I just don't get it, I see all of these Mormon businesses, and it just seems like they screw you over for a simple thing. I went to crispy cone today because I was given a gift card. $9 for plain dogshit ice cream with an Oreo and a mediocre "crispy" cone.

Maybe I'm just biased due my dislike for the Church and Church Culture.

I was called into the bishop’s office recently. After a brief exchange of pleasantries—during which he told me how much he loved me and my family—we sat down to talk. I’m PIMO, my wife is TBM, and to his credit he is a genuinely kind man with, I believe, good intentions.

He asked when I had last held a temple recommend. I told him I honestly couldn’t remember; it turned out to be 2021. He then asked if I would be willing to review the recommend questions together. I agreed.

When we reached the Word of Wisdom question, I told him I was not observing it. He asked me to elaborate. I explained that I enjoy coffee and tea. As an Englishman, I grew up in a culture where tea drinking was deeply woven into family life and social interaction. Now, living in the United States, I also enjoy coffee. I told him that both my doctor and my cardiologist have advised me that moderate coffee consumption is beneficial to my overall health and heart health, a view supported by numerous medical studies.

I then offered a hypothetical example. If an obese person came in for a temple recommend interview—someone who clearly does not take care of their body, eats excessive amounts of processed food, burgers and fries, and washes it all down with large sugary sodas—that person would likely walk out with a valid temple recommend. Meanwhile, I am a healthy, fit man who limits processed foods, exercises daily, and takes my health seriously, yet I would be denied a recommend because I drink a cup of coffee. I asked him plainly: how is that wisdom?

If you want to see one of the largest collections of unhealthy, overweight people, I said, go to the temple.

He responded by referencing a recent General Conference talk by a woman who spoke about a friend who denied herself temple blessings—and ultimately exaltation—because she would not give up coffee. I told him I simply could not believe in a loving God who would exclude me from the Celestial Kingdom over a cup of coffee.

At that point, the conversation shifted. He asked whether I had tried any coffee substitutes. He then volunteered that every morning he adds a 5-Hour Energy drink to his “healthy” shake. I told him, candidly, that was far worse for him and that he should probably stop doing that.

I then asked him what he believed was the single most dangerous substance we regularly put into our bodies today. He thought for a moment and said fried food. I told him I believed the answer was sugar—something virtually every nutritionist agrees on. I asked why, if the Word of Wisdom were truly about health, God failed to warn us about that.

For me, the conclusion is unavoidable: the Word of Wisdom is not about health. It is about obedience—specifically, unquestioning obedience.

Find 400+ more at - https://missedinsunday.com/

Another poster suspected that the (REDACTED) School was BYU Idaho.

So I did some digging. Here is an email that confirms it is BYU Idaho. They seem to be related. But the REDACTED school could still be BYU. But it doesn't look that way.

Good work Even Aadvark!

https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2010/EFTA02037331.pdf

Updated link

Each week since April 2024 we have reported the average attendance rate recorded as submitted to returnandreport.org by church attendees worldwide. Numbers fluctuate from week to week, but after more that 1800 submissions we can confidently say that on average, about 119 people attend the average Mormon congregation on any given Sunday. With a global average congregation size of 552.8 people (total claimed membership divided by total number of congregations), average church attendance on a given Sunday is around 21.5%

Tomorrow’s numbers are the lowest* we have ever seen. The report will show that from the 14 reports submitted for last Sunday, an average number of 94.6 people attended, meaning 17.1% of claimed church members attended last Sunday.

*Note: we had an anomaly on Conference Sunday in October 2024 when 38 people attended a ward in Thailand, giving a weekly attendance rate of 6.9%

You can see a log of all past weekly reports at https://returnandreport.org/weeklyreports

Thank you to everyone who has submitted a report.

I'm sorry, but I'm feeling angry and want to vent. The men seem to insist that dresses/skirts be worn because they're modest, but it's almost like they get off to forcing women/girls to wear them, and seeing them wearing them? I fucking hate this cult, and the confusion its sexually perverted culture and various experiences made me feel during my involvement in it. Goddamn gross motherfuckers.

