To continue the "What was your last straw" post on what broke your LDS back...

I have several straws, but some are heavier than others...

*The lady that got upset at me for her husband looking at my legs in church when I was 21. I was wearing a knee length skirt and the woman made me feel like a slut.

*The way RS ladies treated a homeless single Mom that came to church in jeans.

*The way the Bishopric treated me after the night my husband tormented me.

*Reading the Journal of Discourses.

*My TBM ex husband telling me when I left the church, "You betrayed me" and that I should go on pretending I believed even if I was unhappy, for appearances.

Looking back at all the straws..I wonder why I did not break sooner! But I am a very strong woman:) That is how I learned to stand up for myself and walk away from an abusive ex and an abusive church system!

RMM

*

"*The lady that got upset at me for her husband looking at my legs in church when I was 21. I was wearing a knee length skirt and the woman made me feel like a slut.

*The way RS ladies treated a homeless single Mom that came to church in jeans."

^^^

Not only must your legs be covered they must be covered in a ankle length skirt. No jeans (come on, God's house, don't be a slob) knee length skirt, too short, you might look attractive.

So ridiculous. I hate the assumption that conformity means you are more spiritual.

Every time I hear that type of story I think these nutters are not much different from the Taliban who beat women and girls who don't cover up with a full body burka.

It is also about increasingly trying to force females into more and more limited lives, "marry young and have many babies and if you have a career, the devil comes in the door." And what is even harder to get my head around, many Molly Mormons aid and abet these morons aka mormons.

And this is not an anti-male rant. It seems to me fundamentalist religion not gender is the source of the problem.

Evangelical Protestants, Opus Dei (catholic), ultra orthodox judiism etc., these guys are all the same. Too bad we can't put them all together on a desert island.

The last straw man for me is the fictional guy who leaves Mormonism to follow the devil.

I too, had many straws but the very last straw came after an institute class (I got partially sucked back in for about 6 months at 21-22.). I commented on something and the room went silent. After the class, my friend said, "I don't like to question because it only confuses me." She was suggesting that I should follow her lead.

That was the last straw. I knew I could never be part of something that encouraged wilful ignorance and blind adherence.

I keep thinking of more and more straws that led to my "aha moment." I have to say that the City Creek Center was a huge one for me. I just couldn't see Jesus commanding anyone to build an upscale mall...or a true prophet saying "Let's go shopping!"


..Then there was that whole thing about the church spending more money on that Babylon mall than it had spent on charity over all of the previous 25 years combined ($1.5 vs $1.4 Billion).

Now I'm a much happier Zen Agnostic/Atheist.

I also had a TBM, RM, temple husband who beat me. He would quote D&C 132 while he hit me. He would yell, "You are my property, and I can do anything I want to you!" Lovely Mormon teachings.

Congratulations on breaking the cycle of abuse!

Spousal abuse was not the last straw, because it took years of trying to get a temple divorce, for me to figure out that the Mormon cult denies, excuses, condones, and enables abuse! I was not allowed to remarry in the temple, but the thug ex went on to marry three other wives in the temple, and is "a member in good standing." I was to be his polygamous wife in the CK.

Not the last straw, yet. The church authorities finally told me that the temple rules are that my children, fathered by my second TBM husband I was not allowed to marry in the temple, OUR children belong to my wife-beater temple ex, as his property. I told the three Mormon bigwigs that I would end it by resigning from the church and renouncing all temple ordinances. I put it in my resignation letter.

Not the last straw, yet. While I was figuring out how to extricate myself from an impossible situation, and half-believing that the Celestial Kingdom garbage still might be true, I asked my children, "Why do you hate church so much?" They told me about the Mormon abuse, perpetrated over the years by various priesthood leaders, in the form of physical beatings, kicking, yelling, and threatening them.

Not the last straw, yet. Then my little girl told us about how she was molested by the bishop's high school senior, ugly, repulsive son. She was asleep in her sleeping bag, during a church campout, and she woke up with his hands all over her. She screamed, and a lot of the kids saw what was happening. My daughter was telling me five years after it had happened. Five years. The bishop had threatened my daughter and all of the witnesses not to tell. The bishop told my daughter that I would get mad and blame HER, and and I would not allow her to play with her church friends anymore. We all cried, when she told us. My poor little girl, all alone in this!

AND THAT WAS THE LAST STRAW.

The cult is evil.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/23/2014 03:31AM by forestpal.

That was the last straw for my children, too, and we all resigned together in the same letter.

Funny the last straw for me was a winter storm. Our ward has a facebook page and last Jan. we had a horrible winter storm. It was so bad that our town was put on a level 3. Which means if you drive on the roads you will be ticketed.This happened on a Sunday morning. I put this info on the facebook page and our Bishop was called. He puts on the facebook page that the roads were fine and that there would still be church. It made me so mad that he didn't care who go ticketed.He didn't care that he was breaking the law.We stayed home. One member later wrote that he went to church and said he passed a policman and waved and the cop waved back. He then put."i guess the lord was with me I didn't get a ticket" Now there is whole lot more that precedes this story. This was just the last straw.I think we went back to church 2 times after that and then we were gone.

I was a geeky science kid. Watch Mr Wizard, which those of a certain age will recall, was the perfect TV show for me.

I turned 19 in the middle of my sophomore year and did the mishie thing. It was 1967, and the BoA papyri had just been returned to LDS Inc. I had some serious questions about the possible fictional nature of the BoM, but I managed to shove them on the shelf. I figured the papyri were a piece of solid evidence that would settle the translator abilities of JS once and for all.

When I got off my mission, I read all the apologetic material Hugh Nibley had written about the papyri. The carbon date age was way off (by 2,000 years) for being written by the hand of Abraham. The content, which we could now translate, was also totally different from the BoA. Nibley was blowing smoke, and poor quality smoke at that.

It took me until I got out of BYU to leave, but I knew then that it was all a charade.

The BoA, where testimonies go to die.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/23/2014 05:05AM by Brother Of Jerry.

Amen.

That was my last straw. Interestingly enough, the January 1968 issue of The Improvement Era (precursor to the Ensign) holds the story of the papyri and that engendered questions, which were the first I shelved! Until then, I had no questions and was fully TBM. So, the BoA was the first and the last.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/23/2014 01:52PM by moose.

About 10 years ago my state put to vote whether there should be an ammendment to the state constitution to ban gay marriage. I debated about how to vote, because I personally did not have a problem with gays marrying. However, I felt an obligation to vote the way I knew the church wanted me to. I ended up voting for the ban. However, I walked out of the polling place angry and upset at myself for doing so. That was my last straw. I went home that night and Googled "mormon" with a pretty clear hunch of where it would take me. You can guess the rest.

"And that's Uncle Joe, he's a movin' kind of slow at the junction"

*grin*

Yep, I'm old and movin' kinda slow, too!

To your post, I have and continue to do things that are not true to myself, due to this stupid cult and my family relationships. I hope to correct this soon. I'm glad you've already done so. You have my respect.