“Why they stay, or why they leave, is not based on circumstance. It’s based on character. It’s based on the individual. It’s based on the price they’ve paid to come to know and come to understand and come to be obedient to the teachings and the life of Jesus Christ.”

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865679354/Religion-professors-address-why-people-are-staying-in-the-LDS-Church-at-BYU-Womens-Conference.html

My mother went to this shit.

How come BYU produces some of the funniest satire ever? They're so cute, I just want to pinch their little TBM professor cheeks.

So, drinking the koolaide and pretending it's all true is "character," but following your convictions otherwise is not...? I beg to differ.

This is what they are telling themselves. Any inteligent person is going to have the same doubts as the rest of us. This is how they are fighting those doubts. This is how they hold on to what has become their entire life, but the real strength comes from letting go. The real strength comes from picking yourself up from the ruins and starting over.

Exactly, Slayer. They must be getting quite desperate if they are resorting to such a silly narrative now.

More dogma to control the minions.

The church knows if it doesn't exercise complete control over its members lives and how they process information, even other members leaving, it's lost.

It appears to BYU profs that millions of practicing Christians around the world-some in quite difficult circumstances- have no character...perhaps Kirby can run with this better than I did but a disturbing statement...

Gatorman
Apparently no character

"...participants were chatty and excited..."

Chatty. Because, you know, they're *women*.


Anyway, if you stay in the church after learning that the whole thing is based on a sham, you're not showing character, you're showing a lack of integrity.

IMO, the quote "...the price they’ve paid..." is supposed to hearken back to pioneer deprivation, the "extermination order", mission hardships, having a ton of kids and following a ton of rules, but I think the real price they pay is giving up their integrity...

Let's make a list of these mormon characters:
- Gullible fools
- Self-rightious hypocrites
- Holy ghost junkies
- Intellectually dishonest cowards
- Narcissistic pricks

Yeah. We are so impressed with mormon 'characters'. NOT!

brefots Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Let's make a list of these mormon characters:
> - Gullible fools
> - Self-rightious hypocrites
> - Holy ghost junkies
> - Intellectually dishonest cowards
> - Narcissistic pricks
>
> Yeah. We are so impressed with mormon
> 'characters'. NOT!

Love this!!! Thank you. I've known members with multiple 'character' traits. :-)

I took note of him mentioning gays staying in the church. It hit a bit close to home that she posted that, but it is better to just let it go. My son told me that she told him that I (me) just didn't feel the spirit as strongly as she did or I wouldn't have left.

This article kind of upset me yesterday and I talked to my boyfriend about it. He said that it took a lot more character to leave than it did to stay, to stop being a sheep. He knew me back when. I was the perfect little mormon girl. I just keep telling myself that my daughter has the right to be just like I was back then. Maybe there is hope for her after all if I got out.

The fact that the church is not true would hit hardest for those people who took it most seriously, wouldn't it?

Let's see, which requires more character? Enduring the sh!t of Mormonism, or enduring the sh!t they give you for not enduring the sh!t of Mormonism?

Thanks Stray, this gave me reason to smile,

My sentiments exactly. You took the words right out of my mouth. True character comes from having the Integrity to follow your convictions comma especially when your convictions and believe a happened to differ from those of religion that you have been raised in and a culture that you have been enmeshed in.

With all of the churches quasi-empathetic "we understand" bullshit about various groups if you choose to leave the church, whether they are gay people who are tired of their bigotry, people who have stopped believing, or people who just managed to think their way out, I don't think they'd understand in the slightest the struggle those people, at least most of them, had to endure from their family and there whole circle of people that mostly included Mormons. The struggles usually include isolation, scorn, and eventually shunning and abandonment. There are sometimes exceptions, and maybe phony friends who try to weasel there way into staying into your life with their only intent being to get you back to church, which is really worse than someone deciding to abandon you.

No, Mormons have no idea. There are no doubt countless legions of Mormons who have long figured out that the church is a scam, Joseph Smith was a fraud and a con man, The Book of Mormon is nonsense, but stay in the church and Proclaim lies from the pulpit about there true and sincere belief and how they "KNOW" it's all true. I have perhaps a few drops of sympathy for these individuals who do it knowing that the alternative is failed marriages, loss of employment, and abandonment by friends, but look at all the examples of people on this forum who have endured and live to tell the tale in spite of that. No, these Mormons have no integrity and are cowards.

