Church members who leave the church

[The Nehor]

10 hours ago, Frank11 said:

Wanting alcohol and sex were combined into one answer? What?

[Dario_M]

Strange. Alcohol and sex are clearly 2 differend things. 

Edited September 15, 2024 by Dario_M

[Calm]

28 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

Wanting alcohol and sex were combined into one answer? What?

Probably shorthand for “didn’t want to live church standards of WoW and chastity” or as some members say “leaving the Church because of wanting to sin”.

It is such a stereotype I wonder if those who answered it were making a joke.  The “I was offended” being at the bottom triggers the same thought.

Or maybe their ideal life is going to bars for one night stands?  

Edited September 15, 2024 by Calm

[Dario_M]

1 minute ago, Calm said:

Probably shorthand for “didn’t want to live church standards of WoW and chastity” or as some members say “leaving the Church because of wanting to sin”.

It is such a stereotype I wonder if those who answered it were making a joke.  The “I was offended” being at the bottom triggers the same thought.

Or maybe their ideal life is going to bars for one night stands?  

Troubles sleeping i see? 🙂

[Dario_M]

Btw i'm on my way to church now. About 10 minutes the church service will begin. I'm afrait that i will be a bit late though. 

Edited September 15, 2024 by Dario_M

[Calm]

3 minutes ago, Dario_M said:

Troubles sleeping i see? 🙂

You know it!  I hopefully get my second back procedure this week, an ablation (it has been about two months since the other wore off) and I am looking forward to some decent sleep. This latest test to see if it would work the difference was so obvious I think it’s helped convinced me that getting tougher on myself will for once be worth it, so in October if you see me online during my nights, feel free to scold me and tell me to stop goofing off.   

[The Nehor]

13 minutes ago, Calm said:

Or maybe their ideal life is going to bars for one night stands?  

Sounds boring.

The future is polyamorous polycules with 666 genders in them that meet up for avocado toast brunches. /s

Actually I prefer big platonic cuddle puddles but one of the advantages of freedom is that you can be damned for your favorite sin instead of someone elses.

[Dario_M]

29 minutes ago, Calm said:

You know it!  I hopefully get my second back procedure this week, an ablation (it has been about two months since the other wore off) and I am looking forward to some decent sleep. This latest test to see if it would work the difference was so obvious I think it’s helped convinced me that getting tougher on myself will for once be worth it, so in October if you see me online during my nights, feel free to scold me and tell me to stop goofing off.   

I'm in church right now so i make it quick. 😇 but uhm... i absolutely don't mind seeing you in the morning Calm. At least then i have somebody to talk to. All the other users are clearly sleeping when it's morning here. 

[Peacefully]

43 minutes ago, Calm said:

Probably shorthand for “didn’t want to live church standards of WoW and chastity” or as some members say “leaving the Church because of wanting to sin”.

It is such a stereotype I wonder if those who answered it were making a joke.  The “I was offended” being at the bottom triggers the same thought.

Or maybe their ideal life is going to bars for one night stands?  

It really bugs me when it is assumed that people who step away from the church are just doing it so they can party and fornicate. It is so dismissive of the real issues people have with the church. We need to leave that old trope behind. 

[Dario_M]

36 minutes ago, Peacefully said:

It really bugs me when it is assumed that people who step away from the church are just doing it so they can party and fornicate. It is so dismissive of the real issues people have with the church. We need to leave that old trope behind. 

Nobody in this topic had done that so far. Most people don't accuse ex Mormons of going to large party's or fornicate. And even if a small group of Mormons does that we should ignore them. And you know what.... even if there're ex Mormons who wanna go to party's or wanna fornicate that's their choice and right to do so i find. 

Amen. 🙏 God bless. 💫

[CV75]

7 hours ago, Dario_M said:

I think the numbers are still high. Our church has a lot of money. That's because all the members who pay tithing (i don't). So i'm not worried about that. Yet.

Yeah. Like John Dehlin & Exmo Lex for example. 

Who knows who knows. This church has also so many good thinks. And i'm a big believer of Jesus Christ anyway.

I always loved to go to the church. Even bevore i was a Mormon. I love the church. Any church. ✝️

Yes, even one lost is too many.

And don't keep the faith -- share it!

[Dario_M]

34 minutes ago, CV75 said:

Yes, even one lost is too many.

And don't keep the faith -- share it!

