What are questions you had that inspired you to investigate the church and ultimately leave?

Here's the big one: If Mormonism is the highest lifestyle one can aspire to, why is my daily life a living hell? Why do I wish I were dead at age twelve?

Why didn't God answer my prayers?

That was me. No response, no feeling whatsoever, from on high. Never. Not once. I was sincere and really tried.

I really wasn't searching. I had questions about how the temple ceremony originated that no one could give me any satisfactory answers to. I was getting vague responses about the temple and the Mason's being connected. One bored afternoon I typed in Mormons and masonry. My search took me to mormonthink. I was hooked for about 4 hours. My euphoria grew with each topic I studied because I knew without a shadow of doubt that this church was all bullshit. I know many posters on here become devistated at this realization. I seriously was doing the happy dance!!
The anger did set in later when I looked at all the time, money and garment wearing I had given to this horrible cult and those awful old men who I can't stand to look at or listen to. Conference will never again enjoy airtime in my home!

Early Mormon history related to today's teachings.

What is moral about a demigod being murdered for sin? Yeah the christ nonsense, fantastically absurd.

Why does God care if I wear a white shirt to church?

Why does God care if I eat bread ritually on Sundays?

Why does God care if I masturbate?

Why does God care that I like boys?

Why does God care if I spend an arbitrarily chosen day to worship him?

Why does God use such inefficient forms of communication?

Why is the Bible still believed if obviously misinterpreted?

Why did God allow racism in his restored church?

Why does God freely give the supposedly sacred priesthood to all 12 year old boys who spend sunday afternoons hidden in sacrament preparation rooms scarfing down stale white bread, while keeping it away from devout women who spend their entire lives in service to an ungrateful church?

And so on.

So true! Here is this supreme being who knows everything about everything and he's worried about these small things.

Where was God on 9-11?
Why are my children being taught 19th Century bogus myths about God cursing their race with dark skin, when that naive notion was considered extremely racist before it was disproven by genetic science?
Wait, so you're telling me that I can't answer my children's questions honestly or you'll excommunicate me?
Here's my resignation.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/04/2016 09:28PM by koriwhore.

Why does God say children should be interviewed without their parents present behind closed doors with an adult male?

Why was I inferior because I was born female?

Why does God insist I wear a skirt or dress to church?

"Why does 'the truth' need coddling and defending?"

I was on a stake council for singles and was trying to think outside the box for activities to bring the singles together. My ideas was to have a "dinner and discussion" group that would meet, eat and casually discuss a particular gospel topic of choice. (I had been hosting a similar type of event centered around TED talks and it had been very well received).

Anyway, the Stake President quickly torpedoed the idea saying that any gospel discussion had to be sanctioned by the church and/or follow a church-approved manual (read: had to be an institute class).

That REALLY got to me. Why does the 'truth' need to be treated with such delicacy?? What's SO threatening about a group of people getting together to have a casual discussion about gospel topics??

Well, now I know... ;)

1. A week before leaving on my mission I went to the temple and exited endowed and confused, and asked myself "How can that silly farce be authored by an all powerful ghawd?"

2. During my first stint as a senior companion, we were asked to make whole a Down Syndrome baby. We gave it a go... Afterwards I asked myself, "What would David O. McKay or Joseph Fielding Smith have done in such a circumstance?" The answers I imagined didn’t reflect well on them or their priesthood powers.

3. That same month, with the same greenie (who remains firm in the faith, despite sharing these latter two events), we got into a dueling bibles situation with a couple and their pastor. My greenie was having a good time and I was just waiting for the right moment to drop the hammer on them by bearing my goof ol' mormon missionary testimony, the product of at least 18 years of primary, Sunday school and seminary! But the pastor beat me to it... He stood up and gave just as magnificent and sincere a testimony as I've ever heard, and he ended it in Jesus name, amen. And so the third and final question was, "Is there any truth, and how would you know it?"

My answer was probably not so why bother?

If someone tells you he's looking for the truth, you might learn from him. If someone tells you he's found the truth, so follow him, don't!

Why doesn't god care if his chosen leaders lie, cheat, steal,bear false witness, murder and commit adultry and then lie about it all?

No question. I just realized that I had no use for anything TSCC was offering me. Then came the trip down the rabbit hole.

1. Why do the illustrations of the Egyptian papyrus look like they don't match up with the descriptions? And why do they look like they have been manipulated?

2. Kinderhook plates story, just seemed like there was something "missing" in the story I was fed in seminary.

3. Why as a woman do I have to veil my face in the temple?

4. If women are so righteous why can't they hold the priesthood?

5. Being left to my own devices when I told the bishop I was going to get a divorce.

What is polyandry? Is the New York Times lying? Why is the church explaining this on lds.org? The NYT is not lying. Oh, no.

Why would anyone think one person is better than another based on race? They are failing at explaining.

Why do I have to cover my face during the true order of prayer? Why is Eve being shunned by the "visitors"? Why do I have to promise everything I have or ever will have to the church?

and on and on, the questions never stopped.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/04/2016 09:59AM by liesarenotuseful.

If they didn't tell me about MMM, what ELSE haven't they told me?

Why do we have racist doctrine in scripture? What were the edits to the BoM and did they change doctrine? Then that just opened a whole can of worms. Is the doctrine in the BoM actually practiced today? It was apparent that I had much to learn at this point and went down the rabbit hole.

