My mama wanted to protect me from the big bad world, so she left me with the babysitter with the bushy tail and big teeth. Or maybe the Lost Boys from Pinocchio.

But it's okay. TSCC is a world class teacher. The lessons are so deep. Sure, they're painful. But then you get past the pain and there's liberation. It's so funny how many Jesus quotes have a completely different meaning now. The blind lead the blind, and they both fall into a ditch. Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free. Maybe I knocked, and it was opened.

The world is full of institutions that operate the way TSCC does. They aren't so easily proven false. Cults are so easy to sustain because people don't trust themselves. If an organization says "Trust us more than yourself", that's a cult.

It's easy to hate the cult. Too easy. But then, they gave me back my compassion. Stockholm syndrome suppressed it, but it bounced back just fine. I saw through the demons of Joseph and Brigham and, frankly, all of the early and modern leaders. I learned to be okay with those who love a lie. Why shouldn't they love it? It's their lie. There's nothing quite like owning it. Of course, it's a fool's game because there's hell to pay. But what better way to learn to not be a fool?

Wisdom is the pain you turned into learning instead of suffering. It's what draws me to RfM. There's so much wisdom here. It didn't come cheap.

So, now that I have an earworm for "Sympathy for the Devil", I'll be putting on some Rolling Stones.

"I learned to be okay with those who love a lie." What a declaration. I disagree. Yet, millions of Americans agree with you and voted for a pathological liar as POTUS. The level of corruption he has brought into the WH is astonishing. The level of deprivation, suffering, mind games, waste and pain I experienced in the cult for 36 years because JS, etc. lied and created an empire based on greed, sex,and crazy fantasies is not okay. Yes, many toxic people in all kinds of organizations today sabotage them and deceive the public. That's not okay either. It's hard to live in a society when deception, trickery, and lies get a pass with sugar coated excuses. It's a path to endless despair and misery.

What do you do if a drunk driver wrecks your life and kills your family? They make no restitution and feel no remorse. They get off scot-free.

Forgiveness? I don't think they want to be forgiven. That's not how they roll. I made peace. That's all I can do.

Yeah I know, it will be a while for many of us. I don't even know how long my peace will last.

I think I had an epiphany. They say there is no peace without justice. I beg to differ. Maybe you don't really know peace until you forego justice. It's certainly a test worth doing. If you can take it all and still love the GAs for who they are, you'll really have something. Probably be translated.

I think you're absolutely right.

What many people call "justice" is really revenge.
Make somebody "pay" for what they did to you.
Even though it won't change what happened to you.
And even though how you deal with what happened to you won't really change whether somebody "pays for it" or not.

What you are is up to you. It doesn't depend on whether other people get their "due" or not. :)

I'm glad I was raised by honest hard working parents. Their church had nothing to do with them being good people.

Those words stick in my craw

I appreciate the ideas you present. I think there maybe four paths or more to being okay with learning to okay with those who love a lie. 1. The liars KNOW their lies and love them or cling to them as a badge of honor for the power, fame and fortune it brings them and their families. They don't care who gets hurt by their lies. 2. The folks like many of us who were deceived and betrayed by the folks on path 1. We loved and lived the lies, too, until we found out the truth about the con. The shock of learning we were living the lies of others was like 1,000 knives piercing our souls. We left the lying cult and are on the path of living our own truth. 3. Folks know the liars on Path 1 are conning them but comply out of fear, desperation or something else.

It's difficult to influence the folks on Path 3 to accept they are traveling on a dead end or racing toward a cliff of a lost live. They may feel trapped with no way out or no other place to go. 4. Many others who don't care about the liars on Path 1 and are living their own brand of lies. Where the degrees of consciousness in living and promoting lies falls on each path are individual choices. How do we know the liars are conning us? Christ said, "By their fruits...." When I was on Path 2 living someone else's lies or script of falsehoods about life, God and families, I was miserable. When I left Path 2 and moved onto my own Path, I was free, happy and at peace. What say you?

Babyloncansuckit Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Wisdom is the pain you turned into learning
> instead of suffering.

I was reading along, thinking there are much better ways to learn not to be foolish...

Then I hit that quote. Loved it.
Thanks for sharing it :)

I picked that up from Sadhguru.

What the church did for me was allow me to figure out where I stood on the issue as soon as I could begin to understand what they were telling me (about 6 - 7 yrs old). It gave me the contrast to my own feelings that compelled me to take a stand for myself if I didn't agree. That didn't always turn out fun for me as a kid being raised in a large TBM family with a well above average level of prominence in the ward/ stake, established by my TBM dad.

The church was used as measuring stick, more than a whipping post in my family. I'm the youngest of 6 and out grew that measuring stick long before my older siblings, some of whom are still just trying to measure up.

When I was young I envied the ones with the perfect lives. The ones who fit in easily. Meanwhile I was like a segment of a garlic trying to squeeze myself in between the segments of a tangerine in an attempt to appear part of a whole.

I would never want to give up what I know now. I don't want my scars removed. I no longer envy those whose lives were a piece of cake. I too am sort of glad I was raised Mormon. You have to cut your teeth on something.

"Wisdom is the pain you turned into learning instead of suffering." Yup!

Being brought up in the cult taught me much about life, love, and family.

I owe my value system to my upbringing, both good and bad. Some of those values have evolved. Most of them stuck to me like potatoes to ribs.

Family is still paramount to me. My love and reverance for God has increased, not decreased, since leaving.

My compassion and empathy have matured through the years, as have I. I've come to accept my many imperfections as being human, flawed but who I am together with whatever good qualities I'm able to claim.

I learned honesty and integrity in my upbringing. Most of my school teachers as church stewards were dedicated to teaching us such values. It was being honest that led me out from the cult versus choosing to stay and live a lie. Paradoxically it was my upbringing's value system that reinforced my integrity and honesty enough to make that kind of judgment call.

The journey seems to have been "How I learned to stop judging and start loving assholes". Maybe I needed Mormonism to make me one.

Family is a different thing without all the crazy doctrine. I don't feel like children need to be any particular way, except my way if they are mine, and I love them all even if they do their own thing.

I'm not going to communicate reasons examples or alternative to you -- it's your childhood, your raising, & your life; If that's your feeling, you keep it.

The church I grew up in no longer exists. It was fun. We didn't have doctrine drilled into our heads at all time. Primary was fun. Scouting was fun. YM/YW was fun. I loved road shows and camp outs and hell, even Super Saturdays.

Yes, there were the intrusive interviews and preoccupation of some leaders about my genitals. Yes, I bought into it all that it was true and didn't question much of anything until I went on a mission.

But - if it hadn't been for the church I would probably have been forever stuck in the Midwestern hellhole city of my birth thinking it was the only place on earth. The church, for all its BS, still acted as a vehicle for me to see places, do things and meet people that I would never have otherwise. So my feelings towards the church are uncertain.