Hey folks, I'm new here. I'm sure this has been discussed lots of times...but I was hoping people could share some of their "ah ha" moments? You know...when you actually realized it all was a load of crap?

I guess I should start with mine: It was about 3 years ago when I attended my step-dad's funeral at an LDS church. Needless to say, he was a man that did not live a life that was anywhere condusive to LDS living. Smoking, drinking, drug use, adultry, etc. I sat there listening to this bishop yammer on about free agency and post earthly life and forgiveness. I thought to myself what a load of crap! How can the actions this man who pretty much ruined himself and our family be written off by free agency? Why does everyone else suffer due to his choices?

I had to have a couple beers after to calm myself down ;)

It all started for me a couple of years ago when I thought:

Why doesn't the prophet ever say "thus saith the Lord" like Joesph Smith always said?

Then I actually did a little (wikipedia) search on the Book of Abraham, that was it for me.

I keep going until my wife finally figures it out... Hopefully sometime during this life.

It was the early '70s. Struggling to resolve the cognitive dissonance within my church and family, I'd already drifted away from Mormonism. One of my professors learned I was an (ex) Mormon and in the ensuing conversation he asked a rhetorical question I'll never forget: "Why is the BoM written in King James English?"

As I sat by nonplussed, He went on to explain that KJE was not a vernacular of early 19th century upstate New York, nor did it seem reasonable that ancient texts would somehow translate directly into KJE vernacular, nor did it seem reasonable to believe that KJE was the vernacular of God.

Yes, it was an "ah-ha!" moment for me (or perhaps a "duh!" moment). I've felt since then that you'd have to be a complete dope not to understand that JS was merely writing the word of God in a language that he, in his narrow world view, understood to be God's manner of speaking. He'd probably never seen any version of the Bible other than the KJV, and he probably never thought the whole scheme would turn out to be any more than a way to make a few quick bucks.

Other important moments came later, not so much "Ah ha" as they were simple confirmations of what I already knew was bogus: SWK's 1978 "revelation," the Mark Hofmann affair, and my first reading in 1995 of NMKMH.

The moment i felt like i got permission to NOT believe it,My mom said "you know, i don't belive any of those things happend to joseph smith" I was already inactive but then i started reading any anti mormon thing i could get my hands on!

There were many moments, but I reached the point of "enough is enough" in October of 1997.

There was a PBS documentary, ironically broadcast on KBYU channel 11. It was called, "Search for the First Americans." It chronicled all the archaeological sites found of human migration into the Americas starting as far back as 50,000 years ago. Every bit of archaeological evidence showed the migration of all humans was from Asia, backed up by DNA evidence.

It was a dentist that first discovered the link between Native Americans, both North and South American, and Asians. He could see that the back of their teeth were cupped, the very same as Asians. From there, DNA proved he was right.

Bottom line, there is no such thing as a Lamanite. All Native Americans from North and South America are of Asian descent. The whole Book of Mormon story is a made up lie.

My "ah ha" moment began when I was preparing to go on a Mormon Church History tour in the summer of 2001. I was BIC and basically just went along my whole life, and really didn't know much about church history. So I decided to do some research on my own beforehand so I would know more when we visited the key places. Once I began my actual research, though, lightbulb after lightbulb started going on... and of course, one thing led to another, and I began discovering the truth behind the many versions of the First Vision, the supposed "marthyrdom" of Joseph Smith, the real reason he was in Carthage Jail, the fact that he had a gun with him there, the Kirtland Bank fiasco, the Word of Wisdom, the Black/priesthood issue, the realities of polygamy, the obvious fabrication that are the BoM and the BoA, and on and on and on, I had many "ah ha" moments, culminating in the ultimate "AH HA" moment when I realized that the whole thing is a web of lies, filled with contradictions and deceptions that run very, very deep.

After that, I had another very big "AH HA" moment when I discovered POLYANDRY.... and it really struck me that even though I was BIC and a member my entire life, I didn't even know that JS, BY and some others married women who were already married to living husbands. Truly, when I discovered that, I was thunder-struck. How anyone can rationalize that one out is beyond me. Of course, after discovering the real truth, I've come to the conclusion that believing Mormonism requires so much mental gymnastics, rationalization and denial that it's completely mind-boggling.

And after that, I couldn't figure out for quite a while who I was more angry at -- the Mormons who perpetuate all the lies OR MYSELF!! I spent a lot of time feeling like I could have literally kicked myself for buying into such an obvious fabrication for so long. My only consolation is that since I was BIC and had extremely TBM parents, I was brainwashed to the max. So glad that programming cleared and I've been able to see (and deal with) the truth behind it all.

Joseph Smith practiced polyandry by marrying elven women who stayed married to other men. Most Mormons refuse to accept this ruth until shown the genealogical evidence.
The truth is "wife swapping" was condoned and practiced by Joseph Smith. However Smith was the one who decided who, when and where another man had to share his wife with the Prophet.

