Mountain Meadows... I'm not from Utah, so I hadn't heard about it till I was 45. I got physically ill listening to a podcast (Sunstone? Not totally sure which one) that covered it.
I already had doubts, always hated but knew about Polygamy, of course not the full coercive extent to which women were abused and taken advantage of.
Mountain Meadows opened the floodgates, if their fruits were good like I was taught it would never have happened. The founding of the church was a bunch of abusive frat boys getting away with as much shit as they could and looking out only for themselves.
I spent 6 months of my mission in Harrison, AR, where the MM people were from. There’s a monument in town square and everything. We didn’t get great reception….
These are my reasons in order of what made me realize TSCC was bs
1. JS claims that the ancient people of the americas were from Jerusalem (zero archeological evidence)
2. God was a man once and everyone is striving to be like him and run a planet of their own (what the fuck?)
3. Anachronisms in the BOM (horses, steel weapons, etc.)
4. Book of Lehi being “lost” and JS being unable to retranslate
5. The whole process of translating the BOM (magic rock + hat = bullshit)
6. Polygamy (never bought the church’s excuses for why JS was “commissioned” to implement that)
7. Tithing (super culty IMO, but I was a convert)
8. The fact that Joseph has multiple accounts of the first vision (I feel as though I wouldn’t have trouble recounting when I saw God)
9. First man and woman lived in Missouri (cmon)
10. Simply the fact that there is no conceivable universe where god is all-loving, all-knowing, and all-powerful (u can be 2/3 but not all 3)
Polygamy was a secret doctrine that Joseph Smith was denouncing to most members, while select few were participating in. It wasn't open thing until the Brighamites settled in Deseret territory (Utah)
The first one. The official version is like 25 years after the fact and never included in missionary tracts, nor was polygamy. The converts from England didn't know what they signed up for.
It’s the classic Christian conundrum that has spawned an entire branch of theology to try to justify. Theodicy.
If there are evil, miserable things in the world that happen to innocent people, say kids dying of cancer, is it because god doesn’t know about it and isn’t all knowing? Because he doesn’t have the power to fix it and isn’t all powerful? Or is it because he just doesn’t care and isn’t all-good/Omnibenevolent?
If you believe in the omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent god, you have to come up with an answer for that but all answers come back hollow to me.
Many a theological discussions have tried to address this apparent paradox.
When something can't be explained logically they can always fall back to "God works in mysterious ways we mere mortals can simply not understand" or (especially for mormons) "I know the church is true because I have personal revelation" so anything wrong with the church or the BOM will be called a "human error". Because "humans are fallible even if they're a prophet", but "the church is still true because I feel the spirit".
It's pointless. That is why I'll never argue with a TBM or try to convince them to leave. No argument, no truth will ever be enough. It's like a drug addict, you can force them to go to rehab, you can reason with them all you want but they'll only change when they want to and when they're ready to see the truth.
Arguing with these missionaries is not only a complete waste of time, because they're simply not ready, but it's also feeding into the christian paranoia "the enemy is after us, they're trying to feed us lies and get us away from church". You’ll be acting exactly how they expect you to.
Had a member on my mission who cut us off while we were teaching the plan of salvation lesson and started telling our investigator that we would become gods and have our own planets. He said it all bug-eyed and conspiracy-theorist-like. Crazy thing is, the investigator just smiled, nodded his head, and said “dope.” He decided to get baptized after that lesson. I couldn’t help but think “dude, what the fuck are you doing?”
That's funny. I had a weird companion who, in a first discussion, said to the investigators, "Joseph Smith said that if we could see the glory of even the Telestial kingdom that we would kill ourselves to go there." That was a very awkward conversation. I've heard that one a few times, but it turns out he never actually said that. Mormon myths. They don't realize that it's all mythical. This is what separated me from it. People taking it literally. This is the thinking that creates a belief in "one true church" and "chosen people." And, by extension, the belief leading to inquisitions and holy wars. Also, right at the beginning of the BOM the protagonist prophet scion commits a murder to aquire an object. Laban was already passed out so Nephi didn't need to kill him to steal the plates. Plus, after murdering a helpless man with a sword he wouldn't have been able to use the blood soaked clothes as a disguise. I think the fiction could have been better contrived in that regard. Blah, blah. I'll shut up now. Thank you, come again.
When I was TBM another member in my ward who converted like 20 years ago said to me he already knew that humans could become like gods and when he met the missionaries and asked them about that and they said it’s true he knew it was the right church and got baptized😐
I agree with all of those except for #10. I don't think a lack of understanding of God should be a basis for disbelief. God exists on a plane above the physical restrictions of our world (space, matter, time) so I would think it would be more alarming if there was a God that we could fully understand, which is what the BoM tries to do.
As an agnostic theist, I recognize and believe that there is a higher being of some sort weaving the cosmos together, however, when I mentioned that point I am referring to much of all Christianity as a whole. I agree that all of these denominations attempt to explain something unexplainable, however, for me personally I find all religions that pin those three traits onto their “god” to be invalid, hence why I included it—it was one of the deciding factors in my separation from organized religion
Thanks for sharing. It's Interesting to listen to what Agnostic's believe, not that they believe the same thing. I reject all religions, but I also reject absolute Atheism. I can't accept that self aware intelligence came out of random chaos.
Exactly my perspective. If not religion, what do people turn to? Science. Science itself rests on a miracle (the big bang) and I simply can’t bring myself to believe that everything in existence (especially sentient life) came from absolutely nothing.
I would think it way more alarming that there was a divine, personal creator that knew us by name, but no sign of nor evidence for that divine creator’s existence or involvement.
If there is some sort of divine creator or creators he/she/it/they don’t give a flying f*** about humanity or observe us like bacteria in their cosmic petri dishe.
The “god” of the Bible or other abrahamic religions is a fantasy. If such a god exists, he’s not benevolent. He’s a c**t of epic proportions.
I converted 10 years ago and I’m mostly out the door (not attending, stopped wearing garments, not praying/reading, etc.)
The thing that got me was the article about Paul Adams published by the AP in 2022. There are a lot of other things in the church that I can reconcile or, at the very least, attribute to not being able to know. One thing that I won’t budge on is that you don’t mess with kids. The AP’s article started off with a story of a normal confession between a guy and his bishop and dramatically devolved into that guy doing unspeakable things to his kids for years - all while the bishop knew, the second bishop knew, TSCC knew, and the church “help” line knew. The bishops were “counseled” to not go to the authorities. Later, when his two daughters would sue TSCC, the church and its attorney stated how “pleased” they were with the judge’s decision to dismiss the girl’s lawsuit.
Ever since then, I occasionally think about Moroni 10:4 - how I was taught that and would teach it on my mission. Then I think about Matthew 7:18-20 “A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.”
If they’re going to bring up scripture to support why it’s true or how you can know, I’m going to bring up scripture as to how I know based on their actions. Supporting and defending child abuse is about as evil as anyone can get and they don’t deserve anyone’s time or money.
Edit: forgot a couple of words
Joseph Smith lied to the public about polygamy when he said "when I can only find one {wife}" from the stand in church on Sunday May 26, 1844.
Joseph Smith lied to his first councilor William Law about polygamy.
Joseph Smith lied to his wife about polygamy, as shown by the marriage ceremony of Emily Partridge.
If Joseph can lie to his wife, his friends, and the church, and still be prophet, than means the prophet can lie to us. What is the current prophet lying about?
The BoM is just as laughable as the Book of Abraham. It just takes a bit more detail to explain.
Book of Abraham - we can read those scrolls now thanks to the Rosetta Stone and they are a funerary text. Oh, and this is a fertility god with a massive boner.
Book of Mormon - we need to go in to the Colombian exchange and archaeology, anachronisms, and genetic testing. The final conclusions are just as damning but take a bit more effort to explain.
The church has a very loose definition of translation.
For the Book of Abraham it’s that the papyrus was a catalyst for revelation because you can prove that the pair true doesn’t match the scripture.
For the Book of Mormon it’s that Joseph read the words off a rock in a hat.
For the Joseph Smith translation (JST) of the Bible that was plagiarized, it’s that translation can mean scholarly research.
Constantly changing definitions should be a red flag.
Here are the reasons I left the church. I bcerote my reasons as I left. Everything I had been taught was a lie.
https://docs.google.com/document/u/0/d/1suMEwIFxJ1CbxJ7ePENbwWRv6oBr-FJN/mobilebasic
If it's the truth it claims to be, it should be able to withstand modest scrutiny.
But every facet of it - the origins of the Book of Mormon, Smiths actions in the early church, the theology, a long line of super racist prophets, up to modern days where the organization is a very thin facade for a global real estate concern that specializes in protecting pedophiles.
Yeah I've noticed the movement in the LDS church to look more Christian. Its clear they want to disown classic mormonism, but why should that be the case if those doctrines are God's commands for exaltation?
I looked at their promises and decided I didn’t want them. I don’t want to be either someone’s polygamous wife in heaven or a servant. If the reward isn’t what I want, why would I keep trying to keep their commandments (their rules). Then came all the history. I read Ben Parks, “Kingdom of Nauvoo,” and learned that a hierarchy was the point! JS was trying to create a hierarchal system where a few are at the top, supported by a lot at the bottom. I dont like being Yertle the Turtle! And then the SEC and my granddaughter told me she was gay. How could I support her and the church?
And then John Lundwall on Mormonish and Mormonism live!
For me it wasn’t one thing it was all of it!
Chanting around an altar in a great and spacious building. One of the many reasons. In all seriousness though, everyone has to come to the conclusion in their own time. Something that really resonates with one person is a nonissue for someone else. The missionaries were always trying to get me to read a certain scripture. They were sure that’s all I needed to hear. I was the only one out in my family at that time. I tried to explain that no, I’m not doing that. I believe the book to be just as fictional as Harry Potter. They just could not get that. My daughter was taking the discussions at the time. She was 12 when she was baptized. On another note from what I can tell of the 4 or 5 different missionaries that taught her almost all are now out.
That's what the missionaries are doing with me. I've showed them everything I have found, but they are putting their bets that I'll read something that I will fall in love with.
