Some Reasons I stated for why I left the Church

Here are the ten reasons that I listed for leaving the Church in my exit letter which I will continue to expound upon. I have not changed a single word or font attribute; all notes and cross-references / links were added afterwards to help clarify my thoughts with you.

Note: You are encouraged to interpret anything that I do not explicitly explain in your own way for yourself.

Doctrinal and Symbolic Conflicts

Ten reasons for my resignation from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints:

10. Spiritual Reasons: I believe that when a Latter-day Saint experiences the "Holy Ghost" as a burning sensation in his/her body, and uses this to accept inscrutable claims^* of his/her Church, he/she misinterprets this natural feeling as supernatural. The "Holy Ghost" as a calm sensation simply comes from deciding to trust the LDS Church more. Even if an event and emotion are highly correlated, emotions are only evidence for tangible facts insofar as our most primitive brain structure (the limbic system^§) predicts reality. Therefore assumptions that Church members are encouraged to make through such emotions are about as unreliable as those of an excited monkey, so I believe that to increase productivity such assumptions should be based on physical evidence, not feeling. After all, such feelings never answer simple, important questions such as, "Why do people in opposing religions feel the exact same way?" or "Why would God mentally configure others to not believe this test is valid?" I do not deny such feelings’ existence, nor am I unstable now. Subsequent reflection explains why these emotions are each insufficient evidence for claims such as the Book of Mormon makes which would topple the entire scientific world if they could ever be verified. I therefore think that my "Holy Ghost" feelings, which came through strict obedience to Church guidelines, are not strong enough to alter my convictions or behavior critically regarding the "tests" I made. As such, I see no reason for me to have faith in LDS doctrine or dogma, the whole of which I think, according to LDS canonized scriptures, relies on such a feeling. If confusing to torpid minds, David Hume’s statement, "No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless . . . its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it endeavors to establish." may help. To me this all is pretty obvious and refreshing. Analyze better!

Notes:
*More examples or articles about inscrutable claims can be found at http://lds-mormon.com/, and the COJCOLDS web site. Plenty of disprovable claims are at Freedom from Mormonism that members still seem to find "true" through the Holy Ghost.

§In other words emotions aren't as deceiving when analysis is added. Apparently the limbic system is not as primitive as the neopallium, but this doesn't take away from my argument that any type of knowledge which will affect your actions critically for the rest of your life should be addressed by your whole brain, including the part that likes to anaylze (at least I like to analyze and it's never done me any harm). Inquiring people are also encouraged to do web searches for the Holy Ghost on other search engines to determine for themselves if the "Holy Ghost" is really unique to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or The True and Living Church of Jesus Christ of Saints of the Last Days. They should also ask if other non-Christian religions and closed belief system use the Holy Ghost but call it by another name. What are the social implications when half the world or so divides into all of these Christian sects that exclude each other for much the same reason? Try to think about everyone.

9. Physical Safety Concerns: I believe that abnormally high rates of suicide, depression^*, malpractice^¤, and abuse exist within the LDS community, especially with women and where it is most dense, not because of that community’s sins against the Church but because of its faith in Church principles. I wish to avoid this environment. I believe that more crimes are committed each century in blind obedience’s name than were ever committed through rebellion, and faith in God to me means blind obedience to that God’s authority. I would like the Utah Government to arrest more LDS polygamists, as there is some jail space, and the LDS Church to fund many more arrests for all of these heinous crimes. I can not fathom how cheated victims of polygamous families^§ must feel who realize what is happening.

Notes: *An intelligent and strong-believing Latter-day Saint who lives in Utah Valley (home of BYU) told me that Prozac is prescribed 6 times as much there per capita as in the United States as a whole. I asked for a reference but never got it.

¤As far as malpractice, I've never met a LDS or Utahn Doctor who hasn't tried to jip me in one way or another.

§ If you have the stomach for it, check out www.polygamy.com which supports polygamy, but personally reminds me of something straight out of SouthPark.

