If you keep getting told you're good enough, eventually you might stop attending, stop paying tithing, leave completely, etc.
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The Church is so focused on sex because it is limited in what else it can talk about. If it talked too much about its history, it would stir up dangerous questions and doubts. If it talked too much about its doctrines, it would likewise stir up dangerous questions and doubts. It can't talk too much about how to recruit new members, because it just doesn't have good answers to many of the que
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I checked out the rankings of Utah high schools, and the high school I went to is way down the list. I thought my high school was better than that. It's still in the top 50%, but it's low nevertheless. This may partly explain the fact that I found BYU to be a rough school academically. Other high schools simply do a better job of preparing students for college. This does not completely exp
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I know a man (not a Mormon) who claimed to have seen Jesus. He was irritated when I expressed skepticism. This man was a nice person, as well as being quite intelligent. His "Jesus sighting" and other messages he said he received from Jesus had a great impact on his life. He did not appear to be lying to me. A lot of people think they have seen Jesus, and they are very sincere
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Somebody said that Bundy blamed pornography for his criminal behavior in order to distract people from the real cause(s). When you think about it, a corrupt person like Bundy could easily lie about virtually anything, so it's hard to know what the real truth is. Bundy could also have been simply delusional when trying to explain his behavior.
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Catlin believed the Osages "to be the tallest race of men in North America, either red or white skins; there being few indeed of the men at their full growth, who are less than six feet in stature, and very many of them six and a half, and others seven feet.” --From the National Park Service website.
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I read somewhere that a study found that Native Americans were the tallest race of people on earth, but I don't know where I read it. When I started to write this post, I was going to ask why all the Lamanites suddenly became shorter. I was thinking about Hispanics, in general, and how Hispanics seem to be shorter than Caucasians, on average. But then I thought that, strictly speaking, th
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A fanatical follower of Ervil Lebaron, Rena Chynoweth, shot Rulon C. Allred to death in his office in Murray, Utah, on May 10, 1977. Both men were heads of rival polygamist sects. Oh, the joys of Mormon history.
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If you turn a white semitic man into an American Indian, you need to change much more than just his skin color. For example, Native Americans are taller, on average, than semites. So God would have had to make the Lamanites taller in addition to changing their skin color. On average, native Americans have a harder time growing beards than semities do. God would have had to make this change
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For much of its history, Mormonism has been looked down upon by Evangelicals and other Christian religions. Mormons have tried to look more like mainstream Christians, but not all Christians have been fooled by this. Mormons are still viewed as a misguided minority religion by many. In today's America, it is dangerous to be anything other than Evangelical or Protestant. Mormons might sta
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My mission president's wife put my name in the prayer rolls in the temple. She did it because I was having a rough time. It was a nice thing for her to do. The Church is not true though, so any help it may have provided me would not have come about because the Church was "true". If the temple prayer circle helps you, maybe it means that God helps people who ask for help, even if the
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Once I was talking to a psychologist and I told him I didn't believe in Mormonism. I wanted to talk more about it, but he just said, "you can believe whatever you want to believe." I lot of people say this, but it is just not true. You can't "believe whatever you want to believe." You believe what you believe, period. If you believe in God, you believe in God. If you
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I chose a longer name at first. It was "The man behind the curtain." (I don't remember if any words were capitalized or not.) I was thinking about the Wizard in The Wizard Of Oz, who told Dorothy, the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman and the Lion to pay no attention to the man behind the curtain, when Toto pulled a curtain aside to reveal a man (the Wizard) at a control panel. It is also
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When I tried telling my dad why I didn't believe, he said, "You're going to die sometime! You can't avoid it!" Is this a good reason to be an active Mormon? Some people seem to believe it is. It's a reason why people practice other religions as well. Think about it. You are going to die, and you don't have time to study all religions in detail, so you'd better pick the religio
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Yes, probably. The LDS Church is known as the "American Religion". It started in America. It teaches that America is a very special place. It teaches that Christianity, which started in the Middle East, was lost for centuries, until it was restored in America. The LDS is also very money centered. It is one of the richest churches on the planet. The USA is the richest country on
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Has the Church created any program as good as the Boy Scouts? Do young Mormon men find the same kind of fulfillment that they used to in the Scouting program? It's been awhile since the Church cut its ties with the Boy Scouts. I assume they replaced it with something similar. They have had plenty of time to try out whatever it was they replaced it with. I think they got out of the Boy Scou
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I took the Salt Lake Express to see the 2017 eclipse. The Salt Lake Express is a bus company that is based in Idaho. When I got to their Rexburg bus station, I noticed that they had Book of Mormons in Spanish, and maybe English, on the counter for the taking. Idaho definitely has a Mormon influence. I wasn't there to attend BYU-Idaho. If you leave religion out of it, Idaho is a spectacul
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The hobby I had was playing blackjack in casinos using card counting. It has been proven that you can put the house percentage in your favor when playing blackjack if you "count cards" while playing. At least this was true with the way blackjack was years ago. Over time, most casinos have changed the rules of blackjack to make it harder or impossible to win with card counting. You c
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At some point, college students have to leave their dormitories, student housing, etc., and look for other places to live. As a young man I chose a place to live. I chose it because I knew a guy who lived there. He was an Exmormon, and I thought it would be nice to live with somebody who shared my views. However, instead of bonding with me and supporting me, he criticized me because of my b
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That's pretty interesting. Thanks for telling us.
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I wonder how Mormons view tattoos. Can they get a temple recommend if they have tattoos? Can they go on missions if they have tattoos? Can they go on missions if they have tattoos? Do any bishops or stake presidents have tattoos? Do Church leaders have some discretion as to whether or not they condemn tattoos? Are people with tattoos looked down on by other members? Are people with
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When you find out Mormonism is not true, you have two options: you can leave, or you can stay. Here are some reasons for staying: 1. You are not 100% convinced that the Church is false. If it happens to be true, you will be punished more severely by leaving (think Outer Darkness) than by staying (think Telestial Kingdom). Believing that all those millions of people who have believed i
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Thanks. It's nice to be posting again. It's really interesting to hear that young Mormon women are getting rejected because they did not serve missions. It was not like that in the past. In the past, women were supposed to get married early. They only went on missions if they could not/would not get married, or if they had a really strong desire to go, and they couldn't go until age 21.
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By "extended family" I mean my parents, siblings, and all my siblings' spouses and children. My sister married a man who doesn't seem like a deep thinker, and his genetic propensity to not think deeply may have been inherited by all his children. My brother married a woman who doesn't seem to be a deep thinker either, and her genetic propensity to not think deeply may also have been
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My two nieces are on missions. It is very sad to read their letters. They are in their "happy worlds". It seems that there is no way on earth they would listen to anybody who tried to talk to them about the possibility that Mormonism might not be true. I wish they would have come to me for advice before going on their missions. I have spent countless hours studying the Church.
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According to the BOM, kids who die before being baptized automatically go to heaven. I don't know how they reach the highest degree of the Celestial Kingdom, though, since they never got married in this life. Logically, it makes sense that if you want to be an altruistic, selfless Mormon, you might want to kill kids under the age of 8. You would sacrifice your own salvation, but you would be s
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The FLDS have their problems, but, to their credit, they better understand what is really necessary to salvation, from a Mormon standpoint. They know that marriage is the number one priority, and they try to get all their women married at very young ages. Of course, polygamy makes it harder for many men to get married, but FLDS can't be perfect in everything, right? The FLDS don't do much
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