Noone wants to help clean anymore.

Well there’s this book, you see, it proves the story is all true. Cause a book is a physical proof that everything we’re claiming can be backed up by a story. The story isn’t based on verifiable facts, so at the end of the book you’ll have to pray and hope your feelings are warm and fuzzy. But if that doesn’t work, just know there are thousands of us who DO believe it is true. You can trust us. Oh, and we’ll need some money from you to prove you believe it is true too. Think of it as fire insurance.

Found on Instagram (targeted ad)

As missionaries you are told that you are "endowed with the power of god" and "protected by angels." Because of this, me and many of my companions had this pre-concieved notion that we were safe from all danger as long as we were being faithful. We were never on alert, walked in dangerous parts of the city without any sort of caution, and made ourselves very vulnerable to potentially dangerous people.

We had knocked on the door of a certain mans house. He immidiately gave us his utmost attention and became a regular person we taught. During the first visit he said that he only gave time to speak with us because my companion looked exactly like his girlfriend who had died as a teenager and whom he still loved. Mind you, he was in his 40's, married and had teen kids. Ignoring the warning signs of why this man wanted to visit with us, we continued as we saw it as a blessing from god if anybody gave us attention no matter from where or how.

After a few weeks of teaching him, he came to our church around 8:30 pm one day. We were just about to walk home when he came, so we were standing at the door. Still, I had no caution, fear, or awareness of the dangerous situation we were in. We were excited to see him, as we got talking slowly the conversation started to get very sexual and he started walking closer and inching us back into the church. He was a very large man, he did construction and was about 6'2" and me and my companion were very small. I couldn't understand everything he was saying because it was another language, but my companion was getting every word. I heard something like "Girls like you would love to be r*ped by me. who wouldn't? c'mon go inside so we can do something." I was a little confused because how could we possibly be put in a dangerous situation? We're missionaries and protected. My companion started to look visibly stressed.

Right when it seemed he was about to push us into the church and close the door behind him, a male church member that lived right next door walked out, another male church member rode his bike passed, and another was walking the other direction. They were all excited by the coincidence of coming across eachother and started talking to us, the guy, and eachother. I thought 'of course, a miracle. What else would I expect from God?'. so me, I had no fear and felt like I had just recieved a confirmation of my "faith". Granted, this was a very very small town, and the chances of running into members was on the daily just because of how small it was, so the odds of this happening werent impossible, but we were definitely lucky that we were saved from this guy's threats.

Anyway, this guy got really flustered and red faced, and left before the church members could really even have a conversation with him. Once we said bye to every one, we went back into the church, locked the doors, and my companion broke down crying. She started telling me some of the things he was saying (which I still didn't really understand fully cause it was in another language). She said she felt so violated and unsafe and that we need to stop teaching that man.

Because the town was so small, and this man knew where we lived, we were in constant fear for the next few months. We continued to see him around town, walking, driving, at stores and so on. We tried to tell the ward members but they were like "wellll.... that sucks". And for some reason we didn't think to tell the mission president but "told" God instead through prayer. If I had known that "God" wasn't enough to save us from something like this, and that I didn't have some special power of protection being a missionary, I would have told my mission president and he would have moved us out and replaced us with boy missionaries. But for some reason, whenever I had dangerous situations as a missionary, or mental health issues, I just prayed harder hoping that God's angels would be the one to help and fix my situtation.

Because of how we randomly got saved from getting r*ped, i had a false sense of confidence the rest of my mission and got lucky that nothing happened. It wasn't until I got home, and after a couple years of processing that I realized the true danger that I was constantly putting myself in as a missionary. And many sisters arent as lucky as I was, and I feel like either they or the church keep many of these intances a secret. Because the basis at which missionaries are protected under is "faith", if something bad happens to them, it is because they lacked faith, thus weren't protected. And who would want to admit that they "lacked faith".

