I am a 23 year old male born and raised in the LDS
church. My family has always been and is very strong in
the church. My mother was raised catholic and converted
around the age of 21 to the LDS religion. This happened
just before my father returned home from his mission. My
father’s mother was LDS but his father was not. I lived
almost all of my life in the San Francisco area of
California. Unlike most of the exit stories I have read,
I did not grow up in a town where Mormons were abundant.
Rather, I was the minority. This left me out of various
childhood activities (weekend birthday sleep-overs and
swim team competitions).
I had a picture perfect childhood. As I have matured and
learned more of the typical life of non-members I have
quickly realized that I have always lived on easy
street. Even though it seemed like my life was filled
with trials and tribulations; I was really living in an
ideal household. This is something that I do recognize
that the Mormon teachings have given my family. Although
these days I do not believe in the theology of the LDS
church; I do believe that it can build strong morals and
families.
Early on I think my desire to not be a Mormon was fueled
by being that odd man out. At school and other
activities there was very rarely anyone who shared this
lifestyle with me. When age 8 arrived I recall going
through all the interviews and such to prepare me for my
official entrance into the LDS church. This is something
that I now have a problem with. LDS doctrine teaches
that the reason children are not baptized at birth is
because they feel that age 8 is the time of
self-accountability. Well, at 8 years old, the last
thing I want to do is NOT get baptized. The fear of
being an outcast in my family and amongst my ward is a
terrifying thought. Children are constantly reassured
that the choice to be baptized is their’s. Well, I can’t
imagine any child who is raised from day 1 to believe
everything that the church teaches; deny official
membership at age 8. So, obviously I was baptized.
My father always held many positions in the ward and at
one time was my scoutmaster. By the age of 16 I was very
close to getting my eagle but stopped caring about the
program and never finished. My father also became my
bishop in my high school years. But first let’s jump
back a little bit to my junior high years. I believe
this is when I started to doubt the church. Just before
high school I remember going to education week and I
started listening to tapes of various LDS motivational
youth speakers. Forgive me for not recalling who said
this but the phrase “wax strong” is something that
became a mantra to me. I believed if that I held strong
to the rod, Satan could not tempt me.
I always pictured myself as one who would never get into
the use of drugs and alcohol. By the time I entered high
school, that all changed. I quickly began recreational
use of marijuana with 2 other LDS youth that I grew up
with. I guess that is odd that member and not
non-members were the ones that first experimented with.
I soon started dabbling in hallucinogens and seeking a
deeper understanding of the universe and a higher state
of consciousness. I currently do not advocate the use of
drugs but I feel that some of the mental journeys I went
on ultimately led me to “think outside the box”. By this
time, my future in the LDS church was very over. It
wasn’t that I felt I wasn’t worthy but I think something
deep inside me felt that what I was taught my whole life
was nothing more than a delusion. I recall breaking the
bread during the sacrament and thinking to myself “these
are the same hands that committed sin last night”. If I
was sinning like this and still performing my duties in
disguise, who else in the church was?
I am still the black sheep of my family. Actually I
prefer to not think of myself as a sheep at all. Sheep
blindly follow and do not question. High school was a
very rough time for me and my relationship with my
family. I faithfully attended seminary every morning
before school. My freshman year I got very sick. I would
wake up at 5, go to seminary at 6, go to school at 7, go
to wrestling practice after until 6 and then come home
with no energy to study. By my junior year, I was
working a job in which I was stealing products on a
regular basis to sell to my peers. I was eventually
caught and charged with 2 felonies. It was my choice to
spend my senior year at a boarding school in central
Utah (about 1 hour south of Provo). I felt that some
time spent there would get me away from my parents and
allow me to prove to the courts that I wasn’t a bad kid.
I really wasn’t a bad kid; I just had made some poor
choices.
Up until this point my lack of interest in the church
was purely being sick of hearing the same stuff being
drilled into my head. If there is a definition of
brainwashing, this was it. I felt like I knew the
answers to all the questions in my religious classes
without even thinking. That was the problem, I wasn’t
really thinking about what it all meant and to be honest
I didn’t care. I would try to come home early from
church and my mom would come home and demand me to
return to church. To her, church wasn’t an option. It
was something that everyone in our family did. This
really hit hard to me. I felt that religious faith is
something that can’t be forced.
