Transcript: "Chris - I Am An Ex-Mormon"

I wanted to know so, so bad, that God was real.

I remember praying so hard that finally, I got this feeling. I got this buzzing feeling. And I knew that God had answered my prayer.

I remember "Those aren't just trees, those are trees that God made. And those aren't just mountains - God made those mountains." And everything just started to change; my whole perspective started to change.

Then I started preparing for my mission, and finally I got to go on my mission, called to serve in Japan. And, tragically, at one point in my mission, news came that my dad had died. And I didn't go home; I didn't think twice, I didn't even consider the idea of going home. I felt, "Dad would want me to stay here where I am and serve the Lord." And so that's what I did. I doubled up my efforts. I taught them that all you have to do is read this book - the book of Mormon - and pray about it, and the Holy Ghost will bear witness to you that this book is true.

At the very end of my mission, I felt sort of sad. That part of my life was coming to an end. I remember praying, and I was in tears, and finally came home. And it was a wonderful two years. I grew a lot, I overcame shyness, I made some friends, and I love the Japanese people now. And it was a very good experience. So after that, I started to move forward with my life. I went to college, got married.

Just before my first boy was born, my younger brother died. He committed suicide. And this was, I think, one of the turning points in my life. It wasn't his death, per se, that changed my perspective. I believed in the afterlife, I believed in Jesus. And right away, a friend of mine, a friend of the family's came to the family and said "I have this patriarchal blessing that tells me I have this gift, that I'll be able to raise people from the dead. I feel that now is the time to use this gift." So me and everybody in my family were excited. I was an extreme believer in the Church. I knew that the Holy Ghost doesn't lie, the Holy Ghost is real, here's this opportunity where God has come and said, you know, like, "It's hard enough. You've already lost your dad. Your mom has lost a husband. She doesn't need to lose her son. This is a time in your life when you're going to see a miracle. And here is someone who has been blessed with the ability to raise someone from the dead."

It was Sunday, and my mom was going to church, and she was praying and praying, and she actually heard the voice of Jesus tell her that this priestly blessing was going to work. It would be fine. Her son would be raised from the dead. This was reassurance to me, because she told me, and my faith was through the roof. I was excited. I was like, "This is the true Church. This is why we're Mormon, because miracles happen. This is what makes our church different, because we have the power of God in our church."

And so, it was one of those amazing moments in my life, where I was very much expecting a miracle. We were very excited. We fasted, we prayed. So when we layed our hands on his head, and nothing happened, I was a little bit disappointed. But I thought, "He's cold, he's in the morgue, he's frozen. We need to thaw him out first and try again." So later we took him to the funeral home, we got a few more faithful members who believed that this priestly blessing would work, we laid our hands on his head again and blessed him to rise from the dead. And I remember it didn't happen, and of course to this day he's still dead.

So it was disappointing, and as everybody does in the church, we take these moments to say "You know, people of weak faith would fall away at these points. So we will be strong. We will be strong, and we will move forward." So that's what I chose.

I had this one little tiny question: Why did Jesus tell my mom that my brother was going to be raised from the dead, from this priestly blessing, if in fact that was not going to occur? Just this one little nagging question, because sure, maybe my brother has his free agency and he didn't want to come back, or maybe he wanted to be with his dad - all this - but Jesus should have known, you know? If it's Jesus talking - he knows things that we don't know. He's God. So why would he come down and comfort my mother if this was not going to occur? Just this one little nagging question.

We took a vacation and - we needed a little break from this whole experience - and I remember sitting down; I was talking to one of my brothers, my older brother Dwayne. This one little thought occured to me as I was talking to my brother: Do we forget on purpose? Do we forget certain parts of our lives just so that we can maintain faith? He thought maybe that's what we sometimes do. And I didn't really know; I thought, "Maybe we do that. Maybe we don't. It makes sense." I just asked my mother, "Do you remember that revelation you got when you were at Sacrament meeting, and Jesus told you that this priestly blessing was going to work? Do you remember that moment?" And she said "No." And that was a little bit earth-shattering. Here's Jesus talking to my mom, and she didn't remember. And I thought, "Why would you forget that? Unless... we always do that. Maybe we're always forgetting those moments that contradict, just so that we can maintain our faith." And then I started finding memories coming back to me in my life.

Here's a memory that I shoved aside. I went to the temple for the first time. This was with my parents when I got my endowments. And the experience was, to be honest, a frightening, terrible experience. I remember being in tears that day. I had forgotten. My whole mission, I hadn't thought about it; after my mission, I got married in the temple, I hadn't thought about this. It seems that I had been purposefully or subconsciously neglecting a whole side of my life. I'd been selectively forgetting certain parts of the equation.

