When you find out Mormonism is not true, you have two options: you can leave, or you can stay.

Here are some reasons for staying:


1. You are not 100% convinced that the Church is false. If it happens to be true, you will be punished more severely by leaving (think Outer Darkness) than by staying (think Telestial Kingdom). Believing that all those millions of people who have believed in Mormonism have all been wrong is a pretty tall order.

2. You don't think the statistics showing how many people have left mean anything. Most people know that there are many Mormons who stay but don't believe.

3. You want to be known as an Atheist Mormon, Mormon Atheist, Cultural Mormon, Unbelieving Mormon, Mormon In Name Only, Jack Mormon, or something like that.

4. You don't want the Church telling you what you can't or can't do. If you want to keep the name Mormon, you have the perfect right to keep it, no matter what anybody says.

5. There are things you like about Mormonism, even though it's false. It is nostalgic. You might like aspects of your Mormon past, Mormon history, fellow Mormons, Mormon schools, etc.

6. You believe that belonging to a false religion is better than belonging to no religion at all, and you can't think of any other religion you want to join.

7. Keeping the name Mormon will help you with your family dynamics.

8. Keeping the name Mormon will help you with your business dealings, career, social life, etc.

9. You will be able to reach out to gay Mormons you see in Church in a way that believing Mormons can't do.

10. You have a family tradition of people becoming unbelievers but staying in the Church, and you want to uphold that tradition.

11. The social aspects of Mormonism are more important to you than the hypocrisy you will have to deal with.

12. You are afraid to leave, but you don't want to waste time trying to overcome those fears.


Here are some reasons for leaving:

1. You know Mormonism is false, and you have no doubts whatsoever. Your moral sense tells you that leaving is the right thing to do, no matter what.

2. You feel that if there is a God, he will punish you if you stay, and he will reward you if you leave.

3. You adopt a religion and/or belief system that requires you to leave Mormonism.

4. Even though you may not have another religious belief or supernatural world view right now, you want to feel free to investigate possibilities, and you want to be able to join other churches or groups without having to deal with the hassles that come with having to leave Mormonism before doing so.

5. Your feelings and/or experiences with Mormonism have been so unpleasant that you want nothing to do with it anymore. You want to get away from it completely.

6. You can't stand how Mormonism is so illogical.

7. You feel that Mormonism isn't just false; it is also cruel.

8. You think that statistics really do mean something, and that when people see a lot of resignations, it will be a good thing.

9. You think that leaving will have a positive effect on your family members. It will help them to realize the truth and to leave themselves if they want to.

10. You want Utah to look better to the American population as a whole, and you think leaving will help to accomplish that.

11. You don't want to be bothered by Church members anymore.

12. You feel that leaving will be good for you in general. Life will be more satisfying, you will be healthier in body and mind, you will feel free, etc.

13. You feel afraid to leave, but you think that dealing with these fears is a worthwhile endeavor.

14. You think that leaving will inspire the people you deal with on a daily basis.

15. You think that even though things may be tough in the real world for awhile, and that your career, social life, etc. might suffer, eventually, given enough time, things will improve, and you will be better off than you would have been had you never left.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 03/15/2024 04:35PM by behindcurtain.

All belief systems are false by definition. Saying the church is false does not mean any more than saying it is true. Note Donald Hoffman's theories on perceived reality. Mormonism is a success because of its high reproductive fitness. You have gender roles, the stick, and sexual repression, the carrot. If you are into making babies and doing the family thing, Mormonism may be your scene.

Treat the church as a social game. That's what narcissists do. But suppose you are a little low on the NPD spectrum. You can at least play along. It's like baking cookies for Santa. You know you are going to eat those cookies later when nobody is looking.

There are many fantasy worlds to choose from. "I prefer the real world", you say. Sorry, you live in a human world. Evolutionary biology guarantees that your world cannot be real. If it were real you would not be here. That does not mean there is no truth. Truth is what you make it. Just like love, just like beauty.

