In 2006 I was reading Amazon.com book reviews and on the bottom of the page were various books advertised. One ad was Losing a Lost Tribe: Native Americans, DNA, and the Mormon Church.

I almost fell over. What is this? Author Simon Southerton, a Mormon bishop at the time wrote a page turner. I ordered it that night.

I read all the reviews 1 - 5 stars. There probably is a record on my amazon account of the very day I found out the truth of the church I was raised in during the 1960'-1970's.

MMM.

I had never heard of it until 1999.

I quickly learned why.

When I learned JS had a gun at Carthage and used it I knew there must be more I hadn't been told and I kept reading. I knew if there was one lie there would be more, I just didn't know that everything would turn out to be a lie.

There was not one single event/thought for me. However, the book "Rough Stone Rolling" really got the ball rolling. ; )

I deduced that Kolob was a fictitious construct, that no f'king way did the Israelite's magically morph into N. American "Indians" and it went downhill from there....

Ron Burr



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/09/2013 01:00AM by Lethbridge Reprobate.

The most exasperating lie was the one about William Law lying about Joseph Smith in his newspaper. When I found out that William Law was just trying to inform the members about Joseph secretly practicing polygamy and polyandry I was furious. Joseph destroyed William Laws character and lied about him. I found a newspaper article written by a journalist that tracked down William Law and did an interview and it was very enlightening. It also seems that William Law was an exceptionally kind and caring doctor with a very spotless reputation among those who knew and lived near him. It was a pretty dirty thing Joseph did to him and his wife. He also tried to get William to practice polygamy and William refused.

William Law is now a hero of mine. So is Lucy Harris.

ditto. William Law was my final nail in the coffin.

+1

I became curious about the origins of polygamy. I knew it was storied that BY had many wives, but I thought "What about Joseph Smith?" Googled that sh!t. Lost all belief within hours.

Previous to that, I had grave doubts anyway, because I'm an avid follower of current science. DNA evidence doesn't match up with the story, archaeology doesn't match, linguistics, etc, etc. so I was beginning to smell BS quite a while ago.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/08/2013 11:01PM by rationalguy.

My feelings, (as in the Holy Ghost,) told me it was a lie. In all my attendance, I felt nothing good about the church, the church that was supposed to bring me close to God. Once I realized it wasn't due to my own failures, I was done.

I could have overlooked and rationalized all the lies and bs longer than I did if I had been valued and liked by any Mormon. I loved Jesus. However, I was rarely, if ever, treated with Christlike compassion.

Once I learned through introspection to stop feeling guilty about most anything and everything, the roof caved in really quick. The church lost it's power over me.

It wasn't some weird doctrine I discovered. It was the complete lack of Matthew 5.

Now I'm most definitely very exponentially cynical toward all religion.

I started looking online for stories of families where one of the spouses left the church, since my husband was resigning & I felt alone. This process led me to a lot of new information and I quickly lost my "testimony". I resigned a week after my husband.

For me, the first nail in the coffin was the looney, bizarre, and/or racist doctrines taught by Brigham Young and early church leaders. At first, I thought it was just an anti-mormon lie until I read it for myself in the JoD. After that, I began searching for answers-- which led to even more questions-- until eventually my entire belief structure came painfully crumbling down.

Watching Sister Wives on TV. The sister wives visited Nauvoo and their tour guide said that JS married 11 women who already had husbands. That got me upset as I though it was a lie and I had to google it and found out it was true and from that point on I found more and more things. Thanks Sister Wives you have saved me some tithing money.

Wow....if Sister Wives can do that I will not badmouth it anymore. That is good news. But I still won't watch it. It is demeaning to women.(yes, I know they are weaklings and very needy people)

Working in the BYU library. Sometimes when I should have been working, I'd sneak off and read books about polygamy and blacks and the priesthood. Kinda funny to think about now...the church was paying me to learn the truth

Prayers weren't answered. Priesthood blessings didn't make me well. Being a good Mormon didn't fill me with joy. In short, the One True Church wasn't working as promised. But like a good Mormon, I blamed myself and mept my shoulder to the wheel.

As I got into my teen years and learned how the world worked, I started thinking there was a possibility that some of Mormonism was baloney, or at least just well-intended myths.

