NOM

My NOM journey began with a small step, but I'm not sure which step was first. Like wise, I am still subject to occasional TBM thoughts, but I also am still deciding what to be when I grow up, so...... My first NOM thought might have been when 9 year old me lost a baseball in our wheat field. Praying sincerely with such faith as I could muster, I renewed my search and, to my surprise , I still was unable to find it.

I don't remember how old I was, but I was trying to find something that I had misplaced. My mom said that I should say a prayer and ask for help finding it, and I thought that sounded really dumb.

I think that I was always more intellectually attached to the church than emotionally invested.

One of the first that comes to mind... Jaredite Barges: Wait a minute here, there are too many things that just don't add up; Reality doesn't work that way... Oh well [shrug] Elohim Magic! (Add the tight dishes to the shelf.)

Maybe daniel and the lions den. Really?!!

Seriously though, Noah's arc was my first real faith crisis issue. BofA was my shelf breaker.

A homeless girl came to church asking for help - and our bishop at the time told me "people like that, I give them $50, and send them on their way". It shocked me that they were unwilling to really help...

(The homeless girl ended up staying with me for almost a year... she is ok now, but it was due to a few members, not from any church leadership)

The second blow - a different bishop, I was witness to someone going in to get a TR who should NOT have a TR. They lied through another interview, came out with the TR, after which I went a little postal towards both bishop and the interviewee - sent them both back into the office, and this time they did not come out with a TR....

After a confrontation with the bishop - I was told they had to give TR's out to anyone regardless if they lied or not. ... "Aren't you supposed to be a judge in Israel??? Don't you have the Spirit??" - to which they said, I guess if I am on a disciplinary council then I have to serve as a judge??? I grilled them on the consequences to letting people lie to them - that they were a laughing stalk, the entire interview is one long joke for everyone who lies through it...

followed by another bishopric member who is now in jail for abuse....

All of mine involved fights with local leaders. legitimate fights. multiple "leaders", multiple bad situations... a repeating pattern.

deacon blues wrote: ↑

Thu Mar 14, 2019 6:11 pm

....I am still subject to occasional TBM thoughts, but I also am still deciding what to be when I grow up, so......

I am still trying to decide too. I think there are multiple ways to do "Mormon".

One way is the naive - just keep yourself ignorant - see the church through rose-colored glasses approach..."infallible" leaders and church...

Another way (and we shall see how many are going to allow me to do this) is - believe in a "fallible" church, a church you cannot rely on (learn we can only rely on our self), but at least one with many lessons. You take the good and the bad - try to change the bad, and take ownership of your own beliefs regardless of what is preached from the pulpit... Kind of like going to a University where you do not agree with all of the professors, or being a member of a political party where you do not agree with all the policies.

First item on my shelf: We had an Encyclopedia Brittanica when I was young- (for you millenials, it was how we googled stuff pre-internet) The Mormon church was listed in world religions as a tiny percent of the world's population- but I grew up in the Morridor- and that seemed impossible. But another thing, under the title COJCOLDS, it was listed it as a sect or some other wording that made it seem a bit cultish. It even referred to polygamy and other hard to swallow facts. The cog dis was heavy when my family moved to the east coast and I realized there is no way the church was even close to what it was claiming to be. However, I stayed in and went on a mission for more selfish reasons than spiritual, married another RM in the temple, had kids, stayed fully active, attended the temple regularly...but really, I have always known it didn't add up.

Last item that broke the shelf: In 2011 a family-member-by-marriage obtained a temple cancellation to a sealing to her deceased husband so she could remarry. The deceased husband was a close blood relative of mine. At that moment, when we received the letter informing us that the cancellation had been granted, I knew without a doubt that this whole religion was made up and I was done. It took a move to a new city and a year or so before I was fully out.

When I was eight, I was given my first Book of Mormon. I took Moroni's promise literally. When he said that I could know the truth of *all* things, I believed him. I read the BOM. I prayed. I still could not tell when people lied to me.

When I was preparing for my mission and praying to get a testimony I recognized that I might NOT get an answer. I was open to the possibility that it may not be true.

Now don't get me wrong. I thought it was true. I wanted it to be true. And I was praying as if it was true.

But I remember thinking about evangelicals saying that we mormons were deceived by satan. And I had the thought. What if that is right? How would I know if I was deceived?

And I knew that I wanted to know the truth regardless of where that might lead. Even though I was betting that the church was really true.

It only took me 25 years to actually get to the real answer.

When I asked my dad why we didn't just dig back up the gold plates and prove it to everyone and he told me that Heavenly Father "moved/shifted" them around under the ground so we couldn't find them so we would have to rely on faith.

I was watching an episode of 'Friends' a while back; the one where Ross' ex wife who has come out as a lesbian gets married. I can't remember the exact plot, but Ross does something selfless to support the wedding. I felt what I had always identified as the spirit about Ross' selfless act. Wait.... according to LDS theology I should be disgusted by this; it was a GAY wedding for crying out loud. I was puzzled, thinking that maybe either a. the church is wrong about gay marriage or b. that wasn't the spirit I was feeling. Twenty-some years later I found the answer: c. both a and b.

