I've interacted with a few Exmormon who believed in Mormonism 100 percent. They believed everything at complete face values, virtues, and being a clean enough container for spiritual possession by a god.

These people weren't zealots, people who would go off and do like Joseph, or even attempt to ass kiss their way up the Mormon clean-cut hairway to Elohim.

But they sincerely, honestly, and guilelessly believed.

These people heart and soul were into Mormonism. And it is interesting when they discover the con how utterly baffled they are at the depths of deceit and disingenuous history.

These people were the perfect members and Mormonism is easy to show as patently false. It is the perfect setup for a complete destruction of an honest true believer's world. It is like mentally living in the Celestial Room basking in the glow of the glory of The Plan of Salvation and then one day little flecks of Mormon history and abuses of authority start to appear in those eternity mirrors and the decor degrades to that of a living room in a house of a Mormon family living at the poverty level with double-digit kids.

To all you former honest TBMs who truly believed every word from Mormonism's gods I think it is heinous what Mormonism did to you in causing real mental anguish over your loss. We experience leaving Mormonism, all of us, so very differently and to different degrees of pain and suffering. But to have believed to the Celestial degree and have your temple not left with one stone upon another must have been incredibly hard.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/22/2017 09:20PM by Elder Berry.

aren't honest TBMs. If they really believed it, they would live it. I see so many who don't, but put on a good show for the world to see. I lived it because I believed it.

What a relief it was to figure out it isn't true, though! Running into gay in my life really threw me BIG TIME. To finally realize that they were just dead wrong was so freeing. Never once in all of mormonism did I find the peace I did with leaving.

cl2 Wrote:
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> aren't honest TBMs. If they really believed it,
> they would live it.

I know formerly honest TBMs who are now in an apologist frame of mind. I believe the Ash book "Shaken Faith Syndrome" is all about conversion from honest, guileless, and more open people to ones using cognitive dissonance tricks to overcome the fact that Mormon history doesn't fit with their personal history in Mormonism and that Mormon beliefs do fit the facts about ancient history as well as open theology.

Many honest TBMs I know and know of think Mormonism is an open and honest religion with nothing to hide. They have accepted Mormon temple work as an honest endeavor. It doesn't dawn upon them that a loving God wouldn't choose to make only one group of people who can live completely devoted to unrealistic purity ideals the only people able to save through ordinances all of humanity

If Jewish and Hebrew people were responsibly for living according to their religion to bring a savior they failed miserably. But The Book of Mormon encapsulates the ideal that a few people could not give up on Jesus coming.

Mormonism for the honest TBM is something so obvious and innocuous as to blind them to the fact that to live it honestly is impossible. They literally have to believe everything that happens to them in Mormonism is sanctioned by God and all the mistakes of the past and present are foreordained. And that they will be the few that hold out for Jesus while all others will be burned at his second coming.

The effort to be in the Mormon world as an honest person and not be overcome by the dishonest using it for whatever purposes is too great. You literally have to become a child mentally and join the circus of Mormon apologists in believing alternate explanations for the anachronistic and impossible conditions in The Book of Mormon.

You have to believe people using Mormonism to make themselves feel better and more righteous are things condone by the God of everyone.

You have to overcome critical thinking, the uniqueness of others in being good people outside of a Mormon good, and judge critical thinking about Mormonism and the goodness of others as something there is no answer for except God's in charge somehow and those good people will become posthumously Mormon.

When I finally figured it out, I looked back at people I got ripped off from or in some way mistreated by and I thought" "No wonder!" and I stopped blaming myself. Mormons who harm will always degrade you and claim that all is your fault. Then they will go to the bishop or other members and explain their own dishonest side for a cover, so you can't get any help or support. When you realize finally that the church is a scam, you can really understand what kind of people it attracts, and how it tends to bring out the worst in some formerly good people. Now I know why some of the best people dropped out over the years, removed their names, often joined other churches. I used to wonder why they weren't afraid that God would punish them for leaving the "truth and light" behind them, maybe throw them into outer darkness. It was ironic that those same people looked happy and were doing great in other places.

