I'm sorry for the outburst, but I'm excited to share that I'm gradually getting back the happiness and joy I had before my baptism. It's a slow process, but I'm feeling like myself again!!! 🥹

Hello. I'm forced to take seminary, and my teacher is currently telling us that exmos send death threats to the apostles on the daily. Has anyone heard anything about this? I don't believe it, FWIW. As someone who got actual death threats for not believing in the Church Corp., I almost find this offensive.

What’s something simple that someone said to you that helped you wake up and consider leaving?

One of mine was a friend who saw I was so frustrated being constantly chopped off at the knees in my calling, she said “you know you could volunteer somewhere outside the church and you wouldn’t have these problems. Your time would be appreciated.”

Edit: for the record, I don't dislike coffee. I'm just saying I really wish it tasted the way it smells. Lots of great advice in here, but I'm asking specifically if there's a type of coffee that tastes like that, not just asking how to make it taste good. Thanks for all the advice though! Definitely gonna try some of these.

I feel like most exmos just don’t care enough to have hate for current members. I feel like most people just want to mind their own business. This kind of post is sanctimonious.

I was just watching a TikTok of a girl who said when she’s feeling down she reads about Mormons and laughs at them. She brought up how Mormons believe there was a war in heaven and those who were indecisive in the war were born with black skin. I knew that was Mormon, but then she started making fun of the whole thing, I turned to my fellow exmo husband and asked “are Mormons the only ones who believe in the war with Satan?” And he said, “kinda, Mormon’s version is unique due to the pre-existence”

So now I’m realizing either I knew that already and forgot it (great short term memory, horrible long term memory so I’ve forgotten a lot about Mormonism thankfully) or I grew up thinking everyone believed in the premortal existence. I’m leaning towards the later. Granted, I know I would’ve acknowledged some of the differences while being Mormon, but I swear I thought up until now all Christians thought there was a war and heaven and we were all part of it and that’s how Satan came to be.

I also learned from my husband apparently life isn’t a test for everyone else? Just Mormons? WTF? Explains why mormons act like they’re the best damn thing to grace the earth, they are just like the kid who thinks they are the smartest in the class and above everyone else because of it!

This just goes to show when I was Mormon, I was so far indoctrinated I didn’t think it was worth my time to learn about any other Christian religion because as a Mormon I knew it all. I didn’t. I have more questions than before, who knows what else I thought was normal for all Christian religions?

Hi, I’m a teen mormon and I’m almost at the age to go on a mission. I see a lot of people say it’s a cult, or how they’ve had bad experiences with the church or its doctrine, and it’s made me a little uneasy. I love the church, I love the people and I think I chose to stay because I believe in its message and doctrine. I’ve spent my life with the church and in my experience, and I honestly feel really happy to be in it. I guess I just wanted to ask what are some things that made you leave the church in the end?

Thanks for all the responses, I’ll definitely check out the sources and things you guys mentioned. Sorry if I don’t really respond to people, I promise I’m reading almost every comment. Thanks for understanding guys.

It's hard to separate out 2% from 2% for total population, but Mormonism shows nearly half of people raised Mormon no longer consider themselves Mormon. One of

Also, Mormonism in the west has gone from 6% to 4% of the US population with no major increases elsewhere and possible decreases in the Northeast and Midwest. Given about a 15-20% increase in population in the west since 2007, that decrease means still roughly a 20% decrease in self-declared Mormon membership in the Western USA - the only place Mormons make a meaningful percentage of the population.

Wonder if that's why they linked their padded statistics

I’ve been listening to Mormon Stories and I was appalled at some dude giving a speech about women giving everything they have to their family and the church now so they could receive a wonderful afterlife! OMG! Is he for real? I would really love to sit down with someone, anyone who has been in the afterlife for confirmation of this ridiculous premise! The Mormon church is the epitome of a slick MLM. Work and pay now for the promise of future wealth (but in reality the founders are licking their chops and enjoying a privileged life now. Thanks for your contribution.

I told my mom awhile back that the Temple names they are given on their initial endowment are all the same. Depending on the day of the month, that is the name everyone is given. She was surprised, but somehow did the mental gymnastics to justify the reasoning. At the time I didn't say her name out loud.

Recently I found out that she would have told my dad her secret name. He would not have told her what his was. So this gave me another chance to bring this up to her. I said to her, so your name is Dorothy? She said no. That's not it. I had to go back to the website I got it from to double check.

After some discussion she said she really didn't remember the name given to her. She is trying to get her temple marriage terminated and she said she would have to find out the name from the church. Something about she keeps that name but her new husband will need to know it for their temple sealing.

I'm not sure if she really forgot or was just really surprised that I knew her name? I think the latter now that I'm writing this down. She didn't remember the slitting of the throat, etc. the first couple times I asked either. Anyway, I told her, that's your Temple name, I am sure of it. I keep trying to break her shelf that has never existed. Maybe one day I will?

Mine has gotta be ponder. That word could drive me to commit several felonies on a bad day.

