One they are brainwashed. Two staying is better than leaving for a whole bunch of reasons. The church’s main strategy of retention seems to be keeping it’s members so busy that they don’t have time to think things over. They are too busy making a living, raising a family and fulfilling their church duties to think about anything else. Probably the most common reason people stay is it’s simply become a habit.

I was reading on another site about TBM's who never even knew you *could* leave the church; when your entire cultural identity is connected to TSCC I think that some literally believe it's in your DNA.

People learn to serve the machine, and that is all they know. If they are ever "released to the wild," many are like Keiko the whale. They simply don't know how to survive.

People really are creatures of habit. For most it’s just easier to do what you know than to change. Especially if you get positive reinforcement for towing the line.

Unlike the covid and anti-vaxer situation, Mormons have actually achieved herd immunity. As in . . . immune to facts and reason that do not serve their agenda well. BKP knew this when he said, "Sometimes the truth is not very useful."

Mormonism. Where else do you get to pick and choose what is true? Well, actually, a lot of places I guess. But the Mormons are virtuoso.

And, peer pressure and indoctrination are a match made in heaven.

Boyd is an interesting study. My mom knew him. He was also the next door neighbor of a friend of mine. His nephew did an interview with Mormon Stories.

Chances are pretty good Boyd had sex as a young man because he got the ladies and was athletic and cocky. When I was growing up in the church the jocks and good looking chicks were banging each other. I did filing for a doctor that performed abortions. I got that job because he knew he could trust me. Well all I can say is more good Mormons got abortions than the community ever could have imagined. But that’s all I will ever say. Mormons don’t keep it in their pants as much as they would like people to think they do.

I think in the church the sinner becomes a hypocrite. Maybe they want to take the guilt they feel and project the pain on others. Closet gays go after gays in the name of religion. Maybe church leaders who were sexually active as a youth are the ones who are the most obsessed with sex.

I think at the end of the day Boyd just wanted to preserve the Mormon culture he grew up in. Maybe for many it’s not so much a religious thing or a thing of faith. It’s a cultural thing.

Who knows. All I can say is some of the people I saw in those files in the doctors office are still good members of the church and some are telling the youth to stay chaste. How overbearing I don’t know but I’m sure some still carry the guilt of the mistake they made in the past. Maybe some don’t care.

All I know is the church membership fall far from their ideal but instead of admitting to it, they play games. I guess that’s life. Shakespeare did say all the world is a stage. I guess that’s what Mormonism really is. Putting on a show. Some people love the show and never want it to stop.

Very interesting. Your experience in the Doctor's office makes clear that Mormons aren't really worried about what their Heavenly Father thinks of them, but are very concerned about what others think of them. The Mormon facade is a many splintered thing? Heaven can wait.

    Regarding the issue of whose opinion is more important, does the living ghawd of the Old & New Testament, as well as mormon publications, care about mammaries?  Do the bishop and the SP take a woman's mammaries into consideration when they're doing the TR interview?

I'm sure they are lighting the corners of their minds.

My experience in the doctor’s office really threw me. The doctor was a good family friend. He knew me well and thought he could trust me. I had just graduated from high school and he sat me down in his office and made me promise Ivwould never talk about anything I saw or he would have to kill me. In all seriousness he could lose his practice if that information got out.

I won’t go into any details but I saw plenty of Mormons I knew in the files. It really woke me up. After thatvIvdidn’t feel so guilty about things realizing the church was mostly elevated hype most the members couldn’t live up to. They were having sex and having abortions. More than you would imagine.

The thing I'd be most interested in is knowing what nephew is on mormon stories. Is the last name Packer? I babysat his nieces and nephews. His wife's brother was married to a piano teacher and I babysat for her once a week for my own piano lessons. I'd love to know that one of those 6 kids left the church.

Nothing would surprise me anymore about mormons. I thought they all lived like I did. I lived in FEAR of ever having to discuss sex with a bishop. I was traumatized by the masturbation question and necking and petting. That bishop knew I didn't even date, so how was I necking and petting? His daughter was my good friend. I didn't even know what masturbation was. I guess I didn't date as I didn't put out like I found out all my friends did. Oddly enough, all the nonmormons I worked with dated me even if I wouldn't put out. Shockingly, they treated me with a lot of respect.

I found that a lot of the girls in the singles ward had saved themselves. Seems in mormonism if you don't put out, you don't get married. My neighbor girl had sex with every guy she went out with. The bishop talked her into going on a mission so she'd feel better about herself. Then she just played while on her mission.

