My first realisation there could be a stronger, brighter reality came when I left the confines of my shoes.

False realities exist in many aspects of life, which we often see as providing security in a dangerous world, but more often the objective reality is far different from our perceived reality which is usually based on irrational superstitious beliefs & fears. Some of these fears & phobias are self-imposed, others are imposed by others including the society in which we live. We are usually completely blind to the restrictions we accede to, until we leave the vicinity of our confinement and look back.

Looking back at myself I can see the fear, guilt, biases, phobias & prejudices which I had, and I am becoming aware of more & more over time.

As humans we all suffer from self-deception. 

I believe, just like there is a set of optimum conditions for our physical development & wellbeing, there is an optimum set of conditions for our psychological development & wellbeing. And I fervently believe certain cultural & religious institutions do NOT provide the optimum environment for fostering this!

I believe truth & authenticity are some of the keys to realising our optimum potentials as human beings.

Check out “Vital Lies, Simple Truths, The Psychology of Self-Deception” by Daniel Goleman,

“Self-deception is, by its very nature, the most elusive of mental facts. We do not see what it is that we do not see!

“Self-deception operates both at the level of the individual mind, & in the collective awareness of the group. To belong to a group of any sort, the tacit price of membership is to agree not to notice one’s own feelings of uneasiness & misgiving, & certainly not to question anything that challenges the group’s way of doing things. The price for the group in this arrangement is that dissent, even healthy dissent, is stifled!

“In order to break through the cocoons of silence that keep vital truths from the collective awareness you need courage. It is the courage to seek the truth & to speak it that can save us from the narcotic of self-deception.

“It is a paradox of our time that those with power are too comfortable to notice the pain of those who suffer, & those who suffer have no power.

“To break out of this trap requires the courage to speak truth to power!”

He goes on to explain:
“My thesis, in sum, revolves around these premises:
1) The mind can protect itself against anxiety by dimming awareness.
2) This mechanism creates a blind spot: a zone of blocked attention and self-deception.
3) Such blind spots occur at each major level of behavior from the psychological to the social.”

One thing he discusses is how our brain is like a filter. Any information that fits into our preconceived vision of the world is allowed to pass. The rest is subconsciously deleted from our awareness in order to avoid the anxiety of dealing with the dissonance.

In effect we trade truth for security!

Authenticity for perceived happiness!

This interview below with Tim Prowse, an ex-minister from the Methodist Church, really echoes my experience as I resigned as a Mormon Bishop due to discovering the truth.

http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/life-without-god?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=pulsenews

Life Without God
An Interview with Tim Prowse

Tim Prowse was a United Methodist pastor for almost 20 years, serving churches in Missouri and Indiana. Tim earned a B.A. from East Texas Baptist University, a Master of Divinity (M.Div) from Saint Paul School of Theology in Kansas City, Missouri, and a Doctor of Ministry (D.Min) from Chicago Theological Seminary. Acknowledging his unbelief, Tim left his faith and career in 2011. He currently lives in Indiana. He was kind enough to discuss his experience of leaving the ministry with me by email.
***

Can you describe the process by which you lost your belief in the teachings of your Church?

An interesting thing happened while I was studying at East Texas Baptist University: I was told not to read Rudolf Bultmann. I asked myself: Why? What were they protecting me from? I picked up Bultmann’s work, and that decision is the catalyst that ultimately paved the road to today. Throughout my educational journey, which culminated in an Ordination from the United Methodist Church where I’ve served for seventeen years, I’ve continued to ask the question “Why?”