It's really concerning to me that the church is sending out 18 year old girls into the world now, with a false sense of security. Seriously, sisters often didn't check their backs, created relationships with lonely men, and would walk outside at night often. These sisters are also typically very attractive (as we are instructed to look nice and be extremely friendly), especially when they are in foreign countries where girls can stand out. Specifically were I served, white women, and young girls, are often fetishized and stalked. I would notice some men peering behind windows and walls every time we left the apartment at one of the areas where I lived. But I thought nothing of it because well, "the missionaries are protected", and I knew that I was being faithful.

Mission horror stories and mental health problems have become so normalized that I could tell this story in church and it would be faith promoting. They need to understand that the world is an extremely dangerous place, and people don't care about the tag that says "Jesus Christ" on it. All they see are vulnerable, naive, beautiful young women that smile and say yes to almost anything.

Me as a TBM: I’m so glad I don’t drink coffee and stay away from alcohol. Think of all the money I’m saving!

(While I give up 10% of my gross income every year)

My sweet parents just got called to be mission presidents. I am feeling so many emotions. Mainly I am upset that my parents are going to spend 3 years raising other peoples kids. My little sister is going with them, which is so heartbreaking for me. Has anyone else gone through this? Needing advice<3

For years, no matter which ward I was in, I had a dual role of YM leader and scout master. Every time I moved, boom, the same double calling. When I started my PIMO phase it was largely because I had moved again and didn't want to get stuck with it again, so I became less active, only really attending when my (ex)wife was angry with me. It was exhausting.

The correct answer to my question is every calling, but what were the calling you dreaded or one you were lucky to never get?

I've been investigating the church and my baptism is coming up. I just passed the interview. I don't know if I really "believe" in the teachings (or in anything, really) but there's community, it's something to do, and I really want to see the secret temple stuff and celestial room eventually. Like I'm otherwise bored and isolated (I'm caretaking an aging relative) and I've always been intrigued by different religions and cultures, so I know I'll eventually leave the church later on down the road. And I don't wanna give up coffee, and I'm bisexual and agender (and afab as well), so there's lots of good reasons to avoid it.

But again, I'm bored, and I have zero social life, and I live in a rural area right now where there's basically nothing going on but churches and the Dollar General.

Edit: I forgot to mention the missionaries and my Mormon friends who are all very nice people and I'd hate to disappoint them, etc.

Edit 2: I called off the baptism. Thanks to everyone who reminded me I can be a better person than this.

Only in Mormonism do you need a custom, theological definition for the word 'translation'—because a book of canonized scripture, complete with a heading claiming it’s a translation, turned out to be... anything but.

Hey guys, economy's a bit rough right now and I'm looking to sell my tokens for money. I don't expect to get back all of the tithing I spent to get them, but I know you can buy anything in this world with money, so I'd like to make a little back. Where have you guys had the best luck selling yours?

I grew up in the church and one thing that severely effected me growing up was the ammount of existencial anxiety the church gave me. As soon as your old enough to think the importance of what's going to happen to you after death is drilled into your system. I remember the ammount of times in lessons we would talk about the afterlife and what happens after death and living for all eternity. As a 10 year old I would walk out of those lessons feeling severe anxiety. I remember trying to comprehend what existing forever would be like and having severe paronoia over whether I would make it to the celestial kingdom or not. I was so stressed I would mess up and have to spend all of eternity somewhere I didn't want to be. I was a child already trying to prepare for my death. Even worse was when they talked about the second coming. I have one specific memory of having to leave during a lesson of them talking about it because I felt like I was going to have a panic attack. You are litteraly talking to kids about this huge world altering existencial event and claiming it could happen in their life time. I remember hearing it from my grandma that she was certain I would live to see the second coming. I remember hearing people claim that we are getting closer than ever to it. Anytime people said stuff like that my anxiety would spike through the roof. To me it wasn't some amazing news and some incredible event I would get to experience. It was basically a promise i'm not going to be able to live a normal life and at any point it could be interrupted by this huge world altering event. It was not some miracle promise to me. I was genuinely terrified.

I just saw a clip of a Stetson Done talking about an LDS Professor who got upset with him during a class trip because Stetson brought along with him herbal tea and the Professor was having nothing to do with it because to him, the professor, tea was tea and is against the Word of Wisdom.

