As im scrolling through this subreddit I'm a somewhat taken back by the amount of people who apostated and adopted staunch atheistic world views. Now theres a reason why I said "somewhat" because I get to a certain degree that after departing from a theist cult you hold resentment towards the people and every single belief that they affirm; and the emotional damage that was done serves as fuel to keep this anger, spite, distain going but... on the other head I don't get the rational slide of it because it doesn't make sense to disregard all theist frameworks (religions that believe in God) and even take a stand against them based on isolated anecdotal experience with one cult.

I really want to emphasize I understand the emotional trauma and I seriously do empathize with anyone going through it and maybe honestly I might be missing something, and maybe this take might be coming form a lack of empathy and understand and just pure rational. anyway im really curious to here responses on this

I’m a single girl and I have to pack and donate so many of my furniture and stuff. It’s been super taxing on my body and my impulse (oddly enough since I’ve been ex-Mo for 5+ years) is to ask the church for help. I could easily give them a fake name and number but damn I could use some help rn

After leaving the cult I was born in. I began being more and more interested in learning about cults. During this time around my job I started noticing the Mormons like to visit the store I work in (at the time at least).

Then I started off small. Just shouting: “Oh look the cult members are here!!!” “Watch out for these cultists!”

Afterwards I started getting a little braver (mind you this while on the job).

Me: Hey are you guys with the cult?

The guy who married a 14 yo. sympathizers: Well no we are from the church of jesu…

Me: Yeah this is it.

Afterwards I got a little more extreme (this is outside of work though)

“Hey did you know Mr. Smee I mean Smith married a 14 yo?”

Hell once I convinced a black guy to stand next to me while I read Jacob 3:8-9 to them and asked them to explain the passage.

Recently I spotted them in my neighborhood and the pair started groaning when they saw me.

I’m new to Utah…is this real? What does this actually mean? I’m not judging, I’m genuinely curious? I’m also curious how that is a loop hole? Again….no judgement!

I feel like I keep hearing about more swingers, events and places that are popping up in Utah.

Is Utah the best state for swinging or does it just feel that way?

Curious…would love feedback

The LDS Word of Wisdom makes no sense to me. If it’s the Lord’s law of health, how is soda not on the list of no-nos?

Hello everyone I have two questions:
1. I see for years missionaires primarly guys who invite people at language lessons or movie. So if somebody visited Moldova, how was your stay here? What did you like or disliked?

1. I read about mormons being hired as secret agents, did you have any relatives who were agents?

edit: pretty ironic the typo in my title. sigh. . . wrote this as my entire body is lit up with rage. didn't have time to check for mistakes

I came here to rant. I'm just feeling completely outraged. I don't even know what to do with this anger. I haven't expressed it, and I'm afraid to because, it feels like once I let the lid off, i'm not sure how to get it back on.

Hi, I'm ex-mo now 10 years. I left pretty early. I remember being in primary class, doubting everything they were saying. It didn't make sense. Regurgitated thoughts that lacked substance. When I asked questions no one could seem to answer me properly. Early on I pretty much accepted it was a scam. I left at 13 years old. My parents continue to be Mormon. That's the can of worms I'm not ready to open.

Because you see, due to life circumstances I am back at my parents house after not living with them since I was 17. They have cameras all over their home, and I probably don't need to expand on that. I unfortunately have nowhere else to go at the moment. Despite me repeating to them, I will NEVER believe in their church, I have my own religious beliefs, they don't respect it. My dad will tell me I will get lost in the FIRES of the old worlds. Like shut the fuck up.

I had a near death experience pretty young as well. That confirmed to me what I have always known. That , ALL OF IT IS BULLSHIT.

Not to mention what mormon settlers did to the Timpanogos people. I don't know what to do with all this anger. I see my parents, and I don't see them. I see ignorant, stupid people who can so easily fall for a cult. Not brave enough to leave it even though my dad is aware it's all fake.

I am native, and my other size of my family is colonizer white people. I have to reckon with being both in my lineage.
I hate them. I hate them.

I hate what my parents have done to our family, they are so blind. So fucking blind. They consistently choose a religion, over their own children.

