Why I Left the Church

Hello lovelies! I got the sweetest comment from lovefromedenxo (go follow her cute blog) that really inspired me to talk a bit more about why I'm an ex-mormon. I love hearing others talk about their experiences so I hope you can be entertained by my story too lol.                                                                                                                                                                    Side note - idk why this stupid post wants to cause me so many formatting issues!!! But whatever. A disclaimer that this post will include sensitive topics, mainly surrounding religion. And that this is all my personal experience, and nobodies story is the same!                                                                                                                    It's honestly hard to remember my initial reasons for leaving at this point, because I've learned so much since then that it all kind 

of jumbles together. But I will try my best to make this a little bit organized :)

I left the church (btw, the church = the mormon church) pretty early on. I was around 17 years old? So still pretty young. Like most people who are ex-mormon, it wasn't one thing that made me leave. People often use the analogy of "their shelf breaking". Basically that each time you notice an issue or something upsets you, you just store it away on your "shelf". Eventually, all these little things pile up and the shelf (or your beliefs) break. 

I could probably make a whole book about this, but to prevent myself from going on too many side-tangents I'm going to try to make a list of all the things I put on my shelf. These are in no particular order, just whatever I think of first.

1. Race & The Priesthood

I don't really know how much non-mormons know about mormon lore. So I'm just gonna use the mormon terms and if you want any further definitions/explanations, leave a comment and I'm happy to explain (or look it up there's prob better answers haha). But until 1978, Black people in the church were not allowed to go to the temple, and Black men could not have the priesthood. If you can't go to the temple, you can't go to heaven. So that's actually crazy. That is also pretty recent for this rule to have changed! I didn't learn that until I was like 16, and let me tell you I was shocked. I was always taught that god loved everyone, but how could he if it took so long for him to change the rules?

The reason they weren't goes back to like Adam and Eve times. The church taught that Black people were descendants of Cain (the evil son), essentially saying they had "evil blood". Wild. Brigham Young (the one they named the mormon university, BYU, after) said if people enter mixed-race marriages their entire bloodline will be cursed, basically. 

Another thing is that in the Book of Mormon there's a story about how a group of people who disobeyed god or something were cursed, with dark skin... And the good people were white. Yeah. Messed up. Mormons try to twist the meaning of this but like, sorry guys that's what it says. So yeah learning all this was like putting a big boulder on my shelf because why is the supposed only true church so racist? Is god racist too then?

2. God stays the same, but no he doesn't

Mormon's have prophets and apostles, like in the bible basically. And the prophet is supposed to be the mouthpiece of god. So like when Brigham Young said all that shit it was god speaking through him. Except it wasn't... see mormons will say that their prophets are speaking for god but then years later when people question why god would say that, their excuse is that "he was speaking as a man" because they can't always be perfect. But why would god allow someone to lead his church if they were gonna say things he never said? Obviously now I don't believe that these old men are speaking for god, but back then I did. And it didn't make sense to me. If it was possible for prophets to be wrong, why would we listen to them at all? How do I know if he's speaking as a man or speaking for god? 

Also just the fact that it's giving human beings the power of god started to make me question. Why should a man have the authority to speak on behalf of god??

3. Being a woman

I used to think it was stupid that any women complained that they can't have the priesthood (essentially the power of god). I was like "well I don't want it". And there are so many hoops that mormons jump through to try and make excuses but at the end of the day, the church is just built on the patriarchy. There's an amazing essay that I'll link called Dear Mormon Man, Tell Me What You Would Do. The author basically flips the gender of everything in the church, and it really emphasizes how male-centered mormonism is. It's so good, I highly recommend for any woman to read it even if you have never been mormon. The church says they value women, but they don't.

4. LGBTQIA+ Stance

The church has promoted horrible views surrounding "same-sex attraction" (that's how they refer to it). Basically they believe it's a trial that some people just have to overcome. Some people are born unable to walk, and some people are born gay. I guess I'll give them props for acknowledging that people are born with it. But they see it as like, a disease. They actively fought against the Bill that would legalize same-sex marriage in the US. And as I grew older, I slowly realized I do not agree with that at all. 

5. Joseph Smith

The more I learn about this guy the more he pisses me off. To put it simply, he made it all up. Once I dove deeper into his history I realized how much he sucks. And I also realized that despite what the church says, it is possible he made it all up. There's genuinely so much to this I don't think I can write it all. But basically he was just a scammer and not a great person. (like for example he married a 14 year old girl...) And he essentially founded the church. 

Those are the main 5 things that broke my shelf, but there's honestly sooo many more. That is a very basic list. I'll get into it all more someday. 

Another thing I want to mention is how a lot of people in the church think that people leave because they aren't faithful enough or didn't pray or read the scriptures enough. I just want you to know that jsut before I stopped going to church, I have never thought about church more in my life. I wanted so badly for it to be true, but the more I learned the more I realized that it just isn't. I was praying several times a day, reading scriptures, reading talks from prophets and apostles, immersing myself in church material. And it all lead me to the conclusion it's just made up.

One thing I'd recommend if you want to learn more is actually on the church website lol. They go through all their excuses for these big issues, and you can see the way they try to explain things that just don't make any sense. It's the Gospel Topics Essays, and I haven't actually looked at them in a while. But their explanations are just wild. Jumping and leaping through hoops to make their points. And even then, the stuff they say made me believe less and less. 

Don't worry this will not be the last time I talk about being ex-mormon lol. As they like to say, "you leave the church but you can't leave it alone".