I found this interesting for the church members posting on this fellow's blog, but also a bit nauseating.

http://doubtingmark.wordpress.com/2013/06/09/church-of-jesus-christ-of-latter-day-saints-washington-park-ward/comment-page-1/#comment-150

Blog title:

"Doubting Mark
An atheist's adventures in a land of faith"

@doubtingmark on Twitter.

If found this comment at the end of the blog interesting --

"This is going to sound rather unkind of me, but if I was a Mormon, I’d try to find a Ward to join that had fewer young children in it, if that’s possible. They take pride in having their kids right there in the pews with them, but Holy Confucius they made a lot of noise. It was sometimes hard to concentrate on the message."

The person doesn't realize that to be a worthy mormon, they would not have a choice about where to attend.

The reason it's hard to concentrate on the message isn't the noise. It's because they aren't saying anything meaningful.

No they aren't saying anything worth listening to, but there ARE lot of damned noisy kids...obviously, the little BICs are too precious for a reprimand. Little bastard sitting behind me whenever I went with DH to SM mad a habit of kicking the pew in front of him (right where I was sitting)...

Ha! When I went to the mormon church with the missionaries I rather liked the noisy babies. They were the only ones that were showing any sign of life and liveliness through out the meeting. The adults were so busy not making a noise (I thought because the church leaders on the stage were scanning the room from behind the testimony givers) and the testimonies being bared were so incoherent and redundant that I appreciated all the distractions the babies were generating. :oP



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/15/2013 07:26PM by smorg.

This little bit at the end said it all to me :

Being good to your fellow human: 2 (appreciation, charity)
Help your community: 2 (volunteerism, more charity)

He apparently gives points for mentioning these things as being a plus. What he doesn't know and wouldnt learn from just one Sunday is that the only acceptable charity to the LDS church is the LDS church. You can give to others but only after you have given them 10% plus fast offerings. And service is the same way. YOu can clean THEIR building, you can serve an unpaid mission either selling their church or working for free for a for-profit part of the church as a sr missionary. You can teach church lessons for free, or indoctrinate the kids for free.

Giving money to a hospital is not charity to the church, working in a food kitches isn't service. That stuff is all well and good but should only be done if you have already paid your 10% and given hours of labor to the church.

Yes, people often misunderstand that the LDS church is talking about charity TO THEM, not to the poor or to the community.

All the other stuff is you being anxiously engaged in a good cause after you have cleaned the chapel, served both your church jobs and paid your 10% TO THEM.

Bring the kids. They love homeless people--they can't tell their not their parents since they see them so seldom.


Anagrammy

anagrammy Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Yes, people often misunderstand that the LDS
> church is talking about charity TO THEM, not to
> the poor or to the community.

Yes, I love it when RM's talking to non-Mos mention that they
spent 2 years doing volunteer charity work.

At one point in my TBM life I asked to be released from being YMP because my wife and I were doing foster care and it was really stressful. I was also raising my own kids and dealing with a new career, plus I was getting no support from the bishopric.

Two weeks later he gave a talk about how service to the church comes before service to the community no matter how noble the service. I knew he was talking to me. Then he said that the current members of the ward council were the best group of people he has worked with during the time he has been bishop.

A#&hole!!

That's true, and it's sad because it puts the church in a false good light. That is also what the members convince themselves to be how they act. Even though their terms for service, volunteering, ect. are completely self serving, they even make themselves believe that it is really for good causes.

Just as a point of order here, I exclude church-only "charity" from consideration.

So, giving away free bibles or helping to build a church doesn't qualify.

The only charity that qualifies is ... actual charity.

It looks like the Mormons are piling on in the comments section.

How can there be that many mormons reading his blog???

Is this the replacement for the "I'm a Mormon" campaign?? The Mormon opinion spammers united front

The atheist's blog was highlighted in the LDS Living newsletter, so lots of Mormons get it and read about an atheist who had visited one of their services and was semi-nice and innocent and trying to be even-handed about what he saw there. And he gave the Mormons the best rating he's ever given for his church reviews.

That's why there are lots of Mormons there.