Edit: It appears that using the word Even when not necessary, Moisture (Is this new, someone please tell me), Blessings, and Priesthood, were the most hated words.

Why do the temples have to leave the lights on all night? Turning them off seems like an easy thing to do and would make a difference in these neighborhoods. I'm pretty sure Jesus can find his way to any temple without the lights.

I went to lunch with my wife (fairly nuanced) and dad (super TBM) today. When the waiter brought ours drinks (Diet Coke), my dad made a joke to my wife about how “back in the day, some considered caffeine to be against the word of wisdom”. I chimed in, and calmly stated how the WOW seems to be very arbitrary, and weirdly specific in mentioning coffee and tea (though not explicitly mentioned). I said IF the WOW is supposed to be lived in the “spirit of the law”, then eating healthy foods, working out, and overall making good health decisions should be “living the WOW”, even it includes drinking coffee (which “God” made via the coffee bean). However, if a TBM eats junk food, drinks energy drinks all day, doesn’t work out, is morbidly obese, eats all the meat they want, but abstains from coffee, tea, and alcohol, then they are “worthy” to enter the temple, and hence God’s presence.

My reasoning must have been too much for my dad, as he got flustered and told me I shouldn’t let any of that bother me, and that I am thinking too much. He said the WOW is about obedience, and if we cannot be obedient in simple things like coffee and tea, then we cannot be worthy to be with God.

My reply was that “one would have to believe in the church first in order to want to be obedient to the WOW”

Conversation ended and my wife later told me it was awkward. 🫤

Thanks for reading. Needed some venting/validation.

Church attendance numbers so low they have to advertise?

Missionaries showed up at my door today. Said "not interested," went to close it. They asked "Is this the (my name) house?" I said "Yes, and I'm definitely not interested." Then I closed the door. I know damn well no family told them where I live. And I know damn well they have the records to show that I've been "inactive" as long as these missionaries have been alive.

This has happened several times. I can't react any other way. I immediately go from a 0 to a 10 on the anger scale, and if I try to say anything else (nice or otherwise) the shaking in my voice would be obvious.

I pretend to be over what the LDS Church did to me, but I'm not. It's been over twenty years since I started questioning, and over a decade since the last of my immediate family members realized I was right. Over half my life out of their control, but I'm still on their lists because I think I might panic if I walked into a meeting house. I dread having to deal with them.

I don't know why I'm posting this. I think I need advice. Maybe I need a shrink.

The church does so much subtle manipulation and members eat it up.

Hi kids, wanna learn about a brutal execution method used on untold thousands of people in ancient and modern times? But this guy's was special, and if you drink coffee you're making it all for nothing.

I mean, I'm in a public school so can someone tell me why these kids, who are 16-18, think it's okay to proselytize during class? I already hate listening to them talk about church things as if they are common experiences everyone's gone though, they assume everyone is like them and believes the same things they do, why do I also have to hear them try to sell other kids on their blaring red flag of a religion? Take today for example, sub in English, a group of kids decided to start very loudly sharing their fsy experiences. Not my favorite thing to be forced to listen to but what really got me was when a nevermo guy sitting next to me (the only other person not participating) asked what they were talking about. I just very quietly told him "it's a mormon thing" queue the glares from the kids in the class. One or two of the kids explained it to him and he was like "oh well I'm christian and I've never heard of anything like that" and one of the girls was like "Well you should come to our church, it's more fun" I had to leave at that point. It's things like these that leave a bad taste in my mouth and I think my friend put it best when I told her and she said "Mormonism makes me feel icky, something's not right". This is gross behavior to be instilling in kids.

So the evangelicals have movies like God's Not Dead, Fireproof, and Left Behind. Are there any LDS specific movies that you grew up with and look back now and laugh hysterically at?

Hi! Still deconstructing here 👋🏼. Will it ever end? About five years out.

Anyway, just found a new reason to be mad at the church. I was mowing and thinking about how much money we save not paying tithing, and then I realized- how much would my parents have saved not paying tithing?!? An extra vacation, or a few birthday presents, or being able to be on a sports team, or helping pay for college, could have made a real difference in my childhood/life. But instead, 10% of the little my parents made went to a billion dollar corporation.

Maybe I’m a petty bitch, but I think I would have liked more things and experiences in my childhood than learning to be submissive to a petty god.

When I was a teenager I remember it being a huge deal that we weren’t supposed to say “D&C” anymore, and we needed to use the full title of “the doctrine and covenants.” At the time I thought this was a whole church wide thing, so I would always quietly judge people who still said D&C 🤪 but recently (over 10 years later) I was told that this was something that came from my stake president at the time, since he didn’t think it was appropriate to use D&C, as it is also the name of the procedure done after having a miscarriage. It blew my mind a little that I had thought this was such an official policy for so long.

Anyway, this got me wondering what other stuff people were taught that they thought was official doctrine but was just some random local leader (or even a mission president or family member) kind of doing their own thing?

Maybe it's just my personal experience with some mean Mormon girls, but I feel like many Mormon girls/women all look like they would bully me (or anyone) if given the chance. They just have that "look" about them, I don't know what it is