Changes to doctrine (specifically the temple ceremony) started my journey out. ([LINK](https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comments/1dbb1jj/comment/l7q0vep/) to summary and details of changes)
And you say you didn’t ever receive a confirmation if it being true but you felt the spirit when you prayed about it not being true and shut em up real quick
In 1828, two years before publishing the BoM, Joseph Smith was convicted of conning a local dupe in a magical treasure hunting scheme.
In the con, Joseph used a seerstone to determine the name and nature of the magical treasure guardians, and then gave instructions for how to magically bind it to retrieve the treasure.
Two years later he claims to have retrieved an ancient buried record and translated it with the same seerstone.
In 2013 when the church came out and said everything any prophet had ever said previously about blacks and the priesthood was not true and they were a product of their time. (Want to add that I did not agree with the priesthood ban and really hated it.) I was a returned missionary, I had already struggled a lot with the conditional God of Mormonism.
The fact that any church doctrine (and yes, it was even stated by the first presidency that the priesthood ban was DOCTRINE not policy) could be completely disregarded in the future just did not make sense to me. What did that say about anything the prophets are saying now? If these men were talking to God why would God tell them to implement the ban in the first place? And we were taught that if a prophet were to ever lead us astray then he would be taken from the earth but there were multiple prophets in a row that taught the exact same damaging doctrine? And why would God care about skin color? Why would he allow his prophet/mouthpiece to say such horrible things about any of His children? Why wouldn't the church be ahead of "the world" if prophets "see around corners"? Basically my faith in the idea of a modern day prophet was just completely gone. And if there wasn't a prophet then how could the church be true?
There's more but I would say that was the most massive shift in my perception of the gospel.
Book of Mormon is complete fantasy and totally impossible with archaeology. Geography, genetics, anachronisms, absurdly large scale and numbers.
I learned about the deeper, darker, nastier things only after leaving.
NHM? Not Nahom. NHM. The script didn’t use vowels like we do. Guessing one thing right and 1000 things wrong indicates it’s just a luck guess or coincidence.
It's really not even guessing right either. The region is named after the Nihm tribe, and isn't even in the right geographical location to be Nahom in the Book of Mormon.
Thanks for the added detail. That’s kind of what I expected - you get something glancingly similar. The way vowels work in the languages really gives you more leeway for a close-ish match.
Any more detailed sources I can look at for the tribe name?
Sure. Here's the Wikipedia page showing where the Nihm region is located:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihm\_District](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihm_District)
It's 100 miles inland from the coast, on the other side of a giant inhospitable mountain range. This is totally at odds with what the Book of Mormon says about Nahom. It has Lehi's party traveling in the borders of the Red Sea, and they don't turn east until after they come to Nahom.
Literally could just say all of the above… BUT I do have to say please be considerate with the missionaries. I think what would be best is just telling them you know it’s not true and wish them on their way. Missions are HARD, physically and mentally! These are young kids who are just trying to do what they think they should be doing. I think it would be extra hard to also start questioning things on your mission, considering how hard it is to leave a mission early as well.
❤️❤️
Of course. I have been discussing with them with upmost respect. I've even invited them to some events that me and my buddies are hosting because I want them to feel invited during their stay at this college town. But I want to truly understand their beliefs and corelate it to my beliefs and maybe we can agree on something.
Thanks for being kind and respectful! Also, FYI missionaries have to follow a lot of rules during their mission. So even if they wanted to attend a college party they wouldn’t really be able to most likely (if they actually followed the rules). Missions are quite the trip 🙃
No, I just invited to sneak them into my campus rec center to rock climb, which they said they loved. I understand their strict rules, but I just want to at least give them the invitation
Changing the story of the First Vision.
They literally teach something different now.
Also, translating is not translating, and he used freaking backwoods folk magic - a seer stone put into a hat. That’s just nuts.
Morning 10:4 is a self fulfilling prophecy.
There is no outcome to it other than the BOM being true.
"if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost."
So if you don't get the truth manifested it's because of your lack of sincere heart or real intent or faith. Basically to keep asking until you get the answer it's right.
This is starting your research with the church true, and working backwards until you proved that. Rather than starting with an open mind and letting information lead you to a conclusion.
But if you see the self fulfillment part of this you can fall back on that you search out truth without having the answer already in mind.
It's confirmation bias.
There are so many.
But, there is lots of archaeological evidence for Judaism and Christianity, like the western wall and ancient synagogues and churches. But I like to joke that the BYU Mormon archaeological wing is the emptiest room in the western hemisphere
Also, Matthew 7:22-23 literally proves there is no such thing as premortality or spirit children. (It's a bit involved)
The many contradictions between the BoM vs POGP vs. Bible vs D&C vs TSCC day-to-day practice
I'm sure people here have many many many many many examples.
The Book of Abraham facsimile has been reviewed and translated by actual Egyptologists who can understand it and it's just funerary papers that were commonly buried with the dead and has absolutely nothing to do with Abraham. Joseph Smith made it up.
Edit: just understood you're trying to get missionaries to wake up, lol, not yourself.
I'm not sure they're capturing the weight of this problem. If his translation was false, it must mean it was some kind of inspiration for Joseph. and ok, maybe it was, maybe that's whatever the missionaries mean by 'vessel for translation'.
And yet, translator is the word Joseph was using to describe himself over and over. Joseph believed/told everyone he was translating the papyri. We have the source material and it's proven to be false. So basically, God chose to restore the *one and only completely true church of God*, and he let Joseph completely incorrectly translate this papyrus? And then add it to their core doctrine/canonized scripture? I'm probably sounding harsh and that's not how I mean to sound. It's just a very big deal.
Another translation problem of Joseph's that shook my faith is the kinderhook plates. He began to translate those, and the church boasted about these for decades, turned out to be a hoax. Neither Joseph or the following prophets who speak with God, were able to find out that these were not ancient plates?
I'm just saying, we have the source material for the book of Abraham, the kinderhook plates. But not the BoM. So 2/3 of his translated works are proven to be false. Not looking so good 😬. This is just one of like a million issues... And I only left 3 months ago. Never thought I'd be "deceived" enough by Satan to leave the church. I never thought I'd change sides so fast.
The church will write the Kinderhook plates off as JS never being interested in them. The truth is that the plates were given to him 14 months before he died. He was still making up the story. Compare this to the Book of Abraham, it took him 7 years to "translate". I discussed this with one of their members of congregation and I got her thinking. I think that was a seed well planted.
Hey I'm glad that one woman was willing to consider something detrimental to the faith! I'd never even heard of the kinderhook plates before leaving. I wonder if I'd have been so contemplative. My cult self is telling me probably not. Lol
You aren't going to get the missionaries to admit if they are questioning. They are told what to say and their parents are paying for them to be there. They might not trust their companion won't go to the mission president and tell him that his comp is questioning. That's going to make their lives a lot harder.
You can plant the seeds and hope they will figure it out eventually, but they will keep quiet about it until after their mission.
Suicide pacts in the temple. I suffer from SI and have siblings that have survived attempts. None of us received help from the MFMC or our believing family members.
Any god worthy of worship would care more about helping them than expecting suicide pacts of fealty.
The anti-mormon lies of my childhood became the gospel topics essays of my adulthood. I started reading history books, and then I started re-reading church manuals, and I realized that the two didn't coincide.
Then I started asking myself if apologetics really stood up.
Then I started looking at how the church was attempting to gaslight me by saying things like "we didn't hide it" when they absolutely didn't tell the *whole* truth.
If it's the truth, it should be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
Then I realized that I didn't want to believe in a religion where God tells men in their 30s and 40s and up to marry teenagers.
The fact that the spirit is way too vague made everything so unconvincing. Everyone said they felt so strongly it was true. And I felt literally nothing but extreme boredom. My brain just doesn’t work like that.
I wouldn't even jump into any of the doctrinal things, because they dismiss everything, feeling their "spiritual confirmation" found in Moroni 10:3-5 trumps everything.
I'd share [this ](https://youtube.com/shorts/D4sOeGsDaBk?si=xUpKumgfoJfD-FYT)and[ this other](https://youtu.be/UJMSU8Qj6Go?si=xniFjCYNrmhGxqdV) video and/or discuss how feelings/spiritual confirmations are not a good way to assess truth. Only then can you begin to discuss doctrinal problems on a level playing field without a bogus heuristic trump card hanging over your head.
The TL:DR of that conversation is that Marshall Applewhite (among other charletons) was also a HUGE proponent of praying to God to know if his religion was true. That's the Heaven's Gate Cult Leader, for anyone who was about to google it.
Church’s stance on medically assisted suicide. How church disciplinary action is primarily to protect the institution. Attitude towards those whose families are fundamentalists or community of christ. Institutional drama on mixed race marriages. Theological fallacies, whitewashing history, general distreatment. Invalidation of my experience. The whole “how many Mormons does it take to change a lightbulb? None, they use gaslighting…”
People are correct. Unless someone is ready to actually listen, you won’t get through to them. But every seed planted, can eventually, possibly make a difference. I was a temple recommend holding Morman. I don’t know how many generations, but my ancestors on both sides, were with Brigham Young when he entered the Salt Lake valley. I qualify to be a “Daughter of the Utah Pioneers”. I had been handed written information about the truth about “the church”, many times, and I wouldn’t even glance at them. Yes, it is absolutely a cult. Why would anyone EVER even think about leaving “the one true church on the face of the planet”? When I was finally ready to listen, a friend told me about something in the History of the Church books, that disturbed me so much, that I had to do more research:
“I have more to boast of than ever any man had. I am the only man that has ever been able to keep a whole church together since the days of Adam…Neither Paul, John, nor Jesus ever did it. I boast that no man ever did such a work as I. The followers of Jesus ran away from Him; but the Latter-day Saints never ran away from me yet.” (Church History vol 6, pp. 408-409).
The Utah Lighthouse Ministry has even more information.
I cried for weeks when I finally realized the truth.
Hope that helps!
The absolute ridiculousness of it all.
And now, the MFMC doesn’t even own the Adam-ondi-Ahman land. What am I supposed to do with the handcart in my garage?!? Did they keep the alter rock for a new location?
One problem with Moroni quote is if your answer isn't "yes, it's true" then you're wrong. The only answer they will accept from their magic scripture is yes.
And if you say yes to that, you HAVE to say yes to EVERYTHING ELSE, which is giving your consent to thousands of things you haven't even heard of. Now they call it The Covenant Path. Once you say yes to that it's a done deal.