Your objection seems to be in the church's methods, which include lying to you. You are back to being the kid who is pissed off at his parents for telling him that Santa is real. But Santa is real. We make him real. Look at all the toys that get sold in December.

A noble lie is different from bearing false witness because of intent, not because of lines in the sand. At least Mormon intentions are good, which unfortunately makes them potentially harmful. That would be a reason to leave. Their conditioned lack of due diligence exposes you and your family to predators that are psychologically damaging. Another good reason.

Mormon culture is a kind of Neverland where you never have to grow up. You just have to do as you are told. There is a time and a place for that. However, as you are discovering, once you outgrow that there's no going back to Neverland even if you go to church physically.

Outer darkness sounds like something from Dungeons and Dragons. D&D is a much less expensive role-playing game than Mormonism. You can pick up a set for less than one tithing check.



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 03/19/2024 08:29AM by bradley.

I think there's a difference when the myth/lie involves being pleasing to God. Mormonism convinces people to do many things that are detrimental to destructive in the name of pleasing God (i.e. tithing and other financial sacrifices, enormous time sacrifices, control of clothing and what you drink, not letting LGBTQ live as who they are, pushing personal boundaries, etc.) There are a number of other denominations and religions that do not require this level of conformity and sacrifice. People just go to church for an hour so every week and think about being a good person. It's still mythology, but not mythology that intrudes into every aspect of your life.

bradley wrote in part:

"There are many fantasy worlds to choose from. "I prefer the real world", you say. Sorry, you live in a human world. Evolutionary biology guarantees that your world cannot be real. If it were real you would not be here. That does not mean there is no truth. Truth is what you make it. Just like love, just like beauty."

The above paragraph has implications far beyond Mormonism and even beyond religion and I must therefore challenge some of the assertions made it; specifically, that there is no such thing as facts or truth; that it is all in the eye of the beholder and that no humans can possibly live in the real world because it is a fantasy.

While I do acknowledge that the words we use to state facts and truths are sometimes (perhaps many times) prejudicial, they do not make factual information disappear. Travel anywhere on this planet and let go of a ball at a height of 5 feet off of the ground. That ball will, because of the force of gravity on it, hit the ground no matter what in a matter of nanoseconds with the only proviso being that if there is any wind about, it may move in the direction that the wind on the ground is blowing before it hits the ground. In other words, the force of gravity is a fact that affects all of us.

Here is another fact. At some time in the future, you will die and you will have absolutely no idea when exactly this is going to occur. This is also true of me and every other human being on this planet. Like every other life form on this planet, all of us will die at sometime in the future.

Here is still another fact: human beings are social animals. We need the approval of other humans in our vicinity to continue doing what we do. If nobody in our area likes what we do, then we either try to find someone who likes what we do or we stop doing it.

I'm not saying these facts lightly. I am concerned when I read responses like the quoted paragraph at the beginning of this post that the writer thinks he/she is the only person in the universe and that anybody else is just a figment of his/her imagination--there are way too many individuals and groups who think like this and their actions based on the idea that he/she/they are all who really matter in this world can, and offten does, lead to both personal and group destruction and not only to the person(s)/groups holding these ideas.

    
    

1. You know Mormonism is false, and you have no doubts whatsoever. Your moral sense tells you that leaving is the right thing to do, no matter what.

COMMENT: Why isn't this the only, definitive, criteria? If your moral sense tells you to leave, then at least for you that is the morally right thing to do. What self-serving alternative action supersedes what is morally right by your own assessment? That is the power of morality and the moral sense: Nothing counts above it! In order to supersede it, you have to deny it.

Now, let me try to objective this response:

(1) Mormonism is objectively, demonstrably, false; at the very least to an extremely high probability.

(2) Mormonism as a social institution is morally objectionable and dangerous because it advocates false personal and social doctrines that undermine individual liberty and promotes discriminatory and harmful social policies detrimental to both individual members and society generally.

