How would an "average person" debunk/fall away from Mormon before the Internet, specifically, the 70s? What resources would they use? What type of people would they talk to?

What would their "hot button" issues have been.

Thanks for your help. It's for my first novel

-- john draper

The Tanners might have been a resource that one would have heard of at that time period. Try going to Youtube and put in Sandra Tanner Part 1 (there's 4 parts) and you'll get the whole interview series that explains what kinds of activities/pamphlets they were putting together at which times.

I was exposed to feminism when I went to college in the early 70s. That helped a lot. I wanted to have a life, a career, and I was considered a joke at church. Then, as an English major, I read. I thought. I met and talked to wonderful people, professors and others, who were smart and knew a lot about religion but couldn't get past the story about old Joe Smith.

In the last 10 years, as I've found so much data on the church via the internet, it's kind of wonderful to realize I was/am not alone.

For me it was a matter of money. I earned enough money to buy a motorcycle at my first job(in the 70's), and I was prepared to face the bishop and tell him that I would have to be put down as "not a full tithe payer". I had enough money to pay for the motorcycle, but not quite enough to pay all my tithing.

My father insisted that I take his money and pay my tithing. I knew that I would embarrass my father if I did not take his money.

that was my first clue that something was wrong with being Mormon. My father sacrificed money he didn't have(we were poor) to look like a good Mormon family.

that's it right there..look good Matthew 6:1 Becareful not to do your good deeds publicly, to be admired by others, for you will lose the reward from your Father in heaven

Leaving the organization pre-Interwebs . . . interesting . . . I think if I had ever really just thought about the stories in the OT I would have left sooner . . . or D&C 132 . . . or the book of Ether in the BOM

Which stories in the OT?

Back in the late 70's it took a great deal of research in libraries to find out the truth about the LDS church. What sealed the deal for me was a book entitled: "Nightfall In Navoo."

Now the internet posses a massive obsticle for missionary work--the potential recruits just google up any question they have, and it is there at their fingertips within seconds... replete with video.

It is hard for a missionary to compete with this stuff... and it is not uncommon for Missionaries to have zero converts for their entire mission service.

yes...I met jesus Christ of latter day saints...and said oh I don't know anything about that religion and they said well...our nicknameis Mormon...lol

I saw "anti-Mormon" pamphlets when I was a kid in the 80's, but I was always taught that stuff was poison and to stay away from it. And to be fair, whatever stuff I saw was pretty vitriolic. Now with the internet, I can look up sources and judge for myself whether someone has an ax to grind, or is just reporting what the church has whitewashed or completely left out. It's been quite an eye opener for me. Why in the world was I too chicken to look deeply before now? I think I was scared of what I would find. The truth is, what I found was way worse that what I had even suspected.

yes and mostly its entire families that are involved and you would lose them...and I heard if your the father...who wants to leave you cause your whole family to lose their salvation..Mormonism is big on family...so is God...but in luke 14:26 he says if anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children,, brothers and sisters, yes, even their own life, such a person cannot be my disciple...

There was a DOMA type initiative here in WA state and I was told how to vote at church. This was contrary to the thing I had been taught, which was to vote my conscience. My conscience said they were wrong and I never went back.

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I wonder if the church's stance against the ERA led some(especially women) away?

I remember asking for No Man Knows My History in the Carnegie Library in Boise, 59-ish, and having to sign for it. The librarian kept it behind the counter and made me promise to tell my parents. I had seen it at home and wondered why mom kept it hidden. Or pretended to hide it.

watch Micah Wilder...interview...he shows how if you really love God and want to please him...not people....he will show you the way ....as he was shown...through a Baptist pastor who preached gods word....

I left 1985, no support. I was rebellious, ANGRY, pissed off and said to myself, "This whole LDS Church stuff didn't work". I didn't tell my parents where I moved to. They abandoned me, when I divorced the ex-Bishop and Church. I was unaware that legends of angels pulled me up many times. The church is against determined women. And, you punish yourself for determined. Today, using brain changing statements for the subconscious mind, I reversed old programs. It's hard to see how you've been against yourself for a long time. Now I will not get triggered for determined. Zoe

This is not a direct answ to your question, but I think you'll find it relevant nevertheless.