Ironically, it was seminary that inaugurated my leap of unfaith.  It was so much easier to believe when living in an uncritical, unquestioning, naïve state.  Seminary training with its demands for rigorous and intentional study and reflection coupled with its values of reason and critical inquiry began to undermine my naïveté.  I discovered theologians, philosophers and authors I never knew existed.  I found their questions stimulating but their answers often unsatisfying. For example, the Bible is rife with vileness evidenced by stories of sexual exploitation, mass murder and arbitrary mayhem.  How do we harmonize this fact with the conception of an all-loving, all-knowing God? While many have undertaken to answer this question even in erudite fashion, I found their answers lacking. Once I concluded that the Bible was a thoroughly human product and the God it purports does not exist, other church teachings, such as communion and baptism, unraveled rather quickly.  To quote Nietzsche, I was seeing through a different “perspective” – a perspective based on critical thinking, reason and deduction.  By honing these skills over time, reason and critical thinking became my primary tools and faith quickly diminished. Ultimately, these tools led to the undoing of my faith rather than the strengthening of it.

It sounds like you lost your faith in the process of becoming a minister—or did you go back and forth for some years? How long did you serve as a minister, and how much of this time was spent riven by doubt?

I didn’t lose faith entirely during the ministerial process, although a simmering struggle between faith and doubt was clearly evident.  This simmering would boil occasionally throughout my seventeen-year career, but any vacillations I experienced were easily suppressed, and faith would triumph, albeit, for non-religious reasons.  Besides the money, time, and energy I had invested during the process, familial responsibilities deterred any decisions to alter course.  These faithful triumphs were ephemeral and I found myself living in constant intellectual and emotional turmoil. By not repudiating my career, I could not escape the feeling I was living a lie. I continued to juggle this stressful dichotomy to the point of being totally miserable. Only recently have I succumbed to the doubt that has always undergirded my faith journey.

After I read your book, The End of Faith, I could no longer suppress my unbelief.  Since I’d never felt comfortable in clergy garb and refused to accept a first-century worldview, your book helped me see that religion could no longer be an instrument of meaning in my life. I’m sad to say, Sam, this conclusion did not result in an immediate career change.  I didn’t break from the church immediately, but rather feigned belief for two more years.

If you could go back in time and reason with your former self, what could you say that might have broken the spell sooner?

I would tell myself to ask questions, to read the text, to wonder, to explore the nuances, to take seriously my intuition and abilities to debate.  I’d tell myself to listen to what is actually being said with critical and reasoning ears.  I’d tell myself to substitute “Invisible Friend” for “God” every time I encountered the word and notice how ridiculous the rhetoric sounds from grown-ups. I would challenge myself to be more skeptical, to study science.  I’d tell myself to find joy in life – it’s the only one you are going to get – don’t waste a second.

Believers often allege that there is a deep connection between faith and morality. For instance, when I debated Rick Warren, he said that if he did not believe in God, he wouldn’t have any reason to behave ethically. You’ve lived on both sides of the faith continuum. I’m wondering if you felt any associated change in your morality, for better or worse.

I’d be interested to know what behaviors or impulses God is deterring Rick Warren from acting upon. I doubt very seriously if “God’s goodness” evaporated tomorrow, Warren would begin robbing banks, raping children, or murdering his neighbors!  These types of statements, while common, are fallacious in my opinion.  When Rick Warren uses God as his reason for being good, he is not using God in a general sense.  He isn’t referring to Thor, Neptune, or Isis, either. 

One can find a few biblical passages that do promote “goodness” to use Rick Warren’s term, but only by cherry picking them and avoiding the numerous passages that are appalling, offensive and destructive.

Since God is nothing more than our creation and projection, any talk of God is our reflection looking back at us.  Hence, our morality begins with us anyway. My morality hasn’t changed for the worse since I left the faith.  If anything, it is much more honest because I am forced to consider what is really going on in ethical decisions.  Family, culture, beliefs and values, genetic tendencies, all play a role in shaping morality, but I’m not arguing an extreme relativism.  While I do give credence to certain cultural influences on determining right and wrong, I believe that some issues are universal.  Which is why, unless Rick Warren is truly demented, he wouldn’t begin doing heinous acts if his faith evaporated tomorrow, and if he did, it would be more the result of mental illness than lack of faith.

Did you ever discuss your doubts with your fellow clergy or parishioners? Did you encounter other ministers who shared your predicament (some can be found at http://clergyproject.org/)? And what happened when you finally expressed your unbelief to others?

