My brother has a rare condition which caused him to take a really early retirement. I admit I'm jealous of his freedom from work but not of his physical condition.

He has been at a loss as to what to do with his time so he started up an old hobby again - drawing. He makes cartoons and posts them on social media.

He has posted a ton of "Farside" type Book of Mormon and Mormon-related drawings.

Todays was different. He apparently either eats a lot of Asian food or has a huge collection of fortune cookies. Many of his post are photos of his drawing with a fortune cookie fortune and today's was the quoted title of my post.

BTW, this is NOT political. Today's drawing was of the POTUS and has the POTUS asking a magic 8 ball if he, the POTUS, is ignorant. It gives some vague answer and you have to read the fortune to "get it."

Following me so far?

Well, I "get it" and in my head I'm thinking about how many potential and never asked questions crossed his mind regarding his Mormonism? When I was a believer I was beset by them. And yet he makes fun of another person with complete unabashed hypocrisy.

In all of the last decade and in all of all things Mormon did he never get shook up like that cartoon 8 ball? Did he never question his church, beliefs, history? Did he never read about our ancestor Zina Huntington? Is he a hypocrite? Or did he study it out in his mind and come to the conclusion that he isn't ignorant of the flecks and failings of his church's history, present prophets, their terrible cronyism and gerontocracy of oligarchy?

Separation of church and state by ignorance is a more perfect union for Mormons bothered by their politics but not their prophets.

I'm interested in seeing the comments, so I'm hoping many people will reply.

Yes, he did one that references a scripture about the moth does eat and worms or something. Basically, we are recyclable here unless we have eternity with family...yadada.

He seems more fixated on death.

Ignorance is more effective than settling a question. It denies the need for the question in the first place.

Tyrannies like ignorance. They encourage it.

Very profound.

Eleven years ago, I was depressed and hopeless, and it was beginning to effect my work, so I started seeing a psychiatrist, and he tried one anti-depressant after another, and nothing was working. Why did I feel like I was a failure, when I was making more money than my bishop, and my children were turning out very well, and our home was filled with love and laughter?

I had just turned 50, and I had hoped that at that age, I would have developed WISDOM. I felt stultified, mixed-up, at a dead end. I decided to at least try to get some answers to my questions--some of them had been life-long questions. I began with asking WHY I was never granted a temple divorce from my wife-beater temple ex-husband, when my beautician got one so easily from her ex, who never did anyhthing bad to her. The answer: Butician's father was best friends with GBH, who was then president of the Mormon cult. I found RFM, and one by one (line upon line, precept upon precept) I dug as deeply as necessary for each answer, and didn't stop until I had an answer that made sense and was documented.

My depressed stupor was "ignorance"! I wasn't really clinically depressed, but had PTSD and anxiety. What Lot's Wife said is true--the Mormons bullied me into thinking that my questions shouldn't ever have been asked in the first place.

Yes, I became the victim of Mormon bullying, threats, shunning, harassment, hate campaigns--whatever they could throw at me to keep me in the dark--and within a year, I walked out of there wiser and stronger, and I haven't been depressed since. Even though some questions are still unanswerable, I can cope with ambiguity better than with lies. I have tons of questions, now and look to science and (real) history and professional experts, and good books and articles, and personal trial-and-error for answers.

What the Mormons did to me mentally was almost as bad as what they did to my children, and was worse than taking my money.

forestpal Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> What the Mormons did to me mentally was almost as
> bad as what they did to my children, and was worse
> than taking my money.

Another great reply forestpal and more profound than my OP. You can give 10 percent of your money away, x percent of your time away and still be so depressed by Mormonism. It is actually worse than nothing at all. Such an uninspired organization is also for many a totally depressing and traumatic organization. So much for a pyramid of Jeesus inspiration shining happiness and eternal blessings down on its adherents.

I wish I was still ignorant about. Some things in my life took too much pain. I don't ever think of difficult things making me stronger. I've had enough. I'd prefer to stay ignorant from here on out. Struggles and pain don't make you stronger as far as I'm concerned.

I didn't learn not to be ignorant about the church by learning. I figured it out by life experience. I've had enough life experience. I just ask for LEVEL now.

Would I choose to still be mormon if I had to be ignorant about the truth? There are some days that I would.

Actually really glad to know what I know. I didn't go looking for what I found though. It just came and hit me in the face like a baseball bat and I've been off balance ever since. As my "husband" said, I was never happy as a mormon, although some of my favorite people in the world are mormon, 2 of my old bosses, and a few of the other men I worked with at Thiokol. They are some of the greatest people I've ever known.

But just recently thinking about the mormon guy that got away, an ex-druggie, my roommate's brother, who I was dating after I found out my "boyfriend" was gay and my "boyfriend" finally decided to get married as he KNEW I was going to marry this other guy. I could be a farmer's wife (something I didn't want having been raised a farmer's daughter), but a great guy. And I wonder how much better life could have been to have an intact family, to never have been a single mother and to be put through I went through. I look around at the mormon girls I grew up with and I think, "WTH happened?"



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/21/2020 09:45AM by cl2.

Sometimes forgetting is a blessing.

How true, Elder Berry. How true.

I rarely think about The Late Former Husband any more, but when I do, the anger returns and My Hot Man realizes he said something that revived an unpleasant memory.

While he didn't hit me, his narcissism and bi-polar disorder caused great upheaval and financial distress in our family.

I have a Hot Never-Mo Man now; a complete opposite of di . . .I mean, The Late Former Husband.

Plus, he's taught me how to curse!

desertwoman Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Plus, he's taught me how to curse!

It is an artform.

Also, rehashing traumatic memories can be somewhat of an addictive behavior I think. For the sexually abused like myself and at a tender age, those traumatic memories are especially powerful. I'm not saying forgive and forget. I would like to know the motivation behind certain things.

For example, I have always been amazed how I was obsessed with sex from an early age.

Just recently in the last month I understood why. I was molested as a toddler. Duh! It took me well over 40 years to figure that riddle out. Most of my classmates in elementary school weren't. The ones that were like me came from hard families. But ours was the special churchy family!

Understanding this about myself is powerful and explains a lot. But if I dwell on it much I feel so robbed and such anger and sometimes I think I enjoy dwelling on it. Crazy our brains. Some can be informative and too much can be destructive.

I used to work with a gentleman that said he never read about ir studied history because he didn't want his faith shaken.

Then there were never questions to settle for him. That might be the case with my brother.