[Another Suicide Link], more statistics coming soon. I read in Deseret News (a Utah newspaper) that Utah is currently in the top three in suicide. If you have any of the problems stated in the first sentence, I encourage you to seek health.

8. Emotional Concerns: I think that fundamentally, faithful Latter-day Saints are either ashamed of their religion, guilt-stricken, afraid to leave it, perhaps chemically unstable, or mistakenly zealous from too many Church Meetings, days in the Mission Field, and Temple Ceremonies. As such they should not even trust themselves let alone teach others. I consider the LDS Temple and the MTC to use strong unhealthy forms of mind control, relying primarily on their victims’ guilt, shame, fear, incompetence, and deceptively learned zeal. I think it is unreasonably hard for most members to remain emotionally stable with all of this. It is like a man with two trusted drugs to alleviate mania and depression, but the labels are reversed while unknowing friends overdose and deny side effects of paranoia and grief. I might conduct studies to prove these claims if I had the resources, but it would be easier if many LDS people simply talked openly with those they secretly feared or hated, particularly intellectual dissenters. These people could help them remove cognitive dissonance instead of just ignoring it. I think they would find that despite imperfections on both sides, people usually leave the LDS Church due to courage, a humanistic attitude, and an irrepressible drive for truth and greater fulfillment.

Notes: A lot of this is difficult for me to prove or disprove to others. I could argue that smarter people always agree with me, but there would be endless debate about who is smarter and smarter people are less likely, in my opinion, to openly say what they believe on things like this. That's why I mention my last 3 sentences.

7. Social Reasons: I believe it is uncomfortably difficult for faithful Latter-day Saints to achieve many forms of human intimacy with anyone including themselves. I think this often leads to a lack of emotional development that deprives members of rich, enjoyable feelings, makes them socially maladjusted, and burdens many non-members. Many studies show democratic families to be more productive and stable than authoritarian family systems. I think that eventually every LDS family tree loses branches, usually causing each side severe, lasting grief and psychological harm. Matt 10:34-36

Notes: When I said every LDS family tree loses some branches, this was a sort of parable about how families that grow up together suddenly have this axe in them that separates them by their religious belief. I wasn't talking about families losing members to the grave; I was talking about living branches. It's interesting to me that one of the LDS Church's main advertising points seems to be the environment they provide for families. But it requires that the family be LDS unanimously, something that in my experience almost never occurs. I've certainly had my share of difficulties in being a functional earthly family with my relatives, all of whom are active in the Church.

6. Authority-related reasons: I do not know how humans can be honestly confident about revelations from the LDS God, especially for others. Logically, He could alter any feeling or thought to deceive anybody, so I have no reason to believe his purposes coincide with my own despite insubstantial talks of agency, his love, a "cosmic" Church court, my need to submit, or other silly reasons. Job 15:15

Notes: This is actually my main argument against the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, its beliefs, and any other religion that teaches Bible fundamentalist dogma or Book of Mormon fundamentalist dogma. It goes like this:

That God could simply lie in his words. Assuming that God states in His scriptures or through any other revelation that He doesn't, this could also be a lie. Typical Response: God tells us that he is truthful through our emotions.
My answer:That God could deceive our emotions; He created us along with our emotions. He could trick us with them as much as He chose to. Typical Response: I know God better than that. God wouldn't do that because of such and such.
My answer:That God could also deceive our thoughts. If our thoughts or reasoning tell us that God wouldn't do such a thing, am omnipotent God could easily find a way to deceive us here as well. My Logical Conclusion: Such a powerful definition of God is self-contradictory and people shouldn't think that they know God so well.
Some people say that they have had supernatural personal witnesses, such as angel visitations or transfigurations or other miracles, but the fact that they are supernatural implies that they are beyond the bounds of human reason. In other words, there is no reason why such a thing is reliable and if it cannot be treated scientifically it should not be trusted, let alone explained to others or used as a catalyst of action. Some scientoligists claim to have had alien visitations that show them they should be in Scientology, but that doesn't make me any more interested in joining scientology.

