A big hello

[Shulem]

[Res Ipsa]

Oh yeah, those are all good. I'm with Lem, this is my favorite 'RELEASE THE KRAKEN!'



I try not to instigate or encourage too much "Kraken release" up here in Terrestrial for Shades peace of mind. Most of that needs to happen down in hell in Shulem Kingdom I suppose.

Thanks! That is the best Kraken!!

[Ed1]

Yeah, It's a bit overbearing, I'd say. Warn us of what?

Ed came crashing on to the board and admonished me personally for mocking temple content down in the telestial board. But what about my rights to free speech and to warn the world about cult temple rites that the Mormons stole from the Masons, and are duping good people from all over the world into making covenants to sell one's soul at the altar.

Hey Ed, are you a current tithe payer? Do you have a temple recommend? Do you plan on having a recommend next year and the year after that?

None of my business? Oh, it's my business and everyone's business because you preach and defend Mormonism and the Mormon Church demands that everybody bow to their rules and pay tithing and go to the temple to make covenants. So, yeah, it's my business. Are you current?

Oh, I am absolutely open to the fact that I am 100% current, and I am 100% in, recommend in my pocket, answering all the Temple Recommend questions with "Integrity" as defined in the Temple, as I see it, obedience to it with exactness. 100% tithe paid to my bishop this year, and every year for the last almost five decades on this planet. Never once missed a tithing payment, never once having been inactive, never once doubting my testimony except in my teenage years when I had my "dark night of the soul." Serving my 2 years in a third world country, returning with honor, and having the joy of many that I baptized remaining active, and watching them to go on missions, becoming Bishops, converting more, and being all in in the cause, with whom I will rejoice in eternity. I am a Temple Worker (currently and actively, before Covid of course), and had delight in leading Endowments, and watching people make covenants and helping them do it. Helping them through the washings and anointings and having the joy of that. I rejoice in the Celestial Masonry that I can participate in, and its purity and absolute awesomeness, restored by the man that communed with Jehovah, whose name you malign, whose ordinances you have contempt for, that you malign and mock and put to an open shame. God help you for that.

And still trying to help others once in a while whom I can influence to stay or to come back, and knowing that God knows what I have done and what I have tried to do, and having the confidence that God is pleased with my life, and pleased that I would still try to influence others to remain, even after all I know and all I have experienced, and all I have been through. But recognizing that God has put me where he has put me precisely because he knows that I know what I know, yet remain committed, and am able once in a while to help even the most fargone of his sheep, someone he can send to the darkest of places, down the deepest of rabbit holes after his lost sheep, once in a while, but with a deep respect to their agency and to their chosen paths, different from mine. Yes, at times I have been angry and have criticized the logic and used words that I regret in reference to other people's paths, and I verbally swear as one of my vices at times when angry.

100% "orthoprax" to use Dehlin's term, but I will do all in my power to make sure that my kids and grandchildren when I have them to choose the right path, to the degree that I have power. And to the degree that I have tried with all my might teach them to Love the Lord, I have confidence that He is pleased.

Notwithstanding this, I still don't feel part of a tribe anywhere, especially here. And I feel an especial animosity and enmity towards the Apologists/Mopologists for what they have and continue to do to me, and how they look down on me with disdain and contempt, and I have utter contempt for them right back. I have utter contempt for how they have treated me and my research. Someday I will somehow entirely forgive them for what they have done to me, but for now, I can only forgive them day by day, until the next time that I feel offense, and have to forgive. Right now I forgive only out of obedience to commandment, not because I feel love towards these people. I feel nothing of the sort toward these people, and for that I stand condemned to a degree I guess. But this much I know. I am as independent of a thinker as I am precisely because I am not a lemming and not in lockstep with Midgley and DCP, and feel utter contempt for Scott Gordon. I have absolute especial disdain and contempt for John Gee and his work and believe that John Gee is among the worst of individuals on the planet, who has done more to damage the standing of the Book of Abraham than any critic ever has. They are not my "brothers" in any sense of the word, notwithstanding their perceived loyalty to the Brethren. The Mopologists exist as they do for self aggrandizement, and for the building up of their power of their establishment, and for their own egos, not necessarily for the building up of Zion, as I see it. Otherwise they would care about evidence, and treat it more carefully and with more integrity, which they don't. Every interaction they have with me always ends up to be some extreme negative experience, and they always attempt to do boundary maintenance in the way they treat me, not to attempt to actually examine the evidence and arguments that I present, and not to include what I have produced in to the corpus of material available, but to "contain" me in a box on the outside, and make sure that I am ignored and forgotten, and to make sure that my materials are treated like they have leprosy.

