I've been out for about 7 years (thank you, RFM), but looking back, I was never a TBM. I pop into the forums occasionally, usually after the missionaries manage to track down my last address. I'm generally friendly.

Even though I never really believed in gawd, I always found the faith of my parents to be interesting. I didn't grow up in the Moridor. I went to college on the left coast, Mormonism to me was always a quirky interest that not only I found fascinating but others found fascinating. I was an atheist in college, but I ended up leading my college's LDS (sorry.. guess I can't say that anymore) Student Society. I just liked the cultural bond (and the dating scene).

I have great memories of debating why eternal progression was ethically superior to eternal damnation. I remember taking an astronomy class and sharing "If You Could Hie to Kolob" as a beautiful vision of the multiverse. I remember talking about Heavenly Mother to feminists. I remember talking about the Mormon pioneers in history class and how (despite the Native American genocide) they built the West. It was just.. different. And therefore interesting.

I don't recognize today's Mormonism. TSCC is so obsessed with jumping on the Jesus freak train that it's buried everything that to me made it something worth protecting. Despite all the pain and anguish its caused its global membership, there was still a unifying culture and quirkiness that bound us together.

It's been extinguished. And for what? To appeal to Evangelicals who will never join it?

It honestly saddens me. I feel we could have had something akin to Judaism. Different flavors/intensities of the same underlying belief/cultural experience but without an oppressive authority. The SLC headquarters is just too selfish to let it happen.

Love you all. Just ranting.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/21/2023 05:08PM by levantlurker.

I understand where you are coming from, and I agree. In many ways, Mormonism's quirks serve as features, not bugs. I remember a board member from long ago (SusieQ#1) who told us what the Relief Society was like before Correlation and massive interference from higher-ups. This was before every church activity had to have "a gospel purpose," and the women were free to run things as they saw fit. They had travelogues, craft demonstrations, canning demonstrations, book discussions, and so on. They held fundraisers, and then decided how the money would be spent. It was actually a club by and for women, as opposed to being merely an auxiliary of the priesthood.

Over time, the church leadership has been sucking everything that was fun, interesting, or different about the church. I agree with you that they are trying to appeal to the Evangelicals and the more conservative Christian groups, but are unlikely to make much headway with them. In the quest to mainstream, they are becoming just another Christian denomination.

You're describing my mother's church experience.

She and my father left the church when they moved east.

I got baptized in my teens, partially to rebel against them. And then I left because they were right :/

It sounds like you were fortunate not to spend too much time in that soul-killing muck.

I have cousins who went through the wringer (Northern Arizona.. not even Prescott!)

Growing up it was always relative. I felt I missed out on the large family gatherings. They felt they missed out on cultural experiences. Today, all are pretty much atheists like me but for the most part didn't resign to prevent family turmoil.

The Mormons in my New England high school were in the minority, and they had to learn to play nicely with others -- which is not a bad thing.

Exactly, just another hohum christian denomination, but with very,very,very $expensive$ membership requirements

I get it.

As a kid in Mormonism we had tons of fun and activities. Scout Camps off the Snake River, running rapids down the Green River, Winter Camps where you took along your favorite inner-tube, water skiing on Bear Lake, water skiing at Flaming Gorge, air hockey at your young men's presidents house, scavenger hunts on Tuesday nights, youth barbecues, Road Shows, fund raisers, the list goes on.

That's what kept us going, kept us unified as a group. We all knew each other. I could go to any house in the neighborhood if I was injured, they knew who I was, and would get me home to insure I was safe.

Darn right! Mainstreaming along with the control freaks have made it all unbearable and untenable. It did not matter to me as a kid if it was true or not, just that it gave me value. Bet if Christ returned he would be in the river raft with us when we would get to the rapids hollering and laughing along with us.

I hate to tell you, but I think he would have been hanging out with me and my friends . . . I think he'd find the whole thing a bit square . . . .

like R.S. My mother was a counselor for a while and that is when she learned to make quilts. My grandmother always had. She loved quilting. They always had a quilt up that women could go quilt and they'd sit around and talk. They had the R.S. bazaar every year or so. We won a Shetland pony in a drawing at one of them and the pony wandered our farm for YEARS.

We had fun activities like going to the Deseret gym and swimming. And all those parties like water skiing. Camp wasn't so BORING as when I was older and a leader. YW was beyond boring when they called me and I was shocked. They were really into control and I got in trouble if I stepped out of line by doing something fun with the girls. I asked to be released because I didn't like the new program.

Yes, it was a lot funner when we were younger. I did think that when I was in YW that if they didn't do fun things and develop relationships with the girls, they'd lose interest. They don't need someone bossing them and making them make goals and have the leader talk to them about their stupid goals. And it has been happening.

I don't know what I believed. I find myself here because my life took a direction I never could have predicted in a million years and I learned too much about the underbelly of the church. You can't go back once you've seen it. (Somehow most of my family is now out--just 2 left in--my daughter is one.)

Keep coming around. It is nice to read other's experiences dealing with this wonderful organization.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/21/2023 08:07PM by cl2.

cl2 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> They were
> really into control and I got in trouble if I
> stepped out of line by doing something fun with
> the girls.