I'm also QUEER AS FUCK and it's so obvious yet I feel so trapped in their control and shame they try to put me in. I want to leave and never speak to them again. It is suffocating. Fuck Joseph smith. Masonic conman.

Fuck that fat fuck young and what he did to the men women and children of the Timpanogos people. FUCK BYU for still withholding their ancestral things in that dingy stupid museum that no one EVEN goes to. They are so evil.

This is poorly worded It's late and i'm just so angry.

I know there are other perspectives I could have. The anger doesn't feel good when I'm so stuck where I'm at. In their stupid control center where they try to use emotional manipulation and withholding of love to make me return to their cult. NOT happening. Just so confused as to why they couldn't just love the humans they created. Even if they happened to be more intelligent than them. Instead, just not deserving of love. Just a weak sinner, in their eyes.

The people pushing these conspiracy theories (thanks to YouTube Channels such as We The People Utah) want us to believe that Satanic Ritual Abuse is real the same way the LDS Church wants us to believe their church and the Book of Mormon is divine and true.

They don't want to give us physical, tangible, investigatable evidence that satan worshipping cabals are ritually abusing children for special powers the same way the LDS Church cannot give us evidence anything in the Book of Mormon is more than 19th century spiritual fiction based on the Bible.

They just want to give us stories, and then ponder on our feelings to see if they're true. I'm sorry, that's absolutely bullshit.

Sorry, it takes more than spooky stories, "witnesses" claiming on words alone what they've seen is true, and feelings/vibes to believe that what you're saying is true.

It all boils down to lack of evidence and the philosophical burden of proof. It's annoying that this shit is having a resurgence online for political and spiritual clout by self proclaimed God warriors, both on the believing and non believing forums.

I need to stop fighting with the SRA pushers online but people also love to eat this shit up. I'm not trying to be callous towards victims of sexual abuse which makes talking about this topic candidly hard.

However at the end of the day, there has never been any credible evidence EVER produced of organized groups sacrificing, mind controlling, and molesting children for special powers on satanic altars in Utah. Full stop. No, some lady sharing a sad story online is not evidence of these organized satanic cabals mind-controlling children either.

The thing about prayer (especially Mormon prayer) is, the answer is inside us the whole time. But if you're stressed or anxious you aren't gonna get anything and just feel more stressed because of it.

But with tarot you can gently get the answer out of you without having to force anything. You can even get multiple answers instead of just one! Mormon prayer seems to tell people "go with the first answer you get" which isn't healthy once you realize that the answers are inside of you and not from a god.

I also like how it has to be an intentional event. I care about my cards so I'm not gonna do it half awake before bed or in front of a cluttered desk. When I feel like i need to do a reading I'll clear space on my desk or make a note to sleep on the worry then read tomorrow with mental clarity.

Also I recommend looking up your birthday cards even though there isn't anything magic about it, since having a reason for personal attachment to certain cards is just useful for introspection.

Coming into town this weekend from out of state and I know it’s all the fun pioneer day church celebrations but my friend and I are curious if there’s any great ex mormon events or gatherings for our own little celebration. For example, I had some old friends that used to do pie and beer day instead.

Nevermo, but reading a lot of Joseph Smith's writings for something else and I keep coming across specific instances of him berating someone for killing a non-aggressive snake, using the hunting of prey animals for consumption as one of his MAIN EXAMPLES of what was evil about the Lamanites, clarifying explicitly in the Word of Wisdom that meat should only be consumed "in winter or times of famine"

Like it takes very little reading comprehension to understand that the only reason Joseph Smith himself was not a vegetarian was because he'd have starved.

I'm sure an amount of it is the fact that most mainstream mormons are americans first, capitalists second, and mormons third, but this still feels like an odd thing not to practice.

Anyone have any stories about how you came out of the exmo closet? Is it better to do it a little bit at a time or do you just rip the bandaid off really quick? I can think of a lot of fun somewhat passive aggressive pictures one could post on SM- Starbucks cup with an iced latte for "Apostate", selfie while smoking, etc!

I'm basically trying to figure out if I ever get the courage to officially get my records removed, would it be better to leave little things towards leaving, or do I wait until I can use the line "Thanks Mom, but I actually had all of my records removed from the church officially a while ago" and risk being sucked back into the cult?