As an active minister, I did not discuss my atheism with colleagues or parishioners. Facing lost wages, housing and benefits, I chose to remain silent.  However, I did confide in my wife who provided a level of trust, understanding, and support that proved invaluable. Unfortunately, some ministers do not enjoy mature confidants.  Some have lost marriages and partners, friends and family, leaving them with feelings of isolation and abandonment.  Hence, many continue living in estrangement, uncertain where to turn or who to trust, waiting for their lives to be completely upended when the truth finally is discovered.

This is why the Clergy Project is so important.  It provides an invaluable resource of support for current and former clergy who are atheists.  It is a safe and anonymous place to discuss the issues atheist clergy encounter while providing encouragement and support that is genuine and heartfelt. It greatly eases the desperation and uncertainty of where to turn or who to trust!  I’ve been a member of the Clergy Project since July 2011, and it prepared me well for the responses to expect from friends and family during my post-clergy conversations. So far, I have not been surprised by the responses I’ve received nor have I lost any significant relationships due to my professed atheism, but time will tell.

It is nice to hear that your exit from the ministry has been comparatively smooth. What will you do next?

Repudiating my ordination and leaving faith behind was much smoother than I had anticipated.  Ironically, something I had worked years to accomplish ended in a matter of minutes.  When I slid my ordination certificates across a Bob Evan’s tabletop to my District Superintendent, I was greatly relieved.  The lie was over.  I was free.  This freedom does not come without consternation, however.

Fortunately, a dear friend helped my family by offering their second home to rent at a very reasonable price.  Another dear friend has procured a sales job for me in her company.  While housing and employment have been provided in the short term, long term my future is much more uncertain.  Ideally, I’d love to write and lecture on my experiences; especially concerning the negative impacts faith and church have on individuals and societies. I’d love to write a novel.

I do not have visions of grandeur, however.  If the rest of my life is spent just being a regular “Joe” that will be fine by me.  I have a wonderful family and a few good friends.  My heart and mind are at ease.  I’m healthier now than I’ve been in years and tomorrow looks bright.  For the first time in my life, I’m living. Truly living, Sam.

This book is very interesting:

Daniel Goleman’s book “Vital Lies, Simple Truths. The Psychology of Self-deception.”

Understanding how we think helps us understand how easily it is for people to be conned in fraudulent business schemes, or become embroiled in cultish religious groups.
It helps to explain why as members of the Mormon Church we are blind to the mind control which keeps us bound to a false religion.

“Self-deception is, by its very nature, the most elusive of mental facts. We do not see what it is that we do not see!

“Self-deception operates both at the level of the individual mind, & in the collective awareness of the group. To belong to a group of any sort, the tacit price of membership is to agree not to notice one’s own feelings of uneasiness & misgiving, & certainly not to question anything that challenges the group’s way of doing things. The price for the group in this arrangement is that dissent, even healthy dissent, is stifled!

“In order to break through the cocoons of silence that keep vital truths from the collective awareness you need courage. It is the courage to seek the truth & to speak it that can save us from the narcotic of self-deception.

“It is a paradox of our time that those with power are too comfortable to notice the pain of those who suffer, & those who suffer have no power.

“To break out of this trap requires the courage to speak truth to power!”
~ Daniel Goleman

When I was first called as bishop and introduced the principle of praying about every single individual calling & release, I had some resistance from the mature, experienced priesthood holders in our ward.

They were convinced that they only had to pray & ask for the Lord’s inspiration at the beginning of the meeting & they would then receive that inspiration during the rest of the meeting. They had never heard of praying about every decision before.

When I asked the Stake President if it was appropriate, he was a little shocked I was asking. It had never come up before as a query, and he seemed, at first, a little unsure what to say. But told me he sustained me if that’s what I decided to do.

So it appears that the Church leadership in our Ward had never prayed for the Lord’s inspiration about each calling until I instituted it.

Let me assure you all that we were quite fastidious about praying about individual callings & releases! We got on our knees, for each & every person. We waited for a warm reassurance or a stupor of thought. I was insistent on unanimous positive feelings of divine acceptance amongst the whole bishopric, otherwise we would go back to reconsidering the person and calling.