If you wouldn't mind e-mailing me and telling me the name of the podcast, I'd love to know if it is one of the kids I babysat. I'd put my e-mail, but I don't think I'm supposed to. I'll give it to CZ. Or do they already have it? I'll tell him to give it to you if you are willing to tell me who the person is. Could very well not be one of the kids I know.

I went a couple times to a church single's ward that was a 40 mile drive ONE way. I went with 2 other RM's and they had their own set of rules.

1- Whoever was driving could curse all he wanted, save the last 2 miles to the chapel. I guess god's hearing got better near the church building.

2- Radio was fine except it couldn't be heavy metal because that was highly offensive to the man upstairs.

3- No discussion of anything church while riding in the car. (That's what church was for).

4- I was hungry after fast/testimony. No stopping for food (Ever!). I was told off to high heaven, and they actually gave me the "We don't want to put people to work" bit. Yet if the car was low on gas, then it was ok to fill up.

I learned other things about hiking/swimming with them too.

the ever-changing bits of focus on minor, trivial details provides a bit of stimulation for them;

Isn't it Wonderful, Marvelous?


The GAs NEVER focus on the ordinary, Core Basic aspects of Christ-Like living, Kindness, etc. more than passing mention; it's nearly 100% about the fine details of Mormonism.

As far as the brain washing goes, I will say that if you can make people see coffee and tea as a dreaded evil tool of Satan, the bigger stuff like the BoM, first vision, and Temple absurdity is already in the bag. Then make it a sin to question and game over.

Oddly, it takes guts to defeat brainwashing. Critical thinking alone isn't always enough.

You have to overcome the brainwashing but you also have to overcome the consequences of thinking for yourself. That’s not just with the church but with everything. As they say, freedom is never free. There’s a cost.

To me, Mormonism is a funhouse of distorted mirrors. You see what’s in the mirror and think it’s reality.

Like they like the worship like being a bishop. My neighbor's wife had someone say to her on fb that now that her husband was a bishop, she was one of the elite. She sure acted like it and still does. She's very proud. He's rather reserved and talks to us now that he is bishop, but didn't before just like Hi, etc.

Then there are those who stay for having a forever family, which was me. I had to make sure we would all be okay including whatever family I had when I got married. Well, that worked out well.

If you live you Utah, there is a lot of peer pressure.

My friend needs the church with. My daughter seems to.

As my "husband" told our daughter, "your mother was never happy mormon." He knew better than I did. He is correct. NEVER. And most of my family never were happy mormon either. No wonder most of us are out.

I remember a former mission president saying he had a missionary admit he had sex on his mission. The missionary was from Utah. Instead of sending the missionary home in disgrace the mission president told him to repent and kept him in the mission. The reason why is he didn’t want to ruin the kid’s life. I thought that was pretty decent of him.

Now another mission president might have put the screws to him. Lot’s of variance in the church. In fact, why trust a church that’s so imperfect? What makes the church so unhealthy psychologically is nobody can live it’s standards and everyone puts on an fake facade pretending they do. It’s la la land.

the social game, were at a huge deficit. My family is not very social. None of us fit in. My daughter does fit in. She must have gotten it from her father.

I was treated better in mormonism while with my "husband" and he was cheating with men as he knows how to play the mormon game. His family is really good at it. They have a lot of secrets and they are all pretty nuts. His dad was the worst. So fake. Looking for his other wives while a bishop and from the girls at Ricks. He would eat lunch every day in the cafeteria and he also owned some apartments that girls lived in and he was always "visiting" them. They found a lot of letters he kept copies of. But everyone thought he was such a holy man. He would have fit in well with Warren Jeffs.

Oh man. The church certainly has it’s seedy underbelly. Lot’s of gaming going on; especially in Utah. The most extreme was couples in our ward in Draper we’re swinging with each other and they all would go to the temple before they swapped spouses. I found many of the young married couples were either living in a home owned by rich TBM parents or getting assistance from them.

These were really materialistic people who felt trapped in the church. I guess their decadence was a form of therapy of having to put on the good Mormon charade to get the money they so loved. They were playas.

What’s amazing is four couples were into this. We got invited but when we found out what they were doing it was no thank’s! Utah is the craziest place we ever lived.

Boyd was not well liked by many in Brigham City, UT. The Packer clan is not and their dealings with property that became the Boyd KKK Packer Memorial Temple - at best is questionable.

Know some of BKP's old school teachers(now deceased) and of six only one spoke well of him - and his family.

Years ago LDS as a church had many activities that gave most every age group something to do - many that were fun and enjoyable.

