My List

Most people I know who left the LDS Church can point to several key issues or facts that contributed to their departure from mainstream Mormonism, and that keep them from coming back. I am no exception. The more I have thought about Mormonism, the more these kinds of issues have come to my attention, so my personal list has become pretty long and involved. Some of the items are deal-breakers for me, and others are just factors in my personal cost-benefit analysis. I will use this blog to present and illustrate the items in my list, and to explain why they matter to me. Below is my list, in no particular order. I will add links for easy access to relevant blog posts.1

-PWM

  1. Key beliefs of the LDS Church are nonsensical and/or increasingly conflict with scientific findings.

  2. Historical evidence indicates that Joseph Smith, the founder of the LDS Church, was untrustworthy.

  3. Current LDS Church leaders often behave immorally and unethically.

  4. The LDS Church subverts the moral agency of its adherents.

  5. LDS taboos create unnecessary problems for people.

  6. The LDS Church missionary program puts young missionaries through an indoctrination experience similar to that of destructive cults.

  7. The LDS Church forbids criticism of its leaders.

  8. The LDS Church demonizes members of the Church who are not orthodox believers.

  9. The LDS Church punishes unorthodox members of the Church who speak out.

  10. The LDS Church employs sophistry to convince people to join the Church, and to continue participating in its programs.

  11. LDS Church leaders claim to be “prophets, seers, and revelators”, but none of them appear to actually do any of those things.

  12. The LDS Church is consistently decades behind the times with regard to social issues.

  13. The LDS Church has a continuing history of dominating and discriminating against women and minority groups.

  14. The LDS Church is not transparent in accounting for tithing and other donations it receives, and its use thereof.

  15. The LDS Church is not transparent in accounting for its membership statistics.

  16. The LDS Church requires its members to follow lots of rules that don’t make sense.

  17. The LDS Church holds its members accountable for rules that they are not allowed to see beforehand.

  18. The LDS Church does not abide by its own moral and ethical teachings.

  19. The doctrine of the LDS Church is continuously evolving and cannot be defined.

  20. The LDS Church generally relies on amateur apologists, rather than its own leaders, to explain and clarify its doctrines.

  21. The LDS Church whitewashes and misleads people about its history and origins.

  22. My personal tastes differ from the norm in LDS culture.

  23. The LDS Church and culture discourage critical thinking about Mormonism.

  24. LDS Church leaders and LDS culture demand conformity.

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  1. Please note that this list is not meant to imply that there are no aspects of the LDS Church that I approve of and respect, because there actually are. I may even write about them sometime. In the meantime, if you really just want to read about the good stuff, go check out anything published by the Church itself. As my list asserts, the Church’s version of things is not always an accurate reflection of reality, but it does cover plenty of the good stuff. [↩]