Hi Everyone,
I have been out of the church now for 9 years and haven’t been on this site or board for awhile.
I have a friend who is dating a Mormon guy and she is coming over today to ask me some questions and my experience with being LDS. Other then my own experience and what I went through, I’m wondering what else I should tell her...anyone have any must share topics that need to be addressed?

Thanks,

Steph

Have her read posts from this site. Have her watch temple ceremony on YouTube.

Share as kind and welcoming the members are things will change after she is baptized.

Ask her how much she likes to clean public toilets.

That ought to get her investigating things.

But remind her the Mormon guy isn’t necessarily bad, he just attends a cult that expects the woman in his life to adhear to the cult.

Wow, where to start. The 2 billion or whatever the amount is that the church has in reserve while asking memembers to pay 10% of their income to see their children marry. And where is the revelation they claim comes through their prophets? Did they warn the flock about the pandemic, about the economy collapse in 2008? What about firing their janitors and making members clean the buildings - remember that reserve? What about men having all the control. What about not wanting members to wear a cross necklace, bracelet, etc because it is a symbol yet the magic underwear is full of symbols, temples are full of symbols. And just ask about magic underwear. A church tells you what kind of underwear you can put on? Tell your friend to run. I know some wonderful, loving, genuine, friends, but they believe nonsense.

Right now she probably views Mormonism as just another Christian church (albeit with some quirks,) and perhaps as a viable way to raise a family.

Richard Packham wrote this as warning to church investigators. You might find it useful. Since the young woman is probably less concerned with doctrine at this point, skipping down to "Your Life as a Mormon" might be more to the point.

http://packham.n4m.org/tract.htm

As a nevermo, the points that would get through to me the most would be the huge and unrelenting time and financial commitment, the intrusiveness of bishop interviews (including questions about masturbation,) the lack of privacy, i.e constant church visits, phone calls, and general nosiness, the paucity of charity work compared to the money raked in, and more than anything, the possibility of your own family members (especially children and grandchildren) shunning you if you decide to leave down the road. She could even face the possibility of being shut out of her own child's wedding one day.

And, if her future husband insisted on being married in the temple, HER parents would be shut out. Ask her, what church would ask this of someone? Does that seem right to her? Would she really be willing to shut her parents, grandparents, siblings, aunts and uncles, nieces and nephews, out of her own wedding ceremony?

The Mormon church tries to reel women in with the promise of "forever families." However, the belief of being reunited with your family in heaven is common to virtually all Christian denominations. It is nothing special.

But the biggest thing (and IMO a difficult concept to get through to a young woman in love,) is why should she be the one to bend her life to accommodate her spouse? Why wouldn't he consider her own views on religion, when it comes to forming a family? Why does it have to be all about him? Why doesn't she count?

Tell her that if he's a faithful mormon, in love with the gospel, she can kiss her Free Agency, otherwise known as who you really are, goodbye.


But wait! There's always a chance that he's faking it until the inheritance kicks in!!

Issues I'd mention:

MALE priesthood. She's OK with that? Women and children are under the control of men. Women need a male middleman between themselves and God.

Endless busywork and rules about what to do and when. Grow up and be an adult in charge of your OWN life instead of following a McMormon playbook.

Subtle condemnation of others (feeling chosen, special, thinking they have more "truth" than everyone else).

Ineffective prophet and "revelation" system. Of all the problems in the world, they never have anything significant to help. Instead they focus on anti-gay and anti woman stances.

Family will be held hostage if everyone doesn't play along.

The history of the religion is a transparent scam. Do not join without reading "No Man Knows My History" by Fawn Brodie.

The religion makes promises for an afterlife and never is responsible for providing facts. It's always lack of faith, Satan, or your low standards if anything goes wrong.

There is not one good thing about the Mormon church that isn't available in abundance outside the church without having to devote your life and money.

The temple is very cultish.