Now lay off Paul, and leave my covenants out of this. Leave my chosen way of living out of this. Leave my chosen beliefs out of this. Leave your ad hominem BS out of this. Leave my mental health or lack thereof (as if), out of this.

No, it isn't your business, but since you think you must know, now you know. Now leave it out of this further. I challenge the rightness of your demand to know, even though I have answered. No, it is absolutely NOT right for you to ask in the first place at all, because it is NOT your business.

Yeah, I warn you, that you can either consider yourself my friend by acting like one, and have me come back once in a while, or you can consider me not a friend anymore by continuing to act as you do and drive me away for good. I get it. It may not matter to *you* to drive me away for good since you already have your tribe. I ask you, will you continue to attempt to damage me like many have in my feelings toward them, or build me up. I warn you. It's your choice about whether I continue as a friend to you or as a enemy. It's your choice. The apologists have damaged me and my standing with them beyond repair. They are among the worst human beings in existence and for certain ones of them, there is a special place in hell for them, ready to receive them, as I see it.

Overbearing you say. Is it? How? It is in the context of what I have power to do: for me to stay or not stay, or be a friend or an enemy. I warn you in that manner, that you have a choice for me to be something to you as a friend, or not, or for me to desire to be here or not. I have no other power to do anything else. I am not an admin here, so, in that sense, the warning doesn't extend to anything outside of the context of what I have power to do here, which isn't much.

[Shulem]

I am 100% current

That's good to know because now I don't have to accuse you of being a hypocrite for failing to practice what you preach. You're on the hook and I'm off the hook.

Celestial Masonry

Yeah, I had my fun with it for many years myself. Yes, I do malign the Person of the O.T. named Jehovah whom I view as synonymous with murderer and mayhem. I hate the bastard and the only place he belongs is in the covers of a book of fiction. Old Testament God is a freaking monster! I'm sorry, but I feel very strongly about that and have utter contempt for the O.T. and certainly have no interest in the New.

I view Mormon temple cult rituals as evil and should be exposed to the whole world for what they are. Shout it out on the housetops! Sound in every ear. Warn the world. The Penalties were utterly atrocious. Sick and evil.

No, it isn't your business

And because you made it my business in reply, I can now say you're not a hypocrite. We both win!

feel utter contempt for Scott Gordon. I have absolute especial disdain and contempt for John Gee

Those guys totally lack good character.

They are among the worst human beings in existence and for certain ones of them, there is a special place in hell for them, ready to receive them, as I see it.

Obviously you're extremely angry and feeling the need to judge them eternally. You'll have to work that out. My recommendation would be to just try and let it go and work on self-healing.

Anyway, you got friends here on this board that listen and respond. It may not be what you want to hear but sometimes it will, so we will be seeing you around.

[Gadianton]

Notwithstanding this [notwithstanding the TBM resume] , I still don't feel part of a tribe anywhere, especially here. And I feel an especial animosity and enmity towards the Apologists/Mopologists for what they have and continue to do to me

Ed1,

You remind me a lot of our fellow poster Nightlion. I will tell you the same thing I would tell him, from the standpoint of armchair pop-psychology.

The first thing you need to figure out is if your problem really is the need to feel connected, or is it the need to feel worshiped? I don't know the answer to that for either of you as I can think of reasons it would go either way. I can tell you though, that misidentifying that need will lead to endless frustration. How many pretty and popular girls become suicidal with 10 million followers on social media? Worship leads to disconnection, and if a person wants to feel connected, that's a very bad thing. However, for someone who seeks worship, worship is a great thing.

If the problem is worship, then exploring various communities online or off with the result being fights and tomatoes thrown, then the situation is semi-tolerable because being the center of negative attention is still better than being ignored, or feeling average.