(3) There is a moral imperative to disassociate oneself from false and harmful institutions whatever the personal cost, or loss of benefit, might be. (In other words, the moral imperative supersedes any personal, self-serving, or other-serving, interest that might otherwise make the moral imperative difficult.)

Therefore, if any person who comes to know that Mormonism is false, and that Mormonism is institutionally harmful to individuals and society, there is a moral imperative for that person to disassociate from Mormonism. All other "weighing" becomes irrelevant.

Now this is NOT a slam-dunk argument, because morality can be complicated by numerous morally relevant facts. But it does (I think) place an onus on the non-believing Mormon to consider what other morally relevant facts are operative sufficient to undermine the general moral dictate to resign. In my opinion, offending one's mother, or siblings, is not one of them; and neither is personal fear of the consequences of such an action. That said, it is a personal decision; and a difficult one at that.

What are the other relevant moral facts that you mention? I can’t imagine anything more important than following your moral imperative.

If you don’t do that, you risk becoming a shell of the person you were capable of becoming.

Your life will be a sham.

Please, tell me what I’m missing.

What are the other relevant moral facts that you mention? I can’t imagine anything more important than following your moral imperative.

COMMENT: That is my point exactly. What I was alluding to was the tendency of some in this predicament to make unpleasant 'repercussion facts' part, and sometimes the dominant part, of the moral equation. For example, when one's initial moral imperative is to resign, but the person psychologically dismisses such moral imperative by making the effect on their spouse or family itself a moral fact that now undermines their initial, once dominate, moral imperative. Repercussion facts become the moral lifeboat against having to make a difficult moral decision simply by assigning a degree of moral significance to such facts than in context they do not deserve. In such cases, morality becomes a tool of justification for the easy choice, rather than the moral imperative requiring a much more difficult choice.

(I am not saying that such repercussion effects of necessity lack any moral significance, but only that it is often too easy to morally elevate such facts in order to justify the much easier personal decision. We see this all the time on RfM. "I know I should resign, but I do not want to hurt my . . . ")
___________________________________

If you don’t do that, you risk becoming a shell of the person you were capable of becoming.

Your life will be a sham.

Please, tell me what I’m missing.

COMMENT: Nothing. I think we are on the same page.

I was going through the gay boyfriend/husband mess and it was all so wrong. We decided we'd get married in the temple just in case or more for not bringing attention to the fact, and after all, I waited a long time to see the circus that was in there.

We kept going to church UNTIL I was told my husband would be one of the next 2 bishops and I immediately went inactive. He waited until he was released from being ex. sec. Although I went back a few times when he left and I'd sit on the couch in the foyer and get in and out before anyone saw me. I wanted to see if I could find what I had lost. There was nothing there. I left the church kicking and screaming, but my life had proven to me that it was a joke.

I had no choice but to leave. I couldn't go and pretend and I found nothing there. I never liked the social part of mormonism and I was more than happy to not have to deal with it any longer. As my "husband" told my daughter--and I've said it before--"your mother was never happy as a mormon." My life experience led me out of the church. If it took marrying a gay man to get me out of the church, oh well.

I wasn't a good liar. I foolishly believed that if you did your best that was good enough for the church. I always thought there would be praise and appreciation for volunteering for all the hundreds of projects and free labor. Instead, nothing was said or more often there was criticism of those who donated their time. Who needs that?

I have better memories of standing in the line at the local post office than I do from sitting in a pew waiting for sacrament meeting to commence.

To leave or stay within the Church is a calculus that everyone must make for themselves. Only you can decide if your life will be better with the Church or not.

Even when in the Church, we each set our own parameters for how we interact with the Church. When I was a member of a ward in a stake with a very dispersed membership. A family lived between equidistant between 2 cities (and 2 wards). They would have to travel ~60 miles to Church regardless of where they attended.

This family would attend our ward about once/month. They preferred our ward. The Stake told them their records were transferred to the ward in the opposite direction. I quietly advised them that it would be their decision regardless of what the Stake thought.

Does it really matter?

A religious organization only controls you to the extent allowed, regardless if your name is listed on their records or not.