That got me thinking of one of my humorous experiences at BYU. I stayed up late studying for a class and so the next day I was tired and had rushed off to my history class, just spending enough time to shower, shave, and brush my teeth. When I got to class I took a seat on the front row as I often did. During the lecture my professor kept looking at me oddly. I couldn’t figure out why until about halfway through class. I was tired, so I yawned and stretched. While stretching, my left hand brushed along my left ear and that’s when I realized I forgot to take my earring out before class. I just got the look and nothing else because at the time the BYU Dress Code never addressed male students and earrings. Funny though, the following semester BYU revised its Dress Code and specifically mentioned male students could not wear earrings in class or during a class function.

Did you have a comical experience dealing with the LDS culture or rules?

I’m sure “Brother Joseph” would have been able to translate it if given the chance.

For real. It's literally defined as exclusive worship of one god while acknowledging the existence of others.

Mormons exclusively worship the godhead, which isn't trinitarianism it's merely sparkling divine paradox, because it's not from the Nicean region of Turkey.

Not even joking, the Wikipedia entry literally identifies mormonism as monolarty.

If you grew up in the church you really don't see how brainwashed you are until you're out. When I was still a member I had a former friend message me hate mail, and part of what they dug into me for was being in a cult.

Which just made me stay in longer than I probably would have because it "proved" that the church was under attack? At least now I can see that they made up or exaggerated everything in that message except the cult part, but since it made me stay longer it's the part of the message I'm still the most resentful about.

I completely get criticism of the church at large and make sure certain weird practices aren't normalized, but sometimes I feel like there's gotta be a balance so people don't get trapped longer.

I'm probably not making much sense with what I'm trying to communicate here, and I guess I should ask myself who should I be more frustrated with:

Someone I used to know who felt hurt and took their anger out on me inappropriately, or the church that groomed me to the point where that message hurt more than it should have.

Idk guys, I don't like it when my brain prompts me to think about why I stayed, so I thought putting this experience out here in this community might help.

I recognize Dan McClellan's value as a scholar. My issue isn't his intelligence or credentials. It's his apparent double standard.

Dan routinely makes aggressive "Alright, let's see it" videos challenging pastors, Christian apologists, and religious leaders for allowing dogma to override biblical scholarship.

But why don't we see that same intensity directed toward his own? Ward Radio? Oaks? The many biblical blenders of Mormonsim?

Dan claims he criticizes Mormonism. And he does. But occasional critical comments are not the same as publicly confronting LDS leaders and apologists with the same intensity he directs toward other denominations.

He also claims he isn't a Mormon scholar. You don't have to be a Mormon scholar to call out your own church biblical dogma. Or does Mormonsim have no biblical dogma? Or is Dan just protecting the biblical Mormon dogma?

So why the difference? Is he protecting his own dogma? Is he concerned about remaining in good standing with the institution he continues to financially support through tithing?

I don't know his motivations. But these are legitimate questions.

You cannot build a platform challenging religious dogma while appearing to shield your own religious institution from that same scrutiny and expect people not to question your impartiality.

And what troubles me is watching former Mormons defend this apparent double standard. We've already experienced what happens when people protect religious authorities from uncomfortable questions. Why would we defend that behavior now?

Dan doesn't need to leave Mormonism. But if he's going to challenge everyone else's dogma, he should be willing to confront his own with the same intensity.

Otherwise, "Data Over Dogma" risks becoming exactly what it claims to oppose: a commitment to challenging other people's beliefs while protecting your own.

PIMO in the UK here. Thought some of you might find this interesting.

• I recently found out that the church changed the bin contracts because apparently the previous one was too expensive
• This has apparently happened for multiple buildings so it's clearly not a local decision
• We are now not allowed to put food waste in any bin in church
• Someone must be assigned to take food waste home after an activity
• Bin liners must be see through so the bin people can check that there's no food in them
• Kinda sucks coz it totally restricts activities involving food (the best ones)

It's ridiculous. Feels like they want to reduce their membership numbers lmfao.

