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The way I see it, there are two Mormon Churches, one – very much the appearance of being Christ Like, with love and service to all mankind, talk of family, talk of tolerance for diversity…no strings attached – except maybe the fact that they seem to be putting on a sales pitch for new membership and show to kisses the worlds butt. The other Mormon Church is pretty much a “Non Militant Fascist Society”. There was a time it was indeed somewhat militant, but today they seem to have moved passed things like blood atonement, etc. But the church is still very much fascist. They can only succeed in maintaining membership with fear and manipulation….fear of disciplinary action which they might endure if they misbehave in this life. In fact, if you hang around enough Mormons, both inside the church building and out, there seems to be a general theme of viewing this world as evil and they cannot wait until Christ returns…for any number of reasons…..be it what they feel would be true freedom from gov’t or perhaps not having to live any longer among sinners, such as…I don’t know, lets say: gays, Muslims, Atheists, democrats, people who ride Harleys on Sundays….Some might be business owners who hate restrictive things which seem to reduce their profits like EPA, OSHA and employees who are sick of getting paid crap and want to start a Union……. (I am just being silly here and not literally listing these things to start a political debate or single out groups of people…..just being silly here). Of course, in this groups there are two sub groups……ones with an agenda who in turn instil fear into those they wish to manipulate….in other words, fascism….only using fear, guilt, shame and self righteousness, with the promise of wonderful things in the life to come, instead of using guns to control them.
Just being silly here….except for the part where the LDS Church paints a different picture to the world and instills fear and guilt in it’s active members to control them and make them the same….in other words…fascism.
It might help to remember that part in the temple about teaching the philosophies of man mingled with scripture? Well my take on scripture and religion is it mostly the philosophies of man. When you figure it out, please share it with us so we might know what to do. When my faith tumbled, the only thing left standing was a general belief in God and even that is only bits and crumbs, now not knowing what exactly God is. I guess I hung onto the concept of a God, because while I do believe in evolution (science is close on this one, just still sorting out the details…religion doesn’t even want to try to begin down that road which will be their long term death), I heard a quote once….not sure from who, but I remember the words: evolution tells me how I got here but doesn’t explain why I am here…..or something to that effect. So I hang onto God and I doubt that grip will slip. As for Jesus Christ, I sure like that story. Perhaps there was a man named Jesus Christ and he was a wonderful teacher and out lined a great guide on how to be a good human being…..but I do know, no living creature, including man ever came to life without some forum of sexual act….be it cell division, asexual reproduction, or male/female reproduction….period and while I believe in an after life (why not!….give a person some hope and comfort in watching loved ones not to mention ourselves face mortality), I personally doubt the resurrection. I really don’t believe in a devil and if there is a heaven and hell, I have painted it my mind as it more metaphoric than literal. Sure….why not, the scriptures are metaphoric for the most part….Adan/Eve, The flood, tower of babel, etc.
My testimony did not crumble from within the LDS Church and their misinformation, stupid social structure where it would seem most of it (outside some truly great people) is comprised of social manipulators and their victims. It fell do to my dis belief in the bible and the BoM if a story that is connected to the bible…..I lost the bible in my mind and the BoM fell too.
OK, nuff said.
I think this a great sight for those not ready to leave…like me who believes very little of it, yet hangs on…..but inactive. You could not drug me and drag me into a Mormon Church to attend meetings and I have not had a temple recommend in over 20 years. I guess I love my mom and dad and two sisters and I could not break their hearts by telling them I left the Mormon Church. So I left it metaphorically, in my mind. To my family, I am just inactive….. in my mind, I am not a Mormon.
Brown wrote:I want to believe these are true, but then why are angels so selective in who they rescue? Why didn’t they save my brother from the pool he drowned in?
Now I feel bad about sharing my story. I hope I didn’t hurt anyone.
