Hi, I'm Doug
I was a Mormon, but I've since repented of that.
![Doug profile image for wasmormon.org](https://i0.wp.com/wasmormon.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Doug-and-Jeep-scaled.jpg?fit=300%2C225&ssl=1)
About me
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.
It started with something as simple and innocent as me, at a young age, watching newborn babies get carried up to the front of the chapel where priesthood brethren would solemnly place their hands on the baby and say words like, "I bless you that you will be righteous throughout your life and always obey God's commands". I remember asking my parents, "So if this baby does, in fact, grow up to do as he has been blessed to do, and does obey God's commands all his life, then in the afterlife, when he stands before God to be judged, will God give him credit for what he's done?" If the blessing he was given as a newborn had the power which I'd been taught that priesthood blessings contain, then THAT BLESSING is what caused the kid to lead a good life. The kid doesn't get the credit. My question caused my parents to just laugh and tell me I was a silly little boy, but it was a valid question and I really wanted an answer to it. What's the point in blessing a baby if the blessing has no meaning?
That first childish question might have been just an inconsequential curiosity, but it shows my questioning mindset. I don't know where I got that mindset. I clearly didn't inherit it from my parents. On multiple occasions my father "bragged" to me that he had never ever questioned the teachings of the church, and my mom said similar things, and they implored me to be more like them. If my parents had been born into Muslim families, they would have spent their entire lives completely sure that Islam was the one and only true church. Or if they'd been born Jews or Hindus or whatever. Even as a young boy I somehow saw the foolishness of this line of thinking and I tried to get my parents to see it too, but to no avail.
As I grew 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, and these ones were far more consequential than the little one I described above as my first recollection of me expressing doubt. I'm sure whoever's reading this is familiar with the CES Letter. The person who wrote that letter, Jeremy Runnells, wasn't even born when I was in my teens and there was no such thing as the internet back then either, so I had to learn all that stuff the hard way... piecing together clues from what few books and magazines I could find that my parents would have been horrified to learn I had read. (They didn't want me reading anything that might threaten "the testimony" that they wanted me to stand up and bear on fast Sundays even though I didn't HAVE any testimony.) I once wrote a letter to the Smithsonian Institution asking them if they had ever discovered any archeological 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, but you all know what nineteen year old Mormon boys are supposed to do, and here it was, time for me to do it. 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. They said that Satan was the one placing those doubts in my mind, and as long as I listened to him, the Holy Ghost would never speak to me. They said the only way to answer my questions was to serve a mission as God wanted. What could I, a teenage kid with no real life experience, do? 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.
Long story short, I put my trust in my parents and went on the mission, but of course my questions were not answered and the Holy Ghost never showed up. Looking back on it now, I'm extremely unhappy about being forced to go out into the world and lie to people all day every day for two years. Full disclosure… I didn't last the entire two years. Or rather, I should say that thanks to a compassionate and creative mission president who demonstrated to me that many Mormons are genuinely good-hearted people, I didn't have to spend the entire two years lying to people. My mission president and I found a unique workaround that allowed me to keep my integrity intact without having to disgrace my family in the eyes of judgmental neighbors by returning home from my mission early. However, since I started this paragraph by saying "long story short", I won't go into those details.
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... and the other Mormon scriptures and a long list of other Mormon writings... and in those documents I found a mountain of unrefuted evidence proving conclusively that Joseph Smith was con man, not a prophet. That's what I WANT to tell my neighbors when they do that... but no... 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. Ugh!
On my shelf
On the Mormon Spectrum
# Why I left More stories of 'Why I left' the Mormon church
For me it's all about integrity, or lack thereof on the part of the Mormon church and its members. It astounds me how Mormons can look straight at a mountain of unrefuted facts which prove their religion is a hoax, and just shrug it off, saying, "Yes, those facts are puzzling, but I'm not going to think about it. I have faith that God will answer all our questions in the next life".
I realize that many Mormons who read this will react to what I just said about "unrefuted facts" by claiming, "But the Church HAS refuted those alleged facts!" They'll point to the articles the church has published which ATTEMPT to refute them, but if the Mormons pointing to those articles have even read them at all, they are somehow unable to see how those articles fail miserably at refuting anything. For instance, there's the church's response to the total absence of archeological evidence supporting the Book of Mormon's claims. The articles say, "There's so much jungle in south and central America that hasn't been explored. The evidence you want could be sitting right there and just hasn't been discovered yet." That's a perfect example of simply blowing smoke rather than making a valid argument. Sure there's lots of jungle that could be hiding artifacts, but look at the hundreds of thousands of artifacts that HAVE been found. If the people of the Book of Mormon reached the population levels that the book claims, and spread out as far as the book claims, it is inconceivable that none of the countless artifacts which have been found support the Book of Mormon's claims.