For me, the question has no value. Since I do not give power to the organization or persons who would desire to dictate\influence my behavior related to religion.

To a point, I get what you’re saying.

Yet if a person stays in and doesn’t believe, that is a big problem.

It’s about personal integrity.

If someone has children, it’s a pathetic legacy to hand to them.

Also, it suggests that such a person is a coward.

It’s a blot on their life that can be avoided by doing the right thing.

Yes, you have a valid point, and it can apply to many who do not divest themselves of any religious control.

But back to the same point, Who is in charge, you or the religion.

Only one of my children is active LDS by choice. I do not interfere with his choice, because it is his. I have one child who has a girlfriend 20 years younger (he is 40), and I do not interfere with his choice. I have an Atheist son, and he visits about twice a month and lives with his girlfriend and has no desire to marry. I have a daughter who is not married, but I get the benefit of a cute grandson who loves being around us. This daughter has had many boyfriends and likes to test the waters, wear pearcing, have tattos and collect items based on horror movies. My oldest lives with her partner, and has never married. They only get a lecture from me if they piss around when it comes to supporting their own family\partner responsibilities.

Religion does not drive my family, nor do I allow my extended family to manipulate anything related to choices made by my children. At one time I was active, served a mission, and held many church callings. Even to being in a bishopric. But all my kids were encouraged to chose their own path, even when I was active. When I have all the kids and grandkids in one place, religion is never discussed. But if my religious son has a baby blessing or baptism, I am there to support him.

So I am back to what I said, being a member or not has no value unless you allow the religion to have power over you. My integrity has been the same with or without religion. I still do the same things I did when I was an active memeber, I just walked away from religion because I know who I am, and if there is a God I have no fear of meeting him\her\it.

I am in charge! Not religion.

Thank you for providing a cogent example confirming the point I made above:

Here, you first acknowledge the "valid point" that resigning is a matter of "personal integrity." You then proceed search for additional moral criteria to use in order to deflate the powerful moral mandate to resign. Conveniently, you find two: (1) the moral mandate to support one's children; and (2) the moral mandate not to be manipulated (into resigning) by opposing authority. Now, by inflating the significance of these two moral afterthoughts, you declare yourself (in effect) as 'off the hook' in taking the tough, morally required action.

We see this kind of justification over and over again here on RfM. One first finds that Mormonism is false, fraudulent, and harmful, often outrageously so; and then the person is faced with the moral mandate to distance themselves completely from such an organization by formally resigning. But then they realize what the personal consequences of such resigning will be, and it is just too damn hard. So, they desperately seek convenient moral relevant excuses not to do it, while inflating the moral relevance of such excuses.

It is possible, I suppose, that certain facts and circumstances of an individual are so unique and nuanced such that all things considered resigning would be (objectively) the morally wrong choice. But, speaking for myself, and my own moral intuitions, I have never once read here on RfM any convincing explications of such countervailing moral imperatives. To me, they all come across as just convenient, morally couched, excuses for not doing what is clearly the right thing, i.e. RESIGNING!

Is the church true?      No.

Does 'resigning' remove all record of you from their data banks?      No.

If you resign, is there a possibility of them 'baptizing you for the dead' a year after you pass on?      Yes.

Can I, a current 'member,' tell Rusty McFartface to pound sand?      Yes.

Have I, as a current 'member,' told Rusty McFartface to pound sand?      Yes.

When I die, will any of this matter?      No.

Are you 'entitled' to your own opinion?      Yes.

Will I defend your right to your own opinion, even at the cost of my freedom and/or life?      Heck no!



I acknowledge that these views are not necessarily the views of Exmormon(dot)org and I absolve Exmormon(dot)org of any liability for the above expression of my expression.  
Ego iustus hoc cacas in ut pergam

Well said ED.

What I fail to understand is why some want to burn the forest down because of that pesky log that they tripped over years ago? It must be one of those emotional things that they cannot get over.

Have I, as a current 'member,' told Rusty McFartface to pound sand? Yes.

