Why did you leave? So this should be a good way to find out why you left a faith. Let's us know what made you leave the…

These are the biggest things that moved my heart to CHRIST, so I just left it at that

@wimmerjade why did you stop questioning?

Why not keep questioning?

I used to be mormon but I am now an evangelical Christian by Gods good Grace. Here's what made me question....

-Mormonism teaches that polygamy is bad, and no one should do it, but most Mormons don't know that the leader of their Church Joseph Smith was a polygamist.

-John 1:18 says, "no one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the fathers side (JESUS) has made him known. Joseph smith lied about seeing God.

-Joe said he say 2 separate beings. God is 3 in on, Father, spirit, son. Just like humans (soul, spirit, body).

-acts 17:24 and acts 7:48 rejects of Smiths idea of man made temples, or homes for God to reign in.

-Mormons believe that u have to work in order to get to heaven. BUT YOU ARE SAVED BY GRACE THROUGH FAITH IN CHRIST Eph. 2:8-9.

-Adam wasn't a prophet (a person who prophecies) neither was he the first prophet, Abraham was.

-in D&C 132:19-23 says " they will become gods", and D&C 132 :19-20 says they will have everything like God like, power, dominion, and knowledge.

I was born into Christianity and was baptized at age 13. I always knew I didn't really believe in God but I thought of church as a necessary social congregation. By high school I began to embrace my doubt and did research and found like minded people. By college I was prepared to come out of the closet as atheist (: for me it was all about scientific proof and reasonable doubt, the case for God is glaringly thin and I couldn't pretend I believed the stories any longer.

I left Christianity because I felt out of place there I felt more of a black sheep than anything.

My way of thinking and believing was different than everyone I went to church with and I soon grew tired of it. I was a Christian (lutheran) since I started preschool (until bout seventh grade) at a lutheran private school (which was a bit more catholic-like and I hate that) My mother brought me into it, truth is, I think she needed to cling to the hope of that religion more than I did. Let's also say those children and administrators did not adhere to the kindness of the written words of the bible when I went there.

I finally found agnosticism when I first met my SO at 18, I knew what I believed in way before I met him, but when he brought up a label for it and I continued researching agnosticism (along with a soul searching philosophy class) I found that agnosticism was truly the word that "labeled" my central belief about god/dess(s) or a central being.

I was raised non denominational Christian I was in the church for 13 years. I love that church it has great members but I had to force my self to go to church and when I became depressed the church provided no comfort. I converted to Mormonism in November and it's the best decision I am happier than ever have many close friends and am a better person. I truly believe in everything they teach and love Sunday's! Unlike before converting when someone questions my beliefs or the churches teachings I have something proud to stand up for and have a firm testimony to share

I was raised Christian and just thought that was the right way. But when I was about 14 I started questioning everything. All of a sudden nothing made sense anymore, I asked questions and never got any answers. I prayed to god so much to help me go back to him and i just felt so alone. I just don't agree with anything that they teach. It doesn't make sense to me that people worship a man in the sky just so that they aren't eternally damned. God just doesn't seem as loving as people make it out to be and I can't agree with a thing that's in the bible. Just my personal opinion on why I just can't believe. P.S. I have never been happier than I am now without religion. I just feel so free.

I made no choice to believe as I do. I have an innate, ingrained tendency to believe as I do, not because of a deliberate choice I made.

I grew up within the Catholic Church. Almost my whole family, not just my parents, are Roman Catholic so I was surrounded by the influence as a child. When I was about 12, I realized I felt really unfulfilled and just plain strange in the Church, and I started thinking that I just needed to get closer to God to fix it. I tried to be as best a Christian I could: I read the Bible, prayed all the time, went to youth group, etc. My parents were so proud of me. Though it seemed like I wasn't doing anything real, if that makes sense, but I still acted, if not for any satisfaction I received, then for the appreciation my parents showed me. I also think it may have been a method of coping, of pushing off how scared I was of the things I knew to be true not making sense to me and possibly not being all that I thought.

Right around my 15 birthday, I really started to realize the things I read and learned were just not matching up how I thought and when I asked about it, it still didn't make sense to me. I kept feeling that way again and again, during homilies, while I read the Bible, when my parents spoke of religion. I was very confused about what this meant and very terrified of it all. I had no idea what to do with these conflicting feelings I had about Christianity and I had a sort of internal crisis. Just in time, I found this forum. And here, I found people who had safely left the faiths they were brought up in, which finally made me feel... okay. It opened me up to not having to force myself to being something I didn't want to be, and honestly really couldn't be.

After lots and lots of research, I was eventually able to accept that I do not believe in the Abrahamic God. And now, I've finally grown to find my own beliefs, independent of what I was taught as a child. I had to rethink myself and my view of the world, but I'm glad to have found what I believe in.

It's called The Book of Mormon. I remember telling you that on another thread once. (I did get a little giggle at your typo, "moron bible".)

Edit: This is actually what I had posted to you from the "Multiple Marriages" thread you created, " ... the 'mormon bible' is called The Book of Mormon. The LDS Church considers it another testament of Christ. It is used in conjunction with the Holy Bible (specifically the KJV)."