They have gotten rid of so many it has hurt them.

Instead of a community built on many together in play and work they are now a polarized group losing their identity.

I heard Boyd was accomplished but very cocky. Well they got rid of the fun activities because according to Elder Holland the church found entertaining the youth doesn’t keep them in the church. So they started the youth temple recommends and give the youth more responsibilities and moved when they can serve missions up in attempt to keep them from leaving in their early 20’s.

A major reasons Mormons stay is a fear they will miss out on getting selected to the Mormon Space Daddy's highest level when they kick the bucket. Families are forever was drilled into my head in primary in the 60's and 70s.

Almost us with family members who are still TBMs have heard, "there will be an empty seat at the family table in the celestial kingdom if you stray." My experience is that this fear of missing out is more prominent among Mormon women.

My mother once made that statement to me many years ago. I told her she was happy to visit whatever kingdom I landed on, upon 24 hours notice.

I think it’s a minority who stay in because they actually believe it. I think for most is social reasons. I never really believed it. I stayed because I ended up dating mostly Mormon girls and my mom was very proud of her Utah pioneer heritage. By leaving I would be pissing all over my family herritage and most the cute girls in town would want nothing to do with me.

    Being a mormon is no big deal.  Do 'mormon' all you want, knock yourself out being the best mormon possible!

    It's when you harm people via an applied activity or inactivity that you give mormonism a bad name.

    Where in mormon scriptures does it say that you get bonus points for harming another child of ghawd via action or inaction?

    Growing up in the 50s and early 60s, mormons were in the world, but not of the world and I don't recall much in the way of an announced need to exact justice on non-mormons.  Of course, society was a lot closer to being monolithic than it is now...

elderolddog Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>     Where in mormon scriptures does it say
> that you get bonus points for harming another
> child of ghawd via action or inaction?


https://www.exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,1386408,1386645#msg-1386645

Mormon authorities get points.

Let's not forget Pascal's wager. If there is an afterlife, then the smart money is on following the teachings (if not the actual practices) of the church. Mormonism is unique in spelling out the criteria and the merit awards in great detail. I'm sure that plays a large part of some people's thinking.

Some people stay because they like the food.

I DO miss funeral potatoes

Mormon life is very predictable if not prescribed to the smallest detail. For some people, predictability brings comfort.

A couple of years ago, I went back to church to accompany my elderly Mom. While I didn't care one iota for anything being said, the whole experience was calming. I knew the order of everything~ the meetings, the reserved pews for the ward's elite, what was going to be said in Sacrament mtg, the songs.

Just a reminder that about 2/3rds of the people that Mormonism claims as being Mormon do not consider themselves to be Mormons, and have completely or mostly disengaged.

A substantial majority of Mormons don't stay.

There's at least a third reason. Some Mormons actually believe that stuff — independent of ant indoctrination. If Mormonism didn't exist, and you asked them to design a religion, it would probably be a lot like Mormonism.

Isn't one reason that they don't want to sin? ;)

Some Mormons I know stay because they believe it all. I know hard to believe.

My reason for staying is that I percieve it to be in my best interest to seem to be going along with their program. At least for now.

People have emotional needs like belonging, acceptance, respect of your in group, which are often partially fulfilled by belonging to a group of like minded individuals, believing there is strength in numbers. But their adherence to the group’s official narrative results in a kind of group think that inhibits individual critical observation and analysis. It makes people blind to reason.

Lots of interesting speculation; though, it seems like a lot of projection to me. I would have to say that Mormons stay for only one reason: THEY'VE GOT NO PLACE ELSE TO GO!



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/27/2021 08:39PM by vzgardner.

And then there are those that stay because of financial interests.

It all boils down to this:

“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.”
Carl Sagan

I still buy into it. I have to wonder sometimes if some people who live on mountain tops really do.

Constrain a child in the way you want them to go (up into those Mormon mountaintops) and when they are old they will not stop climbing it.

A lot of things for people were bought into when they were children. That little kid inside of you doesn't know where else to go.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/02/2021 10:59AM by Elder Berry.

Hate to tell you this dude but I wasn't brought up in it.

I'm glad you did. Then you know some people who live on mountain tops. Their marvelous works makes you wonder.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/02/2021 01:57PM by Elder Berry.

I think there is a big disconnect between kornverts & BICs. With more bics infiltrating the mission field that gap is becoming even wider.
Few converts are able to decipher all
the unwritten rules of the game. That is why few stick with it.
It isn't the doctrine that drives them away . It's being treated like
dirt that does.