The church membership and people who leave it is a fairly diverse population of people. I know TBMs in California and New York who are more accepting of liberal leaning lifestyles more than member in Utah or Idaho.

I know very right leaning TBMs in the church who want to go back to Ezra Taft Benson and Spencer W Kimball. The church is becoming too liberal in their minds.

California TBMs and rural Utah TBMs aren’t going to agree on a lot of things. If you mix all these people up and find one frustration they do have in common is how corporate and machine like the church has become.

The church no longer is a place of fun activities, sports and people to socialize with. It’s Come Follow Me, Conference talks the temple and two lousy pot lucks a year. It’s depressing as hell and all you hear about is this church committee, the church PR Departnent, the church real estate development and so forth.

In fact the church runs front companies and pays hush money to hide things from the members. It has teams of lawyers on retainer. It has a corporate flavored PR department. Where’s the cozy church brotherhood in this?

At the local level the LDS Ward is a nurtured wasteland. It’s all repeating what’s in this year’s Come Follow Me program and talks from the last session of conference. If you are really motivated, you do some canned ordinances at the Simon Says temple that runs with the predictable efficiency of your local McDonald’s.

You stand back and look it’s just silly busywork. It’s doing shit to just do it. It’s following a program some organization puts together by committee or by the ego of the current prophet. It has all the charm of a WalMart store with the fake ass greeter. There’s nothing real here. Everyone is just following a corporate script.

It doesn’t matter what your social or political leanings are. One agreed point of irritation is the church is a machine. There’s no real human element to it. It’s stuffed suits and script readers. You can go to WalMart or McDonald’s and say they are God inspired because they are big, rich and seem to be the same everywhere.

One could argue it is an inevitable consequence of correlation and bureaucracy.

There's many churches with viable social and church community activities. Plus, you can freely choose at what level of membership you want to participate.

And how much to donate/contribute.

messygoop Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> There's many churches with viable social and
> church community activities. Plus, you can freely
> choose at what level of membership you want to
> participate.

It doesn't work that way. Many people have family ties to Mormonism. That makes things harder.

Sammy, I got the impression that messy was pointing out the same thing you are but without offering the details you did.  

I've had my eye on messy for a couple of years now, but he seems to be as pro unmormon as the rest of us.

But if you have any photos or videos to the contrary, please forward it/them to Susan...

Now, now, Jesus. Don't be mean to Sammy. He's very important.

That's right. All suspected impure ex Mormons must be reported to the proper authorities. You can get extra
food rations.