I have always been creative and artistic. Early in high
school I knew I wanted to study at a college where I
could take art and computer related courses. I found
that Academy of Art in San Francisco was really the way
to go. Unfortunately this school was very expensive. My
parents’ suggestion was to go to a cheaper school first
to complete my general education choices. My brother
expressed interest in BYU Hawaii and so I agreed to
apply. Although by this time I was very far from the
church I figured that it was Hawaii and it could be THAT
bad. Well I got accepted and my brother got married and
decided to stay at BYU Idaho. I really didn’t want to go
to a Mormon school by myself. I think my parents hoped
that this Mormon environment would inspire me to serve a
mission. Both of my older brothers served missions but I
had decided long before this time that serving was not
in my future. My first year in Hawaii was very
depressing. To be honest I was annoyed by most members
and found that I did not connect with them at all. I
wanted to come home after my first semester. My parents
insisted that I stay a whole year. In the last 2 months
I finally made some friends that I could connect with.
I reluctantly decided to stay a 2nd year. This time I
lived off campus and was back into my partying mode. I
very rarely attended church. I basically attended just
enough that my leaders wouldn’t complain and threaten to
kick me out. By the end of my 2nd year I decided that I
couldn’t live the lie any longer. I moved back to
California and began my journey into religious
discovery.
As I had mentioned before, I didn’t initially walk away
from the church because of things I had read about the
origins of the church. I had just simply always felt
that there was something that didn’t connect with me. I
recall many emotional conversations with my parents as a
youth. I would tell them that the LDS church was their
religion and not mine. This was not something they could
understand. They would ask, “What do you believe in
then?” This is something I could not answer at the time
but I feel that I can answer now.
I would say that for the past year or more, my
relationship with God is stronger than ever. I do not
attend any church at the moment. Almost every exit story
I have read, the person has converted to another
Christian religion. My experience was more of a journey
from Mormonism to hitting rock bottom to picking myself
up and re-evaluating the history of the world and the
universe. I do not consider myself to be an Atheist. I
guess I would categorize myself as Agnostic. I believe
that the universe is a fascinating place and that there
must be a higher purpose to life. There is not a day
that goes by that my brain deeply ponders EVERYTHING.
This is why I say my relationship is closer to God than
ever before. I feel that in my youth I was going through
the motions but didn’t really have a strong relationship
with my heavenly father.
Growing up we are taught to fear and avoid any
publications that challenge the church. I recall the
film “God’s Army” where there is an elder who starts
reading anti-Mormon literature. He is depicted as the
crazy one and that any doubt he has is associated with
mental instability. But he even says things in the movie
that ultimately lead me to want to know more about the
TRUE history of the church. He mentions something about
horses not being native to the Americas and a few other
things. I remember thinking, if this is the most
accurate book ever, than how is science and history
disproving most of it’s claims?
This is why I have not converted to another Christian
religion. I feel there are flaws in Christianity and
Mormonism. One of the biggest things that have always
befuddled me is some of the tall tales the Bible tells.
Noah built a huge ship and put 2 of every animal on it.
Ok, first of all the WHOLE earth has never been flooded
at once. Another thing is that it has been proven that
the technology of the time could not build boats the
size the Bible describes. Boats were more like 10ft
square boxes that floated. Another story is Jonah, how
could a man be swallowed by a whale and live to tell
about it? Or how about Moses? There are multiple
instances where he displays the awesome power of God.
Why do all of these things occur in the Bible and
nothing like it has happened since? Is it possible that
true stories were exaggerated in the Bible? In my
Anthropology class at BYU Hawaii, one of the only
moments I stayed awake in class I remember my professor
saying something that has really stuck with me. He said
that history has what experts call the ‘telescope
effect’. That is that the further back you go, the
understanding of what really happened becomes fuzzy.
Before the invention of paper and widespread use of
writing, stories were told verbally from one person to
another. We all know the classic telephone game. The
initial story or phrase when it gets to the end of the
line can end up very different. So is it possible that
even biblical history was prone to this effect?
