I am continuing my own thread.
badseed - I will take your first item. Kudos to you for that one.
Goals and Discipline? All people have those to varying degrees. You can't really think that more than 99% of the people on earth (the Never Mos) are without goals or discipline. Al Queda is certainly disciplined for Hell's sake.
I believe that those are basic human qualities. If everyone had no goals or discipline, please explain that fact that we (human beings) are always at war. It isn't good but it does take discipline and goals to go to war continually.
Perhaps TSCC focuses the discipline and goals on the good of TSCC, but it doesn't provide discipline and goals. Those were always there.

SLC is not a cesspool. Please explain that in terms of TSCC or what did you mean?

WiFi?

I don't think there's anything unique to Mormonism. That said, there isn't really anything unique to any philosophy -- they all essentially crib from each other.

If I were to name items/doctrines prominent (but not unique to) Mormonism as well as my experience with the religion, I'd include the following (your mileage may vary):

-- Idea that salvation is possible for everyone, even those that reject it this time around (I know, no top-level celestial for those that wait). I find this much more appealing than the Calvinistic viewpoint that almost everyone goes to hell, or the Buddhist/Far Eastern viewpoint that the height of human progression is assimilation or a lack of feelings.

-- Corollary to this, the idea of eternal progression. Going once again to traditional Christianity, nobody could really explain what heaven was other than worshiping Jesus. It sounded boring. Mormon heaven at least gives its constituents something to do.

-- Blood drives. I've got a wife and a dad that are alive thanks to blood donated by Mormons. I've donated something like 6 or 7 gallons in the past 9 years.

-- Mormons taught me how to be self-reliant. A lot of the skills and traits I've acquired were due to, in large part, immersion in the LDS culture where I was raised (not Utah).

I'll grant that it's difficult to separate the church as an institution from the doctrine that it espouses to the people who are members. It's 3 separate things. The people are generally good, the institution is an institution (neutral, IMO), and the doctrines are a mixed bag.

Its fun to try and corrupt the innocent Mormon boys?

I have to admit that I did enjoy playing basketball.

Lots of "apostate churches" have basketball courts. So, I guess I'd agree-- it's a good thing. But definitely not unique to TSCC. Doesn't TSCC have anything both good AND unique?

I got to live in Italy and met my wife because of it. I won't deny the good it has done, but that doesn't justify the bad.

I learned Spanish. However, there are a million different ways I would rather have spent those 2 years in Spain.

I can totally understand that. I am desperate to go back to Italy so I can try a few of those million different ways. But even though I now hate my reasons for being in Italy, being there had many benefits for me.

Basketball court in every church! Can't beat that! Especially here in Utah. I still have a place to play basketball. Just gotta dress the part.

Excommunication?

I liked some of the hymns and singing. That's about it. But that's not specific to the church

Okay. One of my friends had sex with his girlfriend in the back of the cultural hall stage. He had to wait a year for his mission, but says it was worth it.

The doctrine that tobacco is a sin. Coming of age in the early 70s I felt so out of place because I didn't smoke. My friends would smoke to lose weight, everyone at work smoked in the break room, and I desperately wanted to. I know I would have been a smoker if I wasn't so afraid of almightygawd.

No, mormons aren't the only non-smokers. But since I wasn't taught any other reason not to do things, such as "you're not that stupid," but only "the church says no," there would have been no reason not to do it. And I am so glad that by the time I no longer worried about God, I realized how lucky I was that I never smoked.

I can relate to this one. I'm glad that I don't smoke and I'm glad that I'm cautious with alcohol (although that may be in part to how badly smashed I got the first time I tried it after leaving the church).

LOL. I relate to that. I'm an infrequent alcohol user and know my limits due to getting so shitfaced one of the first times, as a semi-active Mo, I drank and made a fool out of myself in front of a guy I was trying to impress. After the room stopped spinning and I could get up off the floor, I asked him what was in that Long Island Iced Tea. He laughed and said, "Well first of all, NO iced tea."

I know a number of recovering alcoholics, so I need to be thankful for that one too.

This was after the bishop's daughter gave me the heave-ho when she met an RM who told her he'd had a revelation they were to be married...

But as a long-time quitter, I agree. Smoking is bad news.

Sherri Dew is one hot babe!

Nah. I went back to church after being inactive for 3 years on a dare once. I've decided that it's okay to decline a dare.

