I wanted to share this with the board because it deals specifically with the board. The other reason I wanted to share it, is because I'm not super happy with it. It took me a long time to write, but I can't quite put my finger on why I'm not too happy with it. I'm posting it because I can't put my finger on if it's missing something or If I'm just too drunk or feel like I should share the draft with you.

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All my life I had heard that there were only three reasons for people to leave the church:

1. Pride (they thought they knew more than god).

2. Sin (either desire to sin, or a refusal to repent of one).

3. They were offended by someone else in church.

Some say that it is ALL because of pride because you wouldn't want to sin or not repent of one because you are too proud. They believe the same about offense. Church can be as offensive as possible, and you should just shrug it off. Mormon folklore often tells the tale of one early church leader, Elder Thomas Marsh, who would have been possibly a prophet except that his wife got into a dispute over "milk strippings" (keep your pants on, it's nothing dirty) with another church lady and instead of being cool about it Marsh and wife left the church. Oliver Cowdery left the church for awhile because of a "cup of sugar" according to some people. There aren't a lot of details on that story, but it gets spread around a lot. The details don't matter though because the concept is simple. The church is True no matter what. Therefore, if you leave; it HAS to be because of you. You did something wrong, or something is wrong with you. End of discussion.

Because baptized members also have the gift of the holy ghost, there is NO such thing as "studying your way out." Something else MUST be going on. The holy ghost testified Truth to you through good feelings, so leaving is a complete rejection of the Truth that you once had? Why would you do that unless you were somehow in Satan's Kung-Fu grip?

My entire life, I had built a crystalline structure of belief around my soul. It was a very intricate labyrinth because of how detailed and seemingly contradictory "the Gospel" was. When you begin to have doubts, this either cracks your structure, or you try to place it leading into a dark corner of your soul - the "we'll find out the answer to that when we die." I had also been told my entire life that, "Mormonism has so many answers. And it especially has the answers to the big three: Who are we? Why are we here? And where are we going?" Life's purpose was all about "the Plan of Happiness." God's great plan and church that makes you happy.

So why was I so unhappy in church?

Since coming home, I had stayed in constant contact with Brother Cicero, my MTC teacher that I had bonded with. As time progressed we both began to email back and forth our concerns/questions/problems with the church and its "gospel." I watched him journey from believer but doubter, to "apostate" while I journeyed from believer to believer but doubter. He never pushed information on me, but simply asked questions and gave his own opinion. If this story were a one for one rip off of the hero cylce, he'd have been an older swordsman who was introduced into this story much earlier and taught me the way of the sword and magic before coming to a grisly death at the hand of my enemy Satan. And I'd be all like, "Nooooooooooooooooooooo! He was my friend and all that's left of him are his teachings and a voice in my head! Thanks a lot, dick!"

I had read all of the major works by the church, their apologists, and now was starting to read things that dealt with the "problems" of the church.

The church had been very clear since I was young to avoid anything and everything that was "anti-Mormon." It was very clear from the church that "anti-Mormons" were full of lies and the spirit of Satan. They were here to destroy god's church and were clearly bigots. Stay away from those jerks, and for fuck's sakes don't read their shit.

The first anti-Mormon literature that I had ever encountered was stupid. It was a pamphlet from a fundamentalist Christian group and the pamphlet contained all of the "weird" teachings of Mormonism that I actually liked as a believer. So, for a long time I just thought, "Oh if I'm worshiping the WRONG Jesus who wasn't a father, son, and spooky ghost all at the same time who wants to become a god in eternity instead of playing a golden harp on a cloud, then fuck anti-Mormons."

However, my doubts began to plague me. The church was wrong about homosexuality. I had observed that just by watching my brother over time. They church had been wrong about black skin and the priesthood, they were wrong about the role of women.

What else were they wrong about?

I began to read. A lot. And as I searched for information, I eventually stumbled upon a website that was called "Recovery from Mormonism." I had seen this site before, but this was clearly an "evil anti-Mormon" site that I wasn't supposed to read. But I was tired of being told what I could and couldn't read. I was sick of a church that had sneered in every class at the Pharisees of the New Testament and then turned around and acted worse. If "anti-Mormon" literature was so bad, then it should be easily discredited.

