The slogan would be --Don't worry, we'll clean the toilets for you!"
You come in the building and we help you! We will teach you how to get a job, how to study for college, how to funcition in life, and how to leave the church. There would be classrooms to discuss why Mormon doctrine is wrong.
How about a building in Salt Lake City? We can get all religions and churches to contribute. It would be an incentive for other faiths to contribute to make more available converts to their faith. However, the process and teachings in the building and on exmormon property would only be to deconvert someone from Mormonism. We will not teach them about any religion other than to say the Mormon God is false.
There would be voluntary physchologists, therapists, historians, and etc.
One of the reasons why I was open to Mormonism was because the missionaries were reslly cool people. They were happy. People at church were happy. I wanted to be happy. What I failed to realize was that everyone is being exploited and pressured into paying tithing.
We need to find some really cool, fun people to show true believing Mormons that you can be an awesome person without the Mormon Church.
Yeah, but we're too busy being fun and cool in so many disparate ways!
We're like a 1,000 cats running loose in Provo; we all know to avoid BYU, but other than that, there's not much in the way of consensus. Even if we did acknowledge someone as being of superior leadership ability, we're not going to follow him or her! We're cats, not sheep!
But I do get where you're coming from. It's just that during my assigned time in the building, I'd be in my office practice my putting, and watching the clock...
The building would be pretty costly. I would be more than happy to donate most of my income after I graduate from college to fund the building. If we get 1,000 people involved for a good location it would probably be $2,000,000. We would get a lot of support from other faiths and maybe even from governments like Russia or Italy that want Mormonism gone.
THe 7 Laws of Money (Stuart Brand and Sally Rasberry)
Weak people are attracted to strong institutions. If you have a nice building, etc. there will be people who want to ensconce themselves and make it their domain. Better to meet in the library. Always better to have strong people than a strong institution if you want to get things done.
I have worked with a lot of nonprofits and from my experience this is true.
I don't want to be a part of helping someone pick a destination, and the mormon church is doing a good enough job of disaffecting its own members to suit me.
Also, there is something wrong, in my opinion, with the comment, "I would be more than happy to donate most of my income after I graduate from college to fund the building."
I know it's likely that I am just too mean, too much a bastard, but I am NOT getting involved with altruism, or any altruists.
Okay, I'll agree with you that the missionary program, providing that one on one contact, is a key ingredient to conversion. It's the stuff of time-share sales!
So you buy or lease a building and you staff it with people much nicer than me. What brings in the 'customers' for their first contact with the anti-missionaries, so that the necessary bonding can take place? Because without that sense of 'he/she really likes me!!' how can the sheep be shown both the need and the way to leave "mormon pastures, the time share for all of eternity"?
You're going to hate this, but I doubt it is the first time you've heard this very, very wise old saying that I just made up:
"Youth is the time of optimism, maturity is the time of realism and old age is the time of flatulism." --Elder OldDog 5/02/2015 copyright pending
Ok lets say we meet in a library. Will we be free to talk about religion without making a disturbance? Will we have access to classrooms to deconstruct Mormons when most people working at the library are TBM? I think a library is a good idea for a small group, but on a large scale, A building is a better idea. We would have independence from the Mormon Church and if they are hostile we can just say its private property like they do with their churches/temples. I don't think it has ever been done before. The church would be powerless. They might want to protest the exmormon building! Calling us apostates!
But don't worry. If we have a nice building, clean toilets, free food, and lessons on how to be self sufficient such as getting a job, it would be the Mormon Churches worst nightmare.
I personally don't mind spending all my time and resources if it is strictly to show the world that I am an exmormon, happy, and I actually care about them.
Again, we would not be promoting a religion or a faith. We would accept donations from other religions and faiths. The reason why they would donate is because they believe their religion is true and they might want to help these people.
It would be 100% voluntary, we would have a fair organization. I think it would be a success because it has never been done before. Something similar is when other faiths buy buildings in slc, such as the catholic church. However, they are deconstructing Mormonism and replacing it with their own faith.
We would simply teach the deconstructing part, nothing else.
We wouldn't be altuists because our mission would be to help them become self sufficient. We can teach them how to get a job, how to manage money, teach them critical thinking skills, we would be their friends, and convince them that they can be happier without paying 10% to the Mormon Church.
How about an "I'm not a Mormon" video campaign? I get the "I'm an exmormon thing. O.k. Cool. But what about the rest of us? I think that message would be as effective.
People still want the personal connection. I felt so strongly about the Mormon Church because I wanted to be succesful, I wanted to own a business, I wanted to have a beautiful wife and a family. They had me convinced the Mormon Church is true.
The Mormon Church is powerless if we have rich, succesful businessmen with families teaching these classrooms.
Sunk costs can sink the ship. I worked at Direct Relief International. When they called (at any hour), you showed up at their hanger at the airport to pack medical supplies. When the plane was loaded. it took off.
No fancy desks, no offices. I was impressed. That was years ago; maybe it's changed by now.
How much do you care about helping people? I personally believe that people all over the world care about these humble followers of the Mormon Church. Religions and governments would contribute to this building because they want to help people. It would just be 1 building to start out with. I would start the first major donation after my first year income after college. I am picturing really happy people welcoming these Mormons into the building. We take care of their needs because we really do care about them! I want to show them that after I left the church, I had more free time, more opportunity. The good news is that you still can have that business and that family! It will come even faster if you leave the church!
If we had some sort of organization, I would make sure that they were being checked financially. We will publish our financial records, including donations, to the world. It should not be any secret to hide money. I would consider being part of this group/organization whatever you call it as long as I have approval from many different people. It will only be a success if people really do care about these obediant Mormons and not embezzle any money or explot. The organization's mission that owns this building is to teach people the other side, to avoid exploitation, and to convince people they are worth something and they can do anything they want to do as long as they put their mind to it!