Renlund attempts to slam the door shut on Heavenly Mother

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huckelberry
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Re: Renlund attempts to slam the door shut on Heavenly Mother

Post by huckelberry »

Free Ranger wrote:
Fri Apr 08, 2022 11:36 pm
By the way, I am not the only one who feels this way. See: I left The Church of Social Justice for the same reasons I left Mormonism by Natasha Coulis at https://natashacoulis.medium.com/i-left ... c1c8d49656
Well I can sympathize with this quite a bit.

I can also sympathize with Jordan Peterson's thought on the harm of ideological possession.
Marcus
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Re: Renlund attempts to slam the door shut on Heavenly Mother

Post by Marcus »

huckelberry wrote:
Sat Apr 09, 2022 1:27 am
Free Ranger wrote:
Fri Apr 08, 2022 11:36 pm
By the way, I am not the only one who feels this way. See: I left The Church of Social Justice for the same reasons I left Mormonism by Natasha Coulis at https://natashacoulis.medium.com/i-left ... c1c8d49656
Well I can sympathize with this quite a bit.

I can also sympathize with Jordan Peterson's thought on the harm of ideological possession.
oh my gosh, that piece by Coulis was horrifying to read. By the end, it seemed as though she is learning some boundaries, so good for her. When I left the lds church I just left the lds church. Coulis seems to have gone from one bad situation right into another similarly bad situation. There is so much more in the world than just that.
Free Ranger
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Re: Renlund attempts to slam the door shut on Heavenly Mother

Post by Free Ranger »

MG 2.0 wrote:
Sat Apr 09, 2022 12:38 am
Free Ranger wrote:
Fri Apr 08, 2022 10:02 pm


Fair enough, I take your points. I guess I was feeling frustrated when I came on here with my first post recently about my frustrations with Wokeism and how it makes the worst aspects of Mormonism look tame by comparison; that was the point I was making, how I might be better off as a man in Mormon culture. I fully accept you offering constructive criticism and pointing out that my rhetoric might have felt like a poke in the eye to some. In the future I will keep that in mind. But having said that, after I vented my feelings without singling out anyone individually in my initial post, I did try very hard to treat the people I was individually communicating with with respect. That is until I was personally attacked.

I also provided several sources showing why wokeism is a problem, including fellow exMormons like Jonathan Streeter and Chris Hanna. And no one has commented on the link to the Jonathan Streeter video on how some on the extreme far Left are defending pedophilia, at: https://youtu.be/qAP4czG3DjE
I think I have a right to, and should be, troubled by that; I think it behooves us all who have a conscience to speak up (like Jonathan Streeter has the courage to do).

But everyone need not worry, as Nietzsche once said to paraphrase, I am not the mouth for these ears. In other words, I won't be posting here much longer. It can be a good intellectual exercise to swim upstream to build cerebral muscles, but eventually you just get pulled out by the riptide and drowned in the abyss. In other words, unless I'm mistaken, while there are some very good and decent people on here who I respect and admire, unless I am mistaken it feels like there is a majority voice, a loud crowd of those in the exmormon community who have moved to the extreme far Left politically; and seek to sell wokeism. I just saw a video of John Dehlin going off on how it's terrible he's a white male in a position of power and cisgender and all this stuff, virtue signalling and all of it. Meanwhile I don't think he has any intention of relinquishing his power and wealth. My point is I just can't watch this kind of cultish rhetoric and behavior by those who say that Mormonism was cultish. When I first left the Mormon Church 15 years ago, I pointed out the same double standard among Evangelical Christians who would complain about Mormonism being cultish and then act more cultish. Back then there was a larger group of agnostics and atheist and humanistic-Christians as exMormons that were focused on actual science and humanism and were politically moderate and upheld the basic principles of "Americanism" and the general ethic of Christianity. That crowd has now dwindled it seems, in the larger louder voice of Wokeism has taken over.

Let's just say I liked the ex-Mormon community and Atheism better in the 1990s and early 2000s when it wasn't selling a secular religion but was more into actual science and philosophy and was more moderate politically.

By the way, I am a big fan of Marcus Borg and I have read nearly all of his books. I really liked his historical-metaphorical method for interpreting scripture. I build off of what he wrote on my blog.

Peace
Your voice will be missed when/if you leave. But I totally get it. The riptide/abyss. Yep. That’s why I hang out here for a while, then leave. It can get fairly toxic.

The riptide/current is quite strong and in my estimation, dangerous in the longterm.

I think to some extent or another we all see through a metaphorical lens of sorts as we experience religion. Mormonism included. It’s difficult from any perspective to fully understand or explain the numinous. Here we are, puny mortals, trying to wrap our minds around and explain ‘God’.

I have REALLY enjoyed your thoughts. Many of the responses to your posts have been somewhat shallow and without any real meaning or effect in regards to the points you’ve made/raised. At least in my opinion.

Good to have you here.

Thank you.

Regards,
MG
Thanks MG, you are one of the good ones I was referring to. I actually wrote a lengthy response but don't know what happened to it, poof, gone. Oh well. But to summarize what I had written, I'd rather just continue to do what I have been doing normally which is go to coffee shops to have face-to-face interactions with people; whom I can tell if they are toxic or not. In all my years of having conversations about politics and religion at coffee shops, I've only once dealt with the same kind of toxicity I have experienced on here; he was some kind of fundamentalist Christian in the extreme and when I shared some knowledge of biblical scholarship he said I was possessed by the devil. I simply smiled, got up and left. Most people are not like that though. When you talk to people face-to-face they're less likely to go for the jugular and act as rude and insulting as some have acted on here.

I can also look into people's eyes and see a lot by doing that and sometimes I know that this is not the kind of person who is mature enough to have a conversation where there might be a difference of opinion.

At the end of the day I need to be able to speak freely and have someone respect my freedom of speech. Even if I word something imperfectly or they disagree with me politically and religiously, I need to not be around the kind of people who will justify jumping down your throat (being insulting, name-calling, mocking, staw manning, put downs, etc.) and treating you like you're worse than nothing and so ready to dehumanize you. That's not the kind of environment I want to be in. I mean I already have to deal with that with California traffic! :D

So maybe I might post something in the future, who knows; and not saying I won't lurk occasionally; but yeah, for my mental health and happiness I'd rather not swim in the toxicity when there are Clear Blue Waters elsewhere.

Peace
Marcus
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Re: Renlund attempts to slam the door shut on Heavenly Mother

Post by Marcus »

Free Ranger wrote:
Sat Apr 09, 2022 2:20 am
…I can also look into people's eyes and see a lot by doing that and sometimes I know that this is not the kind of person who is mature enough to have a conversation where there might be a difference of opinion….
:roll: Looked in a mirror lately? You seem to be incredibly upset when any differences to YOUR opinion have been expressed in this thread.

In any case, if the link you posted from Coulis does indeed mirror your experience after leaving the lds church, I sympathize. That was brutal to read. Her advice about setting boundaries may be helpful to you, but in any case, I wish you the best in finding a place that you feel reflects your beliefs.
doubtingthomas
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Re: Renlund attempts to slam the door shut on Heavenly Mother

Post by doubtingthomas »

Free Ranger wrote:
Sat Apr 09, 2022 2:20 am
When you talk to people face-to-face they're less likely to go for the jugular and act as rude and insulting as some have acted on here.
Like the old guys who get together at McDonald's to talk about politics?
"I have the type of (REAL) job where I can choose how to spend my time," says Marcus. :roll:
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