Before my shelf broke, I was leaning left, but right up until this past October, I was essentially a conservative Trump supporter.

I have found that the more atheistic content I get into, the more left I go, and the more I see through the old arguments and figures. Like, something about no longer holding things to a divine standard of morality has released me from those moorings. So, I find myself going towards a more humanist and secular personal perspective, politically and ethically. I have more empathy for others and I see this life as the only one we have proof of, so, I base my ideas and morality around that sense of brevity and a societal wellbeing, rather than an afterlife reward.

Have you found yourself "flipped" in this way since leaving the church? Like, when you abandoned the cult, did you find yourself leaving the others you might have been a part of?

I was Left of center while I was Mormon, but I became far more egalitarian after leaving, meaning I became more proactive in exposing the many forms of abuse committed by MORmON Penis Holders, especially when it involves children, but also women, gays and minorities.

The left won’t have me.

The right won’t either.

The path of my life wends a winding path in the vast area between the two extremes.

Neither side provides an ethos that is compatible with my diverse views of the world.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/11/2021 10:13AM by Soft Machine.

The standards by which people judge others and decide which label to place on an individual is fairly well established as to left/right.

Unfortunately, for me, I can embrace certain aspects of the left culture and certain aspects of the right culture, and I can easily reject some of the left and some of the right dogma.

So, your observation is really moot.

I think you just proved his observation.

I just opened my eyes and dismissed inherited opinions and started fresh.

I dumped a lot of preconceived notions and kept going ahead. But this process started long before I realized the church was not true. On my mission I saw that what I had been taught about the outside world, about the gentiles--those heathens, did not hold up. I started liking them, learning from them, realizing they had more to offer than I did.

Then back to the narrow mindedness of BYU. The school was bad enough but the student wards on Sunday provided the contrast to the world I needed.

This was all back when one drop of the fabled "Negro Blood" would stop you from holding the priesthood. Gays were being given the shock treatments. Your hair cold not touch your collar or you would be reported.

And me? I already knew what it was like to be an outsider, way out. I just needed to find the ones who had found their empathy. And I did. And they weren't the Mormons. Or the Evangelicals, or the Catholics, or any religion at all.

All I know is if you feel the need to change the lyrics to the song "Imagine" when you sing it, there is something really wrong with you.


I am so sick of the labels Left and Right I cannot see straight. Well I never could see straight, but that's another story.

Nope. I went into The Mist of Darkness and stopped holding onto the rod that was not spared upon me in my youth.

https://www.ldsliving.com/The-Mist-of-Darkness-Insights-from-John-Bytheway/s/89137



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/11/2021 10:44AM by Elder Berry.

Interesting article. Too bad Joseph Jr actually based this part of the BOM on a dream his father had.

Mother Smith gives a detailed account of her husband having the dream of the Iron Rod and relaying it to his family years before Joe Jr wrote the BOM.

I have had that same attitude for a number of years.
So I agree with you

thegoodman Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I have more empathy for
> others

To me, empathy is the key.

https://academic.oup.com/scan/article/7/5/596/1693313

"Intergroup differences in the sharing of emotive states: neural evidence of an empathy gap....
....people generally do not vicariously feel the emotional and motivational states of those they categorize as outgroup members....
...This bias in emotional sharing could contribute to an empathy-gap, impairing the experience of empathy for outgroups, which is a capacity that underlies and facilitates social understanding and cooperation and fosters helping, morality, altruism and justice (Batson et al., 1997; Cialdini et al., 1997...
...Maybe both mechanisms are at work, creating a vicious cycle in which people initially empathize less with outgroups, which makes them a likely target for prejudice, which then further restricts empathy toward the disliked group....
...Hence, even if we are less likely to simulate the emotions and actions of the outgroup, these effects may be temporary and can be erased when we foster empathy toward the outgroup and better yet, include a greater number of people into our ingroup."

By leaving the "ingroup" (Mormon CULT) we became a part of the "outgroup", outcasts, which means our own 'ingroup' included a greater number of people, (non-Mormons).

But the universe opened up. I became far more tolerant.

See, no longer being forced to fight to defend an unyielding Belief made this world less threatening. Information was no longer an enemy to be feared. Others who thought differently could be understood and reasoned with; others who held hard Beliefs, you knew beforehand reasoning was futile so stopped being frustrated with these.

