My husband showed me this site 4-ish years ago and then I lurked for a couple of weeks (usually on the ipod during sacrament) before I felt the need to jump in and communicate with you all. RFM was the only thing I felt grounded to thru my de-conversion process. The advice and support from this board has been unmeasured. I love ya'll!

Pil-Latté Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> My husband showed me this site 4-ish years ago and
> then I lurked for a couple of weeks (usually on
> the ipod during sacrament) before I felt the need
> to jump in and communicate with you all. RFM was
> the only thing I felt grounded to thru my
> de-conversion process. The advice and support
> from this board has been unmeasured. I love
> ya'll!


I lurked for the better part of a year before I posted. I don't remember what finally triggered me to do so, to be honest. I suspect (since it's what tends to tick me off most) that it was some TBMs on another site denying the elder abuse that the church has done to my parents, in terms of "Oh, no, that would *never* happen." Except that it does.

I used to read here back in 1996 but I don't think I ever posted. If I did I don't remember what my username was. I didn't even think about TSCC until just last year when I had to move back to ew-tah. Being around by TBM family caused me to come back here and then I started posting. There is no other way I could handle living here again and around them without this place.

I? Lurk? Never happen. As with Tupperwhere, I was posting on Eric's site back in the 1990s, so this was just a return to the mostly friendly site EK had set up. It felt supportive then; I just enjoy it now.

I found out about this place, came here, registered, and posted all in the same day. I wanted to thank everyone for the advice they gave sithlord when he was trying to figure out how to tell me.

Two weeks before I posted my first comment/ thread. Thank you, Rfm

I started lurking off and on about a couple years ago. I wanted to know why other people were leaving the church, and if I could convert any to Fundamentalism. But after reading the info here, I found that I would have been outspoken on many things, as the facts presented trumped anything I could have come up with using Fundamentalist arguments. I learned about the Kinderhook plates, Fannie Alger, the Mountain Meadows Massacre, Book of Abraham, etc. and stuffed my shelf as full as I could until the last straw was the plaugerism in the Book of Mormon.

When I first found this sight in early 2012 (from a comment in the SLT), I read most of the archived bios before looking at the Recovery Board. It was several months before I posted. It's incredible how someone can post an issue and within a short time, the poster may receive several nicely written responses. I'm very hesitant to respond quickly.

6 months. I am not necessarily in need of recovery, but finding this site felt like finding an old friend to reminisce with about our fucked up upbringing. I stick around because this board NEVER fails to inform, inspire, and blow my mind.

I started posting the first day I found it. I absolutely loved the conversations that were taking place. I really enjoyed the heated debates and learned a lot, not just substance but also debating tactics.

What's funny is, sometimes I feel like the best thing about this forum is that it's proof that I'm real. I can post something and wait for a response. Eventually someone will respond to what I said, and it's like "hey, I just touched the universe and the universe touched me back."

I know, weird huh?

I am a nevermo and I started lurking to find out why I would often get strange looks from people. When foks would find out i was born in Utah, the comment often began with, "I didn't know you were...." No, I'm Episcopalian! My parents had told me stories about the underwear and I couldn't believe them, but it seems they were true and much, much more.

I feel the same way about posting on here, you just put my feelings into words!

***meant in response to kolobian



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/09/2013 03:30PM by Pil-Latté.

Couldn't believe it. I jumped right in and asked "Where in the hell have you people been?"

I left the cult in the mid 1970s. Found RFM in 1998. I suspected there might be others, but never really knew.

That was cool!

Timothy



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/09/2013 03:08PM by Timothy.

He everyone!

I posted last night for the first time. I’ve been here for 4 months reading and being enlightened with your affirmations. I have been totally deceived by the TSCC. I was a 1000% TBM. Now in my late 50's, BIC, etc. I'm learning the truth at MormonThink - what a LIFELINE! I've read, watched videos, and am still working through the anger.