Sometimes one member of the bishopric would not feel anything & they might admit to being distracted by other concerns so their ‘vote’ was therefore not considered. But most of the time we had unanimity.

I think my particular style of decision making, as described above, may have caused some concern in the Stake Presidency because after awhile we were counselled that my feelings as bishop should always take presidence! That if I felt good about something then it was more likely to be right. More likely to be the ‘will of the Lord’! This did seem strange to me as I considered that the Lord would inspire all men equally, & that all revelation from God was of equal merit & value, but I was obviously wrong!! It appears the revelation I received as Bishop was of greater value & credibility than everyone else in the Ward!

In Stake Leadership & Ward meetings the Stake Presidency, and General Authorities, would be very vocal about how Bishops received direct revelation from God. They repeatedly told the members that I, as Bishop, received revelation from God for the Ward, much like the Prophet does for the Church. It actually got to become quite embarrassing. I didn’t consider myself to be similar in any way, shape or form to a prophet. If I had been arrogantly inclined it could have gone to my head.

So it came as quite a shock to everyone when I resigned as Bishop due to discovering the Church is a fraudulent cult.

What I found interesting is I didn’t feel any different. I still felt the same feelings of ‘inspiration’ or ‘revelation’ as I did as a true believer.

In fact, even now, as an athiest I have those same feelings of ‘the Spirit’!

Honestly I really do have those same ‘feelings of the spirit’, except I don’t now attribute them to coming from God!

I think it comes down to how you interpret those feelings. To what do we equate feelings of inspiration or revelation?

In the past I believed they were from God. Now I think they come from my own sub-conscious.

Neuro-scientists are mapping the neural processes of our brains & have discovered that our sub-conscious minds have come to a decision about something several seconds before we (our conscious selves) have become aware of it.

It can appear that we are being inspired from a supernatural entity outside ourselves, but actually it is most probably just us. Our own wonderful, amazing brains which inspire us.

So everyone can, & does, receive ‘personal revelation’! Everyone has their own ‘God in their own heads’. Their own imaginary friend, who whispers things to them, who inspires them, who gives them warm peaceful emotional feelings when it is positive, supportive, reassuring & good, and conversely gives rise to negative, uncomfortable, discouraging feelings when something is deemed bad.

It’s just realising this process for what it is.

But never, can these feelings be relied on exclusively to decide on truth. Feelings are never a good indicator of truth. Even though these personal inspirational feelings may seem real & palpable to us, they do not always reflect objective reality outside of us.

Just ask a paranoid schizophrenic, or someone on hallucinogenic drugs, or even consider your own personal night-time dreams. They can all seem very real to that person at the time, but are just psychological constructs of the mind.

Then, if we’re honest, we should also consider that millions of religious people all round the world, in many different religions also have personal spiritual experiences which appear to be very real to them. Just ask someone from another faith to describe their conversion or other significant spiritual event & you’ll discover how amazingly similar their feelings are to your own.

Spirituality is universal. And is a normal, natural process of the brain. But it doesn’t mean it’s evidence of God inspiring us, or even that he even really exists outside our own amazingly powerful & wonderfully malleable minds.

I surprisingly feel more excitement for life. More awe & wonder at the beauty of the universe.

I feel more connected to my fellow human beings.

And I cherish this ‘one life’ that I know I have more than ever before.

The potential for each human life feels more special.

And my sense of compassion for all others has grown immeasurably.

I am truly shocked by these changes in feeling, but realise that some things which I had attributed to coming from God are actually intrinsic in my humanity & arise from my evolution.

I have always liked Stephen Covey’s moto of, “Live, Love, Learn & Leave a Legacy”, & it now seems more meaningful in my life than when I felt my ‘purpose of life’ was imposed on me by a Divine Creator.

This is an interesting article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-faith/post/how-do-atheist-find-meaning-in-life/2012/01/18/gIQAbiFP8P_blog.html

After all, it looks like it should be so easy for us, as apostates, to just walk away.