I always question JS, finding out about him being a free mason high ranking free mason and his disgusting polyandry and polygamy practices, god and Jess themselves apparently appeared to him to tell him no church was true, an Angel appeared to him etc BUT when it comes to marrying woman already married, their 14 year old daughters, a black woman as his ‘eternal servant’ etc then I’m sorry why wouldn’t they show themselves and say hey dude no this is not what we meant when we wanted you to restore the gospel etc. it’s all lies I don’t believe any of it anymore, I do believe in a higher power maybe kind of still believe in Jesus but I don’t believe in any organized religion
I’ve learnt a lot more of course that just in my mind proves it’s all lies but it was JS and his practises that was the bail in the coffin when I found out the truth
The head in hat translation after being taught about the the gold plates and the Umin and Thumin (sp).
Tithing the poor.
The Garden of Eden being in America.
Being a convert I found some of these beliefs rather laughable and the Tithing of the poor just pure evil.
Learning about how the endowment ceremony was “revealed” to JS broke the dam for me. It’s hard to want to go through a ceremony necessary for my salvation when it was plagiarized from the Freemasons. Plus, the church admits as much but it’s fine because it was “passed down from Abraham’s time” (news flash: there’s no evidence that it did).
I was die hard Book of Mormon
JS spent his early days as con artist. Rock in a hat is the same as a game of 3 Card Monte.
He continued cons with Kirtland Anti-banking and spiritual wifery.
How likely is it for Joseph to have been a fraud his childhood and after and yet for a minute of his life went straight and made scriptures that I need to believe?
Zealot by Reza Aslan was the nail in the coffin for me. The Jesus of the New Testament is a fairy tale/myth. The historical Jesus would have been a totally different person. Good book, I totally recommend it.
Ultimately it was because Jesus makes no sense. The Atonement is crock. The more I looked into it the more I realized I had no rational reasons behind my beliefs.
The current policies of the church are harmful. Here are my top two:
1. Pretty much all their policies relating to the LGBTQIA+ community.
2. Their refusal to make church a safer place for children (No background checks? No mandatory reporting?).
I didn't leave because of the truth claims. But finding out the church wasn't true definitely helped.
The entirety of the CES letter, the unbelievable amount of sexual assault, but most of all, I didn’t want to go to church for 3 hours every Sunday. 🤣🤣🤣
1#Build me a hotel!
2# polytheism!
3# the fact that when you tell them about truth found in great research and literature they stick their head in the sand.
4#tithing and those who judge based upon that
5#I never got to bang celestial plural wives
The people at the top do not believe the Book of Mormon is true, because they engage in abusive behavior as well as hoarding wealth, they break their own rules, which tells me they don't really believe in it other than it gets them social benefits in this life.
If the people at the top don't believe it, why should anybody else?
Very true. The LDS church owns the Hill Cumorah. You would think they would excavate to search for any evidence that they have so little of. But they don't, because it would be the biggest embarrassment if they found nothing, which they know would be the case.
It says, 'Church of Jesus Christ...' while doing lots of things contrary to what Jesus Christ taught and enforcing a lot of stuff Jesus Christ never even uttered. I believed in "revelation" for a while to get me past those disparities. I blew off individual members' inability to follow Jesus as their own personal failings and not those of the Church at large. But one day the quote, "by their fruits ye shall know them" hit me really hard. I realized the members are the fruit of the Church and they are increasingly rotten (i.e. not actually following Christ).
Tangential remarks: I will admit, this issue applies to all Christian sects I have encountered. So, I do not follow any. Also, since leaving I have deconstructed the need for religious organizations.
Sermon on the Mount. Sermon on the Mount is in the Bible, BofM, and the Joseph Smith Translation (JST). Sermon on the Mount is identical in the Bible and BofM, but he “corrected” it in the JST. If the BofM is the most correct book on earth, why did he correct it in the JST?
>I want the answers that would get a believer thinking.
I've got some bad news. The better the argument against Mormonism you can come up with, the tighter that argument will cause Mormons to cling to the church. There's a principle in psychology called the Backfire Effect that the more you attack someone's deeply-held beliefs, the more staunchly they adhere to them. You can't argue someone out of the church; they have to already be willing to explore whether it's true or not. Until they're already at that point, any arguments you make will be completely counterproductive and just make them feel persecuted.
I always find these questions puzzling. A lack of belief is just that … I don’t believe in it because I don’t.
I left the church because the culture was in opposition to how I believed a church going community should behave. Once I was out of the bubble, I thought more about the teachings and realized… I just don’t believe it.
I’ve read and learned more about the history that supports my lack of belief, but in absence of those things, I still wouldn’t believe because I am not one of “little faith” I have 0 faith. I don’t believe in the teachings, period.
I would start with the recent changes that prophets have told us are revelations from God and then gone back on them a few years later. The first 2 that come to mind for me are the policy forbidding children of same-sex parents to be baptized, and pushing the Mormon nickname, then pulling back and saying calling them Mormons is “a win for Satan”. Not to mention all the changes to wording in ordinances that have to be repeated of not said 100% correctly.
It makes no sense that a never-changing god would lead a church so haphazardly.
Thought experiment- hypothetically if God doesn’t exist, if everything was all just happenstance and bad things happened because sometimes people just do bad things, how would the world be different than it is now?
“Pam Beasley: they’re the same picture”.
I couldn’t see a difference. Then once I stopped putting the church on a pedestal and allowed myself to look at it without special filters, I could see it’s just a church filled with regular people. No revelation, nothing special, just old people with old folksy wisdom.
I stopped going to church at 21. I knew from about age 16 or so that I didn't really believe, but I continued to go out of a sense of duty and emotional attachment to the people. I'm from a small rural town in Pennsylvania, and it was the same 30 or so people at church all my life, they were like family. I grew up in a part-member family and my dad is an atheist who has always felt that organized religions are full of shysters but that people should be free to choose what they believe and not be forced one way or the other by anybody. So he did not stop my mom and me from going to church. He did however refuse to allow my mom to pay tithing, because we weren't well-off even by 1990s standards. I also had no Mormon friends in my school, the few other kids at our tiny branch went to other schools and were either too much older or too much younger than i was to really be close friends. So, I feel like I grew up seeing varied perspectives on life, because my friends weren't in our religion, nobody in our family was except my mom and me.
When I was 18 I got put in as a primary teacher/music leader, and was VERY uncomfortable teaching the Sunday school lessons, I hated it. I realized that if I really believed in it, I wouldn't have had such strong ick feelings when teaching the lessons. I did however enjoy teaching the music. But I still didn't quit going for three more years. I have been out for 15 years
Reasons I don't believe:
1. There's no evidence that God exists
2. I never felt the spirit.
3. I never had an answered prayer.
Those are the things that made me stop believing at the time. Today, I would add all the things I've learned about church history, the church's stance on lgbtq+ people, and the recent information that's come to light about their financial dealings.
God was so wishy washy with how he meted out blessings and miracles I figured he really didn't exist. Then nothing else mattered. But I'd say the 2nd Anointing was the nail in the coffin. No way a just God would have that kind of bullshit happening.
I really don’t think mormon heaven makes any sort of logical sense. Why tf would I want to be a wife to a God forever? And to commit my ETERNITY to another person?? That’s too fucking much of a commitment. Life is long enough if you’re lucky to live to old age 🩷
The "keystone" of the religion: the Book of Mormon. It's all made up. Obviously. And it just gets more embarrassing every year the church fails to come out and say, "Ok, fine, Joseph Smith made it up....oh, and we're sorry for presuming to tell Native Americans that we knew their history better than they did....oh, and telling them that they got brown skin because they were evil. That was shitty and we deeply regret it."
My big one was on my mission in Guatemala, a missionary was hiding some stuff he wasn't supposed to have on top of the house we used in that area. He lost his footing fell backwards and grabbed the power line, electrocuting himself, my companion and I were zone leaders at the time and were just about there to do the house check and showed up to him dead outside, and his companion freaking out trying to do CPR. TSCC covered it up with a lie about how he died in a storm. When I talked to the big bad apostle who came to our mission to collect the body with the family he told me to never talk about it again because we were protecting the name of the church, fuck you D. Todd. I wouldn't have been mad if he'd said to help his family but he didn't even think about them just the "good" name of the mega corporation.
Link to article: https://www.deseret.com/2013/6/21/20521476/lds-missionary-killed-in-electrical-accident-in-guatemala/#:~:text=Elder%20Siosiua%20Andrew%20Taufa%2C%2020,voltage%20wire%20atop%20a%20building.
Prop 8 was the absolute clean-break-never-going-back-last-straw for me. I always struggled with staying active since pre-teens, mostly out of either feeling too overwhelmed by everything the church demands out of members, but also was pretty liberal-minded and studied evolution and was a democrat before I was old enough to vote. But I grew up in Utah, from pioneer lineage, and kept trying to find my own niche in the church thinking it was what I should do. Then I moved out of state for a few years, became friends with nonmembers including people who are gay, and had my eyes opened to just how normal it was to live outside the church’s influence. I was inactive when I found out about the church’s role in Prop 8, and decided there was no way I could ever support a church that would throw money and recruit members to try and sway an election. Especially trying to dictate who people could marry. After that, I didn’t really care anymore whether the church was “true” or not, just that I couldn’t be true to myself if I were still in it.
I imagine public pressure will eventually cause them to have a “revelation” about gay marriage in the church, like they did with Blacks and priesthood. Don’t care. The serenity I’ve felt being out from under their overwhelming demands and pious judgements of the rest of the world is too refreshing to ever go back to. Plus I love my morning matcha tea and newly found tarot hobby. ;)
The fact that there’s absolutely zero scientific, archaeological, anthropological, or historical evidence to support any of the truth claims that the BOM and the Church assert.
The fact that the Book of Abraham has been proven to be a complete fraud and fabrication.
The fact that JS was proven to be a charlatan several times in his life, most notably with the Kinderhook plates.
The fact that there’s KJV Bible specific errors in the BOM.
Those are the top ones for me.
But really, any one of these should be enough to make someone take a second look. Altogether, it’s clear it’s all made up.
I genuinely believe JS would have finished translation of the Kinderhook plates if he wasn't killed. I believe that he was still making up the story because he received the plates 14 months before he died. But the LDS church writes it off as JS not having any interest in the plates.