Totalitarian governments always try to make dissenters think they are along, that they are the only ones who hate the govt.

The LDS "church" is a totalitarian organization, and thinks in the same way. That's one of the reasons it is so skittish about public discussions of church matters--and secondarily, about people reading about church history.

You are absolutely right. Religion, by its very nature, is authoritarian. Napoleon made a brilliant observation about religion. He said: "Religion is good stuff to keep the masses down and from rising up and murdering the rich." It's always been that way. Religion is nothing more than a gimmick to control people. Cons know that people usually buy into religion because of the fear of death and if they can convince people that there is a god and life after death, they can get people's money. The old saying, "Religion began when the first scoundrel met the first fool," is absolutely correct. One more thing. Religions are not democratic, especially the Mormon church. They tell you how to live, vote, marry, and think.

I left in the early 90s before the internet was widely in use (I sure wasn't using it!)

I am female so I struggled with what was expected of me in the church once I was 'of age' (past 18) to really be involved and be expected to marry early and have a lot of kids.

I also grew up as a minority LDS, but when I went out to BYU I was hit with the culture shock of an LDS majority. I didn't like the whole Big Brother atmosphere at BYU. I was an artist and so were a lot of my friends and we all had trouble because we liked to express ourselves with the way we dressed and at BYU everyone expected us to conform and we got called into the Standards office for breaking the Standards code by 'drawing undo attention' to ourselves with the way we dressed.

So that was hard already. And then we had to take a lot of religion classes and I ended up with a World religions class as an elective and studying other religions (really for the first time) got me to see some of the similarities but also the differences and some of the things about the other religions esp. of Eastern origin seemed more appealing to me.

I always wanted to travel and so I ended up in France for a summer as a nanny (my only marketable skill up to that point). That also served to open my eyes to a different way of living. When I came back to Provo after France I had an even harder time adjusting.

I also had met some people whom weren't active and I got to hear their stories and it was hard to blame them from what I heard. But still I maintained my 'faith' and stayed with it.

I probably would have married an RM at that point but non of the 'good' mormons wanted to date me. I was too different, I had cut my hair short, stopped shaving my legs, that kind of thing. One boy I dated who was LDS, but not super active.. he was from Utah but a musician in a local rock band. We were doing well (so I thought) until after a few months he felt the pressure to marry (not from me, but from his culture.. I never thought it was a good idea to marry that quickly and where I grew up it wasn't the norm). So when he thought about marriage with me he realized I wasn't the type he wanted for a wife. It was okay to date an alliterative girl, but not marry one. He even told me this to my face. He actually said that one thing he didn't like was that I didn't wear enough make up!!!! It was all about HIM and not about me at all, it was like I wasn't there and never had been. He was just concerned about how I would reflect on him and what his family would think etc.

So that rejection stung pretty hard and I was less and less convinced that I could be happy living the life expected of me by the Mormon church.

But it wasn't until about a year later when I did my internship in NYC that I had the final test put to my faith. I met a boy, who was Jewish. He was attending Columbia university. We stayed in co-ed housing at the university for our internship. (I know I know BYU allowed this because in NYC housing options are very very scarce!) We fell in love. And he really challenged me with a lot of intellectual investigation into church history and doctrine. He was the one, being a naturally inquisitive bookish type (who had already questioned his own faith) and familiar with (pre-internet) research, who educated me about my own religion. So many things I knew nothing about.

But the clincher for me was his telling me the BoM was plagiarized and he told me about the book 'View of the Hebrews' that it was based on. He also told me one of the two only remaining copies existed in the BYU library's locked cases.