Though it may seem to be the case, Left/Right is a red herring.
It is the thought pattern/orientating method that makes the person.

Sadly the very use of the terms left and right is perhaps taken by some to mean that right means correct or proper position and left to mean anywhere from out of step to immoral to outright communist.

Which begs the question -

? Why is it that - individually - a person on the extreme left and a person on the extreme right are structurally exactly the same person - differing only in chosen garb?

I mean, if it is (supposedly) such a spectrum and all . . . or if it is "real" at all . . .

I trust you know the origin of the two terms.

1789, the French Revolution is starting. The National Assembly debates the adoption of a constitution limiting the Monarch's power, and those who want to give the ruler more power sit on the right while those who want to give him less sit on the left. Hence the question, "are you on the right or the left?"

So what I'd like to know from you is whether you are adroit or gauche. EOD, for instance, is gauche no matter what his politics.

And no, I actually had no idea as to the origins.
Somewhat reassuring that there is an actual explanation!
So something excellent to now chew on and savor.

But (question face) -
What is an adroit, and what is a gauche? ;-)

> But (question face) -
> What is an adroit, and what is a gauche? ;-)

I'm just making puns. In French right and left is "droit et gauche." Gauche is of course an English word that denigrates lefthandedness just as the Latinate sinister does. I just transformed "droit" into "adroit" so as to get this nonsensical pattern:

Left versus right

Radical versus conservative

Skillful versus socially and sartorially awkward.

All silly, I know, but I playing with words. And if I remember correctly, EOD is lefthanded, so the logic works in at least one case.

Lot's Wife Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I'm just making puns. In French right and left is
> "droit et gauche." Gauche is of course an English
> word that denigrates lefthandedness just as the
> Latinate sinister does. I just transformed
> "droit" into "adroit" so as to get this
> nonsensical pattern:
================================

If ya don't stop thinking in a scholarly original yet playful fun manner you're never gonna make it into the radical right-eous elements. Gotta be ]:-[ serius

;-)

I'll survive.

After all, some of my best friends are left-handed!

Consider that evidence of the insanity of modern Christianity is supplied by St Paul himself in his assertion that the only justified cause for divorce is adultery.

Okay, but suppose you marry an axe murderer and subsequently decide that the living arrangements aren’t to your liking. Emphasis on the word “living”. Is that a justified divorce?

Paul: Nope, only adultery.

Hah. I missed you guys.

Hah. I missed you guys.

In your OP you said, "I have more empathy for others and I see this life as the only one we have proof of, so, I base my ideas and morality around that sense of brevity and a societal wellbeing, rather than an afterlife reward."

I think that is a brilliant summary of what happens when you abandon an ideology and retreat to your own heart and mind. "I have more empathy for others" is by itself indication of moral progress.

Isn't that where we all would want for ourselves, our children, and others?

I agree. Dogma and doctrine are the enemies of truth and clear sight.

Dogma and doctrine drive a wedge between a person and her soul, as they are intended to do. Remove the wedge and the cognitive dissonance and resulting misbehavior diminish.

What is the opposite of compartmentalization of one's moral thinking? Greater integration or, in a word, integrity.

And wonder if this idea of yours in any way relates to the tendency of the dogma-enslaved to loudly declare a willingness to sacrifice their own (and others) life(ves) in offering, as a (supposed) measure of devotion

So common a feature as to be mundane

I only realized I had gone left after I had gone right three times!

Yeah, but you didn't pay attention to the one-way signs.

May I please see your license and registration?



ETA: Also proof of insurance.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/11/2021 03:21PM by Lot's Wife.

>> Yeah, but you didn't pay attention to the one-way signs.

Maybe I drive both ways?


>> May I please see your license and registration?

I'm licensed by the Univesal Life Church and I registered on-line.



ETA: Also proof of insurance.

80 proof....but only half the bottle so far today.

When you leave, you don't have to believe what others tell you. You don't have to go one way because everyone else rushes there.

It's fair to debate the divinity of Jesus but at any rate when I left the church I found that my beliefs became more closely aligned with the teachings of the New Testament Jesus than the dogma of American Christians -including Mormons.

