My name will remain Anonymous.

I came up to BYU-Idaho a few years ago, attracted to it by the low tuition and by my faith in God. I may have had a few doubts about the church over the years, a few holes in my testimony, but I thought if anyone could fix them it would be a church school. I certainly did not expect what happened the moment I stepped into a religion class. The instructor stood up and confidently taught things that I already knew weren’t true. From the creation account to the flood, from it being okay for Lot to offer his daughters for rape and being considered righteous while otherwise consensual homosexuality in the rest of Sodom and Gomorrah was sinful, and Satan — despite being the devil — speaking face to face with god even though I was taught that no unclean thing can dwell before him.

This taught me to read the scriptures with a more skeptical eye, and when I brought that skepticism to the Book of Mormon it fell apart spectacularly. Nephi had a bow made of steel 2,000 years before steel was invented, and any metal available at that time would have been unsuitable for making a bow. They had animals and foods in the Americas that didn’t exist here until the Spanish brought them, and none of the plants and animals that are native were mentioned.

When I anonymously emailed my instructor about my concerns, he simply told me that I had to have faith. But faith is supposed to be belief in things unseen, not belief in things proven untrue. You cannot use faith as a substitute for truth. He then gave me links to Mormon Apologetics websites, known as FAIR and FARMS. These not only failed to give coherent answers to my questions, they alerted me to dozens that I missed, and gave half-baked explanations for these. Many of the things I found there were quite mind-blowing, such as the Book of Abraham and the conflict between D&C 132:1 and Jacob 2:24-28; which they tried to explain by invoking Jacob 2:30 — which not only failed to address the original contradiction but instead introduced another one with Mormon 9:9.

I soon realized that the entire thing was made up, but I persevered and convinced myself that the church still did more good than harm. Once again, they overwhelmingly confirmed this idea false by pushing for Proposition 8 in California. Then the science classes here spent more time defending the church than teaching science, making it even more obvious what the real goals of the church were. To brainwash members into believing regardless of opposing evidence.

I realized then that the church truly has nothing of benefit to offer me, and as I began to open my eyes, it rapidly became more and more apparent that the church was harmful to its members as well. They pressure students to get married as quickly as possible, and start having children immediately before even finding a job much less becoming financially stable. With sex forbidden, most couples become so focused on making it to the temple and pushing up the wedding date as soon as possible so they can get to the honeymoon that they fail to get to know the person. Before long, they’re locked in a loveless marriage with children that will be harmed if they get divorced.

Other people are harmed by the overwhelming feelings of inadequacy. They think they are never good enough and can never match up to their expectations. For many, this leads to depression, and sometimes suicide. And when you go to the bishop to “repent” you are not given comfort and compassion, you are instead told you are a sinner and are unworthy of taking the sacrament so everyone in the ward will know you are a sinner.

I suspect that members of the church that were subject to the indoctrination will see this video and think of me as foolish, as they were taught to through Laman and Lemuel. They will think I am a sinner that just doesn’t want to live as a good Mormon, as they were taught. And they will do so without stopping to think why they automatically made these assumptions; even after I reveal that it is my integrity — not a desire to sin — that dictates why I must leave this organization, for my sense of morality does not allow me to be part of something that harms others.

In the meantime, most of my credits from BYU-Idaho won’t transfer anywhere, so my only real option now is to stick it out. Unfortunately if the church found out that I’m trying to bring comfort to other apostates, they would kick me out of school; and could even revoke my degree years later since this was recorded while I was still a student. Obviously making a video like this puts me in some level of risk. But after seeing the harm that the church brings to its members, that risk is worth it if I can share this message with others trapped in a similar situation. So I want you to know… You’re not alone. Even if you’re in Rexburg or Provo.

For the purposes of this video, I will remain anonymous. I am a BYU-Idaho student, and I’m an Ex Mormon.

There have been a few comments on youtube that have attempted to deny that ExMormons can be kicked out of BYU if they lose their testimony of the LDS church. See this e-mail conversations between students and BYU faculty: web.archive.org/web/20180826140641/http://www.iamanexmormon.com/… Names of the BYU faculty members have been removed- student names were originally anonymous due to the fear surrounding this topic.

You are more likely to learn new problems from these websites than you are to answer any questions. There isn’t a better “anti” site out there:
fairlds.org/
maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/