while the Mormon church does not own morality, charity or any other good thing, what "Mormon" principles have you retained?

Having accepted an agnostic/atheist view of the universe for a couple of years now, there are several teachings in the LDS church that are still good and worth keeping in my life.

Being faithful to my TBM wife and she to me. I am so lucky that she still loves me unconditionally and I her.

Word of Wisdom. I strive to eat healthy including drinking coffee and tea when I so desire. Just as the church ignores the whole “eat very little meat” parts, I choose to ignore the lame ass temperance movement part about hot drinks. I guess you could say that I am following my own word of wisdom. I choose to follow the best advice of current scientific understanding and medicine and strive to live healthy and prevent illnesses that shorten my life or take away quality of life.
That said, I really have no desire to drink alcohol even though I have had many opportunities and been offered free drinks. Anyone else experience this? I guess some habits are hard to break. Smoking? That’s unhealthy and just seems dumb to me, so why even start?

Gardening. I “feel the spirit” stronger while working in my garden than I ever had in the temple or at church. Or rather I have strong endorphin releasing experiences while contemplating how amazing it is that in this crap shoot universe I am alive and even here at all. What a great time to be alive and to even exist at all and to be part of a diverse evolutionary family tree here on Earth. My mind and heart is filled with joy and reverence just thinking about it all. I feel righteous!
How cool it will be to discover life on another planet and to compare/contrast its DNA to all creatures on Earth. Same DNA? Cool we are all related and transplanted. Different DNA? Awesome, life got started independently on different worlds. How cool it will be to (plausibly) one day colonize other planets and grow stuff on alien soil?

Tithing. I still choose to donate financially but now I give exclusively to organizations of my own choosing and on my terms. Efficient, transparent charities of all kinds. Not a firm, fixed 10% of gross income, just whatever feel that I can afford to give at the time. Sometimes more, sometimes less, sometimes not at all.

Not being a dick. That is still a good one but now I widen it to include all people, not just those who go to church with me and look and act like me.

I choose to be honest to myself and true to my conscience. If I die and find out that I was wrong and the Mormon church was right all along, I will happily take my place in the Telestial kingdom or in hell or wherever it is I go for not following blindly. In hell there is endless geothermal energy and as someone who has “the knack” and who has on many occasions taken a dump and fixed it up really nice, I welcome the challenge.

None.

Yes, mormons "teach" that you should be "faithful" to your spouse. That's hardly unique to mormons, or original to them, so it's not a "mormon principle."

I never once heard any mormon teach "don't be a dick." In fact, there were multiple occasions that what mormons taught me to do *would* be "being a dick."

Nobody -- and I do mean nobody -- needs the mormon church (or any other) to teach them anything. Learning to think and reason leads one to "good" conclusions, without having to "follow" somebody else's "teachings."

Yes! My TBM brother is the biggest dick I know.

I avoid strong spirits, but will drink a tall, cold barley drink.

I used to NEVER take the Lord's name in vain...

I've stopped stealing cars, though, so I hope that balances things out on the scales of eternal justice.

I went through a similar exercise when I left the Catholic Church. I deliberately (deliberatively?) went through everything I was taught from the pulpit, the nuns, and Catechism. Once I stripped away the superstitious and the mystical, I discovered that everything worth saving was universally accepted as appropriate behavior in a civilized society, and hardly unique to Catholicism.

I had already burned off all of the Catholic (and religious) trappings long before I met my wife; however, based solely on how I managed my life and treated others, she concluded that I was Mormon at heart, and even more Mormon than many Mormons she knew. Of course, her definition of "Mormon" is based on her idealized notion of what a Mormon is. It's why she was so convinced I would convert once I read the BoM, because I was already such a decent and moral person. I had to explain that how I act is just common decency and compassion, and not something distinctly Mormon.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/13/2017 11:31AM by GregS.

THANK YOU, GregS: You posted

"based solely on how I managed my life and treated others, (my wife) concluded that I was Mormon at heart, and even more Mormon than many Mormons she knew. Of course, her definition of "Mormon" is based on her idealized notion of what a Mormon is. It's why she was so convinced I would convert once I read the BoM, because I was already such a decent and moral person. I had to explain that how I act is just common decency and compassion, and not something distinctly Mormon."

