Sufficient is the day unto the evil thereof. Mormonism is a pernicious kind of evil. So maybe I’m addicted to RFM. I dunno. I keep circling back around and looking at Mormonism with new eyes. It always looks bad, but there’s always something to learn.

I just want Mormonism gone. I know it’s a lot to ask, but with God all things are possible. The personality cult of a lying POS sociopath needs to die, for the world’s sake. Like putting down a mad dog.

And yet, God works in mysterious ways. Maybe I was supposed to grow up in the church and get the whole enchilada. I must have really pissed off God in my previous life.

People can't let go because the church was all they knew growing up. It's not that the church is all they know, but the fact that it affects their relationships with family and friends. Once they come to the conclusion the church is a fraud and they leave, it becomes a lonely and awkward situation where one thinks "what now?" I picked up on that from RFM. Correct me if I'm wrong. I'm never-mo and I feel for everyone who has had the misfortune of being raised in the church.

We were raised to be "in the world but not of the world." We were taught to be set apart from an early age on. Helenm is astute in seeing with her objectivity what we emotionally may not. Being Mormon was the standard we compared the rest of the world to, and it never measured up.

So when you leave, you leave the false security that was there. The delusion that only it has the truth that is superior to all other. What truth? There really is no theology to Mormonism other than mantras, rituals and oaths.

It's based on a false doctrine except for the plagiarized parts of the KJV bible such as the Beatitudes and Sermon on the Mount. All else is extraneous and written by a false prophet who managed to deceive "the very elect" prophecied in scripture.

I still don't feel at home "in the world," but I'm comfortable in my own skin for what that's worth. I've made peace with my past, but I still don't pretend to understand the mystery of it all.

I have the same sentiment, that I long for this horribly dishonest and deceptive church/religion to vanish.As a troubled teen from an abuse background, they made me believe that it had supernatural powers above all other churches. When I figured out that it wasn't true, I still was terrified to let go--ex-Mormons were under the buffetings of Satan. They end up as alcoholics and drug addicts living in the street and the lives of their children went to pot. It's amazing how much power Mormonism has to keep vulnerable people in their grip.

I believe there’s always a reason for everything. I still hang onto an irrational optimism. TSCC is a microcosm of a wider tyranny. It’s easier to study due to the smaller scope. I’m amazed at how it all works, this self-perpetuating system that fools people into letting it prey on them. There are many wolves in sheep’s clothing, but this one is mine.

It’s not so much that I lost my tribe. I always felt like a stranger in a strange land. It’s that the delusion was so total up until the time that it wasn’t. If the church is total BS, what else is? Materialism, economics and war doctrine seem to be yet more cults fraught with absurdity. And more Kool Aid drinkers. Maybe I’ll never figure it out, but at least I know what I’m dealing with.

Not only did I feel like a stranger in a strange land or a fish out of water but I feel like I am just visiting this planet from somewhere else. I am a stranger in society but I survive the best I know how. Every organization on the planet seems like it mirrors the tcss now, all pyramids with sharks at the top feeding on the helpless on the bottom.

About your back pain, watch the Joe Rogan podcast with Diamond Dallas Page.

babyloncansuckit Wrote:
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> About your back pain, watch the Joe Rogan podcast
> with Diamond Dallas Page.

I fear I may have to get my SI joints fused in the end. That is what it is looking like right now. I tried just about everything else even CBD oil and magnet therapy. I will check out the video though.

among many hoaxes.

My struggle with the Mormon hoax, which ended with me thinking my way out of the hoax, has made it easier for me to spot other hoaxes. The basic toolkit used by scammers and hoaxers relies on a relatively limited number of techniques for manipulating unsuspecting, uncritical people into falling for the hoax. In that respect, Mormonism has been instructive to me and I continue to study it because I continue to find useful insights regarding the human condition. People are people. Mormons are not a breed apart. They are just people who ended up in the Mormon herd as a result of birth or a convergence of circumstances that made them particularly susceptible to being sucked into Mormonism (as opposed to Scientology, JW-ism, or rabid Communism or any other -ism).

Incidentally (well, not so incidentally), I share your feeling of being in a place where I feel I don't really belong. Humanity seems weird to me. And it seems weird that humanity and this existence would seem weird, since they are all I've ever really known. It's like a fish thinking that water is weird. That's weird.

I see humanity basically being organized as herds. With a few admirable exceptions, most herd members don't question anything. They just look at where the herd is going and follow along, without any inkling of who and what is controlling the movements of the herd.

The Mormon herd is just one of many herds. I have no desire to be a herd animal. But imagine the fate of an independent-minded sheep or cow if the herd is stampeded in one direction and the independent one doesn't want to go in that direction. The independent one either gets trampled or gets singled out for corrective action.