Y'all my dad watched this movie called "The Amish Stud" and the plot revolves around a man pressuring his wife to break Amish rules around sex (specifically oral sex). He started going off about how weird and restrictive it is and that, "at least the church isn't that bad" 😐 I mentioned the letter and he tried brushing it off with classics like, "well, it was part of the culture" and "maybe it was just taught incorrectly on the local level".

Does anyone know where it could be found on the church's website, if at all? I thought I'd check here first before I waste my time since it's such a maze.

I was able to find the original document online, but you know how these things go. It's not a credible source unless it's on the (definitely impartial) church's website 🤪

So this actually came from a reply that I’ve made to a comment earlier from another post about a story from my personal experience, but then it got me thinking and I wanted to tell it.

Many years ago I went on an overnight youth conference that was a couple hours away from where I lived at a college campus. I can’t remember how long it lasted, but it must have been about a week, but I could be wrong. I don’t remember a whole lot though, because I spent most of the time being sleep deprived and I’ll tell you why.

For starters, I knew something was off the first time when I looked at the schedule for activities and classes and I felt something wasn’t right. When I saw the sleep schedule it said it only gave us five hours of sleep from 12 a.m.- 5 a.m. when it was confirmed that it was real, I was like “ you gotta be kidding me.”

All of the days would be spent doing all these activities, but I was mostly tired after the first day. Everybody in my group kept falling asleep, especially me, and I remember the adults would get mad and yell at us, lecturing us why we shouldn’t fall asleep. But I was like it wasn’t our faults. You only gave us five fucking hours of sleep!

Even during an assembly, the speaker got pretty pissed when he saw everyone falling asleep and his yelling actually woke me up out of it. He called us all out on it and said “ why are so many people falling asleep?”

I’ll tell you why good sir: five fucking hours of sleep.

None of us could help how tired we were and our bodies were crying for rest and sleep. We just couldn’t help it.

But then the other time, there was actually only one adult out of all who was pretty chill and understanding about it. When he saw that we were falling asleep in his class, he was nice and just told us to get up and stretch and he stretched with us. He was the first and only one who didn’t give us shit about it, which is why I liked him.

But anyway, looking back, I see these adults getting mad at us kids for being so tired, even though it wasn’t our faults and we had no control over it. I wondered why they weren’t tired either and how they were able to stay awake, since Mormons don’t drink coffee. I wondered if they were also cranky too from lack of sleep, and were probably bitching and complaining about it and just taking it out on us, but who knows.

Even though this was all supposed to be spiritual, or whatever you call it, I don’t I think I ever actually recall learning something from it. Because I was too tired.

I’ve never gone on another youth conference after that and thankfully this was my last one.

I’ve actually heard that once I’ve realized the church is actually a cult, I’ve come to realize that they do use sleep deprivation as a tactic for brainwashing and control and it made me wonder if that’s what they were doing. I think already have the answer to that.

My entire side left the church, her entire side left the church, many of her friends have left.

I feel like it's the opposite situation of a lot of people posting here.

It's been years and years but she keeps hanging on.

She feels pretty lonely and judged. She feels like a weirdo sometimes. Not because anyone says anything, everyone's nice to her, but there's that invisible barrier there.

I know cults also make you feel that when you're with outsiders too.

We live in Utah so there can be quite a lot of silent animosity between mormons and exmos. If you live here you know what I mean.

I think she can feel everyone waiting with bated breath for her to snap out of it one day.

She's not too intensely mormon or anything, she doesn't want to bother people if they don't want to be bothered about church stuff.

Anyone else in this situation? I would be interested in hearing your stories about it. It's a bit maddening for me sometimes but I'll just keep patiently waiting for now.

And I blame him, the church, the bishop and the stake presidency. They talk to him on going into a mission. At first he didnt want to but then he left because it was the "right" thing to do. And now we are stuck with a big debt that specifically my mother has to deal with.

My whole family basically rejoiced him when he decided to go, my grandparents, uncles, aunts and even me. I thought look how he goes into a mission, when I never did. And 2 weeks later he told us about his debt.