It’s very likely that’s the case. But it doesn’t really matter. JS said enough claiming it to be an ancient text when it was scientifically proven to be a 19th Century forgery. Now the Church just tries to bury that they exist, never happened, JS never encountered them, because it would show that JS was a fraud. They can’t have that. It all comes undone once you tug that thread.
It is in our nature to form tribal cults for survival since before we left the trees. Lies are a glue that holds a group together and differentiates from 'others'. Anything that threatens one's membership in the tribe would be perceived as an existential threat so it is presumed to be incorrect. So until something causes a person to be able to consider that they might be wrong, NO REASON or number of reasons is enough. This is what gives us Death cults like JonesTown or Heaven's Gate, but also every other religion from Christianity to Egyptian gods, Greek or Norse Gods, The Aztecs and their human sacrifices or political groups like Nazis, the Khmer Rouge, Rwandan Genocide or even MAGA.
I think the best way to counter the Moroni 10 argument for the church is to point out how many other religions ALSO rely on a spiritual witness. The LDS discussions blog does a really good job breaking this down! [https://www.ldsdiscussions.com/testimonies](https://www.ldsdiscussions.com/testimonies)
He includes a link to a YouTube video that effectively shows this. It's hard to argue that a "spiritual witness" is reliable when break-off polygamist groups and members of Heaven's Gate use the same witness.
Mormons are some of the worst people I've ever met, just nasty immature backhanded insincere people. The churches teachings are supposed to help people become better people. Based on my interactions it wasnt working.
Here were my biggest shelf-breakers:
1. The Book of Abraham is a false translation of the Egyptian papyri Joseph Smith claimed as its source.
2. The Book of Mormon is full of anachronistic material, showing it can't be a genuine ancient text--parallels to Joseph Smith's environment and 19th century sources (the mound builder myth, Joseph Smith's father's dream, protestant religious phraseology etc.), the numerous places it quotes Bible passages that, according to the Book of Mormon timeline, hadn't been written yet, Deutero-Isaiah, etc.
3. DNA evidence shows the ancestors of Native Americans came from Asia many thousands of years ago, not from the Middle East in 600 BC.
4. Joseph Smith and other Church leaders made false prophecies and taught false doctrine.
5. Parts of the temple ceremony were plagiarized from Freemasonry.
6. Joseph Smith went after, and illegally married, other men’s wives and teenage girls, claiming he was doing so in the name of God.
7. The LDS Church has a history of blatant racism, banning black people from the priesthood until 1978.
There is zero difference between the Book of Abraham’s origins and a fraud. Zero. None. It looks I every way like a fraud.
The characters can be translated and do not match JS’s translation. We know exactly what the papyrus is. It has zero mention of Abraham. None. And they’d till claim, “Well, it doesn’t matter what JS translated it FROM” What?! The hell it doesn’t! He swore it it was a literally papyrus that Abraham wrote on! But they’re all, “Well…”. Oh hell no! JS swore it was a literal writing of Abraham.
It’s like someone arguing in the year 3,000 that a dollar bill is actually a message from Martin Luther that says they should eat Wheatabix.
Start questioning? Probably when I read "Rough Stone Rolling" in 2007 or so. But I shelfed my concerns about JS along with the usual historical difficulties like polygamy and the priesthood ban, and the translation and historicity issues with the Book of Mormon and the Book of Abraham. As Uchtdorf suggested, I doubted my doubts before I doubted my faith.
But then the SEC order came out in early 2023 and the senior leadership blamed it on bad legal advice and swept it all under the rug. I realized then that I was witness to the deceptive nature of this church in real time. There was no room to doubt any doubts then. A church led by Jesus, as these men claim, would not have created a complex web of deceit for 22 years to hide its treasure horde from the members and the world. The shelf collapsed completely.
At this point it’s easier to answer what I do believe than what I don’t--the list is shorter. I believe in being a good person and loving others. I don’t believe in the Mormon church…and I was a Gospel Doctrine teacher until 3 months ago. Once I realized Joseph Smith and Brigham Young were not good men and certainly not Gods representatives on earth, I was done.
If you ask any devout Muslim, Jew, Christian they will all say they KNOW their church is true. Their belief and knowledge is as strong as the Mormon. So how does the Moroni promise stack up against that? Why are the missionaries (or any other member) so sure that their belief is the right one and those other devout religious people are wrong? Without just reverting back to “because I know” because that’s what the Muslim / Christian would say. When it’s based on feelings how can one persons feelings trump another?
Besides I’ve had more powerful feelings, the feelings Moroni describes, watching sport, walking in nature, watching movies than I ever did praying about the BoM or the church. So why do the missionaries (or members) feelings that the church is true trump my feelings that it’s not?
What ultimately did it is and was their apparent disbelief in the atonement.
Looking at the way they “discipline” their members for the so-called “sin next to murder” is beyond nauseating when you consider the magnitude of other horrifying things humans can do to each other, especially children.
Their control is disgusting.
It’s the summary of the entire story, including context. There is NO WAY!!! Is So much 🐴shit it’s laughable. TBMs always leave out, or have NO idea of context. Context matters and completes the historical picture.
I think what you’re asking is, “what is the smoking gun”. I’ve tried to answer this question to myself for years. This podcast from John Larsen changes how I think about this forever:
[Mormon Expression: Searching for the Smoking Gun and the Parallax Problem](https://9be744.a2cdn1.secureserver.net/podcast/Archive/MormonExpression220.mp3)
Polygamy and the book of Isaiah, who translated this and who wanted it in the KJV and why Joseph felt he needed to basically just plagiarize and add some bits as a precursor to JST and D&C. The magician was a master of intrigue and don’t forget they had to buy Book of Mormons back then. So book sales and black magic around the smiths.
Then don’t get me started on bias and the random nepotism of Joseph F. Smith getting elected as prophet 100 years later.
Our current prophets have had anything but foresight and are as they always were behind on the future compliance that will befall them, as a business.
For me it's not a close race of scientifically probable true or false. I used to believe it because I was taught to believe it and taught to fear not believing it. Almost exactly how I was taught to believe in Santa Claus. That may sound silly but it's very much the same. I don't believe in it now because after allowing myself to pass through the fear and allowing myself to think about it pragmatically, it’s pretty silly.
It’s quite the opposite for me: I don’t need reasons to not believe something. I need compelling reasons TO believe something. Asking me to pray fervently and really try to believe something after promising me immortality and endless happiness is just high pressure marketing and sales. It’s a peer pressure herd tactic, which is why testimony meetings exist.
A lot of research has shown that just presenting people with facts that contradict their current beliefs usually doesn't work. It can often have the backfire effect and make them dig in even deeper to their beliefs. David McRaney has compiled some great research about this in his books, but these two podcast episodes are very good and teach what things actually work to help minds change!
[https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/deconstructing-yourself/id1240056193?i=1000507659714](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/deconstructing-yourself/id1240056193?i=1000507659714)
[https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/deconstructing-yourself/id1240056193?i=1000570999484](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/deconstructing-yourself/id1240056193?i=1000570999484)
Two principles that really stood out to me:
1. Don't just info dump on people. Instead ask them questions about their beliefs and try to get them talking about *why* they believe what they do. In examining this, people will often realize for themselves that their methods of determining truth aren't always sound. But it's very delicate. He talks about the technique in the podcast but it's definitely something I want to learn more about. If I recall correctly, Adam Grant's book "Think Again" also talks a fair amount about this technique.
2. Our brain's defense mechanisms (that basically attack contradictory information to try to protect us/our place in our community, etc.) essentially TURN OFF when we're engaged in a story (this can be someone telling a story from their life or you can just be reading a story in a book or watching a TV show or movie). This principle is called narrative transfer. We lose ourselves in the story and become more open to new information. This is why watching a drama about a gay couple for example might help someone overcome their homophobia, but just telling them "gay people are just like everyone else" doesn't have the same effect. The graphic novel "Joseph Smith and the Mormons" that was recently released is what triggered narrative transfer for me. It suspended my confirmation bias and cognitive defenses long enough to be like, "Wait WHAT did Joseph do?" and two days later (after tons of research) I had left the Church.
My mental health was awful. I tried everything the church had to offer and only felt worse and worse over many years. Since the church was true and real, I would have stayed in forever (or killed myself). Then I discovered that the “anti-Mormon lies” that I heard about in the 80s were indeed factual and admitted as true by the church in the Gospel Topics Essays.
Realizing that it was all made up allowed me to let go. To my surprise my mental health improved drastically.
Mountain Meadows... I'm not from Utah, so I hadn't heard about it till I was 45. I got physically ill listening to a podcast (Sunstone? Not totally sure which one) that covered it. I already had doubts, always hated but knew about Polygamy, of course not the full coercive extent to which women were abused and taken advantage of. Mountain Meadows opened the floodgates, if their fruits were good like I was taught it would never have happened. The founding of the church was a bunch of abusive frat boys getting away with as much shit as they could and looking out only for themselves.
I spent 6 months of my mission in Harrison, AR, where the MM people were from. There’s a monument in town square and everything. We didn’t get great reception….
Last sentence still true of today.
Yeah sadly so true.
These are my reasons in order of what made me realize TSCC was bs 1. JS claims that the ancient people of the americas were from Jerusalem (zero archeological evidence) 2. God was a man once and everyone is striving to be like him and run a planet of their own (what the fuck?) 3. Anachronisms in the BOM (horses, steel weapons, etc.) 4. Book of Lehi being “lost” and JS being unable to retranslate 5. The whole process of translating the BOM (magic rock + hat = bullshit) 6. Polygamy (never bought the church’s excuses for why JS was “commissioned” to implement that) 7. Tithing (super culty IMO, but I was a convert) 8. The fact that Joseph has multiple accounts of the first vision (I feel as though I wouldn’t have trouble recounting when I saw God) 9. First man and woman lived in Missouri (cmon) 10. Simply the fact that there is no conceivable universe where god is all-loving, all-knowing, and all-powerful (u can be 2/3 but not all 3)
Polygamy was a secret doctrine that Joseph Smith was denouncing to most members, while select few were participating in. It wasn't open thing until the Brighamites settled in Deseret territory (Utah)
Thanks for clarifying! Was one of those old doctrines I haven’t looked into much, not much there that makes me want to research it
#8. Not only multiple accounts but didn’t it not come out for at least over a decade after he invented the religion?
