Doug Was a Mormon, an Ex-Mormon Profile Spotlight

I was born into a devout Mormon home, but from an early age I questioned many Mormon beliefs and practices that didn’t make sense to me and I never received convincing answers to those questions. I encountered soooo many church practices and doctrines that made no sense to me and/or which contradicted the available evidence or other teachings of the church. I was a Mormon, but I’ve since repented of that.

I once wrote a letter to the Smithsonian Institution asking them if they had ever discovered any archaeological evidence backing up the historical claims of the Book of Mormon, not really expecting that they’d actually reply, but they did. They apparently got asked that question a lot and they sent me a letter listing all the types of artifacts which SHOULD be readily found all over the place if the Book of Mormon was true, but informing me that none of that stuff had ever been found.

By the time I was nineteen I had complied a thick three-ring binder full of Mormon doctrinal issues that were either highly dubious or outright absurd. When I showed my parents my three-ring binder and I told them how sincerely I had prayed about it without getting any “burning in my bosom”, they told me the problem was my doubting mind. The people who I had loved and trusted all my life were fervently assuring me that God would answer my questions, but he would only do that if I went on a mission. If I didn’t go on a mission then God would withdraw the Holy Ghost from me, my questions would never get answered, and it would all be MY FAULT since I was being disobedient by not going on a mission. I eventually decided to trust my parents and went on the mission, but of course my questions were never answered and the Holy Ghost never showed up. Looking back on it now, I’m extremely offended that the church forced me to go out into the world and lie to people all day every day for two whole years.

I’ve now been free from Mormonism for more than forty years… or at least as free as is possible for someone who still lives in Utah. My neighbors still try to bear their testimonies to me. They don’t know that I’m an escapee. They just know that I’m not a Mormon. When they give me Books of Mormon and tell me how it’ll change my life, I want to tell them that the reason I’m not Mormon is NOT because I haven’t read the Book of Mormon. The reason I’m not Mormon is because I HAVE read it. I found a mountain of unrefuted evidence proving conclusively that Joseph Smith was con man, not a prophet. But if I say that to them then I’ll be marked as one of Satan’s emissaries and shunned by people with whom I need to have good relationships, so of course I have to just smile and nod and thank them for their concern on my behalf.

Don’t fall for the claim that “they were just speaking as men, not as prophets when they said it”. A core idea that was drilled into me and every Mormon I grew up with was the promise that “the Lord will never permit any man who stands as President of this Church to lead you astray”. Teachings which the church now tries to distance itself from were taught as official church doctrine from the pulpit in general conferences and included in books and magazines that were published by the church, with the full knowledge and blessing of the president of the church. I find it incredible that “the brethren” can just do a Jedi hand wave while saying to the members, “you didn’t see what you saw or hear what you heard”, and the members simply say, “OK”.

Joseph did a whole lot of things that would get a person rightfully thrown in jail if they tried those things nowadays, and which would definitely keep that person out of the Celestial Kingdom according to the teachings of Mormonism, but Mormons just shrug it off. They say, “Don’t delve into the mysteries”. They say not to worry about those “unknowable questions”. They say to just be patient and God will explain it all later. This shows a stunning lack of integrity on the part of Mormons. Look at the articles published by the church which attempt to explain away that fact that Joseph Smith’s “translation” of the Book of Abraham bears no resemblance whatsoever to what the scrolls actually say. Published right there in the Pearl of Great Price are images from the scrolls, side by side with Joseph’s alleged translations. At the time the Pearl of Great Price was published, nobody could argue with Joseph’s “translation” since nobody at that time could read Egyptian. But now people CAN read Egyptian and Joseph’s “translations” are laughably wrong. And what’s the church’s explanation? They don’t have one. The articles they publish which claim to refute that evidence simply say, “The Book of Abraham is a religious text, not a historical one, and therefore the only way to know if it’s correct is to pray about it.”

In pretty much EVERY case, the church falls back on the claim that prayer is the one and only way to know truth. Well, if a warm feeling in your heart when you pray is all you’ve got to counter a mountain of solid, tangible evidence, then you’ve got nothing. Do Mormon church leaders seriously expect us to believe that Mormons are the only ones who get a warm feeling in their hearts when they pray to their chosen god, asking for confirmation that their chosen religion is true? People in other religions get warm feelings in their hearts that are EVERY BIT as strong as what Mormons feel. A warm feeling in your heart isn’t worth shinola as evidence for the truth of the Mormon church. When people want to believe something will help them (perhaps only subconsciously), their minds can cause very real and measurable changes to their bodies. When Mormons report feeling a “burning of the bosom” they’re not necessarily imagining things, but what they’re feeling is not necessarily from God. The burning in their bosom is much more likely to be from chemicals that their brains caused to be released into their bloodstreams or from subtle muscle contractions or something similar.

If you see a person at the post office preparing to send huge sums of money to a Nigerian prince, do you not have an obligation to warn them that they’re being scammed? Maybe they’ll ignore your input. Maybe they’ll tell you that the Nigerian prince makes them happy and so they don’t mind giving him money. Fine. You don’t force them to stop sending him money. But as a matter of human decency, you’re obligated to let that person know about the countless news articles you’ve seen where the Nigerian prince always turned out to be a con man. It’s the same with Mormonism. There’s overwhelming evidence showing that Joseph Smith was the original Nigerian prince and that the brethren leading the church today are no better. It would be morally wrong to stay silent about all that evidence when you see people you love losing huge amounts of time and money to a scam like that.

For me it’s all about integrity, or lack thereof on the part of the Mormon church and its members. INTEGRITY, or lack thereof, is the key. Since Mormon church leaders refuse to face the facts, act with integrity, and admit that their church is built upon a foundation of lies, then somebody else has to say it for them. I know that my Mormon friends genuinely WANT to act with integrity, and in fact they believe that they ARE acting with integrity. However, closing your eyes to unrefuted proof that the church is a scam in NOT an act of integrity. The price of membership in the Mormon community is too high, and I’m not referring to tithing when I say that. I’m referring to the requirement that you have to throw away your integrity in order to be a Mormon. You have to close your eyes to clearly obvious truths and pretend like those truths don’t matter.

Doug

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