When I realized that the Mo-church was just WRONG, I tried to return to the church I had grown up in. I felt comfortable and welcome there.

Central problem: I realized that I didn't belong there because I was no longer a theist. The Mormon church destroyed my ability to believe, altogether.

Did this happen to anyone else?

Yes and no.

It pulled the rug out from under my feet between me, Mormonism, and my relationship to God. After it was pulled, I found myself still standing sans cult, on solid footing in a closer relationship with my maker. He needed that rug to be swept away so I could see the cult as a man-made institution run by men, also called "God makers," by other religions.

I've become more vigilant as to what I believe and whom.

The bible has never let me down, on the other hand. When I've needed wisdom or insight, guidance, etc, that is still where I turn. And in prayer & meditation.

So I still worship somewhere. But not anywhere.

I am not sour. I saw Mormonism for what it was. I was awakened not soured. I saw religion for what it was. Again, I was awakened. Not soured.

In fact, never felt less soured and more ebullient than when I left all religion in the dust, saw more clearly from a distance, and came to love exploration without expectation.

Yes, it definitely soured me to supernaturalisms or religion. I just can't believe in anything supernatural anymore. I mean once you apply the same critical thinking lens you did to Mormonism to any religion, they all dismantle upon close inspection. In fact, for everything you think is absurd or untrue about Mormonism on critical thinking grounds, a comparison can be made to the Bible.

No gold plates / no stone tablets
BoM a fraud / See Bart Ehrman's book Forged
Mountain Meadows / Witch Hunts
No lamanites / Watch the first part of this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xVBldyy_Oo

Give me any example of the problem with Mormonism and there is a Bible counterpart.

There is a third alternative though besides atheism/physicalism and that is progressive Christianity, think John Spong, Marcus Borg and Jordan Peterson who is popular right now.

These Christians give me wiggle room to still be somewhat a Christian though I reject all labels and just call myself a human BEing

Yep. Same here.

I would say yes.

The snarky answer: Religion entirely soured me on religion entirely.

The actual answer: Once free of intense indoctrination and manipulation, and able to draw my own conclusions about what I believed, I realized I didn't believe in anything supernatural and never really had.

Yes. Once you realize that one religion is a massive scam, it's not that much of a leap to extrapolate to all religions. I was BIC but studied several other major religions in high school when I realized that Mormonism just wasn't for me. But in every case I came to the same conclusion: it's just a scam to get money, keep the right people in power and keep the masses docile and obedient.

I can't even fathom how some people can leave Mormonism and hop right into another Christian sect, or Islam, or Buddhism or anything else. It's like hopping out of the fire and into the frying pan; a little less crazy, but still crazy. But I guess some people just need those comforting delusions.

Not really.

Primary concern was that it was possible to have been so duped in the first place ('BIC' - but even so). Led to intensive interests in human and crowd psychology; then evolutionary biology and finally, evolutionary psychology.

With that foundation there is a solid understanding of all organizations - of which some are classed "religion."
The species is not fundamentally shaped by logic or reason.

Zenjamin,

I think you are interpreting the question differently than everyone else. They seem to be answering the question, "did Mormonism sour you on BELIEF in other religions?" The reply is generally positive, that the assertion of rational analysis regarding Mormonism entailed the same approach to other religions and precluded faith in them.

You appear to be describing something else. You remain INTERESTED in religion as a subject of study, a form of organization and psychology. But I infer a degree of academic distance, as if you are analyzing a phenomenon objectively. If that is correct, then Mormonism cost you your ability to trust and believe other religions but left you with an intellectual interest in them?

That is incidentally what happened to me.

Lot's Wife Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

". . . then Mormonism cost you your ability to trust and believe other religions but left you with an intellectual interest in them?"
================================

Had to think on it; yours is a complex and unique perspective.
Conclude: "kind of" . . . but not because of Mormons, rather: the nature of the species.

Wouldn't put trust or belief in anything created by humans.
We create a religion in answer to a multitude of drives; and then within that religion, create God in our own image.
It is a very earth-bound matter.

The divine/eternal is another matter entirely.
The error is to conflate the earth-bound matter we create with the divine/eternal. These are entirely different.

Thanks for that LW, had to reflect on it for a while.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 04/13/2018 09:43AM by zenjamin.

It's certainly what happened to me with regard to Christianity (as I have never been a mormon - yet ;-)

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

What happened in my life was I found information and facts based on so many wonderful subjects I took at university.