Now why LDS Living editors saw fit to draw attention to Doubting Mark's blog is another question, and I wonder what might be the behind-the-scenes story here: the atheist blogger is getting good traffic from it, the church is getting some mostly decent publicity, though there are a few of us "anti's" posting there, so at some point I half expect LDS Living to pull the link or for enough Mormons to go in there and cry foul, thereby inoculating any future Mormon visitors from taking anything said there at all seriously.

Cool, I decided to post on there too :)

I am certain the church has missionaries who spend their day searching for certain keywords, then posting positive spin responses to any story or post they come across.

I don't think so. I think they'd prefer paid representatives to do that job, so that they have a reason NOT to leave if they find "anti" stuff... but in the MTC, they do have missionaries who are allowed to use facebook to spread TSCC, the same guys who you can chat with via mormon.org.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/13/2013 12:29AM by earlyrm.

From the article:

"Now, in other churches, a bishop is a very high ranking
official who might make you kiss his ring or genuflect or some
such, but in the LDS church, a bishop is just a volunteer who
serves as a sort of guide for the ward."

He doesn't make you kiss his ring, but the SP makes him kiss his ass.

Yep, just a local volunteer who will pull your kids into a
closed room and ask them for the details of their sex lives.

Can you say "Plant"?

I knew that you could.

How do we know someone from the church didn't pay some atheist to write this good review? I wouldn't put it past them.

He wrote it in sincerity, I think. He only got a first look, just the surface of the subject, obviously. Mormons say and do good things all the time. He met some people who were good. Trouble is, you really have to be a member to experience the way TSCC wants to dominate your life as a matter of course, and how it's really a fundamentalist type of faith where "you must believe" and be all-in, or you're not worthy. It's a tribal organization and has a very doctrinaire, old-time view of commitment and obedience. Free thinkers need not apply. Their veneer is different than the base lumber.

That's how people get sucked in. They go in just seeing what appears on the surface at first glance. No wonder the missionaries push for baptism so early on.

Or he could've stuck around for the priesthood meeting like I did, and hear a lesson on how sustaining (defined as obedience and support) the leadership even if you believe they are wrong.

Guess I just got a good one.

[See below the criticism of the social pressure the church uses, and the TBM response to see it all as "caring." If you see problems with the LDS Church, then that's because you are looking for problems. Nice way to diffuse and deflect having to look at your religion with the cold hard lens of truth. You just self-deceive yourself until you are sacrificing way too much for the real estate moguls, AKA "the brethren," at the COB in SLC. --Derrida]

mantisdolphin says:
June 12, 2013 at 5:08 pm

Yeah, but the people who do all the stuff and don’t burn out become the first class Mormons and the ones who are overwhelmed or who slack aren’t seen as worthy, righteous, spiritual, or whatever as the cool kids.

No “church discipline”…well, if you don’t count the social pressure to appear to be good enough, righteous enough, a member in good standing; if you don’t go to church for a couple of Sundays each month, you probably won’t be “called” to do anything too important in the ward (unless they think they can rope you into line by offering you something where you’ll need to be there every Sunday), or you might get asked to visit with your Bishop or group leader to see if there’s anything going on or to see how you are feeling. It’s all posed nice, but the bottom line is you are supposed to be in church for the full three hours each Sunday or you are perceived as a problem child, someone who is just not with it.

There is no “come and go” as you are or as you feel the need in the Mormon church. There’s an expectation that you’ll get with the program and follow it in full gear to “get all the blessings.” Nick didn’t talk about the Temple interviews or the tithing settlement meetings that a good Mormon is supposed to go to. There’s a lot of monitoring that goes on. Life in a Mormon ward is like living in a fish bowl: everyone knows what’s going on with most everyone else, at least all the important and cool families. That’s good in the sense of community, but bad in the sense of surveillance and control.


rbbarcal says:
June 12, 2013 at 7:44 pm

Cup 1/2 full or cup 1/2 empty—you can see things as positive or negative as you choose—-everything you say is true. I just see all these things in a different–caring light.

Dear god all the Happy Mormons posting at that guy's blog are disturbing, like some early scene out of the movie Pleasantville.

It's another ringer.

Hi guys,

Saw this forum in link referers to my blog, and after reading a bit, thought I'd post here.

I assure you that I'm not a plant, not a secret Mormon, and not getting paid to blog anything. I really am just an atheist guy going to churches and reviewing their message.

