Hello again guys, this is a timeline of the lifetime of an average mormon male. (I'm a male and IDK as much about mormon females) This is for a TBM guy, and I'll be posting one soon for an exmo, like me ;p Anyway- here it is

Age 0-1. Born into Mormonism, you're just a baby so you don't know anything.

Age 1-3. You're taught about the basics of Christianity in nursery, along with other bs about Joe Smith.

Age 3-7. You're fed all the basic lies of the church without even questioning the beliefs, the church brainwashes by creating a concrete structure for the house figuratively speaking.

Age 8. You're baptized and basically are pressured into believing in Jesus and Joe Smith. You make "covenants" This works very well as a brainwash because this is the official start of being enslaved mentally.

Age 9-11. Further brainwashing happens, teachers start encouraging "a testimony of you're own." This brainwashes you because you feel like you have to get one, and if you don't end up getting one, you'll "fall away into forbidden paths."

Age 12. You get a supposed "real magic power" and feel special. From the previous brainwashing, you think it's real and you hold yourself to "temple recommend standards" which further restrict freedom.

Age 12-15. You get more brainwashing at this point, and special treatment of being a "youth." You get this attention because teenage years are where you try to figure out who you are (I know because I am one) and if you choose mormon you're basically stuck there.

Age 16-17. You start meeting with the bishop two times a year for temple recommend questions, ensuring that you've been fully brainwashed and aren't "sinning." (I personally plan to have sex 10 times when I'm 16 so f*ck "worthiness" haha)

Age 18-20. This is the real fork in the road. If you choose to go on a mission you're likely stuck in the TBM trap for life. If now, that means you've probably had doubts you're whole life, or you just flat out know it's bullsh*t like me. (Because this is the trap, out character will go on a mission.)

Age 20-23. You've just got back from you're mission and now you realllyyyy want to find an "eternal companion." You know that that girl has been waiting TWO YEARS for you to return so you'd better come up with wedding money FAST!!! Also, you want to finally have sex, because 20 years without any pleasure (or a guilt trip with the bishop for sinning) has to be brutal.

Age 23-28. By this point, you've likely met you're "eternal companion" and made "covenants" with them. You start having kids, and brainwashing them as well. The cycle restarts.

Thanks for reading guys, and lmk what you think in the comments!

Age 9-11: Definitely a crucial time. I'm a nevermo. I was raised a fundamentalist christian. It was around this time that I was being pressured to be baptized. Here's an example of a typical Sunday service:

1. People file into the uncomfortable AF pews and try to look pious as they side eye everyone.

2. The choir comes in! Okay - this is awesome because they enter from the back of the church and singing and swaying down the aisles to their spot at the front of the church behind the pastor. Some churches have a boatload of people at the front of the church besides the pastor. You got your deacons, and in more progressive churches (har!), deaconesses, the church secretary and basically a bunch of people who can see you if you fall asleep. At this church, it was just the one dude. He would have been cool with me napping.

3. Somebody prays.

4. We sing a hymn, and there is no such thing as a short hymn in these churches. But that's okay. It's not boring.

5. Somebody prays. (The prayers are excruciating and punctuated with "AMEN"s and other nonsense).

6. The Church Secretary reads a list of well wishes and cards, tells us who's laid up sick, who asks to be on the prayer list, and stuff like that.

7. SONG! Choir and then allllll of us.

8. Jumping around and whatnot. Possibly rolling down the aisles. It's too early for the speaking in tongues business.

9. Bible reading or something.

10. Probably a prayer.

11. Song

12. Sermon. "Turn to blah blah chapter blah verse blah. The road to Damascus. Who knows where Damascus is?" I start to leap up, my mom yanks me down on the hardass pew. Fine.

13. Sermon, call and response, sweating, hollering, dancing, Juhh-huuuhh-huh-eeeee-zhus!

THEN

14. The alter call. Okay, the alter call is when everybody is sitting sweaty and exhausted on the hard ass pews and fanning themselves with these paper fans that look like oddly-shaped pieces of poster board stapled to big popsicle sticks. The fans are usually advertisements for a funeral home.

The pastor asks if anyone wants to come forward to the altar. "Has anyone been moved to accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior? Are you a sinner? As it is written, there is none righteous, no, not one. We are born with the stain of original sin, and we cannot be saved through works but through grace. The grace is Jeee-hee-uh-sus, god's only begotten son, gave his life, on the cross, for you, and for me, to wash away our sins, and make us clean. Are you ready to accept Him as your savior?"

That's the part where you're expected to get up and walk down to the altar, everybody looking at you and praising Jesus and amening and right then you've officially joined the church and are going to get baptized in front of all these people who don't actually like each other. And I couldn't do it. I could not stand up and walk to the altar.