In my book, those who leave have integrity and grit. Those that stay and pretend to be TBM could enjoy life a whole lot more by facing the facts. It's all made up Bull pucky.

Who else gets to make such a blue pill / red pill choice? Thank goodness for Horny Joe.

Stroking the egos of the faithful at the expense of others. Nothing new.

I thought Barbara Morgan Gardner's words sounded familiar. She said the same thing six months ago:

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865668355/Mormons-with-doubts-shouldnt-give-up-faith-without-intellectual-and-spiritual-kicking-and.html

people who stay have dubious moral character.

It's the hallmark of a cult to not leave open the possibility it isn't the only one. If someone leaves they failed the church rather than the church failed them.

A church that is not a cult would not shame or guilt people who decide it isn't for them.

Now I keep thinking of that Clash song " Should I stay, or should I go"

Another thinly-veiled passive-aggressive accusation, that anyone who leaves the cult lacks "character."

This also reiterates the THREAT that apostates will be shunned for a more serious, deeper offense than being "offended, lazy, wanting to sin."

Mormons, like Cold-Dodger's mother, keep on learning more and more hatred towards non-Mormons. If she's like my TBM mother, she probably loathes herself for being a failure as a mother.

Yes, the price they pay is integrity. They don't pay any price to God, however.

I admit that my hatred of the Mormon cult has grown, over time.
But we still love our Mormon family members. We see our TBM parents, innocent BIC children, and new converts as VICTIMS. The cult has brainwashed them, and inoculated them with "shit" like this talk--so we have to rely on patience, time, and LOVE to set our loved ones free. We'll never give up trying.

The cult has never been kind to its members, but now it seems to be attacking it's own. Doesn't it upset Mormons on a personal level, to have their apostate children, their non-Mormon friends, the gays in their lives--maligned and accused all the time?

I loved what Stray Mutt wrote.

One would have to be a character to swallow the mormon delusion.

It takes Character and much strength to leave. 'They' who say leaving is the easy option have no idea, no idea at all.

Caractors.

LOL I'd say, "Well that's rich. You've just revealed yourself to be a judgemental, self-righteous, arrogant, pompous ass, and you're worried about MY character."

You're right, lydia 100. They have no idea that it's those who leave who have the strength and the courage to do so. It's not an easy thing to do. We have the courage to peek outside of the Mormon bubble and realize that there's a whole world out there to explore.

I know most Mormons view the ones who leave as being 'weak' and they think it's all about us giving in to the temptations of the world or something. As if it's just because we want to do drugs (and as if most of them are not doing drugs? Hello 'Happy Valley' got it's name from having the highest Prosac use in the country!)

Anyway they think it's weakness and don't consider how hard it is to leave a cult! How hard it is to 'come out' and tell your family and face shunning and sometimes disowning. To potentially lose all of your family and friends (if you live in an LDS community), to completely ostracize yourself and cut yourself off.

To question all you had believed as truth. This is NOT easy and certainly we are not the weak ones! If anything the opposite is true.

My mom used to sit around the house so worried about all of these people she heard about leaving the church (This before I had or before I had come out) and she'd refer to them as 'dropping like flies'.. I always thought that was such a bizarre analogy. Are we flies?? And are we dropping dead?

She also used to defend her over use of make up by quoting one of the GAs saying (I forget which one said this) he had said (in re. to women and make up) that sometimes 'old barns need new paint!!) And I thought she really thinks of herself as a 'old barn' and she doesn't see what's wrong with that analogy???

With regard to BYU students and teachers, you can't leave because it will add years to your college career (most schools wont accept lots of byu credits due to religious bias). Professors cant leave due to the job. Im guessing there are lots of students & profs staying because they are stuck. I tsught at byu idaho and got booted because I no longer had a recommend. I went eent into it knowing i needed a recommend, but my bishop was a total asshole about it and told byui a bunch of negative stuff about me without even telling me byui had contacted him. It all went downhill quick from there.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/07/2017 03:33PM by perky.