I'm listening to a fascinating book called "Behave."

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/06/books/review/behave-robert-m-sapolsky-.html

In the end of it he is attempting to make a case for how in politics and personal encountering respecting and acknowledging other people's sacred cows is more important than apologies and concessions. People want those things but without the special sauce of recognizing in a respectful way what people consider sacred bad things happen without this key ingredient to getting along in the world.

Enter my relationship with Mormonism. I don't respect it or a whole herd of cows out there.

I get his reasoning. We are hard-wired for "us" and "them" feelings, inclinations, and irrational reasoning (justification) for what we think and do. The difficult thing is recognizing my own sacred cows. They are harder for me to see from a biology stand point as well as a religious one - I'm not religious. And because I'm not religious I "feel" like my feelings don't matter. I've got no "beef" to make a sacred cow sandwich with. It is very frustrating especially since I've made myself an island in a river of Mormon milk (with bits of temple meat floating in it.)

I struggle daily to respect the ridiculous (in my estimation) of religion especially the Joe's handcart full of women variety.

I think this is a lifetime problem for me. What are my sacred cows? Science? I don't think so. I question it as much as I do religion. And Mormonism?

WoW! IT is so ridiculous. I was talking to my daughter telling her how I thought Lucifer's plan made more sense. She didn't understand. She thought Lucifer would make all the decisions. I said, I think you can make decisions it is just that Lucifer would prevent you from making the ones that would jeopardize your returning to Heavenly Father.

My reasoning was that perfection wasn't anything more than making all the right decisions in Mormonism as it stands. Repentance is required for wrong decisions and Mormons are fastidious about making their "Choose The Right" decisions. So basically Lucifer would be like The Holy Ghost except instead of whispering he would intervene and change your mind. It would actually make more sense.

But I was sacrificing her sacred cow instead of letting Jesus take one for our family.

So crazy to me. I guess I'm herding a bunch of anti-religious sacred cows who seem to want to eat up those fat cows of religions like the skinny cows of Joseph of Egypt's Pharaoh's Dream.

I've chosen this path with Mormons. I'm getting used to living in the land of MOZ (Mormons Observing their Zion) but it is so ridiculous. It is so extra compared to other believers. I was raised in a cult and while it seems natural, with my exMormon outlook it seems so bizarre and hard to respect.

It is like having my family completely obsessed with a Multi-Level Marketing scam headed by a guru who is just out for the their money while moralizing it out of them. How can I respect that? My family knows I don't respect it but in subtle ways they try to get me to like trying to get me to agree "the church" does good things I will respect their beliefs in it.

Seriously, it would be easier to respect their beliefs if they were in a mainstream Christian thing. At least then they might try other churches out and be relaxed about the families being gold-plated eternal earning of glory (for tithing of course) forever thing.

Sorry to complain. It just seems so hard to strike a balance between respecting the ones I love and acknowledging the curelom or cumom sitting over in the corner by the photo of their prophet looking smugly at me and cross-stitching a "Families Are Forever" piece of cheese cloth.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/27/2018 02:11PM by Elder Berry.