...how long did it take you to finally believe the church was not true? hours, days, weeks, years?

If it took you a long time after reading all the "anti" lit was was it just the accumulation of all the evidence against the church that GRADUALLY made your shelf to heavy to believe any longer or was there ONE thing that finally clicked and was the magic bullet for you?

Years. I never had an "a-ha" moment, nor did my "shelf" ever really collapse. It was a very gradual process of becoming honest with myself.

For me it was one or two days. Poof. Gone. Too much evidence to keep my head buried in the sand. Devastating though. Still recovering emotionally nine months later...

I had been struggling with what LD$ inc said was important vs. what Jesus had said in the Sermon on the Mount.

My bishop told me that if I prayed and went to the temple I would receive a revelation (actual words: the temple is a place of revelation), which I did...

After the throat-slashing, disembowelment, and 5 points of fellowship I sat in the Celestial Room and the house of cards (often called The Shelf) came crashing down. I saw the church as a cult and vowed never again to return to the temple. That was over 25 years ago.

The Boner!

It was a couple of days. Joe's wife-stealing was the trigger.

I think I had been studying for several months, but once I landed on the right information, it was a matter of hours. I was shocked, but I knew the truth.

I was born Mormon. First off, my parents were violent and abusive, so I knew that something was awfully wrong. Then, when they justified their hateful acts with Mormonism, I realized the religion was fucked. If the house of God requires the beating and tormenting of little ones, then the house of God is a sh!t shack, and God is a fucker. My father was a fucker, and his god is landfill worm turds.

donbagley Wrote:
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If the house of God requires the beating and tormenting of little ones, then the house of God is a sh!t shack, and God is a fucker.

Well said, Don!

I'd been reading for about a half hour. Read about the BoA, and I knew I was done forever.

One hour I was TBM, the next, I was out.

wow, took the words out of my mouth. my experience exactly!! (see below)

Same as me. 1 hour and I was done. Then spent 2 days reading everything on Mormon think and several different sites. Quite fascinating. This was a Tue and Wed. Refused to take the kids to church the following week. Had migraines for 6weeks every Sunday, until DH (who was in the Bishopric) dropped his calling. We studied 2 nights a week together (mostly Sun evenings). He was more troubled about it and took a little bit longer, but was ready to resign a few months later. To him it felt so fast. For me it felt incredibly slow. Happy to be out!

"aha" moment/shelf collapse during Elder's Quorum meeting.

I had been fighting it for 10 years. Had I not been so
emotionally attached to the Church I would have realized a
decade before I did that it was bogus.

So what was it? What there something different in this elders quorum meeting compared to others? What were you thinking that moment?

It started back in fall 2011 with realizing that there probably was no global flood and hit critical mass early January 2013 realizing that Joe was not what CultCorp teaches he was (polygamy/polyandry/drinking wine/gun fight at Carthage/rock in a hat/multiple first visions) nor Brigham and that the BoA papyri had nothing to do with Abraham. Reformed Egyptian had nothing to do with demotic or hieratic Egyptian nor written Mayan script. Historical Mesoamerican timeline not matching BoM timeline. Nearly all Mormon symbols were stolen from freemasonry I could go on and on...

I come from a long line of ultra TBMs so it took a while.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/23/2014 11:42PM by Haunted Wasatch.

Months. I kept trying to defend the church position to make sure I wasn't being hasty. Eventually I had an overwhelming moment when I realized there is no way it can be true.

That was a weird time for me. My brain kept going in circles, trying to hang on to something. I mentioned in a thread earlier today about how I came across a video about the problems with the Book of Abraham. I didn't watch the video, but I was too curious about what problems they could be talking about, so I googled. That led me to MormonThink. I really liked the feeling of MormonThink. It seemed factual and neutral, not like the anti-Mormon stuff I had seen in the past. And there were members of the MT staff who were active members. That made me feel safe enough to read everything they had there about the BoA. I liked that both sides were presented. It seemed pretty clear to me that the BoA was not what I had always believed it to be... but my brain played with different scenarios, still trying to believe that the church as a whole could be true. I had heard before the idea that Joseph Smith was a fallen prophet, so I considered the possibility that the Book of Mormon could have been a real translation without the Book of Abraham being one. So then I started reading everything at MT about Joseph Smith, and then about Brigham Young. I read about polygamy (which had pretty much always been on my shelf).

This process took me a couple of days. So the collapse of my shelf wasn't instantaneous. It was at that point that I started telling my dh about the things I had been reading. And the more I told him, the angrier I got. And then suddenly something snapped, and I knew that the whole thing (meaning Mormonism) was nothing but a giant lie, and that Joseph Smith was a slimy, sex-crazed conman. All the puzzle pieces just fell right into place, and I was absolutely amazed at how quickly and easily every single item on my shelf made sense once I realized the truth.