So when I went back for my last year after that summer, I was determined to find that book and see it for myself. I did just that. I had to lie to the librarian about why I wanted to see it (said it was for a religion class paper). I felt very guilty doing so. But it was what I needed. hard evidence. I held the book from the 1800s in my hands. I read enough in that library room to know that Joe Smith had copied his BoM story from this work of fiction written by an author local to him just 2 years before the BoM. Impossible he didn't know about it, impossible he didn't copy it.

I didn't go back to church after that. I was finally convinced it was built on a lie so NOT 'true' as I had been led to believe.

AFter that I also read the book 'The Mormon Corporate Empire' which further convinced me I didn't want to belong to it anymore.

So in short it was a book that did it for me, THE book.

For my aunt who left in the 80s it had a lot to do with women's issues and how she was treated but also she had married a non-member and he introduced her to some literature that also opened her eyes. It took her years to read any of those books he had lying around the house ('anti' mormon books). She was afraid to look at them as she'd been heavily indoctrinated NOT to read 'anti' works. Her husband asked what she thought about being told not to read something. It was hard for her to hear that, but it slowly started to make sense to her that she was being controlled.

He was patient with her. He had told her he'd read the Mormon scriptures and other Mormon books and give it good consideration (since she wanted him to join), but he said he'd also read what else was out there from a different perspective and then make a judgment about it. OF course she believed he'd 'know' the truth after reading Mormon doctrine. But when he didn't it confused her. It's hard when you are raised indoctrinated to 'feel the spirit' when reading those so called scriptures, you think it's what everyone else will feel and then they will 'know' too but if they hadn't been brain washed of course they'd be able to see through it.

My poor NY boyfriend came to visit me in Provo during my last semesters. He came to Thanksgiving with me at a classmates. there were a lot of people there, all active 'members' and they of course loved having a chance to proselytize to the non-LDS among them, esp. a Jew. (one of the 'lost' tribes right?)

Well I was embarrassed by my school mates' lack of boundaries. They asked if he had read the BoM. He had. And then what did he think. Well he was honest but polite. He did not believe.

They asked then if he'd prayed about it. To humor them I think he said yes. And then they said well that he needed to pray harder! Because he hadn't received the 'right' answer yet!

Amazing the arrogance.

Anyway it wasn't until many years after I first left that I found about I could resign and THAT was thanks to the internet.

I also had a good friend I grew up with leave while in high school. She just didn't like it. But also she had a non member dad. So I am sure he picked it apart a lot at home so she got another perspective. And she wasn't so forced into it as I was. Because of her dad she had an option. When he couldn't take the long meetings and classes anymore she just stopped coming. And she never came back.

I was devastated for her at the time, but remained friends. We are still good friends. But she doesn't know anything really about the doctrine and she never felt the need to look deeply at it. Her mom and her brother (not her sister) are still involved and some cousins. But they all seem to have mutual respect for one another.

I think a lot of women left pre internet because of abuse by the men. There is that book 'Secret Ceremonies' written in 1990 I think (But I didn't find about about it until some years after ?I left myself) about a woman's experience (all pretty negative) with the LDS faith in the 70s-80s. She left because of finally understanding how abused she'd been by priesthood holders, namely her husband but also other men. The temple ceremonies also freaked her out and I think that could be another reason why people left before the information age. Just not being comfortable with rituals they were not prepped for in advance. Finding out that the temple they had heard was going to be so amazing their whole lives was actually some crazy blood oaths! Has gotta be shocking for a lot of people!

I also had friends who fell in love with non members and faced a lot of shunning by their religion because of it. That can really change ones attitude when you find out how nasty your 'loving' church can be and how controlling and how little tolerance they have.

I imagine other forms of intolerance (like how Blacks couldn't have the priesthood until 1978, and then only because the church was going to loose it's tax exempt position if they didn't allow it) would have been a reason to leave. Sexism, Racism, Homophobia. All good reasons.

Oh and there was the whole pedophilia ring going on in Salt Lake city. An apostles daughter was involved so it was hushed up and finally the women whose kids got abused had enough of Mormonism when they saw that the perpetrators of the abuse had no consequence. This was in the 70s I think. There was a book published about it called 'Paperdolls'

Hope this helps, good luck!