It seems to be what we should want to do if we no longer believe! Doesn’t it? Aren’t we leaving because we’ve been offended, or have a desire to sin? Aren’t we leaving because we no longer have a desire to live the commandments & standards of Mormon life? The first thing a close relative said to me was, “You’re only leaving so you can sin!” I was shocked! The thought had never occurred to me I could sin if I left! And I was even more shocked that a close relative didn’t know me well enough to realise this was not in my character!

Other friends and family just thought I was leaving because it was easier for me! That my new beliefs were somehow consoling!

Let me now state categorically that there was no consolation & no desire for sin! 

It really is not that simple for most apostates from the Mormon Church.

But, it is difficult, if not impossible, for any True Believing Members to understand the difficult process of transition out of Mormonism. The Church doctrines have been such an integral part of my life since birth that they form a part of my neurology. My thought processes are ‘Mormon’ despite a change of belief.

The doctrines, beliefs & practices of the LDS Church were so well integrated into my life that my personality, who I am as a person, has been so central to my life that it’s simply not easy to ‘just let it go’!

Every decision of my life was influenced by the Church.

I lived my life as if everything depended on my Mormon faith. I ‘knew’ who I was as a person because of the central defining beliefs of Mormonism related to my ‘divine relationship to God’.

When the ‘personal identity’ beliefs of Mormonism are placed in doubt, it is so disruptive to an individual that it feels like a ‘death’! It feels like one is dying on the inside!

It truly has been for me, & is likewise for many others, the most painful & difficult thing I’ve ever had to deal with.

Sometimes, I would just love for it all to go away & not plague my thoughts and feelings any further. But my thought processes are ‘Mormon’.

Everything I ever believed is related in some way to my Mormon beliefs.

As a True Believing Mormon the whole world is looked at through the lens of Mormonism. So every single aspect of one’s life has to be re-evaluated. All my references for truth have come through my Mormon faith.

Once that faith is dead, life seems so frightening, till new reference points are made & new paradigms for life are framed. It is like being ‘Born Again’. Initially painful, but ultimately joyful & full of wondrous new possibilities. But just like a new born child, life should be approached carefully, gently at first, till one finds one’s feet & gains confidence in the new world we have suddenly & unexpectedly found ourselves in.

If one accepts the findings of experts in cult recovery, then one can understand just how & why it is so difficult for so many people who leave the Church to ‘just get on with life’  and move forwards!

The other aspect of all this unexpected & initially unwanted change of beliefs is that now I see things more clearly, now I have the benefit of so much more information about the origins of Mormonism, I feel a great sense of compassion for my friends & family still in the Church. I desperately want to share with them what I’ve discovered. Not because I want them to agree with me, but so they are not deceived as I was, but can deal with the truth whichever way they choose. If they want to continue to believe in the doctrines of Mormonism that’s fine, but at least they can have a belief with an awareness of all the facts, not just the sanitised ones which the Church teaches.

Just like when I was a young missionary for the Church, I yearn for people to know the truth.

It’s my compassion which drives me onwards to push the Church to be more open about its origins & history.

All the best in your search for truth,
Steve

Now there are those who do not want us to talk. Those who do not wish us to stand up & be counted. Those who want us to just “shut up”!

And I must say it’s a tragic damnation of mankind that even now, when man has walked on the moon, that you can still get killed on planet earth for renouncing an ancient religion.

For while the truncheon may have been used in lieu of words, words will always retain their power. Words offer the way to meaning, and to those who will listen, the enunciation of truth.

And the truth is, there is something very wrong with this country (USA). A country where you can be discriminated against, not for what you believe in, but for what you don’t!

Whilst conversely a religious belief can preclude your business from having to obey childcare laws.

Now, fairness, justice & freedom are more than words, they are perspectives of mankind and the measure of the virtue of a civilization.

Divorce yourself from superstition & religion. Break the shackles of pseudo-science, and for the benefit of the coming man embrace rationality.