I found this out when I was "called" to be a Primary teacher. I took the kids outside one lovely summer day to get a break from the tiny crowded classroom and pretty darn tout suite some in-charge guy came out to scoot us all back inside the building. That was an early lesson to me in how any kind of independent thinking or especially action will be severely frowned upon. Uniformity is the Mormon god.

It also felt creepy that "they" were watching me, obviously, or how else would someone have known instantaneously that we weren't in the classroom? Seriously creepy.

That was just one example of me having that feeling of doom - knowing I wasn't trusted but not knowing why. Later, I figured they just don't trust converts? Don't really know still. Did they think I was going to take off with the kids? Or it was sacrilege to leave the church building? ???



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/21/2023 08:28PM by Nightingale.

I enjoyed that - such an entertaining read.

"The Jesus freak train" - LOL

A man that wants to become Gawd? That's got to be about as bad as it gets.

Mormonism actually earned it's place to die, didn't it?

That's kind of the story behind all the world's major faiths, no?

Man claims to speak to god.
Man convinces others to believe him without evidence.
Man profits on those gullible people.

My daughter is old enough to understand that we don't go to church on Sundays but some of her friends do.

My NeverMo wife and I both believe she should be educated on my family's heritage.

She'll never go to Primary. I was always horrified at the song "Follow the Prophet, Follow the Prophet, Don't Go Astray." Like WTF. Still sends shivers down my spine.

But I want her to know where she came from. I just don't know how to present it.

Argh. I've forgotten how to use this forum.. wanted that to not be a reply.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/22/2023 07:29AM by levantlurker.

I really don't have fond memories because the church began to change in the 1980s just as I became a member at the forgettable age of 8. All the fun stuff was terminated as the ward budget was tightened. I experienced Scouting and I (not the church) worked hard to support the scouts. Everything was fundraised- I solicited donations from businesses, sold light bulbs door-to-door, sold hand made crummy pizza. The church paid squat for us.

We were dragged to the temple for dead dunkings and then told on the way home that we weren't reverent enough so we deserved no dinner (yeah, I had youth leaders like that). The same stunt was pulled on us when we worked all day doing Saturday Service projects- only to be told that we horsed around too much or didn't work hard enough. Our afternoon ice cream had been forfeited.

Mission and temple marriage = major disappointments.

As far back as 1995 LDS has itched to pass itself off as just another Christian denomination.

https://www.deseret.com/1995/2/6/19157747/lds-church-hires-edelman-worldwide

I don't doubt that at some point this grates on actual Mormons.

Now they've joined the World Economic Forum with Aaron Sherinian. Truly global.

Doesn't it follow from that logic that the Q15 have all taken up smoking?

Which should give you pause regarding the church's commitment to things "global,"

Lot's Wife Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Doesn't it follow from that logic that the Q15
> have all taken up smoking?
>
> Which should give you pause regarding the church's
> commitment to things "global,"

Ask Sharon Eubank or Donald Rasband when he's wearing his SDG pin.

And why would that matter? Would it mean the church has, in your words, "joined the World Economic Forum?"

and berths on the "christian" nationalist train.

When polygamy stood in the way of statehood and economic profits, they abandoned polygamy.

I'm sorry you became mainstream weirdos. :)

I think that money killed the church. They had a choice to serve either God or Mammon. Mammon won. Call it a hostile takeover. The church has only one mission now, to make money.

What once was is gone. What are they going to do, restore the restoration? To use Joseph Smith imagery, the church has already shot its wad.

bradley Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I think that money killed the church. They had a
> choice to serve either God or Mammon. Mammon won.
> Call it a hostile takeover. The church has only
> one mission now, to make money.
>
> What once was is gone. What are they going to do,
> restore the restoration? To use Joseph Smith
> imagery, the church has already shot its wad.

I think that's a major factor. The church also became worldly, or as the new PR man Aaron Sherinian would say "global".

The beginning of the end for Mormonism was the abandonment of polygamy. This was one of their distinctive beliefs, and as soon as they got rid of that the mainstreaming began in earnest. It accelerated even more during the 1970s and 1980s, til now we see Russell M. Nelson jettisoning everything Mormon including the name. He has held onto temples and continues to build themz but he also helps destroy their interiors and has rewritten the Endowment in his image.

I can't believe the amount of bedwetting around here because of Aaron Sherinian and LDS Inc giving away money through a UN agency, or the WEC, or anything else viewed as globalist conspiracy theory fodder.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/17/2024 07:31PM by Maude.

The church really decided to go mainstream in late 19th century Utah, when it wanted statehood and congressional power in Washington. That's when the concessions began, and everything else has unfolded from there. McKay was a modernizer, to be sure, and in his way so too was Golem B. Hinckley, whose successors are just clumsy imitations.

xx



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/17/2024 07:34PM by Maude.

The Nelson era has been hard for me, too. I haven't gotten around to trying to journal about why it's significant.

The Church became worldly back in the 1950s under D O McKay, when they decided to stop being an Intermountain West Church, and expand into the larger world in a serious way. It got kicked up a notch in the 1970s, and that has continued ever since.

it decided to go corporate even before the 1950s, and that really kicked into high gear in the 1960s under N Eldon Tanner. What we see now is Tanner's legacy.

Mainstreaming is just rebranding to goose product sales, about the same as McDonalds dumping the golden arches for squared off exteriors in shades of brown. It's still McDonalds.

Amazing Grace was performed during the evening session of GC. First time ever during a Mormon conference.