My older brother left the Church, and he was somebody we really looked up to; he's a very intelligent person, he's a really good person; to me, he seemed like (indistinct). He always did the right thing. He always made the right decisions, and he left the Church. I thought, "Why? Why would he leave the church? This thing is true, he served a two year mission, and he left." I felt so bad.

I talked to him over the course of a few months, and I tried to help him, bring him back into the fold. I knew that I couldn't get through to him if I came across as "I know more than you, you need to repent," so I just told him straight out: "I don't know everything. Maybe you are right, and maybe I am wrong, or maybe I am right and you are wrong. But it can't be both. It can't be both ways. This church is either true, or it's either false. And if it's false, I will leave it. If it's true, then why don't you come back?"

I remember people telling me stories of people dying for the truth. Pioneers, martyrs, people that died for the truth - that was driven into my brain since a young age, and I wanted to do that. I wanted to follow the truth no matter what. No matter how much it hurt, I wanted to follow the truth. That's how committed I was to the truth.

Through my whole life, truth has always lead me back into the Church. It has never led me out. It always came back to, the Church was true. And so I knew that it would lead me back into the Church. I wasn't worried. I had no worries. But I started to learn a little bit more about truth.

This is one interesting example that I came up with to explain truth. Somebody could give me this glass of water and tell me that it's water. But there's a lot of clear liquids out there. And I might actually have a real case that this might not be water. Now, (in) most cases, when something like a liquid is in a cup, it's water.

A good way to find out if it's water is to test if it has two hydrogens per oxygen in each molecule in the glass. So I could test that. If it evaporates like water, tastes like water, freezes like water... the more tests we apply, the more sure we can be that it's water. However, it if was some kind of acid, and we started to test it, we found out, "You know, the hydrogen count is off, the oxygen count is off, it doesn't taste like water, it doesn't behave like water, it doesn't freeze like water, it just looks like water," if we start to do these tests, the more we will know the true nature of the liquid in this glass. That is how we find truth. We can test it any number of ways. The more we test it, the more we know the truth of what it is that we're dealing with.

It's the same with religion. If we only test it one way, then we might be duped. If we test it two ways, three ways, four ways, a hundred different ways, eventually you will know what it is you're dealing with. And you need to know how to test things. Recognizing your own bias is a very, very honest and good start to finding truth. Knowing that you want to be right. Well, get rid of that bias. Stop wanting to be right and start wanting the truth. It's important to have a healthy attitude to both sides of the equation. To look at this side, and that side, and compare. Any honest religion would say, "Look at both sides." I had to look at the Church from many different angles to see if the church lined up with what it said.

All of these little concerns that I'd put away for many, many years, I started to look at them honestly rather than just toss them to the side and say, "oh, we need to have faith." I started to ask a few more questions. I said, "Well, if the book of Abraham is real, then all of this should be verifiable now, with current archaeological discoveries that Joseph Smith had no access to." In the book of Abraham, Abraham talked about Egypt being named after Aegyptus(sp?), who was the daughter of Ham. So I wonder how this lines up with what we know about the word "Egypt." The word Egypt didn't come from Aegyptus, it came from a male god; it just didn't make sense. And also, the original word wasn't even Egypt. It was Kemet or Mizra (sp?). So this is, this is really starting to - it was like one slice, I took one slice into the book of Abraham, compared it with reality, "Let's take a look, does it match with what reality says about Egypt?" It was just a little bit surprising, actually, because I wasn't used to taking a little slice at something and analyzing it like that, saying "Does this match up with reality?"

See, the reason I took this one slice out of the book of Abraham is because the book of Abraham talks about real history. I asked a few more questions, and I started to wonder, "Doesn't it come down to the book of Mormon, though?" So I wanted to know: is the book of Mormon true, or false? This is a big question, this is a good question. You can pray about it and get an answer that way; that is one slice. That's like looking at this cup and saying, "Well, it looks like water, so it's definitely water."

There could be a lot of different things in this cup, though, that look like water and feel like water. So you can't take one slice and say, "That's it." In fact, taking that one slice is actually very deceptive. To take a book, and say "Because I read this book, and I prayed about it and got a good feeling, it's true." Because historically, there have been other books, including the book of Jerenich(sp?) the Mentan(sp?) archives, the Quran - other people have read other books, prayed about other books, and they have received confirmation that these other books are true. And they completely contradict the Book of Mormon or the LDS Church or a number of other things. And so you can't do that and say that that's all you need to know that the Church is true. Because if that method tells you that contradictory books are also true, then you know that method is flawed. And, so that has a bunch of issues with it in and of itself, like "Why do we use that method if it doesn't really work?" but put that off onto the side for a minute.

