Happy to join the ranks of exmormon land! As a child of Gen Z, mormon indoctrination had very little chance of taking hold in me and my friends.

While most of them towed the line to keep their parents and families happy, I was that guy in seminary who always asked the tough questions until I was asked not to come anymore. Loved that extra sleep time in the morning!

Overall my experience in mormonism was pretty positive, only because I never really believed it. You'd be amazed at how enjoyable and entertaining going to mormon church can be when you don't buy into any of the mamba jahamba.

Anyway, just wanted to say I really enjoy reading this forum and I'm looking forward to sharing my unique perspective on growing up LDS in the 21st century!

How exciting! Just what I wanted to hear from your generation. Not only you but your friends too. Too good

I can't even imagine what it would have been like to not have bought the whole thing hook, line , and sinker like I did all those decades ago.

Do tell all!

Thank you! Well, for one thing I most definitely did NOT go on a mission. I had plenty of friends who did and the pressure to go was unbelievable!

But so many people from my stake ended up coming home early (especially the girls) that eventually everyone just kinda gave up. It started to be a big deal when someone got toward the end of their mission because it became apparent that they weren't going to quit early and bring "shame" on their families or ward.

I think people secretly appreciated me being upfront and transparent about not believing and not faking it like other kids, because all that ended up doing was causing them to be depressed and miserable.

One of the first things I searched for on this site (and on reddit) was bishop's interviews because while I had to do them as a teenager, I always told the bishop "that's none of your business" when he asked me about masturbation and sex and everything.

The funny things is, I never got in trouble for it. I know other guys were honest (if that's what you want to call it) and were told they couldn't pass or bless the sacrament. Me, I never admitted to anything so they couldn't punish me.

After I was 13 though I never wanted to pass the sacrament, and I never blessed it. I always volunteered to stand by the chapel doors to make sure nobody interrupted sacrament meeting so it probably wasn't worth it to the bishop to get mad about it.

Anyway, those are just a couple insights that came to mind!

Welcome to the board!

I'm impressed by how well you did in maintaining boundaries and in navigating your faith transition. How awesome that you had the maturity to tell the bishop "none of your business" to inappropriate questions!

Welcome. Mamba Jahamba is a great way to describe the history and doctrine! For many of us who tried hard to believe, we were only able to truly see it for what it is once we were on the outside looking in. Congratulations for your ability to recognize it while being pressured to play the game.

You ornery kids and yer new-fangled ways!!!

Why, back when I was a kid, we had to make do with mumbo-jumbo, cuz that's all they had back in the day!

And back then, the church were true, by cracky; not like now!

I'm curious at what age you and your friends admitted to each other as to not believing even though some were understandably faking it for parents. In my day that would have been unheard of. I am shocked that you "claimed yourself" at such a young age. Or, maybe envious.

Of course we did not have the access to information that is available now. I lived in the age of rotary dial phones, mimeographs for copy machines, and all our "googling" was in a set of Encyclopedia Brittanica that was years old.

Like elderolddog said, the church was still true, Indians were still Lamanites with Jewish DNA, and the world was about to find out any second that the ruins in central were really not Mayan at all, but Nephite. What a difference a few decades make!

Let's see. I can remember talking about anti-mormon stuff on camping trips (scouts) with a few of my buddies at like, junior high age. Things we'd heard, things we'd read.

I had a teacher in high school who everyone respected. Just a really cool dude who always gave it to you straight and was not politically correct. (Most teachers were afraid to teach anything real and treated us like little kids). A rumor got circulating that he was an atheist which shocked me, so I had to research what atheism actually was because all I'd heard growing up was how evil and stupid it was, and I knew this teacher was not evil or stupid.

That led me to the universe of atheist videos on youtube. I'd say I was a militant atheist online for most of high school, but offline I was much cooler about the whole thing. That was a phase. I don't really consider myself an atheist anymore. I'd consider myself agnostic and open-minded.

I think all religion is basically pointless for me, but I don't necessarily think the world would be a better place without it. Not until we evolve more, anyway.

I think I over-answered your question but it's nice to get everything out there!

Obviously, I don't want you doxing yourself, but can you give us an idea of where in mormonland you are?

I harbor this delicious daydream that you know one of my grandsons and that he's a raging atheist, only his mom (my TBM daughter) has no idea!

He did 'avoid' a mission, so that's why I harbor this notion that he's a complete unbeliever!

there were those like you. My therapist was one of those. Before he did serve a mission, he and his friends went to all the other churches in the St. George area and into Nevada to listen to what they had to teach. He was already an unbeliever when he left on his mission, but he was playing the role. He was about to be sent home from his mission by the MP, but then the MP was caught telling the sister missionaries they would be his future polygamous wives in the next life. One of the sister pairs didn't buy into it. The rest did. About 5 pairs. The pair that didn't buy into it wrote home to parents. This was in the 1970s. SLC called that MP home pretty damn quick.

My therapist is either 59 or 60. He is brilliant. Smartest man I've ever met and I know many brilliant men. He is an atheist.

But, elderolddog, my bet is on the fact your grandson is not a believer. Isn't that great!!!!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/19/2019 09:32AM by cl2.

Congratulations, honklermagla! Sounds like you have a lot of confidence and self-esteem! That's great that you were able to stand up to the bishop and tell him "NANYA"(nanyabusiness). Wish I had caught on when I was young; it would've saved myself and my family a lot of trouble.

Thanks, everyone, for the super kind words. I've been reading like crazy for the past couple weeks and I'm really looking forward to being part of the RfM community! Just because I didn't have a terrible experience growing up LDS, it doesn't mean I didn't have CRAZY and even hilarious experiences that I can share.

Curious what books you'd all recommend I should read on my downtime? Not necessarily about mormonism (what could be better than RfM) but more about philosophy and history. Thanks!

A book I recommend, which is about both mormonism AND history, is
No Man Knows My History by Fawn Brodie. I was already a nonbeliever when I read it, but it was still eye-opening and fascinating!

Second that. I came across NMKMH by Brodie on a famous reviewer's ten best list saying it was an absolutely fascinating read as a biography.

I suddenly remembered being warned all my childhood to never read it, so I all those years later as an exmo I couldn't wait to get my hands on it. No wonder they didn't want us to read it, haha.

Thanks! Looks like I can get it on Kindle for cheap.

What I liked is the book is completely full of references to newspaper clippings from the time, court records, diaries, and all kinds of documents to give validity to the biography. She backs it all up. Brody was also niece of David O. McKay and apparently had some access to papers etc that others would not have.

Reading it will double your need to roll your eyes when you are around TBM family and the tales they tell of the "wonderful innocent farm boy" Joseph Smith. I'm laughing just writing that. What a con!

If you don't mind a book recommendation from a Never-Mo, I read One Nation Under Gods years ago and found it fascinating and very well-written and researched.

Don't mind at all! Thanks for the recommendation and taking the time to read my post.