One of the most difficult aspects of leaving Mormonism is facing the accusatory questioning of Mormon friends and relatives. Many people who have just left Mormonism are at a loss as to how to deal with such questions. Usually the questions are not really requests for information, but rather attempts at emotional manipulation. Mormons usually prefer to pre-judge the cause of someone's change of belief and assume that they already know the "real" answer to these questions. Here are some of the questions and comments often faced by those who have just left the church, with suggestions as to how one might respond. Many other responses are possible, of course, and an appropriate response would depend on the prior relationship with the questioner and the sincerity of the question.
Q: Why did you leave the church?
A: If you sincerely want to know, I will be glad to tell you. But it will take at least half an hour. And before I start I want your commitment to listen until I am finished, without arguing with me. Shall I continue?
Q: I really would like to hear about what made you leave the church, but can you tell me about it without saying bad things about the church or our leaders?
A: Not very well, because those are the very things that made me leave the church. You will have to take off your rose-colored glasses.
Q: Which commandments weren't you keeping, that Satan was able to tempt you?
A: Two, actually: "Thou shalt not ask questions" and "Thou shalt not think."
Q: Have you been reading "anti-Mormon" literature?
A: Yes: the Bible, the Doctrine and Covenants, the Book of Commandments, the Journal of Discourses... stuff like that. It would destroy anybody's testimony.
Q: You know what I mean: have you been reading material written by anti-Mormons?
A: Yes, and I have found that most of it is very accurate, and I have learned a great deal about Mormonism and the history of the church. You should check it yourself.
Q: Why would I want to read "anti-Mormon" material?
A: The missionaries tell investigators that they should actually read the Book of Mormon before passing judgment on it. Shouldn't it be the same way with other books?
Q: I guess living the Gospel was just too hard for you, eh?
A: I "lived the gospel" as well as any other Mormon. The only thing that became too hard for me was having to believe things that were not true.
Q: Being a good Mormon is not easy - all of us struggle sometimes. You've simply taken the easy way out!
A: No, admitting that the church is false and deciding to leave it has been one of the most difficult decisions of my life. Acting honestly on one's convictions takes a lot of courage. It would have been much easier simply to "bow my head and say 'yes'."
Q: How can you violate the sacred covenants you made in the temple?
A: Whatever oaths I made in the temple were obtained from me dishonestly, through fraud and coercion. No one is obligated to respect any oath obtained that way.
Q: Why are you so disrespectful of things that we hold sacred?
A: Why are you so disrespectful of things that I hold sacred?
Q: What then do you consider sacred?
A: Truth, integrity, honesty, love for one's fellow creatures, and trying one's best to act justly and do good. (Micah 6:8) Especially truth and integrity. I agree with Emerson, who said: "Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind."
Q: You are tearing down rather than building up!
A: I think it is a good thing to uncover lies and to open people's eyes. I am saying to you the same thing that Mormon missionaries say to investigators: Your present religion is false.
Q: What will you say to God on the Day of Judgment?
A: Thank you, Lord, for showing me that the Mormon church is false!
Q: I mean, when you find out in Heaven that the Gospel is true?
A: In that very unlikely circumstance, I would say, "Lord, that was a really stupid church you set up down there. Only the gullible would believe it! But I'm sure I'll be happy in the Telestial Kingdom - I know a lot of nice people who will be there. And I never did think the CK would be all that interesting, having spirit babies for all eternity."
Q: Without the priesthood, what will you do for extra help when you are seriously ill?
A: I'll get a second opinion from another doctor.
Q: Have you prayed and asked God to give you a witness to the truth of the Gospel?
A: Yes, and that's one of my big reasons for leaving.
Q: Why don't you go back and read the Book of Mormon again?
A: I have done that, and each time it gets dumber and dumber. In fact, reading the Book of Mormon carefully was one of the things that made me realize it was phoney.
Q: Your testimony was so strong! You had a witness from the Spirit!
A: I realized that it was the very same feeling I got from watching "Lord of the Rings". You mean that movie was TRUE?