- Thunderf00t from YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blbxC0yvDUA&feature=youtube_gdata_player

I think I must think differently now!

I understand the whole concept of milk before meat. I served a full-time mission for the Church, served in Stake Mission & Young Mens Presidencies, Ward Mission Leader, amongst many other callings & finally as a Bishop for nearly seven years. I agree that in order to nurture a fledgling testimony of ‘the Gospel’ one has to gently introduce deeper & deeper doctrine, or it could overwhelm the young Latter-day Saint or new convert. It’s all about reinforcing a mind-set, or thought processes in stages.

The Church General Authorities continually counsel the membership to strengthen their testimonies.

But the same is true of every irrational superstitious belief system. Lots of Church doctrines, beliefs and practices are completely ‘irrational’ compared to other areas of life. We may not like the use of the term ‘irrational’, but it is not rational in the normal every day sense. Another word to describe religious beliefs would be ‘supernatural’, as opposed to what we experience in the ‘natural’ world.

I use the word superstitious because that is what they are. There are religious & secular superstitious beliefs, all of which have no grounding in the natural world environment, but are based on feelings and beliefs without rational scientific basis.

If Church beliefs, doctrines & practices are seen from the context of being irrational & superstitious, and based on the supernatural, then I completely agree that it takes a while to accommodate one’s mind to this, & so agree that milk before meat, with frequent, regular reinforcement is absolutely vital.

Frequent prayer, scripture study, Church attendance, Temple worship etc is to be encouraged to keep the beliefs alive.

The scripture of Paul to the Hebrews is absolutely true when he says, “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen!”

I too was under the delusion that my faith was stronger because I didn’t ‘see’ the evidence.

But what we’re talking about is believing in something despite all the rational, scientific evidence to the contrary!

Basing our belief in something because it ‘feels right’!

It means taking the principle of ‘conformational bias’ to its extreme & burying our heads in the sand.

If there is a God, then He gave me a brain to use. He gave me a brain to think rationally & look for all the evidence rather than ignoring it when presented to me.

I believe most people, if not everyone, feels ‘inspiration’ from time to time, if not constantly.

I certainly did as a Church member & especially whilst serving as a Bishop.

I interpreted that ‘inspiration’ as revelation from God.

What I have surprisingly discovered since becoming a secular humanist & scientific naturalist (agnostic athiest), is that the ‘inspiration’ I used to receive has continued. In fact increasingly so!

In that sense I feel like the feelings of the ‘Spirit’ have actually continued. But I now realise their source is not God, but me! My wonderful sub-conscious mind which continually inspires & reveals things to my conscious mind on an ever increasing regularity.

But realising the source of these ‘feelings’ I can better interpret their veracity & truth. I realise they are just one fallible means of learning about something, which should be teamed up with rational reason & logic as well as scientific evidence, before coming to decisions.

If you’ve ever discussed your own irrational superstitious beliefs with a believer in another faith system who has their own irrational superstitious beliefs then you’ll realise, like I did that no-one wins.

Reasoning with irrationality is futile!

My current campaign is to encourage rational thought.

“In speaking about the church, we do not try to make it sound better than it is. We do not need to spin our message, we need to communicate the message honestly and directly.”

“If church members do that, suspicions will evaporate, negative stereotypes will disappear, and [outsiders] will understand the [LDS] Church as it really is.” ~ Elder L Tom Perry, October General Conference 2011

But I’ve been told by the Stake President not to talk about any Church History! “Even if they are true, don’t talk about them!” he said.

Apostle Russel M. Nelson:
“Indeed, in some instances, the merciful companion to truth is silence. Some truths are best left unsaid.“

“To anyone who, because of truth, may be tempted to become a dissenter against the Lord and his anointed, weigh carefully your action.”

Apostle Elder Boyd K Packer:
“Some things that are true are not very useful.”
Apostle Packer seems to disagree with D&C 84:45, which says: “…whatsoever is truth is light…”

Elder Cecil O. Samuelson Jr., a member of the First Quorum of the Seventy seems to disagree with Elder Packer:
“We don t believe that there is anything in our current history or in our past history that is worrisome, so we are grateful for people to get to know it.”