I was in the Teachers Quorum and the classroom leader was spouting off some racist drivel about the necessity of keeping black people out of the neighborhood. I was hesitant to speak up, so I just got up and left. I walked home thinking how out of step with God's love that drivel had been. It started a spark of skepticism.

Looking back, perhaps that Priesthood leader was just hopped up on the General Conference rantings of Ezra Taft Benson against civil rights, as well as the LDS teaching that black people were cursed by God.

The first real thing that shook me was probably my mom's Guideposts magazines. There were stories in there of people praying for something and being led to the answer (like a house or a car), or being given understanding. It sounded exactly like the Holy Ghost, but that couldn't be! They had no right to the Holy Ghost (unless it was telling them to join us) because they were not Mormons!

Big shelf item. Heaviest thing on there.

My shelf never broke, though. It's more like you pick up something, dust it off, look at it and put it in the "no big deal" bag or internalize it with the "well, that's telling me something about the Church I didn't want to stare in the face."

I eventually faced the fact that the LDS church doesn't have a franchise on the Holy Ghost and God can talk to whoever he/she/they want to.

It was a matter of degree, I suppose. As far as one of the first shelf items that I can remember, it's probably when I read that bit from Joseph Fielding Smith that humans would never travel to space or to the Moon. This is clearly after those things had happened so it got me wondering how a church leader (if inspired) could get it so wrong. This was probably only 2-3 months after my baptism (as a 21yo).

In between there were more WTF moments than I can probably count that continually chipped away at my TBMness.

But the final straw that broke the shelf's back, so to speak, was probably in 2012 when Mitt Romney was running for president. Some of his statements were clearly lies, and ones that he must *know* were lies. I figured that if such a high profile member of the church was continuing to do so, with no pushback at least privately from leadership, what other lies were they okay with? I wound up on the Internet and finding "Lying for the Lord" and wondered "what if it's all not true?"

BAM. In what seemed like the briefest of moments the shelf came crashing down, and seven years later here I am. I'm still a bit resentful of the time and money that I spent in the church, but at this point more in the lesson learned sense than any self-recrimination.

Random wrote: ↑

Fri Mar 15, 2019 9:43 pm

My shelf never broke, though. It's more like you pick up something, dust it off, look at it and put it in the "no big deal" bag or internalize it with the "well, that's telling me something about the Church I didn't want to stare in the face."

I eventually faced the fact that the LDS church doesn't have a franchise on the Holy Ghost and God can talk to whoever he/she/they want to.

It's good to know others had these sorts of experiences.

hiding in plain sight wrote: ↑

Fri Mar 15, 2019 3:20 pm

When I was preparing for my mission and praying to get a testimony I recognized that I might NOT get an answer. I was open to the possibility that it may not be true.

Now don't get me wrong. I thought it was true. I wanted it to be true. And I was praying as if it was true.

But I remember thinking about evangelicals saying that we mormons were deceived by satan. And I had the thought. What if that is right? How would I know if I was deceived?

And I knew that I wanted to know the truth regardless of where that might lead. Even though I was betting that the church was really true.

It only took me 25 years to actually get to the real answer.

This was me. I wanted to know what was true, and I suspected that some things the Church taught (pre-priesthood ban) didn't make sense. But I stuck with the church because I thought it was more likely that I was wrong than that all my family and most of my friends were wrong. Only later did I wonder if most of my friends and family might want the church to be true more than they wanted to know the truth. Their push back to racism, evolution, and their preference to Cleon Skousen history vs. real history were a couple of clues.

My first NOM thought was as a 40ish year old thinking, there is no way in hell all of the land animals on earth climbed aboard a wood boat...

blazerb wrote: ↑

Sat Mar 16, 2019 9:39 am

Random wrote: ↑

Fri Mar 15, 2019 9:43 pm

My shelf never broke, though. It's more like you pick up something, dust it off, look at it and put it in the "no big deal" bag or internalize it with the "well, that's telling me something about the Church I didn't want to stare in the face."

I eventually faced the fact that the LDS church doesn't have a franchise on the Holy Ghost and God can talk to whoever he/she/they want to.

It's good to know others had these sorts of experiences.

I'm glad I'm not alone.

Somewhere around middle school, I realized that kids people everyone was saying were so righteous and that I needed to be more like were really jerks. "Why would I want to be assholes like them?" I was big into swearing in middle school, when my parents were not around. Soon afterwards, I decided that despite it being my parent's alma mater, there was no way I wanted to go to BYU or Ricks.

I can't rightly remember the very first. But I remember shaking off the thought that Joseph Smith had written himself into the scriptures:

JST Genesis 50: 33 And that seer will I bless, and they that seek to destroy him shall be confounded; for this promise I give unto you; for I will remember you from generation to generation; and his name shall be called Joseph, and it shall be after the name of his father; and he shall be like unto you; for the thing which the Lord shall bring forth by his hand shall bring my people unto salvation.

Also when the lord says "Great Britain, as it is called" in the Doctrine and Covenants; that seemed to be a bit petty to me.