I was a fully active member from age 8 to 64. The shock of learning it was not true was fully traumatic for me. I will write about my many feelings associated with leaving the fold. Daniel
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I am an average male who was born into the Mormon Church. I was baptized at age 8 by my next door neighbor in
There was a bright light personality in the branch who was not afraid to express his ideas, and they were interesting and entertaining. But being on the inside with the branch presidency I knew that they detested him because he was not under their control as a “good” member should be. His public statements were not defamatory, just different sometimes. He had a strong testimony, but he wished some things could be different, and he was not afraid to say so in public. One fast and testimony Sunday morning, he stood up and announced that in his opinion we could do without Sacrament meeting because everything we really needed to know was found in the temple ceremony. His statement was not intended to be inflammatory, just an offhanded statement of what if. The branch president became totally unglued! He met privately with him that week and announced he could not participate in any meetings for 6 months until he had fully repented. Then during the following Sunday Sacrament meeting he publicly reviewed this decision in front of all present. This brother was totally crushed in every way. I recognized how capricious, arbitrary, and political this became as I witnessed his public humiliation. But the final corker for me was later that same Sunday when I entered the president’s office to discover the president and his two counselors slapping each other on the back and exulting how they had “finally” shut up this troublemaker! Now it was my time to become unglued, and I told them how wrong they all were to judge this man. I was furious, walked out and never went back. Fortifying my resolve was my private knowledge that the Book of Mormon was a fraud, and that by leaving I was not really jeopardizing my future spirituality because the Mormons had it all wrong anyway!
Still after all that it took over another year and a half until I had the nerve to remove my name from the records of the church. All told I have one child still active along with my mother who is 88 now. My ex wife (I asked for a divorce in the summer of 2007) and three of the four children and their families and I have all left the fold. I was living in a hot apartment in
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