COMMENT: So, rather than resign from an organization that you (presumably) have determined to be false, fraudulent, and generally harmful to individuals and society generally, you have chosen for personal convenience (presumably) to instead tell its current President to "pound sand." Congratulations. Your moral courage is breathtaking!
_____________________________________

When I die, will any of this matter? No.

COMMENT: It may not matter to *you*, which of itself betrays your ultimate self-interest. But I would suggest that it might matter to someone else who might view you as an example. Perhaps your children, grandchildren, other progeny, or a friend, might view your continued involvement as acquiescence to the harm, or minimally as viewing such harm as "no big deal." Moreover, by remaining a member you are allowing Mormonism to continue to identify you as one of those who have accepted the faith. In short, one's personal moral courage, or lack thereof, is never only about oneself.

So, in any event, thank you for yet another example!

(But then, you are entitled your opinion; particularly if it makes you feel better.)

> COMMENT: So, rather than resign
> from an organization that you
> (presumably) have determined to
> be false, fraudulent, and generally
> harmful to individuals and society
> generally, you have chosen for
> personal convenience (presumably)
> to instead tell its current President
> to "pound sand."



What you labeled a "COMMENT:" was a question.  The answer to your question is yes.

I simply didn't feel the need to address the issue with CHQ in order to have the metaphorical asterisk added to my records, indicating that I'd flown in the face of ghawd and all that is holy by asking to be deleted from the undeletable roll call of baptized children of ghawd.

The church literally does not know what to do, ecclesiastically, with resignation letters.  It's not the letter that cuts people off from ghawd, it's ghawd cutting you off for not being obedient.

If you don't keep the commandments, you're cut off from ghawd, so a resignation letter does nothing except prime the pump, legally, based on the Guinn case, et. al.  They can't excommunicate you if you hand them, or mail in, your resignation...again, not because ghawd told them this to be the case, but because American jurisprudence said it could cost them money.

Yes, your way is better, my way is worse.  Hooray you.

Or, from my perspective, my way takes less time and likely feels just as good as your way.  Hooray me.

If we ever meet at some kind of Exmo conference, I'll buy you a hot toddy.

Exactly. Thanks for saving this. Moral integrity mostly is a personal thing. The feelings of others are never an excuse for failing to live with moral integrity.

By staying a member, you are giving them some power over you, specifically, the power to excommunicate you. You may not care, but for a great many Mormons, including the PIMOs, getting excommunicated would be a serious blot on their reputation. Excommunication carries the implication that you did something really icky, whether that is the case or not.

As long as you are a member, you allow them to retain that power. You may not care, but other Mormons in your life certainly do.

That said, I think there are perfectly valid reasons to retain membership, even as a nonbeliever. I threw in the towel on Mormonism as a BYU student. I even tried to resign (back then you had to request excommunication) as a matter of integrity. I'd rather stop paying tithing and pay nonmember tuition.

After substatial foot dragging on the university's part, they informed me that I would be expelled if I resigned my membership. OK, fine, I withdrew the request, finished my last year at BYU and then never entered an LDS chapel again except for funerals. I'm perfectly OK with hanging onto my membership to finish my degree. I don't regret that at all.

It was another 25 years before I found out that I could now resign, which I promptly did. There have been times since then I would like to have resigned in protest over something they did (prop 8, the babies of gay parents policy among others), but I only get to fire them once.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/23/2024 03:35PM by Brother Of Jerry.

I'm glad my husband didn't blow up and leave when he first realized the church was a fraud. I would have divorced him and children would have been involved too.

Instead, he patiently waited for me to catch on, thus saving the entire family instead of just himself and his moral whatever. In our case, it benefited me for him to stay to encourage me to study and observe. He saved 4 of us instead of just himself. That's why it is not a one size fits all situation, IMO.

The *practical* correctness of a decision is often viewed in hindsight; by what good or ill effects the decision brought about for the person or his family.

