While you were still TBM, how often did you notice anti-Mormon websites? Was it easy or did you have to actively search for them? When you searched for info on the church did you have to be careful not to accidentally click on one? Did you care if you accidentally clicked on one?

It still boggles my mind that most Mormons have not discovered the truth about the church online but I understand they are so brainwashed they they don't dare.

What was your experience navigating the web as a believer trying not to land on the evil anti-Mormon's websites?

I was out of the church 23 years before I would look at anything ant mormon. I never realized how much of my life was still controlled by the cult. I knew the church was false, I did not really know why. But now I know and feel completely different. Very free.

I found them on about half of my searches when I was looking for YW or Primary ideas. If anything looked like it might have been "anti" I would not click on it, or if I accidently clicked on it I'd quickly hit my back button. It seems stupid in retrospect, if I would have read things on sites like this one sooner it would have saved me a lot of grief and money. :-) But, as a tbm, I was afraid to read anti material on the net, like it would hurt me or something.

I never once saw anything anti-Mormon on the web. The first time I did ... well, you know what happened. I'm here, after all.

I'm not sure if I never saw them or never noticed. It's amazing in life how you see what you want to see and I never wanted to see anything outside the church. Not because I was happy in the church but because I didn't blame my unhappiness on the church. So there was no reason to even notice anything or anyone who did.

Ditto! The answer is never. My mental filter worked flawlessly. The power of the mind is amazing.

I had been inactive for a long time and had been a nonbeliever for about 18 months when my exmo therapist told me about this site. I had NO CLUE there was anti stuff on the internet.

I must add that I have worked from home on a computer for 22 or more years. Gives you an idea of how much time I work on a computer and I'd never noticed any anti stuff.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/26/2012 12:31PM by cl2.

I wasn't bright enough to even consider that it existed other than furtive characters in dark alleys handing out subversive tracts.

One day I was looking for info on Dwight Eisenhour.

That led me to Salamander Society. I read there for a few weeks feeling naughty reading the satire.

On Salamander there was that constant link to exmormon.org.

I was really naughty and clicked it.

Ironically, I started dipping my toes into the "Anti" water by reading topics on FAIR (I was trying to avoid straight-up Anti sites at the time). I think that the FAIR website did more to push me out of the church than any other site that I looked at. Most of the appologetics used on those posts were so brain-numbingly stupid and infeasible that I had to turn to the Google God for answers. Once I started Googling for topics and threw away the blinders, I quickly found sites like RfM that led me the rest of the way out. Once you want to look, the information is abundant. :D

I never knew such a thing existed till someone told me about one. People need to be told about the problems of Mormonism, they are hard to find if you are not looking.

When I was a TBM there was no internet.

There were the occasional cheesy paper tracts, but you had to go out of your way to find them, (and usually they were more sensational than accurate).

Like others, FAIR was one site I looked at since it was something I could get away with reading. I could never do a Google search when I was married to my TBM ex, since if he found out, it would have been really nasty.

"It still boggles my mind that most Mormons have not discovered the truth about the church online"

Ex-CultMember, sure it boggles the mind. But Mormons don't want to know the truth. They're much too busy being impressed with themselves to actually join the human race and use their God-given brains to think.

So was I, but I guess I had intellectual curiosity. I "knew" the church was true but was curious what the critics had to say. I assumed they were just misconstruing the truth or outright lying about Mormonism. I thought "what could they possible say bad about the church?" I assumed I could refute anything they had to say.

I have a confession to make. I was an asshole who used to read a few sentences of the stories posted here and say, "These people just don't know what they're talking about. They're spouting anti-Mormon lies and they must all be gay and unable to control themselves which is why they left the church." Then, I would try to push it out of my head and ignore it but it bothered me. I'm sorry guys. I think I even sent hateful emails.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/26/2012 09:43PM by liberalbutteffer.

There is only one true website, lds.org.

I actually ended up on josephlied.com (org?) after seeing a protestor at Conference. I don't even remember how I ended up here, after seeing various other forums--I liked this one best. I used to get that little pit in the stomach like I knew I was doing something bad--that indoctrination sticks with you--and, even as I type this, I feel like I'm betraying my TBM wife, who hates you all very, very much. :)

There were 'anti-Mormons' at the annual pageant we'd go to and they would give out tracts. Frankly they were not very good and not convincing. They used the 'my Jesus is better than your Jesus thing'.

They should have harped on BofA, BofM anachronisms, temple & masonry, polyandry, etc. Those things would have given me pause back then but not just harping on Joseph for fighting back when they were trying to kill him and other minor issues.

The Internet has improved the communication of the most serious problems of Mormonism. Perhaps the biggest reason is now most of those providing the information are former members and not evangelical never-mos just trying to convert you to another faith.

I read The Godmakers at 18, 5 months before I went to the temple for the first time.

Left 20 years later.

But I still believe the church's own materials are the most damning.

My personal favorite:

Temple and Cosmos - Hugh Nibley.

That is one crazy ass book.

Never until I found this site. Well, sometimes my husband would pull up youtube videos for me to watch about mormons and their "magic underwear" or "jesus jammies". And that would sometimes lead me to other videos about the temple, since I haven't been through. I was curious.

But seriously, it never occurred to me that there was a chance that the church wasn't true. I just thought that people fell into inactivity by being too busy with other things. I never knew people left the church because they no longer believed it's teachings!

Didn't have any access to the web for many years.
When I did have access, I found the primary, documented sources that I could use to back my non-belief in the claims. That was the late 1990's.

Because when I quit the church, the Internet in the public domain was only in its infancy.

I only discovered the "Mormonism X-Posed" kind of websites in the following decade while reading the "Is There Room in Heaven for Women" issue of the feminist magazine "Off Our Backs," and of course, Recovery from Mormonism is one of those sites I eventually discovered.

When you are a TBM, everything is anti-Mormon.