We've hashed over and over the proverbial "last straw" leading out of the church...what about the "first straw"? Anyone remember anything that made you start thinking "hmmm..."?

I remember mine like it was yesterday:

Stake president's office, Phoenix, AZ, 1983. In attendance: me, my then wife and the stake president. He up and asks:

"Do you participate in oral sex". "Yep," says we.. "Then you must stop immediately". WTF?

I still remember my wife saying (she's to this day TBM) "That's bullshit". Apparently, I gave good head or something.

It was then and there that I started wondering WTF? about a lot of things. Once I added them all up, I was out forever. I always wondered after I left how many stake high counselors had ever waltzed into the Bishop and said "get me off the roles".

Just wonderin'...

Ron

ExMormonRon Wrote:
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>
>
> "Do you participate in oral sex". "Yep," says
> we.. "Then you must stop immediately". WTF?
>


We were going to a temple prep class a couple of years after getting married, and then had a bishops interview. He didn't ask if we had oral sex, but must have been a cool guy because he said something like, "Whatever your sexual practices are is fine, don't let anyone tell you different."

This was in the mid 80's.

My first straw was finding out that McConkie writing Mormon Doctrine pissed the first presidency off, but he was such a strong personality that he got to do what he wanted anyway. I thought, "This isn't how I was always taught that it worked up there!" They were supposed to go to the temple and pray and God tells them what is right. Naive I know.

The second one was DNA and Indians. I was like, "What about Lamanite week at BYU when I was younger" how could this not really be what I was always taught it was.

My first issue was the sincerity with which people believed in other Churches.
My "feelings" were my evidence. It guaranteed the truth of the Church. How could somebody get indistinguishable feelings about another Church?

You just never see a church that calls itself the "almost true church of Jesus Christ" do you.

They are all the ONE and ONLY TRUE Church....accept no substitutes.

That scripture was the first thing I hit that made me wonder if the entire LDS viewpoint on God was offbase as a missionary. I found several other scriptures in Isaiah where that same point is made a few times by God.

"10 Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord, and my servant whom I have chosen: that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I am he: before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me.
11 I, even I, am the Lord; and beside me there is no saviour."

Notice the lack of cross references to this in your LDS KJV...I always wondered why the silence...

KJV Deut 13

If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder, 2And the sign or the wonder come to pass, whereof he spake unto thee, saying, Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them; 3Thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams: for the LORD your God proveth you, to know whether ye love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul.



Suggests the whole thing is a fraud, doesn't it? We were warned about people like Joe and his seer stones.

"The next one was for sure the temple I actually thought to myself afterwards holy crap I am in a cult. But I already had my mission papers and I then thought maybe I just don't understand and I will understand these things later. It was always my fault."

Same thing happened to me-mission call received, and then the endowment, and then, ! "Oh $#!t I'm in a cult!" I'm pretty sure that was my second straw, too!

I really think my first thought of major doubt was in institute class when the teacher was explaining the problems with the BoA. He was giving the apologetic stuff about it and everything he said seemed kind of lame to me. But then I thought to myself well there are guys smarter than me in this church and they know about this stuff so I'll just put it on a shelf.

The next one was for sure the temple I actually thought to myself afterwards holy crap I am in a cult. But I already had my mission papers and I then thought maybe I just don't understand and I will understand these things later. It was always my fault.

First straw, I didn't like being a mormon. I should have listened to that still small voice and run like hell. As opposed to waiting around for more straws.

There are alot of straws. I think my very first one was finding out as a new teenaged convert that the gold plates were given back to the angel.

Oh yeah I remember asking my Mom where the plate are when I was a little kid. My mom said that the angel took it back so I thought to myself well he could be lying the whole time. I said to my Mom how come the angel took it back. She said it was because we have to base are belief on faith. I thought to myself this was kind of lame... Why would God have such weird logic.

I should have listened to this doubt when I was a kid. Damn I was smarter when I was a kid. Now that is sad :(

Oh I know! If god never took the bible back, why would he take the plates back???? Doesn't make sense. The bible exists. The plates don't. Period.

I was at church, feeling all sassy and converted. My friend who was investigating came up to the mishes who had been introducing me to people and asked how the church can defend it's policy of not giving the priesthood to blacks. WHAT?!?!?!

Nobody had EVER said anything about that during those nice little lessons. I guess they didn't know where to fit racism into the discussions.

They explained that the policy had ended (barely a year before this conversation!) and blah blah blah. I was starting to wonder what else I didn't know and I was getting worried that I hadn't asked enough questions first.

I guess all throughout my life there have been a long series of straws I was able to keep piling on my camel. Too many to count.
That poor camel's back eventually just shattered under the weight of all those straws.

But I think one of the things that just gnawed and gnawed at me was: "What is wrong with me that I don't feel like everyone else does about these things?"

When I got married and mentioned this to my wife, she said: "Hey I've been having many of the same doubts most of my life. I always thought there was something wrong with me."

It was then that it dawned on me that the "something wrong" aspect wasn't us, it was the church.

