Tell them when they shave the Christus statue in Temple Square, and repaint all the Jesus-with-beard portraits, then you'll shave your beard. Amazing the insanity that is never questioned when you're in a cult. "Right" is whatever they define it to be in their make believe. What's wrong with a beard anyway? It's a fashion choice.
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Great documentary here where Derrin Brown turns an ordinary scuba diving instructor into a faith healer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuP5uOI7Xwc What "Pastor James Collins" says at 1:09:00 was especially moving to me, that your worth is not defined by the money you give to some pastor. I remember so many times being told by parents that "we always pay tithing and tha
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Very admirable and nice of him to put in so much effort on this! It sounds like many people appreciate this.
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not sure how - parents are really good at forcing their kids to do things personally, I wish I left the LDS church sooner, it would have made me less messed up as a teenager, they really hurt your self esteem and mess you up on a lot of issues like appropriate attitudes towards the opposite gender + intimacy, etc. you may have more freedom if you say you are not mormon anymore but it is very d
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all they care about is looking good - Church PR works very hard to create a "clean" image if the pedophiles were brought to court, it would create a scandal similar to the Catholic Church
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personally think Young Women's program is awful and it is made abundantly clear that much more funding and time and effort is put into the young men's programs including scouting
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Scientology paid video maker to make video and pretend it was real. Wouldn't put it past the LDS church to do the same thing on Youtube. They have plenty of money and resources and making an unprofessional video is very cheap.
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Thanks, it's nice to finally know where that weird description came from. This submarine is the only real life object I've ever seen that resembles the Jaredite boats. It must have been a fascinating invention for the people of its time.
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I felt like this often. The kids at church seemed much more intolerant of my eccentricities than the kids at school. I was fascinated by church doctrine until I learned enough for church to start repeating itself and be monotonous, and then I was bored and miserable.
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"Contact known relatives in the area." I can't believe this is written down and posted on their official website. This is creepy.
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If you like computers, how about accounting or software development? Sometimes you can work from home and not see people face to face in those jobs.
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"It cannot be proven or disproven with logic." Mormons always say something like this when they are losing an argument. At other times, they try very hard to use logic and science to prove their religion. Just look at all the "faithful" research that comes out of BYU, such as to prove that the Nephites exist, or FAIR apologetics. It has to be one or the other. You enter
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Some animals poop to lessen their weight when they're stressed. I'd guess it was a factor of panic - perhaps she thought you were a predator like a cat, flew in to you in a dive bomb attack to try to drive you away, and ended up pooping at the same time.
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They're afraid that too much of the truth about missions will get back to the families. Especially when mission presidents actively hurt the health and well being of missionaries with absurd rules and advice. This might finally awaken some common sense as parents would see the dangers and realize their children shouldn't be out there or abused like this. See Raptor Jesus' story about how he w
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You're not alone. I'm wondering if your family dynamic is like mine: From https://glynissherwood.com/scapegoat-counselling/ "Unfortunately most scapegoats come to believe – on some level – the family myth that they are the bad guy, rather than understanding they are being abused. Buying into the belief that one is ‘bad’ seriously undermines a person’s sense of self worth. Som
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Even as a Mormon, this bothered me. I noticed other churches were doing more things in the community - but we were so insular and only doing work in the temple or visiting teaching for the most part. The church callings took so much of our time, we had no time for any real volunteer work. By the way, this included "clean the building assignments." We clearly were getting our time suc
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I wish my dad was like you and got us out of the Mormon church when I was young. I would give quite a lot if I could reverse time and make that true. Your kids are lucky you are man enough to deal with the truth. Here is part of a poem I wrote to express sadness that my dad forced me to deal with Mormon history and family past issues on my own, because he wasn't man enough to face them. Y
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Not every Mormon turns out this way, but for those who have a narcissistic streak, a mission where they get made the district leader or Assistant to the President encourages the very worst in them. Then they may never grow out of this pattern that got set in early adulthood.
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My brother has a naturally arrogant personality, and Mormonism/mission/priesthood badly encouraged him in it. He never learned to regard non-Mormons or people who make less than him as equals. He loves to put down other people.
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I've heard something like this as well. The story goes that collections of names are done for awhile at one temple, then moved to another temple, so that there's always names to do for members who don't bring any with them.
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The worst thieves are those who scam the poor and sick.
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This is one of the things that actually got through the brainwashing as a Mormon. I was always bothered that we spent so much time and money on temples when we could be helping the poor instead. You know, like a lot of religions and charities do. How were we "the true church" when we were generally encouraged to spend more time visiting the temple and doing "work for the dea
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Sometimes they seem more like scripts than talks.
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It sounds to me like you're suffering a lot from church idiocy and your wife. Maybe some boundaries would help? You have the right to choose your own religion. You're not responsible for your wife's feelings. She is. I would stay away from the church for your own sanity if you can, and seek a level of calm neutrality with your wife. Heal yourself, and let her do the same. Sometime
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Doris Hanson's "What Love is This?" on polygamous communities has a lot of stories about how it is so damaging to women and children and sets them up for sexual and emotional abuse. This is the kind of background many of our ancestors came from, especially if you have ancestors from Utah. They lived through the Reign of Terror of Brigham Young. This is why sexual abuse of children i
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Family and community. Leaders constantly threaten members they will lose the respect of their families and communities if they leave or even look up anything on the Internet. "Families forever" is really code for "You better stay a member if you want your family and community to respect you and think well of you."
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For any community to exist with 0 feedback from its average citizens or members is extremely unhealthy. Doesn't matter if it's a family, business, church, city, or country. There are many people still trapped by family circumstances in Mormonism. It would mean a lot to them if this community could manage to achieve some very basic milestones on the roadway to becoming a free and open society
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That makes sense. Maybe in the same way that the age change for missionaries got more women to be missionaries, they want to fill in the declining numbers with women for leadership positions and callings.
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Pretty much. It's two hours instead of three, if you go to one meeting, and you don't have to worry about talks or callings for the usual three hours.
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Anything that disrupts the poisonous official narrative is a good thing. It's unusual and brave when people are willing to be the odd ones out and speak the truth from within a corrupt and tyrannical system.
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