For us former Mormons...

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tundramom

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I was just thinking. What was the hardest thing for you to “un-learn” or “re-learn” when leaving Mormonism. What unique doctrine in Mormonism was the hardest for you to leave behind as untrue?

For me, it was the belief in a pre-existence. I’ll wait for more responses before elaborating.

in Christ
Steph
 
well several things I guess

They stumped me on the Trinity but I guess going to Theology classes as silver lake has helped a lot

The family being together forever was a hard one for me to let go- I guess I never understood that even in Catholicism families ARE together forever too lol

the hardest actually for me wasin’t even leaving the doctrine because I don’t know how much I fully believed it was the people. The sense of belonging. Being picked on my whole life I felt I had ‘friends’ as fake as they were. The few I hung onto are still pushing me to come back for a 3rd time. I suffer from depression and they know just where to get me to have me come back so when they start trying to get me to come back I almost have to take a step back and go NO! not again… 😦

it killed my parents I joined so thinking about them being happy I am back home (Catholicism) helps me a lot to not go back 👍

:signofcross: :angel1:

I do have to add though being a mormon really screwed up my thinking. Sometimes I have to remind myself I don’t believe that anymore or I get stuff confused. I just laugh it off
 
That God’s love is conditional and you have to work at being worthy of it.
 
The “families can be together forever” was also hard for me, but I think that it never really made sense. Sealed to your parents, then sealed to your spouse… where do you end up?

I always thought too that HOW could I have actually chosen the parents I had?

I guess Saturday’s Warrior was too much a part of my life growing up. 🤷

I was just stunned when I found out that the pre-existence wasn’t Biblical. It was the last thing I let go of in Mormonism. While at a Bible Study with a bunch of ladies it was a topic I had brought up and they stared at me like I was an alien. LOL I still remember trying to explain it to them and their sad looks as I started crying and said, “yup. that’s not real either, is it?”.

Now I do find it a comfort that Jesus is GOD and not just an elder brother, you know?

rambling…

in Christ
Steph
 
tundramom said:
I was just stunned when I found out that the pre-existence wasn’t Biblical. It was the last thing I let go of in Mormonism. While at a Bible Study with a bunch of ladies it was a topic I had brought up and they stared at me like I was an alien. LOL I still remember trying to explain it to them and their sad looks as I started crying and said, “yup. that’s not real either, is it?”.
in Christ
Steph
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I have never had anytihng to do with Mormonism. I was baptized Catholic and always loved being Catholic. I don’t know what the Mormon doctrine of prexistence is, but I have thought about what I would call preexistence. God says He knew us before we were in our mother’s wombs. God is omniscient so He says He knew us before He created our souls and we were conceived within our mothers. If He knew us then we existed. We existed in the mind of God. He did not know us before, or pre our existence. We always existed in God. A thing can not be known that does not exist somewhere.
 
Yes, Grandfather, that is the Catholic view. My mom says that God was so in love with the idea of me that he just had to create me. I always liked that.
 
RebeccaJ said:
That God’s love is conditional and you have to work at being worthy of it.
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Not to side track from your comment too much, This is true even for those who weren’t Mormon. I still unfortunately sort of believe this since this was drummed into my head by my mother and that no matter what I did I was going to hell and that I was unlovable. It’s really rotten that any religion or person reinforces such a false belief in anyone.

(Sorry to sidetrack. Just thought I’d mention that such a thing isn’t found just in Mormonism. Though I am certainly glad you’re here and found your way Home.)
 
My mother grew up Mormon, and she still clings to bits of it, but mostly just the cultural parts. She no longer believes any of the theology. She still believes in God, but she has difficulty with accepting anything about Him except that He exists and is all-powerful. It’s only been relatively recently that I have helped her to understand that God loves her, and that all the bad things that have happened in her life happened for a good reason. She had the same dilemma that so many people have, how can an all-powerful, loving God allow so many horrible things to happen to good people? I showed her how all the good and bad things that happened to her made her the person she is today, and I reminded her of all the wonderful things she has been able to do for other people, especially the children she dealt with as a teacher, because of who she is and what she’s learned. It was amazing, I wanted so badly to help her, and I just started talking. I suddenly knew exactly what I had to say. I truly believe that the Holy Spirit worked through me that day, and I’m so grateful. She let go of a lot of pain and anger as a result of that conversation, praise be to God.
 
I grew up mormon in Utah. I was even going to go on a misson in about two months before I left… My bishop and family said that if I left that I would end up in Hell. That I would be happy.
 
tundramom said:
I was just thinking. What was the hardest thing for you to “un-learn” or “re-learn” when leaving Mormonism. What unique doctrine in Mormonism was the hardest for you to leave behind as untrue?

For me, it was the belief in a pre-existence. I’ll wait for more responses before elaborating.

in Christ
Steph
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Hands down, the most difficult concept to understand (and indeed I still don’t fully understand it) is the dogma of the trinity.

