Hi! My name is Paul Mesler
I am a writer, jazz pianist and fraud investigator.
About me
I was born in Salt Lake City and was raised in Pennsylvania. My mother had been a convert before she met my father in Utah. She had been living in Pennsylvania when the missionaries contacted her. I served a mission in Portugal and was briefly married in the temple. Was happily divorced from that for several years, and now I'm living a happier Mormon-free life with my new wife and kid.
On my shelf
On the Mormon Spectrum
# Why I left More stories of 'Why I left' the Mormon church
I always suspected that the Church was a scam. I remember one morning in seminary class, I raised my hand and asked "how do we know Joseph Smith didn't just write the Book of Mormon?" My teacher wasn't amused. Years go by and I'm just going along to get along all the while suffering from toxic perfectionism and scrupulosity which took a toll on my mental health. Fortunately, around 2015, I got a job that allowed me to not work on Sunday's, and I noticed that I was happier not going to Church. Then on some random night, I saw a post someone made on Facebook about Joseph Smith telling members that he needed to marry underage women because he was commanded by an angel with a flaming sword. I had no idea this happened. I served a mission, and not once, did I hear this story. When I saw the story, I did more digging and went down a rabbit-hole. I thought, what else is the Church hiding? Then I came across the CES letter and read about the different First Vision stories, and asking myself why I was never taught any of the versions before 1839. Then one night, I watched a documentary on the Book of Abraham which I found on Youtube. After watching the documentary, I remember sitting on my couch with my jaw on the floor saying out loud, "that motherf*cker lied." I was pissed. The Church had gaslit and whitewashed their history. Something sinister was going on.
That wasn't the only thing. A member of the Stake Presidency, a family friend who I had known for years, found out from my mother about the doubts I was having. One Sunday, he took me into a room and brought up all of my concerns. I brought up the angel with the flaming sword and how Joseph used this to coerce underage women into marrying him. He looked at me and agreed that these things were indefensible. He said that if the Book of Mormon were not true, then yes, Joseph Smith would be a fraud and this whole thing would be a sham. I respect him for admitting that to me. He could have doubled down and denied everything or twisted the narrative in a way that leaders tend to do, but he didn't. Problem is, I began to research the historicity and validity of the Book of Mormon, and needless to say, it was bereft of any truth. There is no DNA, historical, linguistic, or archeological evidence whatsoever that supports the Book of Mormon. It was clearly made up and nothing more than cringey Protestant Bible fan fiction. I love Mark Twain's quote about the Book of Mormon. He said, "...I brought away a copy from Salt Lake. The book is a curiosity to me, it is such a pretentious affair, and yet so "slow," so sleepy; such an insipid mess of inspiration. It is chloroform in print. If Joseph Smith composed this book, the act was a miracle — keeping awake while he did it was, at any rate.”
I think that the biggest item that broke my shelf was the way the Church had treated my mother. I learned later in life that after my mother had converted, she sadly had been SA'd and because of the Church's hateful teachings, she was excommunicated. The Church shamed her and I don't think she ever got over that. Because she had been so brainwashed and indoctrinated, she was later rebaptized, but I believe she spent the rest of her life being overly pious, neurotic, and scrupulous to the point where she even placed the Church above her children's needs. The Church instills this toxic shame in its members and expects them to perform good works to work off their "debt." I watched the Church emotionally, psychologically and financially abuse her. As far as I'm concerned, I'm going to war with the Church. I am currently writing a book, a hit piece on the Church really, and will be launching an Ex Mormon podcast shortly. It is my hope that I can help people leave the Church and convince others not to join. Even if my book and podcast make 1 or 2 people leave or never join the Church, I will feel that I have succeeded.
Questions about Mormons My Answers to Questions about Mormonism
#Link to this answer of 'Could you give us a brief overview of Mormonism?' by truthfinder23 Could you give us a brief overview of Mormonism? See more answers about 'Could you give us a brief overview of Mormonism?'
Mormonism, like many cults, is an incredibly toxic and controlled environment that preys on people's minds. Like citizens in North Korea, Mormons are restricted from accessing outside literature that may not be "faith promoting". This is just an abusive tactic the Church uses to control their deceptive narrative about the Church's history and who Joseph Smith really was. Essentially, Smith was a conman even before he founded the Church. He was known to dabble in gold-digging and folk magic. Then he lied about seeing a heavenly being and then beings in several convoluted stories about a supposed First Vision. Then he duped Martin Harris into paying for the publication of the Book of Mormon which Joseph claimed he received from gold plates that were given to him by an angel named Moroni. Just like in the South Park Episode about Mormons, Lucy Harris suspected Smith was full of it and hid 116 pages to test whether he could duplicate his translation of the Book of Lehi. He couldn't because he was making it all up.
Anyway, the entire religion is based on these gold plates that Smith claims he received. It tells of a Jewish family that left Jerusalem around 600 b.c. and travelled to the Americas even though there isn't a shred of DNA evidence that links Native Americans to Jewish ancestors. Mormons teach that just like in the middle east, God established prophets in the Americas that would testify of Christ. After Christ resurrected on the other side of the world, he came and visited the American Continent. Mormons believe that because they believe in both scriptures from both sides of the world that their concept of Christianity is pure and complete. They believe that God provided the Book of Mormon to reestablish Christ's one true church, the same one that was destroyed after all of the apostles had been martyred.
Mormonism became popular because Smith understood what was popular at the time i.e. folk magic, local fascination with Native American artifacts, the true origin of Native Americans, the Second Awakening or religious interest that had been sweeping across the Northeast, and he smashed all of these elements together with some cherry-picked Protestant teachings creating a weird, occult-like Christian hybrid religion that appealed to the masses. He was a marketing genius and capitalized on that.
Mormons believe that we can know if something is true if we feel the Holy Spirit. Problem is the way they identify feelings of the Spirit is inconsistent and not verifiably true. Missionaries are taught to relate Smith's First Vision in a really overly sentimental way so they can evoke emotions from investigators. When investigators feel something, really because of the missionary's performance, they trick people into thinking that what they felt was the Holy Spirit and therefore what the missionaries were saying must be true. This is the hook and that is how they get their mark.
Really this type of emotional manipulation sets the standard within the Church. Leaders will continually lie and manipulate members into believing the Church is true. They gaslight and create a bubble that does not allow members to actually know the truth about their own religion or its history.
#Link to this answer of 'Do you believe the Book of Mormon is true?' by truthfinder23 Do you believe the Book of Mormon is true? See more answers about 'Do you believe the Book of Mormon is true?'
Absolutely not. It is 100% horseshit.
#Link to this answer of 'Has the church been dishonest with its own history?' by truthfinder23 Has the church been dishonest with its own history? See more answers about 'Has the church been dishonest with its own history?'
In every conceivable way. Members have been kept in the dark for years about the true history of the translation process of the Book of Mormon until recently. We were lied to about Smith's First Vision not knowing that he recorded 4 different versions. There are more lies, but the CES letter covers most if not all of them.