You were all so great about answering my questions about teaching children faith after leaving the church. My husband and I really enjoyed reading all the responses and they were all so helpful.

I have so many questions & I hope that you all don't mind helping us with more of them. I have no one to talk to about this, so finding this forum has been very informative.

2 weeks ago I accidentally started learning the truth about the book of Abraham, polygamy, temple, etc. We haven't been to church since, but last week we agreed to keep going for the next month while we figure this out. I don't think that I can do it. I don't even want my children to learn anymore of these lies. Did anyone else keep going to church while they were learning the truth about the Mormon church? How long before you just couldn't keep going anymore?

I personally left the church first, because I felt really guilty that I was sleeping with my fiance before we were married. I even tried drinking a little shortly thereafter, but never really did more then take a few sips of anything, because I still felt guilty. Only after being gone two years from the church, and being tired of all the guilt, did I start to look into the details. Though I had already been having strong doubts, and was pointing out flaws in Morg reasoning, long before that point.

As we all know, it is a process getting your mind right.

testing the board

It's been almost two years and I still go for the sake of my family - but sacrament meeting only. I can only take so much bs in one sitting. The social aspects aren't bad either.

I've considered striking a deal and taking my kids to some other church every other week, but being an atheist I don't much see the point. I just have to counter their teachings with intelligent discussion at home. I found my own way out, and I didn't have even that. In the end I think I can use it as a way to help my kids learn how to distinguish deception, as well as live in harmony with people they disagree with.

As for morality and living a good, healthy, happy life, religion really isn't necessary when you think about it. I also think you can have faith in humanity, and not have to believe in anything supernatural for which there is no good evidence. Then again, that's just me, and may not work as an ideology for everyone.

It's funny that you should mention that you only go to sacrament meeting. When I was RM TBM, I had a hard time sitting through all three meeting blocks. It just fatigued me, and plus I always felt awkward in Sunday School and Elder's Quorum, because I felt like the other members viewed me as a child, since I was unwed. It was rare that I stayed through all three meetings. Hardly ever went to Elder's Quorum, sometimes stayed for Sunday School if there was a cute single sister in class that day.

Oh the memories! My singles wards sunday schools as a TBM were only made bearable by writing snide comments with my friends or sitting next to a girl I liked. And I was way into the church at the time too!

I only go to SM but keep attending to keep peace in my family.

Sounds like we're in the same boat, Kimball. I second his advice.

Stay until you are ready to leave. It took me a long time to be brave enough to leave it. I questioned for quite awhile until I had no more questions. When I first posted here, no one was urging me to leave ASAP. They know how hard it is and that each journey out is different and contains different sacrifices and risks. Some are brave and some have more fear of being ostracized from family, different support systems etc. Some ultimately have families who leave them entirely: children, parents, wives or husbands, but for them to live an authentic honest life is more important than anything else in the world. I find them very very brave and full of character. But some people can never leave it because the sacrifice for them is too great.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/09/2012 11:28AM by suckafoo.

After i discovered the truth I went to sacrament meeting. I didn't make it half way through, before I had to get up and leave. I was surprised to find that what i wanted to be a spiritual safe haven the week before, now felt evil and contrived.

I left before I found out about the historical lies. I just realized that there is no way a God would care about my undergarments or whether or if I pay an exact 10% of my meager salary. I got to the point where the very thought of stepping through the doors set my heart racing. I really could not handle listening to ward members anymore and I figured that if I didn't want to be a part of it then why waste any more time? Plus, I had a daughter that was going to go into young womans and the church was was confusing the hell out of her. For the kids, I had to get out before the brainwashing went too deep. When I decided I was out I was out and I don't miss it at all.

So much of it depends on your spouse, your callings,your kidsages. the church tends to entwine itself around so many areas of your life.

I attended for over 6 months and taught relief society. Mercifully the ward split and I was released. I attended because I had a believing spouse and I was still trying to come to terms with it all.

There are other forums like NEWORDERMORMON where they still attend for family reasons and The Foyer for people who have one foot still in but would love to get out as well.

So much of it is how to find a way to save your family relationships and not lose your mind in the process.

It gets better. Go slow and give yourself time to process things.

