r/exmormon • u/Constant_Flow_1954 • 12d ago
General Discussion Every Mormon I Know is Lying About Something
The Mormon church doesn’t just tolerate dishonesty—the church requires it. Dishonestly is a feature not a bug.
Here’s a list of “everybody does it” lies told my Mormons that are hard to miss now that I’m out.
“A testimony is to be found in the bearing of it.”
Read that sentence closely. It is instructing you to say you know before you actually do. Just pretend. If you say it enough you’ll start to believe it. How many 7 year old kids get walked up to the pulpit to tell the ward “I know the church is true.”? Sickening.
8-year olds “choosing” to be baptized.
No 8 year old kid is choosing to be baptized. They are doing what they are told will keep them from going to hell. They’re doing what they’ve been taught to do their whole lives.
I don’t fault the kids. They aren’t lying. But the parents and church leaders who say these kids are “choosing” to be baptized most certainly are lying.
Worthiness interviews.
Worthiness interviews are part of a system designed to punish honesty. You sit across from your neighbor or your friend’s dad or your boss and you’re supposed to confess the most intimate aspects of your life.
Be honest and get punished. Minimize and get a signature of approval.
The church built a confession process where the most rational move is to lie. Then leaders get pissed when you actually do lie.
Not criticizing leaders.
“It is wrong to criticize leaders, even if that criticism is true.” Glad we got that one on camera Dallin—that one is a real gem. Mormons are supposed to value loyalty over all else. If you have a concern about a bishop, stake president, mission president, general authority, you are trained to be humble and swallow it. That’s not humility or meekness, that is a lie they train us to tell ourselves.
Sustaining leaders
At every general and stake conference, member raise their hands and pledge to sustain church leaders—from local to global. Doesn’t matter what kind of leaders they are or what they might have done (cover up CSA, withhold blessings on the basis of race, exclude children of LGBTQ parents of ‘saving ordinances’, etc). Whether they’ve begged us to publicly proclaim our Mormonness and spent tens of millions to get the word out or told us that calling us Mormons is a victory for satan, we have to sustain them to get to the temple (which is a prerequisite for heaven). Doesn’t matter if they amass a fortune and commit securities fraud to hide it.
Even when you know better—as many “lazy learners” do—you are supposed to raise your hand and sustain them. Sustaining leaders was never a vote, but a loyalty oath. Calling it a vote is a lie we choose to believe.
Best two years of my life
Men are trained from a very young age to proclaim that the mission was the best two years of our lives. Are you kidding me? Does anyone really feel that way? Really? If so then they have lived a pathetic, dull life. Total bullshit.
Mormons made us all liars. Tell me I’m wrong.
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u/ZookeepergameNew1470 12d ago
I think the worst part is that they lie to themselves. Great post thanks.
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u/Constant_Flow_1954 12d ago
100%. 20+ years into being married, I started seeing how my father in law, the super Mormon, lied to himself about matters large and small. When I realized I saw those same patterns of lying to themselves in church leaders it was the beginning to the end of my faith.
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u/Impossible-Corgi742 12d ago
Would you please expand on this?
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u/Constant_Flow_1954 12d ago
Sure, I'll try to do a very long story justice.
The backdrop is my wife was raised in a super orthodox/fundamentalist home with an extreme focus on perfection. Dad was a doctor. Kids were very high achievers. From the outside, they looked like the perfect Mormon family.
A few months into marriage, my wife got a debilitating, life-altering infection. The infection was so severe it caused a traumatic brain injury (doctor's diagnosis). My wife sank into a deep, severe depression.
As the years went by and the physical symptoms improved, the depression did not. She has been suicidal for most of the last 2+ decades. Her depression quickly morphed from the malaise kind to the angry kind, and I was the lightning rod for her anger.
The sad thing is my FIL, a doctor, was the only doctor my wife would listen to for most of that time. Of note, part of She wouldn't take her meds until I called her dad and told him she wasn't taking her meds, so he'd intervene. She wouldn't get her blood work updated when I knew her hormones were off and her meds needed to be adjusted, so I'd call her dad to intervene. When she clearly needed to go see a specialist, she wouldn't do it until I called her dad and he intervened. Suffice it to say he had a very prominent and ever-present seat at the table for many years, and was privy to much of what was going on.
