don't want to, or accept any visitors to your home if you're not interested. Don't play by their rules. Do it your way.

Or, investigate other Christian churches. Go "church shopping." You can attend whatever churches you want to for as long as you wish, free of obligation. No one will press you to join. Consider it a learning experience.

I am more of a rational thinker than an emotional one. That made it pretty easy for me to abandon Christianity when I was about 21, because there just wasn't enough evidence in support of God or Jesus. I've never remotely doubted that position, despite the 'spiritual' experiences I had as a young Christian. I'm happy to be 'believing in' whatever I think is true. (No God, no Jesus). Others find it much harder to switch to this position, if their brains are wired differently.

As for Joseph Smith, nearly everybody who has ever lived has never heard of him. It is much, much easier to disbelieve in his claims (especially from outside of the religion).

I can understand how hard it is for you to let go of belief in God, since your desire to believe is so strong. Perhaps concentrate on letting go of ludicrous Mormon beliefs without compromising your overall desire for a comforting relationship with God.

It's amazing how different these things look, and how strange religious belief appears, once you have made the switch.

tmg Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I have been on here for a few years now and the
> journey has not gotten easier for me... actually
> it has gotten harder. So hard, that I honestly am
> exhausted and am afraid to die.

All of us are afraid to die, regardless of whether or not we seek out, or don't seek out, death. It is a very human fear, and, if the sciences are to be believed, a fear that is very much in the rest of the animal population as well.
>
> I wish I could say I have left and have never been happier, > or I know it isn't true, but that is not the case. I
> still believe. I know it all too; The polyandry,
> the history, the book of Abraham... and still part
> of me cannot disbelieve. I have narrowed it down
> to why. I am a believer. I believe stories. I
> believe people's truth. I credit people's
> feelings.

Human beings are social creatures according to the anthropologists. Part of that means that we really do want to believe what other humans tell us even when all of the available evidence says it isn't true. This is why the sciences have such a hard time battling religious beliefs--we really do want to believe!
>
> Google 3 Nephite stories. Lots of early Saints
> claim that they had a supernatural and spiritual
> experience when they encountered a messenger of
> God. Read near death experiences and you will find
> hundreds if not thousands have experienced similar
> experiences that both contradict and support
> Mormon doctrine. Some Mormons have claimed to have
> seen "Paradise" (there is a book called "The
> Messenger" if you are curious).

All of us have stories which may, or may not, be true. One thing to keep in mind is that human interpretation of events can be as flawed as the events themselves.

I posted on another thread a couple of years back about how my mom's youngest sister kept seeing her late husband shortly after his passing standing in her closet. That belief persisted until she found out it was her son who somewhat visually resembled his father. I would argue that my aunt really wanted to see her late husband there and so that is what she saw at the time.
>
> So am I gullible? Or maybe there is truth? I
> have close family and friends who have told me
> they prayed on a mission with all intent to know
> if the church was true. They said they received a
> witness so strong they can never deny it. I guess
> to hear that from one person... well.. its a
> feeling. But I keep hearing the same thing over
> and over. Have I read the BOM and prayed about it?
> Yes, twice. Did I get a powerful witness, NO...
> but why did they?

First of all, all of us are gullible, regardless of whether or not we believe a specific theory or religion. Though human beings are very much social creatures, we do not have the power to read each other's minds and we have absolutely no knowledge of why people tell us the stories they do.

I should point out here that we humans, as a matter of course, tend not to believe in the role of luck in our lives. We need an explanation for everything that happens to us even if such an explanation doesn't actually exist.

As to the questions you raised at the end of this last paragraph, your family and friends got a witness because they *wanted* to get a witness. This sounds contradictory to the statement I just made about humans not being able to read the minds of other humans, but I've noticed that once we set ourselves to strongly believe something, we will reinterpret everything that happens to us in light of that belief.
>
> I guess the OCD in me just wants to know why. I
> believe in God. No matter what religion I choose
> to follow in my life, I believe in God. I have
> had experiences that I will not deny. But I am so
> tired. Joseph Smith saw God and Jesus or he did
> not. He wrote the BOM or he didn't. It is that
> simple. I hate how complicated this has become,
> but I get it, because it is ruining my life. If I
> leave, I could be an apostate constantly in fear,
> and if I stay, I am letting an organization
> control my finances, clothes, and marital status.
> anyone relate? Thanks for letting me vent.

As a nevermo, all I can tell you is that the final choice is up to you. You are standing at a crossroads with one foot on the path of the LDS church and one foot out of it. Both paths have positive and negative consequences for you. However, as a nevermo, I can assure you that I have never felt the need to join the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, even after I considered dating a member of that church in good standing. I do not now, and most likely will never, believe that I have lived in sin because I failed to join the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Frankly, I am much more likely to rejoin the Roman Catholic church, "the whore of Babylon" than I am ever likely to join the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

Again, the final choice is up to you. I wish you courage and luck when making that decision.

I have written a lot about my gay/straight marriage and my experiences with church leaders before we got married. I can't explain in a million words what they put me through. They were and are not men of God. I don't know what I believe about God or Jesus. I can't know anything, so I just go with what I'm thinking and feeling each day. Today, I can't click like on fb when all my mormon friends are posting he is risen.

One thing I am NOT afraid of is death. Not at all. I'd like to go right now and have longed to go, but I have kids and I must stay alive as long as I can as they need me. That is the one thing I had never thought of until recently is that when I die, I have to leave them. At one time, I was planning their deaths, but I didn't want them in pain, so I couldn't do it and I couldn't kill myself as I didn't want them in pain. So I have gone on living.

