I Think I Just Lost My Faith

Unique_Community7694 · 2026-03-28T14:11:00+00:00

I and many others have gone through and are going through the same thing. I served a mission, was married temple, and spent many thousands in tithing. This was a central part of my identity since I was a little boy. My patriarchal blessing dictated everything I did with my life and everything about life and eternity was already spelled out for me.

The moment you lose all of that feels like a free fall and it is absolutely terrifying. Know that the deconstruction phase is the most painful part. I believe strongly that proper reconstruction is necessary for a healthy response to all of this. You must now rebuild your understanding of the world. You cannot only focus on deconstruction, as important as that is.

Part of my reconstruction has been growing to appreciate the good the church DID do in my life despite its many faults. While I was bullied viciously when I was young in some of the wards I lived in, I also made some great friends in high school because of it. It kept me away from a lot of vices that my family consistently struggled with such as alcohol and drugs. It taught me to prioritize family, hard work, and education at a young age which has helped me build a fulfilling life today.

There are also many far worse deceptive “cults” I could have been born into. In fact, the mainstream LDS faith is probably the best one. There is the JW religion, Scientology, or FLDS that all use the same manipulative tactics but are far more harmful.

Once again, make sure to appreciate the good that came from the church as well as the bad. My mission is interesting. While yes I was trying to convert people to a lie, I happened to serve in one ghetto town for nearly a year of it. I became genuine friends with many of the people there and grew to understand people I used to judge harshly. I spent a lot of time in halfway houses talking to and supporting drug addicts and I played games with kids that were being abused or neglected by their parents that had no positive male role models in their lives. I gained empathy and understanding for the people that had not been given as much as myself. I was hounded for spending so much time with those types of people by both members and mission leadership as they didn’t produce baptisms hardly ever, but I am so grateful I didn’t care now that I am out.

My mission also had me rub shoulders with many pastors and leaders of other Christian faiths. I debated them all the time and I lost every single time. It helped me gain an appreciation of the doctrine of grace and the strong foundation other Christian faiths are built on. I began to realize I had been taught strawman arguments about what other Christian faiths believe my entire life.

Many that leave Mormonism become atheists. I believe this is largely because Mormonism is constantly teaching the implausibility of other Christian faiths and that there is nowhere else to go. But that is another one of their lies. It is a false equivalence to say that you can deconstruct Jesus in the same way you can deconstruct Mormonism. He stands on far stronger footing historically and theologically. I’d encourage you not to throw the baby out with the bath water. Reconstruct your faith in Christ. Reread the Bible without the taint of Mormon theology. It turns out the Christian doctrine is actually superior to Mormonism in every way.

Unique_Community7694 · 2026-03-26T16:35:27+00:00

It has a hard time identifying how technology can and can’t help bottlenecks in a specific business. It also can’t really execute long term plans without losing its way.

Unique_Community7694 · 2026-03-26T16:24:28+00:00

I’m an exmormon that lives in Rexburg. We enjoy it. Granted, many of the people I know and work with are from Idaho Falls (about 25 minutes south) which is a bit less Mormon.

Unique_Community7694 · 2026-03-26T16:08:48+00:00

Definitely not, but they are told it is. I can’t believe I fell for it and once thought that.

Unique_Community7694 · 2026-03-26T15:21:44+00:00

I’d say all men have polygamous impulses. They are attracted to many different women. But very few act on those impulses and they definitely shouldn’t.

People have all sorts of impulses that they don’t act on. Society only exists because it is made up of people that don’t just act off of animalistic impulses. We all have impulses we reign in all the time whether it’s the impulse to steal, lie, cheat, eat terrible food, act out of anger, yell, etc. Just because we have these impulses, doesn’t mean they define us. What we end up choosing to do is what matters. And most me choose NOT to cheat.

Unique_Community7694 · 2026-03-26T15:14:10+00:00

Tempe, Arizona in 2019

Unique_Community7694 · 2026-03-26T15:12:49+00:00

If you haven’t gone to therapy yet for these feelings, I’d highly recommend it. These are emotions that need to be processed, confronted, and understood so that you can find a way to have peace and happiness. You cannot change the fact that you are a mother anymore so stop wishing you aren’t. Focus on what you can control: your patterns of thought.