She’s going to be expected to make babies. Probably several. Those are going to be brainwashed in the church, leaving them with a ton of psychological baggage they don’t need. She will be a second class citizen even as a “good mormon” because roles are straight out of the 1950s, which is when today’s church leaders came of age. They gave up polygamy but believe it will be practiced in heaven. After death her husband will have many wives. That thinking spills into this life.

If she doesn’t join but marries this guy, his church friends and his family will always look down on her. She won’t be joining them in Mormon heaven. Boo hoo. What part of that line of hubristic thinking isn’t disgusting?

Would you volunteer to be crippled? Have part of your brain cut out? Mormonism distorts your view of the world to keep you locked into their cult thinking. Mormons have their emotional growth stunted so they are in perpetual Junior High. Your friend is being love bombed to sit at the cool kids table, but she’ll be asked to move soon enough.

Would I date a Mormon girl? No, for the reasons I listed above. You have to be pretty messed up to be “in the life”.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/31/2020 10:23AM by bradley.

They have rocks in their hats.

Right, investigate the real Joseph Smith. The narcissistic poon hound who couldn’t keep it in his pants and ruined the lives of women who wouldn’t put out.

Organizations perpetuate the values of their founders.

Tell her Brigham Young was the worst mass murderer on US mainland up to 9/11.

Their treatment of gays and blacks over the years. Blacks were not allowed to hold the priesthood or attend the temple (the women can't hold the priesthood, but still couldn't attend the temple) until 1978 when "poof" it changed.

Gay/straight marriages.

After all I'd seen and been through, the temple blew my mind. It is HIDEOUS. Cultish, very very cultish. If they had told me I could still go see my daughter get married in the temple 1-1/2 years ago without paying tithing and still being the big sinner I am, I would have said, "NO!" It was difficult enough just being on the temple grounds of the place I got married.

Have her read, "In Sacred Loneliness."



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/31/2020 01:13PM by cl2.

Pure and simple.

Youth interviews where her children as young as age 7 will be asked their sexual orientation and if they engage in practices such as masturbation, fondling, oral sex and intercourse.

The church defends these practices even though they are aware of the harm, including suicides by precious children, that this practice leads to.

For me that is reason enough.

If she needs more...

Find on youtube the conference talks where

1. If you are raped or otherwise abused meet with the bishop to find out what you need to do to repent of your actions leading to the abuse.

2. The talk about paying tithing before rent, food or Medicine.

+Heartless:

“Find on youtube the conference talks where

1. If you are raped or otherwise abused meet with the bishop to find out what you need to do to repent of your actions leading to the abuse.

2. The talk about paying tithing before rent, food or Medicine.”


==Do you happen to keep those things on file?

~~~~iceman9090

Paying tithing first -

"One of the first things a bishop *must* do to help the needy is ask them to pay their tithing. Like the widow [of Zarephath], if a destitute family is faced with the decision of paying their tithing or eating, they should pay their tithing. The bishop can help them with their food and other basic needs until they become self-reliant."

"In October of 1998 Hurricane Mitch devastated many parts of Central America. President Gordon B. Hinckley was very concerned for the victims of this disaster, many of whom lost everything – food, clothing, and household goods… [T]his modern prophet's message in each city was similar – to sacrifice and be obedient to the law of tithing."

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2005/04/tithing-a-commandment-even-for-the-destitute?lang=eng

+mywayback:

“I have a friend who is dating a Mormon guy and she is coming over today to ask me some questions and my experience with being LDS.”

==The million dollar question is
“Do you care about what is true and what is false? Do you want to maximize the number of true things that you know and minimize the false things?”

If the answer is yes, then the question becomes:
Is it true that native americans are jews? Is it true that Jesus came to the USA? Is there really such a written language called reformed egyptian? Where is the evidence for reformed egyptian? Check out the caractors paper.
Which scientist, archaeologist, historian, geneticist has verified and accepted the claims of the BoM? Why isn’t it taught as fact in history courses in schools, in archaeology courses?

