When I meet my wife, she was planning on going to law school but decided instead she wanted to be a stay at home mother and raise children. After a few years of being a mom she decided she still wanted to go to law school. Many of the women in the ward were so impressed that she was going back to school.

One day, a member of the Bishopric had an important message for me. The sp and the bishopric were concerned that if I allowed my wife to attend law school, that she would learn to question things and would most likely lose her testimony of the gospel. What a fu4king prophet they were. They were so right, a woman who knows how to think can figure out their lies and not pay tithing.

It is important for women to not learn how to think.

She will turn her back on Allah!

But if your a man and go to law school and learn how to think, you'll end up with a bomb proof testimony, just like an apostle . . . I mean Dallin H. Oaks.

+1

Education is dangerous to religion. That's why there is BYU. THe system at BYU ensures that the students remain indoctrinated while getting an education. I'm not trying to knock BYU. After all, I'm sure the church wants its graduates to be well-qualified to get those well-paying jobs so that they can earn more and hence pay more tithing!

But BYU it is accessible only to those in Utah, Hawaii and Idaho. It is also very expensive for the regular member. Now if you are related to a GA, then you are in luck.

BYU for members is a stunning bargain compared to almost every other private university in America. It's now even cheaper than many public universities since their tuitions have spiked during the last 5-10 years due to the recession.

so they seriously equate learning and empowerment with the ability to leave the church... meaning that the people who stay in the church don't know how to question? are disempowered? And they are ok with this? they don't want their members to be thinking empowered people. of course they don't, its a cult.

wouldn't you want to portray the image of your church as full of intelligent well rounded men and women? no? my bad.

It can be about becoming less dependent upon the status quo the church creates. For example, if a woman develops new friends at school, then she has an alternative to her church-based social network. And simply by observing her non-LDS friends she's likely to learn that non-Mormons live happy, productive, meaningful lives too. Who knew?

Having a degree and marketable knowledge also increases a woman's choices. She isn't stuck being dependent on her male breadwinner.

And, of course, there's the "danger" of encountering (OMG) new ideas! DIFFERENT ideas!!! Ideas that make MORE SENSE than Mormon ideas. Gotta protect the delicate flowers of Mormonism from that.

Don't allow any fresh air from any direction to blow on the house of cards that is Mormonism.

But they can't actually say that.

Well, yeah, this goes right back to Adam and Eve, who ate fruit from the Tree of KNOWLEDGE. I always thought it was strange and counterintuitive that gaining knowledge was considered a terrible sin against god. Sort of tells you something about that god, doesn't it?

Christian Gnostics believe that the snake was really christ trying to get adam & Eve to get knowlege to make it back to the real God the Father. That the god of this world was a smaller weaker, lesser God who wanted people to "put no other gods before him) "Lesson for the day" HA!" But Ya the only way to stay a believer is put blinders on & stick your head in the sand!

Unless she is headed for BYU this is a true statement!

"Really, why?" follow-up questions for the bishop. It wouldn't take long before he falls back into testimony mode or personal attack mode.

This is right in the scriptures.

2 Ne 9
" 28 When they are learned they think they are wise, and they hearken not unto the counsel of God, for they set it aside, supposing they know of themselves, wherefore, their wisdom is foolishness and it profiteth them not. And they shall perish.

29 But to be learned is good if they hearken unto the counsels of God."



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/16/2013 09:28AM by Jesus Smith.

...like JS, or from a minister who had been pushed out of his denomination for being a little nuts (like Rigdon).

I've told this story before but when I was first married, before I had kids, I attended a ward in Salt Lake City. I was fresh from CA, a BYU grad and RM in my late 20s. Someone in Relief Society asked "Why do we encourage our kids to marry so young in the Mormon church?" While I was still thinking that it was my understanding the church was getting away from encouraging kids to marry too young because too many were divorcing, someone else answered "So they don't go out into the world and be tempted by the world and fall away from the church." I almost snorted in disbelief that anyone would say anything that silly and was shocked to look around and see every woman in the room nodding in agreement. They all agreed their children should be sold into marriage for their protection. It was medieval. I still wish I'd raised my hand and said "my parents encouraged me to get a BYU degree, to serve a mission, to travel all over the world and to get some work experience. They weren't afraid I'd fall away from the church by doing so but they were GOOD parents who taught me good principles."

And just look what happened because of it.

Doesn't surprise me in the slightest. Ever since church leaders realized that science doesn't back up the church's claims, their anti-intellectualism has gotten out of control.

When I first started questioning church doctrine (I was more NOMish than apostate at this point, mind you), my dad flat out told me that he never would have allowed me to go to college if he knew I'd ever dare to question the prophet.

It was a huge eye-opener for me and helped pave the way out of crazytown.

