I was raised a member of the LDS Church (Mormon). As an Air Force brat we moved around the US, when my father retired we settled in Northern Utah where I still reside today. My pioneer ancestors crossed the plains in the 1850s to settle the Salt Lake Valley. I was baptized into the church at eight-years old, was given the priesthood at age 12 (all 12-year old boys are given the priesthood as long as they show up for church somewhat regularly), attended church meetings 99% of the time, and had a normal middle-class childhood.

  Starting ninth-grade Mormon kids attend "seminary" for one class period. In Utah or other places with a high concentration of Mormons the building is adjacent to the Jr High or High School. Outside of the Mormon Corridor the student would attend their local meeting house before school. This is when the cracks in my faith began.

  My sophomore year in high school is when I admitted to myself that I had never felt anything in church or when praying. Every first Sunday of the month is "Fast and Testimony" meeting, parishioners go up to the microphone and state their testimony of: Jesus Christ, the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith restoring Christ's gospel again on the earth, the current church president is the one true prophet how guides the church and receives revelation directly from God, Christ's atonement for us, and that the LDS church is the one true church. As children and adults we are told your testimony is gained by baring it.

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2008/04/testimony?lang=eng

  I had a hard time with this. Telling yourself something over and over until you believe it is not truth or knowledge, it is brainwashing. I sat through church meeting after church meeting of individuals testifying to the truthfulness of the LDS church based on feelings they had after reading something in the scriptures, having a life-altering event, or after praying. I admitted to myself I always felt nothing. Even when becoming a deacon (12-14 year old boys) and receiving the priesthood and passing the sacrament on Sunday, or priest (16-19 year old boys) and blessing the sacrament, I felt nothing. Nothing happened when I prayed. I received no guidance from a higher power.

  Since I wasnt feeling what others were proclaiming every Sunday, there had to be something wrong with me. Was I evil? Did God not care about me? Even though I had this internal conflict raging inside, I was very obedient and put on a mask to conform. Alcohol, never touched it. Sex? Nope, I occasionally kissed a girl but was terrified of even touching one and ruining her with my base desires. Which lead toextreme guilt over masturbation and occasional use of pornography. The LDS church defines addiction very differently than the rest of society. Have a glass of wine one evening? You are an alcoholic! Need a cup of coffee? You are addicted to caffeine and destroying your body! Look at a Playboy? You are addicted to porn and destroying your soul! I like girls. But I should not do anything with them, since committing sexual sin is next to murder. My only outlet was masturbation, and the glossy Playboy magazine was the tool. I felt immense guilt. Constantly.

  It is expected that all young men serve a two year mission for the LDS church. In the mid to late 1990s the age was 19 (it has now been lowered to 18) for young men to serve. While attending university I struggled with my decision. As an introvert going door-to-door selling the Book of Mormon and Christs one true gospel like a used car had zero appeal to me. But the consequences of not going would be high, and I can confirm they were.

  I was asked several dozen times, When are you turning in your mission papers? When I would reveal I wasnt going to server, I became a project of sorts, until that person discovered my stubbornness. On a first date one of the very first questions a Mormon girl will ask you is, Where did you serve your mission. When the answer is I havent, they will ask when you are going. It is assumed that any young man not serving a mission has worthiness issues, or just isnt with the program. You are not dating material if you dont conform. I didnt want to go on a mission. I didnt feel worthy to go on a mission. My friends all started leaving on their missions. My girlfriend who was a good match for me told me I would have to go, or we needed to stop dating. We stopped dating.

  One friend, well call him Steve, couldnt go when he turned 19. He was very good looking and had a great outgoing personality that girls loved. And Steve loved them back. A lot. He also liked to mix hard liquor in his soda at after school events. So when it was time for Steve to go, he repented of having sex with girlfriends and drinking. In private he didnt seem to have too much guilt about these activities. In his words, It was a lot of fun and I wouldnt change a thing. He was off, I and was the only high school friend in our group that remained.

  I continued my studies at university, majoring in History. While researching for an essay paper in the library, I ran across the front page of New York Times for Dec 29, 1912. The microfiche (in the early 2000s the library was still digitizing their newspaper collections) screen glowed at me, my breathing stopped. So, one of the canonized works of scripture produced by Joseph Smith has been disproved by scholars? When Joseph Smith translated the papyri into the Book of Abraham in 1835 Modern Egyptology was in its infancy. The Rosetta Stone was just beginning to unlock Egyptian hieroglyphics, while Joseph Smith was using the power of God to translate the papyri that was Written by his own hand, by none other than Abraham. Yes that Abraham.