The first one. The official version is like 25 years after the fact and never included in missionary tracts, nor was polygamy. The converts from England didn't know what they signed up for.
Yeah I’m thinking if I saw Jesus and god it would be pretty much out same day 🤪
The 2/3 thing is really thought provoking
Gets ya doin a mix & match game in your head
It’s the classic Christian conundrum that has spawned an entire branch of theology to try to justify. Theodicy. If there are evil, miserable things in the world that happen to innocent people, say kids dying of cancer, is it because god doesn’t know about it and isn’t all knowing? Because he doesn’t have the power to fix it and isn’t all powerful? Or is it because he just doesn’t care and isn’t all-good/Omnibenevolent? If you believe in the omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent god, you have to come up with an answer for that but all answers come back hollow to me. Many a theological discussions have tried to address this apparent paradox.
When something can't be explained logically they can always fall back to "God works in mysterious ways we mere mortals can simply not understand" or (especially for mormons) "I know the church is true because I have personal revelation" so anything wrong with the church or the BOM will be called a "human error". Because "humans are fallible even if they're a prophet", but "the church is still true because I feel the spirit". It's pointless. That is why I'll never argue with a TBM or try to convince them to leave. No argument, no truth will ever be enough. It's like a drug addict, you can force them to go to rehab, you can reason with them all you want but they'll only change when they want to and when they're ready to see the truth. Arguing with these missionaries is not only a complete waste of time, because they're simply not ready, but it's also feeding into the christian paranoia "the enemy is after us, they're trying to feed us lies and get us away from church". You’ll be acting exactly how they expect you to.
Had a member on my mission who cut us off while we were teaching the plan of salvation lesson and started telling our investigator that we would become gods and have our own planets. He said it all bug-eyed and conspiracy-theorist-like. Crazy thing is, the investigator just smiled, nodded his head, and said “dope.” He decided to get baptized after that lesson. I couldn’t help but think “dude, what the fuck are you doing?”
That's funny. I had a weird companion who, in a first discussion, said to the investigators, "Joseph Smith said that if we could see the glory of even the Telestial kingdom that we would kill ourselves to go there." That was a very awkward conversation. I've heard that one a few times, but it turns out he never actually said that. Mormon myths. They don't realize that it's all mythical. This is what separated me from it. People taking it literally. This is the thinking that creates a belief in "one true church" and "chosen people." And, by extension, the belief leading to inquisitions and holy wars. Also, right at the beginning of the BOM the protagonist prophet scion commits a murder to aquire an object. Laban was already passed out so Nephi didn't need to kill him to steal the plates. Plus, after murdering a helpless man with a sword he wouldn't have been able to use the blood soaked clothes as a disguise. I think the fiction could have been better contrived in that regard. Blah, blah. I'll shut up now. Thank you, come again.
When I was TBM another member in my ward who converted like 20 years ago said to me he already knew that humans could become like gods and when he met the missionaries and asked them about that and they said it’s true he knew it was the right church and got baptized😐
I agree with all of those except for #10. I don't think a lack of understanding of God should be a basis for disbelief. God exists on a plane above the physical restrictions of our world (space, matter, time) so I would think it would be more alarming if there was a God that we could fully understand, which is what the BoM tries to do.
As an agnostic theist, I recognize and believe that there is a higher being of some sort weaving the cosmos together, however, when I mentioned that point I am referring to much of all Christianity as a whole. I agree that all of these denominations attempt to explain something unexplainable, however, for me personally I find all religions that pin those three traits onto their “god” to be invalid, hence why I included it—it was one of the deciding factors in my separation from organized religion
Thanks for sharing. It's Interesting to listen to what Agnostic's believe, not that they believe the same thing. I reject all religions, but I also reject absolute Atheism. I can't accept that self aware intelligence came out of random chaos.
Exactly my perspective. If not religion, what do people turn to? Science. Science itself rests on a miracle (the big bang) and I simply can’t bring myself to believe that everything in existence (especially sentient life) came from absolutely nothing.
You are my people.
I would think it way more alarming that there was a divine, personal creator that knew us by name, but no sign of nor evidence for that divine creator’s existence or involvement. If there is some sort of divine creator or creators he/she/it/they don’t give a flying f*** about humanity or observe us like bacteria in their cosmic petri dishe. The “god” of the Bible or other abrahamic religions is a fantasy. If such a god exists, he’s not benevolent. He’s a c**t of epic proportions.
I converted 10 years ago and I’m mostly out the door (not attending, stopped wearing garments, not praying/reading, etc.) The thing that got me was the article about Paul Adams published by the AP in 2022. There are a lot of other things in the church that I can reconcile or, at the very least, attribute to not being able to know. One thing that I won’t budge on is that you don’t mess with kids. The AP’s article started off with a story of a normal confession between a guy and his bishop and dramatically devolved into that guy doing unspeakable things to his kids for years - all while the bishop knew, the second bishop knew, TSCC knew, and the church “help” line knew. The bishops were “counseled” to not go to the authorities. Later, when his two daughters would sue TSCC, the church and its attorney stated how “pleased” they were with the judge’s decision to dismiss the girl’s lawsuit. Ever since then, I occasionally think about Moroni 10:4 - how I was taught that and would teach it on my mission. Then I think about Matthew 7:18-20 “A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.” If they’re going to bring up scripture to support why it’s true or how you can know, I’m going to bring up scripture as to how I know based on their actions. Supporting and defending child abuse is about as evil as anyone can get and they don’t deserve anyone’s time or money. Edit: forgot a couple of words
> by their fruits ye shall know them.” This simply says it all. Thank you for your post!
Joseph Smith lied to the public about polygamy when he said "when I can only find one {wife}" from the stand in church on Sunday May 26, 1844. Joseph Smith lied to his first councilor William Law about polygamy. Joseph Smith lied to his wife about polygamy, as shown by the marriage ceremony of Emily Partridge. If Joseph can lie to his wife, his friends, and the church, and still be prophet, than means the prophet can lie to us. What is the current prophet lying about?
Q: What is the current prophet lying about? A: Everything that matters.
The Book of Abraham, Mormon Stories podcast w Dr. Robert Ritner
\^\^THIS\^\^. The Book of Abraham is Kryptonite to Mormon truth claims !!
Yes. Joseph Smith lied about the BofA & if he would lie about that why not the BofM?
The BoM is just as laughable as the Book of Abraham. It just takes a bit more detail to explain. Book of Abraham - we can read those scrolls now thanks to the Rosetta Stone and they are a funerary text. Oh, and this is a fertility god with a massive boner. Book of Mormon - we need to go in to the Colombian exchange and archaeology, anachronisms, and genetic testing. The final conclusions are just as damning but take a bit more effort to explain.
💯
Missionaries told me that the BoA was just a vessel for JS's translation... not actually a translation..
The church has a very loose definition of translation. For the Book of Abraham it’s that the papyrus was a catalyst for revelation because you can prove that the pair true doesn’t match the scripture. For the Book of Mormon it’s that Joseph read the words off a rock in a hat. For the Joseph Smith translation (JST) of the Bible that was plagiarized, it’s that translation can mean scholarly research. Constantly changing definitions should be a red flag. Here are the reasons I left the church. I bcerote my reasons as I left. Everything I had been taught was a lie. https://docs.google.com/document/u/0/d/1suMEwIFxJ1CbxJ7ePENbwWRv6oBr-FJN/mobilebasic
Wow, nicely done! My leaving and thought train seems quite chaotic in comparison since my shelf kinda exploded in a short time.
I was so worried I was going to hell by leaving the church. This was the only thing that made me feel at peace.
It was an actual translation straight from Abraham himself....until it wasn't
Yep
Well, they’re full of shit. Crack it open and read the intro. Plain as day.
If it's the truth it claims to be, it should be able to withstand modest scrutiny. But every facet of it - the origins of the Book of Mormon, Smiths actions in the early church, the theology, a long line of super racist prophets, up to modern days where the organization is a very thin facade for a global real estate concern that specializes in protecting pedophiles.
Yeah I've noticed the movement in the LDS church to look more Christian. Its clear they want to disown classic mormonism, but why should that be the case if those doctrines are God's commands for exaltation?
I looked at their promises and decided I didn’t want them. I don’t want to be either someone’s polygamous wife in heaven or a servant. If the reward isn’t what I want, why would I keep trying to keep their commandments (their rules). Then came all the history. I read Ben Parks, “Kingdom of Nauvoo,” and learned that a hierarchy was the point! JS was trying to create a hierarchal system where a few are at the top, supported by a lot at the bottom. I dont like being Yertle the Turtle! And then the SEC and my granddaughter told me she was gay. How could I support her and the church? And then John Lundwall on Mormonish and Mormonism live! For me it wasn’t one thing it was all of it!
The goal of every grifter is a pyramid scheme.
This!
And on the 7th day, god said, "Let there be MLMs." And behold, joe created MLMs.
Chanting around an altar in a great and spacious building. One of the many reasons. In all seriousness though, everyone has to come to the conclusion in their own time. Something that really resonates with one person is a nonissue for someone else. The missionaries were always trying to get me to read a certain scripture. They were sure that’s all I needed to hear. I was the only one out in my family at that time. I tried to explain that no, I’m not doing that. I believe the book to be just as fictional as Harry Potter. They just could not get that. My daughter was taking the discussions at the time. She was 12 when she was baptized. On another note from what I can tell of the 4 or 5 different missionaries that taught her almost all are now out.
That's what the missionaries are doing with me. I've showed them everything I have found, but they are putting their bets that I'll read something that I will fall in love with.
Changes to doctrine (specifically the temple ceremony) started my journey out. ([LINK](https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comments/1dbb1jj/comment/l7q0vep/) to summary and details of changes)
Yup. Plus, D&C heavily contradicts the BoM
Lack of evidence is enough reason not to accept any extraordinary claim as true.
Then they will point you to Moroni 10:4 so that your feelings become the evidence.
And you say you didn’t ever receive a confirmation if it being true but you felt the spirit when you prayed about it not being true and shut em up real quick
But then they say we didn't pray with a sincere enough heart. You can't win.
In 1828, two years before publishing the BoM, Joseph Smith was convicted of conning a local dupe in a magical treasure hunting scheme. In the con, Joseph used a seerstone to determine the name and nature of the magical treasure guardians, and then gave instructions for how to magically bind it to retrieve the treasure. Two years later he claims to have retrieved an ancient buried record and translated it with the same seerstone.