It took me a month or two after beginning to read "unapproved" material like the CES Letter and stuff on Mormonthink.com. Believers have a strong tendency to justify or ignore damning evidence against TSCC. It takes conscience effort and persistence to overcome decades of indoctrination and conditioning.

thanks for the thread. this is very interesting.

for me, it was 2007. I was uber TBM. I had heard something about anti-mormon issues with the Book of Abraham. So I decided to look into it to see what it was all about. I knew vaguely that Hugh Nibley had dealt with this issue. So I was pretty sure there was nothing there, but I wanted to be versed in the issue.

I read a few online articles, and Mormon defenses. I was troubled, for the defenses were week. So I bought a highly recommended book called By His Own Hand Upon Papyrus. I read it straight through in probably one day or two and it was all over for me. From uber-TBM to ExMo in one day. The Mormons had faith, but the anti's had documentation. The Church was a fraud, period. I naturally wanted the Church to still be true, so I researched every single faith promoting defense of the Book of Abraham that I could find, hoping to find something to salvage it for me. This research occurred intensely over the course of a few days, and I found nothing to refute "By His Own Hand", which didn't really surprise me because its presentation was airtight. But I was just being double sure of myself before turning my back on the church in my 34th year of life and membership.

That's the long answer. Short answer is that my testimony was eviscerated in hours.

For me, the recent B of A Morg article was nothing more than what Nibley said in the 1970s--we don't know how a prophet of God was inspired to translate the true meaning of the manuscript. The Boner!

oops, should read "weak" not "week" lol I just embarrassed myself on and international forum.

You can go back and edit your posts. I do it all the time for spelling and typos.

It took years for me. There wasn't any one moment or any reading I stumbled upon. In fact, I didn't allow myself to read "anti" literature. It was years and years of shelving items until the last thing I had really been struggling with caused the shelf to come down. That was when I decided it couldn't possibly be true; none of it made any sense, or contained one iota of logic. Add in being unhappy, dissatisfied, and bored for years. It was only after I was out that I allowed myself to read "anti" stuff.

I was never completely happy being a member. I only stayed out of duty and obligation because I thought I had to since I knew the "truth".

One day. The parentals (who had been researching for months leading up to this) gathered us kids together, gave us some tapioca pudding, and told us, taking maybe a couple of hours or so, all the information about the history that had been hidden from us. Now, I only followed the rules because my parents made me, but I was also an escapist, and liked feeling as if I was living inside of a fantasy world. Turned out, I was. I was physically shaking, I felt so betrayed, and it felt so much easier to just stay in denial. The Kinderhook Plates were the tipping point. After that, I decided I didn't care any more and joyfully changed into a tank top.

It took a while longer, however, to realize that the same logical fallacies that had kept me in Mormonism were the only reason I believed in Christianity in general.

After decades of turmoil I finally sat myself down and calmly asked myself what I REALLY thought about the church. The answer was so plain: It's just another church full of nice people.

All of the truth claims were gone in an instant.

Two months to read Rough Stone Rolling. Two weeks of struggling to deal with what I had just read. Finally got the courage to ask myself, "what if it's not true?" That was it... TBM one moment, postmo the next. Everything finally clicked into place and made sense! Then it took me 2 months before I got the courage to tell the bishop. One more month to stop attending church.

Three months out and here I am typing this message.

About 5 years for me.

There are some mormons who deep down don't want the church to be true, and will leave as soon as they find any evidence that points to that. But I was one of the others that desperately wanted it to be true, so I was able to reconcile nearly all the information in my head, but eventually after some years I just wanted to stop going. The church wasn't making me happy.

Forty years.
I stumbled across "No Man Knows My History" at the library. Quite a shocking read for me. My mom convinced me it was full of lies and written by an anti-Mormon who misquoted the truth.

After a lifetime of committed belief, I was confronted with similar books when my daughter's shelf collapsed. I read through "In Sacred Loneliness" and the Quinn books. Rough Stone Rolling, too, but that seemed affirming of the church after reading the other books.

I was devastated. My worst fears confirmed. Fawn Brodie had been right about JS. He made it all up. Worse, he had preyed upon innocent women and children. When asked, I state the simple truth: "Joseph Smith was not a nice person". Even family members hang up the phone or walk away. Sigh.

This thread is a TV documentary waiting to happen.

Where is The Learning Channel?

It took a lot of years to reach the point where it was possible, but once conditions were right it took a matter of minutes

For me.....less then an hour.

I never had any doubts. I just blindly believed. I had all these church "issues" that I just put on back burner and didn't think about them. Because the church was true.

But when I was able to see on lds.org that JS put his face in a hat, and then quickly after that checked that JS married already married women on familysearch....my entire world fell.

