I had a sad experience last night. I went for dinner with two of my relatives, one of whom still is a mormon. She is retired and preparing herself to go on a temple mission. She has very modest means, but is trying to save enough money to support herself on that mission, and has had to pay for medical checkups in readiness for being called.

I mentioned to her how much money the church had sunk in its building programme, the shopping mall, BYU, and how her tithing money was used to support all these things. I also mentioned how little of it went on actual missionary work, and even less on real humanitarian giving.

The sad thing is that no matter how much evidence was presented to her, she "knew" that the "church do a lot of good, provide educational facilities, give a lot secretly to charity" etc., despite all the evidence to the contrary, and even though she has never seen a financial statement from the church.

She also told me how she had spent the previous afternoon cleaning up the chapel, and had received a call earlier on the day of our dinner to come back to sweep "crumbs" left during a youth activity the night before. It really made me angry that the church is exploiting her in this way, but even more so that she accepts it blindly and no matter how much evidence she is given, her "I know" will always trump the facts.

It also reminded me of a discussion with a Jehovah Witness relative about blood transfusions. Despite the fact that his church had changed its stance over the issue so many times, despite the fact that his supposedly inspired leaders had got what is the arguable the second most important event of all time (the Second Coming) wrong on so many occasions, it didn't make one blind bit of difference. The sad truth that whatever he was told would become his new truth, and he would accept it unquestioningly.

It was an incredibly melancholy experience.

Rudi



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/18/2010 05:01AM by rudi.

Thats why these cults should be challenged at all opportunity and deserve no repect.

I have two elderly JW's visit me. I am kind to them, however I make it very clear what I think about religion as a whole. They seem to think they will be able to show me 'facts' they are the only true church etc not knowing their facts from Watchtower publications are in fact fudged.

They like discussing the falseness of Mormonism! lol