To call the information that I got, "anti-Mormon" would be a simplistic and dismissive term. What I got was a wealth of information as to exactly why the organization I was born into was not what that organization claimed to be. Each day I spent every spare minute being linked to new information about not just the "problems" with the church, but "why" they were problems to begin with, and I learned something new every day. I had heard about the three different versions of Joseph Smith's story of meeting god (and why they weren't contradictory - so you don't need to read them), but now I read them. They were completely contradictory. Furthermore, the last and official version has complete misstatements in it about the time frame and the "persecution" that Joseph received from telling the story. I read about how Joseph Smith really translated the "golden plates" using a rock in a hat - which is NOT what I had been told my entire life. The "witnesses" of the golden plates themselves was a lie. No one ever saw the golden plates, they only claimed to have seen them with their "spiritual" eyes. Another key Mormon scripture, the Book of Abraham, was a complete fraud and another lie. My entire life I had heard that Joseph found a papyrus and that he was "inspired" to translate the Book of Abraham from this. Joseph clearly claimed that he found the papyrus, that it was written by Abraham himself, and Joseph simply translated the papyrus. Total bullshit - the papyrus had NOTHING to do with Abraham. NOTHING. My favorite Mormon Scriptures and the source of many Mormon doctrines resting on a demonstrable hoax.

I read about Joseph's multiple wives. I knew that he had more than one, but I had no idea that some were 14 - the marriages were hidden from Joseph's first wife. That Joseph sent men on missions in order to marry their wives - but never had been divorced. I learned the real reason why Joseph was put into Carthage Jail and killed - because he ordered a printing press destroyed. He destroyed a man's livelihood because the man was going to publish a paper telling the world that Joseph was a polygamist.

I read about Blood Atonement, the Mountain Meadows Massacre, the 3000+ changes to the Book of Mormon and anachronisms within the text. I learned about all of the church's for profit enterprises while simultaneously demanding members give the church more money and free labor. I learned that many of the programs that I had grown up with - were nothing more than business decisions and had nothing to do with "inspired leadership." I learned that the church had changed drastically, just before my life time. That it had excommunicated a group of historians and "intellectuals" on a whim. I just saw the church fuck with politics over proposition 8 over California, but I didn't know that this wasn't the first time. That the church fought strongly against the Equal Rights Amendment (including excommunicating people because of it) and the Civil Rights movement.

I had no idea how deep seated the racial hatred of the church really was. I grew up on the tail end of the doctrine that "black people" had been spiritually inferior in the "pre-existence" and that's why they were inferior in this life. This idea was supposed to just have been "opinion" of church leaders and not "doctrine." But it had been doctrine, and the idea didn't form in a vacuum. The church had been incredibly racist from the beginning. Quote after quote after quote came from the early leaders of the church about racial superiority of whites and inferiority of everyone else.

This church was supposed to be led by Jesus Christ himself, and Jesus sent down an angel to Joseph Smith commanding very specific things and threatened Joseph with destruction unless he started fucking women other than his life, or starting banks, or getting people to give him land. Yet, at no point did god ever tell any prophet to knock it off with the racist, sexist, homophobic shit. No word from god when young boys were cast out or castrated in the early church and when leaders wanted more wives. No word when the church gave a penalty of death for interracial marriage. No word when Brigham Young University "treated" homosexuals from their "disease" by electrocuting their genitals when aroused by pictures of the same sex.

God was very clear about you needing to promise him your money, time, and skills - and delivering on those promises. But on social issues - he was either dead silent or consistently on the wrong side. It was too much to reconcile, and the most freeing thought I ever had was, "suppose the church isn't 'true.'"

The crystalline shell shattered and suddenly everything made sense. The church wasn't god's church, it was just an organization built on people who pretended that they were sent by god and wanted money in exchange for a delusion of "having" metaphysical answers.

Boom.

Life made sense now. No wonder I wasn't happy. But now I could be free.

Except that in Mormonism, freedom isn't free. Very few people who were born Mormons get to walk away without consequences. We were born into a system that "knew" it was the only true church, that it had the answers to life's questions, that it could do whatever it wanted. But now I was going to be labeled the "proud" one. Born into a system where members are encouraged to have no personal boundaries, that they are the only truly happy people, and that god wants sinners should be "called to repentance." My life would be dissected. Struggles and failures would be branded as "proof" for the punishments of apostasy, and triumphs could be dismissed as being gifts from Satan. Unwanted testimonies hurled at me would be completely acceptable, but criticisms would not be tolerated and would only label me a "bigot." Social Ostracism was a real threat. Fortunately, I was never popular in church and had no true church friends to lose.

Even more so, I would have to mourn the time that I had spent in an organization built on fraud. The small aspects of it that I loved. And even though my spiritual framework was shattered, I had grown up with a mental filter. My entire thinking was based on a "true conclusion" that could only handle "facts" and "premises" that supported the preconceived conclusion.

Luckily the internet is for more than just porn. And don't get me wrong, we are very lucky to have internet porn. Some people aren't as lucky and have to work very hard to see pornography. We should count our blessings and make sure that our abundance of porn doesn't go to waste. Their are pornography starved teenagers in Thailand.

