LDS friend of the past 30 years is leaving the church.

I’m new here – seems like as good a place as any to anonymously communicate my truth.

Yup — that’s a major component of why we’re here. Most people feel better about things if they can talk, even when the things haven’t changed at all.

On Saturday, I got a call from a long-time friend, Lisa, who informed me that after much research into early church history (using LDS and non-LDS sources) and a lot of thinking, she concluded that Mormonism has been based on a foundation of propaganda and misrepresentation and in good conscience can no longer be a member. She inquired what my position relative to the church and Mormonism are. I replied that I’ve had doubts about both for a very long time; many things don’t add up/make sense.

Things of the Spirit seldom make sense to things of the world. As different as Men and Women, if not moreso.

After our discussion, she e-mailed me a thought-provoking quote from Thomas Paine, intellectual, philosopher, writer, and one of America’s Founding Fathers: “It is error only, and not truth, that shrinks from inquiry.”

Nice!

Like many, I have family members who are super-invested in Mormonism, psychologically, emotionally, in terms of identity, values, beliefs and structure for their lives, etc.

That would be me. It’s amazingly difficult to separate one’s self from these things. I’ve been working on it, though. Have you read my intro? http://forum.staylds.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=174

It’s a curious place to be – recognizing that many Latter-day Saints are the ‘salt of the earth’, while knowing that they are ignorant about ‘faith-disrupting’ facts about JS, early church history, the BoM, and other foundational/key aspects of Mormonism.

What if one *were* knowledgable about these ‘faith-disrupting’ facts — would that disqualify them from being the ‘salt of the earth’?

Should I burst their bubble of ‘faith’ with the truth, or leave them to continue in ignorance and the psychological/spiritualistic ‘cocoon’ it creates? I need to make a decision on that one.

That’s a common question here, MW. Please read the fascinating posts already made on this board – this has been discussed just this week. Just in the last 2 days or so.

People are unconsciously drawn to that which is familiar; the LDS ‘universe’ is one such example. Is it true that once a Mormon psychologically begins to leave that ‘universe’ there is no turning back? Apparently so.

Yes, I am sure about that one.

How can members possibly believe that JS was a true prophet of God, given the historical facts, or the BoM is true, given the body of scientific evidence that does not support its historicity? Yet people do believe.

Yes, and so do I —- sort of. I do believe JS was a prophet, and it is because I no longer think as a child concerning what a ‘prophet’ is, what sort of life a ‘prophet’ lives. Or, maybe I’m just jaded…. More about the ‘facts’ of historicity later…

I once read that emotions are not an infallible guide to the truth. Is faith not a function of belief, and certain beliefs generate certain feelings? How does one reconcile one’s religious feelings with ‘faith-disrupting’ facts that are never going away? Seems to me an impossibility.

Agreed; It is; by maturing; for some it will ever be impossible, sad to say. For many on this site, there is light at the end of the tunnel. At the very least, there is a possibility to find peace in the heart, if you can fearlessly face your heart without distortions of the mind. Um, maybe my buddhist tendencies are showing! 😳

Have Mormons been deluding themselves for 179 years? What do they have to go on other than what they believe and feel? Is living one’s life based on a belief system that is not supported by many facts and the resulting emotions a functional/healthy way to be? What does such an approach to living/existence do to one’s psychological health? Can people turn off their critical/rational thinking, trivialize or ignore facts that do not support their beliefs and feelings (religious in this case) and not pay a negative psychological price? I wonder.

Perhaps the reconciliation of reason and faith is an illusion, and I need to recognize it as such and make a decision: Stay in the church, or leave. Either way, there will be consequences.

Back to musing…

Thanks for this board!

Psychology is integral to religious experience. “It’s all in your head” is a major cop-out. Facts as we know them are subject to error, misinterpretation, lack of complete data (!!!!!!) and our own biases. Feelings drive the human animal, and facts are sorted through and either accepted or rejected, driven by emotion, assumptions, and desires. It’s amazing we can figure anything out.

Welcome to the site, I hope you browse at length and enjoy it. And keep commenting!!

HiJolly

Is living one’s life based on a belief system that is not supported by many facts and the resulting emotions a functional/healthy way to be? What does such an approach to living/existence do to one’s psychological health?