I have run into this, and it makes my blood boil. My nevermo mother had embroidered me a beautiful wall-hanging that said something about families being forever (Mormons, contrary to popular mormon beliefs, are not the only people on the planet who think that family is important, or who, believing in an afterlife, think that families will get to interact in it!!! hmph!!!!! So my TDM sees my mother's wall hanging and makes a comment about how she must be mormon---grrrr.

I don't know why that is so irritating---but it does sometimes come across as if the mormons think they have a corner on what is in fact normal civilized behavior!!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/16/2017 05:20PM by relievedtolearn.

I find principles/ethics to not belong to any one group. I know a lot of NeverMos who take good care of their bodies, and give to charities/help others, who have never even given a second thought to the Mormon church in their whole lives. They have formed their own personal credos which happen to have much in common with much of the civilized world. I work with a ton of people who love and care about their families and I dare say without being told from some pulpit to do it.

I have not retained anything Mormon. I cut all of it out and started from scratch. I upgraded to the natural and genuine--like most of the people I know now in the NeverMo world I live in. Go SoCal! With all due respect for your intent, I find this kind of post to say, "I'm still a good person even though I'm not Mormon." It's like trying to prove something to the Mormons who claim to be superior.

What I did get from the Mormon church was a great recipe for Funeral Potatoes and a big list of things "not to do."

I still research my geneology and I still believe that "moderation in all things" is a pretty damn good rule of thumb. This just means I don't get too drunk too often. ;-)

Also, "As I have loved you, love one another," I find to be another good way to live, recognizing that love is a thing you do and not a thing you can obtain.

"Being faithful to my TBM wife and she to me. I am so lucky that she still loves me unconditionally and I her."

> Not unique to mormonism.

Word of Wisdom. I strive to eat healthy including drinking coffee and tea when I so desire. Just as the church ignores the whole “eat very little meat” parts, I choose to ignore the lame ass temperance movement part about hot drinks. I guess you could say that I am following my own word of wisdom. I choose to follow the best advice of current scientific understanding and medicine and strive to live healthy and prevent illnesses that shorten my life or take away quality of life.
That said, I really have no desire to drink alcohol even though I have had many opportunities and been offered free drinks. Anyone else experience this? I guess some habits are hard to break. Smoking? That’s unhealthy and just seems dumb to me, so why even start?

> Not unique to mormnism

Gardening. I “feel the spirit” stronger while working in my garden than I ever had in the temple or at church. Or rather I have strong endorphin releasing experiences while contemplating how amazing it is that in this crap shoot universe I am alive and even here at all. What a great time to be alive and to even exist at all and to be part of a diverse evolutionary family tree here on Earth. My mind and heart is filled with joy and reverence just thinking about it all. I feel righteous!
How cool it will be to discover life on another planet and to compare/contrast its DNA to all creatures on Earth. Same DNA? Cool we are all related and transplanted. Different DNA? Awesome, life got started independently on different worlds. How cool it will be to (plausibly) one day colonize other planets and grow stuff on alien soil?

> Not unique to mormonism

Tithing. I still choose to donate financially but now I give exclusively to organizations of my own choosing and on my terms. Efficient, transparent charities of all kinds. Not a firm, fixed 10% of gross income, just whatever feel that I can afford to give at the time. Sometimes more, sometimes less, sometimes not at all.

> Not unique to mormonism

Not being a dick. That is still a good one but now I widen it to include all people, not just those who go to church with me and look and act like me.

> mormonism does not teach this, in fact, you say you "widened" your view to be more inclusive of all people after mormonism

I choose to be honest to myself and true to my conscience. If I die and find out that I was wrong and the Mormon church was right all along, I will happily take my place in the Telestial kingdom or in hell or wherever it is I go for not following blindly. In hell there is endless geothermal energy and as someone who has “the knack” and who has on many occasions taken a dump and fixed it up really nice, I welcome the challenge.

> Not unique to mormonism

I left behind all the "mormon" principles, and kept the ones that have always been more universal, therefore they were never original "mormon" principles. Let's give credit where credit is due, OK?

Have never smoked or had a drink. Never saw a need to. Too old to start now.

I have always been willing to help someone in need. It seems like even more so since leaving the church. I pride myself on being more kind, gracious, charitable, and caring than the TBM members I used to go to church with.