Yes i try to share my faith but people keep rejecting me. 😓 And besides...convert people into the church is more the job for the missionaries i find. 

[Frank11]

10 hours ago, Dario_M said:

I'm suprissed you're actually still in the church if i may be honest. 

I still have a very good relationship with the members that I have known for a long time when I was still active. There are still some, especially those who knew me as a teacher when they were children and teenagers, who confide in me about their problems, so I'm not completely useless.

[LoudmouthMormon]

A coworker once took me up on my offer to hear gripes about my church.  She had fallen for a BYU basketball player and joined the church out of what she called "a standard youthful crush".  She got weirded out by tithing and the law of chastity.  Also her estranged mother became one, and my coworker found out her mom was allowing missionaries to stay at a property she owned, and that made her mad because she thought her mom was crazy and the church was taking advantage of her.    I sent her the link to the exmormon name removal letter, so she could stop getting visits every few years. 

A ward member once left the church because he had been drowned in a flood of church criticism and never bothered to look for the responses.  I went with him to the "Are Mormons Christian" class his mega church was throwing.  After I respectfully sat through the hour, I let him know I hadn't heard anything new, and had found good responses to absolutely everything I had heard that night.  He was about half incredulous, and half a little fear that maybe he hadn't thought through his leaving the church.  (Last I heard he never came back.)

 

[Dario_M]

49 minutes ago, Frank11 said:

I still have a very good relationship with the members that I have known for a long time when I was still active.

I'm sure you have. 

49 minutes ago, Frank11 said:

There are still some, especially those who knew me as a teacher when they were children and teenagers, who confide in me about their problems, so I'm not completely useless.

Nobody is useless. Everyone has their quality's. You too. Nice to read that you where such a support for those teenagers.

[Dario_M]

31 minutes ago, LoudmouthMormon said:

She got weirded out by tithing and the law of chastity.

I was the same way in the beginning. I was also weird out about those 2 commitments. The law of chastity is still a struggle for me. I don't pay tithing because i have no work. 

31 minutes ago, LoudmouthMormon said:

  Also her estranged mother became one, and my coworker found out her mom was allowing missionaries to stay at a property she owned, and that made her mad because she thought her mom was crazy and the church was taking advantage of her.    I sent her the link to the exmormon name removal letter, so she could stop getting visits every few years. 

Omg really? 

31 minutes ago, LoudmouthMormon said:

A ward member once left the church because he had been drowned in a flood of church criticism and never bothered to look for the responses.  I went with him to the "Are Mormons Christian" class his mega church was throwing.  After I respectfully sat through the hour, I let him know I hadn't heard anything new, and had found good responses to absolutely everything I had heard that night.  He was about half incredulous, and half a little fear that maybe he hadn't thought through his leaving the church.  (Last I heard he never came back.)

 

To bad. Is this from long ago? I believe that if the church made some little changes more people would be willing to come to our church and choose to be delivered, and accepted Jesus Christ as their savior. 

Edited September 15, 2024 by Dario_M

[mburgess1982]

On 9/14/2024 at 10:16 AM, Dario_M said:

 

 

Edited September 15, 2024 by mburgess1982

[mburgess1982]

I can't speak for myself as I haven't left and don't plan on leaving but over the past few years quite a few of my family members have left the church, including both of my brothers who are in their 30's and both served missions. Both of them started reading  a lot of antagonistic material towards the Church on reddit etc and now think the entire thing is a fraud. Might have been the CES letter I'm not sure, I can't talk to them anymore about religion.

My dad is big into last days prophecies and so will still talk to one of my brothers telling him to get prepared for what is coming and he will just laugh at the idea of prophecy and just claim its all made up nonsense. He even said recently that there are no prophecies from past prophets that have ever come true

[Dario_M]

13 hours ago, mburgess1982 said:

I can't speak for myself as I haven't left and don't plan on leaving but over the past few years quite a few of my family members have left the church, including both of my brothers who are in their 30's and both served missions. Both of them started reading  a lot of antagonistic material towards the Church on reddit etc and now think the entire thing is a fraud. Might have been the CES letter I'm not sure, I can't talk to them anymore about religion.