I think it depends on the person, but there are certainly a number of studies that show cognitive dissonance to be harmful. Cognitive dissonance seem to me at least, to be nearly impossible to avoid once one has really studied early Mormon history and realizes all of the contradictions. There are plenty of people that live with these contradictions their whole lives that probably suffer some emotional/psychological repercussions as a result. However, many on this site seem to have overcome the issue by accepting metaphorical truths, not actual truths. My attempts to do this haven’t eliminated the CD for me, so I’m currently an agnostic/naturalist. I take literal truths to be important–again I’m speaking about just me–but a lot of people are comfortable with a different approach. My own opinion is that many who accept metaphorical truths are still suppressing some CD, but I don’t know that, I’m just guessing there. So no, in general, I don’t thinks it’s healthy, but that probably a minority viewpoint for this site.

This may be a great topic for a new thread but it brought to mind how I have transitioned from using the metaphorical/actual terms to preferring spiritual/physical. In a strange twist of fate spiritual things have become much deeper and more meaningful to me since I have separated them from the physical.

I also take literal/physical truths to be extremely important. I may have categorized everything spiritual to a different sphere than the physical, but both are highly valuable in their own right. Maybe in time I’ll get to expound on this further. I’m sure others have similar thoughts as well.

Orson — Kinda crazy, but I’ve been arriving in parallel at the same conclusion as of late. I used this analogy this Morning with my own daughter. She asked, “Do we know for sure if Jesus lives?”

I replied, “It’s hard to know for sure with our head, but many people feel like they know for sure with their hearts.”

Another daughter immediately chimed in, “I know it in my heart.”

And I wasn’t about to mess with that.

The second most freeing moment of my life spiritually was when I realized that it’s OK for people to see things differently – even very differently – even within the same church – even within the LDS Church. The most freeing moment of my life spiritually was when I realized that I can’t be condescending about those who see things differently than I do. I can disagree STRONGLY with them, but learning to accept them (for who they are, not just for who I would like them to be) regardless of our differnces was incredibly liberating.

If Hitler said something profound and uplifting, I will quote him – with the proper disclaimers about him being an evil SOB in my opinion. I believe passionately in the concept embedded in the saying, “We love him, because he first loved us” – so I try to live in such a way that those with whom I disagree will love me because I love them.

As a moderator / admin on a group site like this, sometimes I have to say things that I wouldn’t otherwise, but even then I try to be loving in the way I do so. I fail (sometimes through my own fault and sometimes because it simply is impossible), but I still try.

Dear Friends,

I am a fifth generation Mormon whose ancestors knew JS. I can’t quite understand what specifically generates concern about early church history as my ancestors were so very impressed with the Prophet JS, and claimed that many newspaper reports written to defame him were actually just political opponents and others generating propaganda. My ancestors would write the actual facts in journals and I would realize that JS was a much different type of person than what his enemies wrote about.

The BOM is actually a very short, concise abridgment of an ancient record. Oral histories and other written histories of the Americas are much more complete. I enjoy how they complement my knowledge of the BOM.

I did the Temple Square tour in late 2007. I wanted to see what the latest version of ‘truth’ the church was disseminating to members and more significantly, potential converts. Right off the bat, I noticed that there was no mention of JS being overpowered by a darkness that nearly destroyed him after starting to pray in the woods near the Smith farm in Palmyra, NY (not part of JS’ versions of his FV experience prior to 1838), which was part of the official First Vision story that I taught to people as a missionary in the mid-1980s and was taught to me as a child and teenager in the 1970s and early ’80s.

There was also no mention of JS using a stone that he believed had a supernatural power and his hat to ‘translate’ the BoM (no gold plate in the hat, either, so why were they needed?). I came across that aspect of church history by accident a few years ago. It’s in Elder Nelson’s article, “A Treasured Testament”, in the July 1993 Ensign (archived online at http://www.lds.org). For those not familiar with it, the quote from the article is:

“Joseph Smith would put the seer stone into a hat, and put his face in the hat, drawing it closely around his face to exclude the light; and in the darkness the spiritual light would shine. A piece of something resembling parchment would appear, and on that appeared the writing. One character at a time would appear, and under it was the interpretation in English. Brother Joseph would read off the English to Oliver Cowdery, who was his principal scribe, and when it was written down and repeated to Brother Joseph to see if it was correct, then it would disappear, and another character with the interpretation would appear. Thus the Book of Mormon was translated by the gift and power of God, and not by any power of man.”