Kimball, if you are an atheist and are taking your children to church for social purposes, then you might consider a less lethal dose of religion than a cult.

There are minimally invasive religions that really are benign and "do no harm." Others kill non-believers. And everything in between. I would take my children to the Unitarian Church so they could learn some respect for other religions other than LDS (assuming you are in the MOrridor).

Otherwise, you are going to be faced with your children marrying LDS and you will see them beaten down, male and female. There's nothing sadder than seeing the pain endured by perfectly fine young men tortured by visions of themselves as worthless sinners because they masturbate. Or young women seeing themselves as stained trash because they had sex out side of marriage.

Don't want that life for yourself, why would you allow it for your children? No intellectual thought conversations at home are going to make up for all their friends being LDS. Think about it-- the sadness of not participating in church with friends they already see at school vs seeing some new people with attractive, tolerant, diverse ideas who actually have parents who encourage thinking for themselves and who discuss a variety of religious ideas IN CHURCH!

Most of us want better for our children than we had.

Anagrammy

I don't know, all of my friends have always been mormon, and still are in fact. I still don't have a single ex-mormon among them, and yet I found my way out. I credit that to secular schooling, as I got little of the necessary instruction at home or anywhere else.

If I offer my children the necessary thinking tools, and a safe haven for disbelieving, it shouldn't be a problem. The worst thing I could do would be to undermine their trust by lashing out against a religion that is so important to their mother. The best thing I can do would be to create an environment where both mormonism and non-mormonism are equally accepted.

The best way to protect people is to educate them, not insulate them. George Orwell had it right, I think.

I agree with everything Anagrammy wrote! Sometimes posters seem to forget that Mormonism is a CULT, not a religion. There's a huge difference!

About educating children...um...there's reading, and observation, and example, and illustration, theories, hypotheses, etc. You don't learn about cocaine by snorting it. Having your innocent child attend a cult so he can learn about it--that is just an excuse, because you are too much of a coward to leave.

My children and I became instantly inactive one Saturday, when they told me about the abuse they had been suffering. Behind my back, when I was at church early for rehearsals and to play the prelude, the priesthood leaders, several times, broke into my house, and pulled my sons out of bed, yelled at them and pushed them around, forced them to get dressed without showering or even combing their hair, and literally kicked their butts up the stairs and into their van and to church, where they were teased for their rumpled, bed-head appearance. What kind of church physically forces kids to attend meetings? My daughter then told us about how the bishop's high school senior creep of a son molested her, when she was 9, at a church campout. She woke up with his hands all over her body, under her sleeping bag and her clothes. She screamed and woke up the other children, who all witnessed what was happening. The bishop, who was there, threatened my daughter and all the other kids not to tell anyone. I did not know until that Saturday, and I told them that they never had to go to that church ever again. Later on, I discovered the dark lies, accidentally, when I wanted to get a temple divorce, and end the terrible hold the cult had upon me.

I could never pretend to believe--I'm not wired that way. The few funerals and missionary talks have made me sick to my stomach. My son actually walked out of the last funeral, when the bishop got up to preach at the end. Now, I go to the viewing, and pay my respects, and sign the guest register, and send flowers if necessary, and go to the graveside ceremony, but skip the funeral.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/09/2012 04:31PM by kimball.

If any of those things happen to my kids, or it looks like may happen, I'll yank them too, and knowing my wife she will understand. That kind of protection is another matter altogether. Those events are not specific to the cult, though, and I have not observed them yet in my 3 decades of experience.

And for the record, I'm not taking them to church so that I can teach them about what's false. I'm taking them because it's important to my wife, and I trust my children's ability make their own life decisions after a full education. If anyone stands in their way if they don't want to go to church, I'll be there to protect them and take necessary action. However, to be fair, I have to do the same if they want to go.

And as for calling me a coward for standing next to my wife, unlike mormons and even some exmormons, she is more important to me than religious beliefs.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/09/2012 04:31PM by kimball.

Forestpal and I are both in our sixties, if you want to count decades of experience. You say you haven't "observed" anything like what we are talking about happening.

You aren't there to observe what goes on. I didn't find out about my son being molested in scouts until he grew up. Children don't necessarily tell their parents WHEN THEY ARE THREATENED, or when they think it doesn't make any difference.

