This seems like low-hanging fruit, but I at least haven't seen this issue brought up this way before. And at any rate it really hit me as I listened to Tom's farewell to Mormon Expressions on the Mormon Expression Voices podcast.

1) The LDS church hammers, pounds, into its members' heads the notions of honesty, integrity, truth, virtue, valiance, character--in fact these are basically buzz words in LDS church education documents and culture.

2) The LDS church does not adhere to these virtues itself when it so blatantly dissembles about church history, uses church funds for shopping malls and real estate ventures, punishes "liberal" Mormons who speak candidly about the historical truth claims of the church, deceives* investigators and members, and actively seeks or has sought to diminish people (gays, women, blacks) who do not fit the perfect Mormon citizen model.

3) The LDS church and its more besotted members will shun, isolate, disfellowship, excommunicate, and otherwise punish any member who questions the official church narrative and present or past doctrine or who disaffects from the LDS church.

4) I think the point has been made this way before: The LDS church holds members to a higher standard than it holds itself to. They are called to repent or are punished. The Mormon church refuses to recant or repent of anything. It is perfect, never wrong (despite the historical record of changing doctrine, Temple rituals, etc.).

5) What do you do when your church is a hypocrite, when your church lacks honesty, integrity, virtue, valiance, character? Seems like a most ironic point.




* Whether through omission or commission hardly matters--and I think it's safe to say both apply.

You articulated that so well.

Actually what you wrote is why I left the church. It's the real bottom line.

Demanding I do and be more than they themselves are willing to do and be.

All through history people have rebelled when leaders have oppressed them in this way. I hope that more people will leave when they realize that this is the case with the Mormon church.

1) The LDS church hammers, pounds, into its members' heads the notion they will never be good enough
2) To true
3) It’s called elitist
4) As in any cult “it’s not us it’s you”
5) Leave

Derrida, yes, you've hit the nail on the head. The blacks & priesthood issue this week highlights this point. The church teaches one thing to its tithe-paying constituency, but it publicly lies about it in press releases. I don't how it can be defended. I don't know how the church can be supported.

We're taught that we're free to choose and that we're to teach correct principles and then be left to govern ourselves. Yet if we're out of line in hairstyle, color of shirt, buzz words, timeline for mission, timeline for marriage, timeline for babies, or gawd forbid, in sexual orientation, then we're out. Ironic. Evil.

I really like the irony you point out here doubleb, the contradiction between what the LDS church teaches its members and what it does itself.

"We're taught that we're free to choose and that we're to teach correct principles and then be left to govern ourselves. Yet if we're out of line in hairstyle, color of shirt, buzz words, timeline for mission, timeline for marriage, timeline for babies, or gawd forbid, in sexual orientation, then we're out. Ironic. Evil."

Here the LDS church seems so Pharisaic. It preaches this sort of libertarian ideal, govern yourself, but then has all these little marks and outward signs of conformity to the group. I live in Houston, and yet I would get one or two high priests always bugging me about wearing a short sleeve white shirt. Evidently that wasn't quite the right uniform.

The Mormon church is all about agency, the BoM makes all kinds of noises about liberty, keywords in Americans' national identity (agency much less so than liberty, but both words catch crucially at the idea of freedom--and when I left the LDS church, the sense of new found freedom was my strongest and most revealing feeling. Now that's ironic!). Of course, if you are going to seduce or con an American, you will need to speak his or her language, seem to value his or her sacred terms. That opens the door to their having confidence in you and then they will be more open to other things you want them to buy.

Is an identified irony evidence of some kind? How does one argue against an irony? The only way I can see to argue against it is to say that the LDS church does none of the things that people have identified it as doing. Usually apologists will resort to saying that the disaffected are overly sensitive, only looking for the bad. But that walks into another irony: Why doesn't the LDS church "avoid all appearance of evil"? That's what it preaches, a standard it holds members to, holds them accountable for, but that's not what it does.

The Mormon church just seems to be damned by its own standards at every turn. Sadly, this contradictory structure of the LDS church's teachings and actions uncannily (or perhaps appropriately) mirrors its founder's personal style: Preach high and lofty, act as basely as you want. This is what you have to do to con people.

Sort of amazing how everything about the Mormon church points in the same direction.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/02/2012 01:38PM by derrida.

“Here the LDS church seems so Pharisaic”

It’s called “Utah Lite”. The Geriatric Authorities strain at gnats while swallowing camels. Keeps them regular.

Their entire game consists of drawing lines in the sand for the sole reason of controlling people, because a controlled people is a paying people. It doesn’t matter if the system is debilitating and ultimately disastrous to the people whose lives they fritter away. As long as Judas gets his 30 pieces of silver.

Babylon,

Where have you been? Vacation? Long time no post.

Yup. Highly recommend Hanoi’s Old Quarter.