During all my years in the church, I never – not once – heard an LDS teacher, instructor, quorum leader, bishopric or stake presidency member, regional rep., 70, apostle, or president inform me (and other members) of the truth about how JS ‘translated’ the BoM, the keystone of Mormonism, as per the info. that Elder Nelson included in his article more than 16 years ago. Why not? It’s not ‘faith-promoting’ and it doesn’t jive with what JS wrote about Mormonism’s history in his 1842 letter to John Wentworth, editor of the Chicago Democrat (ref. http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=c26876e6ffe0c010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD” class=”bbcode_url”>http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=c26876e6ffe0c010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD)

Of course, the historical reality that JS married other men’s wives isn’t mentioned during the TS tour, either (a partial list of the women is on the church’s genealogy website at http://www.familysearch.org). Nor is the fact that part of the ‘revelation’ about polygamy, the principles and doctrines of which JS knew as early as 1831, according to the church’s section summary for D&C 132, included the commandment from the Lord that Mormon men stay away from non-virgins/restrict themselves to virgins “vowed to no other man” (see D&C 132:61).

According to the polygamy revelation, any Mormon priesthood holder who violated the revealed commandment – and didn’t first obtain “the consent of the first” [wife]) – was guilty of adultery. Generations of church leaders have made it clear that adultery is a sin second to murder, yet the historical record and LDS scripture prove that JS committed adultery at least 11 times (12, if we include his ‘session’ in the barn with Fanny Alger that Emma encountered).

More info. for members who know only official church history about JS (these facts certainly aren’t mentioned on the TS tour or in church manuals!):

In January 1844, Sylvia Sessions Lyon, one of the married women that JS made his plural wives, was eight months pregnant with her fourth child, Josephine Rosetta Lyon. Josephine later wrote, “Just prior to my mothers death in 1882 she called me to her bedside and told me that her days were numbered and before she passed away from mortality she desired to tell me something which she had kept as an entire secret from me and from all others but which she now desired to communicate to me. She then told me that I was the daughter of the Prophet Joseph Smith”. (ref. http://www.wivesofjosephsmith.org/08-SylviaSessionsLyon.htm” class=”bbcode_url”>http://www.wivesofjosephsmith.org/08-SylviaSessionsLyon.htm)

Joseph kept his marriage to Fanny [Alger] out of the view of the public, and his wife Emma. Chauncey Webb recounts Emma’s later discovery of the relationship: “Emma was furious, and drove the girl, who was unable to conceal the consequences of her celestial relation with the prophet, out of her house”. Ann Eliza again recalls: “…it was felt that [Emma] certainly must have had some very good reason for her action. By degrees it became whispered about that Joseph’s love for his adopted daughter was by no means a paternal affection, and his wife, discovering the fact, at once took measures to place the girl beyond his reach…Since Emma refused decidedly to allow her to remain in her house…my mother offered to take her until she could be sent to her relatives…” (ref. http://www.wivesofjosephsmith.org/02-FannyAlger.htm” class=”bbcode_url”>http://www.wivesofjosephsmith.org/02-FannyAlger.htm)

What consequence “of her celestial relation with the prophet” was teenager/servant-girl-in-the-Smith-home Fanny Alger “unable to conceal”? An expanding womb seems reasonable.

Yet another thing not mentioned on the TS tour or in church manuals, lessons, Gen. Conf. talks, etc. is that just two months after JS, at age 37, made 14-year-old Helen Mar Kimball his 25th plural wife (they were married in May 1843 according to the marriage data on the church’s FamilySearch.org site), he wrote down the following – part of the polygamy ‘revelation’, according to the church (see D&C 132:52 and 54) – that was directed at the church’s Relief Society president (emphasis in bold is mine):

“And let mine handmaid, Emma Smith, receive all those [plural wives] that have been given unto my servant Joseph, and who are virtuous and pure before me; and those who are not pure, and have said they were pure, shall be destroyed, saith the Lord God.”