When I was on my mission(Chile) in my last area we lived with a lady whose husband had been a very high degree mason. She has much of his stuff that she had saved and one day she gave us a copy of a Masonic ritual manual. As I read that and saw the similarities to the temple, most of the wording almost word for word, the tokens and penalties, I was dumbfounded. It really shook me to my core back then. The only way I could "cog-dis" my way around it was to rationalize that if the temple was a restoration of the original ceremony used in King Solomon's temple then Satan surely had knowledge of that and had "inspired" the masons to implement it making it so similar to the original that when the original was restored to the earth it would create disbelief and shake the faith of the faithful.

That worked fairly well for me until they changed the temple and took all the penalties out and changed the whole temple ceremony. For me that was the end. I knew right then and there that either Joseph was a fraud or the church was in complete apostasy in the moment they changed it and either way I was finished.

After that many more things began to make sense like the almost 4000 changes to the BofM, the Book of Abraham, Joseph marrying teenagers and women who were already married and still living with their husbands. The evidence just keeps building if you can look at it all with an open mind.

And glad you axed cause this stuff needs to be repeated from time-to-time.

I had more than my fair share, but the biggest came somewhere around age 14 or 15 (mid 1970s)

My best bud (nevermo) was searching, as we all do at some point, and had gone all JuHEEsus-Freak on me. Whilst discussing the issue, the old "Every Member a Missionary" thang kicked in and I began reciting Joseph's Myth. For whatever reason, I suddenly stopped and told my bud to disregard everything I'd said. When he axed why, and he was eating it up, I told him I didn't believe the s**t myself.

The shelf finally collapsed and I was gone mentally. Took another few years to exit physically, but I didn't hesitate a second when the opportunity came.

Timothy

I realized there was certainly a lot of magic going on with people experiencing angels and seeing God himself, a lot of strange difficult things to believe, like God would approve men to have sex with one wife then another, and not care that his godly daughters felt like used worthless whores, that men held special magically priesthood powers, yet in my 48 years of life I have never seen or experienced any of the so called power or magical things for myself. It just got harder and harder to believe. A heavenly mother having sex with a heavenly father concept was the final blow.

23 years ago I was at BYU and reading "The Gnostic Jung, and the Seven Sermons To The Dead". To this day I don't know why, but I was on page 113 and I stopped reading and said to myself, "if I read one more word of this, my life is going to change forever. If I stop reading right here I might be able to go on as before. But if I finish this page, my life will never be the same." I took a deep breath and my testimony vanished in the pulse of a synapse! I don't remember what the book was talking about on that page when I was instantly freed from the Cult. It had nothing to do with Mormonism at all. I barely understood anything in that book. What I did realize though was that Mormonism was too narrow to be the Ultimate Truth. The blinders fell from my mind, and I saw the claims of the Cult in all their ridiculousness... It was over in an instant.

I went on to research the Cult, and its actual history. Everything I learned confirmed my impression that night in 1988. And I continue to read and learn, and I'll always be grateful for that moment when my rational mind refused to sit at the back of the bus any longer. And I'm grateful to have switched from personal revelation to the scientific method as the best tool to find truths in this life.

my first little mini-moment was when I was 15 and I heard some whispers about the actual translation of the BOA being funeral scrolls.

over the next 20 years, I just added little things here and there that made me go hmmm?

The last straw I think was just comming to terms with the nature of Joseph Smith and just finally facing all of the nasty things that BY said.

I should probably write this into my own exit story, but here goes one paragraph of it:
I was actually trying to work my way back into the church when I worked my way out. I was under formal probation due to a love court, and meeting monthly with my bishop. After a year and a half of doing all the things on the Stake President's checklist, FHE, daily scripture study, daily family prayer, blah blah, blah, he started telling me what my goals should be. "You should be doing this, that...blah blah blah....AND you should work towards getting your temple recommend back."

And then a stream of thoughts hit me. First, I didn't like going to the temple. Never did. I went to be with the wife, period. I wasn't interested in being reminded of vows that I had taken to give my life and everything I have to the church, with a blood oath to wash it down.
Second, why is this grown man telling me, another grown man, what my goals should be? I decide what my goals should be, not him.
Three: The bishop wasn't interested in the fact that those that I had wronged had forgiven me a long time ago. He wasn't interested in the fact that I had eliminated certain behaviors from my life. He was only going to lift the probation once I proved myself as being committed to the organization of the church.
I met with him a couple more times after that before I called it quits.

The final straw was this:


Bruce R. McConkie's letter to Eugene England

http://www.myplanet.net/mike/LDS/McConkie_England_letter.html

Brigham will go to heaven because he was a prophet and you will go to hell if you believe the things that he taught which were false.