You saying "God works in mysterious ways." Christianity is far more messed up than Mormonism. So if you traded one fairy tale for another, there will always be that cognitive dissonance. That is my theory on why atheist ex-Mormons can let it go easier.

Its okay to throw the Baby out with the bath water when that baby is evil and destroys lives. (The baby here being Christianity in general).

I was very careful to check before acting....


As it turned out there was no baby. It was all dirty bathwater.

(Funny thing about that expression. If someone actually could accidentally throw a baby out with the bathwater, wouldn't that mean that the baby was dead? I mean if the baby's head is not above the water.... Makes me wonder what kind of world people were living in when that expression was first coined.)

Yeah that's a better way to say it. The bathwater is dirty and the baby is dead. throw it all out and take a hot shower. I took 5 years to leave, and if Christianity was true Mormonism would make sense in that context. The biblical God is more messed up than anything Joseph Smith ever did.

Well, God as a metaphor for a deeper substrate of reality, like Star Trek’s holodeck.

Christianity is bad by today’s standards, but it’s gotten us through history’s darkest days. Except for being the cause of the thirty-year war, the inquisition, the crusades, and the normalization of genocide and slavery. On the other hand, it was instrumental in the Civil Rights movement and the promotion of the sovereign individual. You have the gospels, made up or not, to thank for your individual freedom. So it’s not a bad fairy tale to roll with. But it’s entirely subjective. Witness the rise of fascist Christianity on the Religious Right. Their theology is far from Christ-like, resembling Mormonism’s prosperity gospel. Because as we all know, Jesus came to make us rich. Two of the seven deadly sins are now virtues: greed and gluttony.

But that’s not the fault of Christianity. It’s the fault of thinking styles drilled into us at a young age. Like automatic obedience or not thinking critically. We are made herd animals because the world’s original rulers were herders. People were just one more thing to herd. What’s better than religion to do the job?

The problem with throwing out the baby is that it eliminates a common language. Some parts should go, like the ghoulish atonement, but some parts provide really good common ground. When in Rome...

Amyjo, my friend just phoned be last night to tell her she was leaving. She's not bothering to follow up with her bishop. Her bishop knows.

She is happy to be done with it. She just wanted to exit in her own way. She was outed.

I left before leaving was cool.

babyloncansuckit Wrote:
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> I left before leaving was cool.

Lord knows I tried. Didn't even know resigning was an option back in the day though in the 1990's. Probably would have been a homeless teenager if I resigned when I wanted to.

It will go when you leave this bored, maybe, or maybe that's why you are here. It is different for everyone. I just like having fun!

Fine something [else] fun to do.
Maybe that will help. Can't hurt!

Maybe you like having fun too.

Anyone else?

M@t

Babylon,

Maybe being a member of this board and helping people like me, is the higher purpose.

Because, if people hadn't been Mormon and left, there wouldn't be a community such as this.

I've found better conversation and more help and more thoughtfulness here in just a few days, than I did in over a year being in the church.

:) :) :)

mel Wrote:
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> Babylon,
>
> Maybe being a member of this board and helping
> people like me, is the higher purpose.
>
> Because, if people hadn't been Mormon and left,
> there wouldn't be a community such as this.
>
> I've found better conversation and more help and
> more thoughtfulness here in just a few days, than
> I did in over a year being in the church.
>
> :) :) :)

Babylon is the man. I like his point of view on things.

Babylon,

I thought about your question all morning, and here is another thought, my perspective is as a convert:

I think the degree you can't let it go is because of the emotional 'promise'

As a prospective member, the young missionaries in their suits greeted me by name, sat with me, shared their books, sat with me in Gospel Principles class, others made a point to greet me and explain things to me, the Bishop spoke to me and shook my hand, the Baptism was arranged. I was treated as very "special" --a new experience for me!

Then after baptism, that all went away. I was left to try to find someone to sit with, try to talk to someone, the bishop never greeted me again, nobody cared, I was superfluous, not special...and when was I going to start cleaning rotation and pull my weight with a calling....

The 'promises' were all false.

The amount of disillusionment is proportional to the absence of real promised "community and belonging'

I wish success for you as you continue letting go.

The need to understand what happened, why it happened, and even consider our own part in the happening, is formidable. Monday morning quarter-backing. It's not just for football.

Not letting go, assessing and re-assessing is just another name for processing something in your life that was of major significance. And, Mormonism was significant.

Processing is understanding and acceptance. And, it could be healing to hang on a while as you really can talk something to death. Like listening to you favorite song on the radio until it no longer gives you "that feeling."

Done & Done,

Thank you for this perspective. I agree with everything you said.

:) :) :)