I just thought the ward members were a bunch of @$$h0les and that mormonism made no sense.

I didn't know about the lies or the history.

How can I prove to my struggling husband that the church is true without resorting to feelings ?

My solution was to show him that JS accurately translated the Book of Abraham. LOL!

Why do I hate going to the temple?

What happens to all the tithing money?

Why do wards seem to have a caste system?

Why does my husband always put church responsibilities before his family?

Why are my prayers never answered?

Why is the Primary President directing a lesson on modesty to the four-year-old girls in my class? Who cares if a little girl shows her shoulders?

If Mormonism is so great, shouldn't Utah be a significantly better place to live than anywhere else? Why do I hate living here? Why are so many of my neighbors so snobby?

Why does going to church give me a massive headache?

Why do we worship Joseph Smith?

Why doesn't the church celebrate Easter and Christmas like other Christian religions?



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/04/2016 10:40AM by want2bx.

Why does god turn christian murderers into Saints when not praying for intervention when the starving, abused, tortured, sexual slaves, despondent and about to be murdered who pray with all their might, get no response and are left to suffer until they die?

That testimony from the bishop’s wife finding misplaced car keys comes into focus embarrassingly clear.

I had no questions. But I could find answers without the need to ask.

What a journey that has been. I was supposed to save him, change him to straight. And here 33 years later, they ostracize our children. (I've been out a long time now.) History was just icing on the cake.

The one I posed to the Gospel Doctrine class I was teaching: If we are the one true church, founded by him and bearing his name, why do we not talk more about him the way other churches do? Amo ng several responses the one that triggered real surprise was: "Other churches talk about him a lot because that's all they have."

It all started pretty innocently for me.

I wanted to learn more about why there wasnt a unanimous consensous on who should succeed Joseph Smith upon his death as Prophet, Seer, and Revalator. I remembered being told the story about Brigham Young and Sidney Rigdon vying for control of the church and wanted to know why they were even arguing in the first place.

I found out that at least 6 different people claimed a right to lead the church. And more than that, It led me to ask more questions. Soon I stumbled on the Book of Abraham problems, and from there I found FairMormon.

Thats when I knew it was all Bullshit

For me it wasn't so much about any one specific question than a changed lifestlye and the changes in my then wife.

My ex-wife went from 3 or 4 on the TBM meter to a full blown 10 in a matter of 2 to 3 years.

She began coming to bed with her garments on rather than sleep nude together as we use too. Why does God require garments be worn 24/7?

She began refusing to do extra curricular things on the weekends with me if it interferred with her keeping the Sabbath day holy and attending church. Why does God require us sitting in church for 3 hours every Sunday?

She began paying a full tithing to the tune of $8000 a year thus eliminating our vacations and weekend getaways. Why does God require we pay him money to receive his blessings?

Got tired coming home angry and with a headache after the 3 hour church block. Why so many judgmental snobs at church? Why?

Not getting that "spiritual" fulfillment so many spoke of after attending the temple, all the while wondering if I was doing something wrong during the whole screw-ball ritual. Why the weird rituals to feel closer to God?

Yep, then the rest came crashing down after being inactive and I began learning more of the church's history and not getting any satisfactory answers and so much more after being here at RFM.

My questions started with this first presidency statement on the King James Version of the Bible:

https://www.lds.org/ensign/1992/08/news-of-the-church/first-presidency-statement-on-the-king-james-version-of-the-bible?lang=eng

I asked myself: Why is it that the first presidency of the only true church seem to know so little about the Bible? Their statement was exhibit #1 for me that these guys were posers. From there it just snowballed. It took me years to actually leave but it was their mindless statement on the Bible that started me down the road to discovering it was ALL BS.

And the irony was that the real leader of the church at the time was none other than Gordon BS Hinckley.

If Jos. Smith was a prophet why was 20th century David Koresh not? They seem to be the same person separated by 150 years. That's when the lights went on and I left the "church."

It wasn't so much that I had questions, but that things didn't make sense to me.

First off, I didn't feel the Holy Spirit. Not ever.

Nothing in either the Bible or BOM made sense.

The so-called "restoration of the gospel" didn't make sense.

The inability to question anything in the cult didn't make sense either. I had noticed that in regular churches, people questioned & disagreed with church leaders all the time.

I got raped by a 34 year old when I was 14. Actually I was several months shy of my 15th birthday. It happened in May and I turned 15 in December so I was shy of my 15th birthday. That wording really pisses me off. The girls he screwed were 14...JUST SAY IT ASSHOLES! I was 14 also.

The situation was so close to the JS molestation situation that I could not fathom the slime ball as a prophet. He was a rapist in my eyes and always will be.

There are some other things too, some other real big ones, but tonight this one stands out in my mind.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/05/2016 02:19AM by verilyverily.

For me it started with noticing the silly behaviour of the missionaries and the fact they were always at the Bishop's house goofing around instead of out teaching.

My stepdaughter hung out there a lot too and took videos of the nonsense they got up to. The Bishop also liked to show these videos at a special farewell for every missionary that got moved from our ward. So we all got to know what our Bishop was up to as well instead of feeding his 'flock'.

Anyway I started to think 'what kind of God let's the fate of the human race hang on missions of these stupid little kids. That's some crap plan of salvation and the world is pretty much doomed'.

Then found the website why members are leaving the church by John Dehlin, caught on to the fact that something was wrong with the Book of Abraham and it went from there.

20 years of testimony over in a few hours.