He must be joking! Why are members who speak about the origins of Mormonism disciplined if they don’t follow the orthodox line? And why are hundreds of thousands of members leaving the Church after discovering uncomfortable facts about its history? Including me.

Or he’s trying to reassure the majority of active members who are ignorant of all the facts that there is nothing to worry about. Whereas Elder Packer is talking to those who know stuff!

For more information on Mormon honesty see: http://home.teleport.com/~packham/lying.htm

I respect everyone’s right to believe.

I’m just posting my personal experience of deconversion from a superstitious belief system, which until recently I ‘knew’ to be true, till I realised I was mistaken.

I now realise true knowledge is not gained from ‘warm & peaceful feelings of the spirit’, as good as that feels!

Facts don’t care how we feel about them. Factual truth does not depend on our preferences.

It is entirely possible to believe in something with complete faith which is demonstrably untrue. In fact most Mormons believe other religious adherents to their particular faith systems are actually deceived by Satan.

This means that some people believe their own particular religion will save them, yet they are worshipping the wrong god!

Tragically their beliefs are in fact damnable false lies.

Children may completely & totally believe in the existence of Santa Clause, but their parents know it’s just a type of fun make believe. A fantasy adding magic & excitement to Christmas.

I am convinced I have personally believed several damnable false lies for my entire life!

Their are lots of examples, but I’ll highlight a couple below.

As an example I believed Joseph Smith was a prophet of God & was honest in his dealings. I believed Joseph Smith was an honourable man, even though he was a normal human being, and that he would never have been involved in illicit activities. I believed he was only married to one wife, Emma, during his mortal life, but had heard of other women married to him in Temple Sealings after he died.

To my horror after reading Chris Tolworthy’s site “The Church is True, The Church is Not True!” ~ http://www.exmormon.org.uk/tol_arch/atozelph/twosides.htm

There I discovered that Joseph Smith was polygamously married to at least 33 women. Eleven of whom were already married to other living men at the same time! And Joseph married several teenagers including a couple of 14 year old girls!

This sickened me to the core!

I later discovered Joseph had lied to his wife, the Church & the world at large through newspaper articles about these illegal relationships.

He said God had declared it was wrong. Yet at that time he was involved in several polygamous & polyandrous relationships.

Quoting from “brotherofelijah”:

“1. FACT: Joseph Smith married other men’s wives, 11 of them.
2. FACT: That practice is clearly a violation of D&C 132, which requires that a ‘plural wife’ belong to no one else. (women = possessions)
3. FACT: According to D&C 132 and more importantly, the Bible, marrying somebody who is already married to somebody else is adultery.
4. FACT: Consummating your relationship with somebody else’s wife is adultery.
5. FACT: D&C 132:61 clearly states the ONLY purpose of practicing plural marriage, to raise up a righteous generation, to multiply.
6. Since God didn’t restrict husbands from consummating their relationships with their plural wives, why would anybody assume otherwise?
7. Whether he had sex with them or not isn’t even the issue, he violated the “Law of the Priesthood” before he heard it straight from God, and after he heard it straight from God.
8. Fact. Then he lied about it & so did 3 so-called ‘Prophets’, after him.
9. The definition of a prophet is somebody who sees truth and speaks truth. If they lie, they’re false prophets.
10. Joseph Smith was a false prophet, as were all the prophet who have followed him, including Warren Jeff’s, who seems to have patterned his life after Joseph Smith’s sexual practices and now sits in Federal Prison because of it.”

At the time Joseph Smith was practising these illegal marriages he pretended to receive a revelation from God telling the Church that it was wrong to practice polygamy. In my view he did this in order to pretend it wasn’t happening and try to stop the speculation.
D&C 104:1: “Inasmuch as this church of Christ has been reproached with the crime of fornication, and polygamy: we declare that we believe, that one man should have one wife; and one woman, but one husband, except in the case of death, when either is at liberty to marry again.”

