December, 2022 - wasmormon.org - Page 4

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wasmormon.org registration form - Sign up to share your own mormon story.

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An example of Anachronisms Found in the Book of Mormon, here's a native riding a tapir rather than a horse like it says in the Book of Mormon.

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Comparing early accounts of the first vision - chart by Richard P Howard

One version of Joseph Smiths first vision in stained glass. “Joseph Smith’s First Vision” in the Palmyra Temple, created by Tom Holdman.

The church has no answers. No help for someone that is pleading for guidance and direction. No place for a gay man in the kingdom. The church’s official website on Mormons and gays is misleading at best - I personally know several of the people on the website and I know that the image that the church pushes is falsified and full of deception. In each case there is a dark side that is never acknowledged by the church - depression, secret love affairs to fill unmet needs, double lives, marrying a woman but still having emotionally intimate relationships with men, divorces, and overall men who are unhealthy both emotionally and mentally.

I was a mormon. Continue reading the full wasmormon profile at https://wasmormon.org/profile/freeatlast/

Born and raised in the lds church in the Midwest. Very faithful family. Served a mission and remained very active until my late 20s. I’m a camper, a hiker, an explorer, a traveler, a creater, a designer, a musician, a friend, a lover, and I was a Mormon.

Where I used to suffer from self-hatred and debilitatingly low self-esteem, I have found love for myself and have started to heal, becoming proud of who I am and what I can accomplish. Where I used to be medicated for desperation and sought the services of therapists and psychiatrists, I now enjoy peace and happiness beyond anything I’ve felt in the past. Where I used to feel like I was living a double life, hiding who I was from everyone I loved in fear and shame, I now have removed the fake facade. I now know that those around me truly love me for who I am, not the role that I felt forced to play.

I deserve to be happy. I deserve to have love in my life. I deserve to have peace and hope for a future. My life in the church prevented me from accomplishing this and made me feel like I wasn’t worthy or capable of attaining happiness or love or peace or hope. This is why I must resign. I’m resigning because I deserve a future.

During the journey of my life, I have literally tried every option to find peace, love, acceptance, and a place in the church - mission, active church service, attentive general conference study, institute classes and one on one conversations with every institute teacher I had, meetings with bishops, years of church-approved therapy with 4 different therapists and a psychiatrist, gay Mormon conferences and support groups, 12 step groups, medication, fasting, praying, scripture study, weekly temple attendance - it has been literally an entire life given to the church. But I have found that there is no place for me in God’s great “Plan of Happiness.”

In October of 2017 these terrible thoughts and views poisoned my mind to the point that I attempted to end my life. Looking back I am terrified to think how that night could have come to a horrific end. Coming out of that experience, I realized that something needed to change if I wanted to survive. I took the scary and lonely path of distancing myself from the church - my culture, my family, my friends - and also distanced myself from the unacceptably degrading reality of being a gay man in the church. The resulting 15 months have proven to be literally life saving. I’ve found peace, happiness, and love that I never thought was possible for me. I now can see a future for myself.

Taking a break from the church and shedding this horrifyingly depressing and incomprehensibly offensive doctrine, I was finally able to imagine a future for myself where I could be happy and I could progress with a family, with kids, with love and happiness and companionship and a future. I can now start to set goals and make plans and be motivated to work for a better life. But I can’t have these things if I remain a member of the church.

Lehi’s Dream is Joseph Smith Senior’s Dream too

Lehi's Dream from the Book of Mormon is very similar to the dream Joseph Smith grew up hearing about which his own father had.

The story of Lehi leaving Jerusalem with his family and their struggles is central to the Book of Mormon. In the book (1 Nephi chapter 8), Lehi shares a dream with his family that is about a great and spacious building and a straight and narrow path, an iron rod, and a tree with fruit …

Continue reading “Lehi’s Dream is Joseph Smith Senior’s Dream too”

I was born and raised into the LDS faith. I paid a full tithing on my gross. At home, I actively prayed, read the scriptures, watched and attended General Conference, held Family Home Evenings with my family, and did everything else a good Mormon should do. I am an avid reader, I study cryptography and mathematics for fun, I love solving puzzles. I was a Mormon.

For months, I dealt with anger and depression, as I tried to wrestle with 40 years of my life essentially being a lie. But, the storm settled, the relationship with my wife grew stronger, and now I have honest conversations with my wife and daughter about real issues, doctrine and policy, that shape our lives and the lives around us. These discussions are healthy, they provide deep reflection and introspection into difficult topics, and we have a space where we are happy, vibrant, and authentic.

I was soon learning not only about Joseph Smith's polygamy, but also his folk magic, and the problems with the Book of Abraham, and the Kinderhook Plates, and so much more, to the point that it became very clear to me that the narrative I was learning was not matching the dominant narrative I learned growing up, nor the dominant narrative that is currently being taught.

I tried hard to give space for the historicity of the church claims, but every essay, paper, blog post, podcast episode, and so much more, was lined with mountains and mountains of references and citations, all of which could be verified. The "anti-mormon" literature I was reading was really the true church history, and it rocked my world.

I was deeply consumed with everything I could get my hands on to try so hard to prove that these "antimormon lies" were just that – lies. But it the exact opposite. After 9 months of intense and exhausting research, I realized that the evidence for the truth claims lied overwhelmingly with the critics of Mormonism, and not the apologetics.

However, I admitted that I didn't know a lot about the issue, and promised him I would look into it. As an avid reader, and an amateur researcher, I held to my promise. But the deeper I dug into Joseph Smith's history, the deeper I went down the rabbit hole of LDS church history.