UwishUwereMe wrote:

I mean seriously, Just the things that happen in the Old and New Testiment alone are almost unbelievable to believers, and totally crazy to non-believers.  I mean Jesus magically turns water into wine?  How the hell did that happen.  His name wasn't Jesus Copperfield.  So if you can believe in talking snakes, talking flaming bushes(not the former president's gay cousin) water being turned into wine, Jesus being some form or another of G-d, Jesus being tortured to death then showing up at a party unannounced, etc.  Why couldn't an angel talked to Joseph Smith?  Why couldn't have JS had a tea party with diety in the woods?  Why couldn't JS have translated an ancient record of North American peoples?  Why is everything so probable for believers in the OT and NT, but everything that came from the "restoration" is so unbelieveable?  Don't you think that the OT and NT peeps thought the "miraculous religious happenings" of the day didn't raise a few nappy hairs?

Sounds like a comic book.

moksha8088 wrote:

I have read quite a few posts elsewhere of what people who have left the Church describe as their reason.  The one item that is mentioned most often is that they learned things about the history of the Church that shook their faith.  However as Ironhold mentioned, there are other reasons as well.

In fact, as I'm trying to explain over on another website it's alarmingly common for critics of the church to create fake "atrocity" stories to whip up sympathy for their arguments.

Among the more common stories is that they were somehow victimized by the church; they were either members who were traumatized or forced out for not being perfect, or they were non-members subjected to harsh (if not inhuman) treatment.

For these types of stories, it serves a secondary purpose: hide the real reason why they might no longer be members of the church.


For example, J. Edward Decker claims that he lost his faith in the church and was led to the "truth" by a female co-worker. In reality, Decker was a serial adulterer whose wife got tired of his antics; had Decker not left the church of his own volition, he'd have been ex'd for his assorted infidelities.

Ironhold wrote:

In fact, as I'm trying to explain over on another website it's alarmingly common for critics of the church to create fake "atrocity" stories to whip up sympathy for their arguments. Among the more common stories is that they were somehow victimized by the church; they were either members who were traumatized or forced out for not being perfect, or they were non-members subjected to harsh (if not inhuman) treatment. For these types of stories, it serves a secondary purpose: hide the real reason why they might no longer be members of the church.  For example, J. Edward Decker claims that he lost his faith in the church and was led to the "truth" by a female co-worker. In reality, Decker was a serial adulterer whose wife got tired of his antics; had Decker not left the church of his own volition, he'd have been ex'd for his assorted infidelities.

With YouTube, anybody can watch just enough of The Godmakers to want to run Ed Decker over with a Winnebago, back up, run him over again, back up, run him over again, and keep at it until his heart has been "properly softened."

Ed Decker is a scumbag.  So are the Tanners.  So are a lot of people whose antagonism toward the Church is just a sideshow.  These people are exploiting the many who wake up one morning, realize that the honeymoon is over, and decide that the marriage isn't going to get any better.  Many suffer in silence.  Many negotiate some way of balancing things out.  Some have a second honeymoon and start over.  A fair number just leave - either informally (through inactivity) or formally (through resignation).  People like Decker use these people, and their non-member relatives who are concerned enough to buy all the accessories, as a cash cow.

But that doesn't make every person who leaves the Church another Ed Decker, a hothead, a weak personality or an egomaniac.  A fair number of people leave because they were sold a bill of goods.  They've called technical support.  They've tried rebooting the drive.  They've read the manual, called the 800 number, filled out the forms and reloaded the software.  Sometimes, even when you do everything everybody tells you to do, you just come to the conclusion that this is not the thing you thought it was when you hit the water in your tidy whities.

I, too, have noticed that when people leave the Church, they sometimes embellish their reasons for checking out.  Apparently, it's not enough to say they've had a change of heart.  It's not enough for them to say they no longer believe in the miracle - that the stories they always knew to be unlikely and implausible (but were nevertheless true) may, in the end, just be unlikely and implausible.  They need a rock'n'rolla reason.  They want to go out with a bang.