The temple was a freaky experience. "So this is what the church is really about?"

Then my mission, which was supposed to be a super-spiritual trip into 24/7/730 mega-Mormonism, was just a load of crap. The leaders were assholes, not men of God. I was taught lying for the Lord. But I still blamed myself for things not being perfect.

Exhausted from my mission, I backed away from the church and recovered my sanity. Once I was away from the indoctrination machine and no longer dependent upon Mormons, I realized I didn't actually believe ANY of it. "Oh, wow, I'm an atheist."

Studying a book with various styles of ancient writing . Looking at Egyptian gods it dawned on me that I had seen some of these somewhere else . A short amount of looking at Facimile 3 and it was over .

Simon Southerton. His testimony and DNA findings are responsible for the initial light coming in and shining through.

Found here. If you are a lurker TBM it won't help your testimony. Just a warning. Some can read it and shrug it off. I could not.
http://www.exmormonscholarstestify.org/simon-southerton.html



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/08/2013 11:46PM by snuckafoodberry.

Got called to the family history committee at the ripe old age of 26, along with my wife. Awful calling where the committee (chairman? president? can't even remember what they're called) wanted to badger younger couples and families into doing more family history. I don't have kids, but didn't want to tell those who did to spend some of their free time working on the histories of people that were long since dead.

All that aside, the new familysearch.org came out when I was on the committee. They encouraged me to log in and do some research.

Searched for "Joseph Smith," and was stunned to find he was married to women... who were in turn married to other men. Ended up reading about Helen Mar Kimball shortly afterward, and it all sort of fell apart. I've worked with FLDS and other abused youth in Utah's JJS system, and have very low tolerance for those who would abuse children.

Good for you. I think children in those kinds of homes are indeed abused and often neglected and not given the time a parent should give a child.And the poor kids don't know who is who or what to call all the ladies really....and is having 5 moms better than having one. NO!

I'm very libertarian, and have no opposition to whatever sorts of arrangements consenting adults want to make -- homosexual, polyamorous, whatever.

When you bring kids into the mix, however, you're on the hook for taking care of them. Something the FLDS categorically fail at. It has little to do with the number of moms they have, and more to do with the fact that they're raised as chattel.

The AUB generally take care of their kids. The FLDS do not. Polygamy's not really the problem, per se; it's that the FLDS polygamy construct is one that makes no allowances for women as anything other than potential brides.

Forget about consenting adults in these cases. They always bring kids into the world. It is not about the adults. Period.

When I was coming out, I had to know if the Church was true. I picked up No Man at the public library and decided if it was half true, JS was a con man.

"...I saw a pillar of light exactly over my head, above the brightness of the sun, which descended gradually until it fell upon me....When the light rested upon me I saw two Personages, whose brightness and glory defy all description, standing above me in the air. One of them spake unto me, calling me by name and said, pointing to the other—This is My Beloved Son. Hear Him!"


I have no idea how many times I recited this as a missionary while showing the accompanying picture in the official church issued missionary discussion flip chart. I could do this at the flip of a switch which such emotion and feeling that it'd make you think you were suddenly related to Henry B Crying.

Then, while reading and studying to try and make sense out of an encounter with my Asshat SP, I learned that I had been duped... the First Vision as was taught was simply BS.

They lied to me and broke the trust. Take me off the grill... I'm done.

Mormon Prayer
Mormon Priesthood
One True Church
Mormon Temple Cult Ritual

Needed a little time to find an exit strategy, BYU graduate--done

I really think the primary challenge to exiting Mormonism is the Mormon temple marriage and then babies. I expect that many more young women will get a chance to experience these four key flaws of Mormonism as TBMs before their wedding day because of the new mission age for women and if they are just paying enough attention might avoid that key trap.

I think the Mormons made a mistake, they misunderstand where the trap of Mormonism has been set. BIC children to BIC parent to BIC children within 20 years. I think they think it's in the mission field.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 08/09/2013 12:18AM by gentlestrength.