Wait. I don't think that last one was quite right after talking with some business men.

I started my recovery process with the online support group of the site that had led me to so much information. And there are a lot of online support groups for Mormons who are either doubting, leaving, or who have left the church. Another dirty, little secret that the church would rather have hidden. It claims to baptize a few hundred thousand each year, but it retains less than 25% of those. And there are thousands of us who were born into the covenant who are leaving, and we are sharing our stories.

However, most of us do so anonymously,and we do so for various reasons. From protecting our family members, to protecting spouses who aren't doubters and would divorce the poster if they knew, to people who just want to be assholes online without personal consequences, and everything in between. Mormonism asked us to receive a "new name" when we went through the temple. This was a name that was not only chosen for us, but ended up being the same name for everyone who was endowed on that same day. It was not personal, it was systematic. Our endowments were just another processing of drones that needed to be organized efficiently.

But now we choose our own names and mine came with the power, authority, and satirical prowess that I was naturally endowed with. Religion is symbolism, and I didn't need anymore MBA gods to tell me who I was.

As I began to participate online, I was awe-struck by the diversity of thought and experiences. This diversity was something that being born in Utah and Mormonism in general had robbed me from. The boards were humbling and therapeutic as I tried to remove the filter that had been placed, and that I allowed to continue to previously hold over myself. This was a brave new world that was full of ideas that I could evaluate for myself, and not in the context of some supernatural organization. Everything I had thought, wrote, done or felt had been judged before, but now I got to do the judging. Instead of being lucky to have been born into the only true church that consisted of less than one percent of humanity, I was lucky to have gotten out so young. And I was also lucky to have gotten out with my wife.

I learned very quickly that leaving with a spouse was incredibly rare. Mormon exit stories are rife with marital strife and horrific fallout for one partner leaving without the other. My spouse and I survived my exit because she exited with me around the same time.

We were lucky.

Your voice doesn't come through as strongly as it usually does, and that makes it a bit clunky.

This is the point where you come into your own style again: "The crystalline shell shattered..."

I write a lot, and when this happens to me, I usually find it is best to start over. Take a small break, write one paragraph and see if you like it better. If you don't, start over. If you do, go for it.

Having to start over on something that takes a long time to write is one of the hardest things I personally have to do. However, in the end, it usually goes quicker than the original and produces a better product.

That's just my advice :)

Hey, RJ, I'm a big fan and since I ghostwrite for a living, I reworked your piece to make it all in your voice. By the way, I don't advise clients to start over. It is usually easier to edit than to rewrite. Knowing that also keeps the juices flowing when you're in the zone.

Angel Occam’s Razor: There are only three reasons Mormons leave the church:

1. Pride (God sucks, I rule).

2. Sin (I rule).

3. They were offended. (Members suck, I rule)

MORMONS OBSESSED BY FOOD LEGENDS. Poor Elder Thomas Marsh wudda cudda been …a PROPHET except his wife fought with a sister over “milk striplings.” The cautionary tale describes how the dispute wound up the convoluted hierarchy of Mormon inspired priesthood authority, resulting in the Marsh family (gasp) apostatizing.

Oliver Cowdery, Twilight Zone case in point—a (whisper at this sacred point) witness to the Book of Mormon left the church and came back years later having apparently gotten over his rage induced by a “cup of sugar.”

These bedtime stories for Mormon children are to make sure that you know that you have NO right to be offended, you thin-skinned sap! The church is True no matter what. Therefore, if you leave; it HAS to be because of you. You did something wrong, or something is wrong with you. End of discussion.

MYTH OF STUDYING YOUR WAY OUT. They'll think you're joking because--studying? The thoughts of mere men? There is no such thing because baptized members have the gift of the Holy Ghost, who gave you good feelings once, so something else MUST be going on. There’s no need to "study" once you’ve had your skin prickle or your bosom burn! No-- leaving is a complete rejection of the Truth that you once had and WHY would you do that UNLESS. . . you were locked in Satan's Kung-Fu grip?

I bent over my flowchart, using my newly minted skills in the pursuit of spiritual understanding. There was the Celestial Kingdom, the lesser and the greater, the Telestial Kingdom, the Terrestrial Earthly Kingdom, outer darkness, Morridor- I was documenting the crystalline structure of belief that was my soul. An intricate labyrinth more resembling a role playing game than a religion because of how detailed and contradictory "the Gospel" was. …

As always, you are the sole judge of what constitutes your voice. Look for a burning in the bosom....!!!LOL

Anagrammy

Make sure to repent for touching yourself under the covers :)

RJ,

The rest of the stories you've posted so far are about your life - your experiences with the church. Your experiences and emotions come across very well.