Anthropology, geology, astronomy, philosophy, geography, sociology, and many other amazing subjects opened my mind to a world based on facts, evidence, and critical thinking where I grew to understand that all religions are myths created by all the cultures of mankind to first understand and control their world before humankind was on the road to advancement.

So no, Mormonism did not sour me on religion....I came to understand the role religion once played to help man survive.

presleynfactsrock Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> So no, Mormonism did not sour me on religion....I
> came to understand the role religion once played
> to help man survive.

Well said. And I'm in the same boat.

Learning that mormonism made false claims led me to look elsewhere for "truth." And to the value of the scientific method for determining it. Once I found that reliable way of determining fact from fiction, I applied it to all religion. And that was that. :)

Your explaination is very similar to mine. I became interested in many of the subjects you listed and it was clear to me how they contradicted the " Gospel". The irony is that many of those subjects I took at BYU. I did a lot of my own reading after I was out of school on those subjects but the initial interest came from my BYU classes. Go figure.

One way I look at it is God loved me too much to leave me where I was as a Mormon.

He needed the rug (of Moism) pulled out from under my feet to show me there is a better way not tied to that seriously dysfunctional religion.

It didn't make me sour on all religion though. Because some are genuinely more authentic, humble, and down-to-earth. It is CULTS that I abhor.

For me, religion soured me on Mormonism (and all religions).

Me in the back. Even with solid evidence of god, the badass is out.

Yes, Mormonism soured me on CULTS. I'm almost phobic about Mormon church meetings, but I go to the Lutheran and Methodist churches, on Easter and Christmas Eve.

When I discovered the fraud, I made a conscious decision to keep my beliefs in God, Christ and The Bible. I would not have been able to handle losing God, when I left the Mormon cult. Remaining Christian also kept me on more common ground with my TBM/Christian parents and Christian children. I was an "apostate", yet I still was living the "good Christian" lifestyle, so there were very few arguments.

I'm still at that point. I'm comfortable with ambiguity. I prefer not knowing, rather than believing in lies, so I'm happy.

Mormonism soured me on organized churches. I feel very uncomfortable inside of a church, with any religious group. I cringe when people ask me my name, and I will often make up a fake name. I never want to be cornered and used again.

I do volunteer with a coalition of Christian churches--and give them my real name--but the volunteer work is not done inside a church building. I prefer to donate anonymously. Hah, I'm not being "noble". If they don't know who I am, they can't pester me for MORE. I will forever be wary and protective.

Other religious services, with professional speakers and good music are uplifting, and I don't mind paying a reasonable donation. But, I always used to sit in the back, and talk to no one.

Now, I won't go to church alone. Those years of being single in the Mormon cult have soured me on going by myself! I go with my children on Easter, and with friends on Christmas Eve, and that's all I can tolerate.

I tried going to Mormon baptisms of family members, to be nice, but these rituals triggered PTSD flashbacks. I can love the child, and support them on their 8th birthday, but I do NOT support the Mormon cult, in any way.

Mormon funerals are just more preaching of lies, especially the lies and threats about their made-up hereafter. I send flowers if the deceased was someone I was close to, and, otherwise, a sympathy card or a note on the funeral website. If necessary, I will go to viewings, and give condolences to the family there, sign the register--and then go home.

I will probably never set foot in a Mormon cult meeting, ever again.

I feel a lot the same way you do about organized religion. But still will attend somewhere. I am very selective about where I will go.

Mormon observations trigger me too. Last time was a funeral of a cousin I attended, that I couldn't wait to leave once it was over with. The whole thing left a bad taste in my mouth.

From the woman I overheard complaining on her cell phone in the chapel about how she had to be there to sing a solo when no one else could be found by the Relief Society. She didn't want to be there, and when she sang her words came up empty, flat, without any feeling whatsoever for my deceased cousin. She would have made things much better for all concerned had she just stayed away. She wasn't really all that indispensable. Her efforts were paltry and her resentment showed for her being there.

Then there was the meal afterwards, which was nicely arranged, but the usual Mormon fare. Combined with the formaldehyde that permeated every corner of that church house after the deceased and her coffin were brought in, it was more than I could bear. The formaldehyde filled my lungs, and it took several hours after before I could really breathe again without noticing it.