Another is Polygamy - whenever it's in the news a church spokesmouth proudly declares "The Utah Synod" hasn't practiced it in over a hundred years, yet leaves a few things out

Yep!

The church couldn't even pass its own temple recommend interview!

Yep!

The church couldn't even pass its own temple recommend interview!

+1

they'll go to 'allmost any lengths' to assert their claims of being Christians...


except, of course: Kindness, Honesty, Mercy-Compassion, Respect for others, common courtesy, etc.


SUBSTITUTE: Handshakes & Passwords; Loyalty to leaders, endless, pointless meetings, Blind Obedience, rituals 'for the dead'.

yep

You all are pretty much ridiculous. Most of your comments take a personal interaction with another person and blame the church. People fail. People can be jerks, people can make poor decisions out of fear and stupidity.Mormons don't claim to be perfect. People are not the LDS church or the gospel. They are just people trying to find their way in life like everyone else. I'm sure you're all perfect and live your lives with absolute integrity. Take the mote out of your own eye before you try to take it out of others... cast the first stone or whatever. Must feel good bashing others in a public forum.

Pointing out truths often makes someone unhappy. Have you noticed that we're happy? Way happier than thou.

But fear not, you'll soon be old enough to get a prescription for whatever your mom is taking. Good times!

spots Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> You all are pretty much ridiculous. Most of your comments take a personal interaction with another person and blame the church. People fail. People can be jerks, people can make poor decisions out of fear and stupidity.Mormons don't claim to be perfect. People are not the LDS church or the gospel. They are just people trying to find their way in life like everyone else. I'm sure you're all perfect and live your lives with absolute integrity. Take the mote out of your own eye before you try to take it out of others... cast the first stone or whatever. Must feel good
> bashing others in a public forum.



If you have any reading ability, you might want to re-read those whom YOU are bashing, spots.

They are *defending* TBMs, who suffer at the hands of dishonest leaders. They are saying "the church" (the leaders, not the members) could not pass a temple reccomend.

You should only feel insulted if you are one of the leaders, one of the hypocrites.

Most on this board believe TBMs to be a good and honest people, being led and used in harmful ways by dishonest leaders, who claim special power from God.

Look again.

Or, is truth not useful?

I honestly think that people in the US are hypocrite. Not just the church. It's US culture. It's very discriminatory.

True, there is people like that in US LDS churches. However, I've seen better people, honest people in other parts of the word.

The level of hypocrisy in the US has almost make me quit the LDS church. I do believe in God and I respect your believes.

But again I say it it's US cultural problem. Like when they say: How are you doing? And everyone says FINE. when actually you want to say "I feel like FU*K."

People, think about it

But, tscc puts itself as untarnished from 'the sins of the world', pure & pristine, even tho (Uchtdorf): 'mistakes have been made' However No Mention of consequences, resolution, or (GASP) Restituion-Healing.

Therefore, their sayings & claims are meaningless.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/24/2017 10:17PM by GNPE.

Divorce initiated by a TBM against a non-adulterous,non-abusive spouse, abetted by Hatred, Greed, with the added Bonus of False-Misleading court statements thrown in for good measure...

ALL KNOWINGLY CHURCH APPROVED, RATIFIED, CONDONED & EXCUSED...

That's my story.

Great post. All so very true.

We were all brainwashed to believe that "whosoever looketh upon a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart"

yet every Mormon can justify the FACT that the founders of their church married and had sex with women who were already legally married to other men...

which clearly violates

A. The 10 Commandments (Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife or commit adultery)
B. Their own "Law of the Priesthood" contained in D&C 132:61-63
C. The sacred vow of marriage between a man and his wife before their God.
D. Common human decency
E. The law of the land

Delusion: a belief held with strong conviction despite superior evidence.

Delusion: a belief held with strong conviction despite superior evidence.

Love it - Hope you don't mind - I've just used this on my home page

http://www.mormon.me.uk

That's what George Orwell demonstrated so well.

People have no problem saying up is down and making themselves believe it.

THe LDs church blatantly dissembles about its history---you can say that again.
I am a Japanese. Do you know anything about "crazy mission era in Tokyou South mission"? Under Elder Kikuchi's order, missionaries baptized so many young people without telling them about the doctrine and teachings and obligations of the church.
Enormous numbers of people were baptized but a lot of them never attended the church meetings! At schools, kids were told not to speak to the mormon missionaties. Some missionaries told their investigators to write phoney address in the membership papers.
The missionaries who had lots of baptisms were invited to the fancy dinner, called Aluch and Blunch.
Some honest church members tried to stop it but they were ex-communicated! Elder Kikuchi ignored all the complaints.
I was told these things by the members so these are true stories!
I asked Monson and all the Twelve apostles to apologyze about this publicly, but the anwer was "NO".
I tried to ask Brother Inoue, who is now the president of Tokyo temple to tell me how those terrible things happened but he lied to me first, saying, "I do not know anything about it", then, when I asked more, he said that I was under Satan's influence and told me never to make a contact with him!
I could not believe it!
I could not sit in the church which is led by those hypocrates, so I left the church.