I was in the Primary presidency, researching a sharing time for Mother's Day and put "Mormon Mother's Day Quotes" in my google browser. One of the links was to a similar post-Mormon site and actually very funny. So, despite the disclaimer on each page about it being a site for ex-Mormons, I thought I'd be "naughty" and look around for a while. I read about the First Vision and how the historical record proves there were no revivals around Palmyra in 1820. I clearly remember thinking "They are LYING to us." I started reading more about the First Vision and within about an hour, the whole premise of my life was changed. I always believed the church was true and looked for ways to prove it - now I believe the church was lying and started researching to make sure they were lying. What's still unbelievable is how much they are lying about. Once I was sure I was right, I took off the garments, quit attending church and started living my life.

In a conversation with my daughter and son in law about the lies told about prop 8, BOM problems, BOA problems, MMM, City Creek etc. I mentioned that I believed that JS was a fallen prophet. My son in law said, "You know about the different versions of the first vision, don't you?" I didn't answer him, but as soon as I got home I looked it up. JS went from fallen prophet to not a prophet. Done and done.

I read the Book of Mormon with real intent, pondered its words, and prayed about it.

I'm serious.

An exmo friend mentioned off hand on a facebook post about controversies around the BoA as being significant in his reasons for leaving. I thought, "what controversies?". At first I felt a little guilty for looking into the question and then I though, what does the truth have to fear from deception, so I looked. That lead to hundreds of hours of research, podcast listening, books ordered and read, and then I stopped attending.

Before I went to the Temple for my endowment, a Baptist friend said he would pray for me with his church, and that his pastor told him the "Temple rituals in a Mormon Temple are so Satanic they would scare you."

With those words ringing in my ears I went to D.C. and muscled through it.

If not for my upbringing, and deep family roots in the cult, I wold have stood up and left, especially at the oath and penalty abuses.

That was 1980

It was wrong, I knew it was wrong. I tried to find a way to make it work anyway, with my solid conviction it was wrong fighting my family and my heritage.

I left in 1983

Since then I have become more and more secure in my decision.

I didn't go through until the mid nineties, while it was unusual, the slitting motions were gone and I didn't know about them. However, I was surprised by how impersonal the experience was.

I was looking around YouTube one night, and a video about the Book of Abraham popped up on the right. It was called Problems with the Book of Abraham, or something similar. And I was like, "What problems?" I had added plenty of things to my shelf over the years, but I didn't know there were problems with the Book of Abraham. I didn't watch the video, but I did google. I ended up at MormonThink, and the rest is history. It took me a couple of days of reading at MT to accept that Joseph Smith was a big fat liar and that the whole thing was a huge fraud from the very beginning.

There were a lot of things piling up. The church was the major stressor in my life. It was making my life miserable, and there was no reason for that to be happening. I was diagnosed with a chronic illness and my Dr's told me to eliminate as much stress out of my life as possible. That was when I realized the church was about the only stressor I had at the time. I wasn't quite sure what to do about that. I hoped it would get better on its own, but it didn't.

Since I wasn't feeling well I had a lot of time on my hands. I had just bought a new laptop because I couldn't sit in a chair at the computer for more than 15 minutes. Now I could recline and go online (ish). That's when I started reading up on church history. The Book of Abraham was the final blow. Good bye Mormonism.

The little lies kept adding up, year after year. Mormon lies didn't hold up to scientific evidence, to real evidence of happy Christian, Jewish, Atheist, multi-cultural families--much happier than my dysfunctional Mormon family. I experienced and observed what was going on around me, and the Mormon church was not what it claimed to be. Where were the promised blessings? I was good, yet I was abused. Where were the threats that my Mormon teachers used to frighten me? I had questions at a very early age.

Yes, there were the gut feelings, too. I did not feel "love" in my family or in the church building. The temple gave me the creepy feeling that I was in the presence of Evil. Church meetings made me feel depressed and hopeless.

Over the years, I witnessed a lot of changes in the Mormon religion. I saw it move farther and farther away from Christ. The Book of Mormon replaced my beloved Bible, as main scripture. I hated the D & C, especially D&C 132, and never did believe in it. I never did believe the Joseph Smith story (whichever one was being told at the time--I believed none of them.) The church changed from the liberal group in my university-combined ward in California, to BYU, to my conservative ward in Salt Lake City, where I finally realized that I was in a CULT.