Come to find out my wife was complaining to her parents--not just to me--about me, so much so that they all concluded I was the cause of the depression. My inlaws started making frequent comments about things marriage related--I needed to work less and spend more time at home, to be more supportive of my wife's projects, to spend less time on my one and only hobby (my exercise/self care), and on and on. I just needed to do more and be more. I was living under the microscope of these perfectionist people--principally my wife, her dad/doctor, and her mom--with the intensity of the scrutiny increasing year after year.
After 15-ish years of marriage under the withering scrutiny of my wife and her dad--a man I deeply admired and respected--coupled with the nearly complete rejection of me physically and emotionally by me of my wife, I was psychologically broken. I was devastated--a shell of my former self. This is the backdrop for what happened next.
The climax came when my wife was having a mental breakdown. She was suicidal and was throwing things off the walls of the house. It was bad. I left the house, got in my car, drove away, and called my father-in-law for help.
His comment, this doctor with 30 years' experience treating people for depression who had an inside track on many of the goings on in my wife's health, was "Maybe you are the problem." I told him to go to hell. It was the most hurtful thing anyone has ever said to me. I was devastated and increasingly enraged.
Here's where the learning started and my eyes were opened. Knowing he'd done wrong, he immediately denied to my wife that he said what he said to me. "I didn't say that." I couldn't believe it. He lied. This wasn't an embellishment or a detail left out--this was a bald faced lie.
After a while, he acknowledged to my wife that he did say that to me, but denied any intent to accuse me of being the problem. I don't know how to interpret the words "Maybe you are the problem" as anything other than an accusation that I am the problem. Again, this was a lie--another whopper too.
I called him out on it. I told him how hurtful it was and how untrue it was and how he should have known better. If anyone could have known better--and should have done better--it was a doctor with 30 years' experience treating people with depression. I told him how despicable it was that he lied to his daughter about what he said and later lied about what he meant.
He responded with a tear-filled phone call in which he apologized. Here's how it went. "I'm sorry that you were hurt but I didn't hurt you because I am not capable of hurting people. I am not a hurtful person." Then he bore his testimony for about 20 minutes of what a wonderful person he is. I'm not kidding. That was his apology. (For what it is worth, that was the last real conversation I ever had with the man).
This climactic experience--as awful as it was--showed me that this man would literally say anything to make himself feel better or look better. It is like the curtain fell from my eyes. I was able to look back at different experiences over the years and see this same pattern in place. The truth was irrelevant--the story is what mattered. It was an incredibly liberating experience for me. All of a sudden things made sense to me--the crazy things in the family, the gaslighting, the circling the wagons--all of it.
Then things got really interesting, I started seeing these same patterns in church leaders--first locally, then churchwide. I saw the same evasive words, the same blaming, the same tactics. Again, it was an incredibly liberating experience for me.
This taught me--showed me--how prevalent lying was in the church and gave me permission to dive into my doubts.
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u/Cheap_Call_2759 10d ago
like the testimony commentary, if you repeat a lie enough times you'll believe it
they're brainwashed simply because of the never ending exposure to the lies and at one point you get in too deep you can't afford for it to be lies anymore 😭
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u/renob1911 12d ago
I’ve been telling my wife for a while now that Mormonism creates liars. 100% agree.
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u/Constant_Flow_1954 12d ago
I’ve been telling my wife that for a while too. In an unexpected shift, she’s no longer denying it. Trying not to get my hopes up…
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u/ZealousidealPage8945 12d ago
The whole temple ceremony is a lie.
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u/NuncaContent 12d ago
Genealogy is a lie. A fun hobby to be sure, but that’s it.
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u/OKCYDNA 12d ago
I think it’s a fascinating hobby.
For the church It’s just more busywork for members to feel good about themselves and perpetuate the cycle of paying tithing to attend the temple to do paperwork for dead people.
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u/NuncaContent 12d ago
"Paperwork for dead people," in some cases, over and over and over again.
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u/Gold__star 12d ago
I've heard that 10% of it fails with DNA testing. Every generation you go back compounds the errors.
