it could've been something said, done, or believed. It could've been a doctrine or policy change. Given your mindset while TBM, what would've kept you a member?

For me, it would've been the local hierarchy acting like people of integrity when we had computer issues on the old FIS system and we begged them for help. We got NO help, and when SLC came along demanding several months of tithing reports which hadn't been transmitted, the stake acted like this was the first they'd heard of the problem. Basically, they passed the buck like any bureaucrats, and ignored our pleas for help. Had they given it, I might still be in that cussed church.

Maybe if the uppity ups in SLC had made the SP and the bishop get off their ego trips and do their job.

However, I think it was just a matter of time. I'll never forget the look of relief on my husbands face when I told him I thought the church was a load of crap. His response? What's your favorite wine? My response? Lets go find out. And we did.

I love that story.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/31/2012 06:14PM by blueorchid.

Me too. What a happy ending out of the church Mia's story is.

Very patient man, DH. He took it slow "planting seeds" and backed off when I got too afraid of leaving the church. I use to always say, "I'll think about it tomorrow."

Took nine years for the tomorrow to arrive.

DH came home from work and I greeted him with, "We need to leave the Church. Honey, I can't do this anymore?"

He was elated! Went right over to the base ID the next day and had LDS taken off his dog-tags.

I have apologized to him for it taking me so long. He just holds me and says, "I love you."

We just had our 44th. wedding anniversary

A guarantee my ex could change to straight? That was my first thought--but as I learned from reading this board, gay makes him the unique individual he is. Don't want to change him. Gay marriage. Nope. Too late.

NOTHING could get me back.

I never enjoyed it there. I went because I thought I didn't have a choice. We have a duty to go to church. (I was born in the church)

If I had ever enjoyed it I might have continued going for social reasons.

I didn't like it but didn't think I had a choice.

exactly. Except i thot i could stop going so frequently after my kids turned 18 and their 'moral education' was complete. Then i'd go once or twice a month, just enuf to stay on the active rolls and keep everyone from talking or worrying.

i had no idea people would LIE and say they saw a vision of God!... not even to start 'the true church'

If the people behaved like decent human beings. I knew there were a lot of problems with the church and there was a lot of lying in the leadership but I'd bought into the ol' thought-stopping cliche that "well, all churches have problems." I still was also under the belief that Mormonism taught good family values. Thankfully, I was proven very wrong.

Almost to a man and woman, the members behaved in judgmental, self-righteous, non-Christian way that lost all my respect. I wasn't offended because I didn't respect them enough to be offended by them. I just didn't want to hang out with that sort of person any more - and I certainly didn't want people who didn't share my values teaching their lack of values/lack of morals to my kids. I wanted my children around nice people and I didn't want to spend all my free time around people who were a bad influence on me. If that's the sort of person Mormonism turns out, I wanted to get as far away from it as possible. There were a few exceptions - people I could still respect - but I could count them on my fingers. Literally.

The one thing that would've kept me in the church when I began doubting:

Acute onset of late-stage Alzheimer's...

I would've stayed no matter what if the "power of discernment" had been real.
My father, our bishop & his son were ALL three pedophiles & priesthood holders in good standing with the church. My father went on nearly 20 years molesting kids, all the while receiving callings. When we had the opportunity to meet a GA, I was absolutely sure that he would "see" my father's sins...but no, he shook his hand, clapped him on the back & congratulated him on helping to build the kingdom by having 8 souls in his care...soon after that, Bishop Adams & his son were busted for child pornography & my father spent 17 years in prison for child sex abuse...you'd have thought they'd have seen it coming.
Apart from that let-down, every Bishop or BP we had during that time, who wasn't a douchebag, is walking around feeling like they must've been so very,very sinful to not have discerned the situation. I feel really badly for them. Any other clergy of any other church would've thought "that F*cker was really good at hiding it!"
But no, in mormondom, the bishops are all at fault for something they couldn't possibly have known. Just sad.

I would have stayed if further DNA results could turn Native American ancestors back into Jews. Pesky facts--damn things just don't seem to give a damn about me and my belief paradigm.

When I was having my doubts and doing research I was called a sinner for reading unapproved materials that were published by the church and essential materials in their day. They told me I had to consider my covenants made in the temple and that I had to focus on my duties and I would see that it was true.

For a while I hung out with some RLDS folks and visted the Community of Christ as well as writing to the temple lot folks and reading stuff from a couple other groups.

The Community of Christ people have dealt with these issues by pointing out that history is there, but that does not and should not interfere with a firm belief in the Saviour and in his gospel. Unlike the LDS who did everything they could to discourage people from reading Mormon Enigma, the RLDS suggested reading it to get a good picture of the early church.

It was their honesty and focus on Christ that nearly convinced me to join.

The LDS tried to scare me and tried to divide our kids against us, they tried to make my wife cry by threatening her with losing her family in the hereafter, and they treated us like lepers and devils just because we stopped attending.

In the end, even though we know way too much about mormonism of all types, we occasionally drop in on the RLDS because we like their services but can't even imagine going to an LDS service even in a different stake.

If I didn't feel the same "spirit" at a Frankie Goes To Hollywood concert as I did baptising some Americanophile Japanese teen.

Good one. Happened to me walking into a sports venue that i had been away from while on a mission. I felt the spirit way more than ever before. Puzzling at the time.

I went from knowing it was true to knowing it wasn't in a split second with no time in between for doubts. Just before that, when I went to church, I felt nothing----NOTHING.

Looking back, I was subconsciously out of there long before I became conscious of the lies and damage. Nothing could have kept me in because something in me on a deep level had already moved on.