Ol' Boyd said 'feminists and so-called scholars or intellectuals’ are great threats. (Talk to the All-Church Coordinating Council, May 18, 1993. http://www.lds-mormon.com/face.shtml)

And then good ol' Ezra T. said:
“Contrary to conventional wisdom, a mother’s place is in the home! ... It is a misguided idea that a woman should leave the home, where there is a husband and children, to prepare educationally and financially for an unforeseen eventuality.”
(“The Honored Place of Woman,” Ensign, Nov. 1981, p. 105. http://www.lds.org/ensign/1981/11/the-honored-place-of-woman?lang=eng)

See, we wimmin can't be gettin' too big for our britches. Gotta stay barefoot and pregnant and know our place!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/16/2013 10:54AM by AngelCowgirl.

Haha! Love it, your SP should be recommended for church prophet as he's the only one that I'm aware of that can actually prophecy.

Basically saying "we like our women dumb and subservient". What century is this?

If you "allow" . .. and did they think to talk to her about it?


Bleah . . .

I'm still stuck on "allow".

+1

My TBM husband has always worried that if his wife ever got a "good" job, she would leave him. He said this often when we were first married, and I know he still thinks this way. He really thinks women leave their husbands just because they can support themselves.

If a woman is happy in her marriage, she will not leave. A job is not the reason.

Well, I think it's safe to say that a woman in an unhappy marriage is more likely to leave if she has an education and a job.

But you're right--it's not the job itself that would be the reason for leaving. It's just something that makes leaving possible or less difficult, if the woman needs to leave because the marriage is bad.

"The sp and the bishopric were concerned that if I allowed my wife to attend law school, that she would learn to question things and would most likely lose her testimony of the gospel...They were so right, a woman who knows how to think can figure out their lies and not pay tithing."

I can personally vouch for the truthfulness of that statement!

Sociological studies find, over and over again, that as a general trend the more educated a woman is, the lower number of babies (READ: potential future tithe payers) she will have, if she even has any.

Can't be having that!

The women in my family who have little more than a high school education, or their education is in child development or elementary ed or something like that, are the most TBM, obedient, Stepford women. The ones with degrees that made them have to think have left the church.

Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be thinkers...

Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 05/16/2013 03:27PM by josie.

Mormon "plan" of salvation (salvation = lifelong tithe payer):
phase 1
1 - From the earliest age deeply ingrain in each child a fear of their body, a fear of sex and a fear of disappointing "authority" such as parents, the church and God.
2 - Deeply entrench in people, especially young girls, the concept of eternal family.
3 - Program young women to believe that only an RM is an acceptable husband and marrying in the temple to an RM is the only path to eternal family.
4 - program both boys and girls to think that the girls only acceptable role as an adult is motherhood.

Once step 1-4 are firmly in place, you can proceed to phase two

phase 2

* Young men must go into the world, get an education and work amongs the gentiles to bring in money for the church. This can only be safely done if:

1 - Men go on a mission. This is non-negotiable as young women will only marry (have sex with) an RM.
2 - young women attend a church college, but should focus on finding a mate. Coursework should be light and filled with such things as dance, horesback riding and basic general education courses.
3 - RM and freshman/sophmore college age girls marry in a fit of desperation for sexual release. Girl leaves school and has child immediately.
4 - Boy completes education, can safely study and work in most any field as any bump in his testimony will be smoothed over by either his indoctrination in the mission field or his fear of losing his family and/or easy access to sex.
5- Have many children, wrap everyone tightly in a cacoon of church participation so that all friends and support comes only from the church.

Critical to the success of this paradigme is the woman never getting an education or enough experience to be self sufficient and the man never realizing he can have sex outside of marriage without suddenly self combusting.

Families created in this manner are the most stable (for the church). The wife is less likely to ever consider the church is false because she never gets exposed to critical thinking or facts that go against the church. If she does, they still have the very powerful threat of the loss of her "eternal" family. Few mothers would risk that or allow their husbands to put that in jeopardy. If the man loses faith they dont really care so long as he is cowed enough by his responsibility as father/husband that he stays in the herd and keeps writing checks. Their worst nightmare is an educated couple who communicate honestly and do some research together. That never ends well for them

This is a proven method for salavation. The only real chink is that a person can now get educated without ever leaving their living room.

Keep women dumb, dependent, and pregnant. Recipe for success!

I will never understand this way of thinking. When DH and I were engaged, his parents assumed I would drop out of college like their daughters did, and start popping out babies. When I told them I intended to graduate, get established in my field, then think about kids, they flipped. FIL said very angrily, "You weren't sent to this life to get a degree, you know". I calmly said, yes, actually I was, since it was my choice.

I bet they think that my education drove me away from the church too. That's crazy though that your bishop and SP were that concerned that they met over it!

My earliest memories include women and girls lecturing me about the dangers of education, something that continued throughout my schooling.