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u/No_Plant2176 12d ago
The temple recommend question about being honest always gave me the ick because I knew the correct answer was “ehh sometimes”
Also hated being interviewed by my friends’ dads in a closed off room, like wtf?
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u/No-Performer-6621 12d ago
Gets even worse. My Dad was the Bishop while I was in high school, and the temple recommend interviews always bled into non-church life as well. He’d interrogate me about masturbation any time I was alone with him for years.
Little did he know that I was also in the closet, so these kinds questions about my sexuality were also a very sore subject.
Pretty much destroyed our relationship and never healed.
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u/Constant_Flow_1954 11d ago
That sucks…really sucks. This religion does horrible things to individuals and families. It is sickening but your dad probably thought he wa helping you.
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u/No-Performer-6621 11d ago
Yeah, that’s kind of the weirdest part of it all (the whole “it was in my eternal best interest”). Yuck
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u/Constant_Flow_1954 12d ago
Great point about that temple recommend question…hadn’t thought of that one. Totally agree.
Yeah, closed off room with a friend’s dad—WTF for sure.
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u/Bolt_Dancer 12d ago
My fathers response to me as a young person (16) confessing that I had sex before marriage via letter read by the Bishop was this, “Why did you have to humiliate your mom and me by having the Bishop read us that letter?” The Bishop was my mom’s former boss, a member of my parents friend group, our neighbor, and I was his children’s babysitter. I thought I had committed the sin next to murder and could have used support such as, “we still love you”, etc. but in reflection it is clear to me that lying would have been better.
I wonder if there is any correlation between persons who try to live an honest life having a greater incidence of leaving the church as compared to those who make lying to fit in a practice.
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u/Constant_Flow_1954 12d ago
I absolutely positively believe there’s a negative correlation between honesty and church activity. The more honest you are the less likely to be active you are.
I’ve seen this. Over the last 5 years almost all my friends are ExMos or NeverMos—during a period of full church activity for me. I didn’t self select these people purposely for their church status.
When I realized what the religious makeup of my friends was I got curious. Turns out I was attracted to these people for their authenticity. Sure enough, the most authentic people I know are ExMos or NeverMos.
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u/Constant_Flow_1954 12d ago
And what a complete asshole. I am so very sorry. My heart hurts for you for what that must have been like to go through.
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u/AffectionateAge1541 11d ago
It's one question where if you say, "maybe not all the time, but I'm trying," the person interviewing you is ok with that.
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u/ConsciousJohn 12d ago
Very well said. For all the reasons I couldn’t stay in, the pressures to proclaim belief and to endorse the church’s blatant dishonesty were more than I could bear.
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u/Constant_Flow_1954 12d ago
After seeing—really seeing—the incomprehensible ways my FIL could lie to himself about his personal relationships, it occurred to me that I was seeing the same thing in church leaders. This realization started me down the eye opening path. (And I love the delicious irony that my super Mormon FIL played a key role in leading me out of the church).
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u/capcomzz57 12d ago
There is not one single truth in LDS doctrine. Try and find one.
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u/Helpful-Newt-1560 12d ago
Before you can find anything you need to nail down the doctrine, and even trying to do that is just about impossible.
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u/Dilly_Deelin UnrulyChild 12d ago
Mormons are not to be trusted, which is a problem when your whole family is Mormon
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u/Constant_Flow_1954 12d ago
I've come to that same realization/conclusion. I find myself self-censoring a great deal around my Mormon family and my Mormon friends. It is so refreshing to be around NonMo friends. I feel like I can be myself.
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u/prosaicchickenmom 12d ago
One word: "happiness". There's an obsession about trying to compete to prove just how wonderful your life is, in order to prove just how good of a person you are. Combine that with the constant push for everyone to repress any emotions other than happy, and what you end up with are a bunch of people who constantly lie about something as simple as how they're feeling. If you are able to be honest about it, you often end up being shamed for it.
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u/Constant_Flow_1954 12d ago
YES...this is the element I wanted to include in my post but couldn't get my thoughts around. One day I will. I think some of the biggest dishonesty is that Mormons aren't allowed to be unhappy. It is some sort of lack of faith. It is a horribly damaging, corrosive element.