If the problem is connection, then hypersensitivity and drama is a bad thing, but a person might not have the right background to understand how to navigate a community.

Fortunately for you, the solution is the same for either problem, but making the solution work will completely depend on whether you can figure out what your need is. Howard Stern remarked that the first time he met a certain president -- long before he was the president -- that this man talked for an hour about himself with no interest at all in Howard. This man had inherited 500 million dollars, and so he could get away with that. DCP was born to wealth, was captain of the swim team, student body president, and top of his class in every subject. He can get away with it.

Unless you have the confidence of a Texas ranger, the brain of Einstein, the stage presence of Prince, or the looks of Brad Pitt, you can't get away with it. You must learn to negotiate. And that means, when looking for a community, instead of breaking down the door and demanding everyone hear your manifesto, you need to get to know the people of that community by showing interest in them.

The good news is, showing interest in others is the answer, and I dare say it's the only answer, but the bad news is that how that works for you really depends on the person you need to identify inside of Ed1.

A person coming into a community with ideas outlandish by community norms needing connection can eventually find that connection at the expense of giving up on the weird ideas, at least as the usual conversational topic. A person seeking worship won't convert the community even by the best transactional posting skills, and will either find enough satisfaction in modest praise to make participation worthwhile, or double-down on the far-out stuff because the negative attention is still better than having ones outlandish ideas ignored.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

How many handles does this make now? Six? Kinda weird, man.

- Doc

[Kishkumen]

Notwithstanding this, I still don't feel part of a tribe anywhere, especially here. And I feel an especial animosity and enmity towards the Apologists/Mopologists for what they have and continue to do to me, and how they look down on me with disdain and contempt, and I have utter contempt for them right back. I have utter contempt for how they have treated me and my research. Someday I will somehow entirely forgive them for what they have done to me, but for now, I can only forgive them day by day, until the next time that I feel offense, and have to forgive. Right now I forgive only out of obedience to commandment, not because I feel love towards these people. I feel nothing of the sort toward these people, and for that I stand condemned to a degree I guess. But this much I know. I am as independent of a thinker as I am precisely because I am not a lemming and not in lockstep with Midgley and DCP, and feel utter contempt for Scott Gordon. I have absolute especial disdain and contempt for John Gee and his work and believe that John Gee is among the worst of individuals on the planet, who has done more to damage the standing of the Book of Abraham than any critic ever has. They are not my "brothers" in any sense of the word, notwithstanding their perceived loyalty to the Brethren. The Mopologists exist as they do for self aggrandizement, and for the building up of their power of their establishment, and for their own egos, not necessarily for the building up of Zion, as I see it. Otherwise they would care about evidence, and treat it more carefully and with more integrity, which they don't. Every interaction they have with me always ends up to be some extreme negative experience, and they always attempt to do boundary maintenance in the way they treat me, not to attempt to actually examine the evidence and arguments that I present, and not to include what I have produced in to the corpus of material available, but to "contain" me in a box on the outside, and make sure that I am ignored and forgotten, and to make sure that my materials are treated like they have leprosy.

Well, I for one applaud you for marching to the beat of your own drummer and not taking crap from apologist types. I don't know that I share your darkly negative view of them, but that is perhaps because I am not really close enough to them to care about what they think and do all that much. I agree with you when you say that John Gee has done a whole lot of damage, and I also agree that ego is a big driver in Mormon scholarship of different kinds. That said, I don't know about any of them being "among the worst of individuals on the planet." I save such descriptions for much bigger fish than these guys. At best I think John Gee is fundamentally misguided and has "lied for the Lord" an awful lot. Apologetics of the kind we often see are a kind of intellectual game that is not about truth and honesty so much as it is about paternally protecting the people from the loss of their testimonies by any means necessary. Often, it plain backfires.

I say keep up your work and ignore the Mopes. Anything you write will live on long after most of the swill produced in apologetics. In any case, you do what you do for the joy of doing it, no? What better reward is there than to take delight in doing your thing? Sharing insights with others along the way is gravy. I write a lot of stuff that people either don't read or will never connect with my in real life identity, but so what? I pursue ideas for the sheer joy of doing so. You are a creative person who writes a lot, so revel in it. Haters gonna hate, as they say. What is that to us, if we are enjoying our lives?