For me, it's gambling. We had a "casino night" at work for our holiday party a few years ago, where the company gave us tokens to play with (I assume you could exchange them at the end of the night for some kind of gift or loot or something - definitely not money), and I was surprised at how I reacted. Not only did I not want to play, I *really* didn't want to play. My boss tried (in a friendly way) to jostle me into it and show me how (roulette or craps or something uncomplicated), and I pulled away, feeling inside like I would if someone was physically dragging me over to see a gross bug or spider or something equally scary to me.

I still can't quite figure out why I react so strongly, but I do recall the "no gambling, no face cards" thing growing up as a Mormon, so I can't help but think that had a part in it.

I scrub my own toilets and use Ty D Bol.

^^^^This^^^^^

"Mormon principles" is an oxymoron.

The Mormon cult takes credit for all that is good, and that makes me mad. I know so many wonderful Mormon people who say they "owe it all to The Church", when they worked hard, and allowed their own inborn good character to blossom--in spite of the cult--not because of the cult.

Mormons make a claim on "The Family." Families have been around since the cave man days. I know many wonderful Mormon families, who are collectively brainwashed into thinking that without the cult (and paying and obeying), their family would fall apart.

Marriage and fidelity--no, these are definitely not Mormon principles. I was married to two Mormon men, and one beat me and the other cheated on me, and when I as a single divorcee, many more Mormon men in my wards hit on me.

Even the Bible Christians don't have a monopoly on the basic "Ten-Commandments" principles. The finest people I have ever known have been Atheists.

Mormons rule by fear and threats, not by examples of virtue. Look at their leaders! Joseph Smith the pedophile con-man, and the other polygamists, down to I-don't-know-that-we-teach-that GBH, and Let's-Go-Shopping Monson. There's not a saintly do-gooder in the bunch! No Mother Theresa's in the Mormon cult. The bottom line is that money corrupts.

Most human beings are too good for the Mormon cult.

Thrift, honesty, dependability, good character, Judgement. These qualities are not exclusive to mormons so I don't give them credit because I turned out reasonably well.

I noticed that so far none of the unmarried peeps have credited MIA for keeping them from heavy petting or extra-marital sex!

Great list Jackman! I love plays on words and earthiness, so I hope you feel comfortable being addressed as e-jack-man!

With my buddie Hie, I agree, one does not need Mormonism, or any other religion, to teach these; but I’ve retained the following mindsets from Mormonism.

1. Despite my earthiness, I remain faithful to my TBM wife. Although my marriage is difficult, I will not cheat.

2. Some parts of the WoW are sound and basically common sense. I have never been drunk and never intend to be.

3. In the spirit of your words, I try not to be a dick :D

4. I haven’t calculated a percentage, buy I do donate to my current church and other organizations. The ratio is about 1-part church to 4-parts others.

Probing deeper with item 1: fantasizing is not cheating. Thinking is not the same as doing, I reject the Book of Mormon shit that our thoughts will condemn us. I do feel that caring for our neighbors is common in many religious teachings and is sound wisdom. That doesn’t mean I can’t think my neighbor is jerk or that a smart, good-looking woman is hot.

Item number 2: use of tobacco or street drugs is not a moral failure! But rather, a health concern. Those who have substance abuse problems should receive support and encouragement, not judgment.

And 3: I love fucking love to cuss! But, I don’t use cuss words to hurt people or around those who are easily offended. But, droppng an f-bomb at the right time and in the right context makes people feel better or builds friendships.

Things from Mormonism I reject: judging people, only being friends with certain types of people, trying to legislate other people’s lifestyles or morality, encouraging shame or guilt, cult-like practices, and somehow thinking that I’m superior to someone else because of my lifestyle.

Thanks for your post. The Boner.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/13/2017 02:19PM by BYU Boner.

BYU Boner and e-jack-man. Ha ha. Now there's a fine combination if there ever was one. LOL.

Good list too.

Yeah, I'm still not a cuss word user. Except when they are truly warranted. I feel that cuss words are like fine china that you only bring out during special occasions. Used too often they become diluted and lose their shock value and luster. Dammit.

Well, there are a few people here (who remain unidentified) who might encourage you to cuss. It—along with trucks, dogs, beer, good food, faded jeans, music, and good friends—is one of life’s little pleasures. Welcome eJack! The Boner.