It was a slow process. I had to admit that my illustrious church-leader-pioneer ancestors were nothing but randy polygamists. They were stupid to fall for their neighbor JS's idiotic cult, in the first place. THEY were the apostates.

Two final nails in the coffin: 1. The final blow was when my children had the courage to tell me that they were being abused by priesthood leaders. 2. I had been trying for years to find out what their ever-changing rules were regarding a temple divorce from a wife-beater, so my TBM husband and I could get married in the temple. Finally, I was told that my children, by my second husband, were, by the rules of the cult, sealed to my temple husband, as his property in the hereafter, along with two other women he had temple-married after me. Horribly upset by all of this, I explained to my hair stylist why I had been crying, and she said, "I just got a temple divorce, and it was no problem. My husband didn't have problems--we just didn't love each other, anymore. My father is a Stake President, and a close personal friend of GBH, but it still took us about a month to get the temple divorce."

I had been trying for 15 years.

I had heard that in the Mormon church "It is who you know." that counts. Even I understood that THIS IS NOT GOD'S WAY!

Bam--that Saturday morning, the children and I resigned together, and they cried as they thanked me for releasing them from what had been the biggest problem-causer in our lives.

In Japan, on my mission in early 80's. Woke up on a Tuesday morning, about 2/3rds through my interment. Looked myself in the mirror, and asked myself if i really believed what I was selling to these people.

I read a book "Salamander: The Story of the Mormon Forgery Murders by Linda Sillitoe and Allen Roberts" when I was a senior in high school and started wondering how Hoffman could have duped Pres. Kimball if Pres. Kimball had discernment. I also thought it was weird that the church was having people buy up documents then hiding them from the public view. I went on my mission thinking about this often.

Preparing a RS lesson on the three witnesses and realized they all three left the church, then started researching why. The flood gates opened!

stumbled upon a site called josephlied.com

found out about the multiple first vision stories...if the foundational vision was a lie, it was pretty easy to see that the whole thing was a crock.

Then, I applied the same level of critical thinking to christianity and realized that too was a crock.

Happier as an atheist now than I ever was as a magical thinker!!

For me, all it took was realizing that the church was teaching a single falsehood and the house of cards came crashing down in a single instant--standing among the stacks in the local public library, reading a book on geology, in the most powerful and life-changing epiphany of my life.

It wasn't just one thing. For me it was a long journey moving from one point of fiction or lie to the next one. So at some point along the way, you know that this can't be true. I don't want to be part of the con, and that was the end.

Oh, and the first point of fiction I stumbled on happened in Jr High School when I learned the truth about horses in America.

There were many small things that added up, but this site was one of the biggest influences.

I remember being about 8 or 9, and thinking in Sunday School about how convenient it was that the Golden plates were put in some cave so the bad guys wouldn't find them. Isn't that how little children try to support their lies?

The next thing was law school. When we were told to separate our thinking from our emotions, I was suddenly able to separate from my emotional attachment to Mormonism and look at the evidence. There is no way God would ask the world to believe the silliest answers about his one and only true religion on faith, when common sense and logic tell us that it can't possibly be true.

Humans have a need for an explanation of the tragic and mysterious. We also need an explanation for good things that happen, seemingly without cause. I have stopped needing an explanation for everything. I'm no longer Mormon.

T-Bone

For me, it didnt happen suddenly. Little things here and there chipped away at my "armor of god".

One of the biggest things was going to the temple... it really really freaked me out. I didn't like it, but still was TBM and just didnt go to the temple very much.

Then, after I had 2 kids, I felt like the church asked too much of me... and that bothered me. I wanted to concentrate on my children and husband! I remember thinking "isn't the church supposed to encourage family togetherness?"

Also, it was really difficult for us to make it through church with our kids... it became a HUGE chore, one that we dreaded every week. Church was making me miserable.... so, I decided to stop going. At this point though, I was still TBM and still wearing my garments.(even though I hated them) So, I still went a little bit, but just used the kids and my job as an excuse to not go very often. I got a taste of freedom, and I liked it.

Then, I found MormonStories and was immediately drawn in. I listened to hours and hours of podcasts. My favorite ones are the Eldon Kartchner podcast and the McClay's.