Now I feel like a mess and betrayed, I always thought if someone went to a mission then that means that he would be doing his own things and there was nothing to worry about but no. What if he never went and paid of his credit debt like he supposed to but no, looks like God had other plans, serve me and fuck your family.

25 years ago we did.

I haven’t heard of one at the church for a long time .. seems like it is less of a thing now?

Jk. They probably could.

Just capitalizing on any chance I get to dress as least Mormon-y as possible these days.

To the women taught we could be walking pornography, endowed with the power from on high to control the thoughts and actions of men:

Fuck
That
Shit.

Our shoulders and legs and stomachs and clavicles deserve to be seen and shown and treasured and valued exactly as much as we do or do not wish. This decision, of displaying skin in celebration of our bodies? May it forevermore be ours and ours alone.

“My body may be a temple but I am the god to whom it is devoted. Do not presume to tell me how I may decorate my altar.”

(Edit: Reddit. I beg of you. Please install the feature to edit post titles, at least once, after they are posted. “ . . . they MAY take our [shoulders]. MAY.”)

Ever since leaving, I’ve realized even more how crazy this church is. I used to baptize myself for dead people??

And I’ve started becoming judgmental of my still believing family. How can they believe that a church that forces 12 year olds to talk alone in a room with a 50 year old man who has power over her, about masturbation, is true?? How do people actually believe Joseph smith was a good person? And that God talks to them? It all feels ridiculous to me and it gets more and more ridiculous the more I think about it.

I know it’s wrong but I’ve started struggling with thinking that I’m better than members, or smarter than them. Idk how to get rid of this thinking. Am I the problem or do others struggle with this as well?

I had been keeping an eye on FB posts, assuming that I would find out when the funeral was planned for, but it was silent nothing about the death from any family members to clue me in on the funeral plans, but after seeing a new update yesterday, I now know that my family's intent has always been to exclude me, it could have been dangerous to try to just attend the funeral, but it still hurts to not be included - that's another thing I have a problem with about the "family is forever" BS that TSCC dishes out... It's clear now that I have no real family on earth, the only person who gave AF about me was my dad- I'd be happy only if he's the only family member who I have to interact with for eternity...anyone know what the MFMC has to say about what if you have a shitty family and being around them for forever would be legitimate torture & punishment? 🤬😪🤬

Obviously, you can't be Mormon and post about a funeral on social media without including shitty quotes from past General Conferences, so I guess I didn't miss anything by not taking a long plane flight!🙄

I was just reading something and it got me thinking about the few things that we were allowed to do as kids but weren’t supposed to tell anyone in church about. My grandmother (who I grew up with) was an absolute true believer and super Mormon. We followed all of the basic rules with the exception of a couple of Words of Wisdom guidelines. My grandmother was diabetic, so fast Sunday was out. Which meant we could all skip it. Granny loved her Tab, which was a diet soda with major caffeine. Again, it was hard to find diet soda that she liked, and so her medical condition allowed it. The rest of us drinking diet Mountain Dew was therefore allowed. This was the seventies, water was not a beverage anyone considered 😂

There’s one more that isn’t so much a rule as it just seemed to me at the time to be completely hypocritical, especially since I wasn’t allowed to go watch the movie Grease when it came out in the theaters. I did see it, but that’s not the point. I had a strict bedtime, so that Granny could stay up and watch Benny Hill. Granny immigrated from England when she was fifteen, and I’m sure it made her feel closer to her birthplace. However, Benny Hill often had women in bikinis and sometimes topless. It was just a lot of misogynistic jokes, and sometimes actually funny stuff too. Now it’s funny to think about, but got me wondering, what kinds of things were you guys allowed to do growing up that were not exactly approved by the Church?

Anybody have any funny bishops stories/interview questions?

Before I got married, my (now ex) wife and I were having issues with the law of chastity (because we are human and that’s what our natural bodies want to do), so we were frequenting the bishops office. When we got close to the end, right before we were going to get married, he gave us a bunch of unsolicited sex advice and tips and tricks on positions, etc. it’s absolutely crazy they’ll just let completely un qualified men be responsible over people and young adults in such crucial times in their lives. While I believe there are good people in the church, this should not ever be a topic of discussion. Thank god my kids will never go through this.