In this presentation from the recent 2025 Sunstone UK symposium I review my version of the journey hundreds of thousands of Latter-day Saints have walked from passionate enthusiasm for this religion to astonished disillusionment, yet still not able to entirely walk away. I talk about some of the amazing, forward thinking and potentially world changing yet simple ideas in the best of Mormon thought, with a particular focus on the superstar LDS intellectuals who I have only recently discovered were instrumental in personally converting and mentoring my LDS ancestors, starting exactly a century ago with the conversion of my Great Grandmother Jeannie Bleakley by James Talmage in 1926. 

They embedding a religious worldview in my family culture that many of us who resonate with the best bits of Mormonism mourn for as we watch the beating heart of this potential world religion leave the dying institutional Church as it bleeds out… and then discover that it continues to live on in the thriving online and personal communities of the LDS Church in Exile. 

As always, my message is that you were never stupid to have loved this religion and its remarkable potential, and you are not stupid to be disappointed and exasperated at how badly it has screwed up, becoming everything it taught us in Primary and Seminary to avoid and oppose.