In other words he denied it by lying!

Currently the Church teaches that the Book of Mormon was translated by the power of God through the use of the Urim & Thummim. It depicts Joseph sitting at a table with the gold plates in front of him & separated from his scribe by a cloth or curtain. Yet every personal account of the translation process written by his wife & other scribes tell a different story with the gold plates not even visible in the room & Joseph sticking his head in a hat using the same peep stone used in criminal activities from his youth!

My testimony was not based on the facts, but a different version. A fictitious version of events.

These are two examples of believing something which I later discover was wrong.

The whole of the origins of Mormonism & the evidences for the Book of Mormon is replete with them. (see link at bottom of page for a thorough essay on this by Tyler Young)

My testimony, which I believed would enable me to gain exaltation one day if I was worthy, was based on stories which have been sanitised & twisted to be faith promoting propaganda.

One of the Church Apostles Elder Boyd K Packer has said Mormons should not value all truth, only that truth which is faith promoting!

Elder Boyd K Packer:
“Some things that are true are not very useful.”

Very useful for increasing the faith of the believers, but not very honest!

Therefore, my testimony was not exactly based on factual truth. I don’t believe a righteous, loving God would want his children to be saved by fictitious stories.

My God (when I believed) was totally & scrupulously honest. To a fault!

As I tried to be!

I believed in the concept of truth as taught in D&C 84:45, which says: “…whatsoever is truth is light…”

I believe in being totally honest with my fellow man. One could say I’m trying to be more honest than the Church which taught me to be honest. Which was quite a shock, when I realised.

Yet my interest now is in the whole concept of belief in general.

Why do people all around the world in different religions believe in fictitious stories?

All religions claim the truth. They all have adherents who are devout & genuinely sincere in their beliefs.

Why can Mormons think their version of religion is true & at the same time so do all the others. Some religious believers, like certain Muslims, have even more fervour than Mormons?

Can only Mormons think they have the “fulness of the Gospel”?

For more information read this very comprehensive essay on the issue of damnable false lies:
“Why I left the Mormon Church” by Tyler Young: http://bit.ly/whytylerleft

In my opinion the Mormon Church & the gospel it preaches is a modern mythology & fantasy world which cannot stand on a foundation of facts, only of faith! Faith being evidence of things not seen!

Faith based, superstitious belief systems need continual reinforcement with rituals & testimony bearing etc.

The General Authorities are 100% correct when they say our testimonies are fragile! Of course they are, because there is no factual foundation, only a fictitious fantasy world, which though it may seem wonderful to those immersed & invested in it, is still a delusion!

The greater the potential loss, the greater the need for superstitious ritual. Hence twice daily personal prayers, prayers with our spouses, family prayers, scripture study, church service, testimony bearing, temple attendance, home & visiting teaching, family home evenings, prayers on food, prayers for safety in travelling, continuous prayer in the heart, weekly sacrament taking, frequent hymn singing about the beliefs, frequent leadership meetings & training, regular PPIs, frequent auxiliary training meetings, payment of tithes and offerings, twice yearly Stake Conferences, twice yearly General Conferences, monthly fasting, strict rules & commandments, heavy expectations for doing family history research, having a years home food storage,daily journal writing, expectation to send children to serve on missions, etc, etc.

The more sacrifice can be extracted from its adherents, the more heavily invested they become & the stronger their superstitious faith becomes.

It all makes complete sense that these belief reinforcement strategies are so important, when you recognize the belief system for what it is, irrational fear-based superstition!

In any science based profession there is no need to reinforce the belief system or superstition because it’s knowledge based.

Yes, updating knowledge with the latest evidence from scientific research is important, as is checking references, but I don’t know any scientist or medical professionals who have to reinforce their belief in their professional practice on a regular basis.

When you really have factual knowledge of something, you know. You don’t have to keep reminding yourself that you know. You don’t have to keep bearing your testimony to others in emotionally charged settings.

I just can’t imagine my podiatry colleagues standing up in a room testifying of the efficacy & truthfulness of the podiatric profession!