Q: You should listen to what the Spirit tells you!
A: The Spirit is telling me to get out of the Mormon church.
Q: It's sad that you have lost your testimony.
A: Actually I have GAINED a testimony: I know, with every fiber of my being, and beyond any shadow of doubt, that Joseph Smith was a fraud, a womanizer and a liar, and that the church he founded is a man-made organization, and that the Book of Mormon is a 19th century work of imaginary fiction. I have gained this testimony through careful prayer and study, and the Spirit of Truth has confirmed it to me. This knowledge has brought me great joy and peace of mind. Would you like to know more?
Q: Obviously you never really had a testimony of the Gospel.
A: If I didn't, it wasn't for lack of trying. Actually I really did believe it all. Otherwise I would never have paid all that tithing or busted my butt trying to fulfill all those callings.
Q: It's your pride, isn't it! Do you think you are so much smarter than everybody else?
A: Not necessarily. But I think God gave us a brain so that we would use it. I have just dusted it off and started using it, after all that time as a Mormon when it didn't have to do any work. As Galileo said: "I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use." I'll cast my lot with the likes of Galileo any day. He was persecuted by his church, too. But he was right.
Q: You can't prove that the church isn't true!
A: I think it would be easier for me to prove that it isn't true than for you to prove that it is. Shall we try it?
Q: Do you feel a difference now that you lost the Spirit?
A: Yes. Whatever "spirit" that was had me terribly depressed. I feel much better now, thank you.
Q: Have you committed adultery?
A: No, but why would that affect my testimony? It didn't seem to affect Joseph Smith's testimony.
Q: Are you going to start to drink and indulge in other unhealthy practices?
A: I don't know yet - I would sure like to be able to try some of that great wine that Jesus made at Cana.
Q: You know deep in your heart that the church is true, don't you! You are just saying you don't believe it so that you can sin!
A: If I really believed it I would be scared to death to sin. And I really don't want to start "sinning." Do you think I am so stupid that I would give up my eternal salvation just so I could have a cup of coffee or watch an R-rated movie?
Q: What if you're wrong? Have you considered that possibility?
A: What if YOU'RE wrong? Have you considered that possibility?
Q: Don't you feel bad about what you are doing?
A: No. I have never felt so wonderful.
Q: Why do you have to go around telling everybody bad things about the church?
A: Why do you have to bear your testimony in public every month?
Q: Why are you doing this to your family?
A: Would my family rather see me dead of suicide, or insane? Because that is what the church was driving me toward.
Q: So you would rather be happy in this life than in the next?
A: I intend to be happy in both. And if there is no next life, at least I will have been happy in this one. I do not want to die realizing that I have not really lived.
Q: Well, if Mormonism isn't the true church, then which one IS?
A: I'll accept the answer to that question that God supposedly gave Joseph Smith: "They are all wrong - their creeds are an abomination - their teachers are all corrupt - they teach for doctrines the commandments of men..." I checked out AMWAY, but it was too much like Mormonism.
Q: So what do you believe NOW?
A: I believe that life is a journey of exploration, a question to which there may be no final answer, but we continue to learn as we search. I believe that there may not even be answers, and in that case it is better to have unanswered questions than to have confidence in answers that are false. I believe that I can figure out how to live a decent life without someone dictating to me every detail.
Q: God has told me to help you regain your testimony.
A: Your imagination is working over-time. Actually, God has told me that you are a servant of Satan and I should not listen to you.
Q: What will you do when you need something or someone to turn to for spiritual guidance, comfort, and knowledge?
A: First, I have real friends who are not imaginary. Also I have acquired a lucky rabbit's foot, a good luck amulet and a horse shoe over my door. They are all working very effectively, even better than my Mormon garments did.
Q: Well, I suppose we all have free agency, and you have a right to believe whatever you want.
A: Yes, and it is only since I have left the church that I really feel like I have that free agency that Mormons talk so much about. When I was a Mormon I never really felt like I was free. Because I really wasn't.