[Doctor Scratch]

I am as independent of a thinker as I am precisely because I am not a lemming and not in lockstep with Midgley and DCP, and feel utter contempt for Scott Gordon. I have absolute especial disdain and contempt for John Gee and his work and believe that John Gee is among the worst of individuals on the planet, who has done more to damage the standing of the Book of Abraham than any critic ever has. They are not my "brothers" in any sense of the word, notwithstanding their perceived loyalty to the Brethren. The Mopologists exist as they do for self aggrandizement, and for the building up of their power of their establishment, and for their own egos, not necessarily for the building up of Zion, as I see it. Otherwise they would care about evidence, and treat it more carefully and with more integrity, which they don't. Every interaction they have with me always ends up to be some extreme negative experience, and they always attempt to do boundary maintenance in the way they treat me, not to attempt to actually examine the evidence and arguments that I present, and not to include what I have produced in to the corpus of material available, but to "contain" me in a box on the outside, and make sure that I am ignored and forgotten, and to make sure that my materials are treated like they have leprosy.

Thanks for sharing this, Ed1. I'm curious, though: can you elaborate a bit on your "utter contempt" for Scott Gordon? I know that a lot of people see Gordon as this milquetoast, "nice guy" sort of figure, but I have always suspected that there was "a darkness" behind that persona. I'd be interested to get your take on him, if you don't mind.

[Philo Sofee]

Yeah, It's a bit overbearing, I'd say. Warn us of what?





Awesome. I am all about the fact of the Spirit Bloweth Where It Will

[Ed1]

Notwithstanding this [notwithstanding the TBM resume] , I still don't feel part of a tribe anywhere, especially here. And I feel an especial animosity and enmity towards the Apologists/Mopologists for what they have and continue to do to me

Ed1,

You remind me a lot of our fellow poster Nightlion. I will tell you the same thing I would tell him, from the standpoint of armchair pop-psychology.

The first thing you need to figure out is if your problem really is the need to feel connected, or is it the need to feel worshiped? I don't know the answer to that for either of you as I can think of reasons it would go either way. I can tell you though, that misidentifying that need will lead to endless frustration. How many pretty and popular girls become suicidal with 10 million followers on social media? Worship leads to disconnection, and if a person wants to feel connected, that's a very bad thing. However, for someone who seeks worship, worship is a great thing.

If the problem is worship, then exploring various communities online or off with the result being fights and tomatoes thrown, then the situation is semi-tolerable because being the center of negative attention is still better than being ignored, or feeling average.

If the problem is connection, then hypersensitivity and drama is a bad thing, but a person might not have the right background to understand how to navigate a community.

Fortunately for you, the solution is the same for either problem, but making the solution work will completely depend on whether you can figure out what your need is. Howard Stern remarked that the first time he met a certain president -- long before he was the president -- that this man talked for an hour about himself with no interest at all in Howard. This man had inherited 500 million dollars, and so he could get away with that. DCP was born to wealth, was captain of the swim team, student body president, and top of his class in every subject. He can get away with it.

Unless you have the confidence of a Texas ranger, the brain of Einstein, the stage presence of Prince, or the looks of Brad Pitt, you can't get away with it. You must learn to negotiate. And that means, when looking for a community, instead of breaking down the door and demanding everyone hear your manifesto, you need to get to know the people of that community by showing interest in them.

The good news is, showing interest in others is the answer, and I dare say it's the only answer, but the bad news is that how that works for you really depends on the person you need to identify inside of Ed1.

A person coming into a community with ideas outlandish by community norms needing connection can eventually find that connection at the expense of giving up on the weird ideas, at least as the usual conversational topic. A person seeking worship won't convert the community even by the best transactional posting skills, and will either find enough satisfaction in modest praise to make participation worthwhile, or double-down on the far-out stuff because the negative attention is still better than having ones outlandish ideas ignored.

I am pretty sure I want community and have craved acceptance if I am to analyze myself. I don't see myself as wanting worship. Only equality, and not to be treated as a lesser.