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[Anonymous]

In an effort to not cause anyone to become upset, I will exit this thread after the following comments:

I did not intend to personally attack Blixa -- I don't know her, and her online persona is probably quite different than her real life persona (until known otherwise, I will assume this is the case).

Blixa, I know you self-identify as Mormon, and you have an LDS heritage. That's fine, but when you say things like

Finally, though, it was a matter of whether or not I wanted to associate with an institution that seemed as deeply racist and sexist as Mormonism. The racism was straight up disgusting. But the sexism? That s*** was up in my grill every day.

it seems unreasonable for people to think you aren't anti-Mormon. In addition, I've never (to my recollection) read where you have berated a critic like you to believers. Perhaps I am wrong, but your attitude here, in my opinion, suggests that I will never find such a post from you.

I hope I'm wrong.

Writing to Mathias earlier, Juanita had deplored a story her mother had narrated. According to Mary's story, a temple president intuited that a young woman who had come to the temple to be married carried a trace of Negro blood; he of course halted the wedding. "Now the point that Mother was trying to make was that our leaders ARE inspired to discern such things. To me, it was all ghastly...I hope that it did not happen anywhere. The mere telling of it as inspired truth is terrible enough I think."

I certainly hope you consider Juanita Brooks an anti-mormon as well, then.

But truly, again I must ask: CAN YOU READ? What you have just quoted out of context is my description of how I felt about Mormonism around age 15. Maybe you're still stuck at that point in your development, but I'm not.

By the way, read some books and articles about the history of race and gender relations in Mormonism. Then you might understand something about the complicated history you consistently caricature in your childish attempts to moralize.

(p.s. Unlike you, I'm the same online as off. You're the one with contrived personae that crumble under scrutiny)

[_Simon Belmont]

Nevermind. Forgot I was just leaving.

[_RayAgostini]

horrifying design. banal content.

Of course, because it's popular with LDS.

If it were an anti-Mormon site, you'd be raving about how great it is.

Blixa is not an anti-Mormon. She's a complex, and very thoughtful person, and hasn't engaged in most discussions here that some would call "anti-Mormon". In fact she has put on ignore many people here one could justifiably call anti-Mormon. For most of her life, as I understand, she wasn't interested in Mormonism, even though her father left her a rich legacy to ponder. She became interested later, and not because she wanted "black and white" answers to complex questions. So she tries to look at both sides of this complex issue. When she's looking at the negative side of Mormonism, and justifiably so, then some may feel to brand her an "anti-Mormon". I've never seen Blixa joining what I would crudely call, "Mormon mob-bashing". In any case, that's my opinion.

[_Blixa]

Blixa is not an anti-Mormon. She's a complex, and very thoughtful person, and hasn't engaged in most discussions here that some would call "anti-Mormon". In fact she has put on ignore many people here one could justifiably call anti-Mormon. For most of her life, as I understand, she wasn't interested in Mormonism, even though her father left her a rich legacy to ponder. She became interested later, and not because she wanted "black and white" answers to complex questions. So she tries to look at both sides of this complex issue. When she's looking at the negative side of Mormonism, and justifiably so, then some may feel to brand her an "anti-Mormon". I've never seen Blixa joining what I would crudely call, "Mormon mob-bashing". In any case, that's my opinion.

Thanks, Ray. I appreciate that. I honestly thought I would have a brief dalliance with Mormon history, write a few conference papers and that would be that. Instead, the more I've read, the more fascinated I've become. The story of Mormonism is weird and odd and beautiful and maddening and impressive. I hope to eventually add my own little bit to its understanding as a way to honor my own Saints: well known figures like Juanita Brooks, Dale Morgan and Wallace Stegner, lesser known "historians" like Olive Coombs.

Fawn Brodie once wrote, "I never return to Utah without being forcibly reminded of the overwhelming significance of the past in this area.” I think that's true, there is a way that the past remains etched into the Utah landscape (and I mean even the pre-Mormon past) more indelibly than anywhere else I know. Well, we all know from Faulkner that "the past is never dead. It's not even past." I think this explains the particular fascination so many intellectuals have for Mormon history much to the consternation of online "Mormon" "defenders" like Simon for whom history is basically meaningless: having no purchase on the present, let alone the future.

[_ludwigm]

Jersey Girl!

[_just me]

I'm fascinated that expressing negative feelings about sexism and racism is antiMormon. I'd LOL if it wasn't so sad.

ludwigm, awesome pug picture! I think Jersey Girl is off the forum until after the holidays, so she will probably not see it.

[_Darth J]

Blixa is amazing.

And Simon, you owe her a huge apology if you have any integrity whatsoever.

In other words, Simon does not owe her a huge apology.

[_Doctor Scratch]

Why is Simon picking a fight with Blixa of all people?

[_sock puppet]

Why is Simon picking a fight with Blixa of all people?

He's stopped dogging you, he's stopped answering my posts, and he's tired of the butt kicking he's been getting from Darth J, particularly recently.

Simon perhaps under appreciated that Blixa too could crush him in debate, and so took a potshot at her.

That's how I see it.

[_Chap]

Why is Simon picking a fight with Blixa of all people?

Because he is not actually a human person at all.

Since coming to this board has been found to be far too dangerous for even the most dedicated human TBM's little pink testimony, NAMIRS has evolved a new breed of LDS chatbots - rather in the same way that the US uses pilotless drones to fly dangerous covert missions in Afghanistan. These wonderful new devices can never be discouraged into apostasy, however often they lose the argument. They just reset after every new crash, and bingo! Off they go again. Even if they did go apostate, the owners could just pull the plug, and the memory would be blanked.

The older types of chatbots like whyme and bcspace simply repeat the same posts over and over again with small random variations. 'Belmont' is however a new model, that operates on the nonpreprogrammed 'neural network' principle. Sometimes these models try out something entirely new at random to see where it will lead - and attacking Blixa was an example of that. If the system is operating properly, it will note the strong negative feedback it has received, and the likelihood of a similar move in future will be greatly reduced.