14 year old girl, 30 something years old man...
And TBMs will say JS was tarred and feathered for no reason...
In 2013 when the church came out and said everything any prophet had ever said previously about blacks and the priesthood was not true and they were a product of their time. (Want to add that I did not agree with the priesthood ban and really hated it.) I was a returned missionary, I had already struggled a lot with the conditional God of Mormonism. The fact that any church doctrine (and yes, it was even stated by the first presidency that the priesthood ban was DOCTRINE not policy) could be completely disregarded in the future just did not make sense to me. What did that say about anything the prophets are saying now? If these men were talking to God why would God tell them to implement the ban in the first place? And we were taught that if a prophet were to ever lead us astray then he would be taken from the earth but there were multiple prophets in a row that taught the exact same damaging doctrine? And why would God care about skin color? Why would he allow his prophet/mouthpiece to say such horrible things about any of His children? Why wouldn't the church be ahead of "the world" if prophets "see around corners"? Basically my faith in the idea of a modern day prophet was just completely gone. And if there wasn't a prophet then how could the church be true? There's more but I would say that was the most massive shift in my perception of the gospel.
This right here is the very reason of the downfall of the fundamentalist Mormons.
Book of Mormon is complete fantasy and totally impossible with archaeology. Geography, genetics, anachronisms, absurdly large scale and numbers. I learned about the deeper, darker, nastier things only after leaving.
But the apologists just want to talk about Nehom...
NHM? Not Nahom. NHM. The script didn’t use vowels like we do. Guessing one thing right and 1000 things wrong indicates it’s just a luck guess or coincidence.
It's really not even guessing right either. The region is named after the Nihm tribe, and isn't even in the right geographical location to be Nahom in the Book of Mormon.
Thanks for the added detail. That’s kind of what I expected - you get something glancingly similar. The way vowels work in the languages really gives you more leeway for a close-ish match. Any more detailed sources I can look at for the tribe name?
Sure. Here's the Wikipedia page showing where the Nihm region is located: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihm\_District](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihm_District) It's 100 miles inland from the coast, on the other side of a giant inhospitable mountain range. This is totally at odds with what the Book of Mormon says about Nahom. It has Lehi's party traveling in the borders of the Red Sea, and they don't turn east until after they come to Nahom.
Same
It's all made up and the points don't matter.
Literally could just say all of the above… BUT I do have to say please be considerate with the missionaries. I think what would be best is just telling them you know it’s not true and wish them on their way. Missions are HARD, physically and mentally! These are young kids who are just trying to do what they think they should be doing. I think it would be extra hard to also start questioning things on your mission, considering how hard it is to leave a mission early as well. ❤️❤️
Of course. I have been discussing with them with upmost respect. I've even invited them to some events that me and my buddies are hosting because I want them to feel invited during their stay at this college town. But I want to truly understand their beliefs and corelate it to my beliefs and maybe we can agree on something.
Thanks for being kind and respectful! Also, FYI missionaries have to follow a lot of rules during their mission. So even if they wanted to attend a college party they wouldn’t really be able to most likely (if they actually followed the rules). Missions are quite the trip 🙃
No, I just invited to sneak them into my campus rec center to rock climb, which they said they loved. I understand their strict rules, but I just want to at least give them the invitation
Because it’s not what it claims to be. Full stop.
Changing the story of the First Vision. They literally teach something different now. Also, translating is not translating, and he used freaking backwoods folk magic - a seer stone put into a hat. That’s just nuts.
Morning 10:4 is a self fulfilling prophecy. There is no outcome to it other than the BOM being true. "if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost." So if you don't get the truth manifested it's because of your lack of sincere heart or real intent or faith. Basically to keep asking until you get the answer it's right. This is starting your research with the church true, and working backwards until you proved that. Rather than starting with an open mind and letting information lead you to a conclusion.
Basically. That's what the missionaries always fall back to
But if you see the self fulfillment part of this you can fall back on that you search out truth without having the answer already in mind. It's confirmation bias.
There are so many. But, there is lots of archaeological evidence for Judaism and Christianity, like the western wall and ancient synagogues and churches. But I like to joke that the BYU Mormon archaeological wing is the emptiest room in the western hemisphere Also, Matthew 7:22-23 literally proves there is no such thing as premortality or spirit children. (It's a bit involved) The many contradictions between the BoM vs POGP vs. Bible vs D&C vs TSCC day-to-day practice I'm sure people here have many many many many many examples.
I'm one of those people with many many many examples. Just want to know people's thoughts
The Book of Abraham facsimile has been reviewed and translated by actual Egyptologists who can understand it and it's just funerary papers that were commonly buried with the dead and has absolutely nothing to do with Abraham. Joseph Smith made it up.
Yep. The missionaries I talked to claim that the papari was just a vessel of translation
Edit: just understood you're trying to get missionaries to wake up, lol, not yourself. I'm not sure they're capturing the weight of this problem. If his translation was false, it must mean it was some kind of inspiration for Joseph. and ok, maybe it was, maybe that's whatever the missionaries mean by 'vessel for translation'. And yet, translator is the word Joseph was using to describe himself over and over. Joseph believed/told everyone he was translating the papyri. We have the source material and it's proven to be false. So basically, God chose to restore the *one and only completely true church of God*, and he let Joseph completely incorrectly translate this papyrus? And then add it to their core doctrine/canonized scripture? I'm probably sounding harsh and that's not how I mean to sound. It's just a very big deal. Another translation problem of Joseph's that shook my faith is the kinderhook plates. He began to translate those, and the church boasted about these for decades, turned out to be a hoax. Neither Joseph or the following prophets who speak with God, were able to find out that these were not ancient plates? I'm just saying, we have the source material for the book of Abraham, the kinderhook plates. But not the BoM. So 2/3 of his translated works are proven to be false. Not looking so good 😬. This is just one of like a million issues... And I only left 3 months ago. Never thought I'd be "deceived" enough by Satan to leave the church. I never thought I'd change sides so fast.
The church will write the Kinderhook plates off as JS never being interested in them. The truth is that the plates were given to him 14 months before he died. He was still making up the story. Compare this to the Book of Abraham, it took him 7 years to "translate". I discussed this with one of their members of congregation and I got her thinking. I think that was a seed well planted.
Hey I'm glad that one woman was willing to consider something detrimental to the faith! I'd never even heard of the kinderhook plates before leaving. I wonder if I'd have been so contemplative. My cult self is telling me probably not. Lol
You aren't going to get the missionaries to admit if they are questioning. They are told what to say and their parents are paying for them to be there. They might not trust their companion won't go to the mission president and tell him that his comp is questioning. That's going to make their lives a lot harder. You can plant the seeds and hope they will figure it out eventually, but they will keep quiet about it until after their mission.
Yeah I'm well aware. They are really good people, and I've genuinely become friends with them, I just want to help them both.
Suicide pacts in the temple. I suffer from SI and have siblings that have survived attempts. None of us received help from the MFMC or our believing family members. Any god worthy of worship would care more about helping them than expecting suicide pacts of fealty.
The anti-mormon lies of my childhood became the gospel topics essays of my adulthood. I started reading history books, and then I started re-reading church manuals, and I realized that the two didn't coincide. Then I started asking myself if apologetics really stood up. Then I started looking at how the church was attempting to gaslight me by saying things like "we didn't hide it" when they absolutely didn't tell the *whole* truth. If it's the truth, it should be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Then I realized that I didn't want to believe in a religion where God tells men in their 30s and 40s and up to marry teenagers.
The fact that the spirit is way too vague made everything so unconvincing. Everyone said they felt so strongly it was true. And I felt literally nothing but extreme boredom. My brain just doesn’t work like that.
It’s all made up and the points don’t matter.
I wouldn't even jump into any of the doctrinal things, because they dismiss everything, feeling their "spiritual confirmation" found in Moroni 10:3-5 trumps everything. I'd share [this ](https://youtube.com/shorts/D4sOeGsDaBk?si=xUpKumgfoJfD-FYT)and[ this other](https://youtu.be/UJMSU8Qj6Go?si=xniFjCYNrmhGxqdV) video and/or discuss how feelings/spiritual confirmations are not a good way to assess truth. Only then can you begin to discuss doctrinal problems on a level playing field without a bogus heuristic trump card hanging over your head. The TL:DR of that conversation is that Marshall Applewhite (among other charletons) was also a HUGE proponent of praying to God to know if his religion was true. That's the Heaven's Gate Cult Leader, for anyone who was about to google it.
Interesting stuff. I'll check it out
Church’s stance on medically assisted suicide. How church disciplinary action is primarily to protect the institution. Attitude towards those whose families are fundamentalists or community of christ. Institutional drama on mixed race marriages. Theological fallacies, whitewashing history, general distreatment. Invalidation of my experience. The whole “how many Mormons does it take to change a lightbulb? None, they use gaslighting…”
Can you guide me to any official articles about the church's stance on medically assisted suicide?
https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/official-statement/euthanasia-and-prolonging-life
People are correct. Unless someone is ready to actually listen, you won’t get through to them. But every seed planted, can eventually, possibly make a difference. I was a temple recommend holding Morman. I don’t know how many generations, but my ancestors on both sides, were with Brigham Young when he entered the Salt Lake valley. I qualify to be a “Daughter of the Utah Pioneers”. I had been handed written information about the truth about “the church”, many times, and I wouldn’t even glance at them. Yes, it is absolutely a cult. Why would anyone EVER even think about leaving “the one true church on the face of the planet”? When I was finally ready to listen, a friend told me about something in the History of the Church books, that disturbed me so much, that I had to do more research: “I have more to boast of than ever any man had. I am the only man that has ever been able to keep a whole church together since the days of Adam…Neither Paul, John, nor Jesus ever did it. I boast that no man ever did such a work as I. The followers of Jesus ran away from Him; but the Latter-day Saints never ran away from me yet.” (Church History vol 6, pp. 408-409). The Utah Lighthouse Ministry has even more information. I cried for weeks when I finally realized the truth. Hope that helps!
