The other day on the exmormon recovery board, somebody asked, "what was the straw that broke your back?" It is a great thread if you want to check it out. I think that there were 47 responses and everybody had their own "deal breakers." I had to jump in and share mine. This isn't of course a complete list but a basic idea of where I started and what did it for me. I added a few things to the post after looking it over again, to better express and document the facts and what I'm truly feeling. I have much more to post regarding all of this but this will give you a pretty good idea of the things that I just couldn't live with once I learned them and studied them. By the way, for those that don't know what "TBM" is, it means "True Believing Mormon" or "True Blue Mormon", basically, a die-hard that either doesn't know the truth or doesn't want to hear the truth. You get the picture. Anyway, here was my 2 cents worth:
For me, the Blacks and the Priesthood was a real starting point when I read an article in The Salt Lake City Weekly. It is called "White Wash." This is an article that everyone, in or out of the Church should take the time to read. One of the main contributors is Darron Smith, black, a BYU Professor and in a Bishopric thus adding to the credibility for those that think it may just be an anti-Mormon article. Let me just say, that if a strong, worthy, black BYU Professor can't get these racists to say I'm sorry for the past comments, then nobody can or ever will. It will just further prove, as each day goes by, that the hierarchy of the Mormon Church is nothing but a bunch of racists, still!! Amazing that these men can't humble themselves even a little to just say, "We are sorry for any racist comments made by Brigham Young and others and for all racist teachings, they were not from God." There, I just said it, that's all they need to say, but they won't and probably never will do it because they never take responsibility for anything negative in the past, no matter what it is. It is my opinion that if these men continue to ignore and pretend that these things never existed or weren't said, then they must believe these things too and therefore are racists, just like Brigham Young and all the others. They are modern day racists, not Prophets, Seers and Revelators. It is all glossed over and they pretend like it never existed. It sickens me!!
Link to "White Wash"
I never had any idea that Brigham Young and others had said so many racist things, unbelievable things about blacks. I mean "death on the spot" if they mix with the white seed, etc. It is horrible!! No excuse for it and never an apology to this day. Here is one of the other famous quotes(there are many) from Brigham Young that sums up perfectly what he thought of Black people:
"You see some classes of the human family that are BLACK, UNCOUTH, UNCOMELY, DISAGREEABLE and LOW in their habits, WILD, and seemingly DEPRIVED OF NEARLY ALL THE BLESSINGS OF THE INTELLIGENCE that is generally bestowed upon mankind. The first man that committed the odious crime of killing one of his brethren will be cursed the longest of any one of the children of Adam. Cain slew his brother. Cain might have been KILLED, and THAT WOULD HAVE PUT A TERMINATION TO THAT LINE OF HUMAN BEINGS. This was not to be, and the Lord put A MARK upon him, which is THE FLAT NOSE AND BLACK SKIN. Trace mankind down to after the flood, and then another curse is pronounced upon the same race -- that they should be the "servants of servants;" and they will be, until that curse is removed; and the Abolitionists cannot help it, nor in the least alter that decree." LDS "Prophet" Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, Vol. 7, p. 290, 1859, emphasis added.
Then I moved onto polygamy and Joseph Smith and it made me sick and still does. Thanks to JS, BY and others, we now have between 30,000-50,000 polygamists living in Utah. I watched a show today on the A&E Channel all about it and it is just disgusting. The sexual abuse, rape and molestation that goes on in polygamy is just evil and wrong. Honestly, I always knew that BY was a polygamist but never really studied about it. One thing that I never really knew much about was Joseph Smith's polygamy and that's what put the nail in my last attempt to hang with the Church.