I still oft times catch myself referring to “the Father” exclusively as God (which I don’t do intentionally). One must admit that the LDS (as well as the JW, and Oneness Pentecostal) version of the “godhead” makes more logical sense than does the mystery of the Trinity, however trying to reconcile their beliefs about God with scripture and tradition is nearly impossible.

If we ascribe to the JW / Oneness Pentecostal version, we exclude Jesus from being insubstance God (essentially denying the most primitive of “Christian” beliefs in the divinity of Jesus).

If we ascribe to the Mormon version, we all of a sudden have three Gods (essentially denying the most primitive of “Abrahamic” beliefs in monotheism).
 
cyberjacques said:
My mother grew up Mormon, and she still clings to bits of it, but mostly just the cultural parts. She no longer believes any of the theology. She still believes in God, but she has difficulty with accepting anything about Him except that He exists and is all-powerful.
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I’ve found my Mother to be much the same. She (like my Father) came from a long line of Mormon Pioneer Stock (and she currently is the Relief Society President in her Ward), though if you get really close to her and gain her trust, she just may admit to you that she doesn’t believe in:
  • Heavenly Mother
  • Celestial Polygamy
  • The “Office of the 1st Presidency” (as in the way most Mormons do).
  • The “truthfulness of Mormonism in absolute terms”
  • the Word of Wisdom
  • among many other things.
Come census time, she checks the “Mormon / LDS” box, but when pressed about what she believes, she sounds more like a Protestant Christian.

I informed her about my plans of conversion to Catholicism a few weeks ago, and she took it much better than I had expected. She smiled, said “thats wonderful dear” and asked me how many people she can invite to my baptism.

I’ve invited her to go to Mass with me, but she refused (due to my father being a Stake President and the “scandal” it may cause).

My father on the other hand, is the typical “TBM” (True Believing Mormon). He defends each and every single one of the LDS doctrines (even ones that the church has recently been trying to distance themselves from.

For this reason, I’ve been reluctant in telling him about my plans for conversion. I’m honestly expecting to be disowned. He no longer speaks to my eldest brother who left the LDS church for Reform Judaism. Since the LDS tend to be much more accepting of Jews compared to Catholics, I’m actually expecting an even worse reaction.
 
grandfather said:
I have never had anytihng to do with Mormonism. I was baptized Catholic and always loved being Catholic. I don’t know what the Mormon doctrine of prexistence is, but I have thought about what I would call preexistence. God says He knew us before we were in our mother’s wombs. God is omniscient so He says He knew us before He created our souls and we were conceived within our mothers. If He knew us then we existed. We existed in the mind of God. He did not know us before, or pre our existence. We always existed in God. A thing can not be known that does not exist somewhere.
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The ontological proof of the pre-existence?

I understand what you’re saying, but the LDS belief in the pre-existence is more existential than ontological. We were LITERALLY there in Heaven with God for eternity prior to our mortal lives (which is why the LDS recently changed the terminology from “pre-existence” to “pre-mortal life” as to put emphasis on the fact that we were LITERALLY in existence, leaving the term itself rather confusing).

This line of thinking however begs some strange questions:

“How can our souls be eternal (like God is eternal) without any begining, AND God having created them? Does the creation of our souls negate the concept of an eternal existence?”
 
tundramom said:
I was just thinking. What was the hardest thing for you to “un-learn” or “re-learn” when leaving Mormonism. What unique doctrine in Mormonism was the hardest for you to leave behind as untrue?

For me, it was the belief in a pre-existence. I’ll wait for more responses before elaborating.

in Christ
Steph
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It’s hard to get rid of the notion of living in a pre-existence.
 
Pacbox said:
Not to side track from your comment too much, This is true even for those who weren’t Mormon. I still unfortunately sort of believe this since this was drummed into my head by my mother and that no matter what I did I was going to hell and that I was unlovable. It’s really rotten that any religion or person reinforces such a false belief in anyone.

(Sorry to sidetrack. Just thought I’d mention that such a thing isn’t found just in Mormonism. Though I am certainly glad you’re here and found your way Home.)
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Yes, I know this.

For me though, I was not a Mormon for 20 years, I was atheist. I had already gotten over all the other beliefs that people list here. It was when I figured out that my atheism was based on this particular belief, and someone told me I had it wrong, that I started search for the true nature of God.

One left over Mormon thing that did help, was the Mormon godhead. I never had the anger against Jesus that I did for God the Father. Two different, completely, separate people in Mormonism. So in my head, I believed God was a jerk, but was ok with Jesus.

It took me a while to understand the concept of the Trinity, but every now and then something still hits me about it that I had never known or realized before, and the truth of it all is really quite astounding.
 
RebeccaJ said:
Yes, I know this.