Or look at the church's articles which claim to refute the DNA evidence. They say, "That evidence is not applicable because we never said that the American Indians are descendants of the Lamanites". YES THEY DID! How can they lie about something that's so thoroughly documented? It's just like how they lie when they say that "It was never official church doctrine that the reason for black people being denied the priesthood is because they were not valiant in the pre-existence". YES IT WAS! That doctrine was taught from the pulpit with "God's prophet, seer and revelator" sitting right there listening and not objecting, or sometimes him even saying it or things like it himself. That doctrine, and others about black people that are even more reprehensible than the “not valiant doctrine", were taught in books written by general authorities and published for decades by the church with the full knowledge and blessing of "God's prophet, seer and revelator". 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".
What's equally outrageous are the articles published by the Mormon church which attempt to explain away that fact that Joseph Smith's "translation" of the Book of Abraham scrolls 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 religions text, not a historical one, and therefore the only way to know if it's correct is to pray about it."
In fact, that's the essence of the church's response to basically EVERYTHING in the mountain of what I say are unrefuted facts. 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. (Read up on why medical researchers have to test new drugs against placebos before concluding that the new drugs actually work and you'll find documented proof that when people want to believe something, their minds can cause very real and measurable changes to their bodies, releasing chemicals that can do much more to the body than just cause a "burning of the bosom".)
So yes, I do think it's completely correct to say there's a mountain of "unrefuted evidence" showing conclusively that Joseph Smith was a con man. And by the way, the unrefuted evidence also shows that in addition to Joseph being a con man, he was also a sexual predator… of girls as young as sixteen, fifteen, and even FOURTEEN YEARS OLD, as well as a sexual predator of older women who were still married to other men at the time Joseph "married" them. Joseph also did a whole lot of other things that would get a person rightfully thrown in jail if they tried those things nowdays, 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. They sit in church and sing "Do what is right, let the consequence follow", but they clearly don't mean it.
The kicker, for me, is the fact that Mormons believe that men are put here on Earth to prove they've got the intelligence, initiative, and critical thinking skills needed to become gods in the next life. (Women aren't. The best a woman can hope for is to become one of a man-god's multiple wives in the next life, pumping out spiritual babies, but let's not go off on that tangent right now.) If men are put here on Earth to prove that they've got what it takes to become a god, then for sure they should NOT be closing their eyes to such clearly obvious proof that Joseph Smith was a con man. A person who's got what it takes to become a god wouldn't be so amazingly gullible.
Questions about Mormons My Answers to Questions about Mormonism
#Link to this answer of 'Why are you sharing your story?' by Doug Why are you sharing your story? See more answers about 'Why are you sharing your story?'
Close friends I've talked with over the many years which have passed since I left the church have recommended that I just keep silent about my experiences with the Mormon church and my thoughts about religion in general. They tell me that, “people find comfort in religion” and “it’s not polite to plant seeds of doubt in those people’s minds”. I fully understand that line of thinking. In fact, for over forty years I’ve stayed silent for those very reasons. However, as my time on the Earth draws closer to its inevitable end, I think it’s important that I speak up and put my story in the public record, much like I think it’s important for Holocaust survivors to put their stories in the public record before they pass away. Given the way the Mormon church likes to rewrite history and then gaslight its members, I think it’s vital for people who witnessed the teachings and actions which the church employed in the past but which it now wants to bury, to set the record straight. I think that people whose eyes aren’t blinded to the inconsistencies and contradictions which the church doesn’t want its members to see, should speak the truth and put that truth out on the official public record.
My reply to friends who tell me that I should stay silent because “people find comfort in religion” is to point out that anyone who thinks religion is a force for good in the world hasn’t studied history. When I give that reply to my friends, they say, “OK, I'll admit that the Inquisition was bad, but that just a one-off event.” NOT IT WASN'T! The Inquisition is just one tiny example of the many MANY times religion was used to commit horrible, inexcusable atrocities. Mass murder and mass stealing of people’s properties was widespread and religion was the way the perpetrators justified their atrocities and motivated their followers to commit those atrocities. Slavery was a common practice that was justified by the use of religion and the bonds of slavery were strengthened by forced religious indoctrination. There’s a very good reason why Europeans sent priests alongside their warriors during the terribly inappropriately named “Age of Exploration”. Religion caused the Dark Ages, which held back human progress for centuries. No, I’m not at all convinced that the “comfort” provided by religion even comes CLOSE to outweighing the evil which religion has brought forth throughout human history.