However, the *morality* of a decision; that is, whether it was morally right or wrong, is never viewed in hindsight because it is based upon what the person knew at the time of the decision, and what his moral sense required at that time. What actually followed from such a decision, whether good or ill, is irrelevant to the morality of the decision itself, and the corresponding moral character of the person making that decision.

Imagine a firing squad of ten officers, who are all lined up ready to kill a man who they all believe (because that is what they were told) is guilty of some heinous crime. But then, suppose it turns out that one of the officers, we will call him Dagwood, had discovered in advance that the man was totally innocent, of impeccable character, and was being killed solely for political reasons. Dagwood immediately thinks that he cannot do this; he cannot participate in this injustice and must therefore resign from the firing squad. But then he thinks, my family depends upon me. My wife is counting on me to fulfill my civic obligations. If I resign, she will surely divorce me, and I will lose my family. So, he reasons, I cannot resign.

Scenario 1: Dagwood determines that no matter what he does, the man will die anyway, so it really doesn’t matter what he does. So he decides to fully participate, and with the other officers aims at the victim’s heart and fires. Is Dagwood morally culpable?

Scenario 2: As part of the firing squad procedure, one of the officers by design draws a blank, so that none of the officers knows whether they actually in part caused the victim’s death. After the shooting Dagwood’s conscious bothers him, so he does an investigation. To his relief, he finds out that he drew the blank that day, and by this fortunate fact he was not responsible for causing the victim’s death. Is Dagwood morally culpable?

Scenario 3: Once Dagwood became aware of the victim’s innocence, he decided that instead of aiming at the victim’s heart, he would shoot over the victim’s head, so that he could be sure in his own mind that he was not the cause of the victim’s death. He now can walk away assured that he had no part in the death of this innocent victim. Is Dagwood culpable?

Scenario 4: Whichever of the above applies, Dagwood feels very guilty. After all, he did participate in the firing squad, knowing full well that it was unjust, and the victim was in fact killed. He reasons that his very presence and acquiescence in the procedure makes him blameworthy.

So, several years later, he seeks out the widow of the victim to apologize for his part and beg her forgiveness. When he finds the widow, she laughs it off. “You know,” she says, “before my husband’s death, we were very poor, barely surviving. I was very resentful of him, and we did not get along. But it turns out my husband had an insurance policy, and after his death me and the children became quite well off. I was not only able to provide them with all the necessities and even luxuries of life, but also with an education, and moral training, such that they are all now wonderful people and do much good in the community. None of this would have been possible if that firing squad had not occurred. So, you see, I am grateful. I am sure that in hindsight, even my husband would have thought his sacrifice was worth this wonderful benefit. So, go in peace.” Is Dagwood culpable?

It is easy to absolve Dagwood, or ourselves, of moral responsibility under some imagined set of circumstances. In the context of our own moral dilemma, we can also easily project our favored speculative outcomes into the decision and thereby achieve justification. Maybe this, or maybe that, will happen, if only I stay, and live the lie just a little longer. And sometimes we get lucky, and the outcomes seems to be worth the moral sacrifice. We then, in hindsight, let the outcome dictate what the moral requirement actually was at the time of the decision. If the outcome was good, the decision must have been morally right. If the outcome was bad, the decision must have been morally wrong. But that is not how morality works. It proscribes moral duties notwithstanding what the ultimate outcome turns out to be.

The above response is not meant to be an indictment upon you or your husband. These decisions are difficult and complex, as is morality itself. In any event, I am glad your husband's decision worked out for you and your family.

Having been the victim of a firing squad in a play at the Y, I would like to propose that life is a script we are given at birth.  Our roles are laid out for us by a writer, whose dictates are carried out by a director, and there is nothing for us to do but try to get it right on the first take.

The audience only cares that there are potty breaks and that everyone sees someone about whom they can fantasize.

It's not the journey; it's the cost of the flight and whether someone is there to pick you up.

I hope we all get good reviews!

