Beastie:
Mormonism had a significant impact on my life. It still impacts my life through my family. It also has a fascinating history, and one aspect of apologia in particular interests me due to my interest in Mesoamerica. All of this add up to my enjoyment of discussing LDS issues.
Charity:
Enjoyment in what way? You don't discuss. You attack.
Beastie’s new comment:
Enjoyment in terms of intellectual stimulation. I certainly
try to discuss these issues with you, but your approach makes it quite difficult. Moreover, I don’t “attack” any more than you do.
Beastie:
This really isn't hard to understand. That believers find it so incomprehensible I think is more reflective of the fact that they don't want to understand.
Charity:
You are constantly mind reading. Not very successfully, either, in my case, any way.
beastie’s new comment:
Let’s review Charity’s original post:
This message board exists to calm the fears of the anti-Mormon, ex-Mormon, non-Mormon that the Book of Mormon just might be what it says it is.
Well, my goodness, if I didn’t know that Charity objects to
mind reading, I would have to label this
mind reading. But knowing that Charity objects to mind reading, and would never be such a clueless hypocrite as to complain about behavior she has just engaged in herself, I’ll have to call it something else: how about “brain thoughts reading?”
But Charity is correct. I’m mind reading when I guess that due to the fact that exmormons are asked to explain why they want to still talk about Mormonism over and over and over, and yet believers still can’t grasp the answers means that the believers don’t
want to grasp the reason. It could just be that the believers in question are stupid and have difficulty constructing meaning from the written word. So I stand corrected.
Beastie:
. . and would rather cling to the silly notion that "you can leave the church but can't leave it alone" means something about the truthfulness of the church.
Charity:
Any one person's ideas tells you something about the truthfulness of the Church? Now that is a really funny idea.
Now let's look at the "silly notion." From my experience, most people who leave the Church jsut sort of fall away. It is a gradual walk away. More of a move along a contiuum from fully active to fully inactive. When asked why they are no longer active, they don't have any doctrinal issues, no history issues, occassionally a leadership issue but on the local level and not with a General Authority. In a rare case, someone was doing what they shouldn't have been doing and didn't like getting called on it.
I have only known one person who became an anti-Mormon. His was a pride issue. He had converted from a church where he had a prominent lay position. He was not given a calling he felt he merited. He said this in my hearing. The last time I saw him, he was carrying signs protesting at the open house of the Portland Temple. It wasn't doctrine or history.
So, if he decided he didn't like the Church after all, why was he driven to protesting? He had joined the Church as an adult. He was college educated. Pretty hard to make a case for being deceived. But he had to tear down the Church.
So, tell me how is it a silly notion that there are people who leave the Church but just can't leave it alone?
Odd. You seem to understand my point in your first sentence, and declare it “funny”. The point is that many believers think that the fact that some apostates can’t “leave the church alone” means the church is true. But then you proceed to respond to an entirely different point than the one I made, and demand that I respond to it:
“So tell me how it is a silly notion that there are people who leave the church but just can’t leave it alone?”
You have earned the title Ms. Strawman for a reason, Charity, and you have demonstrated it well here.I didn’t say it was a silly notion that there are people who leave the church but just can’t leave it alone. I said it was silly to use that fact as some sort of evidence that the church is true.
But while we’re talking about “leaving the church alone”, I think I do leave the church alone. The only thing I do is post about LDS claims on messages boards like this one, and write essays about topics of interest to me. I only participate on boards that are designated for this exact purpose. I would never go to an LDS only board and post criticisms of the church, and I would never initiate a conversation in real life with an LDS person criticizing the church or its claims. I don’t stand in front of the temple and picket. I don’t mass mail order critical material to members of the church. I don’t make phone calls to members of the church trying to make them lose faith.
The only thing I do is post on boards like this and write essays for people on boards like this about LDS topics. I assume that believers who come to a board like this actually want to discuss these topics, because, well, they’re here.
And while I don’t know the personal details of everyone’s life on this board, I’m willing to guess that’s all the vast majority of posters here, or any other board like this one, do. Yet, to someone like Charity, that constitutes “not leaving the church alone”.
Now, does the church leave ME alone?
When I wrote my exit letter to my bishop, I requested “no contact”. I was very clear in that request. I did not want to have to explain my decision, over and over, nor did I want to discuss these things with members from my ward.
Did they honor that request? In no shape, way, or form.
The first way my request wasn’t honored was that the bishop who received my request to have my name removed from church rolls just ignored it. He filed it away and ignored it. In the meantime, I continued to have to deal with the awkward situation of being contacted by well-meaning members out to save my soul – visiting and home teachers, and even the missionaries. I was never rude to any of these people, but it did bother me that my request wasn’t honored. Apparently, I didn’t have the right to make such a request. After nine months passed, I checked up on why my request had not been acted upon – either the request to have my name removed or to have no contact. In the interim, the former bishop was released and a new bishop was in place. This one first acted as if he had no idea what I was talking about. Then apparently he did locate my exit letter. He excused the former bishop by explaining bishops were instructed to “sit and wait” a certain amount of time before acting on such requests, but now he would expedite it for me. It took another six months to go through. When I received my letter from SLC stating that my name had been removed from rolls, I naïvely thought this meant the church would “leave me alone”.
How wrong I was.
Within the decade since I had my name removed from rolls, I have still been repeatedly contacted by various members – not as “friends” calling on their own initiative, but inviting me to some function, or wanting to visit and discuss my issues. Most have been relief society presidents who have been assigned my name for reactivation. Often they are surprised when I tell them my name was removed from church rolls. Apparently I’m still on their rolls. This could not be explained by having old rolls, because the wards were changed since I had my name removed. Once it was a new bishop calling me. After that call, I called SLC and asked if my name had really been removed. They assured me it had been. What I suspect this really means isn’t that my name doesn’t appear anywhere on rolls, but there is probably some sort of notation or asterisk beside it, which gets ignored.
So have I left the church alone? Has the church left me alone?
Beastie:
I know that, to many believers, the only good exmormon is a silent exmormon. It actually doesn't even matter if the silent exmormon views the church with the exact same attitude as the vocal exmormon. The silent exmormon is SILENT, and that's all that matters.
Charity:
Again, a failed attempt at mind reading. I don't mind a single ex-Mormon. I do mind anti-Mormons who try to disrupt people exercising their freedom of religion, anti-Mormons who lie and mock, anti-Mormons who have stated their goal to destroy the Church. (Thnere is a difference between ex- and anti-Mormons.)
beastie’s new comment:
Yes, Charity we know – and the difference is that “anti-mormons” dare to talk about their attitudes towards the church, and “exmormons” are SILENT, or are actually supportive of the church.
Beastie:
Gee, now why would believers want exmormons to be silent??? Hmmm, hmmm, hmmm, gotta think about that one. Ya think it has something to do with why scientologists want ex-scientologists to shut up, too?
charity:
Believers are saddened when anti-Mormons deceive people into leaving or not joining the Church. Believers are disgusted when anti-Mormons mock and ridicule them. Believers worry about eternal consequences for those anti-Mormons who try to destroy the Church.
beastie’s new comment:
I’m sure that’s why scientologists try to silence “anti-scientologists” as well.