These are the types of questions I go through in my head
constantly. If there was a pre-existence then that would
mean that there is basically a numbered amount of souls
that need to come to earth. So if one has an abortion,
does that mean that the soul that was designated for
that fetus never has an opportunity for terrestrial
life? What about those who are born ‘vegetables’? These
people never grow as the rest of us do. Does that mean
that they are free from sin and are guaranteed a place
in heaven? If and when the 2nd coming happens, is that
dependant on the repository of souls running out? Once
everyone has a chance to be here then new babies can’t
be born with a soul?
Mormons believe that one day we can all be gods if live
worthy of such a blessing. I have been told that is why
education is important. Everything we learn here will be
carried on. However I believe that the church stunts
this desire to know as much as possible. We are taught
that science can answer very little about the existence
of the universe and us. I place a lot of faith in
science and math. The earth is not flat, there is no one
living in the clouds and stars are just other suns and
planets like those in our solar system. We know the
approximate age of our planet and solar system.
Mormonism and Christianity presume that the earth is
only 6,000 years old. Way off compared to what
scientists KNOW. I do not believe that life started in
some garden with one man and one woman. Evolution is
very much a proven fact. As I mentioned before I am not
an Atheist. I believe science, math and physics are the
answer to how and not why. The why part is something man
has been asking forever. This is why we have so many
religions in the world.
When early man watched the rising and setting of the
sun; it must have been such a magical experience. Today
we know why it rises and sets. This is why religions
that believe there is a sun god or moon god are more or
less extinct. No one believes in Egyptian or Greek
theologies anymore. But for some reason there are some
religions that still remain strong. I believe that all
religions that have ever existed have been man-made.
They are our theories of our purpose in this life and
the possibility of life after death. If there is a
higher power in this universe, he never has or will talk
to us. I feel and psychology studies have proved that if
you wish hard enough to believe in something, you will.
The mind is a powerful thing and we have to use logic
and reason to come to conclusions. Not blind faith.
Something that sparked my interest in reading more about
the true history of the church was 2 events that
happened at about the same time. The first was when I
was attending BYU Hawaii. Some girls that I was close
friends with at the school (who were also “bad Mormons”)
stopped me one time and asked if I really knew what went
on in the temple. Well, I had done baptisms for the dead
before but beyond that I was quite clueless. They
proceeded to tell me about some of the anointing rituals
and the infamous gestures that symbolized slitting your
throat and disemboweling oneself. This came as quite a
shock to me. I had no idea that some of these ceremonies
were so abstract. The other event was the airing of a
particular South Park episode. One of the creators was
raised LDS and fell away from it. They created an
episode that bluntly told the history of the church. I
never knew that Joseph Smith mostly read the
translations out of a hat. After watching this TV
episode it was quite obvious how silly and sad it was
that so many people believed in something that was
essentially made up.
I soon began researching online and trying to understand
the truth for myself. I learned of the connections
between Masonic rituals and the founding of the LDS
church. This quickly led to a Pandora’s box of
information that I had never been exposed to.
So here I am living every day mostly content with life.
I have a family that I know wishes I would see the light
and return to the church so that we can be an eternal
family. I have never been married and according to the
doctrine if I don’t do so in the temple I will never go
to the highest kingdom. Well, I have never believed that
when one goes to heaven, God will say “sorry you aren’t
Mormon and that isn’t good enough”. God is too big for
just one religion or answer. I feel that existence of
man is an ongoing learning process. Matter and energy is
never destroyed. I believe this is the same for our
souls. I guess you could say I believe in reincarnation.
When one dies their energy and consciousness is
transferred to the next existence of life. Nothing is
ever lost in the universe and their certainly is not a
limited amount of souls that can receive a body. I
believe that the longer we keep constantly questioning
EVERYTHING that science will lead us back to religion
and explanation to the BIG question.
Religion provides lots of people in this world with
happiness and a sense of peace. I do recognize that the
Mormon religion created a mostly healthy environment for
me as a child. While I do not believe it is necessary to
have religion to create a strong set of moral values, I
do believe that it certainly helps. The Bible may not be
literally true but it has a lot of stories with good
morals.
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