Having been the victim of a firing squad in a play at the Y, I would like to propose that life is a script we are given at birth. Our roles are laid out for us by a writer, whose dictates are carried out by a director, and there is nothing for us to do but try to get it right on the first take.

COMMENT: My first thought is to seriously recommend that you do not repeat this role at the Y while in your current state of Mormon belief. The whole thing might become more real than imagined!

More seriously, I have a few questions about your *theory*:

1. Who is it that gives you the script at birth?
2. Who is it that wrote the script?
3. Who is it that directs your life's 'movie' if not you yourself?'
4. How is it that we have the capacity to get our performance right or wrong? Isn't getting it wrong the same as 'rewriting our own script?'
5. Is there a second take, if we get the first take wrong?

It seems to me that you have dug yourself quite a metaphysical hole from which to dig yourself out of with some proposed *naturalistic* shovel! But, by all means give it a shot.
________________________________________

The audience only cares that there are potty breaks and that everyone sees someone about whom they can fantasize.

COMMENT: Okay, so now we also have an audience to explain. I suppose the audience is comprised of scientists, philosophers, and other 'deep thinkers' who are trying to figure out the meaning of the play. They just don't realize that they themselves are living their own scripts.
________________________________________

It's not the journey; it's the cost of the flight and whether someone is there to pick you up.

I hope we all get good reviews!

COMMENT: Well, I suppose once we have players, a writer, a script, and an audience, we might as well postulate someone to pick us up at the end.

I shudder to say this, but your *plan of anti-salvation* nonetheless sounds very Mormonesque.

(:-)

> More seriously, I have a few
> questions about your *theory*:


Everything I type here on RfM is 100% letters!!

Nothing I've ever stated as true has been proven untrue, except for those assorted items that were untrue ab initio, such as "oxygen is not vital to temple ordinances" and "the Sacrament should be arsenic and old lace."  My favorite was, "You can't beat the Lamanite out of a man, but you can beat the man out of the Lamanite!"


A haiku:

I'm not about right.
I've often been oh-so-wrong,
And I haven't cared.


People should find joy in reading because man is made that he might have joy, no matter what Joy's parents or husband say about the matter.


I'm not about learning; unlearning is far more practical a goal if one is sincere about nihilism.  Explaining how "to be" is not the same as explaining "being" and knowing the difference is what makes us incapable of competing with monkeys when it comes to climbing trees.

Looking for the right way "To Be" interferes with the joy of "Being."

Maturity can only be described by using "mature" and "mature" is described as "...having reached the most advanced stage in a process."

The most advanced stage in the process of being a human being is "buried."


I'm sorry...  I don't really know anything.

Everything I type here on RfM is 100% letters!!

COMMENT: Clearly not *just* letters. There is way too much cleverness for that. Moreover, there is no such thing as cleverness, without some underlying linguistic and other insight. You just have a very obscure and guarded way of expressing yourself, which allows you to back away if challenged.
__________________________________________

Nothing I've ever stated as true has been proven untrue, except for those assorted items that were untrue ab initio . . .

COMMENT: Well, "proven untrue" is a pretty high bar. On the other hand, much of what you have stated as true has been shown to be incoherent, illogical, silly, or otherwise supportable, which is arguably worse than false!

But you keep engaging with me, so I have to give you that!
Carry on!

I don't "engage" with you; I'm not a Sovereign Citizen, I'm just traveling.

I don’t think anyone’s putting a timeline on it.

It’s simply when you know, you leave. Period.

That’s moral integrity and if a person chooses to ignore that or sweep it under the rug, that person, if he/she has a conscience, will suffer a personal hell on earth.

My family and I left 16 years ago (after 45 years of membership) and we have never been happier.

As Krakauer stated in Under the Banner of Heaven, the LDS church is no more true or false than all other religions.

I've had similar thoughts to those of Donald Hoffman's, I'm definitely going to look into some of his writings.

However, it is a cult, and therefore denouncing it is an important, if not necessary step.

Right. It may be no more true or false than any other religion, but the relevant question is is it more or less damaging than other religions.