I was Mormon for the first 16 years of my life, and quit due to a few different things. I was also a “jack Mormon,” which means I was often late to church (it was 3 hours long!), didn’t read the scriptures (books), and didn’t pray regularly.
When I was 15 or so, I was invited to meet with our ward’s Bishop (he’s the guy who manages 1 area’s people). It was just me and him, and he started off with some extremely uncomfortable questions. “Do you masturbate? Do you look at pornography? Have you ever had sex? Do you think about sex?” You get the gist.
Note: I had been masturbating since age 12.
So, I emphatically said, “No,” and attested that I was a pure soul, which he was wanting to hear. Well, “Congratulations, you can now join us for Baptisms for the Dead at the sacred temple!”
Yay.
Well, that day comes, and I have to wear all white clothing. It’s me and 4 or 5 other kids my age, and we get led down into a cauldron room.
We all get changed into pool clothes (fully covered, white jumpsuits). Then they bring us to a side room and discuss which dead people are assigned to us. We were proxies to be baptized for those dead people to get into Mormon heaven.
Well, I just lied my dirty-ass-soul into a pure, Mormon temple, and would be ruining these dead peoples’ chances to enter heaven, for all eternity, just because I touch myself at night. That’s a lot of guilt for a 15 year old to bear. Compound this with my father’s passing, my sisters being excommunicated years before, my mom and brother had already quit, and that leaves just me, remaining, going to church.
I quit, shortly thereafter, and I haven’t gone back.