Every Sunday I thought that was the Sunday I'd suck it up and walk to the altar. And I wouldn't. Next Sunday I'd try, and I'd fail. I couldn't do it. My mother didn't outright pressure me, because baptism is symbolic and is not necessary for salvation. But I think she expected me to be baptized. She'd be proud if I answered the altar call. And they didn't baptize you right then and there. I think the baptisms were on the third Sunday of the month and they were scheduled. They weren't about to haul you off and possibly drown you. But you never know, right? That could be the one Sunday when they were like, "Hey! Beth! What took you so long? We were worried about you! Yeah, this is just symbolic, but we've noticed that you don't shout, cry, dance, speak in tongues...we've been worried about you, girl! Worried sick! So now that we've got you here at the altar, let's just step back here and plop you in the water, just as you are."

I couldn't do it, hujo2. And I kept wondering what was wrong with me. Why didn't I feel compelled to pronounce my belief and be baptized?


Age 16-17: Condoms. Use them. Every time. Hear me?



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 07/13/2020 03:03AM by Beth.

Good insights, and I promise lol

It has to be more than condoms. Your partner has to be using something, too. But you need to wear a condom as well.

According to the CDC, the failure rate for condoms is 18% (The NIH puts it closer to 12%.) That means in a one year time span, 12-18 out of every 100 women whose partner is using a condom will get pregnant. Those are not very good odds.

Caution, this birth control chart shows genitalia:

https://www.cdc.gov/reproductivehealth/unintendedpregnancy/pdf/contraceptive_methods_508.pdf

If, in addition to your condom, your partner uses any other form of birth control, such as a spermicide, patch, injection, pill, etc., the failure rate goes down dramatically, to about 3% or less. Much better odds!

You have to be very smart about birth control or you may pay a heavy price -- eighteen years plus of mandatory child support payments. One problem with young people is they "get carried away" and forget all about birth control. Just one time won't hurt, right? WRONG. It can cause you 18 years of financial pain.

Here is my experience in Georgia after joining a Unitarian congregation:

1. The pastor (a woman with a PhD, in this case) welcomes the congregation, stating that we will now officially start the meeting, urging people to take their seats. A person walks down the aisle with a bronze "singing bowl," lightly tapping it three times to indicate the start; the meeting is officially begun when the gong person lights the candle in the chalice that sits on the podium. The chalice with a flame is the official logo of the Unitarian Universalists.

2. Opening the meeting, the pastor announces that this is an all-welcoming congregation that supports all people, every ethnicity, sexual orientation, and belief system. "The person beside you might be a Christian," she says. "The person in front of you might be a Buddhist. And the person behind you might be an atheist." This is followed by the most welcome part, "We are a coffee-loving people,and afterwards there will be (coffee/cakes/cookies/sticky buns/whatever), so please stick around." I always sat up in my seat at this point.

3. Singing of a hymn from one of two hymnals, the "grey hymnal," which contains traditional hymns, most of the Christian, some of them found even in the LDS hymnal, or the "teal hymnal," which contains more contemporary stuff, like "Lean on Me."

4. A sort of prayer, more akin to a Native American supplication than a traditional prayer, with no mention of Jebus.

5. A time to show thanks, usually by coming up front to explain in a sentence why you are thankful for the past week.

6. A sermon, very often a historical one, often depending on an American holiday around the corner. You learn a lot about African American, Latin American, or Native American holidays and beliefs. It was always a welcome time for me, since I love obscure historical stuff.

7. A closing hymn. A favorite was "Lift Every Voice and Sing," which in my youth was always referred to as "The Negro National Anthem." We might also sing, "We Shall Overcome," which, in my youth, was ignorantly condemned by Mormons as some sort of "black power" thingy.

8. A sort of benediction or supplication, again no particular religious tone to it.

9. Off to the "fellowship hall" to drink our fill of coffee and generally talk about stuff.

These were good times, religion-wise. I'd still go, but the closest congregation here is 45 minutes away by Interstate, so I've not been keen on going. My TBM sister was very critical of Unitarians, saying, "Yeah, well, they don't believe anything." I'd correct her, saying, "It's quite the opposite; they believe everything, and much of it straight from the 11th, 12th, and 13th articles of faith. See? They're not so much different than you, except in believing that we are unconditionally all God's children, whereas you believe that we are only conditionally God's children."

Oh, I forgot about passing the collection plate. People look at what you put in there, and they also look to see if you're using a church-supplied envelope. If you are, it means you're making your monthly tithe. You can feel the anxiety when the plate is passed to someone who can't afford to donate and passes it to the next person. Then you have the folks who would place a nice crisp twenty-dollar bill in there. Smug.

Your right, (except the cycle never restarts if you don't let it) the cycle never ends... unless and until you end it!

The sooner you end it, the more - and possibly better! - SEX you can have.

Heaven is on earth!
Have sex while you can Mormons.

Break the cycle, NOW.

You don't need it anymore!

You are never stuck anywhere you don't choose to be as an adult.

You can leave anywhere in that cycle after age 18. Always remember that!

Many of us have seen what's sitting at the end of that LDS rainbow and it is an apostle's pot of gold. There is nothing in it that is worth the effort!

Just figure out what you want to do in life and ask someone or read what is the benefit of being mormon. Summarize those into a list and recreate it on your own, much cheaper and healthier.