There is a prevailing belief in LDS doctrines and culture that Mormons are the only ones capable of receiving certain "blessings" or benefits in their lives. It never failed to shock me that Mormons seemed to believe that they were the only ones with strong, loving families, or that (with a few rare exceptions) only Mormons were likely to get through high school without getting pregnant or becoming drug addicts, or that Mormons are the only people who are truly happy. There are people who firmly believe this despite the fact that the statistics clearly indicate otherwise (and in the case of Mormons being happy, the opposite is probably true considering the number of Mormons on anti-depressants).

It's sad that so many Mormons are so eager to validate their religion that they would work so hard to convince themselves and others that everyone who isn't Mormon is a depraved, unhappy miserable soul from a broken home.

My mother-in-law is one of the worst at this. After my wife decided that the church wasn't true, it still took her over a month to determine that we really would be able to live full, happy lives outside of Mormonism. It's not that my wife is a particularly judgmental person (she's really not judgmental at all), but she had been raised to believe those things and helping her get away from those beliefs took time.

So Mormons are sitting on their high horses, looking down on the rest of the world, and then continuing to blame the fact that many people don't like Mormons on religious bigotry, when ironically, much of the religious bigotry was inflicted on the others by the LDS faithful and when the non-Mormons respond with unkind reactions to being mistreated, the Mormons believe that Mormons are the victims.

I call those people Mormon supremacists. It describes the majority of TBMs and the sad thing is that, not only do they not realize that they are behaving this way, most of them feel that such attitudes are actually condoned by God.

Does this also relate to the idea that only members of the Church have the HG as a 'constant companion', whereas everyone else is only occasionally inspired by it?
I don't really get this.
That's an argument that's been made to me. Why do mormons think that?

'cause some guys touched their heads...

Yes! One of the reasons my wife was able to follow me out was that she discovered among many non LDS women at her work, shinning examples of compassion, motherhood, and the most shocking of all .... it seemed like real happiness as well. A blessing re severed she'd thought only for god's chosen people.

In retrospect all laughable were it not for the attitude is still firmly in place though out the morg.

Very nice topic, joe. Mormon supremacy is as real as white supremacy (and not all that different). It poisoned my childhood. I grew up far outside of the Morridor. Almost all my friends and peers were never Mormon. Most of them were fairly rational suburbanites.

But inside my house it was always on. All Mormon all the time. Dear old Dad would smite us upon the cheek if we went astray. The man keeping brothers down.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/27/2013 12:09AM by donbagley.

I was fortunate enough to have a lot of good, kind, non-LDS friends who encouraged me to keep to my standards and they mostly followed similar standards as well. At the same time, of the 7 LDS kids in my class, at least 3 didn't follow the more important LDS standards and virtually none of them were genuinely kind people. So my high school years taught me very well that being LDS doesn't guarantee anything. Part of the reason I chose non-LDS friends was because they supported my standards without looking down on me when I told a joke that may have been less than appropriate, but they didn't act like they were somehow better than everyone else simply because of how they were raised.

And as far as the belief that only Mormons have happy families, my siblings and I all followed the LDS standards in "For the Strength of Youth" pretty well, but we all hated each other and treated each other in the most unchristian manner to the point that virtually all of the other non-Mormon families in my school (it was a VERY small school with less than 100 students) had much better relationships with their families. My parents were so proud of the fact that we were all going to church, not doing drugs, not sleeping around, and headed for missions that they never realized how woefully they failed because of my siblings and my attitudes toward each other. That is what happens when Christianity focuses more on rules and puts the real focus on the rules that don't make you better people than they do on understanding what it means to love your neighbor.

I sincerely wish that I had a decent relationship with my siblings, but most of us still barely tolerate each other at family get-togethers and yet my siblings will all stand up and bear their testimonies of how they are so happy to get to spend eternity with a bunch of people who they don't even like and they pity everyone else because they don't have that "wonderful privilege."

I'm estranged from most of my siblings. The younger ones dispute my memories and accuse me of making things up. When my parents were down to their last two daughters living at home, they suddenly started giving allowances and lunch money to the girls. They didn't beat or scorn the two youngest; I guess they were worn out by then.

My two youngest sisters never received ritual beatings. And they never had to live in a hot garage or go to school hungry. It tore the family apart, the disparity of it all. And all under the auspices of Mormonism.

Absolutely. My TBM parents didn't like that I mostly had non mormon friends. They were always trying to push me to spend more time with the girls from church. Of course the girls they thought were better were the ones having sex and drinking and barely passing their classes.

My non mormon friends were on the honor roll, involved in lots of extracurriculars and much nicer!

“SAINTS ARE THE BEST PEOPLE.... and in many ways superior to any other people.”

- Prophet Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, 1954, v. 1, p. 236