...and just good old-fashioned ARROGANCE!!!

The real FEAR of embarrassment of having to admit to family and other loved ones that you've been SO WRONG for SO LONG keeps many of the TBM's that I know personally continuing to drink the LDS-Inc Kool-Aid & slurp up their Pablum!

Or so it seems to me...

A convert, I did not want to admit to my relatives that I had made a mistake with Mormonism. I also did not want to admit it to myself. At the same time, I feared divine punishment if I left and Mormonism turned out to be right (this before I started researching deeply on the internet). Joseph Smith had said that terrible things would happen to people who once knew the "light", then forsook it.

I was there too, Josephina. My TBM wife EXMO-outed me to my parents. In her hubris, she thought they would side with her and tell me to go back to church.

One of the reasons I always encourage folks to go kindly with kids and family who are TBMs is that my parents inadvertently pushed me deeper into Mormonism by their apeshit craziness when I joined. They coul$ have simply talked with me about my beliefs, but they screamed and threatened to disown me.

Now, as an old fart, I tell my relatives, “Hey, how about me? I joined a cult when I was younger! I’m making up for it now!”

Do you look like Tommy Chong?

BYU Boner Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I was there too, Josephina. My TBM wife EXMO-outed
> me to my parents. In her hubris, she thought they
> would side with her and tell me to go back to
> church.
>
> One of the reasons I always encourage folks to go
> kindly with kids and family who are TBMs is that
> my parents inadvertently pushed me deeper into
> Mormonism by their apeshit craziness when I
> joined. They coul$ have simply talked with me
> about my beliefs, but they screamed and threatened
> to disown me.
>
> Now, as an old fart, I tell my relatives, “Hey,
> how about me? I joined a cult when I was younger!
> I’m making up for it now!”

Why couldn't one of them just tell me the truth when i was young?

Badass, I’m telling you the truth, now. You are a remarkable man with a lot to give. So, Bro, do you believe me? Get feeling better with the spine stuff. Hugs, man!

Hubris is an interesting topic that has long fascinated me. And yes, it goes hand-in-hand with arrogance.

For a number of years I studied the Titanic disaster in detail (along with other shipwrecks,) because to me, it epitomizes hubris along with bad/questionable decision making. The assumption that the ship could not possibly sink, and that it could plow full speed, at night, through a dangerous iceberg field was its undoing. My opinion of Captain Smith, once he was confronted with the disaster, mellowed over time. I developed a more nuanced understanding of his subsequent decisions. But he did indeed suffer from hubris (along with many others,) arrogance, group-think, and serious lapses of judgement. When he went down with the ship, it represented his understanding that he needed to take responsibility for the disaster. In a sense, it was a sacrifice.

Mormon leaders likewise suffer from arrogance. I think inside every religious leader there must be at least a modest understanding that maybe, maybe, they might be wrong. That maybe someone else, someone from a different perspective, might have something of value to offer. That maybe kindness needs to be their guiding star.

Mormon leaders spend a great deal of time talking about modesty. But what they lack is the most valuable thing of all, a modest attitude.

I think they are products of their culture, which is a culture of competitive righteousness. They earned their positions the same way as Survivor contestants. Outwit, outplay, outlast. They even have a top three. They have evolved a definition of righteousness that’s a soup of 50s culture, prophet worship, and unquestioning obedience. Jesus sits way in the back of the bus.

I think a lot of the trouble may be that they live in a certain kind of bubble where everything is really nice. There is really no diversity, they are associated with long time old utah families. They are all successful men with wives who cater to their every pleasure, no divorce, no lgbt issues, no relations that are less than perfect, no deformities, no low IQs. They have attractive children who are at the top of the heap in every way I can think of, and attend the best schools on the east side and always associate with the upper class and their ways and ideas. And they always have lots of beautiful grandkids. No Latinos, which is curious since Utah really is actually made up of many different kinds of people.