Must have been hard for you to watch them all leave the church. 😞

13 hours ago, mburgess1982 said:

My dad is big into last days prophecies and so will still talk to one of my brothers telling him to get prepared for what is coming and he will just laugh at the idea of prophecy and just claim its all made up nonsense. He even said recently that there are no prophecies from past prophets that have ever come true

It's always so strange to me that when people leave the church they start to talk trash about the whole church their prophets and their members. I don't understand the hate that those people desire so much suddenly. My partner has never been to church will never go to church, he just feels nothing fot that. But at least he respects my religion and would never mock me for it. 

Edited September 16, 2024 by Dario_M

[Frank11]

13 hours ago, mburgess1982 said:

I can't speak for myself as I haven't left and don't plan on leaving but over the past few years quite a few of my family members have left the church, including both of my brothers who are in their 30's and both served missions. Both of them started reading  a lot of antagonistic material towards the Church on reddit etc and now think the entire thing is a fraud. Might have been the CES letter I'm not sure, I can't talk to them anymore about religion.

My dad is big into last days prophecies and so will still talk to one of my brothers telling him to get prepared for what is coming and he will just laugh at the idea of prophecy and just claim its all made up nonsense. He even said recently that there are no prophecies from past prophets that have ever come true

If your brothers come to the conclusion through their research that Joseph Smith is a false prophet and that the current prophets do not speak on behalf of God, then your brothers are actually doing exactly what the Bible commands, namely not to follow the false prophets. From their perspective, they have chosen the GOOD and therefore the right thing, even if that is the BAD thing from your father's perspective. 

"What the caterpillar calls the end, the rest of the world calls a butterfly." - Lao-Tzu

Edited September 16, 2024 by Frank11

[Dario_M]

3 hours ago, Frank11 said:

If your brothers come to the conclusion through their research that Joseph Smith is a false prophet and that the current prophets do not speak on behalf of God, then your brothers are actually doing exactly what the Bible commands, namely not to follow the false prophets. From their perspective, they have chosen the GOOD and therefore the right thing, even if that is the BAD thing from your father's perspective. 

"What the caterpillar calls the end, the rest of the world calls a butterfly." - Lao-Tzu

I don't belief that Joseph Smith isn't a false prophet to be honest. I don't belief the things the CES letter is telling us. Those are just letters...on a papier. Everyone could have written that. Just to put him in a bad light. He had a lot of enemies. And people who don't like you do everything to destroy you or your image. Camera's didn't exist at that time so nobody had rock hard proof or Joseph really was involved in all those bad practices or not. 

And the prophets that we have right now are maybe honest and really in conection with God. Or maybe they're really fooling us. Nothing is certain. I'm in the church to try to love Jesus Christ as hard as a can. Not to put an investigation to figure out or people are honest or not. Because that's something you can't know for sure anyway. Some people in the LDS church or outside the church seem to have forgotten what the real reason is why we tend to go to church. 

 

Edited September 16, 2024 by Dario_M

[Frank11]

1 hour ago, Dario_M said:

I don't belief that Joseph Smith isn't a false prophet to be honest. I don't belief the things the CES letter is telling us. Those are just letters...on a papier. Everyone could have written that. Just to put him in a bad light. He had a lot of enemies. And people who don't like you do everything to destroy you or your image. Camera's didn't exist at that time so nobody had rock hard proof or Joseph really was involved in all those bad practices or not. 

That's not the point at all, the facts are largely no longer disputed by the Church. It's almost only about how the facts are to be interpreted and you can come to different conclusions. 

[Calm]

30 minutes ago, Frank11 said:

the facts are largely no longer disputed by the Church

Depends on the “facts” you are talking about. 

[Dario_M]

28 minutes ago, Frank11 said:

That's not the point at all, the facts are largely no longer disputed by the Church. It's almost only about how the facts are to be interpreted and you can come to different conclusions. 

You said that Joseph Smith was a false prophet and the currend prophets that we have right now don't speak on Gods behalf. Correct me if i'm wrong. But that was what i read in your other post. 

[Frank11]

3 hours ago, Frank11 said:

If your brothers come to the conclusion through their research that Joseph Smith is a false prophet and that the current prophets do not speak on behalf of God, then your brothers are actually doing exactly what the Bible commands, namely not to follow the false prophets. From their perspective, they have chosen the GOOD and therefore the right thing, even if that is the BAD thing from your father's perspective. 

"What the caterpillar calls the end, the rest of the world calls a butterfly." - Lao-Tzu

Dario, I'm talking about the brothers, whose opinion I can certainly understand.