I have had many theological conversations with Latter-day Saints that have lasted a long time and gone nowhere. Over 95% of the arguments that Latter-day Saints make against me and my beliefs can be refuted by one of the first three points. When I use all three in a short interval of time and point out how together they disprove my friend's arguments, the response is almost always a blank stare or a quick changing of the subject. Some people get very angry or very tired for saying these things as well, which is how I know that at least it is a powerful argument to them. My audience often gets lost a lot in these words, and I keep having to start over.

5. Trust-violation Concerns. My feelings are not hurt, but I do not appreciate the lies, deceptions, and manipulations that many Church Members including I experience within the Church, especially from Church Officials to mark us as submissive. I chronicled lists of such abuse. My own father delayed my chances of a better education and success, bringing me much frustration and grief. At least he made restitution and I forgave him, but the LDS Church only ever apologized to me once for baptizing me against my will at age eight (I did not know that I had a choice). Still, my feelings are unscathed.

Notes: I could list these out, but what would be the point?

4. History-related reasons: I do not believe the most recent Official Church History. Historical Analysis shows me that Church Leaders usually retroactively retell it, proactively conceal it, misrepresent it, and establish scapegoats all to meet their constantly evolving dictatorial agenda and control members. Most active members, I think, either lack the health (see above) or are too busy to analyze it sufficiently to see this, but few have even read "History of the Church…." Many books, such as "The Mormon Murders: A True Story of Greed, Forgery, Deceit, and Death" by Harvard Alumni Gregory Smith and Steven Naifeh and "No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith: The Mormon Prophet" by UCLA Ph.D. Fawn Brodie, document deadly crimes the Church committed to cover its trail, both in its infancy and recently. I find that the LDS Church traditionally fires BYU Professors for admitting such crimes occur. The "Mormon Murders…" by Smith and Naifeh is out of print but the crimes mentioned therein are not. I think apologetics like Hugh Nibley attack Fawn Brodie personally, overlooking her valuable research to show trivial mistakes that are not essential to her thesis. I offer no apology for once questioning Joseph Smith in Testimony Meeting simply by saying my research indicates he had no gold plates (see below). No one told me why this statement of my opinion was false doctrine, but I have heard Church Officials make many ridiculous claims with no refutation. I consider all methods by the Church of imprinting information and impressions into member’s minds to be counter-productive. I have only mentioned America so far too; one can research other countries.

Notes: I'm not some Ph. D-brandishing Historian out to radically change the world, or some naive child who believes everything he hears. In all honesty I did not even consider these things when I left the Church, nor did I know about them very much in Nov 1998. I had heard negative things about blacks and polygamy, but since History takes so much time to research when you plan to stake your next trillion years on it I thought it would be foolish to base my beliefs on my Historical understanding. History was my weakest subject in High School even if I was in the top 5% of my High School class (and I hardly consider American Heritage at BYU to be good history) , but a lot of Members use History to back up their beliefs a lot with the LDS Church. That's why I spent so much time researching this stuff-- to help me communicate with other members like my father.

3. Political Reasons: I believe that the administrative and governmental systems of the LDS Church are modeled after right-wing authoritarian fascism and as I consider myself politically moderate, I consider this dangerous. 1 Nephi 4:13! I think the LDS Church should not collect money from its members without them knowing how their own money is spent, especially with its current tax-exempt status. Petitioning for this could help check its power of which reasons 4 and 9 demonstrate danger.

Notes: If anyone knows of a scholarly comparison between the Mormon Hierarchy of Government and the Third Reich, I'd love to hear about it. I can think of a lot of things off the top of my head, but a big, scholarly article might make my views more compelling. One such article in The Nazi State and the New Religions by Christine Elizabeth. King is very well written, but it lacks the depth I am looking for.