For me though, I was not a Mormon for 20 years, I was atheist. I had already gotten over all the other beliefs that people list here. It was when I figured out that my atheism was based on this particular belief, and someone told me I had it wrong, that I started search for the true nature of God.

One left over Mormon thing that did help, was the Mormon godhead. I never had the anger against Jesus that I did for God the Father. Two different, completely, separate people in Mormonism. So in my head, I believed God was a jerk, but was ok with Jesus.

It took me a while to understand the concept of the Trinity, but every now and then something still hits me about it that I had never known or realized before, and the truth of it all is really quite astounding.
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It amazes me that while there is only one way to God each soul is on an individual path experiencing unique things. Another great paradox.

For ex-Mormons or current struggling with the Trinity, there are understandably mysteries of faith. God is an infinite being, and infinite being. We are finite and our intelligence and ability to comprehend is finite. So there are things about God we can never know and understand completely, even things God has revealed about Himself. One of those things is the triune nature of God. In these infinite mysteries although we can never comprehend them completely that does not mean we can not have any comprehension at all about them. We can know something about God, but not everything. If we could know everything about the Infinite One we would have infinite knowledge and be infinite. The Holy Tinity is very easy to understand in a limited sense.

God is love. God reveals Himself to us as love in what He did when He came among us and in scripture. Love can not exist alone. What is loving, or love? For love to exist, love must have something to love, an object of love, or itself. There must be a lover and a beloved. There also must be the love itself, a tangible reality.

If God is love and only God is uncreated with no beginning, who does God eternally love? The Eternal Father loves and gives all of Himself to the Son eternally and the Son returns the same, holding nothing back of His Infinite Being.

We see the same thing in terms of knowing. God knows Himself. What is knowing? It is having knowledge. There must be an object of one’s knowledge, the thing being known, or the Being that is known. God has an idea of Himself. Since God is infinite the idea He has of Himself must be infinite, or identical to Himself, or He would not know Himself completely. There again we see a trinity. There is the knower, the one known and the knowledge which must all be identical by nature.

But God is not a nature. God is a person. RebeccaJ is a person with finite human nature. She has an identity and is given a name. There is no other person like her. She is unique in her maekeup, or dna. So is God a person not a nature. He is a person with an infinite nature. The three distinct persons of the Holy Trinity have the identical infinite nature. We see three persons with one nature as defined by the Church. If either of the three had or lacked something in His nature the others, they would not be the same, or infinite.

Wherever there is love there must be a trinity. Even among humans who love this is true. Love gives love to love, or the lover, loves its beloved. In a marriage who is the lover, the husband or the wife. They are both the lover and the beloved.

Since huimans are the object of God’s love what does that mean? God is one. He can not be divided into parts. He is love and He can not give a little of Himself or His love. God loves us who are finite with an infinite love. When you try to put an infinite ocean in a balloon the ballon bursts. If we who are finite are to receive Infinite Love what will it do to us? Another mystery to experience.
 
xixxvmcm85 said:
The ontological proof of the pre-existence?

I understand what you’re saying, but the LDS belief in the pre-existence is more existential than ontological. We were LITERALLY there in Heaven with God for eternity prior to our mortal lives (which is why the LDS recently changed the terminology from “pre-existence” to “pre-mortal life” as to put emphasis on the fact that we were LITERALLY in existence, leaving the term itself rather confusing).

This line of thinking however begs some strange questions:

“How can our souls be eternal (like God is eternal) without any begining, AND God having created them? Does the creation of our souls negate the concept of an eternal existence?”
Click to expand...
The LDS don’t believe God created anything. He only gained the ability to organize things from pre-existing matter. Mormonism sees the universe as having created God instead of God creating the universe.
 
BartBurk said:
The LDS don’t believe God created anything. He only gained the ability to organize things from pre-existing matter. Mormonism sees the universe as having created God instead of God creating the universe.
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If the universe is eternal and uncreated then god is not eternal unless the universe is god. If the universe created God then God is a creature. Do they really believe this?
 
xixxvmcm85 said:
I informed her about my plans of conversion to Catholicism a few weeks ago, and she took it much better than I had expected. She smiled, said “thats wonderful dear” and asked me how many people she can invite to my baptism.
Click to expand...
Your mother and mine should get together for lunch! 😃 My mother was actually very happy for me when I told her I was going to become Catholic. She also wanted to know how many people were allowed to come to my baptism, and she and my sister flew in from out of state for it. She said she can see the change it has made in me, that I’m a happier person, and she’s very curious about what I believe. I think she’s starting to want what I have found. I hope.
 
grandfather said:
If the universe is eternal and uncreated then god is not eternal unless the universe is god. If the universe created God then God is a creature. Do they really believe this?
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Some of them have said they believe the universe eternally co-existed with God, albeit in an unformed state until God formed it. They don’t believe God was the ultimate source of the raw materials or of the laws of physics which bind the universe.
 
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