First straw for me was 2 weeks after my baptism when I had a temple recommend interview so I could go do baptisms for the the dead in the Mesa AZ temple and the bishop asks me "Do you self-abuse?"

Now I have a Psychology degree and work in mental health. So I am well aware of what real self abuse is, cutting yourself, burning yourself, hitting yourself repeatedly, and other self-injurious/suicidal behavior.

So I said "No I don't hurt myself" very much confused why he would even ask me such a question.

Then he said "No I meant masturbation"

I was in shock he would ask me, a 28 year male if I like to play with myself. That is when I went home and googled "mormon church doctrine or secrets" and found this website.

I knew I was going to leave when I found out those sick old men who call themselves gods mouthpiece on earth quiz boys and girls as young as 10 if they like to touch themselves and instill guilt and self loathing in them. There is NOTHING wrong with masturbation

I think it was Packer that recommended typing a kids hand to the bed post if they can't stop masturbating.

Absolutely revolting. If I had a daughter or son and some guy pulled them into a room and asked them if they play with themselves I hope the Bishop is very large because I am 6'2" 200 pounds and I would for 100% sure knock them on their ass.

Yeah I am shocked my parents allowed this to happen to me. I want to call it out on them but I think that will just cause more problems. I don't know how they could not see that this is a very wrong thing to do. You know how depressing it is lying every 6 months and being ashamed of myself for the past 16 years of my life. Damn I hate those mormon leaders so much for doing that to me.

Thank you!!!

I mentioned this in a thread last week, but my first question came from the story of the Word of Wisdom. If I remember right it went something like "...all the church leaders had a meeting at the Smith house, and after they left there was an awful mess from the tobacco and bad habits they had and Emma was bitching and bitching about it, so ole Joe goes out and prays and the Lard gives him the W of W..." I remember thinking "that is awful convenient...hmmm" But I filed those doubts away for a few more years.

Why couldn't JS have just told his friends to be less sloppy!

THAT would have taken a piece of revelation.

So a mess is made, and suddenly whatever made the mess is forbidden??? hmmm, I guess they better forbid everything kids do! lol

I remember thinking..."hmmm these guys were drinking alcohol and chewing tobacco and still having revelations? I thought if you broke the word of wisdom you lost the spirit."

So much for that one...another straw on the camel.

I was going to reply on "last straw" but this works. I've been trying to recall what it was that sent me to my room when i was about 19 or so sitting on the floor going through everything i had that was mormon related, photo's of camp, certificates, etc. and throwing it all out. It may have been seeing an old ward member and her asking me how my little boy was. What? turns out, she assumed since i'd been inactive for quite a while that i was out getting pregnant of course! What she saw was me with a friends kid i was babysitting. Why wouldn't she just ask me when she saw me at the store? I guess instead she ran back to the ward to tell everyone why i had gone inactive. Great huh?

... with that feeling for years why, oh WHY did it take me so long to see there was nothing there for me or my family?

A war in heaven never made sense. God could create worlds without end but couldn't stave off a war in heaven... F that!

None of the Mormon stuff ever adds up.. you have to be delusional to believe it.

Treasure Hunting
Bof M names similar to upstate NY
Angels with swords
Polygamy
Golden plates that are secret
No archeological evidence
power over women
Only God works thru a middle man the profit- he can't go direct to me?
God more worried about my brand of underwear
than whats in my heart?
No money accountability
thats just a few first straws
f it all!

For me, it was 2 things, and they both happened when I was 12:

1-- When our class teacher on Sunday told us we could “become gods” after we die. Keep in mind, I believe in God, and I have always listened to what he has told me in my heart. 90% of the time, when I hear something about God, I get this feeling in my chest of “These are good words-- this is truth”. But when our teacher said that about becoming gods… Even just being a little girl, I INSTANTLY had this overwhelming feeling of “WHOA! Stop! That is 100% false!”

Up until the age of 12, the church had only told us things that pretty much every church tells you (well except the whole Joseph Smith thing, and even that, I never really took to… whenever I heard that story, I always kinda felt like “Ok… Who the heck is this guy, again???” . But never before had I felt a “false doctrine” warning that powerful about anything they had told me. As soon as I did… It planted the seed of doubt in the entire church.

2-- When I got a pamphlet in Young Womens, telling me “The lord forbids any and all forms of masturbation.” Once again, I got that “This is false” feeling again. Just 2 weeks before, my school had our nurse come in to talk to us girls about periods. 2 girls in our class had already started, so they figured they had better warn the rest of us. The nurse told us “Some times a young woman might… Explore her own body, like the private areas, and such…” (We all looked around and giggled, like ‘eeeewww’- but at the same time, we all had this telltale look on our face, because we knew we had done that…). Then the nurse said, “And don’t worry, that’s nothing to be ashamed of. Its perfectly normal and natural! Its human instinct getting to know yourself, so don’t feel bad about that.” Well, I thought that sounded very open, understanding, and medically professional. I agreed with it too.

