This is an interesting topic that has been touched on in a lot of posts. Someone who is on the rolls but hasn't attended church for years, drinks, smokes, etc, but will defend the Church quite animatedly if you dare speak against it. What gives with that?

I think it has to do with ego. A lot of people have a fond remembrance of certain doctrinal things. Nothing detailed but just Jesus/First Vision/Give Said the Little Stream/etc. It's their answer for a metaphysical underpinning to their existence.

However the actual DOING of Mormonism is a soul-crushing experience for them. Being constantly reminded that they fall short of the mark can really hurt one's ego. So they become inactive. They don't actively reject the Church, they just feel better not attending. So they become inactive "Jack-Mormons."

But when you bring up the Church to them it's not the soul-crushing activity that comes to mind, it's the good feelings they had as a kid or a new convert etc. of thinking God loved them and that the Church was a good thing. Their concept of self, if they are forced to think of it, includes being Mormon on some level at least. When you attack the Church you are attacking a part of them--something that forms a major underpinning of their ego.

Get a cowboy drunk and he'll start bending your ear with how worthless he is and all the mistakes he's made in life.

Get a Jack-Mormon drunk and he'll start telling you about how he should be more active than he is.

Thoughts? Experiences?

I think that makes sense. I can think of similar responses from people of other sects as well. I know Christians who never attend services but get offended by something they perceive as sacrilege.

I think it's just more apparent in moism because the lifestyle is usually so all-inclusive.

I think a great many people also just take whatever faith they were raised with as fact and give it no thought. How many times have you heard someone say they believe something because that's how they were raised? Then criticizing their religion might be like insulting their mama.

I see this all the time. Maybe it is ego, they don't want to be wrong even if they don't live it.

I am ALWAYS turned off by this sort of person. How can anyone be to lazy to exert the effort to know why they need not be active nor feel guilty about it.

I have heard a hundred times at least, "I NEVER go to church, am totally inactive, but would someday like to marry in the temple again."

That is when I run for the hills. Intellectual laziness is just UN attractive!

A longtime friend of mine is from a Morridor jackmo family. It's obvious to me (especially after spending a lot of time on this board) that the Mormon beliefs with which he was raised really messed with his head and messed up his relationships with women. He had a hard landing into the nevermo world -- it was like he had one foot in and one foot out. (The best analogy I can think of is that of a toddler running around with lots of enthusiasm but little understanding of the trouble he's getting into.) Perhaps because he never really dealt with his background and upbringing, some of the effects of it have lingered to this day.

It's not just exmos that need to go through a recovery process. IMO it can include the jackmos who walk away from it as well.

One thing that REALLY irks me is when non-practicing Mormons judge ex-Mormons because they no longer believe. Its ultimate hypocrisy. Who's worse? Someone who no longer believes or someone who believes but won't follow it?

In my opinion God would judge better the person who doesn't follow the religion, because they don't believe in it, versus the person who actually believes it, but STILL won't practice it.

They believe but they're weak. Can't give up their bad habits, don't want to be judged and harassed, so they stay away.

I think inactives like this are the reason TBMs believe we exmos leave just so we can sin, or because we're too weak, or because we were offended.

My husband is like that. Rarely goes to church, doesn't pay tithing, married a non-mormon (me).

Yet if you say anything negative towards the church, even in the most delicate way, he'll get defensive. I often tell him that he has to stop acting like he and the mormon church are one entity. It's like he feels that a critique against the mormon church is a personal critique against him.