You are counting on the public school system to teach your children critical thinking skills so they can realize the false paradigm they've been taught their whole lives, that this life is not for the living, rather we should live to have a good life in the Celestial Kingdom, that this life is a script played out in a War in Heaven game of Dark vs. Light, a treasure hunt where people search for the gospel and the very, very lucky who were valiant enough in the pre-existence get to be born Mormon and raised in America.

You yourself are not using good critical thinking skills, Kimball, to think that the public school influence will be greater than their peers and their parents combined.

I submit as evidence the stories posted here on RfM. The terribly sad stories of people sharing the terrible damage done to themselves and their families by cult conditioning which teaches an inflated view of self and peers and a false view of Mormons as unique and privileged people and others as sinful and damaged, especially those who masturbate, drink, smoke, love same sex, belong to other religions, have tattoos or piercings, beards, etc.

Your children will be taught to wear special underwear to "remind them of their temple commitments." They will be taught that the "philosophies of men" taught in the public school, such as evolution, are wrong and all that really matters is that they follow the thinking of the gerontocracy, which you do not believe yourself.

Maybe you can take them aside when they are older and teach them the art of hypocrisy. Tell them not to believe the teachings they are receiving in church, that it's ok to to touch their own penis and Satan is not watching, but they must pretend they don't and lie to the bishop. Then tell them that the world actually wasn't created 6000 years ago, and that the BOM is not true, but they must pretend they believe that's true because it's important to their mother.

And what's important to their mother is more important than what's important to their father or themselves. What's important to their mother is more important than truth and their own integrity.

No public school on earth will be able to undo that gift.

Anagrammy



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/10/2012 08:58AM by anagrammy.

I hate to correct you, Anagrammy, because I usually admire your advice, but you're dead wrong in the following ways:

1) I spent 6 years in the scouting program and didn't observe anything like this, plus however many years I was in Cub Scouts. I also had some participation in scouting activities afterwards. But even if you really do have more experience than me on this matter, you would have to demonstrate that this type of molestation occurs with less frequency in similar organizations that are not associated with mormonism. Appealing to a few people in mormonism who have experienced it is a far cry from this. Has a student ever been molested by a teacher? If so, does this mean I should keep my children out of school, or does it mean I need to investigate their teachers? I hope you see my point.

2) You claim that I am counting on the school system to education my children. You pulled this out of your ass. I said that the school system was all that I had to educate me when I grew up, and it was enough for me. I also said that I plan on taking PERSONAL responsibility of educating my children properly. The school will help, I hope.

3) You point to the negative stories here on rfm as why I should keep my children out of church, and I accept all those stories. However, you have to keep in mind that there are lots of positive stories of experiences in the mormon church that are not allowed on this board. I personally had many positive experiences with mormonism growing up, and never really have anything grossly negative except for during my mission and after I left. As much as I love this board, it does not offer a balanced perspective. If there's one thing I learned from realizing the church is a fraud, it's that you have to look at both sides of any argument. Would I love to watch the church burn? Hell yes. Do I think that it's possible to create a positive church environment? Yes - again speaking from experience. Don't pretend to be giving me sage advice while at the same time drawing only from the most heavily weighted stories on one side, regardless of how many you can find. That's cult mentality. Besides, an appeal to age and experience is stupid anyway. After all, don't a lot of TBMs, including the big-15, have more life experience than you?

4) Yes, my children will be taught that the philosophies of men are wrong. They will also be taught that the church's philosophies are wrong. I'm not going to be a hypocrite, the very thing that you condemned in your next paragraph. Think about it. I will never teach them to pretend to believe for their mother, and she wouldn't want me to either. I've already gone over this in detail with my wife. We're a team, remember?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/10/2012 10:10AM by kimball.

Served a whole mission and attended for about 3 more years. I tried my hardest to believe in it and thought maybe its just a trial of my faith. I studied EVERYTHING inside and out and the scale just kept tipping to the side of the church NOT being what it claimed. I tried to find "the good in it" but realized yhe purpose of the LDS church was to preserve and propagate itself and that activity in the church was simply attending brainwashing sessions over and over again. It felt like a waste of time. I finally couldn't take one more day of it and officially went inactive (and 2 years later resigned).