My haircut.

Once I bought what I thought was a banana muffin from a convenience store. It turned out to be coffee flavored. I got such bad heartburn from that muffin that I will never try coffee.

My first thought was "I remain faithful to and very much in love with my spouse." But that is not exclusively Mormon.

I drink tea, and the occasional cocktail in a restaurant. No alcohol kept at home.

I swear like a pirate when necessary or therapeutic. Bilingually.

I read and or watch (movies) whatever I choose. (No change there; I never paid attention to the "R" restriction.)

I no longer attend a church of any kind.

I donate to charities I believe in.

Overall, I don't think I have a very good exmo track record. But I try to be a decent person.

0

I've retained my passive aggression and neuroticism. Well, not all of it. I've been slipping lately.

Haha. Too funny. Too true!

Those are the "parting gifts' I didn't want to retain but they stuck to the heel of my shoe like toilet paper for a while. Learning to give up the facade was hard.

It's really more about retaining nothing Mormon for me. Getting it all out of my system, every last bit. That was the crux.

Most of my early education school teachers were LDS.

Combined with my religious upbringing it is hard to separate what wasn't a derivative of an LDS upbringing. It all was pretty much.

It's shaped who I've become for much of my lifetime. The LDS values were good ones.

It is the religion that's phony baloney.

Training us up to be honest and upright is what led to my leaving TSCC when I did. I followed the teachings so well that I walked right out of the cult once I recognized I was in one.

:)

Not a hell of a lot. I cuss and drink and have never read scripture. Honesty is what I got from my atypical TBM (I think) father. Dad's honest living didn't have much to do with his being a Mormon and more with his having been raised by a father who wasn't much of an example. Dad as a young man made the decision to not follow in his father's footsteps. I have spent my life trying to follow his standard.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/14/2017 10:11AM by Lethbridge Reprobate.

-- the Sunday afternoon snooze
-- the bringing of weird Jell-O salads to any and all potlucks
-- the ability to appear awake during very boring meetings (although this is not an exclusively Mormon principle, they seem to have perfected it)

I have retained an insatiable desire to drag a wooden wheelbarrow across Nebraska and Wyoming in October.

Not!

I still don't drink alcohol or coffee, though I am addicted to tea. PROPER tea that is, not this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rG-rMpQT-GQ&t=67s

Another big thing is humility. I am always very friendly and polite to people who serve me. If you a say "merci monsieur!" to the 13-year-old delivery boy of the flower shop, he appreciates your tip a lot more than when you just leave a few dirhams on the table and mention it without even looking at him. So I would never do a Maggie Smith like in the video above!

Nothing that is good about Mormonism is unique.

Nothing that is unique about Mormonism is good.

Very nice! Make t-shirts with one sentence on the front, the other on the back and mail them out to random names in Utah phonebooks.

Perfect!

CrispingPin Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Nothing that is good about Mormonism is unique.
>
> Nothing that is unique about Mormonism is good.

Yeah, I'd like to qualify my answer with the above. So basically none. Whatever "good" principles I was taught in Mormonism, I have kept but can be found elsewhere. And whatever that is unique in Mormonism I disregarded.

But I assume the "biggies" when Mormons think of being a good person is Law of Chastity and Word of Wisdom. I break those commandments all the time, haha.

Not so much principles, but I still have four shelves of Mormon books, including the famed quad scriptures. (I paid a lot of money for those and they are not going to a used bookstore anytime soon).

But...these books are for reference purposes only. I certainly don't linger over them in a loving way.

I have books from all sorts of other religions, too. And who knows what else.

As far as principles, I am who I am. Kinda Catholic but not sure at the moment. I give what I can to a local animal shelter. I must have tea several times a day but caffeinated coffee makes me ill.

Nothing complicated.

The only thing I can think of is when I'm at a community event, or military event and there's a short prayer before , even if I don't agree , to be polite, I automatically gold my arms and now my head, when others are just bowing their heads?

I meant ( you probably already guessed ) I fold my arms and bow my head.LOL

Mormons got principles?

jackman Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Not being a dick.


I don't know that they teach *that*.

Unfortunately, it was a lesson I learned all too well...

Sometimes I take my slippers off and after a couple of minutes I put them back on again.

Because of my mormon upbringing, I can lie my ass off when being interviewed.

