People don’t just leave the Mormon Church. They have to stage a dramatic exit, then slam the door behind them. All for the affirmation, agreement, and amusement of those who have already done this. Otherwise known as preaching to the choir.
You brought up new evidence. You stated it more eloquently than most could, but the story is the same: somebody who made a man-made church their idol, but now has seen that idol has come crashing to the floor.
Have you ever considered what it might be like had you built your world around a real, personal relationship with God, and personal ethics in your life, rather than worshipping a legal entity and paying lip service to the fictional God they have created?
I built my entire life around following the Spirit of God. I learned about the Gospel as a youth, not from the church, but from reading the scriptures and the writings of the early leaders of the church. I basically converted myself to Mormonism because I wanted to know and live the truths experienced by the leaders in the scriptures, and early church leaders.
I made the mistake of thinking that all Mormons felt as I did. However, when I finally became directly acquainted with the Church, I found people who only saw the Church as a short-cut to doing their own thinking and blazing out their own personal search for truth.
I found myself in the same position as truth seekers in Joseph Smith’s day — there was no church teaching the truths of the Bible, Book of Mormon, and D&C. Claiming to have the same organization as the primitive church is not going to save anybody and hasn’t saved anybody. In the end, salvation is an individual affair. We need a Shepherd to guide us through life, and there is only one Shepherd, worthy of the name.
Then, I discovered the Church endorsing, if not master-minding, a plan, reminiscent of the people of Ammonihah to destroy the liberties of their fellow Americans, not through the force of arms, but through the force of law.
When I found all of this out, I could no longer reconcile the two.
John144 