Most sad, was that my cousin died with so much unfinished business here on earth. She'd had a grudge against her mother for more than 30 years. It was the first time her mother had seen her in fact, between then and her funeral (in the coffin.)

That was beyond heartbreaking. She was laid out in her temple clothes nonetheless. And given a Mormon funeral with all her family present. Their love for her was palpable. Their sorrow too, especially for her mother who loved her dearly.

I mostly went to support her mother. Otherwise I would have preferred to have stayed home.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/13/2018 11:16AM by Amyjo.

No. For me it is about the singer and not the particular song.

Sometimes I think about it. Most of the time, I just don't worry about it because I can't know anything anyway. I hope for the best is all.

I would never ever ever ever consider another religion. I oftentimes have a bad kneejerk reaction when I drive by a church that has it's meeting schedule posted. When I lived in Longmont, Colorado, I saw this quite a bit. Only 1 mormon stake center that I ever saw there, but there were a few churches that I'd pass almost daily and I'd think, "Why would ANYONE go to church?"

I gave it my all for years and years. For one, I have a very bad attitude towards religious men. It never did me any good in life, in fact almost destroyed my life, to trust religious men.

If there is a god and a judgement, I believe that those who created religious organizations for the purpose of controlling the masses and taking their time and money will not enjoy the next existence.

My love of stained glass gets me in the building. While reverent people listen to the sermon, I gaze up at a window and wonder, how much does that weigh?

kathleen Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> My love of stained glass gets me in the building.
> While reverent people listen to the sermon, I gaze
> up at a window and wonder, how much does that
> weigh?

My maternal grandmother and I went to visit a Jewish synagogue when I was 14. I begged her to take us to explore our Hebrew roots together. She was orphaned, and was sent away from Salt Lake City at age six, to be raised by Protestant aunts in Silicon Valley.

She hadn't been back inside a synagogue since she was six. So we went to one near her home in Ogden. Instead of the Ogden synagogue she chose to go to SLC's first and original synagogue. After we were listening to the sermon (much of it in Hebrew, which neither of us understood, but we were reverent and actively listening nonetheless,) she tugged at my sleeve part-way through the service to whisper to me that it was the very same synagogue her mother had brought her to when she was a child.

That day was the first time she'd been back there since her mom had died. How did she know?

She remembered the stained glass windows in the arched cathedral walls she used to study as a child as she sat with her and her grandmother for Shabbat services. The patterns hadn't changed and had stayed the same in the intervening years. :)

once the only true church on the face of the earth proved to be a big fat lie, it was not much of a leap to realize they were all big fat lies.

^^^ Yes, that.

Mormonism soured me on Mormonism.

Religion soured me on 'religion'!

As s member of a group with shared beliefs and activities, yes, Mormonism soured me to this kind of belonging, alas.

However, leaving Mormonism increased my interest in religion. I was left with questions: how does this work; why is it so ubiquitous and persistent in history until only very recently; what is it’s foundation; who, if anyone, is reliable as a religious founder; etc. I was left with questions about my experience and broader questions about what religion does and does not do for groups.

It soured me on falsehoods entirely.

HH =)

No, it didn't sour me. I was Christian before I was coerced into becoming LDS, and I'm still a Christian now (and resigned from the LDS Church). If anything, seeing all the legalistic bullshit involved with being Mormon made me appreciate the ease of being Christian.

9-11 soured me on religion and any other form of Us vs. Them tribal mentality, including the bogus Doomsday cult I inherited.
The first thing I said was, "Neitzsche was right. God is dead."
And He was, to me.
But I couldn't remain in that dark smoldering hole for long. Nihlism is exhausting.
So I looked for any sign of hope. Fortunately for me, it didnt take me long to recognize it in the selfless actions of tge firzt responders.

Yes! And I am baffled how anyone can still have a firm belief in any god after they have found the truth on Mormonism. Should be Auto-Agnostic from that point on.

No. Maybe I never really believed in Mormonism like I thought I did so wasn't that hard to concentrate on basics.

People who adhere to a certain religion tend to see all "other" religions through the prism of their own religion.

Christians, for instance, see judaism as the incomplete prototype of a religion that would eventually lead to the fulness of the gospel in christianity. But muslims think the exact same thing about christianity.

Once you are able to observe your own religion from a helicopter perspective, you can apply the same scientific method to all the others. And then the similarities become so comically obvious that you are unlikely to be fooled a second time.