It's all very simple, if one doesn't believe that Joseph Smith received a revelation from God about polygamy, then he wasn't a true Prophet of God, The Book of Mormon is bogus and everything about the Church and it's divine revelation is BS. I have many links for polygamy if you want them as do many others on this board. There is plenty of info out there. Here is one link regarding the book, "In Sacred Loneliness The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith. " It even has a chart that shows a lot of info about Joseph's wives at the bottom of the page. Link
Here is another link that is a book review of "In Sacred Loneliness." It also breaks down by age group at the bottom of the page taking note how much Joseph liked the "teen" variety of women. Of course, it was all a commandment of God, I forgot. Oh yeah, and he was gonna have an angel slay Joseph if he didn't become a polygamist. If that is who God is, forcing men to be polygamists and marrying other men's wives, Threatening to kill them if they don't, then I hope that I never meet him!! That God is the God that Joseph Smith created in his mind, the God that he fabricated, the Mormon God but certainly not a real God!!
I very highly recommend An Insider's View of Mormon Origins by Grant Palmer. It will help you understand how Joseph Smith wrote and authored the BOM with a lot of help from other books, the Bible and things that happened in his community. It explains the First Vision problems, restoration of the Priesthood, etc. For Polygamy, in Sacred loneliness is one of the best books out there, written by a member that is still in good standing as far as I've heard.
In any case, one thing lead to another and now I'm reading "The Mormon Murders" about the Hoffman murders and forgeries and I'm going to read "Salamander when I'm done with this book. There is so much information out there that the Church has suppressed, I can't believe it. It was very shocking one day to wake up and realize that the Mormon Church I had grown up in, served a mission in and had always believed, was a total complete fraud.
It came in stages. I went through shock, denial, pain and many other things but then you reach a point of acceptance and peace. All you can do is take it day by day. I actually now feel a certain amount of freedom that I've never had in my entire life and it feels good. I'm not gonna say the pain and anger are gone but thanks to places like this one, we can now express ourselves and work through our experience. Thanks to the Internet, now we can all learn the truth that they have been hiding for 175 years. Good luck on your journey to the truth!!
Here is a link to my story in a nutshell that I posted on the exmormon biography board. It's entitled; "Here's my story...from "TBM" to freedom in about 6 weeks!!"
I'll also be posting it on my blog here as well and adding to it. That was just a brief general history of how I got from where I was to where I am and by no means is a complete story. Also, as you read my other posts regarding a wide variety of subjects, it won't be hard to understand exactly where I'm coming from and all of the problems I have with Mormon History and the lies that are told over and over and over.
3 comments:
mormons are morons weak brains that need direction
Mormons come to my door just about every other day. Somthing just didn't feel right about them. Thank you for posting this information, I would never want to be assosiated with anyone who is racist and preaches it in the name of God. The mormons target people who are searching for better and want to obey God. Those are the people who are more open minded.I asked them why I never saw any black mormons, even when I lived in Philly, the next time they came they brought a black missionary. I was raised as a christian, and had went astray. Something about them is just so wrong. BEWARE OF THE WOLF DRESSED IN SHEEPS CLOTHING!
I don't know where you were hiding your entire life if you never had read or heard any of that stuff before. I was born into the Church in 1952, and I knew all about all that stuff from the time I can remember. We talked about it in my Sunday School classes. We discussed it in my religion classes at Ricks and BYU (rationally and openly). In the seventies, I read volumes on blacks, the priesthood and church membership--I found it all in the BYU library. I also read everything I could get my hands on about polygamy in the early church, also much of it from the library. I think all this talk about "suppression" of facts by the Church is extremely amusing. None of the many, many things that I have read, written by Church members, non-members or ex-members, has had the effect on me that it seems to have had on you. I find the historical documents, speeches, statements, and discussions interesting from a historian's point of view, sometimes pathetic, sometimes inspiring, sometimes irritating, sometimes faith-promoting, sometimes puzzling, always intensely human and fascinating. Never has made me angry and bitter to read these things, though, even as a teenager. You can think I'm stupid, and you probably will, Mister Utahnite, but I suspect that the many people who react to these things the way I do are actually reasonable, thoughtful, open-minded and able to see fairly clearly that people are people, in any age and in any group and in any situation. I'm willing to accept that.
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