  Abrahams writings we thought to be lost in the Great Chicago Fire, since Smiths widow sold the papyri to a museum curator. In 1966 a University of Utah professor was working in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and recognized the facsimiles. The facsimiles were mounted on paper that had building plans for LDS settlements, and it also had Emma Smith signature confirming the sale. The finding was legit and undeniable.

  I was floored. Here is the biggest biblical archeological find ever, writings by an Old Testament prophet that impacted three major religions. Why havent I or anyone else heard of them? The only thing that could top this in my mind is finding the Arkeither of the covenant or the big wooden boat. I quickly realized why I had never known of the find. Scholars can now read Egyptian. The facsimiles that are published in every Mormon scripture triple combination that contains the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great price contain these facsimiles, along with Joseph Smiths translations, that are 100% wrong.

  Yes, his translations were completely wrong. Looking at them now it is obvious that Joseph Smith made up the Book of Abraham from his fertile imagination. He took a common pagan funerary text that dates 2,000 years after Abrahams time and created scripture from it. This brings up a huge problem. The Book of Mormon was translated from golden plates written in reformed Egyptian, buried in upstate New York by ancient prophets whose Jewish ancestors migrated from the Middle East to North America around 600BC. These civilizations were advanced, think Roman Empire advanced, but ultimately destroyed each other Joseph Smith retrieved the plates with the guidance of an angel. Read those last two sentences again. Yes, this is what I believed, and what current Mormons are taught to believe.

  With this going on at school, I met a girl. Who while Mormon, didnt care that I did not serve a mission. We still complement each other very well, and we have two wonderful kids. Going through the temple is a disorienting experience. I wont go into a lot of detail out of respect to those who still believe. Ill just say it is very different than what I expected. It is repetitive, and feels empty and wrong. The wording of the ceremony is sexist and elitist. Ill sum it up with a statement my sister made after going through the first time for herself, So, we belong to a cult? I felt alone, like I was the only one. What if I am wong? Then the internet showed me that indeed, there are a lot of people discovering the truth. I am far from alone.

  So here I am, and full practicing Mormon with a wife and two kids in the heart of Mormondom, who does not believe a word he is subjected to for three hours every Sunday. It has been a fascinating last few years. I studied Communication in grad school, and watching the LDS Church struggle with the internet has been entertaining. Before the internet a secretive organization like the LDS Church could for the most part control the narrative. Information can be selectively chosen or edited to be faith promoting. Dissidents can be dealt with and shamed or excommunicated. Now with the internet, the information is readily available. I had to sit in an old section of the library looking at microfiche to find the proof I need to mentally escape Mormonism. Today it is just a Google search away. People today get online and compare notes, discuss their issues, argue, draw conclusions, and are much more likely to run across information that is faith damaging. And the list is long: Book of Abraham, Kinderhook Plates, Polygamy, Polyandry, Journal of Discourses, Mountain Meadows Massacre, African descendants and denial the priesthood, Book of Mormon anachronisms, complete lack of any physical evidence the stories of the Book of Mormon are true, building up of financial holdings and real estate, and changing doctrine to suit social issues of the day. But they dont change fast enough, see Proposition 8. Or the building of a 1.5 BILLION dollar mall right before and during the biggest recession since the Great Depression. Too bad we didnt have a living prophet to warn the church about the impending financial disaster and wait on their real estate expansion of downtown Salt Lake. Oh, wait, never mind. I dont think Christ is happy with the LDS Churchs current state, if He does exist.

  The LDS church is run by a group of very white and very old men who were for the most part in their primes in the 1950s. They long for those days where authority figures held sway and the world was black and white and so full of evil. There is a reason the LDS church prohibits members gathering outside of church to discuss Mormonism, or councils member to only consider information published by the church when researching these issues. The internet and technology, once heralded as great advance given to us by God to further his work spreading the LDS church into a global religious empire, is going to shrink the church into something more insignificant than it already is. The internet has allowed this to happen, and nothing will stop it. I hope my wife sees the light soon too so we can disappear from the LDS Church.