So do the "bretheren" have delusion? can they understand the rest of Utah?

How could they? They live in a different world, a very blonde world, where they are adored.

The brethren have trouble with TRUTH.

Mormonism is a self-imposed learning disability.

Combined with fuckery :)

Cue the Survivor theme music...

you mean the MORmON leadership breathUrine ???

Funny thing !!! I fairly well followed MORmONISM's plan. when I was a TBM, I obeyed all of their rules right down the line. What the Hell are they going to do with some body like ???? -CONDEMN THEM ANYWAY!!!!!, out of MORmON habit, even if the condemnation is without real basis or real foundation.

That is THE treatment that I got from THE (MORmON) church. By the time I realized that being a MORmON was a huge mistake, It was NOTHING for me to admit that my being affiliated with MORmONISM was a huge mistake/ error.

WHY? because I had SO often been told all about how substandard and stupid that I was even when I was abiding by MORmONISM'S rules and precept. SO, me being wrong, regardless of what I did, was just the same old all too familiar deal, except that dumping obnoxious impossible to please MORmONISM meant that I did not have to have MORmON priestDUD leadershit johny on the spot trying to break me down by telling me how defective that I (supposedly) was, so it was an upgrade for me. Even as I admitted that I was wrong by being associated with fault finding MORmONISM, I had no where to go BUT UP !!!!

I was supposed to stick around for that kind of MORmON style abuse, because THEY expected me to. .....Well, to Hell with that arrangement !!!!

one of the biggest lessons of my life is that it is IMPOSSIBLE to please the @$$ holes who run THE (MORmON) church.

The MORmON ASSpostHOLES can NOT stand behind their BS Book of MORmON in any legitimate regard because they know it is garbage, but they want to keep the very real money rolling in from the book of MORmON scam, so they have to frame the matter in a rather meaningless context of "spirituality".
and tell people to rely on feelings over facts and reality. (......name any other area where such an approach would be taken seriously!!!!!!!)


so LDS Inc ends up with Russell Ballard giving some BS spiel on feelings over fact relative THE (MORmON) church's official LDS Inc response relative to inquiries about the highly questionable validity of the (BS) book of MORmON. Ballard puts out an utterly pathetic excuse for an "explanation" that is really a de facto admission that the Book of MORmON does NOT have any claim to legitimacy that can be cited with any reliability that they could hope to throw out.

Video link coming !!!

Anybody with any sense, you know -like the way that enlightened LDS leaders are supposed to be, would instantly be able to see that. As Ballard churns out that implausible BS, he is speaking for all of the MORmON quorum of the ASSpostHOLES/ LDS Inc executive leadership. .....I would be very resistant to having my name and my reputation attached to that kind of specious BS, just as any really responsible person would.

In that regard the MORmON ASSpostHOLES / executive leadership have a BIG problem, collectively, as they are dodging responsibility in a way that they would find abhorrent in one of their MORmON members who used the same ploy to evade paying tithing.

When it comes down to it, the MORmON ASSpostHOLES are really disgusting despicable phonies with a huge lack of integrity and hardly examples for good !

smirkorama Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> By the time I realized that being a MORmON
> was a huge mistake, It was NOTHING for me to admit
> that my being affiliated with MORmONISM was a huge
> mistake/ error.
>
> WHY? because I had SO often been told all about
> how substandard and stupid that I was even when I
> was abiding by MORmONISM'S rules and precepts.

Bravo, Smirk! This was me, too. After realizing the betrayal, coming out as EXMO was a breeze.

high five over the net, Boner !

What do they need to tell you to keep you going to meetings and even more importantly, to keep you paying MORmON tithing. WHATEVER it takes, that is what they will say, especially if you agree to not spread it around or to demand a big time (cut) calling your on what they bring in.

here is the promised video of Ballard giving his BS response on Book of MORmON supposed veracity https://youtu.be/aDPtEcZ4XzM