“And I command mine handmaid, Emma Smith, to abide and cleave unto my servant Joseph, and to none else. But if she will not abide this commandment she shall be destroyed, saith the Lord; for I am the Lord thy God, and will destroy her if she abide not in my law [polygamy].”

I imagine that at least some of you are already aware of these ‘faith-disrupting’ facts.

How extraordinarily convenient for JS that just two months after he married the young Helen Kimball – without Emma’s consent, by no stretch of the imagination – the Lord, who had turned a blind eye to JS’ repeated disobedience of the virgins/”vowed-to-no-other-man”-only commandment mentioned above, was willing to destroy Emma if she didn’t accept JS’ plural wives, remain with him (had she found out about her husband’s marriage to Helen in May and threatened to leave?) and “cleave unto” him!

For decades, I was taught by the church, its leaders, teachers, instructors, and other Mormons that obedience to church teachings and God’s commandments was supremely important. The quality of my mortal existence and of infinitely greater importance, my eternal salvation, depended on it (so I was led to believe)! There are many scriptures in the BoM and D&C, for example, that state this church doctrine.

Like millions of Latter-day Saints, I was told that only through strict obedience to the commandments of God and the word of the Lord would I be judged as worthy of Exaltation – and anything other ‘fate’ after death was Eternal Damnation. As a young man I was repeatedly taught that dwelling on thoughts about sex – no physical sexual act, mind you, just entertaining sexual thoughts – would make me “spiritually filthy” and “unworthy.”

And then as a middle-aged man, I learned that the ‘Prophet of the Restoration’, Joseph Smith, repeatedly disobeyed the Lord and committed adultery – surely breaking Emma’s heart each time she found out after the fact and humiliating her as he pursued female members, married and single – yet he remained church president, and according to LDS scripture, has been exalted.

So what’s the point of obedience/compliance to God’s commandments, as per Mormonism, if, according to historical evidence and LDS scripture about JS, it doesn’t matter after death?

Why shouldn’t I have sex with women I desire (the word appears in D&C 132 in relation to virgins)?

Why shouldn’t I smoke cigars, as did JS?

Why shouldn’t I ‘follow the Brethren’ and drink booze (JS did the night before he was killed)?

Crucially, why be a member of and support, financially and in other ways, a religious organization that would not – and does not to this day – tell the truth?

Finally, at the end of the Temple Square tour I asked the young sister missionary if I could see the ‘peep’ stone that JS had used to ‘translate’ the BoM, the one that supernaturally emitted “something resembling parchment”, and his hat that reportedly played a crucial role in the BoM ‘translation’. She looked at me like I was nuts.

Mr. Wiggin, consider this carefully:

You were nuts to ask a sister missionary that question. Seriously, what reaction could she have given you except to think you were nuts?

Part of leaving Stage 4 and moving forward is to let go of unrealistic expectations of others. Your question to that sister missionary is a perfect example. Questions about Joseph are one thing; that question illustrates the heart of your struggle, I think. Nobody in that situation is going to be able to help you, and blaming her for not being able to answer you is fruitless. It won’t happen.

The baseline questions I take from your comment are quite simple:

Do you want to remain involved in the LDS Church?

Do you want to do so with happiness and joy?

If either of those answers is, “No,” I encourage you to look elsewhere and find that happiness and joy. “Men are that they might have joy” applies OUTSIDE the LDS Church every bit as much as inside it, I believe. If you can’t have joy by staying LDS, find it somewhere else. It’s more important to me that you grow in joy and righteousness than that you be miserable the rest of your life within the Church.

Having said that, I am extremely happy now – and I find great joy in the LDS Church. It absolutely was possible for me, even though I have been exposed to every wart imaginable in the Church. I can’t say if that is possible for you. Only you can do so. First, however, I believe you simply must find a way to let go of your unrealistic expectations of others, quit allowing them to contribute to your own understanding or blaming them for your own dissonace, and settle your own spirit toward what you personally want – whatever that is.

Your bitterness and incredulity are perfectly natural, and I’m not insisting you are wrong. I’m just saying you can’t expect others to form your faith for you; that has to happen, ultimately, within yourself – or between you and God. You have to figure out what works for you – and I believe the first step is to decide whether or not you want the LDS Church to be part of that. The first step, however, is to move past the bitterness. Decisions made in the midst of bitterness almsot never are good.