Hidee Ho, exmormon rinos

[_Stan Fan aka Che Dali]

I’ll give you my abreviated life story, since I’ve been working on the long version for about 10 years and it’s still not done.

- born into a mixed marriage. Father jack Mormon, mom, never mo - both agnostic & very liberal.

- Grandparents from a long line of Mormons going back to England back in the early days of Mormonism. Which made me something like 6th generation Mormon, sort of.

- Grandparents saw to it that I was baptized when I was 8, even though it meant nothing to me.

- Sporadically attended Mormon church growing up, but my very libreal parents didn’t really care one way or another if we went.

- found my parents agnostic, liberal, suburban whitebread existence pretty meaningless and unfullfilling about the same time Alex Haley’s “Roots” hit TV.

-Decided I needed to get in touch with my roots, which to me, at the time, went clear back to Africa, Olduvi Gorge, the dawn of man, Austrolopithicus Africanus.

-Went to clear to Africa, hitchhiking most of the way, via all over the US, North, South, East, West, Europe and N. Africa.

-Ended up on the Barbary Coast, Morocco.

-Asimilated into Morrocan society, clothes, speech, food, and naturally, religion.

-gained access to a Mosque via my Muslim brothers.

- epiphany- We’re no different, even though I was born in America as a “christian” I could have just as easily been born in Africa as a “Muslim”. We’re all children of the same god, we just worship god in a different way in different parts of the world. same god. Same water that flowed through the Mosque in Africa is connected to the water that flows through my father’s land in America. The earth we stand on, though on separate continents is connected beneath the water. The same moon, sun and stars that rise over Africa are the same moon, sun and stars that rise over my homeland. We’re not alien. We’re the same kind. Human kind. Transcend all the petty differences, religion, nationality, race, sex, sexual orientation and we’re all the same. Your struggles are my struggles. Your problems are my problems. We’re all one.

- came home. Again found my parents white bread agnostic, suburban existence pretty meaningless and unfullfilling.

- Sister got married in the Seattle Temple the week I got home from Africa and I wanted in. The fact that I wasn’t permitted made it even that more enticing and more of a challenge, like the mosque, I figured I’d have a similar spiritual experience inside the temple that I had inside the mosque.

- went to Evergreen, studied cultural anthropology.

- decided I needed something more “concrete” in my life and a real major and a real degree.

- Decided I ought to get in touch with my Mormon heritage in hopes it would unite my fractured family (half LDS half whatever)

- Started seriously taking steps to get into the temple. Cut my hair, got a shave, cleaned up my act, quit screwing around and smoking pot. Ended up going to the temple to find out it was nothing like my experiences in the Mosque, but I’d just sworn a blood oath to commit suicide rather than turn my back on my heritage. By this time I was mission bound for Australia.

- Mission, married, kids, fast forward 20 years and I’m a perfect peter penis holder, sealed in the temple, with 4 kids born under the covenant, called by god to be an architect.

- I go to the COB to inquire about a position as a church architect, designing temples. Something in the back of my mind tells me to think about it and resolve the issues I have in the back of my mind before committing myself to designing temples.
- I think about it.

- Kids start asking serious questions, which I figure deserve serious answers.

- After 9-11, I found answers.

- The religions where I’d misplaced my faith were barbaric traditions, delusions and frauds, developed to enslave and exploit people and dehumanize non-believers and justify our inhumanity towards our fellow men.

- I couldn’t in good conscience allow my children to be indoctrinated with the barbaric delusions I’d been indoctrinated with.

- While I still appreciate the spiritual experiences I’ve had, both as a Mormon and as a Muslim, the price of gaining those experiences is faaaar too steep, especially when they can be had for free.

- Now I find meaning in the natural, scientific, humanist, liberal world view I inheirited from my parents. Hopefully my children find enough meaning in that world view to avoid the pitfall of religious mental slavery.

[_Who Knows]

Welcome Stan.

So at the end of the day, you came full circle, and turned into your agnostic parents?

[_barrelomonkeys]

Hi de ho to you too and welcome. :)

What's a perfect peter penis holder? Is that some Mormon slang?

[_Blixa]

Hi de ho to you too and welcome. :)

What's a perfect peter penis holder? Is that some Mormon slang?

Yes. BofMonks..."Peter Priesthood" the archetypal Mormon man/priesthood = penishood (because only guys can "hold" it, nyuk, nyuk).

That is some story, man. After all your travels, that you came "home" and decide to conform is bizarre---then going the whole nine yards with kids and wife and career!

The very idea of wanting to design Mormon temples is strange enough on its own!!

[_harmony]

You hitchhiked to Africa, became a Muslim, returned home, and became an active LDS, all before you served an LDS mission? Wow. That's got to be the fastest religious switch I've ever heard of!

What took you so long to shake off the church?

[_moksha]

Hi de ho to you too and welcome. :)

What's a perfect peter penis holder? Is that some Mormon slang?

I hope this is not a crude reference to Paris Hilton. She is by no means perfect.

[_barrelomonkeys]

Oh my! Blixa, I wish I'd read your reply before I googled it. :0

I have such tender eyes. ;)

[_harmony]

Hi Stan. We aren't all ex-Mormons here. Some of us are still TR-carrying, calling-holding, tithe-paying, g-wearing members, just in case you get us mixed up with those who aren't.

[_Stan Fan aka Che Dali]

Some people really shouldn't be exmos.

I seriously don't want to push my TBM MIL any more than I have to to get her to back off of me and my kids. (my wife is plenty capable of handling her Mother). I don't want her losing her support system because I know without it her life would come tumbling down and she'd be a total wreck and I don't want to be responsible for picking up the pieces.

Although I have to say that you'll find as you go through life that there are few world views more provincial, self serving and narcicistic than Mormonism.

I asked this question often in church when I was still TBM. "So are you saying that only Mormons have access to the promptings of the holy ghost?" (basically that's what Joseph Smith claimed, that what made Mormons different from others is that we had the holy ghost.) "So you're saying that concientious people who've improved the world we live in through their humanity, like Mother Theresa, Nelson Mandella, Ghandi, Luther, MLK, Ellie Weisel, none of them had access to the holy ghost because they weren't Mormon? Give me a break!"

I've had many such experiences. One time I was on a business trip in Ft. Worth Texas. I decided to stop by the Kimball Museum because it was designed by one of my architectural hero's, who's work I'd never seen in person, Lois Kahn. There was an exhibit of one of my other hero's there, Leonardo daVinci. There was going to be a performance in the auditorium by the Texas Boys Choir and I decided to attend. They were performing Renaissance music, writtten by a boy who's voice was so beautiful that he was kidnapped by a neighboring town to sing in their choir. The music was so pure, the architecture so beautiful, the accoustics of that space so perfect, all combined with angelic voices of the young boys, I sat there I was moved to tears by that experience, all alone in the middle of the auditorium. It was really one of the most beautiful experiences I've ever had and one I'll always cherish. It was one of those moments where I knew I was fully alive and gratefull for that realization of how wonderful life can be when one stops to really pay attention.

Having such a deeply spiritual experience that had nothing to do with religion, was one of the things that made me realize that I was paying far too much for spiritual experiences, that were not nearly as profoundly beautiful.

[_harmony]

I asked this question often in church when I was still TBM. "So are you saying that only Mormons have access to the promptings of the holy ghost?" (basically that's what Joseph Smith claimed, that what made Mormons different from others is that we had the holy ghost.)

Actually, what supposedly makes Mormons different from everyone else is the priesthood. Too bad Joseph didn't know his own religion.