2. Miscellaneous Reasons: Human evolution from apes is science fact, so the Church decries science. All human reason depends on science, so the LDS Church opposes reason also. Humans have evolved over millions of years and originated in Africa, which opposes the Adam doctrine and Garden of Eden. Scholars generally regard Joseph Smith’s journal as forgery and he was actually very well educated for his time. He claimed twice to have run several miles with his gold plates. By his linear measurements, these plates would weigh at least 185 lbs., assuming they were over half gold by volume. Do not get me started on the Book of Mormon. Mitochondrial DNA research proves that Amerinds are Eastern Asian, not Middle-Eastern^*. Prayer can not go faster than light due to Relativity (the "LDS God" is far away), or the Church denounces facts of physics. Most of Jesus Christ’s Biblical Account is not authentic historical fact too. If Joseph Smith did more for us than Jesus Christ, why not just call it "The Church of Joseph Smith of Latter-day Saints"? Why does it require luxurious, Masonic temples when we have our own bodies? Most Latter-day Saints only seem to care about facts that reduce their cognitive dissonance in the short term, so I can often explain arguments like this for hours with no real response. Still, I can shake inquiring members who will consider these things right off their pedestals.

Notes: *See, among many other good sources, this web site from Stanford's human origins page with telling visual aids and verifiable resources. Some people may still maintain that Europeans overcame the American Indians because of their greater righteousness in Christian values. For those people I highly reccomend Guns, Germs, and Steel by UCLA Ph.D. Jared Diamond. This paragraph, as far as I'm concerned, leaves no hope for the LDS Church to be correct.

When I was tinkering with web pages over a year ago before I had escaped to UCLA I came up with this list: Although I was more scatter-brained, less organized, and more ignorant when I created it it's interesting to see what I wrote.

1. Conflicts of Interest: I could play along with the LDS Church and few people would think less of me while I was alive. I have demonstrated to myself that I have enough talent in persuasion, quick thinking, observational skills, sensitivity, social intelligence, and self-restraint to be as good of a leader as any Church Official (though not as successful of a lawyer). Still, with my education, knowledge, experience, opportunities, exposure, youth, health, and creativity I have far better things I should do with my time before I am old than worry about the politics in this small, flickering Church.

Notes: I can't vouch for myself that I'm a perfect altruist. If you saw me on the street you probably wouldn't think I was nice at all and I rarely engage in little acts of service. I considered vying for patronage in the Church Leadership System and trying to get a piece of their revenue, but ultimately I would like to spend my life contributing to humanity's future more than spending it all on a fleeting cause. Anything I do for my body is soon wasted. There may be more I can do to leave a mark in this Universe. I wonder if some of the General Authorities had spent so much time in the Church by the time they found it to be untrue that they battled their way into Church Leadership to help them feel better about their own lives. I know I struggle a lot with growing old. I don't really blame Church Leaders for anything they do. It would be so much easier for humans if we could just genetically engineer our bodies to be less fearful, lonely, and aggressive. 'Til then, I try to keep my brain in overdrive.

I will not supply more reasons or further clarifications at this time. These reasons do not need be correct. They simply summarize some thoughts I have now which I encourage others to contemplate. – [Name Removed]

This ends "Ten reasons for my resignation from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints."

Notes: The rest of this is just what I wrote in my exit letter. You can read most of the rest of it here.

I would love to hear a good refutation to all of these reasons (and I would not be stubborn if it made sense) but I have already requested resignation. I am serious. Again, this is done on my own for many reasons, but not for hurt feelings, social pressure, a need to repent, or lack of intent to keep standards, some of which I will still practice. I am a friend to all Latter-day Saints not told otherwise. Happy 4^th of July. Bye.

Respectfully,

[Name Removed]

Notes: The Church has confirmed on July 12 that they received my letter on July 5.

Anyways, that's what I put. The links are afterthoughts and the notes were written later.

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