But this - this piece is where you need to really spell out Mormon doctrine, why it's false, and what you read that showed you that it's false.

Your readers aren't necessarily Mormon, and part of what they will read this book for is a better understanding of what it's like to be Mormon. You did a great - fabulous - job of describing the MTC. But this chapter is where you need to take down the Book of Abraham, the racist and sexist teachings, polygamy (and how you learned the truth), and all the specific things that destroyed your belief in the church.

Describe the specific things you read - not just this website, but other books. Summarize them for the reader. Maybe get permission to quote specific RfM posts.

Tell the story of Thomas March, and Orson Hyde, and Brigham Young, and contrast the "faith promoting" versions with the truth.

Add Dallin Oaks' statement (or was it BKP?) "Some things that are true are not very useful." Show how the church manipulates the truth.

Then describe what it felt like when your whole reason for existence collapsed. Make the reader understand that.

Get someone to tell you - or get permission from posters on this board to quote their posts - how their marriage fell apart because the church came first.

Show what happens to people who go from belief to disbelief.

This may take several chapters. I look forward to reading them all.

More of an outline to what really should be described?

Ok. I'll look at it again.

Thanks.

Pretty good. Just remember to cite the 25% retention claim.

I am an artist and a writer. I usually do my art in stages. Sometimes when I am stuck or lost with a piece I let it get "cold". This means I don't look at it for a long enough period that it is completely off my mind. Then when I do look at it again, I have a very good chance of looking at it with fresh eyes and seeing it as someone else might see it or read it. I have completely turned so-so work into things I loved. ( I have also been seriously shocked at how bad something was and ripped it up.)

My two cents for what it's worth would be that your content is excellent. I don't think there is enough of you in it to make it personal and I think it could use something more unusual in structure. For instance, some really off-the-wall present day
offenses along with the ones we all already know could really add. I really love that you're doing this.

I'm calling this a draft and moving on. I'll come back to it in a few days to a week and see what happens then.

It's ok but missing my voice, the humor is too spread out, and it's shallow.

I'll let it stew for awhile before I touch it again, though.

My measly 2 cents... you wrote 'life' when you meant wife in this part:

"unless he started fucking women other than his life,"


It was very different than what I'm used to reading of yours because the humor was more spread out. But for me, it was just as enjoyable.

Btw...is your wife a member of this board?

Hey raptorjesus, this is pretty good shit, but it's starting to sound like everyone else. I kind of like anagrammy's rewrite, but what I think it really needs is MORE SWEARING! Who the fuck are you anyway, you god-dinosaur impersonator, and what did you do with the real Raptorjesus?

which is just another way of saying that it's not quite personal enough.

I too would leave it to one side for a while... and then pump it full of filth ;-)

It's hard on a person when their best voice is an angry voice.

It's better to take fewer points and write them hilariously well than to cover many lukewarmly. I think of your writing of your mission- the names you gave the companions. I am laughing again just thinking about the immediate mental picture that Elder Fuckwit brought. That is prime RJ.

If you could bring an issue, like say JS going after the 14 year old Helen Marr Kimball and write a conversation with your bishop over this in your loud disrespectful voice, describing him, the room, the conversation with your wife before you left home, etc, that would be much more you. Present tense, lots of bad language.

After all, you aren't Jim Huston here. They want to look up history, fine, it's all in the internet. You are the only authority on how Raptor Jesus would view the RIDICULOUS crap that goes on, and THAT is your godlike contribution we all worship you for!

Anagrammy

And I appreciate it. And you are right. My voice is draining. I'll give it time for a rewrite.

Hello raptorjesus,

I offer my services to you for a brief clean-up, free of charge. As an editor, if the book gets published, for pay--unless you have a contract with a press already, in which case they'll edit your work for you.

I've authored a couple of published online newsletter stories, had some photos professionally published and paid for by others, and have written some web content for commercial concerns. I also have a Lit degree, have spent a lot of time as an EFL/ESL volunteer, and am never-Mo, which might help with the "clarity for others" issue. Been a speech and eulogy writer, grants proposal writer, etc.

I'm a better editor than I am a writer (unless you're talking fiction or poetry), and an excellent copy editor, when it comes to newspaper/journalistic writing.

I live abroad, so we'd have to do everything online. But I am a broad, which I think only helps my case.

Let me know if you need more intensive help than you can get here. I have a LOT of free time on my hands. And I like your style.

Email me please.

I am still waiting to find this all in one spot. You have a gift--get it out there in front of everyone else! Go raptor!