PS- There were some high school kids who left in the 80s because of drug and alcohol and sometimes sex. Basically not being able to say no to peer pressure. But most of them came back to the fold later on. Because it was really just rebellious teenage stuff and not anything to do with doctrine or understanding of that.

I did when I was twelve in 1969. Mormonism was in strong opposition to science. My father, a devout Mormon, was a mean asshat. Other Mormon men seemed to be uneducated. All were racist. I could see it was wrong, and I said so. My Mormon father hated me straightaway. My life got even worse, but I wasn't going to pretend the fraud was real.

Actually READING the bom, from very first to very last page. Total garbage. So wrong.

I read my first "anti-Mormon" booklet in the last year of seminary, about 1963. Naturally, I easily debunked it! ;) I was so faithful! A few years later, married, my Mormon wife left me because our bishop told her to leave me. He didn't talk to me about it, nor did she. I was devastated. I am grateful to her for leaving me. I think I know what my life would be like now, had we remained married, and I had never had cause for deeply considering my role, not just "in the Church," but in the universe, especially as a person rejected by wife, Church, and God, as I imagined I had been. As a result, I was more open to considering alternative views of life, the universe, and everything. I read, I corresponded with and visited Hal Houghey and the Tanners. Then my library of literature critical of Mormonism grew as did my library of pro-Mormon writings. And that's how my path out of Mormonism began prior to the internet - disaster, introspection, self-reflection, open-minded, willing to accept other believers as sincere and good people, just with different beliefs from mine.

A person could have fallen away from Mormonism simply. First, consider what type of a god would "curse" a race of people for being black because of some malfeasance in the preexistence. That in and of itself should tell any intelligent human being that Mormonism was a vile, racist organization bent on exclusion and fairytales.

I was the son of a Pentecostal preacher in Midvale, Utah in the mid 1970s. According to the chants in the temple at the time, I was the son of satan's servant, and was treated accordingly by the Mormons. Mormons are not Christian.
I knew, in 1974, that Joseph Smith translated the BOM with his hat. I knew he was into polygamy, and had 30 wives. I knew about the archoelogical and anachronisms and later DNA. I knew these things 40 years ago, and many other things that really make it hard not think LDS is a cult. Everyone knew these things, except the Mormons.
Yesterday, I was talking to my Mormon friend and she said she didn't know about either the gospel topics essays, and that the church was changing the gold plate narrative. She didn't know!
I watch YouTubes of sobbing people who are shocked they've been deceived. In D&C somewhere it says the apostleship is hereditary. Thus, 85% of the GA are related. It's a family affair. Nelson controls a 50 billion dollar portfolio. An apostle is treated like a rock star. Fame and fortune. They know they're lying thieves, but it's for the little people they say.
I know I'm supposed to be nice and kind when I express thoughts about the GA. They even have a document describing exactly how I should communicate with them, with rules about tone and emotions. Are they kidding. Arrogant narcissists.

during the early days of the "church" it is my understanding that there were nearly as many who left as who stayed.
I could be wrong! There is a first time for everything!

I rejected the idea of the talking snake when I was 8 years old, 47 years ago...wasn't much of a stretch to call BS on the LDS thing from there.

Outside experiences. For example: sex, drinking, and possibly porn although I know it was hard to find in the 70's. For me I started off with porn and that was enough to take me away form the church. I felt guilty about it for a little while and then realized that it was normal and wasn't bad at all. (Im 14) For someone in the 70's it would likely be fucking someone or drinking, realizing that it was a normal thing to do and that theres so much more to life outside of mormonism.

you spoiled kids and your internet haha i read ":no man knows my history" in 1977 a year after my mission... also 2 of the Tanners books ( self published in soft cover looked like mineographed pages if i remember correctly before my mission ( i went on mission 1974 -76 and i lived in south carolina well researched anti morg info has always been -with the knowlege aVailable at the time

Sunstone Magazine and intellectual Mormon professors. Read Hugh Nibley and think the opposite. What a tool.