My uncle and aunt lived maybe half a block from the Los Angeles Temple. When you stepped out of their front door, you saw the golden Moroni (he backside...Moroni was facing East). When I was 18 and told my aunt that I had become a Mormon (they were never Mormons) she said, "Oh, honey! That's a mistake. The Mormons are such LIARS!" I said, "How dare you!" and left in the huff.

Years, later, she came to visit my mother in another state, and I was there, and it was Sunday and I was going to Church. She looked at my junky old car and said, "Oh, honey, you're gonna have to get another car. A better one. The Mormons won't respect you with a car like that!" I said, "They're not like that!"

I look back today, and I would say she was mostly "right". I was just about totally wrong.

My anti-Mormon father stopped short of calling Mormonism a cult but his basic instincts were correct. I kept telling him he was wrong but, for the most part, he was right. Unfortunately he didn't have any of the documentation back then to prove his suspicions. Now it is so easy to see what Mormonism is and from where it came.

How I wish I had listened to my anti-Mormon relatives way back when! My grandparents (as well as my husband's grandparents) knew from THEIR grandparents how bad the reputation of the Mormons was. And it wasn't only about polygamy.

It's all about looks.

First, mormonism MUST ALWAYS look good, at any cost, usually the members' time and money, and patience, and wisdom, and morality and intelligence, and creativity and free-thought... NO RELIGION is more confining, and so demeaning, and judgemental, and higher than thou. It's all make-believe, a sad facade, a group-think. A mistake!

She was right.

M@t

Spot on about driving an old car. So silly to believe that paying a 10% tax to the church will result in God blessing you with a better paying job to buy a newer car.

Adam was always right with his suspicions that something was off about the whole thing. Its one thing to know it but a whole nother ball game to get away from it and start a real life and become an actual real person.