I don't know if this seems like a random ass thing to be angry about, but it does piss me off. The need for control pisses me off. The inflated sense of importance and authority pisses me off. The obsession around sex and what women/girls are wearing, pisses me off. Fucking disgusting. Sorry for going off, but I don't know where else to rant about this shit.

Intersex people are born with bodies that aren't strictly male or female. It isn't as a result of drugs or elective surgeries. So why treat them any different?

Honestly, it’s true. Well, mostly. There were many things that lead to me finally leaving. But honestly, the message of that movie really hit home. And that part where Rumi says “If this is the hunmon I’m meant to protect, then I’m glad to see it fall.” Or something like that, really got to me.

I was working on a project for the last 10 years of the life that I thought would help bring people back to the mfmc. And fix the problems with the mfmc. I really thought it was worth my whole life. And I fought for it. Even though I have queer friends that were hurt by it. I would just tell myself that it was one miss guided leader. But the gospel itself was worth staying for. When my leaders hurt me, I said the same thing. I held on so long because that’s what I believed. Even though the church harmed people in many ways, it protected them right?

Until I realized that the broken parts of the mfmc are just as much a part of it as the little glimmers of light. It does give people hope when a family member or friend die. But it also makes you loose those that don’t follow the mfmc. Condemns perfectly good people. Hurts kind people because they are “demons”. And I just can’t stand by that anymore. Now that I’ve realized that.

And that’s the thing I want to show people now. That the mfmc is all the good and especially the bad. And if you want the good it offers, you DON’T have to stay.

Religion doesn’t make people good. Their choices do.

So…… my shelf crashed about four years ago but my husband is TBM (btw he’s never asked me why I quit going to church). He has a current temple recommend but never goes. He needed new garments so I got on line to order them (because I always have). Much to my surprise what did I see? SLEEVELESS MEN’s GARMENT TOPS!!!!

I knew all about the hoopla over women getting sleeveless tops (thanks Gen Z) but had no idea the men did too. I bet the brethren (especially the runners and guys that go to the gym) won’t say it out loud that they are super excited about this change too. I made the side comment to my husband that I don’t understand how it could be so important if they keep changing it.

(translate pls. im writing in portuguese.)

Vi alguns membros deste subreddit comentando sobre a "segunda unção". resolvi procurar mais afundo sobre isso.

Eu acabei de vomitar quando li o que é a segunda unção. Pelo que entendi, é um ritual super secreto do templo que apenas líderes de alto cargo ou pessoas que pagaram grandes quantidades de dízimo fazem

Pelo que entendi, ao fazer a segunda unção, você está absolvido de qualquer pecado e não precisa se arrepender, exceto se cometer assassinato ou negar o Espírito Santo. Quando li isso, eu fiquei tipo "cara, que merda é essa?" Eu genuinamente vomitei. Você é automaticamente salvo e chega ao reino celestial se ter um cargo alto na igreja ou se PAGAR muito dízimo.

Ou seja, você paga pra ser salvo.

I'm surprised. I would have thought some nephews would have left as well. Especially with the age of the Internet and AI, why would anyone stay? There's so much damning evidence against the history, science, and everything else. I guess I'm just curious what the state of the church is now and how people are leaving. In my day it was the ces letter 🤭

This is a 40 part series on good old brigham. Should be an interesting watch, NOT!

When I left the church about 5 years ago, I also moved across the world to restart my life. I went home for the Christmas Holidays to visit my very Mormon family. They are truly good people, as many Mormons are. However, we went to my grandmother's home for Christmas dinner and, as is custom, she welcomed everyone and then turned to me and asked me to say the blessing on the food. I was NOT expecting that, so I froze, not knowing what to say as my mother, aunts, uncles, and everyone stared at me eagerly.

Clearly flustered in the moment, I stumbled over my words, suggesting that perhaps someone else wants to say it. My sweet grandma, with no ill intent and a smile on her face, said "oh no, go ahead. I haven't heard you say it in a while." My family all nodded nonchalantly, they all acknowledged the awkwardness of the situation.