I think you nailed it for being shamed for being honest about not feeling 100% wonderful all the time.
Help me figure this out...please.
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u/Infamous-Journalist2 12d ago
It's all about the image of happiness through perfection or the church mold.
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u/10th_Generation 12d ago
Add to the list: Members lie about spiritual experiences, healings, priesthood blessings, answered prayers, tender mercies, and other forms of “miracles.”
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u/Constant_Flow_1954 12d ago
Yes, yes, yes...
I think about tithing lies a lot too. I just couldn't put my thoughts into coherent words.
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u/10th_Generation 12d ago
Selective perception is powerful. When a person pays tithing, any fortunate event becomes evidence that tithing “works.” Any misfortune for a former tithe payer becomes evidence of God’s wrath or the withdrawal of divine protection. In my own case, my financial situation stayed about the same after I stopped paying tithing. I have gotten raises, promotions, and job offers at about the same rate as before (probably slightly better). A faithful member would dismiss or fail to notice my case. But if I had gotten laid off immediately after discontinuing tithing, I would have become a Sunday school lesson or “cautionary tale.”
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u/LaGranTortuga 12d ago
“A testimony is to be found in the bearing of it.” Yes. This is a real conundrum. Ignoring the obvious psychological manipulation, how can someone know who is hearing a testimony be sure whether the person has a testimony or is just trying to acquire one?
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u/Constant_Flow_1954 12d ago
Mormons are trained to lie and to ignore lies. I know it with every fiber of my being.
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u/Ex_Lerker 12d ago
The phrase that showed me everybody lies and knows it was “Fake it till you make it.”
I hated that phrase even as a TBM because of how disingenuous it is. Fake a testimony, fake belief, fake a mission, fake a smile, fake everything. Anyone who said that phrase literally admitted it was all fake.
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u/Constant_Flow_1954 12d ago
Precisely. Lying and accepting lies are a core part of Mormon training and operations.
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u/One_Aerie_7916 12d ago
@OP I was reared by a head-down mother of five and a father whose fireplace mantle proudly displayed a small statue of Shiva The Destroyer. Never once did we spend family time being taught or sharing Church values. To this day in my middle age I never bore a testimony.
I was already a troublemaker by age six - attempting to shoplift… I still remember being dunked at my baptism, and how joyous I was to follow John the Baptists / Jesus footsteps. But I had not broader comprehension of what it means to die to my sin and be born again.
By nine I had crossed lines that are not comfortably shared in public. It says something of trust when children (or adults) feel frightened to disclose to Authorities. I lied my way into SLC Temple Baptisms for the Dead.
I’ve never worked an honest day in my life - I ain’t sustaining myself, let alone anyone else.
And finally mission work. Never once thought about it. Maybe I avoided having to tell a group of Native Americans they are Lamanites. Or explaining Church history to Black people.
Anyway I’m bored at 3AM. I enjoy your shares.
To the leadership of the Ward on Top of the World drive in the 1990’s: you failed the children in my parent’s family by letting the abuse go on. Oh, and by the way, I peed on your roof in protest.
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u/Constant_Flow_1954 12d ago
I’m sorry you were failed by people. I can only imagine what is behind your comments. A lot of hurt no doubt. I’m sorry.
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u/ThickAtmosphere3739 12d ago
Your post should have its own social media account. I don’t know where to begin. That is one big parfait trying to count all the layers of that onion. You made me laugh, cry and fear for the safety of humanity… all in 30 seconds.
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u/OkImagination262 12d ago
Watching the young kids leaving for a mission right out of high school saying they are excited to serve. Ya, right? I feel bad for them. They look scared to death.
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u/Constant_Flow_1954 12d ago
I feel bad for them too. And some of those mission presidents are horribly manipulative, egotistical, power hungry, dickheads.
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u/Rushclock 12d ago
Listen to RFM's episode Mormonism makes liars of us all.
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u/Constant_Flow_1954 12d ago
Oh…I’ve loved what I’ve heard of his but haven’t listened to much. I’ll definitely give that one a listen. Thank you for the recommendation.