But when I got that pamphlet saying it was “forbidden”…. That just sounded unreasonably intolerant, and I began to feel disconnected from the church, like they saw anything sexual as dirty, and they couldn‘t accept that humans had physical needs. I took the pamphlet into my (single) father. He was always frank and honest with me about everything. I asked him his opinion on this. Keep in mind, both of my parents believe in God, but they had never been to a temple for anything, and were never very gung-ho about LDS. My father just sighed, and calmly told me, “You know, as long as you’re not putting yourself in medical danger, I think what a person does with their own body when they are alone is nobody else’s business. I think they’re going a little overboard trying to make little teenagers feel like they won’t get into heaven, if they do something perfectly natural. I wouldn’t read too much into that.” He basically said the same thing the nurse said. And again, I agreed with it. It just felt more like truth to me.

Thanks so much for starting the first straw one! But as soon as I went through the temple, that's when I was like..what in the world..!? I feel like I'm in the KKK! Then my parents asked if it was the most spiritual experience of my life and i was just like, yeaaaa...for sure...

I remember RIGHT before I went with my parents, I had SEVEN people from my home ward (adults I didn't really know) text or facebook message me saying "Just remember, the church is true and you may not understand some things in the temple. Just give it time and eventually you'll know."

Seven.
Seven people told me to remember that the church is true no matter what.
I was indescribably confused as to why I would have to worry about that before going to "the most spiritual experience of my life." Weird.

Since then, I've been doing research, decided the church wasn't for me, told my bishop I'm not going on a mission, told my parents I'm not going to church. Just waiting out the end of the semester at BYU to get home, find a place of my own, work a semester, and transfer to a good college there. I feel so free.

Red Flag. Totally.

to not be allowed to pray in sacrament meeting and the policy had been changed. I thought the church was unchanging, so this didn't make sense, and it seemed like a really stupid policy in the first place.

That's when I realized the unchanging church thing is a lie and wondered what other assumptions we had were lies.

The first straw was also my last straw: The GAs lie to members...

-About seeing Jesus
-About church history
-About changes to the BoM
-About the many versions of Joe's first vision
etc etc

My closet disbeliever wife made me aware of many things while I was still TBM. I discounted each one of course; explained it away with typical TBM logic. But in the end the doubts seeped in. I decided that if I could find evidence that the apostles still see Jesus, that would mean this church is still true, not matter what else is wrong...and my exodus proceeded rapidly from there. When I discovered that they don't see Jesus, I was in denial. When I got past denial, I looked into it more and found out about all the other lies. So I made one last attempt to find evidence that the GAs see Jesus, and instead I came full circle and heard it from the horse's mouth that they don't. 'Nough said. "All true, or not at all true."

I think I was a blissfully ignorant TBM for at least the first couple of years. As a convert I *really* got with the program doing missionary splits within a month or so of being dunked.

I guess the first chink was when a fellow Mormon (!!) gave me a copy of 'No Man knows my History' ..... It wasn't the last straw, as I wrote it off as mostly anti-mormon lies..... but I kept it on mind, and it laid the groundwork for me eventually leaving.

I grew up in a close but not toyaly TBM family in a small mormon town. One of my older sisters figured out in high school she was homosexual, (we didn't have gays in those days.) The people in the "church" treated her like a leper,,name calling and discrimation was unreal. So I seen how judgemental and cruel they were.
Also no one ever could explain the first 180 pages that were lost. If they were translated from god himself,,why couldn't Joe just crank ou another set? As a young man growing up around the pious and arrogance,,was why I never got really into the clan.

He argued with me until I realized that it didn't matter what I said, I was getting baptized, and I gave up.

I couldn't have articulated it at the time, but how could it be a covenant or anything close to that when I didn't even agree to it?

When I was about 19 I reminded my dad of this incident and he said, "You know that's not true". (Which he has used on several other occasions when he doesn't like what I'm saying.)

Wow, my first straw was when I was 13 in Sunday School class. I had a question, and I'm sorry, I don't remember what the question was, but the answer to that question was; "For some things, you just have to accept it on faith." The first thought I had after that answer was, Then what is the difference between tscc and any other church out there? They all say you have accept what they say on faith alone. I never understood that, and I thought the church had all the answers, but when they don't, they just say you got to accept what ever they say on faith alone.

I studied early Christianity intensively at BYU and in graduate school with the idea of becoming a Mormon apologist. After several years of work, I realized that reading the New Testament as literal history is ridiculous. Once I realized that the Bible was folklore, the Book of Mormon did not have a leg to stand on with me anymore: its status as naive biblical fan-fiction from the nineteenth-century became blindingly obvious. By this time, I was up to speed on the real character of Joseph Smith (whom I do not see as wholly evil, by the way, though of course he is nothing like the prophet in the LDS church manuals.)

1.) Going through the temple and thinking wtf kind of church am I part of? It didn't seem like anything even remotely Mormon-ish that I had seen growing up. People thought that I cried the entire time because of the spirit, and I really wanted to believe them. Also, they said I could ask any question I wanted in the celestial room, but they wouldn't answer any of them.

2.) Having a bishop tell me that it's impossible to love more than one person, and god looks down on it.