Posted by:
imaworkinonit
(
)
Date: September 17, 2016 03:00AM
"I’m trying to yes understand, and yes treat you like regular, normal people."
Did it occur to you that we might actually BE normal people. Did it occur to you that if you grew up in a Mormon bubble, YOU might have no idea what normal is? Now I'm not saying that to be rude. I mean it, really. When you are in it, you can't see how strange and controlling, and all-consuming the church really is. I remember being told how special we were, and how people in the world looked up to us because we didn't drink tea, coffee, or alcohol, or shop on Sunday, and we had such high moral standards.
No. Non-mormons don't look up to Mormons. They are just being polite, and when you leave, and they find out you used to be a Mormon, they tell you what they really think--that Mormons are insular and odd. That just one example of how the church warped our perceptions.
It's NOT normal to obsess about why someone leaves your religion, to vilify them in church, to instill fear of associating with them or generalize and make up trivial reasons why they left (milk strippings, or 'being offended) . It's not normal to judge or gossip about them in meetings, or make plans on how to get them back, assign friends who report back, and take cookies to them and send missionaries over to them without appointments. It's not normal to shun them or divorce them, or pressure them to defend their new beliefs to a religious leader.
You: "Not like someone who we need to keep away from, condemn, crash and wipe out. I’ll have to be more careful to not preach. You know that I am a TBM and will always be. The difference is that I want to try and understand you better."
Gee, that's big of you ;-) to want to understand us. But you do know we are all individuals, even more so than when we were all trying to fit our minds into the same mold, right? People can't be categorized into neat little boxes. It's not that simple. I've been out for many years, and can't even tell you how varied the reasons are that led people to leave the church. The reasons for leaving they teach in church are straw men, designed to discredit those who leave and to encourage people to judge and distrust them.
But I'll bite. Trying to understand someone who you don't understand requires you to try to see things from their point of view. So I have some questions for you to think about that might help you understand what most exmos have to deal with:
What would you do if you realized that something Joseph Smith claimed came from God was not true (for example, the facsimiles in the Book of Abraham didn't say what he said they did). Would that matter to you? Would you pursue that question until you got a definitive answer that made sense to you? What would you do if you realized that he got it wrong? What would that do to your faith in other things he said?
How would it change your life if you figured out the church wasn't true?
How would it affect how you spend your time and your money?
How would it affect major decisions in your life, like marriage, career, how many kids you have?
How would it affect your relationships in your family, at work, in your community? How would your spouse react? Would they still love, respect, and want to be with you?
How would it affect your emotions, identity and your purpose for living?
Now ask yourself if anyone would risk everything and go through those changes for a trivial reason, like being 'offended' or because they 'just wanted to sin', or because it was the 'easy' way out (GEEZ). If you were going to leave the church, wouldn't you make absolutely sure you were right, before throwing away your promises of salvation and setting yourself up for eternal punishment, plus lose your entire social standing and community?
And WHY is it that people DO lose their community and relationships? I'll tell you why. Because Mormons stop trusting them, stop respecting them, and push them relentlessly to return to church. Sometimes they get rejected, and sometimes exmos end up distancing themselves from people who will just never give up. I can tell you that the 'angry exmo' usually emerges when people continually prod and pester them about leaving the church.
I know a lot of exmos, and leaving is never easy. Especially when family, friends, neighbors, and coworkers/bosses are LDS. There is a high price for leaving. But people leave because they want to live an honest life, according to their OWN conscience, rather than according to the tenets of a false religion.
You: "Give me a chance to prove myself, so that you’ll realize that all TBMs aren’t the same. And don’t classify me with the other ‘enemies’."
Why would you need to prove yourself, unless you have an agenda? You are a faceless person on a message board. What you SAY proves nothing about anyone, not even you. My impressions of TBMs are based on real life interactions. Most of us here have relationships with plenty of Mormons, and already know that all TBMS aren't the same. Mormons are not enemies. I consider the enemy to be the toxic fear and vilification of those who leave. Sure, sometimes TBMS periodically piss exmos off with pushy or rude behavior. But Mormons are also beloved husbands, wives, sisters, brothers, neighbors, and friends to people on the board.
If you want to make a difference, just be a real friend. Stop judging exmos by what you've been told in church about them. Lay down your agenda to 'understand' (or pigeonhole) exmos. We are all people, just like you.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/17/2016 03:04AM by imaworkinonit.