Immediate Positive Results from Leaving
link* The most common feeling is the combination of the loss of arrogance and the closer feeling one has toward mankind. This is a great feeling. I no longer feel like I am superior to other people because of the special knowledge that I thought I had possessed.
* I now realize, like above, I am just like the rest of mankind. My disposition is kinder.
* I found there is a whole new world to discover. I no longer have to measure everything to how it compares to the teachings of Mormonism. It is exciting to begin learning so many new things with an open mind.
* It is wonderful to be free of the burden of constantly imposed guilt.
* I begin to understand that my own knowledge and skills are sufficient without the need for a "superior" authority telling me what to think or what to do. I can learn on my own.
* I begin learn to trust my own intuition, though this takes time to trust my own abilities fully. I no longer have to endure the conflict between my own feelings and what I was being told I should be feeling.
* I find I have worth outside of an organization. My worth is not measured by statistics.
link
"Why are you breaking the covenants you made in the temple? Even though you may have left the Church, you made sacred promises to God in the temple not to reveal the sacred content of the Endowment! And yet that is what you are doing! Isn't that immoral? Why should I respect a 'covenant-breaker'?"
"I don't understand how you could ever write about the things that you have. If I ever leave the Church I could never talk about the things in the Temple. Even if I were not to believe them, I still have sworn before God not to reveal them. I would be breaking an oath."
A covenant is a contract, based on mutual promises and on the existence of certain facts understood and accepted by both parties. I promise to do this if you promise to do that. Both legally and morally, if one party doesn't keep his part of the bargain, or if it should turn out that the basic facts are not as both parties assumed, the other party is not required to perform. To claim otherwise would be absurd.
The covenants made in the Mormon temple are similar. The Mormon covenants to do certain things (obey, sacrifice, be chaste, give everything to the church if asked, etc.) and to refrain from doing certain things (revealing the secret handshakes, names, and other details of the ritual). The Mormon makes these covenants after having been told that the underlying facts are:
1. the "other party" to the covenants is God;
2. God wants the Mormon to make these covenants;
3. God will bless the Mormon in many wonderful ways if the Mormon makes the covenants and keeps his part of the bargain;
4. there is no other way to obtain those blessings from God, other than making those covenants.
Suppose I tell you that I have a million dollars to give away, and I promise to give you that million if you promise to be my servant for a year. And I want our little bargain to be our secret (I don't want to have to pay Social Security and workers' comp insurance.) You agree, and we shake hands, and call it a "solemn covenant." But after just a week, you learn that I don't have any money at all, let alone a million dollars. Do you feel obligated to continue working for me for the rest of the year? And do you feel obligated (remember: you promised not to tell!) to keep the secret? Or would you feel justified in going to the authorities?
Oaths are also made during a marriage ceremony. If the couple later divorces, would you feel that the wife was still morally bound to love, honor and obey, especially if it was acts of the husband that caused the divorce?
If I had been initiated into a voodoo cult, during which I made an oath to the voodoo god Bukuluku, would you feel I had acted immorally if you found I had not kept the oath I made to Bukuluku? Would you feel that it would have been wrong if one of the Gadianton robbers (Helaman 6) decided that he was going to leave the band because it was evil, and violated the oath of secrecy he had made to the robber band?
The covenants made by Mormons in the temple are obtained under false pretenses. God has nothing to do with them. They are no more binding, either legally or morally, than the mumbo-jumbo of fraternity initiation rituals.
And it would certainly be absurd to expect someone who no longer believes in Mormonism, who is convinced that the temple covenants are not from God and that God is not going to do what the Mormons promised he would do, to feel bound by those covenants in any way. (The one exception might be the covenant of chastity, if made at the same time to a spouse.)
It is usually Mormons who are indignant that ex-Mormons have "broken their solemn covenants," usually the covenant of secrecy. Nobody else should care. How absurd it would be to assert that the ex-Mormon was still bound, because of his "solemn covenant," to continue to wear the garments, to obey the church leaders, to devote all his time and assets to the church, after he no longer believes (all of these are "covenants" made by Mormons in the temple). And yet the covenant of secrecy is no different.