That's one slice. You can take a slice of the Book of Mormon that way and say "Well, you can pray about it and you'll feel good." Is that enough? There's a lot of other slices you could take out of the Book of Mormon to test it. Because the book claims that it's real history. They're not claiming it's a fairy tale; they're not claiming it's a parable. They're claiming that this is a true book. This is the foundation of the LDS Church. So I had to take other slices. I can't just take one slice, one analysis, and say "Yep, it's true because I prayed about it." There's got to be more to it than that, so I started to look at it: "Well, what else can we test?"

And I ended up finding a DVD called "DVD Evidence for the Book of Mormon Geography." And I found this to be my lifeline. Because I needed something solid to base my faith in. So I watched this DVD, and I felt so good by the end, that I felt "Finally, somebody is talking sense. Finally, somebody has got a good case for the Book of Mormon being true." And I started to look into it a little bit more, and the DNA that this man was proposing, which was supposed to be Niphite(sp?) DNA - the timing was off, the DNA was off, I mean, the DNA didn't even fit. So here I am again, looking at the Book of Mormon, and I'm like, "Now I have no DNA evidence."

So how does God take a whole civilization and plop it onto a land and then erase every trace of their DNA? And then give us a book and say "Just pray about it, and you can get a good feeling, just like all these other books, you can get good feelings." This is really starting to feel weak to me, so I started to wonder, "Is there any other way I can slice the Book of Mormon and maybe compare it-" I was starting to get desperate, because I wanted this church to be true. I had a temple marriage on the line, I had kids, I have my eternal family, I have my eternal salvation, is on the line. This is not something I take lightly. This is a very serious concern. I want this church to be true. The reason I was going into all of this is because my brother having these questions - I wanted to help him, I wanted to understand him.

Well, there's got to be people in BYU that still believe in the Book of Mormon, so I looked a little bit closer at some of their DNA evidence, and some of their theories went something like this: "Well, we can't really find the DNA, because it's just - it's been so long. It's been two thousand years, and it's kind of like trying to find a little drop of DNA in an ocean of people," and... they're trying to make it untestable. I found that to be a little bit disconcerting. They're trying to make the Book of Mormon not testable. That's like a magician: "Abracadabra, there's no DNA evidence, because we don't expect there to be any DNA evidence, even though Joseph Smith said that the primary ancestors of the Native Americans are Niphites and Lamonites."

What else is there? Is there anything substantial that can really back up the Book of Mormon?

Truth doesn't contradict itself. Truth doesn't contradict reality. There's only two explanations: either the Book of Mormon is true, or it's false. So if it's not a true history, then it would be based on... what? If a scam artist of a fraudster was writing the Book of Mormon, what type of mistakes would they maybe make, even if they're very smart? What would they overlook? What could they perhaps not see? What blind spots would a con artist have back in the 1800's?

The Book of Mormon actually lifts parts of the King James version of the Bible and inserts it into the Book of Mormon. So here's the litmus test, here's the ultimate test, here's the way to slice it: the King James version of the Bible has certain errors that show up in the Book of Mormon. Why would they have the same errors as a contemporary version of the Bible? The Book of Mormon was supposed to be an ancient book, copied from ancient plate from two to three thousand years ago. So if it has contemporary errors, and there's no DNA evidence, it's kind of like, got nothing to stand on.

And that's when my life started to completely fall apart. I didn't want that answer. I wanted it to be true. And I had a really hard time at first. I didn't know what to think. It's like my whole life (starting to choke up) - why was I alive? What was I living for? This whole thing, it just, it all started to feel like "Well, this... this is worthless, this whole life, my w - what is my wife going to think? Is she even going to listen to me if I tell her this stuff?" Nobody wants to know this! Everybody wants the church to be true so they can live with their family forever.

(Returning to more neutral emotional state.)

