Why I Left the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

[_Droopy]

Anyone notice how virtually everyone in Evenson's life, as recounted in his essay on the subject, is either a fool, a knave or a dysfunctional neurotic?

His father is a screaming drunken madman. His Institute director is a rude, vein popping authoritarian cad with apparently no intellectual ammunition with which to answer his questions. Everyone at Church headquarters he tries to talk to are rude, insensitive and curt. All of his missionary companions are hicks, neurotics, and theological illiterates. Even the one nice kid has only a fourth grade reading level. None of them know the gospel (unlike the hero of the essay, of course).

Next we have yet another bully, only this time a rich, spoiled rotten bully. and yet another of what is apparently the vast concourses of LDS missionaries who had not the "slightest idea what the Gospel of Jesus Christ was), unlike. of course, Mr. Evenson.

I would discover many years later that women LOVE Alpha-males, and Alpha males are always utter selfish-asses! Women LOVE bullies. All of them do.

Could Evenson be one of our modern feminized male castrati (or perhaps even a little misogynous?)?

But Mormon missionarydom is even worse than he suspects, as he now discovers that

Most of the investigators in my mission were the husbands and boyfriends of Mormon women.

This is odd, as, most of the people I've ever helped the missionaries with in my lifetime have been a rather random mix of male, female, married and unmarried people. If anything, woman are more pronounced as single investigators than men, in my experience.

But it gets worse:

I saw what the missionaries were like. I'd seen what the Members of the Church were like. They were NOT "Christians" in any sense. Everything about them was about money and success; making more money, having more success, acheiving more in life. They were selfish people, very materialistic. All the "talks" in Church was about being "a success in life".

Its statements like these that have caused me in the past to call out certain people as never having been LDS at all. This is not unusual, in fact, int he anti-Mormon world.

I remember sitting there in Church, on a bright sunny day, but feeling darkness gathering around me. No Spirit at all.

Reading Evenson's essay produces very much the same effect on many of its readers, no doubt, as that is certainly the effect its had on me.

To me, the Gospel of Jesus Christ was about the good news that we could be saved after death; that there was no "eternal hell" where our non-christian loved ones burned for all eternity. And Being moral.

And a large part of morality is honesty in all our dealings with our fellow beings.

And as for the besotted and debauched average LDS missionary:

For them, the Gospel of Jesus Christ was "the Joseph Smith Story" and about doing something for God (going on a mission) so that God would give you something in return (i.e. a beautiful girl to marry and success in career or business after your mission). They could NOT CARE LESS about anything else. They did not believe that ANYBODY burned in Hell, not for a second! For them, "Hell" was not becoming a God in the Resurrection; in other words, not having SEX for all eternity but becoming an "etneral eunuch". THAT was the only "Hell" that Mormon males recognized.

Beyond its obvious apocryphal nature, this single statement is riddled with doctrinal oddities that most children in the Church would know better regarding, which makes the claim that the average 19 year old is so utterly confused doctrinally that his eyes are crossed seem, again, a bit intelligence insulting.

And now, the crux of the matter:

Anyway, I came home, and immediately went inactive. I had seen too much among Mormons. They were not spiritual at all. They were not honest. They were materiastic and superstitious; not "moral" not "honest" and certainly not Christians.

Mormons, as a people, in other words, are among the most benighted, base, degenerate and shallow human beings there could possibly be. They are intellectual, cultural and moral refuse.

Unlike, of course, that paragon of morality, spirituality and ethical rectitude Mr. Evenson, who had no choice but to leave the Church because the contrast between it and his own impeccable purity was just too great to be ignored.

Well, you can't fool all of the people all of the time, but his epic coming out story will have its audience.

Actually, a choir, but an audience nonetheless.

[_Euthyphro]

Whether Hoffman "fooled" the Brethren is irrelevant, since this implies that the Lord would not allow the Brethren to, on their own, make what may in retrospect be understood to have been a mistake in accepting Hoffman's forgeries as legitimate.

What Evenson doesn't seem to understand here is that, in the Last Days context, there is an ongoing and pervasive "weeding out" underway among, not only the World, but among the Saints themselves. The tares are being slowly but surely separated from the wheat, and it is precisely various situations such as the Hoffman affair (or the ERA, or Prop 8, or blacks and the Priesthood, plural marriage, or church teachings on music, media, personal grooming standards, etc.) that are the sifting mechanism.

The Lord is not going to prevent all potential crisis of faith from occurring because it is precisely the differentiation of those living on borrowed light from those who have the testimony and witness within themselves - the rock" spoken of by John, that is made explicit by such situations.

Droopy, I don't think Jesus' parable of wheat and tares has anything to do with church membership, or faith in its leaders. (And a side note I disagree with your apparent interpretation of the "harvest" or the "end of the age" to mean the entirety of the latter days.) Some of us believe that God's kingdom is within the hearts of his children and not in the church's membership rolls. Your tests of faith is not a test of God's word or his goodness, but a test of men of the church who claim to speak to us on God's behalf and who claim knowledge of what is to come. The Hoffman case does violence to these claims.

It's fine to suppose that what turned out is for the best, except that in this case you render your leaders' claims to authority and special witness unfalsifiable. Can you address that? Is there anything these men can do that might cause you to consider that your trust in them might be misplaced?