The most defining LDS commandments (specificaly the Law of Chastity and the Word of Wisdom) center around demonizing your own body and its needs. Don't view porn, you'll get desensitized and crave stronger porn! Don't drink coffee or alcohol or smoke tobacco, you'll get addicted! Don't do drugs, you'll become dependant on them! The church even explicitly teaches that its commandments and laws aren't necessarily centered around common-sense health principles, but instead are centered around the idea of "agency". In the 2019 Liahona, (the church approved magazine), it states that the primary blessing for obeying things like the WoW are "freedom from harmful addictions and more control over your life."

The implication is clear: if you give in to your bodies wants or needs, you will be shackled by addiction and lose control of your life! It all centers around this assumption that your body's urges are inherently evil and/or insatiable, and unless you artificially inhibit yourself as advised by your religion, then you'll become a sort of "runaway train" with no brakes, doomed to crash and burn and kill everyone on board.

Well, I'm out of the church 6 months, I've broken every commandment in the book, and I've been pleased to inform my remaining Mormon friends that appetites (at least, my appetites) are indeed NOT bottomless. Turns out, my body has natural limits for everything, just like it does with food and water. If I'm hungry on Thanksgiving, and I eat, I don't suddenly get more hungry. I'm sated, I stop eating, and I usually go take a fat nap and feel great. Sure, there's risks that I can have a sugar crash after eating too much desert, and I might find highly processed foods more delicious than plain vegetables. But that doesn't mean I have to cut myself off from food altogether. It just means I need to pay attention to what my body is telling me about itself.

It's the same with everything else. It took a couple mistakes, but my body eventually got clued in to the fact that aclohol is poisonous af, and now I just don't have much appetite for it. Same with nicotine: that shit makes me feel nasty. Sure, once in a while it would be fun to smoke, but then my body reminds me how nauseas it felt last time, and I lose my appetite for it. When I watch porn, I don't magically crave stronger and stronger porn, and it hasn't killed the sexual dynamics with my girlfriends. When I have premarital sex, I don't magically become a sex addict. If anything, any compulsivity I experienced while in the church towards things like coffee or smoking or alcohol or porn has completely abated since my departure.

Turns out: my body is pretty good at regulating itself. When its needs are met, it stops hyperfixating on stuff. But when I deny myself food, I get hungrier. When I deny myself water, I get thirstier. When I deny myself sex, I get more horny. When I deny myself coffee, I crave other stimulants (sugar, or other caffeinated beverages). The very principles that the church teaches about abstinance serve to make its rules harder to keep.

I recently opened up to a wolf in sheep's clothing someone who pretended to be a good friend from TSCC about my severe anorexia and he's just been intentionally hurtful ever since. That resulted in me telling him to go F himself and turn in his Recommend when he finished, and mentioning the other things we refer to the MFMC as on here, should I just commit to being an apostate at this point? Make sure the next time he sees me I have a cigarette and a latte in my hand, that sort of thing? Or do I try to get creative with something that the church would not be upset about to explain what's MFMC and what does TSCC mean? 😉

I kinda want to offer to get him a putting the d*CK in Melchizedek shirt, but I'd he worth the money or do I just block everyone but my Bishop who is actually a cool dude!?

🤦‍♂️

It's been a process of getting to the right objective mindset and now moving past Mormonism, but last year was the peak of my deconstruction. I also got divorced and graduated from BYU within the last year and a half.

I'm living with TBM family temporarily and figuring out finances hoping to move out soon, I was going to wait until grad school but things have changed. I'm really close with my family or at least I always have been and want to stay close, but it's been really complicated with my parents, and most my siblings are either on mission or at BYU or in high school rn. I've sort of talked to my parents about where I'm at agnostically but they don't get it, I haven't delved into specifics much about Mormonism out of respect. Living with them makes things complicated because they don't treat me like an adult sometimes already but then the Mormon framework on top of that is just a pain in the ass sometimes. My parents will sometimes wake me up on Sundays kind of expecting me to go to church and trying to always involve me, and then they always thank me for going and it's awkward just because church stuff always comes up with church, my parents' callings, my siblings on mission or BYU or seminary etc. One parent got really excited about the BYU medical school and I just wanted to be like "no way in hell" but I just gave a "hm, interesting" of implicit disagreement.