So here I was, basically at the edge of a cliff. I felt like I was just teetering over the edge of this cliff, and I was taught my whole life that if you fall away, you will turn evil, you will be in the Devil's hands; all of these fears started coming over me, I started feeling like "Well, what do I do?" If the Church isn't false, all that stuff doesn't matter, but I still feel like I'm doing the wrong thing. It's like, you're taught against this your whole life. You're taught that this moment is the moment where you're supposed to say "No, I've been tricked by the Devil," come back into the arms of Jesus. But I couldn't. Because the evidence was blatant, it was there in my face. If I was an outsider, looking into the LDS Church, and I saw, okay, no DNA evidence for this book, this book is completely fraudulent as far as copying errors into it from a contemporary source, I mean, what is this thing? No outsider who saw this information would jump in and say "Yeah, it's true!"

And so here I am, basically full of emotion. I remember feeling really, really angry - extremely, extremely angry, and I felt like my life was over... and then things started to get better. And better and better.

And I just wanted to explain a little bit about that. Because I know there's a lot of other people out there that probably just found out, and they're probably still trying to figure out what to do with themselves. I'm not going to tell you what church to join; I'm not going to tell you what's true, but I can give you a little bit of hope. It gets better. It gets way better.

I started just turning to science and technology. I started to learn a little bit about "well, how does science work?" I knew from a kid what the scientific method was, but for the first time in my life, it became extremely relevant and extremely useful, and I started to realize a whole new world. Things slowly got better - very slowly at first, because I didn't know where to go, I didn't know where to turn to. I didn't really have any friends outside of the church; I felt extremely lonely. I felt like nobody understood me. And there were times when it felt like I was going to possibly lose my wife, maybe I would lose my family... I didn't - it was such a mess, I just feel so glad to be where I'm at right now.

Things do get better. I tell you, it took about a year, maybe, to really get myself back on - back together. I started to figure out what life, for me at least, is all about. I started to realize that we don't need to be told what our life is about. Something from within me started to guide me in my life. Rather than something on the outside manipulating me and moving me and trying to do things - I'm talking about the Church as an organization, you know. Giving you callings, or telling you what you can or can't wear, or say, or do, and it just kind of feels like there's always these guidelines that try to manipulate you into a certain kind of way, in a certain position. But then I started to be genuine, and just be me, and I felt at peace. The loneliness started disappearing right away as I started to reach out and say "Hey, what do you do on Sunday? I mean, what do you do if you don't have a religion?" And I started to learn that, like, people actually have great lives outside of religion.

You know, they tell their kids that "The boogeyman's going to get you if you do that, so you'd better smarten up," and you think of that, and you think of that same message that the leaders of the church, or other churches - religions in general - are telling us "Better smarten up, 'cause there's this boogeyman to get you." And then you start realizing - the best - (becoming giddy) - it's just - okay - it's the happiest thing (laughing), there's no Satan, like, it's just like, BOOM (gesturing with hands), all of a sudden, the boogieman's gone. (Still grinning broadly.) This fictitious character hiding behind the shadows (gesturing to indicate), all of a sudden he's gone. And I'm like, there's all my stress! (Grins) Like, nothing is going to get you! Woo-hoo! Like, you just want to climb on top of the roof and scream, but there you have it. (Calms down somewhat) And that was one of the happiest moments. I loved telling people that, but people in the church kind of looking at me like, "Okay, this guy's a little too much, you know, like, he's too happy that there's no Devil." It's like, "He's obviously deceived," or something.

One of the things that started to look up for me, as I started to realize: right off the bat, I stopped judging people. You make mistakes because you're you. You do the things you do, I do the things I do, and we all do the things we do, because we're unique. We're different. We don't need to measure up to being like Molly Mormon - all these different ideals, we don't have to do that.

I don't care what kind of afterlife there is. It could be a lie, it could be a guess. But what I know for sure is we're alive today. And we need to live for today. We need to live to make this life, and this world, the best thing that we've got, because this might be the only thing we've got. (He becomes sentimental.) And that makes me excited, because I see progress like never before. The Church taught me that this world is corrupt and doomed to destruction. The Internet is changing the world. Our technology is making us live longer, happier lives. We are in the best age that we've ever been in. And it continues to get better. This is the best time to be alive, and I want to make this even better for our children and our children's children - this is what I live for. When people say "Well, what do you have as a purpose? Once you've left Mormonism, what do you have? If you're going to die, that's it, so why do you live? Why do you even care?"

And I say, "Because I care more now. I care a lot more now. Because this life matters more now than it ever did. And my children's lives, and their children's lives. And this planet. We are here together, and this life is important to me."

I am filled with hope. I am filled with a love for life and a gratitude that is much, much deeper than I ever had when I was a member of the Church.

My name is Chris. I'm a father, I'm a husband, I'm an entrepeneur, I believe in a wonderful future, I love life, and I'm an ex-Mormon.