That was not just Tokyo South, it happened in the Fukuoka mission too, just before I arrived. By the time I got there we were forced to knock on doors all day every day to try and counter the bad practices of the previous missionaries.

very informative god does not judge man man judges man

Hi I just recently left the church, what made me leave was of the hhypocris. When I was member, I found difficult to interact with people of the church. I had a calling to Young Men 1st consellor to the president, it was nice cause the town is a small one in Kentucky. Beause I wasn't old like most of the other ones in heads of those quoams, I was only about ten years older then some of the young men. I was and still am young at heart, but guess that upset the Young Men President, cause I could still relate to some problem like his son dealing with. So I took the young man, as a friend and talk about nerdy stuff e.g. Star Wars, Star Trek, Doctor Who, &c. The dad was okay with it. Till I was by the dad putting a negative remark. I looked threw my facebook wall, I saw nothing odd there. It turn, it was me posting "liberal" ideas. I found it hard to get my gulliver around the offensive nature of saying we shouldn't pass harsh judgement to others for being different. The dad told his son that I am too old to hang with and fear I may make him Gay. Funny cause I am not Gay. I notice the church at the moment was hypocrites by seeing them used harmful name calling, but they claim to be teaching tolerance. WTF, if you call people f--,N---er,then how are you going to show tolerance while calling them names. I gave up that day and been an ex member now for a week now. Before I forgot the Young Men president was the father of the kid, I trying to be friends with.

It's an organized hate and system of lies. Don't pity the people in it. They are haters, too who believe their intolerance is tolerance. It's a collection of Pharasies. Mormons are Muslems without Jihad...well not since BY

There's a huge difference between the church-prescribed way of looking good and actually being good. Please read up on Joseph's history to see what a low down scoundrel he really was. And even if in some parallel universe he was a saint, his scriptures are clear forgeries and his doctrine a disempowering mishmash.

I left the church primarily because of the person the church tried to get me to be, and the ethically deficient people the church did successfully get others who I associated with, to be.

Character and personal integrity are more important than the image that you may want others to have of you while you're a church member. I was always honest with myself and with others when I was a member of the church (as I still am now). Despite its flaws, I used the church as much as possible to become a better person. When the church and the people I associated with in the church had other plans and priorities for my life, it was time to resign.

Sure, you overlook personal flaws and foibles of others. But when it becomes clear that the organization is optomized to break your soul and to cause people to become a-moral drones, it's time to separate yourself from them and the organization, and to attack the very heart of who they are and what they are and do. The church posesses the information to know how to repent itself. They choose not to do it.

Its all talk. When a person leaves it because they werent good enough to live the values yet the members who stay arent living the values either. Members who arent living the values will still say the people who left were just too lazy to live the values. It is all about creating an image for the LDS Church.

Growing up, I had an English Setter named Spots!! So, I guess reincarnation is real after all! This is great!
Spots...is that you?

You're right.

TSCC's aim is to BREAK THE MEMBER (but some just don't break) and it can't be fixed. It began broken and has no hope; faith won't do it alone.

The (mormon) 'church' is WRONG. About just about EVERYTHING. Right? You know it. The world is knowing/ learning it... one member, former (captive?) member, investigator, (horrified) onlooker or stranger-to-the-cultURE at a time.

Joseph Smith, Jr. was an experimenter interested in influencing others and liked to get drunk on his own power or ability to convince, and liked to go to the edge of the circle and get his ways and means in the middle, like an evil politician, sickening seducer, or liar that leadeth astray, or all three in this case.

The LDS [brand] 'church' is bad.okay

M@t



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/23/2017 11:22PM by moremany.

In my estimation, the church is 95% WRONG

Someone in the church once told me that satin will tell you a thousand truths to get you to believe one lie. I think that a thosand truths is too many per lie that we see in the church now, and that satin is running the mormon church.

would that be standard satin or the heavier, more durable duchess satin? Both look good, are shiny and drape well, but ultimately are substitutes for more expensive, even more durable and better looking and feeling silk.

great metaphor, even if unintended, imo.

Was just quoting Jesus on an LDS site the other day, as he railed against hypocrites. Ironic that he didn't seem to like church.

Yes, the church is BS and bogus. As you continue to question things that don't make sense, you will discover pretty much everything is a scam.

Our wars are not about freedom or peace or defense.

Government programs are not about helping the poor, or providing healthcare, etc.

Public schools are not about education.

Marriage is not about love.

Feminism is not about equality.

And on and on.......

It is all about power and money.

But pretty much everyone worships some scam, so things won't change. Too easy to manipulate and scare people into giving up their money and freedom.