Now I can't believe how long it took me. Wish I had more common sense back then and followed my gut feeling.

Once the seed was planted in my mind that 'hmmm...maybe there are real problems in this church', I wanted to do something I hadn't done much since becoming a member- namely THINK for myself, look objectively at all sides, and make my own decision. I went to church sporadically for a couple of more months, now the decision has been made and I will not be back.

I continued to attend and fulfill all my callings for months after I had decided it was all bogus, and had even planned the date I would submit my resignation. I did have times that I would leave PH meeting when the topic went to something I couldn't stomach listening to. I stopped going to sunday school about a month prior to resigning, and used the time to practice/play the organ.

After I resigned I continued to attend SM with the family, until my now ex challenged me on why I was attending. She asked if I was just attending to please her. When I told her yes, she stated she didn't want me there anymore. I stopped attending with her. About a month later she filed for divorce. I attended only when my daughter was on the program after that, but have not attended in almost a year now. DD no longer tells me when she is singing or talking.

I didn't study my way out of the church. I tapered off on participation for a number of reasons, none of which had anything to do with learning the true origins of the church.

First was because of the self-loathing the church inflicted upon me -- over nothing. I needed relief from that. Second was that the doctrines began to feel meaningless. Third was a few experiences with nasty, lying high-level leaders. These jerks were chosen by God?

The TRUTH that finally hit me was that I just didn't believe any of it, that I had gone along because everyone had been telling me it was true. It was a short step from there to realizing the BIG TRUTH -- for me: I was an atheist.

That made researching the church pointless. Little by little, over the years, I picked up a few tidbits here and there, but I never went on a quest to get to the bottom of it all.

I found some "anti" literature right after my mission. It was my brothers who was on his mission. He didn't hide it very well. :) Anyway....I pretty much denied myself the opportunity to leave then. I was just in huge denial.Fast forward many years. About two years ago. I did more research and justified away those truths again. Last April 20th I sent in my resignation letter and have never looked back. I am sooooo much happier now. The depression I had all my life was GONE completely. I think your brain tells you when something is not right. Sitting in church with my husband was extremely difficult because my eyes were opened and I could see how unhappy people were. I looked around and thought there is no way I can put my children through this until they were 18. I had to lay my foot down on this issue. I didn't care if I ended up divorced at the time. I didn't want my girls to grow up in Primary and Young Womens and feel there only worth in life was to be a wife and mother. My daughter has already told me that she doesn't want to have children. I told her she can do or be anything she wants in this world. She wants to be a Zoologist.

I came to my first 'maybe the church is NOT true' moment when serving as RS president. I continued to attend, fulfill my calling as I continued to study. Within a couple of months I stopped paying tithing but continued with everything else. I really enjoyed my calling and decided to serve until released or until I really couldn't do it anymore. There were a few times when I wanted to quit all but most of the time I was OK. It was actually liberating to 'serve' when you know it's not true and can recognize the manipulations, are able to stand up to silly ideas and comments and just don't care as a TBM. I was also able to offer some genuine good advise. It was great, without the guilt and knowing I could say no at anything, I enjoyed it much. I served for almost two years like that and was getting to the end of my rope.

One day a new bishop was called, He found out I was not paying tithing and puff I was released. With a big smile on my face I said thank you. I've been to church a few times and I find it very hard to sit through everything. "A mind stretch by a new idea can never go back to it s original dimension" are the words that often come to my mind during SM. I don't want to leave openly, I was hoping to slip into inactivity, but that it's hard, people notice and call me even if I just leave a little early. I already rejected a calling. I think right now my name is being discussed in their meetings. But honestly, I'm losing any desire to attend, except for the social part and the acquantances I have in this particular ward.

Not believing is a wonderful thing, the tricks stop working.

I was one of those cognitive acrobats. But once I decided it wasn't true, and that no amount of mental games could prove otherwise, I still stuck around for over a year, serving as Gospel Doctrine teacher. Then the Book of Mormon year came around, and I was forced to make the leap.

For emotions turn to the family, for facts turn to science, for the truth turn to religion...