[_Droopy]

Indeed, Evenson's essay becomes wackier the farther it progresses.

I'm not sure debating him would be all that productive.

[_Droopy]

Droopy, I don't think Jesus' parable of wheat and tares has anything to do with church membership, or faith in its leaders.

Within a LDS theological context, its directly relevant.

Some of us believe that God's kingdom is within the hearts of his children and not in the church's membership rolls.

This is a false dichotomy. There are different levels of Christian discipleship, but its fullness is only to be found within the restored Kingdom. The separation of wheat from tares is underway in both that Kingdom and in the world in general.

The Hoffman case does violence to these claims.

Only if one makes certain assumptions regarding how and why the Lord works as he does among his children and the leaders of his church. If those assumptions are in error, then this claim collapses.

It's fine to suppose that what turned out is for the best, except that in this case you render your leaders' claims to authority and special witness unfalsifiable. Can you address that?

Falsifiability is an intellectual component of analysis in the natural sciences. Its relation to metaphysical claims is, at best, open to question.

Is there anything these men can do that might cause you to consider that your trust in them might be misplaced?

If I ever find out that any of them like peanut butter and banana sandwiches, that will be IT!

[_Euthyphro]

Falsifiability is an intellectual component of analysis in the natural sciences. Its relation to metaphysical claims is, at best, open to question.

Perhaps, but there is some place for it in Mormon-style religion. There are all kinds of scriptural and anecdotal examples of logical or quasi-logical tests for truth claims. It seems rather un-Mormon of you to propose that prophets acting unprophet-like says nothing about their capacity to be prophets.

The Hoffman case does violence to these claims.

Only if one makes certain assumptions regarding how and why the Lord works as he does among his children and the leaders of his church. If those assumptions are in error, then this claim collapses.

Okay then, what assumptions am I making about it? What should be in their place?

[_Analytics]

Is their a nomination process for the “Weirdest Thread of the Year Award”?

[_emilysmith]

Three corrections:

Ghandi was racist and referred to the black people in South Africa as "kafirs."

Kafir is the Islamic word for "unbeliever". It is used widely for those who are not a member of the faith.

Mother Teresa generated millions of dollars and never spent any of it on the children she was supposedly saving.

Mother Teresa was a member of a religious order and as such did not have the final say as to the disposition of any donations.

Robert Heinlein once told L. Ron Hubbard, "If you want to become rich, then start your own religion." Hubbard did just that

.

Not only is this just an anecdote, you got it backwards. Hubbard was supposed to have made the bet. In real life, George Orwell jokingly made such a suggestion back in 1938 in a letter about creating a religion to make money.

Actually, I did misremember a bit. If you read Gandhi's writings, you can confirm he was racist against black people in South Africa.

Ours is one continued struggle against degradation sought to be inflicted upon us by the European, who desire to degrade us to the level of the raw Kaffir, whose occupation is hunting and whose sole ambition is to collect a certain number of cattle to buy a wife with, and then pass his life in indolence and nakedness.
-Gandhi

Clause 200 makes provision for registration of persons belonging to uncivilized races (meaning the local Africans), resident and employed within the Borough. One can understand the necessity of registration of Kaffirs who will not work, but why should registration be required for indentured Indians who have become free, and for their descendants about whom the general complaint is that they work too much?
-Gandhi

There is plenty more like that. Kaffir is clearly being used in a negative manner.

On Mother Teresa:

One of Mother Teresa’s volunteers in Calcutta described her “Home for the Dying” as resembling photos of concentration camps such as Belsen. No chairs, just stretcher beds. Virtually no medical care or painkillers beyond aspirin, and a refusal to take a 15-year-old boy to a hospital. Hitchens adds, “Bear in mind that Mother Teresa’s global income is more than enough to outfit several first class clinics in Bengal. The decision not to do so... is a deliberate one.

Apparently, the Heinlein/Hubbard wager is a myth, but, the way I heard it was that Heinlein suggested it with no intention of creating his own religion. It would seem that there are several versions. Either way, Hubbard, who eventually committed suicide, was out to make money with his ridiculous made-up religion. While many hold him in reverent regard, he was a fraud, pure and simple. His plan was profit, not enlightenment, and he found himself plenty of dupes.

[_Gadianton]

There is plenty more like that. Kaffir is clearly being used in a negative manner.

In SA, calling blacks this is the equiv. of the N word or worse.

[_jskains]

Apparently, the Heinlein/Hubbard wager is a myth, but, the way I heard it was that Heinlein suggested it with no intention of creating his own religion. It would seem that there are several versions. Either way, Hubbard, who eventually committed suicide, was out to make money with his ridiculous made-up religion. While many hold him in reverent regard, he was a fraud, pure and simple. His plan was profit, not enlightenment, and he found himself plenty of dupes.

Hubbard had a heart attack. Likely from the drugs he used while on his Yacht when he came up with Xenu.

JMS

[_Eric]

Hubbard had a heart attack. Likely from the drugs he used while on his Yacht when he came up with Xenu.

JMS

Newsflash:

Ridiculing Scientology doesn't make Mormonism any less ridiculous.