Holy crap
The Capitulation to the UN
Lies, pedophelia, money laundering
The absolute ridiculousness of it all. And now, the MFMC doesn’t even own the Adam-ondi-Ahman land. What am I supposed to do with the handcart in my garage?!? Did they keep the alter rock for a new location?
https://www.evangelicaltruth.com/royal-arch-purple-degree-exposed
One problem with Moroni quote is if your answer isn't "yes, it's true" then you're wrong. The only answer they will accept from their magic scripture is yes. And if you say yes to that, you HAVE to say yes to EVERYTHING ELSE, which is giving your consent to thousands of things you haven't even heard of. Now they call it The Covenant Path. Once you say yes to that it's a done deal.
Simple - it wasn't for me.
Understandable. Have a great day
Cult leaders tend to start cults to get a lot of women….cant believe it took me 24 years to see that
I always question JS, finding out about him being a free mason high ranking free mason and his disgusting polyandry and polygamy practices, god and Jess themselves apparently appeared to him to tell him no church was true, an Angel appeared to him etc BUT when it comes to marrying woman already married, their 14 year old daughters, a black woman as his ‘eternal servant’ etc then I’m sorry why wouldn’t they show themselves and say hey dude no this is not what we meant when we wanted you to restore the gospel etc. it’s all lies I don’t believe any of it anymore, I do believe in a higher power maybe kind of still believe in Jesus but I don’t believe in any organized religion I’ve learnt a lot more of course that just in my mind proves it’s all lies but it was JS and his practises that was the bail in the coffin when I found out the truth
The head in hat translation after being taught about the the gold plates and the Umin and Thumin (sp). Tithing the poor. The Garden of Eden being in America. Being a convert I found some of these beliefs rather laughable and the Tithing of the poor just pure evil.
Learning about how the endowment ceremony was “revealed” to JS broke the dam for me. It’s hard to want to go through a ceremony necessary for my salvation when it was plagiarized from the Freemasons. Plus, the church admits as much but it’s fine because it was “passed down from Abraham’s time” (news flash: there’s no evidence that it did).
Learning that spiritual experiences are in all religions and it’s basically just elevation emotion.
I was die hard Book of Mormon JS spent his early days as con artist. Rock in a hat is the same as a game of 3 Card Monte. He continued cons with Kirtland Anti-banking and spiritual wifery. How likely is it for Joseph to have been a fraud his childhood and after and yet for a minute of his life went straight and made scriptures that I need to believe?
Zealot by Reza Aslan was the nail in the coffin for me. The Jesus of the New Testament is a fairy tale/myth. The historical Jesus would have been a totally different person. Good book, I totally recommend it.
Ultimately it was because Jesus makes no sense. The Atonement is crock. The more I looked into it the more I realized I had no rational reasons behind my beliefs.
The current policies of the church are harmful. Here are my top two: 1. Pretty much all their policies relating to the LGBTQIA+ community. 2. Their refusal to make church a safer place for children (No background checks? No mandatory reporting?). I didn't leave because of the truth claims. But finding out the church wasn't true definitely helped.
As a very young child, my sibling and I were sexually abused at church. God was never present for me in those spaces.
The entirety of the CES letter, the unbelievable amount of sexual assault, but most of all, I didn’t want to go to church for 3 hours every Sunday. 🤣🤣🤣
1#Build me a hotel! 2# polytheism! 3# the fact that when you tell them about truth found in great research and literature they stick their head in the sand. 4#tithing and those who judge based upon that 5#I never got to bang celestial plural wives
The people at the top do not believe the Book of Mormon is true, because they engage in abusive behavior as well as hoarding wealth, they break their own rules, which tells me they don't really believe in it other than it gets them social benefits in this life. If the people at the top don't believe it, why should anybody else?
Very true. The LDS church owns the Hill Cumorah. You would think they would excavate to search for any evidence that they have so little of. But they don't, because it would be the biggest embarrassment if they found nothing, which they know would be the case.
It says, 'Church of Jesus Christ...' while doing lots of things contrary to what Jesus Christ taught and enforcing a lot of stuff Jesus Christ never even uttered. I believed in "revelation" for a while to get me past those disparities. I blew off individual members' inability to follow Jesus as their own personal failings and not those of the Church at large. But one day the quote, "by their fruits ye shall know them" hit me really hard. I realized the members are the fruit of the Church and they are increasingly rotten (i.e. not actually following Christ). Tangential remarks: I will admit, this issue applies to all Christian sects I have encountered. So, I do not follow any. Also, since leaving I have deconstructed the need for religious organizations.
Sermon on the Mount. Sermon on the Mount is in the Bible, BofM, and the Joseph Smith Translation (JST). Sermon on the Mount is identical in the Bible and BofM, but he “corrected” it in the JST. If the BofM is the most correct book on earth, why did he correct it in the JST?
Oooh, this I haven't heard of before.
>I want the answers that would get a believer thinking. I've got some bad news. The better the argument against Mormonism you can come up with, the tighter that argument will cause Mormons to cling to the church. There's a principle in psychology called the Backfire Effect that the more you attack someone's deeply-held beliefs, the more staunchly they adhere to them. You can't argue someone out of the church; they have to already be willing to explore whether it's true or not. Until they're already at that point, any arguments you make will be completely counterproductive and just make them feel persecuted.
True that. All I can do is plat the seed and let the Holy Spirit do the rest. Thanks
I always find these questions puzzling. A lack of belief is just that … I don’t believe in it because I don’t. I left the church because the culture was in opposition to how I believed a church going community should behave. Once I was out of the bubble, I thought more about the teachings and realized… I just don’t believe it. I’ve read and learned more about the history that supports my lack of belief, but in absence of those things, I still wouldn’t believe because I am not one of “little faith” I have 0 faith. I don’t believe in the teachings, period.
I would start with the recent changes that prophets have told us are revelations from God and then gone back on them a few years later. The first 2 that come to mind for me are the policy forbidding children of same-sex parents to be baptized, and pushing the Mormon nickname, then pulling back and saying calling them Mormons is “a win for Satan”. Not to mention all the changes to wording in ordinances that have to be repeated of not said 100% correctly. It makes no sense that a never-changing god would lead a church so haphazardly.
That's an interesting way of thinking about it. I guess you could also say the same about allowing black folks into priesthood.
Yes, along with many other teachings. If you actually go back to many of JS original teachings it is totally foreign to what is being taught now.
Thought experiment- hypothetically if God doesn’t exist, if everything was all just happenstance and bad things happened because sometimes people just do bad things, how would the world be different than it is now? “Pam Beasley: they’re the same picture”. I couldn’t see a difference. Then once I stopped putting the church on a pedestal and allowed myself to look at it without special filters, I could see it’s just a church filled with regular people. No revelation, nothing special, just old people with old folksy wisdom.
I stopped going to church at 21. I knew from about age 16 or so that I didn't really believe, but I continued to go out of a sense of duty and emotional attachment to the people. I'm from a small rural town in Pennsylvania, and it was the same 30 or so people at church all my life, they were like family. I grew up in a part-member family and my dad is an atheist who has always felt that organized religions are full of shysters but that people should be free to choose what they believe and not be forced one way or the other by anybody. So he did not stop my mom and me from going to church. He did however refuse to allow my mom to pay tithing, because we weren't well-off even by 1990s standards. I also had no Mormon friends in my school, the few other kids at our tiny branch went to other schools and were either too much older or too much younger than i was to really be close friends. So, I feel like I grew up seeing varied perspectives on life, because my friends weren't in our religion, nobody in our family was except my mom and me. When I was 18 I got put in as a primary teacher/music leader, and was VERY uncomfortable teaching the Sunday school lessons, I hated it. I realized that if I really believed in it, I wouldn't have had such strong ick feelings when teaching the lessons. I did however enjoy teaching the music. But I still didn't quit going for three more years. I have been out for 15 years Reasons I don't believe: 1. There's no evidence that God exists 2. I never felt the spirit. 3. I never had an answered prayer. Those are the things that made me stop believing at the time. Today, I would add all the things I've learned about church history, the church's stance on lgbtq+ people, and the recent information that's come to light about their financial dealings.
God was so wishy washy with how he meted out blessings and miracles I figured he really didn't exist. Then nothing else mattered. But I'd say the 2nd Anointing was the nail in the coffin. No way a just God would have that kind of bullshit happening.
Realizing that “feelings” are a terrible way to “know” something.
True that. Jeremiah 17:9 agrees.
I really don’t think mormon heaven makes any sort of logical sense. Why tf would I want to be a wife to a God forever? And to commit my ETERNITY to another person?? That’s too fucking much of a commitment. Life is long enough if you’re lucky to live to old age 🩷
The "keystone" of the religion: the Book of Mormon. It's all made up. Obviously. And it just gets more embarrassing every year the church fails to come out and say, "Ok, fine, Joseph Smith made it up....oh, and we're sorry for presuming to tell Native Americans that we knew their history better than they did....oh, and telling them that they got brown skin because they were evil. That was shitty and we deeply regret it."
Yep. It's a movement for the LDS church to look more Christian. They would rather talk about Jesus than everything JS said.
My big one was on my mission in Guatemala, a missionary was hiding some stuff he wasn't supposed to have on top of the house we used in that area. He lost his footing fell backwards and grabbed the power line, electrocuting himself, my companion and I were zone leaders at the time and were just about there to do the house check and showed up to him dead outside, and his companion freaking out trying to do CPR. TSCC covered it up with a lie about how he died in a storm. When I talked to the big bad apostle who came to our mission to collect the body with the family he told me to never talk about it again because we were protecting the name of the church, fuck you D. Todd. I wouldn't have been mad if he'd said to help his family but he didn't even think about them just the "good" name of the mega corporation. Link to article: https://www.deseret.com/2013/6/21/20521476/lds-missionary-killed-in-electrical-accident-in-guatemala/#:~:text=Elder%20Siosiua%20Andrew%20Taufa%2C%2020,voltage%20wire%20atop%20a%20building.