The BoM does not stand alone, it is a "companion" (for the lack of a better word) to the Bible. It is not held higher than the Bible. Growing up in the church, I learned the gospel from both the Bible and Book of Mormon.

Thanks very interesting to learn. My husband found a moron bible, forgive me i don't know exactly what it's called but was looking into it comparing it with the bibles we look at which are several different ones. I didn't know some of that stuff.

I studied logic. 14+ years. Now I try to be abelief with regards to religion.

There is ex-communication in Christian churches. Not all denominations, but some do practice it.

You also don't have to "re-commit" yourself, if you don't leave the church officially, you are still considered a member of the LDS church. You are just "inactive".

My mom left the church for 20 something years and went back to church about a year or two ago. She just became "active" again. She wasn't "re-committed" in some special way, just started actively going to church and participating in activities.

Edit: Wookiee, you explained it more in depth than I did! ☺️

Hi Courtney, as SweetBrea mentioned, Mormonism falls under the umbrella of Christianity. And yes, various Christian groups do practice excommunication, which can mean getting "kicked out" in a sense, but usually does come with an option to repent and return.

And yes, there is a repentance process you can choose to go through if you are disfellowshipped within or excommunicated from the LDS church and wish to restore your membership to good standing in the church.

I was not excommunicated, though. I have never been subject to any form of church discipline and was never officially taken off the rolls. I simply do not wish to be a part of that church and do not consider myself a member any more.

As for religion, I have found that I do not need one to be a good person, and that in fact I have done the most good when I listen to my inner conscience rather than try to follow an ancient book. I love logic and reasoning and enjoy challenging ideas constantly, so beliefs in supernatural, unverifiable claims / strict adherence to religious dogma are not really my thing. You could say I am very spiritual in the "wonder and awe at the extraordinary universe" sense but not in a religious sense, as I have found no reasonable explanation why such a universe would require a supernatural prime mover or other deities to produce all of the things within it.

I do not pray to the Christian God any more because I do not see a reason for one to exist and would not know which god(s) to pray to if any did, or even know whether I would want to worship them (depending on the god(s).)

I hope that helps answer your question.

Mormons churches are christian churches...

LOL i heard about having to get re-committed or something like that if you leave or can even get kicked out right?

In all Christian churches you never get kicked out. Do you still pray to God?

You don't have to have a religion to be with God.

Thanks @Courtney. To answer your question, there was a short time after I first left Mormonism that I felt desperate to find a replacement for the Mormon church. I attended my boyfriend's nondenominational Christian church briefly, attended mass many times with the Catholic side of my family, and visited several other local Protestant churches to learn more about their philosophies and get more of a feel for their congregations. At one point I was even considering joining a local Methodist congregation that I liked. But I realized that it was bad to jump into a religion just for the sake of having a religion, and I forced myself to slow down and study more deliberately and carefully. I am so glad that I did because I learned some invaluable lessons about myself and how to apply critical thinking to an area that was previously off limits, and discovered that religion was not for me.

FYI, since leaving religion behind I have also attended services at a few humanist-friendly places as well, mostly UU churches for lectures and also our local Society for Humanistic Judaism for their beautiful Shabbat service. I have also attended a few Mormon and Catholic church gatherings for family events, but I much prefer the Catholic ones - at the LDS ones I am unable to simply relax, enjoy the music, and be anonymous since according to their records I'm still a member and need to be "re-activated." Lol.

I grew up as an ultra orthodox Jew (yikes, I should post pictures). After I became a nurse I became a conservative Jew and then messianic. I joined the US Army in 2007 and became rather wishy washy in my religion and in 2010 left Judaism all together. I was angry with God because of my own personal choices and became agnostic, not for too long though.

Oddly enough I became a Mormon, because it makes sense to me and it provides a way to have an eternal family. After this last pregnancy and all of its complications this religion has helped me a lot. I had a premie who was born 10/6 this year, he is still in intensive care.

I'm not a molly Mormon though, and I don't push religion on anyone. It is something personal between an individual and God or the universe if you don't believe in God.

I believe that all religions have an aspect of truth to them and I try to make sure my children learn about all religions so they can make their own choices.

I hope this makes sense.

Wow wookiee! Amazing story, so you were committed to Mormonism right? I could find some faults in that one myself but that's not what this discussion forum is for and i won't talk about another religion that way. But i completely understand. What other kind of churches did you attend if you don't mind me asking?

My deconversion story is long and I don't generally provide a lot of details unless PMed about it.

The basics:

I grew up LDS but with a Catholic father. I was what you might call very spiritual as a child and became very deeply involved and invested in my religion as I grew older. I made a conscious choice at age 8 to be baptised, and made what I considered to be eternal and sacred covenants to the Lord from that time forward. As I matured I took this more and more seriously. I prayed fervently and mightily, so grateful to be blessed with being part of the One True Church. I felt that Jesus was truly my best friend. I knew the Spirit and how if I fasted and prayed and studied really hard I could keep it with me at all times and have strength to resist temptations and not become prey to Satan's deceptions.