There are a lot of other churches reviewed on my blog, including a Tibetan Budhhist monastery, a synagogue, a big-box non-denominational church, a Methodist church, and a Catholic church. None of those guys are paying me either.

Having said that, I'd love to get paid for doing this! :-)

I don't think you are a ringer. I think you are awfully innocent about Mormons and the happy face of normality they put on. Read some of the exit narratives here and some of the posts. The LDS church has a definite dark side that would scare off anyone informed about it.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/17/2013 09:09AM by derrida.

I never suspected you to be that :) and I do have to agree with derrida that there are some posts you might enjoy reading here. It's pretty eye opening.

When I went back to church for a short bit last fall, as an agnostic, I wrote this excerpt about my experience:

I drive into the rainy parking lot and take in the LDS chapel building—brown-stone, white steeple, trimmed lawn, black asphalt. It could’ve been airlifted, whole building and grass, from Anytown, Utah and plopped over a field dashed with a few Florida palms. The palms alone make it different and on the verge of non-Mormon. Inside, it is again distinctly Mormon—stiff carpeted halls just wide enough for two of us to pass, heavily papered walls and unnaturally pale white lights. On the hall tables there are signups clamped to clipboards (clip-jobs, as I call them) advertising for youth activities and eagle-project collection drives. Missing are the sign-ups for feeding the homeless and volunteering at shelters. The halls are besieged with a diverse crowd, just entering meetings. This distinction—not the pale white skin matching the lights, but a crowd of a few Blacks, many Hispanics, Polynesians and of course Whites—is unexpected. The men of all races, however, do have the all-too common white shirt, dark tie/suit coat uniform. You’ve probably seen it on the bike-riding missionaries of your local neighborhood, whom you’ve hid from when they come ringing.

Sacrament meeting starts first. All the members are there together, kids climbing on the seats having Cheerio wars with the ones behind them. I don’t fault the parents for letting the children spoil the chapel floor with bits o’ broken crayons and raisins. I’ve been a young parent at church and you do what you must to keep them content while feigning interest with a smile in the testimony bearing at the pulpit. It’s funny that the adults are the ones playing pretend at church and the children are being honest. I find myself sighing and eye-rolling at the phrase-tossing of "Book of Mormon" this and "Joseph Smith" that. But I need to play stoic; switch on the poker face, so that, despite the flash of my cloth, I don’t stand out in character. Not yet.

Still, the utterly monotone drivel about what I could never remember propels a hand to my coat pocket to retrieve my cell phone. I text a friend who’s left Mormonism long ago and with whom I console myself when I need to dull my LDS-pain. I tell Marla that I am at church. She immediately texts back, "Bullshit. Really?" I confirm it to her and let her know that I may be here for the long haul. MormonThink, among its many unnamed true-believing Mormon contributors, has an active member as managing editor. Attending is my cross to bear (one prior editor had to resign quietly when the church came for him, something I may find difficult to forestall in my case). She tells me she is in her tank top, mowing her lawn, which in her Utah township, is almost across the street from the church (in UT most houses are across or up the street from an LDS chapel).

The Sacrament meeting ends without anything noteworthy. Dull dull. This is hallmark. I wait in the back, wondering who will notice me and introduce themselves with the clamping handshake and polyurethane welcome. People see me, but no one approaches. Finally, wondering where I will go to the next class—gospel doctrine—I turn to a couple sitting near. They shrug when I ask where to go. They’re new too. We get chatting and find out they’re newlyweds and that we have a few Mormony things in common, but it is overly dull dull. Then we form a wholesome threesome and seek the next lesson together.

In gospel doctrine they ask us new members to introduce ourselves. There are five of us, in a class of maybe twenty. One is a man from Laie, Hawaii, wearing a pale Lavalava skirt and bright lei over the uniform (the dark suit coat, tie and white shirt). If he had left out the suit coat, he would have one-upped me in flash. But I still stand out with my jeans and flowery shirt; they recognize my strangeness and I’m required to stand to tell them my name, and that I am a member who hasn’t attended in years returning to see what’s what in Mormonville. I get through this introduction two more times by the end of the three-hour block and I keep it as short as I can.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/17/2013 12:26PM by Jesus Smith.