(23 minutes) "This is how I discovered truth. My name is Chris and I'm an Ex Mormon."

I wanted to know so so bad if 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 those 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 the 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 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 I came home and it was a it was a wonderful two years I grew a lot I overcame shyness I I made some friends and I love the Japanese people now and it was it was a very is a very good experience so after that I started to move forward in my life went to college got married just before my first boy was born my brother 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 friend of the families came to me and the family and said you know I have this patriarchal blessing that tells me that I have this gift that I'll be able to raise people from the dead I feel that now is the time time to use this gift so me and everybody my family were excited I was extreme believer in the church I knew that the Holy Ghost doesn't lie the Holy Ghost is real here is 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's somebody 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 priesthood 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 I was excited I was like this is the true church this is the this is why we're Mormon because these miracles happen this is what makes our church different 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're very excited to be fasted we prayed so when we laid our hands on his head and nothing happened I was a little bit disappointed I thought well you know he's cold he's in the morgue he's 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 that believed that this priesthood 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 and 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 priesthood 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 you didn't want to back or maybe you 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 talking to my brother's my older brother Duane this one little thought occurred to me as I've 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 I'm like do you remember that revelation you got when you're at sacrament meeting and Jesus told you that this priesthood blessing was going to work 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 I thought why would you forget that unless we always do that maybe you were 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 is with my parents when I've 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 after 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've been selectively forgetting certain parts of the equation my older brother left the church and he was somebody really looked up to he he's a very intelligent person he's a really good person he was always like to me he seemed like Nephi he was always that he always did the right thing he always made the right decisions and he left the church I thought why why you 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 I tried to tried to help him I tried to 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 that was driven into my brain since a young age and I wanted to do that I want to follow the truth no matter what no matter how much it hurt I want to follow the truth that's how committed I was to the truth throughout my whole life truth has always led me back into the church it does 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 that I came up with to explain truth somebody could give me this glass of water and tell me that it's 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 most cases when when something like a liquid is in a cup its water a good way to find out if it's water is to test if it has two hydrogen's 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 if it 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 we know the truth of what it is that we're dealing with the same with religion if we 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 these little concerns that it put away for many many years I start 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 he gypped us who was the daughter of him so I wonder how this lines up with what we know about the word Egypt the the word Egypt didn't come from Egypt does it came from a male God it just didn't make sense and also the ancient word wasn't even Egypt it was Kemet or mizuha 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 let's take a look does it match with what reality says about Egypt it was just a little bit surprising actually because I did I wasn't used to taking a little slice at something and analyzing it like that seeing does this really match up with reality 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 just a few more questions and I start to wonder doesn't it come down to the Book of Mormon though so I want to know is the Book of Mormon true or false like this is a big question this is a good question I mean you can pray about 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 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 I got a good feeling it's true because historically there have been other books including the book of Jarek the Menten 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 whole 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 feel good is that enough there's a lot of other slices you could take out of the Book of Mormon just 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 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 DNA 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 of it 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 was supposed to be Nephi DNA has a huge problem the time 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 on to 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 like 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'm starting to get desperate I started 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 at 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 feature the whole reason I was going into all this is because my brother was having these these questions I want to help him I want 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 spend so long it's been 2,000 years and it's kind of like trying to find a little drop of DNA in an ocean of 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 a DNA DNA evidence even though Joseph Smith said that the primary ancestors of the native americans are Nephites and Lamanites 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 its false so if it's not a true history then it would be based on what if a scam artist or a fraudster was writing the book and 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 what a con artists have back in the 1800s 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 a little here 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 plates from 2 to 3 thousand years ago so if it has contemporary errors and there's no DNA evidence it's kind of like got nothing to stand up and that's when my life started to completely fall apart I didn't want the answer I wanted it to be true and I had a really hard time at first I didn't I didn't know what to think it's like my whole life was why why was i alive what was i living for this whole thing it's just it all started to feel like well this is this is worthless this whole life my what is my wife going to think is she even gonna 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 so here I was basically at the edge of a cliff it felt like I was just teetering over the edge of this cliff and I was taught my whole life if you if you fall away you'll turn evil you'll be in the devil's hands all these fears started coming over me and 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 ok 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 that knew that information would jump in and say yeah it's true 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 want 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 to turn to science and technology I started to learn a little bit about well how does science work I knew from a kid you know what what's 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 I didn't it was such a mess I just feel I feel I feel so glad to be where I'm at now things do get better I'll tell you it took about a year maybe to really get myself back on on back together I start to figure out what what life for me at least is about I started to realize that we don't need to be told what our life is about something from within me start to guide me in my life rather than something on the outside manipulating me and moving me and trying to trying to do things and 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 some of the loneliness start 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 start to learn like people actually have great lives outside of religion you know they tell their kids you know the boogeyman is going to get you if you do that so you better smarten up and you think of that and you think of that same mess that the leaders of the church or other churches religions in general are telling us better smarten up because there's this boogeyman to get you and then you start realizing the best it's just okay it's the happiest thing there's no saint in like it's just like boom all of a sudden the boogeyman is gone this this fictitious character hiding behind the shadows all of a sudden he's gone and I'm like there's all my stress like nothing is going to get you what like I you just want to climb up on top of the roof and scream but there you have and that was one of the happiest moments I love telling people that but people in the church just kind of look at me like okay this guy is 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 the that start to look up for me as I start 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 Morman 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 and that makes me excited because I see progress like never before the church taught me that this world is corrupt and 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 is 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'm filled with hope I'm filled with 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 entrepreneur I believe in a wonderful future I love life and I'm a next Mormon

Channel: iamanexmormon

Views: 298,156

Rating: 4.5566554 out of 5

Keywords: Ex Mormon, Chris, Johnson, Chris Johnson, exmormon, Mormon, LDS, Latter-day Saint, religion, deconversion, church, authentic

Id: nj9uLK-Z1MM

Length: 22min 49sec (1369 seconds)

Published: Fri May 13 2011

Reddit Comments

[u/DiddlySquater]

I don't have the words right now to properly express how important I think your brother's story is. If the world is going to change for the better it is stories like this that are going to make it happen.

[u/HenkDeJeager]

Wow.. this is really intense. Great job!

[u/tway_tway]

Wow Indeed, Noble work. You sir deserve a thousand upvotes !

[u/ferguson133]

Two up votes. That was fantastic. Keep up the good work, you are changing the world and helping Mormons get out.

[u/ruskmatthew]

You got my lazy ass to sign in to upvote this. This was just amazing.

[u/Yeargdribble]

So similar to how I was deconverted from a fundamentalist Christian. I went looking for truth to deepen my faith. I was sure that everything would just reinforce the truth of Jesus Christ. I was wrong.

Luckily, like your brother, I valued real truth over what I wanted to be true. It hits close to home for me and was very moving hearing a story that mirrors mine so closely.

[u/TexasShiv]

ear-to-ear smile popped up when I saw the sheer relief and joy on your face when you said "There is no devil!"

[u/TheRatRiverTrapper]

That was 23 of the best spent minutes I could hope for.

My hat goes off to you. It takes serious guts to be this vulnerable. This video is so heartfelt and intense. Do you have any idea how many people right now are struggling with their faith that will see this video and be given hope for the first time? Or how many people have been excommunicated from their parents that will show them this video to be FINALLY understood by them? You have done a great thing here. If I'm ever in your city (fellow canuck here), I'd be happy to buy you a beer.

Please keep the videos coming.

[u/TheChrono]

I could feel the utter happiness that he felt when he was telling the boogie man bit. It was really good.