I attended 3 hours of church every Sunday plus additional church-led activities and classes after school, held Sunday school leadership positions, and chose to spend part of some summers at an all-girls intensive church program at BYU. The hardest thing for me was constant worrying about the eternal salvation of my father, who is Catholic. I prayed like crazy every day for the Lord to soften his heart so he would be ready and willing to receive the One True Gospel.

Fast forward a bit... I was in a committed relationship with a non-denominational Protestant Christian and I was worried because we were starting to talk about getting married. I wanted him to join my church. He started asking me questions I couldn't answer, so I took him to church with me and introduced him to our Bishop. They had a discussion of his concerns but they remained unresolved. I knew better than to delve into certain things too far; there were certain questions you *don't* ask and I had learned early on not to try to get answers from non Church-approved sources.

To make a long story short, purely by accident I found out one of his concerns that was something so outrageous that I was determined to debunk it, and later found I had a church-approved way of researching its validity in order to do so. I did this and came up with more questions rather than a satisfactory answer. I delved deeper and deeper into church apologetics, church history and scripture, double checking sources and where high standards of academic integrity and proper peer review were employed... and when they weren't. Worse than that, I found a plethora of highly substantiated, highly credible evidence that history had been deliberately whitewashed in my church and so many changes over time had occurred that I never even knew about.

On a personal level, I kept my faith and my guard up until I realized at a certain point that there was nothing left to support the veracity of the church I loved so much. I realized that I could no longer in good conscience associate myself with that church, because it was not at all what I thought it was. It was heartbreaking.

It was a huge paradigm shift, a shock. It took 6 years just to rebuild the basic foundation of my identity, actually, because the church had driven so much of my life and my thoughts and actions. I could no longer take for my own words and opinions so much of what others told me - I had to start from scratch and research and determine for myself whether all that I thought I knew was really correct or not.

Christianity and theism itself disintegrated for me at some point during that time. It came about as the result of praying intensely again, reading the Bible intensely again, going to some other churches, and ultimately applying the same standards to those religious concepts that I had applied to Mormonism.

And so it ended. But it's a happy ending. I would go through it again, gladly, to get where I am now. I am so much happier now to have confidence that I am a good person without expectation of reward, and to not fear death or hell, to embrace wonder and curiosity and the tools that allow me to be a freethinker. And guess what? I still feel the "Spirit" whenever I watch Braveheart, donate to charity, or drive up my endorphins in some way. It doesn't really ever go away. :)

I was born to a Christian mum and a muslim dad but grew up not really getting taught or learning much about religion.

I leaned towards Christianity though I guess from the few visits to church with school every year on special events.

However when I got to an age where I really started thinking about religion and asking questions I realised I didn't believe in the whole story of Jesus being God's son and didn't understand the holy trinity aspect, it wasn't until I moved from the UK to the Middle East and was really around Islam for the first time that I became intrigued to learn about it.

I had made friends that were muslim that I would constantly ask questions to, my first experience of hearing the call to prayer was amazing I thought it was so beautiful, and over time I learned about the religion and realised it made perfect sense and was so beautiful.

It answered a lot of the things I didn't understand about Christianity.

It took a while however between beginning to learn and actually put things into practice (such as praying) and even now I still feel like I'm not the perfect muslim I aspire to be but thank God I'm on the right path now and that's the main thing. :)

I was Catholic for 18 years. Deeply Catholic. I wholly believed in it.

When I went to college, I didn't like the Catholic church there, so I stopped attending. My beliefs quickly disintegrated to agnosticism and then a brief period of atheism.

I wasn't rebelling. I wasn't angry with God. I wasn't hanging out with the wrong crowd. I simply stopped believing. I WANTED to believe. I felt lonely without my church, my home for eighteen years. But it no longer felt like an option.

Through studying different faiths (I was a religious studies major) I found little bits of various faiths that made sense to me and stored them away. One day, I realized that those beliefs added up to a form of paganism. It took me a while to admit it, since all my life I'd been told such things were evil. But eventually I did admit it, and I let the goddess mother embrace me in her love, and I've been happy and whole ever since.

And I agree with @sweetbrea. She hit the nail on the head.

Even if there was ACTUAL proof he was real, I still wouldn't worship him.

And I was Catholic for maybe 15 years.

When I was 16 I started having more and more doubts, and around 17 I came out as an Atheist. I went to other churches as well, and it still didn't fit.

Religion is just not for me. I have always been skeptical, ever since I was small.

Lack of evidence.

I didn't really choose my beliefs any more than I chose my favorite color.

It's not like tomorrow I could just choose to believe that flying spaghetti monster exists, or that harming other people is ok, and suddenly my whole mind and morals are suddenly chaged forever.... doesn't work that way. my morals are determined by my empathy, life experiences and education.

Why I left Christianity after 20 years of devoted following: well that has to do with my moral standards. I cannot bring myself to worship a being who cannot at least meet or exceed my moral standards... simple as that. I have high standards for a sentient diety. simply existing or promising endless torture isn't good enough for me. One needs to be WORTHY of worship in my eyes in order to receive it.

The disbelief came later.. but even if I had irrefutable proof today that god and Jesus do exist, I would still refuse to worship the abrahamic god.

Gradual attrition and life experience.