Shinehah Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> . . . when I left the church I found that my
> beliefs became more closely aligned with the
> teachings of the New Testament Jesus . . .

Isn't that the beauty of it? Jesus becomes far more relatable when he is stripped of the detritus of two millennia of manipulation and encrustation.

I'm a big fan of that Jesus.

Yes

George W. put the final nail in me.

No I didn't, and I'm glad I didn't. More exmos need to go right. I'm proud to be right wing but I'm "shy" on here.

Right--Survival of the Fittest and Let's hang on to what we got--at any cost! Superiority Complex.

Left--Let's take care of everything for everybody at any cost! Savior Complex.

More people are finding the center where you can still mix empathy with common sense. And it doesn't cost. It's not complex.

Anon Rightist Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> More exmos need to go right.

No, exmos don't "need" to go anywhere. The point of throwing off the shackles of a cult is to avoid others telling you what you "need" to do.

Perhaps it's a liberal prejudice, but I'm of the view that people are free to make their own decisions.

I think you have to be very open minded to entertain the heresy of anti-Mormon (read: actual facts) literature. So the shift in thinking precedes the shelf collapse.

That represents a net loss for the church as its best and brightest leave. The widow’s mite of African subsistence farmers isn’t going to fund any Universities.

There is no such thing as "the left".

If you want to go left, stay in church - as with most corporations, that's where it's heading.

The members are heading that way also.

Won't be much for RFM to complain about in a few years.

How's that right wing alternate universe working out for you ?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/11/2021 11:40PM by Dave the Atheist.

Just remember that Free Man is not very discerning when it comes to politics or society.

The notion that America is moving to the left is utterly absurd. The Strumpets tell us that even the GOP at some point abandoned conservatism and Trump and his minions arose to set the party "right." (That's not explicitly from Free Man but it is from caffiend).

Yet when was that time when the GOP was further right than today? What of Lincoln with his Civil War, his friendship with Frederick Douglas, his post-war amendments to protect African Americans, his attenuation of states rights, and his attempt to prevent the emergence of what would become Jim Crow--was he to the right of Trump? How about Truman, who pushed integration of the military and nationalized industries to fight a national emergency? Was Eisenhower, who put the top marginal tax rate at 92% and insisted on the further integration of the armed forces more conservative than the Strumpets? How about Richard Nixon, who created the EPA and OSHA and embarked on detente with not one but two Communist superpowers?

And then there was Reagan, with his gay personal friends and his pro-immigration reforms and his appeasement of Russia and his warm relations with the Arabs. Would he have endorsed Trump? How about the two Bushes--surely no one would accuse them of being further to the right than the Tea Party. The truth is that the GOP has never been the loony bin it became over the last decade and anyone who says otherwise is either smoking dope or thinks Sam Harris is a genius.

What in fact occurred is that a Pied Piper took control of the GOP and, followed by herds of lemmings, ran the party over a cliff. It is not society that has moved to the left over the last several years: rather, the GOP moved far not to the conservative right, with its respect for the constitution and sound economic policy and an emphasis on national security, but to a totalitarian cult of personality in which policies don't really matter. It is literally a party without a platform. All there is, is the cult of the Dear Leader and its servile acolytes.

Free Man, when he's not banging drums in the wilderness with the other incels or salivating over nonexistent Berkeley professors whose nonexistent views appeal, has no sense of political history. Like caffiend, azsteve, magaRomney, and several others, Free Man thinks that jumping on a tyrant's bandwagon is an act of courage rather than the obsequious surrender of principle that it actually is. But neither Nixon nor Reagan, not Truman or Ike, and certainly not Lincoln would ever feel comfortable in that cult. The RINOs have taken over and the true, traditional Republicans have left.

Free Man doesn't understand that in part because he, like Trump and so many others, is preoccupied with his own victimhood and feels lonely now that the absurdity of his cult is on full display. He feels abandoned and wonders why everyone is leaving the righteous right. "Left" thus becomes a pejorative as vacuous as their claims to "conservatism" are ridiculous. Their adventure would be funny if these Peronistas had not come so close to overthrowing the United States government and its constitution.