Very, very handy, so thanks, ghawd!!

This is due more to my wife's OCD and what she picked up as a BYU student than it is to anything with which I was indoctrinated, but we're relatively well-prepared for mild to moderate emergencies. We don't do the two-year supply thing, but we could get by for at least two months on the food, water, household supplies, (but only a few packages of diapers and pull-ups for kid illness/emergencies, BECAUSE WE ARE OFFICIALLY OUT OF THE DIAPER STAGE day and night FOR BOTH KIDS, PRAISE JEEBUS!!!) and medications we have here. We have access without ATM to the cash we would need for six months. We don't go to sleep at night without our gas tanks being at least half full. We have emergency kits ready to throw in our cars for the event of an unexpected evacuation.

Even my OCD wife doesn't lose much sleep over the possibilities because we've done what we reasonably can to prepare.

On an unrelated note, no one told me in advance just how unbelievably great it would be to have kids potty-trained, plus it's like getting a raise in pay with no longer having to buy diapers or pull-ups. It's a headache at times such as when you're on a crowded freeway in terms of sometimes having about two minutes max between the time a kid announces a need for a bathroom and the time that need is fulfilled with or without a bathroom, but the warning time gets a bit longer each week. I may have to help clean a kid up after an accident (hasn't happened yet, knock on wood), but barring illness, I'll never need to change one of my own kids' diapers again. I hadn't realized just how much I hated it until it was over. I have a new lease on life.

Fear, guilt, low self esteem, I got 'em.

Many say the good in Mormonism is not unique to them. But it seems not many in the outside world put together that lifestyle.

Maybe I'm in the wrong crowd, but I see more train wrecks outside the church than inside - less stable families, more drug and alcohol abuse, etc.

I don't consider Mormons to be more moral. It is just that they often do good things due to peer pressure. Outside the church the peer pressure is often to do things like get drunk or teenagers having sex, etc.

Which has been my biggest disappointment since leaving. I thought I could use reason on my kids to avoid certain things, but turns out peer pressure means more than anything. They've turned out okay, but went through some difficult times.

I wish there was an organization with the church's lifestyle, without the religion. Seems the choice is churches or bars.

Despite their big brain, humans aren't very rational. Most are just following the crowd, so good to have the right crowd to follow.

Free Man Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> Maybe I'm in the wrong crowd, but I see more train
> wrecks outside the church than inside - less
> stable families, more drug and alcohol abuse,
> etc.
>


Maybe it's purely coincidental, but my experience has not been the same as yurs. I haven't sene the total ghetto lifestyle of multiple children out of wedlock, each with a different father, or the almost unbelievable redneckicity of white trashism, in members of the church, but that's not something I see in the non-Mormon middle class around me, either. The vast majority of middle class people with whom I deal are faithful to their partners, don't abuse substances, don't conceive children with their first cousins, and hold down regular jobs.

The only people I've personally heard of having issues with pornography are Mormons. I don't know whether that is because it's OK to view a few nude pictures in moderation outside of Mormon circles, where within the church any sign whatsoever of porn is a major cause for panic, or if the strength of the ban in Mormonism makes it all the more attractive to a segment of its membership. Also, I almost never hear of any marriages ending over one party's or the other's loss of faith except within Mormonism.

Perhaps most of the dysfunction of the families isn't quite on par with the stuff one would see on Jerry Springer, but I've seen a whole lot of dysfunction within the LDS church starting with too damn many kids for the amount of money a couple is bringing in, then continuing when the couple lacks not only the financial but also the intellectual and emotional resources to parent their over-sized families. The fundamentalist quiverfull movement isn't strong or even in existence where I live. Mormons are the only ones around me breeding like head lice and raising their offspring as though they're r-selected organisms.

Many of those who occupy the projects in America's inner cities or the prototypically redneck hamlets of the U.S.'s less urban areas present a greater level of dysfunction than can be found in most Mormon neighborhoods. That level of chaos isn't found within the non-Mormon middle class in my area, either, though.

Honestly, the values I liked in Mormons were the values I already ascribed to before joining their church. So why would I abandon them after leaving? They didn't teach them to me so I don't really give Mormonism credit for my core values. And why they think I would become a moral deviant after resigning membership in their club is puzzling and insulting.

None.