CaliforniaKid wrote:You have my sympathy, KA. Some people will just never quite get it. At the end of the day I guess we just have to shrug it off and go on with our lives.
On a similar note, ever since I started suggesting that maybe gays should have the right to be married, almost all of my friends and family have asked whether I am turning gay (or strongly implied that they think I am). In these people's minds, it is simply unimaginable that a heterosexual would stand up for the rights of those dirty gays. These patterns of thinking are so deeply ingrained that it would take a professional deprogrammer to root them out.
Pretty much all of my most direct, bluntest posts on MAD in recent months had been related to the gay marriage thing. I've seen TBMs in real life and online get really angry when you challenge them on gay marriage. I might as well say "I know that you know you're wrong, because your getting angry like this shows me that you still have a conscience that's bothering you."
The bottom line with people like KA's neighbors, and those like them that we've all known, is that to them, the church being true is simply accepted as part of their worldview. It's not a question of whether it's true - it's
obvious that it's true, its truth is simply a fact of existence, like blue skies, green trees, etc. Thus, it presents a true impossibility in their minds for someone like KA
really to lose their testimony.
It's a lot like if KA went around telling her neighbors the clear sky wasn't blue anymore. They might be forced, out of politeness, not to argue with her over it, but in their minds they just know that she really knows it's still blue, and once she gets over whatever sinful acts are keeping her from feeling the spirit, she'll have to face up to it again.
Anyhow, this is the way it is with these people. It's not a rational decision or analysis that they are making, it's just an observation of the way things obviously are.
Our job, as exmos and nonbelievers, is to wake people up to the idea that things aren't so obvious as they think they are.
Mormonism ceased being a compelling topic for me when I finally came to terms with its transformation from a personality cult into a combination of a real estate company, a SuperPac, and Westboro Baptist Church. - Kishkumen