We all have some kind of cognitive dissonance according to the article quoted and linked below.

For example, when I was Mormon I believed Nephites and Lamanites really existed and thought that in church. When I was reading about ancient America and Mesoamerican peoples I didn't really think that Nephites and Lamanites were really part of these things and peoples. I put the Mormon stuff in a Sunday and scriptural box. Rationalizing that Nephites and Lamanites were a subgroup of the ancient peoples of this continent, when reading The Book of Mormon this subgroup blew up to millions of people traversing large swathes of this land riding horses, eating wheat, smelting steel for swords, and building cities of cement.

Then Joseph Smith's history of sexual predation popped up in a gift of genealogy from my sister in her adoration for our esteemed ancestor.

I couldn't hold all the contradictions in anymore.

I couldn't be Mormon no more. I couldn't hold their platitudes anymore. I think I reached my personal limit of holding contradictions. Mormonism couldn't exist if the following weren't true for human beings.

"You make a mental note that your beliefs aren’t really contradictory. Instead, one belief holds in one set of circumstances, and the opposite holds in other circumstances. This has the benefit of being cognitively true."
https://www.fastcompany.com/3067169/how-your-brain-makes-you-hold-contradictory-beliefs

I contradict myself. I was Mormon, I contain multiple attitudes towards Mormonism and not one of them contradicts my belief that we would all be better without it.

Thanks for the information. This does help to explain how otherwise intelligent and reasonable people can cling so tenaciously to the ridiculous mess of beliefs that is Mormonism.

Shinehah Wrote:
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> This does help to
> explain how otherwise intelligent and reasonable
> people can cling so tenaciously to the ridiculous
> mess of beliefs that is Mormonism.

Something in my over a decade of reading RfM that has baffled me is the continual posting of threads that goes something like this, "Why do smart, richly cerebrally endowed, influentially critical thinking, beautiful minded, intelligent and reasonable people follow Mormonism?"

Because people believe lots of things that don't have much ground in my reality or what many people commonly accept as facts contrary to their beliefs. My above cited example of First People's here in The Americas versus crazy Bible-esque stories of lost tribes of Israel. It could be Big Foot or Space Ships or Historical Jesus, angels or demons.

I get why and I don't get howscome people coming to RfM don't.

The "thing" that gets us to lift up the curtain and peek at what's behind it...that can be different for everyone.

What's common to us all, though:

We peeked. We saw. And we left. :)

ificouldhietokolob Wrote:
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> We peeked. We saw. And we left. :)

The naked Mormon prophet whether it be dead Joe with Fanny Alger or the living Heartsell surgeon doing a vivisection on the church in his blood stained garments to find what needs ministering.

My mind got tons of contridictions through it all. It is still sorting it out. BS from reality.

Nice Walt Whitman reference.

But, it's so hard to leave.

For some it is even impossible.

I wonder if it's possible to know you're living a lie, and be content with the life that results? Why wouldn't this be possible?

I don't believe in the "right" way to live one's life. One does the best with what has and devil take the hindmost.

elderolddog Wrote:
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> For some it is even impossible.

This was my takeaway and deep insight. If Mormons can "manage" their internal contradictions it would be impossible for them to take a more "Scientific" approach in discarding what the evidence points out is more probabilistically false.

Funny thing about humans - they can easily maintain internal contradiction as long as they perceive it as beneficial. This is why leaving Mormonism usually starts with "something personal." They start discounting something that they saw was beneficial and then the contradiction they saw as beneficial becomes burdensome.

I'm no different. I can testify that once I internally reached a level where my internal contradictions around Mormonism started to adversely affect my psychology I had to push the eject button on it and damn the consequences.

until it came to my life experience. When I look back now, I never really bought into JS or the BofM. I tried. I read it more than most of my family/friends. I did what I was told.

And THEN. The gay issue was too big for me to deny. I thought for sure that all the GAs had a direct link to God and there was no way in hell that my boyfriend could possibly be damned if he didn't change to straight. And if he had to change to straight, then they had to have the answer. If they didn't, they just needed to talk to God, like they said they did.

For the ONE ANSWER that could impact my life AND HIS LIFE, and my children's lives, they had no answers. In fact, they had the wrong answers. When he "failed" and I "failed," I knew they were wrong. Dead wrong. I couldn't deny what I KNEW then.

Many people still consider me at fault for him not being "saved." Oh well. I know what I know.

I've said this before, I asked some Catholic friends of mine how they felt about the priest sexual abuse scandal (this was over 10 years ago I asked) and they said that it was unfortunate. My feeling is that it is a hell of a lot more than unfortunate if it happens to you.

My life was "destroyed" by what they did to US. I, myself, had to pick up the pieces and surely wasn't going to live the way I had that brought me to that point. My life has gone much better since I walked away from mormonism, though it comes back to haunt me.

Its a Circus!!! PT Barnum talked about it years ago.
There are just TOO many suckers out there and once
you figure that out...then you have your answer.

Joseph Smith was more likely to say this than Barnum.

" "There's a sucker born every minute" is a phrase closely associated with P. T. Barnum, an American showman of the mid-19th century, although there is no evidence he in fact said it. Early examples of its use are found instead among gamblers and confidence men."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There%27s_a_sucker_born_every_minute