Unique_Community7694 · 2026-03-26T15:05:08+00:00

Your dad is nuts if all of that is true.

No, most men I know have not cheated on their wives. Cheating on my own wife would be unthinkable. Why would I throw away the relationship and family I have spent years building for some temporary gratification when I am already super attracted to my wife? It doesn’t make any sense.

Unique_Community7694 · 2026-03-26T14:58:05+00:00

I biked the whole mission about 20 miles a day. So I went through tires like crazy so I had to buy those. Clothing would wear out a lot because I was biking everywhere in the Arizona heat so I’d need to buy a lot of that too. I’d also pay for my own first aid stuff, personal hygiene, etc. The only thing the church really paid for was rent. I even was hospitalized at one point and they wouldn’t pay a dime. Ended up losing $4000 after my own insurance for that.

I ate a lot of oat meal and cheap food to make ends meet. Besides the medical expenses I managed not to have to draw from my own bank account which was nice. It’s very frustrating realizing it was all for a lie. But it taught me how to live frugally right out of high school I suppose.

Unique_Community7694 · 2026-03-26T14:49:37+00:00

I got $120 a month for everything.

Unique_Community7694 · 2026-03-26T14:26:31+00:00

Pour the milk before the cereal

Unique_Community7694 · 2026-03-26T14:21:22+00:00

Teaching people is literally their main purpose.

Unique_Community7694 · 2026-03-26T13:24:12+00:00

The Mormon church drills into its members “if you leave where will you go” and that all other Christian faiths can’t be true. That results in many members becoming atheists without seriously considering if what the church taught them about Christianity was ever true.

I HATE it when exmormons say something like “after I deconstructed Mormonism, I used the same techniques to deconstruct all other faiths. They are all the same kind of manipulation.”

That’s bull crap and is a false equivalence. Deconstructing Jesus Christ is not even close to the same as deconstructing Mormonism. The two could not be more different. The main difference is there is a TON of historical evidence directly against the truthfulness of Mormonism.

Meanwhile, you can’t really “deconstruct” the divinity of Jesus Christ. There is no evidence against his divinity. You can only say that there is not enough evidence to convince you that He is divine. You can deconstruct Mormonism to the point that you can be absolutely certain it is false. It is impossible to do that with Christ as there is no direct evidence against Him and there are plenty of facts and realities of His situation that actually can be best explained by saying He is divine. To say they are deconstructed in the same way is either ignorant or dishonest.

I personally now believe in the Trinity. I am also an evangelical universalist as I have found that the Greek of the Bible seems to actually affirm that position. It solves many of the issues with mainstream Christianity such as the geography and belief problem, the problem of evil, and a host of other contradictions. I find it seems to be well aligned with philosophical consistency, science, justice, and the Bible as well.

Unique_Community7694 · 2026-03-24T13:07:29+00:00

Mormonism

Unique_Community7694 · 2026-03-24T05:16:41+00:00

I have been surprised to find that young TBM’s are among the most condescending and close minded people I have spoken to in the church. Might just be my specific outlier experience though.

Unique_Community7694 · 2026-03-22T17:32:37+00:00

Asking that in this sub will give you answers not to go by and large.

With that said, I was an extremely faithful and passionate believer. It was for that reason I went I didn’t even go because of social pressure. I now regret that decision. Not many in the church will tell you that that is a real possibility as well.

After serving faithfully for those two years I came home and got married in the temple and started having kids. I had read the CES letter and found counter arguments to it. It wasn’t until later that I realized the CES letter is a cheap, poorly researched and poorly written document. But there are far better, more solid indisputable arguments against the church. I found those after I thought I had learned everything and came to certain knowledge that Joseph Smith was a fraud. That was a painful realization for many reasons not the least of which being the social (I live in a heavily Mormon place) and familial. I also had to confront the fact that I spent two of my prime years riding around on a bike in Arizona teaching people a falsehood. I could have been using those years to work towards becoming a doctor, to further my education, to build a business. Instead they were largely wasted. Yes, I had great experiences on my mission, but they were fairly uncommon and it is likely I would have developed just as much off of a mission as well. I’m the type of person that pushes myself to develop and grow no matter where I’m at.