I kept going. Probably longer than I needed to. But I wanted to be sure about what I wanted to do before taking any noticeable steps.

Soon I could only endure one hour. After awhile, even that became unbearable. I would get headaches listening to all the childish lies and ignorant blather escaping the mouths of otherwise intelligent people. So I decided it was best to stop attending, and I officially resigned several months later as a means of really moving on with life.

Leaving the LDS Church was one of the best decisions I've ever made.

No.

i was having doubts for a long time i was once told in a blessing by the brother i forgive you ,your sins .and i thought you cant your not god .i rember one sunday sitting in scrament meeting listening to all the testomoneys when a sister who had just told me my daughter was a stupid cow got up and was saying all the wonderfull things that she had done that week all icould think of was you lying bitch i think that was proberly the end for me i have learnt so much that i could never go back the mormon faith is based on lies and is run by people who are selfish .and its there way is always right, and if you dont believe then you havnt done enough

but I did have a VT who would always stop by. Eventually after putting her off with excuses, she would just randomly show up when she knew I would be home.

I do have to say right before I started researching... I went into crisis/freak out mode and would have conversations with DH about becoming active in church again... and then I don't know what happened to really cause me to just let go and breathe... coming here was a huge part. A big eye opener.

test

Still going to church (sometimes anyway) and still learning the truth.

Yep.
I went for year as I tried to prove the church to be true, argued with my friend who was the Bishop, studied on the sly like it was wrong or something, but it came at a huge psychological cost. Hearing lessons I knew were not true, but they had to be true or Heavenly Father would not love me any more, totally alone in Sacrament meeting sitting next to my wife and kids in simple blackness.

Then came January 2008 when they started the Teachings of Joe Smith in Priesthood, and the BoM in Gospel Doctrine class and as I sat there listening to the false versions of everything I had been obsessively reading, the breaking point arrived and in February I told my wife.

You know what was funny? After a few days of pouring out my discoveries, and a couple of choice meetings with the Bishop she was perfectly content to walk away and never look back.

Sure wish I had known that months before...it turns that I was the only one who really cared.

I kept attending for a couple of years afterwards. I KNEW it was bogus but it was my life and all I knew. However I found it MUCH more interesting to attend knowing it was bogus than I ever did as a believer.

Finally it just got to be too much so I stopped going altogether.

Unfortunately I'm still attending and teaching primary. I've known for almost 4 months that I wanted to be done, but I'm living with my tbm parents and am terrified of what life would be like if I told them while still living with them. I've got a few more months until I move across country, so until then I'm trying to just slide by on as little involvement as possible. It's unbearable a times and makes me wonder if it would just be better for my sanity if I told them sooner rather then later.

I quit going to meetings in 1959. Learning the truth was difficult at that time -- no Internet, few books, just a lack of information about Joseph's Myth. But actually the story of J. Smith and his First Vision played a major part in my quitting the Morg. A Sunday School lesson when I was age 13 taught that "God will always answer your sincere earnest prayers." I decided to put that to the test. For three weeks I did some earnest sincere praying. And the answer I got was absolutely nothing. My youthful logic said that if God could answer a sincere prayer of J.Smith by appearing in person (along with J.Christ) to Smith, then why couldn't He do the same for me? I was actually expecting some kind of a live appearance from God. Of course that never happened. So I decided that either God doesn't exist or else he doesn't give a ratsass about me. Either way, prayer and god was a waste of time. So overnight I became an atheist at age 13. I pretty much was forced to keep attending meetings by my TBM parents. But at age 17 I decided to quit attending meetings and that was the end of my official contact with the Morg.

I knew I didn't want to go to church anymore because it wasn't for me. There was something wrong there that I hadn't quite figured out yet. I didn't want to deal anymore with the hypocracy. I had visted Utah for the first time and came to realization that if I lived there I would probably leave the church mainly because of how the people acted at the church I visited. Not to meantion I decided this was not how God would want me to feel about myself after "sinning", and a few other things that were starting to bother me about the Mormon church.

Any-who.. I started questioning a few months after leaving if I wanted to go back or not. I did some research, found RFM, did some reading and that's when I learned the truth and decided to make it official by resigning.

It's very interesting hearing everyones responses on this. We all left in different ways.