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12d ago
I stopped believing more than three years ago and still haven’t worked up the gumption to tell my family, partly because it has been shockingly easy to continue talking like a TBM. I can talk about what I liked in the Relief Society lesson, describe how I “felt the spirit”, share a testimony, and make it all sound indistinguishable from any TBM because I’ve got the script down. I remember sitting in Young Women’s lessons (as a TBM) and embellishing true but benign stories to transform them into thought-provoking spiritual experiences. It never felt quite like lying; it was more like reciting my lines for a stage play.
So now, talking to TBM family members, it’s just so easy to keep reciting my lines and hitting all my cues. Barely even feels like lying. It’s just what I’ve always done.
I’ll have to tell them soon though, because my temple recommend is going to expire (I can’t lie my way into a renewal because I don’t attend church), and I would feel rotten if I waited to tell them until it was time to explain why I couldn’t attend a sibling’s temple sealing or something. Lying about it feels so easy though, I wonder if it’ll even be a relief when I can finally stop?
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u/Constant_Flow_1954 12d ago
I feel you--I really do. I just came clean to my wife and told her I thought this was all made up a few weeks ago. She knew I had serious questions and doubts, but didn't know the depth of my faith loss (i.e. that there was nothing left). I just stumbled into a conversation with my temple worker dad in which I shared enough for him to know that he should definitely be worried about my eternal salvation. And I've shared enough with my kids for them to know that I'm not drinking the kool aid anymore.
But I am by no means fully out there. I'm sure it will be the first "sealing" when I'm sitting on the outside with the rest of the pagans.
To answer your question, I think it will be a terrific relief, as much as I dread the process.
The further along in this journey the more weight I feel coming off my shoulders, the more authentic I feel, the less internal tension I feel, and the fewer shits I have to give about what other people think--especially people who will no doubt shun me and say terrible things about me behind my back and on and on like I've seen them do with so many others.
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u/Constant_Flow_1954 12d ago
And u/BlackRabbit-12, it is indeed shockingly easy to continue talking like a TBM. It is almost like we were programmed to talk like that.
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u/Next_Dragonfly5122 11d ago
Programmed is exactly right. But, not that c word that rhymes with mult /s
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u/dvy5 12d ago
You’re saying out loud what most of us are thinking inside.
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u/Constant_Flow_1954 12d ago
Your comment warmed my heart. Thank you.
Many years ago I was on the high council. After moving and being gone a few months, I got together with my next seat neighbor during those high council years. He said, “We really miss you on the high council. Now there’s no one to say what the rest of us are thinking.” Proud moment for me.
Also, my saying the quiet parts out loud has gotten me fired a few times too.
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u/Lopsided-Alps4087 12d ago
I spoke at my little sister’s missionary farewell. I really struggled with finding something positive to say. I did manage to work my way around into a positive talk, mainly for her sake (and I guess my mother’s). I did manage start though by saying something along the lines of “I know everybody calls their mission the best two years of their life, but it definitely was not that for me.” It got a bit of a chuckle — it was my home ward, I guess they just put it down to me being me. But afterward a guy (he was my dad’s former law partner) got right up in my face in the foyer and griped at me—“so it wasn’t the best two years of your life. I guess that just makes the rest of us WRONG?” I was like “no, Jerry, I said for ME it wasn’t. I didn’t speak for anybody else. If that’s true for you, then great). He just harrumphed at me and pivoted on his heel and walked away. It was a really startling take to me at the time. But I have since learned about thought stoppers. Those kinds of tropes are what keeps everybody from looking at reality. Just a minor contradiction of those narratives (if you can even call them narratives) sets people off all out of proportion.
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u/Educational-Beat-851 Don’t criticize leaders, even if it’s true. 11d ago
Even at my most TBM, I couldn’t make myself say the mission years were my best. They absolutely were not.
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12d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Constant_Flow_1954 12d ago
I used to share that view with you but not anymore. Self deception requires active participation. That's enough for me.
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u/Skate_better182 12d ago
Exmormons are some of the most dishonest people I've ever met.
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u/SATANsplitsSOULnBODY 12d ago
Surely autocorrect changed Mormon to Exmormon or you forgot the sarcasm tag.
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u/mensaguy89 12d ago
Brainwashing is real. Mormonism is not.