I like how he weaves a loophole by saying that sometimes the Lord permits false doctrines to be taught, and yet at the same time the only safe path is to follow the Lords annointed because they cannot lead you astray.

Which way is there to turn, except away?

I was never really a believer, having been brought up in an inactive family, but it was the only religion I had ever known. None of us kids ever held the mo in very high regard, but the thing that really convinced me that it was all just a hokey scam was when the "revelation" about blacks and the priesthood came down. I mean, come on...

The first time I read Origins, The Emergence and Evolution of Our Species and Its Possible Future, by Richard Leakey and Roger Lewin.

I never could accept Adam and Eve, Eden, or the Book of Mormon after that.

Mine was when I absolutely refused to go on a mission.

Had always hated everything about the church - compulsive scouting, primary, mutual, seminary, the creepy bishop I couldn't stand asking me about masturbation when I was 14, etc.

But when I was told I was expected to go on a mission, could not choose where I wanted to go, and to top it all off would have to pay for it myself... that was my "screw you" moment.

Fast forward 30 years, and the whole Prop H8 fiasco was when I finally sent in my resignation letter.

Yeah, the prop H8 stuff made me embarrassed to EVER be a part of it at all. I was mortified when a gay friend of mine came to me (in tears) wondering how "we" even could consider ourselves Christians...what do you even say to that?

I had one Ah-ha (the book Mormon Doctrine being bashed by GA's) followed by many, many Ahhahahahahahahahahaha moments.

Ron

Ron, Do you have any examples of ga's bashing bom doctrine? I would find that very interesting. Maybe I'm just really naive.

That is, the book "Mormon Doctrine" by Bruce R McConkie.

It's sort of an alphabetical index (Homosexuality under H, Chastity under C, etc) of all things morgbot.

Priceless advice included not to marry outside your own race etc.

written while she was on a mission in Korea. She had written to her parents asking for money to BUY HER OWN COPIES OF THE BOOK OF MORMON. She was in her mid-40s at the time. This was in 1986.

A middle-aged woman begging for money for something that should be given to her by the church that had no problem taking her money for the "privilege" of talking to uninterested Koreans.

"Women who know" Talk(disgusted me really)

And seeing everything on these boards.

My first half "Ah ha" moment was after I actually read the BoM cover to cover. I was like "what, that's it??"
So I started researching and it was when I was reading something in the JoD that BY said (don't remember what) and it just clicked! I was like "religion is just man made". After that I didn't want anything to do with the lds church. Although I had to force the bishop to release me so I could officially quit going to church. And telling my daughter who had just been baptised that mommy didn't believe it anymore (that was heartbreaking!).

When I contemplated that all living things re-produce after their own kind, in likeness and form, except for the Mormon Celestial Kingdom beings. WTF! "Perfect Beings", they claim, have offspring that are not like them; they are claimed to be born of a body but dont have one; and these are the most perfect creatures in all existence. uh-huh.... How would you know you were pregnant? How would you know when you were delivered?

Just one of very many....

After all I'd been through--I had gone inactive for other reasons than nonbelief. I had been busy working 2 jobs and raising my children. They had just graduated from high school.
I knew there were things I didn't believe and hadn't been to church more than once or twice in about 10 years.

My TBM friend's daughter was getting married. My friend told me that every time something went wrong with the wedding plans, her daughter would say, "The church is still true, so what does it matter." That statement kept going through my mind.

I sat down a few days later after a walk and wrote, "It mattered to me." And then I wrote down my "un-testimony" in my journal. That was 6-1/2 years ago.

It was when I got on this website a few years ago and finally read some "anti" stuff that made more sense than Mormonism.

Mine was D&C 132. Basically, if Emma didn't shut up and obey Joseph and put up with his cheating ways, she would be damned to hell. Wow, that was really convenient. If my husband tried to tell me that God had commanded him to have sex with a 14 year old, I would have him arrested and dump his ass!

When it really clicked for me, was when my husband, a believer at the time, told me I didn't believe it. He was right!

if the REASON I didn't ever get a witness of the Book of Mormon (or the church) was because it just wasn't true.

It was a thought that had NEVER occurred to me in my life. And asking it was like opening the floodgates. Things FINALLY started making sense.

From a sheltered Utahn:

"...when, at the age of 12, I found out that there were other religions that existed in the world"

From anon:

"... from watching "The Osbournes" on MTV, I could see there was more love in this dysfunctional family than in any Mormon family I have ever met."

From yet another:

"...it fell apart after I heard the absurd claim that the plates were taken back (disappeared!!) after the translation."

and another:
"....but I didn't know JS was a polygamist. That was for widows out West."

My first one was when I learned that JS took other men's wifes. Living men! That just opened the flood gates for me.