Once I saw the truth, there was no going back. Sure, I did plenty of research after that just to be sure, but there was no undoing that moment of realization.

There is nothing that would have kept me in the church when I finally realized that the church is false, I left and have no plans to go back. I do think sometimes that I'd like to go visit some of my old friends, but then I ask, why? No one has ever called me or went out of their way for a moment to say hello, how are you? That's the way it is in the church!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/31/2012 06:25PM by orphan.

The only thing that could have sent me back would have been some sort of concrete evidence that it was all true. Instead, I just kept finding more and more evidence revealing it to be not true.

If the LDS church taught its own tradition and texts more like the RLDS, with an openness to other cultural traditions and wisdom paths, e.g., similar to the UUs. I.e., if the church just saw itself as a human organization with high hopes but realistic understanding, human understanding of its origins and of what it could do for people. After all, most of the good it does is as a human community with a charitable ideal. Get rid of the unrealistic, historically false, expectations about its truth claims.

Also, if it could get rid of the social climbing and tithe grabbing and the institutionalizing of second-class citizen status to the Temple "unworthy," and if it could erase the priesthood authority granted all too often to small men who get all puffed up b/c of the LDS church's inability to accept that it is just an historically conditioned, man-made group, one like any of the others, then I might be able to spend an hour there a week with my family.

The problem with the church is that it demands everything of the individual but makes no concessions on its own part. The church wants every benefit of the doubt, but also wants every ounce of commitment from members. That is an unfair contract. A church with historically false or miraculous claims cannot strut around like the only True Church on the earth and not expect anyone with any interest in truth to not mock it and cry foul on it. People deserve better. The church should then be better; it should want to be better. That it doesn't is a big part of my problem with it.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/31/2012 10:22PM by derrida.

They would just have to make me president of the corporation.

And I bet anything that most everyone here would sustain me.

Pssshhhht! Malls!!!

Do you know how much beer and how many stippers we could get with $4 billion?

Maybe if there had been no such thing as Google.

Maybe if someone had answered my simple question about Brigham Young quotes at age 14.

Maybe if my seminary teacher hadn't torn up the Bible in front of our class to demonstrate how the BOM is the only true scripture.

Maybe if my beloved bishop, who I truly believed was a man of God, hadn't cheated on his wife and left his family.

Maybe if all the adult Sunday School teachers had armed me with the truth of the history of the church (Joseph Smith's polygamy, Emma's remarriage after Joseph's death, the destruction of the press fiasco, etc.). That way I could have been prepared when non-members of the church knew more about official church history than I did.

Maybe if the relief society president who chugged her Diet Coke hadn't asked me to pour out the pitcher of delicious iced chai tea I brought to the summer picnic.

Maybe... I could go on and on, seriously.

I could go on and on, seriously.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/01/2012 12:30PM by yin.

If they accepted gays without qualifiers, I might have stayed. I'm glad they dont though, because I would not have had the courage to explore other issues in the church. I was relieved to have a valid reason to leave.

Agreed. 2008 Prop 8 really was what woke me up. It jarred me so much that I finally had the courage to ask - what else is really going on here?

There was no going back.

Nothing. I took a personal vow many years ago never to lie. No way I could say, "I know this church is true and JS didn't plagairize from the Masons." So it was a simple matter of principle.

More evidence supporting the truth would have kept me in. Either that, or continued ignorance about the evidence against. Without the internet I wouldn't have made it.

Looking at defenses by Fair of many of the issues actually helped lead me out, because I was insistent on considering their arguments impartially, and found them to be incredibly evasive. I've always seen evasion by critics of the church, but seeing it from the church itself was very problematic. An impartial personal investigation of all the facts made the church conclusively false.

If they removed word of wisdom requirements
If they removed garment wearing requirements
If they remove calling required
If they removed 3 hour "required" church attendance
If they removed thithing requirement
I could go on and on but I think you get the gist!

which is kind of hard to do when you don't exist ;-)


BTW, NOW I'm glad I didn't imagine I was getting answers.

They would have to admit the whole thing is made up. Admit the BofM is false, the church is false but trying to be good, J.S. was not a real prophet, be open about all their history, their fake priesthood is false, and they would have to do away with their temples and all the inane rituals.

i might've considered remaining at least apathetic towards the church had my ex-wife and my parents and my friends not all turned against me

it was them insisting that there was something wrong with me (sin? depression? thinking too much? laziness? etc.) that had me outta there immediately

to be fair - i was vocal about my concerns - i thought they meant it when they said they wanted to know why...

the 15 can hire consultants and spin to the media and make little changes to manuals and throw-out catchy slogans ('to the rescue!') but the one thing they can't do is change the culture of the members - that monster can't be leashed

70 virgins that look like Maria Sharapova or Brooklyn Decker and nothing short of exactly that.

D&C 68: 25
25 And again, inasmuch as parents have children in Zion, or in any of her stakes which are organized, that teach them not to understand the doctrine of repentance, faith in Christ the Son of the living God, and of baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of the hands, when eight years old, the sin be upon the heads of the parents.

I was already having doubts but had a lot of fear to look too deeply. It took us over five years to have our only child and back then I really believed that blessing and prayer worked. Our daughter was born.

Move forward to when she was three and was parroting Mormon speak....it was like a jolt....what are we teaching this precious little girl? How can I teach her things I don't even believe? No way would we teach her that denying Blacks the priesthood was right. No way would we teach her about polygamy even it it wasn't to be practiced until the next life.

But that D & C verse would pop into my mind and I would be filled with fear but I knew it wasn't right and I would take the risk and yes, we would leave the church.

So husband, myself and our three year old walked out of that church.

I have never regretted it.