Any former Mormons here? Otherwise, the LDS church is an interesting cult, and I have stories.
It's been almost 2 years since I have left (thank the almighty spaghetti monster in the sky!). Prior to that I was born and raised in the church, and did everything a good Mormon would do:
~Served a Mission? (yeah, I might have knocked on your door) check.
~Do "stuff" in the temple? check.
~Give 10% of my income off the top to the church? check.
~Abstain from coffee, tea, alcohol, tobacco, drugs, tattoos, piercings, etc.? check
~Get married in the temple? check.
~believe Joseph Smith was a true prophet and could do crazy awesome prophet stuff? check.
Yeah...you name it, it goes on and on. If your interested in talking anything Mormon, share stories, wonder what my favorite drink is now, or whatever, comment or send me a PM!
Yes former TBM here, to my everlasting shame. Joined at 14,attended sporadically, married two Mormon women (not at the same time, was not THAT kind of Mormon) went totally TBM at 25, left at 30.
Hate and loath the LDS with a passion, evil cult of business men running a multinational company funded off the back of gullible fools, unfortunates and desperate people.
Homophobic, misogynist, bigoted prick Liars, who would not accept the truth about their stupid religion if it came out on national LDS truth day, wearing a Mormon Truths R Us t shirt and kicked them up the arse while singing Mormon truths are here again!
I have a lot of those feelings too! You also sound like a lot of folks on the exmormon sub-reddit, I don't know if you're on there or not, but it's a great place to vent!
@DavidLMt
I'm not, but my wife is, I'm not exactly respectful to the apologist who weasle their way in claiming to be exmos, but are clearly missionaries, seeking real names, branches and wards so they hotline the SP.
When I became somewhat acquainted with the English language I confused morons with Mormons. Then someone enlighted me and said the morons with ties are Mormons. So each time I saw a pimpled face sitting atop a white, immaculately white, shirt and the black name tag I remembered this. So I thought Mormons only had a male model called "elder" despite their lack of maturity. In 2002 I saw, for the first time a female Mormon. Honestly when I saw her I immediately forgot all my years as an atheist and believed in God. She was strictly stunning. Her face was truly angelic. So I told her that during the night her god had called me and told me about the magic encounter with Sister Hackman and gave me a message for her. She looked stunned and was absolutely silent.
I realised how their mob's indoctrination had given me the edge. But fortunately/unfortunately my father conscience kicked in and I just told her that her God had told me that Sister Hackman ought to travel to France, to Orleans and to Rouen and that she would understand the message once she found the cross in the pavement of the market place in Rouen.
When I left she just stood motionless staring into the distance. I thought about returning and inviting her to have coffee. I still remember her face and her smooth hands.
I’m not Mormon but several of my close friends are. And I lived in SLC, Utah for eight years, 1982-1990. I totally understand.
I’m an ex Mormon and I don’t have any regrets about leaving the worldview I grew up with!
Yeah man, makes a big difference in your life, doesn't it?
A few years ago I considered becoming a mormon. I thought that is what god was leading me. I started to abstain from caffine,cigs, tatoos,piercings,etc. It seemed like the right thing to do, until they were insistent on 10 % of my income thing. That was a deal breaker. I had enough money problems with working with all my income. One first things I did when I became an atheist was throw the book of moron in the trash. I considered burning the damn thing.
I’ve never studied a lot on mormons but I’m a former Jehovah’s Witness, a lot of exjws say that exmormons are like cousins to us. I used to hear stories about Joseph Smith and wonder how anyone could ever believe that shit, and now I look at some of the things I believed and it’s just as stupid. Good on you for getting away from that world.
I kick myself a lot for not releasing sooner about how stupid it all is. It's an embarrassing part of my life history, but I'm happy I'm moving on!
@DavidLMt I understand the embarrassment and I've wanted to kick myself at times too, but sometimes my mood brightens and I feel like those experiences put me in a good position to support others who are starting to learn how they've been deceived and to try to encourage those who may be considering joining the JW religion to ask some of questions I was never encouraged to ask.
I converted about 20 years ago and that lasted about a year. About the time I found out about the very strange things like planets for men and secret names known only to your husband and God. They don't really tell you this stuff until after you're baptized and confirmed so when that happened I realized I had made a huge boo boo. Just last year I sent a letter to Temple Square demanding my name removed from the records. They sent me back a letter confirming this and told me if I wanted to come back I would have to talk to my Bishop. But of course as an atheist now that idea is ludicrous
Congrats on getting out! A lot quicker than most!
I've heard the Mormon church employs some pretty heavy psychological tactics to members who try and leave. Encouraging the family to cut ties and such. Did you have any odd experiences while leaving, or since leaving?
My parents are still active. They are of course disappointed, but they're at least not brainwashed enough to cut ties. We've always been kinda liberal with indoctrination anyways, which I'm grateful for. Never really made very many friends in the church, so I guess it's made it easier to just walk away.
@DavidLMt hey there you go, thays not too bad. Definitely not as bad as some of the wild stories I've heard about excommunicated people.
I am not mormon but dated a guy for years that issome pretty strange stuffhe was divorced so if we had gotten married like he wanted to i would have been the second wife for eternity> he also believed in gathering as many guns as possible because the mormon men are going to rise up and save earth from this messwomen were second class citizens at best< mostly there to bring souls into the world
Whoa. Sounds like you dodged a bullet (pun intended) .
Part of the Mormon culture is hoarding and prepping (I still have food storage, but mostly for common sense reasons). I'm not sure about the whole gun thing, but I wouldn't be surprised.