I love Grant Palmer. His voice and message in his youtube video, "My Ah-Ha Moments While Researching Mormon History", just calms me down a bit. He mentioned Jerrell Chesney, so I searched and found someone who quoted the ex Oklahoma Temple President. He and his wife resigned. I agree whole heartedly with Chesney’s statement:

“The factors of truth, honesty, and integrity, were so compellingly influential, however, that, finally, I had to face up to what I had tried hard to avoid... My only problem is with the Mormon Church...it is too full of deceit and hypocrisy with regard to its history and to its continuous representations to the world for me to associate it with the glorious and defining principle of truth. One doesn't wish or expect to find practices of hypocrisy and deceit so interwoven into a true Christian enterprise."

Love this site.

Fraud-A-Roni, the Salt Lake City Treat

I discovered this sight by accident a couple years ago...took awhile before I felt comfortable posting using a screen name...but then I took the leap and started signing my real name to everything I write here. It led to my resigning from the church last year.

Ron Burr

First day, first post. I was done with the church and never going back.

I was researching about TSCC for church purposes (can't quite remember for what), and I accidentally discovered this site.

Then I started digging deeper, and the epiphany came.

But I waited a couple of months before staring to post here.

Lurked for 2 weeks.

Pure anger for being lied to for so long by evil old men.

My daughter had resigned. I was okay with that...it's her business. Then I learned how much the TSCC was kissing up to the Trilateral Commision, the World Council of Churches, and the Council of Foreign Relations.

My Daughter told me of this site. I started lurking. The TSCC said it wanted to bar code our TRs. The TSCC had called Cook the crook to be an apostle. I had a copy of the first printing of the BOM and God couldn't use grammar check. Also the doctrines changed from the first printing to the second printing.

I walked out of the church at Christamas time, I'd been lurking here for two months. By March I knew I was never going back.(Christmas 2007) March of 2008 was when I first logged on as "Mormon Observer".

I missed my daughters insightful posts...I wish I could go back through the archives and read them....she stopped posting soon after I came here.

She doesn't post here anymore...she's got a very full life and she's done with RfM for now. So glad she is healed and free of the TSCC!

I have been a sometimes lurker, sometimes poster, since 1996. I quit going to church at age 19, but was pestered by it and my parents for MANY years about becoming active again.

I had a major problem with my dad being a high priest and abusing little children (luckily not me, but my sister and her daughter). I went to the bishop about it, but being a woman and inactive, he acted like he wasn't going to do anything about it.

So I wanted to contact a GA about it. The internet was fairly new, but I had done some research on it, and thought, hey, somewhere there has to be a website where I can get a hold of a GA....and I stumbled onto Eric K.'s site.

I was freaked out to find out that there were so many people who thought the way I thought about the church. I thought I was all alone! It was great to find a community of people who thought exactly as I did.

It's funny but I don't post a whole lot because there is always someone who posts exactly as I am thinking, so I really don't need to.

Anyway, my name is Rhonda, and I posted as Rhonda until this dork named Parley P Pratt kept email stalking me. I am now chopped liver.

I come here now for the entertainment value. Love the funny comments and the old stories about things that happen. Love that people use their IPhones in Sacrament meeting....wish I had one back then! hahaha

Love all of you guys, and thank you so much for your caring and your wisdom. Yay! Out for 20 years now!!!!!

I didn't lurk at all. By the time I allowed myself to look at "anti-Mormon" sites like this, I was already effectively an ex-mo, so I was anxious to join the community of like-minded people.

I lurked for 7 or 8 months, responded to some posts when I thought I had something to add.

My first post came when I went mano a mano with my bishop about my lack of temple attendence.

He asked if I could support my contention that the Nauvoo Endowment and by extension the temple endowment today was all about polygamy.

SusieQ#1 helped me put together a small essay and I posted it here for critique before I turned it in.

The essay was successful I might add. 4 Years and still listening to crickets.