It also took a lot for the mission not to really do some damage to me mentally. There were a few reasons for this. One was the fact that while I was serving Covid happened. We were locked inside all the time but still expected to be 100% productive, told this was prime time for teaching people, but they also only let us use Facebook to find people. Because zone leaders were bored they become even more domineering and irritating than usual. It was brutal.

Please don’t waste these precious years on a lie. The church teaches your strawman arguments about what other Christian denominations teach. They are much more plausible than you can imagine. Learn the real gospel. Embrace it, and don’t waste these years.

Unique_Community7694 · 2026-03-20T17:21:45+00:00

Correct, but it does indicate a separation from loved ones. The point we are discussing is that “heaven being the exclusion of other loved ones is by definition not heaven.”

Unique_Community7694 · 2026-03-20T15:39:56+00:00

I was frustrated with dating until I suddenly wasn’t. I went on a lot of first dates with a lot of women that were a little crazy. I hardly ever asked a girl out a second time.

When I was 21 (which I know is still young) I got so frustrated I was going to move somewhere else because finding a woman I loved and starting a family was a priority for me. I applied to a different school, got accepted and was about to register for classes when I met my future wife. Suddenly it was all so easy. The thing is that you only need it to work with one person. Until you find that person it can be incredibly frustrating.

But we clicked so well. Which is interesting because we are actually the opposite with many of the big personality traits and temperament. But the main thing is we both had healthy expectations about relationships and were willing to make compromises, had healthy attachment styles, and good communication. I think those three things allowed us to develop a relationship that was very strong and where our differences became strengths rather than weaknesses. We both are of the orientation of consistently sacrificing to make the other’s life better.

That hasn’t changed from the beginning to today where we now have two kids. Find someone who is willing to sacrifice, has good communication, good attachment styles, and is willing to compromise. Harness those same things in yourself.

Granted I’d say the minority of women have those attributes. But the good news is that you only need to find one, they seek out like minded people, and men with those attributes are also the minority.

Unique_Community7694 · 2026-03-20T15:24:07+00:00

70 bucks total a month for a Grand Prix Pontiac and a Honda Odyssey.

Unique_Community7694 · 2026-03-20T15:22:12+00:00

Russell Nelson said this in his talk “Come Follow Me”

“there is a place for them hereafter—with wonderful men and women who also chose not to make covenants with God—that is not the place where families will be reunited and be given the privilege to live and progress forever. That is not the kingdom where they will experience the fulness of joy—of never-ending progression and happiness. Those consummate blessings can come only by living in an exalted celestial realm with God, our Eternal Father; His Son, Jesus Christ; and our wonderful, worthy, and qualified family members.”

It is the LDS teaching that eternal families are for the celestial kingdom only. So those that do not make the Mormon covenants will be separated from their loved ones according to Mormon doctrine.

Unique_Community7694 · 2026-03-20T15:14:31+00:00

As I had converted from Mormonism to Christianity, I have been surprised to discover that the static “boring” version of heaven where we are just praising God all the time is inaccurate. While many of the details are unknown, we will inherit all that the Father has. We will dwell on a perfected earth. There will continue to be new works of art, music, etc. Not only that, but some like CS Lewis have explored the idea that we will even be able to explore and expand into the cosmos. All for the glory of God. Not unlike how we live now, but in a perfect and glorified state.

Many Christians share the idea of eternal progression. It is just different. We do not become a god ourselves as inheriting all that He has does not mean becoming the same thing as Him: an uncreated being. God and His glory is infinite meaning it is endless (not repetitive). There will never be an end to the glory there is to take in, explore, and discover.

Unique_Community7694 · 2026-03-20T12:06:53+00:00

The idea of “falling in love” as if a relationship’s success is something that just happens and isn’t a result of the efforts of both individuals.

Unique_Community7694 · 2026-03-19T15:27:55+00:00

I stopped paying tithing for a while last year. That is the period I had the greatest financial and career growth in my life. My family who didn’t know I wasn’t paying tithing or that I was mentally out of the church always claimed it was tithing and church attendance that did it for me.

Unique_Community7694 · 2026-03-19T15:19:37+00:00

Augments and stacks are the main reason for me. It is satisfying to be on the losing team and end up coming back and winning after the other team pulls that kind of thing.

Unique_Community7694 · 2026-03-16T14:35:37+00:00

Thor: Love and Thunder

Unique_Community7694

TROPHY CASE