My reply to friends who say, “But churches don’t do that any more” is to ask them to please read up on current events. The crimes committed in the name of religion might not be as blatant now as they were in the past, but they’re every bit as real. Consider the women in Islamic-run countries (and also in Hildale Utah and similar places even here in America) who are essentially just property of men. The men who treat women like cattle are allowed to do that because it’s done in the name of religion and "we’re not allowed to criticize a person’s religion". Consider the women here in America who may not be treated as property, but they are still forced to give birth to their rapist’s baby or they are denied critical medical care when their baby miscarries, because doctors fear they’ll go to jail if they take any action which the religious zealots in the government have outlawed. Consider the people who don’t fit the “binary gender model”, and as a result are denied the same rights that other people enjoy, again because the religious zealots make the laws, not the people who rely on reason. The Mormon church is especially guilty in this regard. If you're not familiar with the Mormon church's role in California's Prop 8 fiasco, Google that. I personally know several young LGBT people whose Mormon parents kicked them out of their home while they were still in high school. No, I’m not at all convinced that “churches don’t do that any more”.
My reply to friends who say, "False hope is better than no hope" is to ask them, "Is it really?" A meme I see frequently on the internet and with which I enthusiastically agree says, "The greatest threat this world faces is the widespread belief that someone else is going to solve our problems for us." This is true in both our personal lives and our global civilization. We need to wake up and recognize that some extra-terrestrial being is NOT going to solve our problems for us. Paying tithing instead of saving for a down payment on a home is NOT going to bring us propserity. The second coming of Christ is NOT going to save us from our failure to stop global warming, pollution, and overpopulation.
My reply to friends who say, “Why not just be polite, and stay silent so that you don’t offend people?” is to ask why I should be required to stay silent while the Mormons continue their world-wide missionary rampage? You’ve surely heard the saying, “All that’s required for evil to flourish is for good men to do nothing”. Even if you’re not convinced that the Mormon church is “evil”, how can you say that it should be allowed to flourish through its world wide missionary campaign while people who have escaped the chains of Mormonism and who’ve seen how the church is brainwashing its members, are required to sit by silently and say nothing? If the Mormons would stop their missionary efforts, then yes, I’ll gladly shut up. But as long as they’re allowed to spread their beliefs across the globe, and they're even praised for their missionary efforts, it’s only right and proper that people like me should be allowed to point out the glaring flaws in their doctrines and the appalling lack of integrity in their actions.
Don’t get me wrong. Mormon culture has some GREAT things going for it. I’ve seen firsthand how wonderfully members of the Mormon community support each other. My father was a bishop. I’ve seen him come home after visiting a member family that’s struggling, where he picks up the phone and calls the elder’s quorum president and tells him to find an elder who has the tools and the skills needed to fix a roof and then send that elder to the struggling family’s home because their roof leaks and they can’t afford to pay a company to fix it. There were times when my father told ME to go over to some poor widow’s home and mow her lawn or shovel her snow, and not charge her for it, because she didn’t have anyone in her life who could help her out with those things. What an incredible community that is! It’s one that I would genuinely LIKE to be part of again, and I have tremendous heartburn about saying anything to a Mormon which might cause them to leave such a wonderful community. But 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 doctrinal flaws and historical claims that are obviously false. You have to turn your thinking ability and decision making ability over to “the brethren”, even when they’ve clearly demonstrated that they have no more insight into the truth than you do… and in fact they have less, because they insist that things are true which very clearly and obviously are NOT true.
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. Although Mormon church members genuinely WANT to act with integrity, and in fact believe that they ARE acting with integrity, their thought processes have been so thoroughly controlled by the church for such a long time, they don't recognize that the evidence sitting right in front of their faces shows conclusively that the church has been lying to them since the days of Joseph Smith and continues to do so today. As a result, church members are unable to act with TRUE integrity. I'm sharing my story because I care deeply about the people I left behind. I want to add my small voice to the growing chorus who can help my Mormon friends become able to act with true integrity, free from the blinders they've been wearing for such a long time.
Also... my Mormon friends have been bearing their testimonies to me for so very many years in hopes of improving my life, it's time I returned the favor.
;)