I was already over on the left when I parted ways with the church. It was one of the reasons why.

There are probably way more right wingers out there lurking or chased off. Every time someone like Macarmoney or Free Man makes a post the usual suspects pile onto them. You don't have to be left wing!

If someone is going to post politically they should be able to defend their position when confronted or challenged.

thegoodman Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> If someone is going to post politically they
> should be able to defend their position when
> confronted or challenged.

Maybe they come here because of Mormonism? And don't want a one sided conversation about politics? There is barely any political debate anymore. Just one side screaming at the other. They have zero understanding of what the other people think. We're all dumb stereotypes to them, not real people.

If you post in every topic about your persecution complex, even when it doesn't stay on the topic of the thread, I'm sorry, but who turns who into a cartoon?

thegoodman Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> If you post in every topic about your persecution
> complex, even when it doesn't stay on the topic of
> the thread, I'm sorry, but who turns who into a
> cartoon?

See that's what I'm talking about. :roll: There is no debate. Just dumb stereotypes.

Part of the problem is the poor quality of the posts by the right's perceived representatives on RfM (such as MacaRomny or Free Man, and others).

There was a conservative poster who came here a lot a few years ago with the wonderful moniker Tall Man, Short Hair who, while being a sometimes more than robust debater, nevertheless continued to remain reality-based, unlike the Trumpists.

I didn't agree with him, but we could debate. I can't debate with people who believe nonsense like Q-Anon or Stop The Steal. I can debate with what were formerly known as "normal Republicans" or indeed right-wing people in France. It's a question of having a shared reality to debate.

I don't believe in QAnon. QAnon is just an easy way for people to write off the right. The only real conspiracy in QAnon is who invented the story first time and were they even in the GOP?

There is plenty of cray cray stuff coming out the left. Some people on RfM claim it is fact. We're not even allowed to question it.

You've revealed two things about yourself, possibly three.

1) You consider yourself a victim, as thegoodman noted. Interestingly, you accuse me of employing stereotypes. That's strange because I differentiated clearly between the people I was criticizing. That means that you are using the word "stereotypes" as a placeholder for something else.

2) You say you want debate and openness, but then state that conservatives "are not even allowed to question it." Of course you are allowed to question our views; you are doing so right now. So what offends you isn't censorship but rather being compelled to defend yourself. You would like your views to go unchallenged--like at church.

3) Well, you know.

I'll add that is unreasonable of you to object to my/our challenges to people on the right. Why?

Are you comfortable when magaRomney writes that Anglo-Saxons are a warlike people who should be using violence against other races in the 21st century? Is that the sort of right-wing opinion that you want us to applaud or is it permissible for someone who is not Anglo-Saxon and hence a putative victim of magaRomney's White Supremacy to say, "you're a racist asshole?"

What about when caffiend condemns all violence against police except that which befell the Capitol officers? Is that hypocrisy, that lack of principle, to be tolerated because right-wingers need to be coddled? "I guess Blue Lives Matter ceases to be the case when the Blue were beaten and killed because they were unwittingly resisting the House of Orange."

Or when azsteve advocates the denial of established constitutional rights to people who are not of his race. Are those thus condemned to sit back and say, "hmm. That's an interesting perspective. I'm glad he shared it with me."

The fact is that on a board like this everyone's opinion is subject to debate. That's a good thing because there isn't an ex-Mo board on the planet that would tolerate the crap described above. There isn't even a middle school that would permit such assaults on other human beings.

So no, you don't get immunity from scrutiny. And you're not a victim simply because you can't defend your position. In fact, that inability should tell you something.

It is possible to be right-wing and even radically right-wing (which is everyone's right in the countries where we live) without being racist or dishonest. I know and like many right-wing people.

Yes.

The old-school Republicans included many such. By contrast, there is no Trumpism without a heavy dose of racism.

That’s a bridge too far.

Lurked Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> There are probably way more right wingers out
> there lurking or chased off. Every time someone
> like Macarmoney or Free Man makes a post the usual
> suspects pile onto them. You don't have to be left
> wing!

At least right wingers are aloud a voice on RfM, even if only for the mockery and the pleasures of condescension for “the usual suspects.”