Nobody but the Mormons considers the Mormon temple ritual to be so sacred that nobody should talk about it or tell what they know about it. The irony is that it is not secret, and it has not been secret since Nauvoo days. Anybody who wants to find out what goes on in a Mormon temple has been able to get that information for a hundred and fifty years, with just a little digging in libraries (and now, by using the Internet). It is only those faithful Mormons who have not yet been through the temple who are in the dark. That being the case, why should any non-Mormon feel that the subject of Mormon temples is off-limits, just because it is "sacred to Mormons"? Should we feel any obligation not to eat beef, since the Hindus consider the cow to be sacred? Or should we feel it is immoral for an anthropologist's in Africa to reveal to the world the sacred rites of an African tribe? Should we feel that a member of the Mafia was being immoral by telling the police the secrets of his famiglia and his capo, because he took an oath not to tell?
And Joseph Smith was certainly a covenant-breaker:
He seduced Fanny Alger after marrying Emma and promising to be faithful to her;
He joined the Masons (taking their oath of secrecy) and a few weeks later used their secret grips, symbols and oaths to produce the first version of the Mormon endowment ceremony (it is likely that some of the men in the mob that killed him were angry at him because of his breaking of that oath of secrecy).
[By the way,] aren't such oaths of secrecy condemned in the Book of Mormon? (Look up "Secret Combinations" in the index.) In fact, the Book of Mormon prophesies that in the last days "secret things" will be revealed (2 Nephi 30:17), and implies that that is to be desired.
My thoughts:
I would like to just state one more time, that if what I am saying here in my personal blog is boring, uninformative, and not worth the time of day, why did you make it all the way to the bottom to read my thoughts?
Is that all that is happening here, skipping the meat of the posts, and going for the personal attack?
If you don't like what I am saying, or disagree with it, or think it's just a plain waste of time and effort, then your choice is simple. Just quit reading it. Consign it to the depths of the dung heap that is Anti-Mormonism, and just disregard it. Stay in the church, fine, whatever. But don't come around here trying to figure me out, or discover the "real" reason I left when I have posted over 50 REALLY GOOD reasons why I am no longer a Mormon, and yet some readers are still left wondering what the 'true' reason is, since I can't be believed because I am an apostate.
DUH! An apostate is someone who disagrees with the doctrine, and leaves because of it. Now suddenly I can't be trusted? I now don't have any morals or sense of duty to my fellow human being? Does the church make you become a decent citizen and a moral upright example, or would you be that way even without the church? Well, same for me. I don't need the Mormons to teach me how to be a decent person. To assume that I have turned into this carnal, bloodthirsty scavenger simply because I chose to side with reason and intellect, means that the rest of you who have stayed must be scared to trust yourselves without the moral authority that is the church. You obviously need it more than I do...
And if you're offended by what I just said......remember, your prophets told you that it's YOUR fault!
David A. Bednar, Quorum of the Twelve Apostles
176th Annual General Conference
Sun Oct 1, 2006
Offense does occur in our interactions with others; however, it is impossible for another can offend us. This is a fundamentally false. It is a choice we make. It is not a condition imposed on us by someone else.
There are things to act, and things to be acted upon in this life. We are endowed with agency. We are to act, not just be acted upon. To believe someone can offend us diminishes our moral agency.
Being offended is a symptom of a deeper spiritual malady.
Someone will offend us in word or deed, likely more than once. The saints can be insincere and tactless. Only we can determine how we react. We can choose not to be offended.
Alma 61:2, 9. A great indicator of our own spiritual maturity is how we react to others. We can choose not to be offended. “It mattereth not”.
Learn about and apply Christ’s teachings on interacting with others. Love them that hate you. Love your enemies. Matthew 5:44, 46-48. If someone offends us, our first obligation is not to take offense. Then we should communicate privately with that person.
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