I think I found this site around 1998-1999. Can't remember exactly when I first posted. Only read for a few months before I posted. And not often.

Been hanging around off and on.. since then.

Love the humor. Glad I could contribute some of my parody/satire to salamandarsociety.com .

rutabaga Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I lurked for 7 or 8 months, responded to some
> posts when I thought I had something to add.
>
> My first post came when I went mano a mano with my
> bishop about my lack of temple attendence.
>
> He asked if I could support my contention that the
> Nauvoo Endowment and by extension the temple
> endowment today was all about polygamy.
>
> SusieQ#1 helped me put together a small essay and
> I posted it here for critique before I turned it
> in.
>
> The essay was successful I might add. 4 Years and
> still listening to crickets.

That was a fun project. Slightly different approach than what I had thought about, but one that fit quite well.
Hmmm..crickets... well, we sure know why~! :-)

Been here since the 90's. finally quit last year. Posted sporadically under various names for the first 10 years. Picked a name when I left. It is just fun, and makes my brain work.

Lurked for 2-3 years before first post. I signed up to give a mainline denomination point of view when people have questions about the wider world of Christianity. (Not that I speak for all Presbyterians :) )

I am kind of obsessed with cults in general. I was pretty active in the anti-scientology movement a few years ago. I even got a cease and desist letter from their lawyers!

I found this site and posted the same hour.

I was looking for some help to leave the church with my TBM wife.

6 years later, she is still TBM and I am still wanting her out.

I was first given the advice to take it slow, give her time. I am still being patient. But she has accepted my unbelief and I respect her choice to stay a believer. So, the church hasnt taken my marriage.

I still come here almost every day, but only post a few times a week.

Thanks to admin and everyone here - its a great resource and great community.

You know what, I may have stumbled through this site back in the nineties. I was a teen though, about to leave home, and I don't remember specifically where I was surfing.
I DO remember though that I ran into a little collection of horrible pamphlets the church had put out, most memorably that one to young men only involving ways to quit masturbating.
Something I would definitely expect to find around here. :D

I didn't get regular net access back until 2004. Too much time living in temporary and less than temporary arrangements occasionally known as my car.

But then I didn't look up anything "anti-mormon" until 2006. I was too panicked by anything to do with mormons...

I read for maybe half a week to get a little feel for the place before posting. Right away one of the resident assholes who still posts to this day told me to give up ever getting my family out because they are obviously happy. Fuck you to this day, bitch, they are not happy in their own words, you don't know them, you never have met them, and your advice is useless.
Gawd some days I miss the old board where posts disappeared after ten days. Some people were a lot less careful with their words, knowing it would all fall off the internet.

I will rescue as many of them as I can. What caring person wouldn't?

I'm the type that once I start a good book I can't put it down.

I read mormonthink, and then moved on to RFM all in a day and a night.

I didn't post until about a week later. The day I cut up my temple outfit. Wow that felt good. I kept the apron because a friend made it for me. It's now my easter apron.

Lurked about 7 months, and just barely starting to post. I'm probably more interested in RFM than facebook these days.

I figured that when I can give the back story on various posters and threads then I've been looking long enough and should just jump in the conversation more often.

I was terrified that TSCC would somehow discover that I was reading "anti" stuff. It too me a while to work up the courage to actually post.

I was so happy to realize that I was NOT ALONE with my feelings of disillusionment from the church. Like, going to the temple is supposed to be this breathtakingly SPIRITUAL experience that you will never forget. I thought it was frickin' BIZARRE and I was so grateful to realize that other people felt this way too. And I was kind of freaked out by the Stepford Wives Syndrome that seemed so common - not only common, but expected, accepted, and ENCOURAGED! I was never a Stepford type and I was very glad to know I had company there, too.

I think it took me about 6 months of reading and posting here to get up the nerve to resign.I'm not sure I would have had the nerve to do it without RfM. Many of us have been here long enough to help each other through crises, and I think there is more of a sense of kinship here than there is in the church itself.