I’m certain that this has been discussed over and over in numerous ways and in numerous formats on the internet…but…what do you think your identity is relating to Mormonism and what do you think that identity signifies? For example, we each know that there’s Further Light and Knowledge (FLAK), and…
Category: Deconversion
How Mormon values gave me courage to leave
I have thought of my “exit” story as boring. Boring, but different. Rather than a narrative of the Once-Happy-TBM who unwittingly came across a troublesome theological or historical issue and lamented as it gobbled a once easy faith, my story has from early on featured something amiss…but what I’ve thought…
Wait a minute; those aren’t my morals!
The other day, I wrote on my blog about how I continue to find that even as intellectually and ideologically, I’m moving farther (bad typo; I wish I could move my father past the church) past the church, I realize from a practical standpoint, I’ve still got a lot of…
LDS deconversion is a process
I was reading this news article the other day, and it just seemed so obvious. It was a study that found that LDS conversion is a process. What made it seem so obvious to me was that as the article went on, it seemed clear that the writer was speaking…
What was the straw that broke your belief’s back?
I’ve been reading an article at Mormon Matters about More Open Mormon History, and it seems to me there is a fundamental idea at play here: if you hear about “true Mormon history,” you’ll lose all hope and faith and then apostasize. OMG! The author, Mormon Heretic, tries to deflect…
Seeking First to Understand
After years of talking with current and former mormons, I am well aware that the reasons for people leaving and becoming disaffected are as different as snowflakes. Everyone has a different story and takes a unique path. I didn’t get a chance to listen to John Dehlin’s mormon stories podcasts…
Your Sunday School Lesson: The First Vision
According to the philosopher Mircea Eliade, of whose work I learned at BYU, every community, tribe, or nation requires an origin myth. The account of a community’s or practice’s origin has far reaching consequences because it implies how they relate to the cosmos, which is necessary for human beings to…
Deprogramming
When I read a lot of ex-mormon accounts, some of them turn me off. I know there’s ill will and perhaps downright hostility to an entity you feel has essentially lied to for years of your life, but I’ve always felt that it would be counterintuitive to react so hostilely….
Proposition 8 and Learning about the Mormons
If you are into Mormon stories, you might enjoy Jodi Mardesich’s essay in Salon. Growing up in a part member family, Jodi had to overcome the resistance of her father to get baptized. She relates how Mormonism made her feel special as a child, how her boy friend died on…
Hellmut’s Deconversion
I have been miserable at Church ever since my mission. I still couldn’t get out because I had to act on my testimony even though I experienced Church as toxic every Sunday. To me, the mission experience was dehumanizing and sacrilegious reducing converts to trophies and missionaries to tools. Any…