What can’t happen, here and throughout many media spheres in the US, is a leftist critique of what gets called the left in America. Even media criticism is apparently verboten, but that amounts to the same thing.

A recent example, plucked out of the too many that tumble out of the MSM on a daily basis:

https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1359869000373710848?s=20

“This big story published by the NYT about Sicknick’s death is simply false. The headline itself may be false, but the key events it purports to describe never happened. This caused virtually the media to spend a full month repeating this as fact.”

In the same thread, Greenwald reminds us of the lies perpetrated around the Pulse Club mass shootings, because the lies fit the approved narrative:

https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1359972606871564293?s=20

“Here’s the Mateen reporting. I assumed he had set out to murder LGBTs before I did reporting because the media said it over and over. I assumed Sicknick was murdered with a fire extinguisher. The media spreads falsehoods *constantly* to millions.”

The MSM lies constantly. It use to be long lies of omission, but the willingness over the last four years to lie overtly and blatantly simply cannot be missed anymore by anyone with good faith.


The recovery point here is obvious: corporate culture subsumed LDSinc at least as early as MacKay (he reversed a bad debt situation for LDSinc). Today’s Mormon church is not unlike any other corporate entity, including the two political parties and the transnationals that own the MSM and serve the political duopoly. Recovering from Mormonism is recovering from one corporation’s self-serving narrative, but to continue recovering is to recover from corporate narrative itself.

Corporations lie, constantly. Sure, when it serves, they’ll tell you the truth. But the point is, they exist to serve themselves, NOT YOU, even if it means blowing up mountains, fracking underneath you, poisoning your water, poisoning your food, bombing poor black and brown people, advising you to delay college and pay for a mission, pay tithing and volunteer, or what THEY will.

The American corporate Right is not conservative, and the American corporate Left is not liberal, not even close, not even remotely. Those who pretend there is some virtue in believing in and serving some sort of centrist position, the corporate position itself, like to call the unaffiliated on the left and right “extremists”, but I place my hope in them. My hope is that these so-called extremists can create parties that challenge the corporate owned duopoly and give America what so many other democracies take for granted, a system with more than two parties.

Recovering from Mormonism is recovering from a corporate entity. The same tools that help us out of LDSinc can help us out of the dystopian nightmare that speeds upon us very quickly now*: question official narratives. At the very least, question official narratives.

*keep your eye on this:

https://apnews.com/article/legislature-legislation-local-governments-nevada-economy-2fa79128a7bf41073c1e9102e8a0e5f0

Be specific. What in my posts did I get wrong--not generally, not metaphysically, but really.

Was magaRomney right when he advocated that Anglo-Saxons should use violence against other races?

Can you point to a single case in which caffiend has expressed regret that police officers were killed and maimed by the insurrectionists? Do you agree with him that the insurrection was organized by Antifa?

Do you agree with azsteve's various statements that banning foreigners from entering the US on the basis of their religion is appropriate and and that ignoring the constitutional rights of immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers is a good idea?

Do you agree with Free Man that as a general rule women abuse men? How about his insistence that we take seriously a letter written by a non-existent man? Are you a fan of Scott Atlas?

My point, Human, is that your generalized unhappiness is neither here nor there if it does not arise from facts. If you want to challenge me, as is perfectly okay, can you indicate which of my characterizations are wrong and why?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/12/2021 11:19AM by Lot's Wife.

I was a Mormon kid in Idaho, so I used to be more conservative. When I started questioning the Morg, I started questioning other things. Now I identify myself politically as center-left.

The fact that Idaho has always had a serious problem with crazy-conservatives (militias, white supremacist shitbags, etc.) and I knew some of those nutcases were in good standing with the Morg helped push me.

As for dropping the sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and racist bunk the Morg and my relatives spewed, I don't consider that "going left," I consider it "getting my head out of my ass."

ookami Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> As for dropping the sexism, homophobia,
> transphobia, and racist bunk the Morg and my
> relatives spewed, I don't consider that "going
> left," I consider it "getting my head out of my
> ass."

Well put. If a person loves freedom then tolerating people who aren't like them is the first requirement. Anything else isn't freedom. It is freedom to live (accept their rules or die) at the mercy of others who have the freedom you don't.

Your last line is pure gold.

Indeed.