Yes there is. I am an unbelieving Mormon, but it does not change my testimony in God, whatever he is and honest prayers are answered regardless of faith or worthiness. On several occasions, I have felt the presence of someone, even me a total skeptic, felt someone there in my dark hour…..who I believe is a Woman. She has followed me throughout my life, not constant but here and there. I know she is there, here and there……I know this because I have heard her voice in my head, which might be argued and discounted….but what can’t be argued and discounted is when I witnessed before my very eyes, she pulled my drowning hunting dog from a hole in the ice when I was but a young teenager. I didn’t actually see her, but she heard my prayer, my plee and when there was only my loved pet’s head above the freezing water, and her claws dug in, handing onto the edge of the ice, just before she went under, at the very moment I prayed, some invisible force (which I now believe is the Woman who has since helped me) pulled my dog from the water, sending her skidding across the ice. My dog hunted with me for another 10 years. God gave me that special witness, a gift….which sadly was used against me for decades by all I told it to that I had to become faithful, or risk damnation……I was burdened with decades of guilt that I was never going to measure up. Now there is no guilt. That was a special gift to me from God through and Angel, for when my mind was dark and my faith dim. Now I know he exists and so do angels. I don’t know much else. I share this with very few people. I only share it now that I must use the gift to help others….but I seldom tell the story in a religious setting….only in a human setting to help my fellow human who doubts and is scared.
mackay11 wrote:If there’s one thing that used to get my goat(ee) quicker than anything else in my TBM days, it was the church stance on beards.
These days I think, “gosh, if only that were the worst of it.”
My wife keeps telling me, perhaps one day, when (if) Jesus returns, these things (most of how we worship today) will be done away with, like when he did away with the law of Moses. I can imagine if I was alive back then, I would have definitely been one of the the rebellious ones that refused to kill any more sheep and burn them up on an alter.
I think the churches take on it is it is the attempt to separate spiritual man from natural man. It has to be. I can understand doctors, food industry, etc. Personally, I think it is religion and other organizations, including gov’ts continual move towards a fascist, cookie cotter society….but that is just the liberal anarchist side of me talking. Remember the song from RUSH – Subdivisions? “Conform or be cast out”. The church behaves this way almost to a tee. I could not do it. Just like on my mission, 23 years ago, when I came to the conclusion, much of the gospel, at least in the literal sense was not true. I was a senior companion and a district leader. Much to my new green companions (I hated that label and called them new missionaries) dismay, I concentrated on service….free english classes, etc. I have refused a lot of callings over the years (when I was active). The last time I was active I was the 1st councilor to the YM (ironically at the same time as suffering as an alcoholic….no I did not drink and drive nor drink anything when I was about to go to church or be part of a YM activity). I loved it and the young men seemed to like me. I was a bit of a heathen in their eyes though they did not know about my drinking problem. I set no standards for how they dressed nor where they sat in class. My lessons were less than 10 min long and I ‘bought’ them off with weekly treats. When we drove to an activity, we all listened to heavy metal (I’m a middle aged head banger that never grew up). I don’t boast, but I did have a lot of less active 14-16 year old YM attending each week.
My advice is if you do this, keep it fun and buy them off with treats. Teach what is in your heart, but don’t mention anything controversial nor teach anything you don’t believe. Just teach a simple short 10 min lesson, then play games. They will love you.
Perhaps, I should accept callings. I think the church is headed for some growing pains. I think the church is going to need more open minded members….especially working with the youth. When things start coming up, those kids are going to need something else besides crazy orthodox people teaching them.
Interesting. I had such a hard time with the temple. I haven’t had a recommend since my mission and the last time I was in the temple was the day my wife and I got married. When I was in the MTC, the temple left a bad taste in my mouth. But that is my burden. I am pretty liberal on many things (not all….. being a proponent of responsible gun ownership for law abiding citizens….another story), but in social matters and a more fair and level playing field, I am pretty liberal. I love some of the social aspects of the church, which is one reason I stay on board and pay tithes and offerings. The Church employs people, feeds people, educates people, etc. Money well spent IMHO. I believed that one day, the church would set up a new order of sorts, perhaps so the nation, if not the planet would not have to set up a total communist society in order to help man kind. I really looked forward to the day and believed one day, I would had it all over to the church and they would redistribute to all, according to needs and in a planet of plenty when conservation is practiced, there would be plenty and no abuse of resources, etc.
