My objections to the Mormon church... a big topic!

What made me worst about being a Mormon was that I realized I had abdicated my conscience. The command to obey church leaders, especially along with the "reassurance" that if they're wrong it won't be on us, caused me to become very lockstop during my mission. When I got home I realized I that the way I thought was basically the Eichmann defense. It's weird because as a new Mormon one of the things that I focused on was integrity, and how to become a truly ethical and moral person. I always felt uncomfortable with the prosperity gospel and other self-justifying that I heard at church. But my mission really brought the conflict between conscience and obedience to a head. Ultimately I think that is my most basic reason for leaving.

The Mormon church's conservative political agenda really bothers me. The new policy is what I resigned over. I do not believe that God would persecute people because of how they're born. I think the biblical references to homosexuality are about as sensible to the references to stoning. I don't like the church's pronounced misogyny, and I found the mindless activity exhausting and annoying.

So it's an assortment of things. Not so much doctrinal or historical for me as that being Mormon ultimately made me intensely uncomfortable as a person--I felt I was being required to act and believe in ways that I considered wrong. And that what spirituality I found in the church was shallow in that people always enlisted it to strengthen their commitment to the organization. "This happened to me, so therefore 'the church is true.'" That is SUCH a limited and limiting way of thinking.