MormonStories got me really thinking and questioning things... so, that's when I started researching. The first book I read was "No man know my history"... and it all went downhill from there. My whole testimony had been based on JS, so really getting to know more about him just tore my testimony to shreds.

I had been rebelling for a few years but I still felt it was true deep inside. Randomly one day,(Jan 30, 2012) I decided to be bad and google stuff about temple ceremonies since I'd never been to one. One site led to another to another and then this site. It all came crashing down that day. Now I know why they don't want you researching anything besides lds.org online! Now I look back and wonder how I could be brainwashed for so long! It's scary. I just wish my parents would come to their senses.

Same thing happened to me. If there was one message I wish we could communicate to LDS young people, it is to look up the temple ceremonies at least three weeks in advance. They have a right to know what they're getting into before they're under peer pressure sitting there inside the temple.

I left before the internet, but I was a science geek and my mother was firmly in the "literal truth" of the scriptures camp. I used to survive meetings by actually reading the scriptures with my brain switched on.

The BoM, BoA, and BoMoses clearly were repeating bronze-age myth from the bible. I managed to rationalise translation issues with the BoA and BoM, but there was absolutely no reason to expect myth in the BoMoses - it was pure revelation.

That got me thinking.Then I confirmed in Mormon Doctrine (BRM) that the gospel was incompatible with the theory of evolution. Just as my mother had been saying. Since I knew evolution was a fact, that was that. I remember snapping the book shut with a loud snap - the sound of my faith snapping. I was a total non-believer from that point.

ETA: I was 18. Boy did I save myself some trouble!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/09/2013 02:51AM by spanner.

....by Listening to LDS leader Gordon B.S. Hinckley LIE about it.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YEMX0VooD4

I would have never given any consideration to the "LIES" that "anti MORmONS" were telling about "THE" church if I had not been forced to consider the LIES that the MORmON PRofit was telling about MORmONISM.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/09/2013 03:06AM by lucky.

I decided to look up the complete temple ceremonies online before going through with them. When I read through the wording and the actions they do, I realized it was immoral to have people go do and say the ceremonies without advanced notice. People ought to have at least three weeks to think about whether they want to do it, after being fully informed of the complete temple ceremonies in detail. That would keep them from being shocked by the difference between the temple ceremonies and their entire church experience previous to that. As it is, I feel it's completely against free will to have people go through and make solemn promises to God without knowing beforehand what they will be promising, under enormous peer and family pressure often before a mission or wedding. This pressure likely causes most people to compartmentalize and disassociate from the part of themselves that is shocked and traumatized by the first temple experience, which is very unhealthy psychologically. I realized that God's true church would not contradict its own teachings about free will as soon as I read the temple ceremonies.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/09/2013 03:33AM by raiku.

"The Mormon Murders: A True Story of Greed, Forgery, Deceit, and Death" was first published in 1988. The authors were two Harvard-trained lawyers, Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith. Here's what Publishers Weekly said about their book:

"As part of a scathing depiction of a deceitful, materialistic Mormon Church, lawyers Naifeh and Smith (co-editors of the biennial directory The Best Lawyers in America, etc.) point out that the 1985 Salt Lake City scandals and bombings that convulsed the community had a precedent in certain dubious practices of the church’s prophet and founder Joseph Smith. The suspenseful plot, involving a series of murders and a large cast of Mormons and police investigators, centers on the purchase and suppression by church officials of authentic and forged documents that cast doubts on basic tenets of their faith and attested to the cover-up of Smith’s unsavory past. Under the threat of blackmail, the church bought many of these documents from the dealer-bomber Mark Hofmann; according to the authors, Hoffmann, after confessing the murders and forgeries, was allowed, thanks to the church’s political influence, to plea bargain the murder indictment into a manslaughter charge thereby sparing the church an embarrassing trial that could have revealed its complicity."

"The Mormon Murders" also revealed to me many 'faith'-busting facts about JS and early LDS history that the chronically dishonest Latter-day Saint Church had swept under the rug. In good conscience, I could not support such a duplicitous organization, so I terminated my membership (I resigned). It was the best decision I ever made.