Posts tagged mormons
You were one of the most brilliant minds of our century and you will be missed.
Your arguments against religion were some of the most logical and rational that have ever been presented.
Thank you!
Ford Motor Company just released this: http://thefamily.com/?p=18949
You don’t have to read the entire thing, but you’ll get what I mean. Honestly, it is an unbiased list of statistics, however a bunch of their stats are flawed.
For example, there is a bit of an error when it comes to the 12 million members statistic. The mormons make it almost impossible for someone to remove their name from the church database, therefore the 12 million statistic is counting all of the people that are no longer “active” and have not been “active” for decades.
If you don’t know how the system of removing yourself from the mormon church records works, see here: http://www.exmormon.org/remove.htm This process often results in you having to threaten them with legal action before they get a move on with your request to resign.
Back to the article. It was really the comments by some of the people that really made me gag. It’s okay to share your person beliefs, but some of the stuff people were writing really made me raise my eyebrows and just laugh.
For instance, a man wrote, “Joseph Smith a man with only about three years formal education produced a book of profound religeous teaching and history in less than 100 days…”
Okay… um… how is that anything to brag about? You just admitted that the founder of your religion was an uneducated man who made a book that sounded nice in a really short amount of time.
And it just makes me sick when I read some of the comments from people that live in Utah talking about all of their “trials” and “tribulations” and how they are striving to be more “Christ-like.” Maybe a few of them are, but really? REALLY?! I think Mormons in Utah are nuts. Absolutely nuts. I was disowned by my father for no longer wanting to be mormon, so was my sister, and my little brother, and my older brother was kicked out of the house as a teacher because he’s gay. So Christ-like.
Not allowing African American Men to have the Priesthood until AFTER Civil Rights… so Christ-like.
Coming up with ridiculous excuses as to why women cannot have the Priesthood.
Not allowing women to go on Missions until they are 21 years old while all the men leave at 19.
Social pressure to attend.
When my parents divorced, my entire family was blacklisted. All of the friends we thought we had in the church completely ignored us because it was a “failure.” We were no longer, “pure.”
I have seen the LDS Church produce a lot of good, but i’ve seen it create more bad than good. It offers service, at a price. Always at a price. And I always just get so frustrated when I see articles like this and the comments that people post under them. A continuous pumping up of each others’ egos.
I grew up in a suburban township that used to be on the rim of Salt Lake City, Utah. It is now called, Cottonwood Heights and is officially a city. My family: Mom, Dad, two boys, two girls. Middle class with an upper middle class facade that defines Cottonwood Heights. The reason I have this little introduction is to put everything in perspective so that I may better explain growing up Mormon in Salt Lake City Suburbia.
Facade. That is the key to Cottonwood Heights. And the base of Cottonwood Heights? The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I was officially ABLE to leave the Church at the age of 18, thanks to the divorce of my parents (but I will get to that later).
Looking back on my childhood (I am now 21), I wish I had been more outspoken. I wish I could have been that loud mouthed girl that raises hell with both fingers up to Mormon patriarchy. But I was not that person. I had my opinions in my brain, but I was the type to just bend over and take it.
I first realized what the Church was when I was 13 years old. There was a lesson in my Young Women class about friendship. The teacher talked about how people who smoke and drink are bad. They should not be trusted, and will pull you down into “outer darkness.” I have grandparents and cousins that drink, and I thought…. what? They are not bad people… they are wonderful. STRIKE 1 FOR THE MORMONS.
Then I started doing some research. And I found… polygamy in the afterlife. STRIKE 2 FOR THE MORMONS.
From then on I mentally/spiritually left the Mormon Church. Now, this was not off of a whim. I read the Bible and the Book of Mormon 3 times each… I studied the doctrine.. and I decided it wasn’t for me. I did not have a resentment for the church. Later, the resentment came. And that resentment (STRIKE 3) was prompted by the divorce of my parents in 2007.
I have NEVER seen so much animosity. If you are not Mormon, you may visualize this kind of animosity with verbal comments to the face or something like that. Oh no… no no no no no. Complete social ostracization. You thought you had friends, but then you realize it was all a facade. A facade that dictates the confines of their lives and actions.
After this, I started to develop my freedom. I never knew happiness until I was able to break away from that misogynistic brain washing. When I was 18 my entire family is in one giant shit storm, so I was completely at liberty to… basically… GET THE FUCK OUT.
And I did.
If anything I feel so sorry for all of the women that are still stuck in that rut. If they have experienced the opposite and have chosen to live life as a mormon woman, that’s fine by me. But do NOT condone the brain washing.
Later I will have to write about Prop. 8…. that’s a whole other shit fucked up story.