But after that one, the going gets tough... Boy Scouts, at least parts of it, but the girls deserve equal opportunity programs, and they're not getting them.

And I'm honest enough to admit RFM participation does color one's perceptions. I should really like the MoTab Choir (and used to), but I just turn it off these days...

Come on folks.....I know you are trying. But, you can donate blood, play basketball, learn a foreign language, have sex behind a stage, be self-reliant, not smoke and not drink alcohol without TSCC ever being in your life. I guess I want you to name something GOOD about TSCC (not the people, but TSCC) that you can't/didn't get elsewhere.
I know people who have barely heard of TSCC who don't drink, don't smoke, donate blood, etc.
I haven't been TSCC and I am at the 20 gallon donor mark right now, not one pint while was a Mo. Ialso learned French and German in college so that foreign language thing doesn't hold water. I haven't had sex behind a stage, but I have had it under a stage without being Mo. I am very self-reliant thanks to my parents teaching, NOT TSCC.
So, I will re-start the dare - Name something GOOD about TSCC with the above stipulations.

I am really trying to think of something good and I can't.

My mom swears that it helped reform my dad for the better but I think that he could of found that with a different religion or organization so that isn't really unique to Mormonism.

I don't think you're being entirely fair. I could have traveled abroad without Mormonism and learned a second language, but without it, it wouldn't have happened.

It is better than Scientology, Heaven's Gate, and a few other polygamist off-shoots.

..my best friend to this day was my third companion. Unfortunately, his level of denial is still off the charts. I sent him the Don Gale op ed piece today and he asked if I could define the difference between societal and doctrinal attitudes in Utah... What the Fuck!!!
It will never cease to amaze me how brilliant people just don't get it.

The church's strong stand against tobacco, alcohol and illegal drugs kept me from making the same mistakes that so many of the kids I grew up with made.


Yes, I know -- alot of non-Mormon kids grow up without developing smoking, uncontrollable drinking, or drug habits.


But in my neighborhood, most of the kids DID get involved in these things -- and some are dead, others have spent time in jail, and others have spent time on the streets because of it.


I escaped all of that, because so much pressure was put on me to avoid these things when I was a kid.

I learned to play the piano. Organ too. But unfortunately most of what I know are hymns or church related music. Not much in the way of classical music, although that's partly my own doing.

There is nothing unique to Mormonism both the good and the bad are readily available.

I know it's a common saying that the things that are good aren't unique to the church, but what is unique to the church isn't good.

I really think that there is really nothing unique to the church. People believe in eternal marriage, eternal progression, heavenly mother. People believe in all these things. The only thing about Mormonism that is unique can be said for all religions is that the beliefs are simply packaged differently.

So for my I just change the saying to there is nothing unique about the church. Full Stop.

I enjoyed boyscout, I enjoyed them helping my single mother with money and food, I enjoyed playing with my friends. In my evaluation as a non-believer was simply that you can get all those good things in the world and let go of all the bad things, so I choose secular morality, because it's simply superior to theistic forms of morality. The church's teaching cause me a lot of pain and unhappiness in my life and while I can't change the past, I can change the future and that's what I intend on doing.

Joined tscc at age 17 after being raised in an unloving, uncommunicative family, so I liked tscc because in sunday school & rs we often talked about real life stuff, things that could heal our hearts, chat with others, make comments, kind of a therapy session. I was taught the value of human life, the value of being a woman, the value of my virtue, etc.

Now in my 30's I appreciate having had that healing time, while at the same time realizing tscc stifled me sexually because I was taught to find a man and stay with him forever. Well that totally sucked.

Now I enjoy playing around a little.

Tscc was a safe foundation but we eventually need to leave the nest and explore life on our own terms.

There is nothing good about the Church. Anything that appears to be good comes with a gigantic price tag and strings attached that turn any positive into a negative.

This is because they truly believe the natural man is an enemy to God. And so, they turn all of the most natural, purest parts of life into something unnatural. Something Mormon.

A parent can't just love their children and teach them the lessons of life--any wisdom they may have garnered. No. Mormons must teach their children about Mormon life only which is skewed, limited, and atrophying.

When it come to the very natural acts of sex and love, do they guide you? No, they guilt you. A beautiful thing becomes a control tool once again.

Look for anything you perceive to be good about the church and then flip it over. There is a price sticker on the bottom. You pay heavily for the deception.