Is this a good book to give family members the hint without being rude or having to go into details about my deconstruction? The thing is, I'm happy to and we've tried having sort of similar conversations, but it didn't go well and they didn't want to LISTEN they just wanted to FIX IT. Idec if they stay in the church I mean I'll probably resign officially at some point but I respect them and their beliefs and even a lot of things about the church that are really good, it's just not TRUE and it's not for me anymore. I want to have conversations with them and I guess I'm having trouble maintaining a close authentic relationship while trying to avoid being open.

So I know I need to be open with them to have that relationship, I just don't know how to avoid the extreme of slamming them with "anti-mormon" evidence and the other extreme of constantly biting my tongue walking on eggshells and letting them assume that I'm just a poor lost little sheep whos depressed and cant feel the spirit because divorce is hard, or because I'm living in sin because I started dating a nevermo (i think they're supportive but they worry bc they feel like they dont know her well enough, and i think they assume i am having coffee and sex and it's also weird because it's like they want to ask me but they're afraid to, and now from the outside i realize that privacy at least in my mormon family was never really respected bc it's none of their business, and also it's weird how if the person youre dating is mormon they dont really question all this shit i wonder if they already forgot the way my TBM ex treated me? there are more important compatibility factors and shared values than the ones spoonfed in mormonism sorry got a bit ranty)

I know John Dehlin recommended this book, has anyone had any success stories or even opposite stories where it blew up in your face? If I get it for my parents I don't want to frame it as if i'm leaving the church bc they'll freak out, I want to say something along the lines of I've heard that this book is helpful for keeping loved ones connected across a divide of differing perspectives on the spectrum of belief.

I was 17 when some missionaries started showing up. When I was 17, I already had so many questions and doubt about religion, and the sister missionaries asked many times about baptism and I kept saying no. Then, one day I was like, “what do I have to lose by getting dunked in some water for a few seconds?” So I got baptized, not knowing the absolute mess I had gotten myself into. Needless to say a few years later it was an even bigger mess trying to get myself out. Like many others who left this cult, I don’t believe in any God anymore. I should’ve known it was a whole bunch of nonsense when Mormons drank energy drinks but drew the line at coffee. 💀

So grateful I never paid this church any tithing. The perks of being unemployed at 17! 😂

As an Exmo I was raised under a rock when it comes to things like this and I can't really tell what to do when I go to the club! Kind of awkward standing around a bunch of people dancing to music, wearing clothes, drinking and doing suggestive things that I was raised to believe were all wrong. I don't know how to make myself comfortable and feel unsafe for some reason. I of course now know nothing is inherently wrong with any of this stuff like Mormonism would like to say. Any advice?

Growing up Mormon, I always saw the church as being monotheistic.

I was thinking about it, and now wonder if LDS doctrine teaches multiple gods.

Some supporting observations about many Mormon gods, a list:

- Heavenly Father is a god.

- BOM says Jesus is a god.

- Holy Ghost is a god?

- Heavenly Mother is a god.

- 'Elohim' means plural gods

- Brigham young said Adam is a god

- As man is, God once was. So, heavenly father had a creator God

- Faithful LDS will become gods (lots and lots of gods)

-Genises says man made in 'our' (plural) image, so multiple creator gods

- Book of Abraham refers to Gods plural creating the world several times

- Joseph Smith king follet discourse gives more background on the multiple gods doctrine

- D&c teaches Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are gods

-D&c 121 even more gods are revealed by Joseph Smith

I lost count, but there seem to be lots of gods in Mormon theology

Other deities and angels

In addition to gods, other deities and angels with some god- like attributes

- Angel Moroni

- John the Baptist

- Peter James and John

- The 3 Nephites

- destroying angel

My tbm mom pushes back when I say I don't believe in any of her gods, she says just one god?

What do you think?