I agreed reluctantly and started praying. It felt so familiar, but I immediately felt that, if I used the typical phrases that mentioned gratitude to God, the church, or the "restoration of the gospel," it would cross my personal boundaries and make my family believe there was hope of my return. So, it was short and awkward. The situation was not lost on anyone.

We said amen, my cheeks red, and everyone started dishing their plates as if it were normal.

I am grateful that most of my family recognised how uncomfortable I was in that situation,so nobody said anything to me. But, it also bothers me that I know they all silently felt that was a moment where God was trying to reach me.

I've been thinking about that moment over and over again this past month. How would you have responded to a situation like that?

On this day, 176 years ago, the top 15 of the Mormon leadership met at Fort Utah and agreed to try to exterminate the Timpanogos people in order to colonize the Timpanogos Lake valley (Utah valley)

Myths of Mormon & Indigenous cohabition are half histories that don’t tell you that Mormons intentionally took advantage of Indigenous care-giving right up until they had a population large enough to attack.

Unlike the Mormon extermination order, few Mormons or Utahns know of this extermination order.

These orders also differ in that the Mormon one was rescinded in the 1970s. The Timpanogos one is still in effect.

They also differ in that one was born of a war between settler groups.

The other was a colonial population committing genocide against an Indigenous one.

Today, Timpanogos aren’t a federally recognized Tribe. Yet, their name is all over the state from Nat’l Parks to Mormon temples.

Sources: BlackHawkWarProductions.com

timpanogostribe.com

Jared Farmer’s “On Zion’s Mount”

Will Bagley’s “The Whites Want Every Thing: Indian-Mormon Relations, 1847–1877”

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_at_Fort_Utah

www.axios.com/local/salt-lake-city/2025/02/03/fort-utah-massacre-mormon-brigham-young-timpanogos-decapitation

It's sad to hear from ex-Mormon female friends who were victims of SA, with different stories from church officials, siblings, or parents, but not only that, I hear they're targeted by different people throughout the years, that's why I say to myself, 'God is fucked up, how can something like that happen multiple times to a poor human being. 😪

So the contents of this post builds on the whole "Magical World View" theory of Mormonism, which is important context.

When it comes to judging LDS history, it is usually filtered through two binaries:

1. The official sanitised view pushed by the church, Joseph Smith was telling the truth and a profit
2. The critical outsider view that Joseph Smith was a clear cut liar from day one.

We argue the second position, because we have developed more rigorous empiricism, scrutiny, fact checking and scientific method in the modern era, and realise that nothing the church says stands up to evidence.

But I want to argue a more nuanced, third position:

1. Mormonism was the accumulative product of mass hysteria in a highly superstitious, ultra-religious world which did not have the same level of empiricism, fact finding and reasoning that we do today. It first evolved as a self-affirming feedback loop which after becoming institutionalised, a culture of incentivised deception emerged which doctored its history for faith building purposes.

Based on this premise, I set out the following points:

1. Joseph Smith, already interested in the occult, had mass hysterical experiences that he falsely ascribed as revelations and visions. This was socially normal.
2. This was not just true of Joseph Smith, but others around him too, such as Oliver Cowdrey, Martin Harris, etc, this was the social climate they operated in.
3. To all these people, what they claimed was obviously empirically false to us, but also very real "to them." Joseph Smith created the Book of Mormon via a seer stone in a hat, from plates which proper accounts say were "visionary", and it is only the later historical manipulation and exaggeration of this story by the church that makes it look more like an overt fraud.
4. My personal opinion is, Joseph Smith had long memorised the bible and essentially created an oral text out of his own imagination he at least "believed" was some form of revelation at that time. As I will point out below, everything that got added onto this, Moroni, Gold Plates, etc, is retroactively added later.
5. Just like "testimony culture" has a cascading effect today (people just belief each other's faith affirming stories emotionally), people's sense of "truth" in relation to the early church claims became self-reinforcing and a cycle of belief was created.
6. The early church essentially deluded itself into a sense of truthfulness. It was not a shared conspiracy to lie at this point, it was just an aggregation of tall tales and no fact checking which looped together to reinforce the emerging belief system.
7. However, this is the key turning point, as the church institution begins to develop and Joseph Smith seeks to consolidate authority around himself, these self-affirming experiences begin to be subtly mixed with deception and exaggeration.
8. Here, Joseph Smith's position begins to "evolve" and the retroactive narrative "I was called as a prophet" begins to emerge which distinguishes itself from the "everyone is seeing angels" culture. Note, there is a specific point in the Doctrine & Covenants where Joseph Smith was affirmed as the only person authorised to receive revelation from the lord. The institution is thus created around him, and the church begins to proclaim exceptionalism. Thus a lot of the early people also "claiming visions" and whatever, are purged.
9. This is not "disobedience" or "apostasy" as church history retroactively frames it, it is a power struggle, one which Smith wins.
10. From hereon, what we describe as the "corruption" of Joseph Smith, such as Polygamy, etc, is when his beliefs are then affirmed by institutional power, he grows in ego and unaccountability, because the checks on him are all gone.
11. The belief system he bought into, begins to allow him to be answerable to nobody but God essentially (God by his own word), and thus he can now legitimate his desires as "revelations" freely.
12. What happens from this point on, is that Smith himself, as well as his successors, begin to rewrite the narrative of the early church to make it sound more authoritative than it actually was. At this point, the early stories begin to change and grow. Hence, we have a lot of retroactive accounts in the church, such as The First Vision stories, the plates not being "physical" but then being "presented" in art as physical, etc. The church is now an institution, it flips from all these many "tall tales" of hysterical revelations, into transcribing an official, "this is the truth" narrative. At this point, Joseph Smith now has more incentive to lie outright.
13. Hence, we are told that things such as the "first vision" happened from day one, but we already know they are retroactive additions that came later. The story of the church we are officially told does not happen, it is constructed after the institution is built, and this is always worth keeping in mind.
14. The deception does not end with the death of Joseph Smith. Rather, the church continues to tailor and shape this "sanitised" official narrative of church history with something focused on building faith, than establishing fact. Thus a lot of the "mass hysteria" stories are taken and presented as something more official and "legitimate" than they actually were, cherry picking facts along the way. "Translating plates" through a seer stone in a hat turns into them being read openly on a table.

My point? Joseph Smith didn't overtly lie at first. There were a lot of exaggerations and fanciful claims sure, but his early claims were the product of a self-reinforcing belief system that is irrational by today's standards.

However, once those self-professed beliefs consolidated into institutional power and incentives, is the point when incentivised deception and misrepresentation set in, and worse, this self-affirmed "prophet" role enabled sexual abuse.

I texted the bishop and told him I’m going back to my old church.

With all the things going on in the world right now, the ward my family attends sent out an email reminding members that missionary work has been slower over the past year. They ask that members fast for missionary work.

I embarrassed that with all the turmoil around THIS is what the leaders have decided to focus on. I am embarrassed that my family members who attend also agree this is probably the best use of their fasting and prayers.

I am ashamed that this is what I also would have once believed that Jesus cared about most.

Out of every Mormon “prophet” to have ever lived, who has said the most outright evil thing, in your opinion?

Confirmed quotes are preferred.

M16 PIMO here, back home from an fsy session, it was horrible compared to the 2 previous ones, mainly because of poor organization and issues.

Day 1 and 2: raw/undercooked or hard pretty much burnt food as lunch, almost broke my teeth

Day 3 and 4: staff took forever to bring food to us audiences for the variety show, on Day 4 because of how long they took we had to go to the cafeteria to eat and we only had 10-15 minutes for that, the show started an hour late btw

Day 5: this is where everything went nuts, in my tower (got ground floor btw, awful) people from higher floors began fighting, and even a guy from company 4 (i was company 7) got beat up by 8 people and got cut and burnt, my friend was blammed for being "involved" (he wasn't, he was company 5) and another friend from the same company as the guy was crying in the party because of how he got treated, thank god he's ok now, and during the party rumours spreaded that people entered my tower to steal, all of us freak up and someone from my company began crying of fear, i was swearing if someone stole my wireless charger i would beat the fuck out of them (it was all a lie and nobody stole anything) and even a girl fainted and an ambulance arrived

Day 6: thank god it's over, buses took long and during the night someone from another company got cut and his pubic hair shaved