Posted by:
Finance Clerk
(
)
Date: January 23, 2011 09:43PM
We often hear TBM's say you can only have true joy or happiness through membership in the church. Since an often quoted LDS scripture 2 Nephi 2:25 says, “man are that they might have joy” implies that the Mormon god wants at least His people to have joy, you would think that his organization/church might be a source for that joy. I was thinking today it only brought/brings me boredome, misery, and pressure to conform (I am past the guilt induction). So here are some questions for LDS members to test this statement.
Do you enjoy the any of the following - all these things that are part of being a member of “the church”?:
• Sacrament meeting
• Priesthood meeting
• Relief Society
• Sunday School
• Fast and Testimony meeting
• Starving for a day a month
• Listening to the crazies bear their testimonies (that might be considered at least slightly entertaining)
• Being assigned to clean the church knowing that you pay enough tithing yourself to hire a janitor AND pay the entire ward budget
• Cleaning the church toilets
• Being interrogated about your sexual habits
• Allowing you kids to be interrogated about their sexual activities
• Being asked by an insurance agent about the kind of underwear you wear
• Being told what kind of underwear you must wear and when (always)
• Annually being shaken down by the bishop for money
• Paying a significant portion of your income to an organization which does not give an accounting of what it is being used for (that would serve you better by saving it)
• Working on the welfare farm/cannery for free and than finding out that the church sells what you produced to earn income
• Being told what to do practically every evening of the week
• Totally losing one day out of seven – sometimes more if you are “leadership”
• Ward Council (need I say more)
• Dressing like a Pillsbury Dough Boy
• Getting touched near your naked private parts by a strange
• Being coerced into promising things any normal person would not
• Taking oath of secrecy with penalties of death for revealing them
• Pantomiming throat slitting and disemboweling
• Wasting your time and gas driving your son around to collect “fast offerings” knowing that people can just hand it or mail it in.
• Getting up at 5:30 AM to take you kid to seminary and then have to drive back during rush hour
• Watching your 13 year old daughter having lessons/activities about the qualities of their future husband and what kinds of wedding dresses are “appropriate”.
• Being told what you can and cannot use for lesson materials while teaching lessons
• Being told to teach things you are not in 100% agreement with
• Taking your week of summer vacation to babysit a bunch of boys at Scout Camp
• Repeating the same prayers five or more times a day
• Being told when and how much to pray
• Family scripture study
• Reading scriptures everyday by yourself
• Reading church magazines
• Being “challenged” (ie. Expected) to read the BOM by a certain deadline
I understand that some devout Mormons might actually enjoy some of these, but I suspect most would say these are just things they "have to do" if they are really honest. Another telling question to ask after this is “Now tell me things you actually enjoy.” Although I might be able to remember individual events that were enjoyable, I can’t think of a single routine thing about being in the church that I really enjoyed. Not one.
Feel free to add or edit these. Looking for routine things almost everyone can relate to. I might pass this on to TBM's for fun.
FC