~~~~iceman9090

While I agree with all of the suggestions above, I do think they miss the mark in one very important way, and it's something that's missing from the original post. Specifically, what does this woman expect to get out of marrying a Mormon? If she is expecting a marriage where she can bear a lot of children and be a SAHM, then the expectations about women not working probably wouldn't bother her and you would have to find something else bad about the church to impress upon her. If she is looking for a person who will support her with money for whatever she wants, then maybe the issue of titheing should be emphasized when talking about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. So my point would be to find out why she is attracted to this Mormon and why she wishes to join the Mormon church and then figure out which arguments against the faith would probably work the best with her and use those.

I was a missionary during the early 1990s and had invited investigators to see GC (we were later admonished NOT to invite non-members to attend conference~ Go figure since we still believed that they were prophets and spoke for all of god's children).

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/1992/04/healing-the-tragic-scars-of-abuse?lang=eng

"The victim must do all in his or her power to stop the abuse. Most often, the victim is innocent because of being disabled by fear or the power or authority of the offender. At some point in time, however, the Lord may prompt a victim to recognize a degree of responsibility for abuse. Your priesthood leader will help assess your responsibility so that, if needed, it can be addressed. Otherwise the seeds of guilt will remain and sprout into bitter fruit."

Pure evil. . .

So they wouldn't join Mormonism and dwindle in suffering and unbelief, unfulfillment and in a dead end cult?

First ask her why she would want to join? Is her boyfriend pressuring her? Has he told her he will only marry in the temple?

Tell her there used to be some positives about belonging to the Mormon community, but that most of the positives no longer exist. Tell her of the negatives already mentioned, especially what it does to ones mental health.

Tell her that if she embraces the Mormon religion her outlook will change. She will no longer see people just as people but a world divided into LDS and non-LDS. Us against them.

Just the other day I was talking to a TBM who said something like, "they're not Mormon but they're good people." Mormons don't realize they do this, but they do it frequently. The world to them is Mormon vs. non-Mormon: Mormon = good; non-Mormon = questionable.

If your friend joins the Mormon cult she will mostly socialize with other Mormons. She will start to only feel comfortable around other Mormons and mistrustful of nevermos. Ask her if that's the kind of life she wants. Ask her if she wants to join a cult.

I missed the deadline so I'd love to know what you told your friend and how she received it. I tried to submit a list but the board marked it "spam" and would not let me enter it on the board. I'll try again or make it a new message.

Someone must have over ridden the spam prompt. My list is now on the board.

She might want to know that women must defer to all males in the church as women cannot hold the priesthood and all male members hold the priesthood. Priesthood is considered the right to speak in God's name so any time she speaks against or criticizes a priesthood holder she is committing sin, even if the male she criticizes is a certified idiot.

Another shocker might be to let her know how difficult they make it for you to leave once you join. The resignation process is not terribly difficult but if you don't officially resign you will be considered a member even if you haven't been to church for decades. Some people have a difficult time shaking LDS, Inc. even when they have officially resigned. They pressure you to be baptized as soon as possible before you have had a chance to learn all the idiosyncrasies of Mormonism because they fear once you have learned some of the more odd practices, like temple garments, you might change your mind about joining. And once you are in they make leaving a matter of "apostasy" which may involve shunning and degradation of your character. Becoming a nonbeliever after once having joined is considered deplorable.

Let her know that in reality, although it does a great job of appearing as a family friendly and morally driven religion, LDS, Inc. is really at the root of it all a corporation. It has positions that basically correspond to corporate titles. Paying an approved tithing is required for temple attendance, which is required for marriages and even family attending marriages. Her family will not be able to go to her wedding unless they become LDS and pay tithing. Money is really the foundation of the church rather than Jesus. She will even be brought before the bishop every year to proclaim and swear she has paid a full tithing. Members are expected to pay tithing before rent, food, etc. The corporation ALWAYS comes before the members.