I like what heartless said: "Not being a mormon, not being a member of "the church" has nothing to do with your ability to believe in god or an afterlife. They are not interlinked."

I believe in an afterlife. I NEED to for myself. I want to believe my parents are with me and that I will see them again. That I will see my dogs again. And my other relatives and friends.

I do KNOW that these leaders are not men of God. If I had my letter I got from Boyd packer when I asked how to deal with my gay boyfriend (I had written to him on the advice of a church leader), I could destroy a lot of testimonies. It was that bad. But I burned it as it felt so dark any time I'd even see it. It was in the glove compartment of my car. I had to burn my journal pages about my experiences with the leaders. They still think it is my fault my gay husband is still gay or that he left. I wasn't giving him enough sex. How is that one for you? They didn't know how much sex we were having. It just wasn't enough if he would cheat on me. They told me to do everything except intercourse with him before we married so that we could make sure he could have sex with a female. I had SAVED MYSELF as they had told me to and I couldn't go along with it. The bishop kept telling me we had to do it this way. I was suicidal and he told me I had PMS. Never took my suicidal thoughts seriously. I've never been the same. I was 25 and now I'm 63 and I''m sitting sobbing.

I realized a few years ago that I married my husband to survive. I had to get those voyeurs out of my life as they were destroying the person I am.

I love my husband as my best friend. I have a boyfriend of 16 years now who I chose not marry as a 20 year old as he was not a mormon. My husband has a new boyfriend right now. He goes through them rather quickly. But I am here as his emotional support and all his gay friends tell me that he needs me emotionally.

It has been a living hell what they put me through and I do live with a death wish daily. Someday I truly believe my parents will welcome me to where they are. I knew when they died that they finally GOT what I had been through. They tried to understand and were supportive of me, especially of leaving the church. Most of my family is out. I was the most devout and I was REALLY DEVOUT and my parents were shocked when I left the church and we had a lot of discussions about what happened to me and they didn't know the half of it. I believe they do now. They both died 12 years ago 2 months apart.

They used me, abused me, chewed me up and spit me out--the leaders did. I have severe PTSD to do with the lds church. I stood outside the temple 2 years ago when my daughter got married. I had to work so hard to raise my kids after my husband left when they were 10 years old and I wasn't allowed to be at her wedding. She is the ONLY grandchild of my parents who is mormon.

I didn't know a lot of history until I came here. It was just icing on the cake. If everything they have said was proven to be a bunch of made up lies, I would still not believe in the lds church.

Rusty and Wendy just make it that much worse.

Myself, I tend to wonder if you are just a mormon who is here to preach to us because it is conference time.

I believe in an afterlife as well, cl2. I go back and forth on "God," so maybe not the anthropomorphic God of the bible, but more of a Great Spirit such as the Native Americans venerate.

Somewhere along the way, the Christian mythology lost me as a believer. I can appreciate it as myth and story, and I can appreciate its cultural significance. I just can't believe it any more.

I see so-called men of God as having the same human frailties as the rest of us. I would never let any one of them control my thinking. I do sometimes listen to what some of them have to say. But I would not follow any of them blindly.

I figured some would think that, but no I am definitely not on here to preach lol. I have severe OCD and the stories and testimonies of people is why I still question and I just wanted to know if others could relate. I have not been active in the church for years and I have previous posts from years ago on here.

Thank-you for being brave and sharing your story. I am very very sorry to hear about your abuse. Unacceptable and I wish you nothing but good moving forward.

Sounds like testimony time.

Do what makes you happy.

Church indoctrination runs deep, and when done from birth rarely if ever completely vanishes. That's one of the reasons the church is so pernicious. Don't blame yourself for continuing to fall back into the old ways of thinking. It's very common.

As for those who claim to have received a witness: how do you know they're telling the truth? Mormons are accomplished liars and have ample opportunities to practice their mad lying skills. RMs are programmed to call their missions "the best two years" even when their missions were crappy and miserable. Mormons saying their prayers were answered and they KNOW the church is true are simply repeating the party line in order to gain approval and validation from others. It's part of mormon culture: support the church at all costs.

And when TBMs use the phrase "experiences [they] can't deny," all they're doing is regurgitating a church cliché that they were taught to use. What they don't understand is that they're not expected to deny their experiences, but rather to consider the possibility that the church has hijacked and co-opted them for its own self-serving purposes. The church doesn't want to allow people to interpret their own experiences, insisting that it alone has the right to give them any meaning, and of course the proper meaning is the one that puts the church in the best possible light. That's what cults do.

Finally, NDEs. As far as I know, mormon-flavored NDEs are exclusive to mormons. On the other hand, mormons can and do have non-mormon NDEs. There was a pretty well-known mormon (can't remember her name now) whose NDE gained fairly wide exposure in mormon circles; the NDE itself had little to nothing mormon in it. So take that for what it's worth to you.

I've read probably hundreds of NDE stories, and never read a Mormon-oriented one. I'm sure that they exist, I just haven't come across one.

Some people see a bright light that exudes welcome and love. Some interpret that as God or Jesus. I suppose you could interpret it as Joseph Smith.

This old thread helped jog my memory -

https://www.exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,2019330

The woman whose name I couldn't remember was Amy Call.

The mormon-style NDE was from an Idaho stake prez named Heber Hale.

http://emp.byui.edu/ANDERSONKC/halesp.pdf

Thank you.