It seems that history continues to teach us: You can leave the Church, but you can’t leave it alone. The basic reason for this is simple. Once someone has received a witness of the Spirit and accepted it, he leaves neutral ground. One loses his testimony only by listening to the promptings of the evil one, and Satan’s goal is not complete when a person leaves the Church, but when he comes out in open rebellion against it.

http://www.lds.org/general-conference/1989/04/follow-the-prophet

I have had many personal conversations with Satan. He is a fun guy once you get past the whole war against heaven bit. We are BFFs now. He convinced me pretty quickly after that to give up my eternal salvation, I mean, I had to be loyal to my friend, right?

and Tee hee hee!

That was great!

Add: "Hey there's Satan! Oh my God! That means the church IS true!"

If his statement held any water, we'd all be rushing back. Instead I feel like I'm thinking clearly for the first time.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 12/05/2013 01:00PM by crom.

I look forward to an apologist quoting you and saying, "See! Those exmormons over at RfM admit they're in league with the devil!!"

Hm. I don't believe in Satan. So where does leave me? LOL

Reading between the lines: nevermos are "neutral" and exmos are evil. So the years of service and tithing that many of us put in as members put us in a worse position with god than if we had never joined TSCC. Sigh...

Indeed.

You know, I was always against death bed repentance. Even though it's somewhat scriptural, as in Jesus's parable of laborers who all got the paid the same and some worked all day and some only for a little.

To me, if the gospel was so great then you should want to live it now and enjoy the blessings now. That's always how I lived and thought about it.

Of course it didn't always make me happy, and for years it got more boring and did less to make me happy. I thought there was something wrong with me, that I wasn't trying hard enough, spiritual enough, etc. Anyways, turns out it's a lie, and that's probably why it wasn't working.

As for leaving the church alone, well I'm recovering, and this is a recovery forum. Plus my family are mostly active members (including my wife), so... it's not that easy to leave it alone because it won't leave me alone :-)

So, so much wrong with this talk. I've printed it out and left it on the desk for my mostly TBM wife to find. Even she will be disturbed by this.

Just one of my favorite lines:

"While it would seem the search for and discovery of truth should be the goal of all Latter-day Saints, it appears some get more satisfaction from trying to discover new uncertainties."

So, don't seek the truth; that's bad.

Short version of the talk:

Shoelaces must be tied! Our spiritual journey is a geometry problem. Nonmenbers, apostates, and intellectual current members criticize the church. It's cool if nonmembers criticize us and we deserve it, but former and current members shouldn't criticize because Satan. Don't think about stuff; the prophets have done that for you and they have never been wrong so just do what they say. Our doctrine never changes and we don't care about public opinion. If you want this all to be true you too can think that it is true.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/05/2013 12:32PM by libor.

"...when he comes out in open rebellion" What a pompous phrase. So, if wanting to free my family members from a cult that robs them of their hard earned money and uses it to build a giant corporation that doesn't even provide them with a dribble of interest or dividends puts me in league with the devil then so be it. Satan must be a much better guy than I ever imagined.

I prefer to think of myself as chaotic neutral.

That said, I can see Bernie Madoff saying something like that about people who discovered his fraud and were trying to sue him, though obviously in less spiritual terms.

Those who leave and don't leave the church alone do so because they feel an obligation to free others.

squeebee Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------


> Those who leave and don't leave the church alone
> do so because they feel an obligation to free
> others.

Bingo.

Think of it as humanitarian work.

There's a reason why they never say this stuff in front of an audience that might contain a dissident or ex-Mormon. They insist on hiding behind the written word.

How do cults work?

The four factors that Deikman cites as characteristic of cult phenomena are:

• compliance with the group
• dependence on a leader
• avoidance of dissent
• devaluation of outsiders.

Yep. We've got all four covered in this talk!

I love the term "inappropriate intellectualism". I love that the church and its leaders vilify thinking. They are correct, thinking is indeed dangerous.