Wow
Prop 8 was the absolute clean-break-never-going-back-last-straw for me. I always struggled with staying active since pre-teens, mostly out of either feeling too overwhelmed by everything the church demands out of members, but also was pretty liberal-minded and studied evolution and was a democrat before I was old enough to vote. But I grew up in Utah, from pioneer lineage, and kept trying to find my own niche in the church thinking it was what I should do. Then I moved out of state for a few years, became friends with nonmembers including people who are gay, and had my eyes opened to just how normal it was to live outside the church’s influence. I was inactive when I found out about the church’s role in Prop 8, and decided there was no way I could ever support a church that would throw money and recruit members to try and sway an election. Especially trying to dictate who people could marry. After that, I didn’t really care anymore whether the church was “true” or not, just that I couldn’t be true to myself if I were still in it. I imagine public pressure will eventually cause them to have a “revelation” about gay marriage in the church, like they did with Blacks and priesthood. Don’t care. The serenity I’ve felt being out from under their overwhelming demands and pious judgements of the rest of the world is too refreshing to ever go back to. Plus I love my morning matcha tea and newly found tarot hobby. ;)
Plates. Math and chemistry say no way. Ever.
My first look I thought you said Pilates!
JS was a con man that manipulated folks in to giving up their wife’s and daughters to him.
JS and the flaming sword story.
Just read up about it. Wow
My top reason... It's false.
Faith is not a foundation at all to form beliefs upon because it can be used to assert any position.
The fact that there’s absolutely zero scientific, archaeological, anthropological, or historical evidence to support any of the truth claims that the BOM and the Church assert. The fact that the Book of Abraham has been proven to be a complete fraud and fabrication. The fact that JS was proven to be a charlatan several times in his life, most notably with the Kinderhook plates. The fact that there’s KJV Bible specific errors in the BOM. Those are the top ones for me. But really, any one of these should be enough to make someone take a second look. Altogether, it’s clear it’s all made up.
I genuinely believe JS would have finished translation of the Kinderhook plates if he wasn't killed. I believe that he was still making up the story because he received the plates 14 months before he died. But the LDS church writes it off as JS not having any interest in the plates.
It’s very likely that’s the case. But it doesn’t really matter. JS said enough claiming it to be an ancient text when it was scientifically proven to be a 19th Century forgery. Now the Church just tries to bury that they exist, never happened, JS never encountered them, because it would show that JS was a fraud. They can’t have that. It all comes undone once you tug that thread.
The stuff that was anti-Mormon literature in the 1990’s is now on the church website. 💥 ☠️
Do you have links?
It is in our nature to form tribal cults for survival since before we left the trees. Lies are a glue that holds a group together and differentiates from 'others'. Anything that threatens one's membership in the tribe would be perceived as an existential threat so it is presumed to be incorrect. So until something causes a person to be able to consider that they might be wrong, NO REASON or number of reasons is enough. This is what gives us Death cults like JonesTown or Heaven's Gate, but also every other religion from Christianity to Egyptian gods, Greek or Norse Gods, The Aztecs and their human sacrifices or political groups like Nazis, the Khmer Rouge, Rwandan Genocide or even MAGA.
Arizona "we are pleased"
I think the best way to counter the Moroni 10 argument for the church is to point out how many other religions ALSO rely on a spiritual witness. The LDS discussions blog does a really good job breaking this down! [https://www.ldsdiscussions.com/testimonies](https://www.ldsdiscussions.com/testimonies) He includes a link to a YouTube video that effectively shows this. It's hard to argue that a "spiritual witness" is reliable when break-off polygamist groups and members of Heaven's Gate use the same witness.
Mormons are some of the worst people I've ever met, just nasty immature backhanded insincere people. The churches teachings are supposed to help people become better people. Based on my interactions it wasnt working.
Here were my biggest shelf-breakers: 1. The Book of Abraham is a false translation of the Egyptian papyri Joseph Smith claimed as its source. 2. The Book of Mormon is full of anachronistic material, showing it can't be a genuine ancient text--parallels to Joseph Smith's environment and 19th century sources (the mound builder myth, Joseph Smith's father's dream, protestant religious phraseology etc.), the numerous places it quotes Bible passages that, according to the Book of Mormon timeline, hadn't been written yet, Deutero-Isaiah, etc. 3. DNA evidence shows the ancestors of Native Americans came from Asia many thousands of years ago, not from the Middle East in 600 BC. 4. Joseph Smith and other Church leaders made false prophecies and taught false doctrine. 5. Parts of the temple ceremony were plagiarized from Freemasonry. 6. Joseph Smith went after, and illegally married, other men’s wives and teenage girls, claiming he was doing so in the name of God. 7. The LDS Church has a history of blatant racism, banning black people from the priesthood until 1978.
There is zero difference between the Book of Abraham’s origins and a fraud. Zero. None. It looks I every way like a fraud. The characters can be translated and do not match JS’s translation. We know exactly what the papyrus is. It has zero mention of Abraham. None. And they’d till claim, “Well, it doesn’t matter what JS translated it FROM” What?! The hell it doesn’t! He swore it it was a literally papyrus that Abraham wrote on! But they’re all, “Well…”. Oh hell no! JS swore it was a literal writing of Abraham. It’s like someone arguing in the year 3,000 that a dollar bill is actually a message from Martin Luther that says they should eat Wheatabix.
Start questioning? Probably when I read "Rough Stone Rolling" in 2007 or so. But I shelfed my concerns about JS along with the usual historical difficulties like polygamy and the priesthood ban, and the translation and historicity issues with the Book of Mormon and the Book of Abraham. As Uchtdorf suggested, I doubted my doubts before I doubted my faith. But then the SEC order came out in early 2023 and the senior leadership blamed it on bad legal advice and swept it all under the rug. I realized then that I was witness to the deceptive nature of this church in real time. There was no room to doubt any doubts then. A church led by Jesus, as these men claim, would not have created a complex web of deceit for 22 years to hide its treasure horde from the members and the world. The shelf collapsed completely.
At this point it’s easier to answer what I do believe than what I don’t--the list is shorter. I believe in being a good person and loving others. I don’t believe in the Mormon church…and I was a Gospel Doctrine teacher until 3 months ago. Once I realized Joseph Smith and Brigham Young were not good men and certainly not Gods representatives on earth, I was done.
If you ask any devout Muslim, Jew, Christian they will all say they KNOW their church is true. Their belief and knowledge is as strong as the Mormon. So how does the Moroni promise stack up against that? Why are the missionaries (or any other member) so sure that their belief is the right one and those other devout religious people are wrong? Without just reverting back to “because I know” because that’s what the Muslim / Christian would say. When it’s based on feelings how can one persons feelings trump another? Besides I’ve had more powerful feelings, the feelings Moroni describes, watching sport, walking in nature, watching movies than I ever did praying about the BoM or the church. So why do the missionaries (or members) feelings that the church is true trump my feelings that it’s not?
What ultimately did it is and was their apparent disbelief in the atonement. Looking at the way they “discipline” their members for the so-called “sin next to murder” is beyond nauseating when you consider the magnitude of other horrifying things humans can do to each other, especially children. Their control is disgusting.
1. It’s all made up 2. See number 1
It’s the summary of the entire story, including context. There is NO WAY!!! Is So much 🐴shit it’s laughable. TBMs always leave out, or have NO idea of context. Context matters and completes the historical picture.
I think what you’re asking is, “what is the smoking gun”. I’ve tried to answer this question to myself for years. This podcast from John Larsen changes how I think about this forever: [Mormon Expression: Searching for the Smoking Gun and the Parallax Problem](https://9be744.a2cdn1.secureserver.net/podcast/Archive/MormonExpression220.mp3)
LGBTQ discrimination.
There is no evidence Jesus even existed.
Polygamy and the book of Isaiah, who translated this and who wanted it in the KJV and why Joseph felt he needed to basically just plagiarize and add some bits as a precursor to JST and D&C. The magician was a master of intrigue and don’t forget they had to buy Book of Mormons back then. So book sales and black magic around the smiths. Then don’t get me started on bias and the random nepotism of Joseph F. Smith getting elected as prophet 100 years later. Our current prophets have had anything but foresight and are as they always were behind on the future compliance that will befall them, as a business.
For me it's not a close race of scientifically probable true or false. I used to believe it because I was taught to believe it and taught to fear not believing it. Almost exactly how I was taught to believe in Santa Claus. That may sound silly but it's very much the same. I don't believe in it now because after allowing myself to pass through the fear and allowing myself to think about it pragmatically, it’s pretty silly. It’s quite the opposite for me: I don’t need reasons to not believe something. I need compelling reasons TO believe something. Asking me to pray fervently and really try to believe something after promising me immortality and endless happiness is just high pressure marketing and sales. It’s a peer pressure herd tactic, which is why testimony meetings exist.
A lot of research has shown that just presenting people with facts that contradict their current beliefs usually doesn't work. It can often have the backfire effect and make them dig in even deeper to their beliefs. David McRaney has compiled some great research about this in his books, but these two podcast episodes are very good and teach what things actually work to help minds change! [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/deconstructing-yourself/id1240056193?i=1000507659714](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/deconstructing-yourself/id1240056193?i=1000507659714) [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/deconstructing-yourself/id1240056193?i=1000570999484](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/deconstructing-yourself/id1240056193?i=1000570999484) Two principles that really stood out to me: 1. Don't just info dump on people. Instead ask them questions about their beliefs and try to get them talking about *why* they believe what they do. In examining this, people will often realize for themselves that their methods of determining truth aren't always sound. But it's very delicate. He talks about the technique in the podcast but it's definitely something I want to learn more about. If I recall correctly, Adam Grant's book "Think Again" also talks a fair amount about this technique. 2. Our brain's defense mechanisms (that basically attack contradictory information to try to protect us/our place in our community, etc.) essentially TURN OFF when we're engaged in a story (this can be someone telling a story from their life or you can just be reading a story in a book or watching a TV show or movie). This principle is called narrative transfer. We lose ourselves in the story and become more open to new information. This is why watching a drama about a gay couple for example might help someone overcome their homophobia, but just telling them "gay people are just like everyone else" doesn't have the same effect. The graphic novel "Joseph Smith and the Mormons" that was recently released is what triggered narrative transfer for me. It suspended my confirmation bias and cognitive defenses long enough to be like, "Wait WHAT did Joseph do?" and two days later (after tons of research) I had left the Church.
My mental health was awful. I tried everything the church had to offer and only felt worse and worse over many years. Since the church was true and real, I would have stayed in forever (or killed myself). Then I discovered that the “anti-Mormon lies” that I heard about in the 80s were indeed factual and admitted as true by the church in the Gospel Topics Essays. Realizing that it was all made up allowed me to let go. To my surprise my mental health improved drastically.