When I was a Southern Baptist, I noticed the same pattern - but with folks coming in, especially folks who felt "called to the ministry," especially the youth ministry.  It's really not very sexy to stand up and say, "My name is Bob.  I was raised by two very nice people who raised me Baptist.  There was a lot of love in our home.  My parents always hoped I'd become a minister.  When I was in college, I had an experience that brought that home to me, so I changed my major and I'm ready to serve."

People don't want to hear that.

They want Michael Bay.  They want Road Warrior stuff.  They want to hear another ripoff regurgitation of Paul's wayward life, along with his "got Jesus" moment on the Road to Damascus.  They want to hear that the person addressing them has committed every sin in the book, lived that rock'n'roll life, was "this far" from ending up in Hell, when God reached down and grabbed them by the throat and brought them back.  They want to hear about how this person was just like them but "saw the light."  Since then, their life has been one miracle after another.  They are now living a "Jesus-filled life."

Every pitch has its logic.  The more refined the pitch, the more effective it becomes.  The more times you hear the pitch - sharpened to the point of a pencil - the more you realize that you're hearing the same story over and over again.  And then you realize that it was always a pitch and nothing more.  You aren't witnessing something truly extraordinary.  You're just the studio audience.

So, if the day comes when you realize things are not exactly as you imagined them, and you're no longer willing to emasculate that part of you that senses the parallax, you can tell people as much - but whatever you tell them will be highly personal.  It might be something small but even little things can mean a lot.  The last thing that happened to me, before I totally went inactive, was that comedy of errors.  They banged on my door Saturday night, wanting me to make sure I was there on Sunday before church.  It sent a shockwave through the house.  I went in, not knowing exactly what they wanted.  Then, a member of the stake presidency sat down with me and told me I"d been called to be Ward Mission Leader.  In my stake, that's supposedly a big deal, as I live in Florida and every organization needs a "sales" department.  But I'd been a WML three times before - and in my ward - that was almost the only calling they ever  asked me to serve.  As he was going over the duties of the calling, the counselor thought to ask me if I'd ever done this before.  "Three times," I said, before he continued with the briefing.  Moments later, I was out of there and I could see them signaling each other in the hall outside the chapel.  "Did he say 'yes?'" they asked.  "Yes," said the counselor.

Moments later, I was in sacrament meeting when they asked me to stand as they said I'd been interviewed and found worthy to serve as a stake missionary, then called someone else to be WML.  My head was reeling as I sat down, just before they asked me to stand again.  Confessing they'd made a mistake, they announced they'd forgotten to thank me for teaching Gospel Doctrine.  I didn't even want the job of WML, a job I'd done so many times I was sick of it.  I just thought it odd that they'd interview me for it and then call me to be a stake missionary - especially since I already had that calling and was just a few months away from being released.  I can remember thinking, "Who's running this place?" 

Mistakes get made as one hand forgets what the other is doing, but after a mission of hearing two mission presidents swear up and down that their assignments were the result of revelation (not darts thrown behind their backs), this was one of those moments where the reality didn't match the rhetoric.  It reminded me of my discovery - at the end of my mission - that the mission office thought I'd been in Salt Lake for 6 months, rather than the 12 days I'd spent there.  I'd always wondered why "the Lord" had called me to spend a whole year in Ogden, at one tiny Spanish branch, but never to the branch at Logan, or to one of the wards in Salt Lake City, or to the one ward in Salt Lake City where I'd spent a total of 12 days.  I'd spent a good part of my mission trying not to feel like a kid whose parents had left him behind at the restaurant as the whole family got in their cars and drove off.  Discovering the error was just crushing.  It reminded me of that kid I'd met in Ogden, the one called to the Carolinas but whose mission was redirected to Seattle - because of one phone call from his micro-managing stake president, who'd heard the kid had family in the Carolinas and didn't think it was fair that this kid would have family nearby when others didn't.

I know what it was like when that kid got his call revised.  It sucked the magic right out of the experience, just as it did for me when I discovered that my mission office - which had kept me in the same branch in Ogden for half my mission - didn't know where I'd been assigned for at least a quarter of my mission.  Later, then, when the idiots in my stake banged on my door, hustled me off to a meeting, talked to me about a calling I'd done so many times I could do it in my sleep - only to call someone else and sustain me for a calling I already had - I didn't need much prodding to find my own way home.