It burns me to realize how gullible I was How I believed all those love-bombers wanted to be my close friends when they actually wanted to "score" another baptism. Why didn't I walk away back then? Why did I stay for more cons? It hurts to be conned, but now I know I will never get conned by a Mormon ever again. Unless I fall for a scam...

brigidbarnes Wrote:
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> When I finally figured it out, I looked back at
> people I got ripped off from or in some way
> mistreated by and I thought" "No wonder!" and I
> stopped blaming myself.

Blaming oneself for what Mormonism deems bad Mormon behavior strikes me as one of Mormonism's most powerful weapon against humanity. Many religions approach bad behavior from an individual's conforming to a higher level of human existence without the implosion of the individual. In Mormonism and any organization which places organization above individual salvation this blaming oneself for not conforming to a group think ruled by local individuals presents one with an almost impossibility of being honest with yourself in attempting to be "honest with your fellow men."

> It burns me to realize how gullible I was How I
> believed all those love-bombers wanted to be my
> close friends when they actually wanted to "score"
> another baptism. Why didn't I walk away back then?
> Why did I stay for more cons? It hurts to be
> conned, but now I know I will never get conned by
> a Mormon ever again. Unless I fall for a scam...

In our human desire to be part of a larger thing, group, reality confirmed in the mind and eyes of others we become susceptible to scams. Mormonism has billions of dollars to prove this fact.

It's weird when everything you know disappears into nothing, like the scene in "The Awakening" (with Charlie Sheen) where a little orb sucks in everything around it like a little black hole.

It's a great way to learn about culture and religion, though. It's like Dumbo's feather. You figure out it was just a feather. Okay, but then how were you flying? The facts are crystal clear about how Mormonism was fabricated by lesser men than ourselves, so it shouldn't work. But it does. That doesn't excuse the church's reluctance to come in from the cold, of course. Whatever you get there can be obtained elsewhere at much lower cost.

For that matter, any DIY faith is going to be just as good if not better than Mormonism. It's certainly more true to the church's original vision.

Thanks for this. This was/is me. I think most of the people I know as well. Once the paradigm shifts it is all over. I hope more of them get here.

ASA Wrote:
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> I think most of
> the people I know as well.

I think many Mormons strengthen each other in their honest attempts to live a myth. This is why monks and nuns live together just not together like Mormon monks and nuns do.

I find it ironic that what pushes many members out of the church is the very honesty that church itself instilled in us in at sunday school when we were like 5 years old. Yes, some of us were the dumber one's who didn't understand that bishop interviews were there to teach us how to became a good mormon liar and instead we became even more commited to truth and honesty, perhaps we went on missions because we honestly believed and again, what was supposed to teach us how to 'lie for the Lord' instead backfired because "thou shalt not bear false testimony". We at first naively assumed that the "fake-it-til-you-make-it"-attitude would involve actually making it, not merely keeping on faking it. And the disappointments and the doubts kept on piling up.

I've never seen an honest TBM. Is there such a thing ?

I have hes on the board with that title "honest TBM"

I have a fun plan to expose Elder Berry as being a total fool. How I plan to do it is really simple. I'm going to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the Mormon church is a very honest, truthful, and transparent Church. Then all the stuff he has written here will seem like total baloney and he will look like a total fool. The first step is that I'm going to show the links on lds.org where members/investigators can get some very useful and detailed financial, statistical, and historical records on the Church where anyone reading them will stand all amazed as they proclaim "gosh - what a super honest and transparent Church". It's this reputation that helps strongly build testimonies that the Church is true :)

Now I do have one tiny little problem right now on me bringing Elder Berry down. I haven't yet produced these website links. So in the meantime I'm the one who looks like a total fool and I have a very serious credibility problem. But you just watch out Elder Berry :)

Now that's timing you actually made me laugh with how quick you appeared.

As long as your laughter is mild or moderate then that is just fine by me. But if it gets any louder then the tears of sorrow shall flood my eyes as I contemplate the great iniquity before me that is akin to someone drinking an evil Satanic beverage like green tea.

Haha jesus, it was LOUD laughter.