'Twas The Night Before Excommunication" (The directer's

[_Coggins7]

Not sure what you're referring to here, Loran. Are you claiming that I dole out "personal rancor"?

Loran:

In your case, no.

[_Sam Harris]

And yet, without GIMR, PP, CC, Nort, and others, this place would not be the same. It takes all kinds to make a world; God for some odd reason included you, Loran. Stranger things have happened. You sound so much like a parrot, it's uncanny.

Loran:

Yes, without the hatred, slander, bigotry, vulgar and profane language, the parading of personal neurosis in public in the guise of attacking and destroying a religion, and outright intellectual dishonesty, this would be a different place. It would be a place where people on both side of the LDS church would debate, abeit vigorously at times, differing views.

People like those you mentioned are, to me, more of a distraction than anything else, which is why I've renewed my commiitment to ignoring their posts and only discussing things with civil, intelligent people, regardless of personal differences regarding the church.

Thant's all.

After you've been inside their skin, looked at the world through their eyes, then you can criticize them. Their blatant honesty is refreshing, in my opinion. As I sat eating in a bar at the SLC airport and saw the Polygamy Porter poster on the wall, who else would I think of, but our own PP? Without PP, we are less here. He brings his own perspective and shares it with us, to partake as we see fit. I don't often agree with him, but shutting him up or marginalizing him is just me, doing to him what's been done to me. I hate it when someone does that to me; I make a point to try to never do that to anyone else. The same is true for all of us; without all of us, we are less. Even you, Loran. Even you and Wade and Plutarch, we are less without you.

LOL, Wade I feel we could have done without, I've had my fill of therapist wannabes.

Most TBMs cannot deal with me, because my experience represents probably one of the most embarrasing moments in church history. The country has moved on from something that they keep holding onto and trying to defend. Deep down inside my critics know that they cannot really deny me, but they try anyway. Epithets, claims that I'm not who I say I am, it doesn't even phase me anymore. It used to hurt like hell, but now that I no longer feel that being LDS is essential to my salvation (in other words, now that I no longer feel trapped), the effect is just not the same.

I really don't find folks like Coggins funny. I don't find insinuations that all folks like him and Wade are trying to do with regards to us is be good Christians to be funny. I don't find the topic of excommunicaton to be funny. Heaven is not a country club, and it pisses me off to see any man of any denomination acting like he has the keys. But that's just me. I'm more serious by nature. I find little funny, and when I do laugh, my humor is dark. That's just a byproduct of my upbringing. Oh, and I don't think its funny to try to take my personal life and make it seem like my dysfunctional family and how I came out of it is the reason why the church didn't work for me. But Coggy insinuated that too.

I'm sorry, if he didn't start off with personal attacks, maybe I'd be able to give a half a chuckle.

[_Coggins7]

Most TBMs see my writing style and see a heathen. I've told many that they wouldn't know me if they saw me on the street, because their perception is so off. I'm sarcastic, these days I don't give a damn who likes me or not, but I hardly avoid those in need. I have a strong work ethic (which seems to piss people off in the coroporate world for some reason), and I do what's right. And that at the last day will matter, not how polite I was to someone who thrills in calling me a racist, or someone else in blackface.

Loran

If I were to see you in the steet, I'd probably expect somethin like, oh, Angela Davis around 1968.

[_Sam Harris]

Which goes to show how little you know about me. Also that you don't give a damn, you're just ready to pin on a preconception to justify your behavior.

[_Sam Harris]

Gone so soon, cog dis? Not gonna come back and explain how in the hell you can volley from calling me another poster in blackface to calling me a Black Panther?

Have you any idea how many BLACK PEOPLE I have pissed off, letting them know that it's 2006, and we're on an equal playing field? Well, everywhere except for the LDS church, that is.

Out here my education and drive determine where I want to be, not affirmative action, and not the NAACP. I know you see folks like me as ignorant ghetto snipes who just want to hang onto your back and mooch off all your pioneer-like hard work. I'm sorry, but I didn't raise myself to be that way. It's not always easy, but out here if someone discriminates against a person, they get sued. Where you are, the victim just gets a testimony and then ignored.

[_Coggins7]

Have you any idea how many BLACK PEOPLE I have pissed off, letting them know that it's 2006, and we're on an equal playing field? Well, everywhere except for the LDS church, that is.

Loran:

Thanks for demonstrating the legitimacy of my perceptions about you in a very clear and umambiguous manner.

[_Sam Harris]

Sorry, the truth hurts. You have not been where I have. You haven't been told that you had to date a black man, when before you never limited yourself. You haven't felt what I felt when reading the words of men who may be dead, but men whose teachings I was told to follow.

You can trash me all you want to. But you still can't see what I've been through. And for you, keeping your POV is far more comfortable than confronting the truth of the still present racial tension in your church.

[_Sam Harris]

It's funny that all you have is accusations of racism to hurl at me, and preconcieved notions of black panthers...

You won't look at what's there, you'll just make your assumption, plug your ears and walk away.

Iknowthischurchistrue, Iknowthischurchistrue....

I know, I know, this just hammered in stone all the more your PERCEPTION of me.

*laughs*

[_Rollo Tomasi]

'Twas the night before excommunication
and all through the land
All the exmos were stirring
and wringing their hands.
....

"Merry Christmas to all, and to all chopped liver!"

That was great! Thanks for that creative effort.

Aw, hell, since we're all getting sentimental on this thread ....

MERRY CHRISTMAS, EVERYONE, AND MOST OF ALL, LORAN!!

[_harmony]

'Twas the night before excommunication
and all through the land
All the exmos were stirring
and wringing their hands.

Actually, no. I've often felt that while likely uncomfortable because I'm well aware of the distortions that would be made, excommunication would be more of a relief than anything else.

If all sacrament meetings were like this next Sunday's sacrament meeting will be (filled with music and praising God for the birth of his Son), I'd make the effort to get there. But that doesn't happen. A spiritually fulfilling sacrament meeting once a year isn't enough.