About 20 pages into "No Man Knows My History."

My epiphany is just beginning. I have felt for a few years that I thought administratively that Priesthood and Church government was a disaster. I felt the doctrine of the plan of salvation and restoration was strong...but now everything I grew up knowing about the restoration and Book of Mormon now I am receiving more light and knowledge. Sure I always knew about seer stones in the hat and polygamy, etc. and how the apologists explained all of that away somewhat to my satisfaction...but now even more detail available and the devil is certainly being found in the details. Answers to my questions such as how could J.S. have written such a brilliant piece as the Book of Mormon have received satisfactory answers to just how he could and did. The keystone is crumbling.

I had been putting things on the shelf for about 20 years and it was starting to get pretty crowded. Then I read Grant Palmers 'Insiders View' and Carl Sagan's 'Demon Haunted World' back to back and it was over. The shelf came down and there was no going back.

An hour.... egyptian hieroglyphs had been decipheted for almost 200 years! i decided to google book of abraham hieroglyphs. SHAAZAM! Done. This was around Romneys run for presidency...and all the hooplah about mormonthink n david tweede. Devoured mormonthink!

I think my shelf grew over the 44 years that I was a TBM of course I believed it because my family did and they couldn't be wrong "right"? When my aunt started to show me the different things that were not adding up I couldn't stop learning of these things until I was sure one way or the other. All in all it took me about 3 months time and the thing that finally slapped me in the face was how JS proclaimed having only one wife when he had MANY that was when I realized NO prophet of God would have to lie or should want to. That was it for me because I knew God wouldn't support a LIAR!!

After a 20 yr marriage to an ultra tbm woman, we got divorced. Going through the process I kind of stepped out of the box and looked at all the significant mormons, including my bishop and stake pres, in my life and realized that I didn't like them. I saw them as being heartless, and conditional in their love/friendship/acceptance. They were all mormon drones without heart.

So I stopped attending, but still thought it was the one and only. I researched cultism to see if others thought the members were cultic, heartless. I found that it was a cult, and then my study went to doctrinal issues and it finally sunk in after researching the BofA.

It was a process that took over a year or so. I was the type of person that never thought that I would ever leave. I was very emotionally bonded to the cult. All I knew was mormonism, had mormon friends, did mormon socials, went on a mission, married in the temple.

I'm Christian and I know my new church isn't doctrinally correct according to my opinion, but I feel it is Christian and mormonism isn't really Christian, it is more like a scribe and pharisee cult. I now find it very difficult to be around mormons. When they reach out to me, I see it as a subversive act to reactivate me, and that pisses me off. Black and white thinkers irritate me. I like hearing differing opinions even those I don't agree with.

I feel the 15 old guys completely lack integrity. They are promoting a fraudulant cult and calling it Christian. They have the money and resources to double check facts and listen to those who the cult has harmed. They need to be stopped damaging members lives with all their extra commandments and cultural expectations.

I'm drawn to people and organizations that seem empathetic.

Painfully slow. I remember hating church my senior year of H.S. The lessons alternated between Personal Progress--busy work crapola and certainly not scouts--and stay morally clean. Over and over. I didn't date. It was boring. Didn't God have bigger concerns than necking? I read the Bible cover to cover and decided God was an ass. The only good message...feed the hungry, clothe the naked, give money to the poor. I noticed the church really didn't do much of any of those things. They certainly weren't Jesus focused.

Guilt, fear, and self doubt kept me in for another 24 years. I might have gotten out quicker if I'd been a better Mormon. DH was a closet never believer. I still can't believe he never told me, even when I was openly doubting. He was mostly inactive. I called myself a social Mormon and a smorgasmormon. I completely accepted evolution and decided Adam and Eve were just figurative. I only went to the temple a couple of times, but I wore those damn garments. Word of Wisdom was no big deal, but tithing would need a novel. My sister got out and said something about the Book of Abraham, but I just stuck it up there on the shelf with all the other stuff. My daughters refused to attend and I didn't fight them. I hated it too.

My "best" friend went through the temple after years of attending without her non-Mormon hubby. She decided that I needed to get back to the temple. I consented to talk to the bishop who was confused and thought I wanted a standard temple interview. I didn't make it past the first question. I said I'd do some reading and praying (which I hadn't done in years). I dusted off the Book of Mormon. Let's see...a God who sends wars. A God who changes skin color as a curse or a blessing. The same asshole God I'd been avoiding for years. I gave two weeks notice for them to find a new primary pianist. I started reading. Real history. Real science. Truth that made sense. Delicious.

That being a missionary was not inspired, more instead of need of desperate members.

About two days to learn the truth. Read CESLetter and most the sources point back to official church sources. For me Joseph Smith "marrying" 30+ women and denying it so fiercely was the smoking gun.