Now I am not so sure. I have a hard time in many aspects of how gov’ts spend money, though I freely pay that which I owe to my country, even if they misuse some of it and are quite wasteful in many aspects. The church would surely be more efficient in money. I would hand my property, my food storage my possessions to help those in need knowing I would be taken care of. Now I think there is no way I am handing over my wife’s hard earned food storage (she is real naturalist and cans and dries natural food for storage and has put a lot of sweat equity into what we have). We treat our food storage as a grocery store and the food is constantly cycled though for fresh. If I bag an elk, much of it is bottled or dried. We work hard at it for the proper nutrition.
From what I see of most members of the church, their food storage is made up of cheap, out dated canned goods, or lousy dehydrated food they have had for decades. They buy a bunch of crap then feel better about themselves that they have followed the teachings of the prophet…their food storage is forgotten.
Also, my wife and I work hard to maintain a dept free life except for the house. We save for things we wish to buy, including cars. I bought a 2008 with cash where we put a car payment away each month since 2002 when we bought our last car…for cash. I lost my butt once due to poor money management and following after buying toys, etc. I lost my job a year ago and other than some construction for a few months last year, and due to proper money management, we lived on unemployment for our day to day needs and pulled our house payment out of savings…..well we made it, not that my retirement looks as good as it did, but we made it. Perhaps, this sounds like boasting, sorry if it does, but the point is, most people just can’t manage money. I understand that a lot of people are just living very tight, innocently tight lives and have little or no money to spare, or they slowly sink. If that is the case when the church calls for money, food, etc, I would gladly hand it over, all of it. But from what I see, many, many members out there are getting into trouble because they can’t stop spending money. They buy a bigger house than they needed, they have to have three new vehicles, a boat, ATV’s, etc, and they finance all of it. I refuse to hand over my money to help them out. They can loose their butt first, learn something, then perhaps we can collectively get through this.
What I am saying, is I don’t trust my fellow member, and I definitely don’t trust my bishop to fairly divy things up and I don’t even trust the prophet that he is telling me the truth that now is the time to live such a collective society…..so in short, what I will do, is if someone is hungry, we will feed them….meals, but they cannot have my food. If the gov’t can’t do this efficiently and the gov’t is run by men, then no one can convince me the church can do any better.
Thx for the welcome. It does suck taking the middle road. In truth, I don’t hate the church, though I have struggled with it so much throughout my life. I believe if my family was into the church less, I would flee, but in the name of peace and minimal family stress, disturbance not to mention my Dad who may not live much longer, I think it is best to let him face death and go to his grave with some peace, at least not in the middle of what my family would call my leaving….a family crisis in their eyes. I think they are OK with me being inactive, and less believing. Sometimes, I think most religions are inspired by God and run by man…..and they are going to screw things up now and then and even preach erroneous things. If there is a God and one day mankind faces a day of accountability, I doubt it will have much to do with religion, but perhaps love, charity (purer love), forgiveness, understanding of life and time on earth, and perhaps most of all, what did we do with the things you learned and did we do within our beliefs…..was it geared towards love or was it geared towards dominion and self righteousness. I think if there was some inspiration in the foundation of the LDS church, then God let man run things, and man screwed things up, made up a bunch of baloney to usurp power to themselves and set up a more tyrannical, slightly more fascist organization than God intended, then it makes a bunch of sense to me. But we all have skeletons in the closet. Maybe religion is a metaphor for human existence. If so, and we, though we make lots of mistakes, yet we are supposed to forgive one another and ourselves, perhaps we should forgive the church too. Maybe the church needs a day of repentance too. Likely all churches do. If there is a God, it is probable, at least in my mind, that most religions are related and one day, it will all come together and make sense….but then again, what do I know!