Yes. Before learning all of the truth about Mo'ism here, I already had a bad taste from 'religion' in my mouth. I stopped participating in mormonism 18 years before I found out the truth about it. This so-called religion has made my parents (especially mother) absolutely crazy. They were so awful to me when I left. They treated me like garbage over their precious religion. That was eye-opening. They tried to break up my relationship with my nevermo boyfriend (now husband), they tried to turn all of my siblings against me, they sent religious men to my house constantly to harass me, etc. They put a lot of energy into making my life hell. Because I moved out and stopped attending their 'church' that I was being forced to attend? Gee thanks, 'parents'.

Even though I went 'inactive' for a long time, I still had a belief in God and prayed sometimes (especially once I had children...prayed for their safety and health). Once the house of cards collapsed because I discovered the truth, I was completely disillusioned. It all just seems so silly now. I cannot ever be a part of a religion again. I am human, though, so I still have a need to be a part of a group. I have found that need met in other ways. I have friends of all different religions and I am respectful of that because no friend (who isn't Mormon) has ever tried to force their religion on me or tried to entice me in. Even my own TBM sister tried to trick me into coming back by inviting me to her book club and playgroup (for the little kids). At first it seemed harmless to go to non-church things and meet some of her friends. But they are all TBM women that know I'm an 'inactive' (haven't resigned yet). Their book clubs were hardly ever about the actual book...they just sat around and talked about all things Mormon. They even had a conversation about their garments (which I've never worn). Why on earth would I be interested in talking about that?? I quickly realized that I was their re-activation project. Once I stopped going to their book club, I was getting the 'why did you give up on us?' and 'we miss you' guilt-ridden comments when I would run into these women around town. These women know nothing about me and never tried to get to know me, but they thought they had me because I went to their book club a few times. It was all so disingenuous. Glad I finally saw through it.

My dad had a couple of "men of the cloth" try to blackmail him. They were not Mormon but he had a healthy mistrust of all things religious.

When I joined Mormonism I learned that Dad was right. People who ordain themselves to be "special witnesses" are not to be trusted.

No.

As it turns out, Mormonism ended up being a 25-year train stop on my search for truth. I met many good people there.

I believed in God from early on and have searched my whole life for THE truth.

Found it, too -- just not there in Mormonism.

Learned many good lessons while being a Mormon -- SOME truth too. When you fraternize with basically decent people, you're bound to stumble upon some truth.

z

I soured in religion while a Mormon but not because of Mormonism itself. The Bible failed for me first and the rest went shortly there after.

No, but it made me more skeptical, and I believe I likely enjoy a bit less fulfillment in my spiritual experiences since.

One bad relationship with a lying, cheating, manipulator doesn't mean every future relationship will be the same. But it sure makes you a bit more wary.

It had the advantage of helping me isolate a few basic undeniable truths that have served as a bulwark for my faith apart from whatever else I may run across.

It helped plant the seed.

No. I sat out of any faith community for a few years and focused on community endeavors. Eventually, I attended a wedding of a friend at an Episcopal Church and today I am an Episcopalian and participate as time permits. It is part of my life but has not overtaken my life. In the course of attending, I discovered how little the LDS faith focuses on Jesus Christ and his teachings.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/14/2018 05:01PM by unabashed.

The longer I've been out of TSCC, the more I've appreciated how little focus is actually on the teachings of Jesus or the Savior of the bible.

More emphasis was on Joseph Smith and how important he was/is to the world. TSCC still teaches that and probably always will. That's part of its brainwashing.

In the GA current global tour, President Nelson remarks that, 'The Lord's message is for everyone.' What he really means is that only his cult has that message. Because no other church, denomination, or synagogue is remotely close in truth to TSCC.

And that is the brainwashing that deludes even him in his old age.

Nope. I returned to my protestant faith of my youth after about 10 years of no church at all. I'm very comfortable there. Sometimes I wear jeans. Never lost my faith in God and always prayed. I did ditch Joseph Smith and dresses.

I thought it would have, but I went to a protestant church this morning and loved it. I was able to wear jeans and a polo shirt!

Truth soured me on religion.

Learning the origin of religion is what opened my eyes.

No. After moving to northeastern Nevada from SLC at age 48, I attended a Greek Orthodox church for a year or so, and then began attending an Episcopal church when I discovered their attitude toward LGBT folks and women priests. I was baptized a year ago this month, after attending for 2 years and taking Episcopal 101 classes.