This Was Supposed to be Me....

[_Nightlion]

I'm of the solid opinion that the reason people become apostates is that they are the only ones who really take the truth claims (and all the rules) seriously.

I think you are right. If as a Mo you just sin how you want, discreetly, and show up on Sundays with your checkbook out for tithing settlement, laughing off silly things like FP letters about oral sex, not drinking caffeine sodas--until then it was announced as okay, etc. then you'll go right up that LDS ladder.

On the other hand, if you think truth means accurate accounts of what happened, you think obedience and disobedience are mutually exclusive, you take people at face value when they claim to know what god wants for you (and that there is a god), etc., well then you're doomed to figure out it doesn't add up, it is a con that has been being perpetuated for 184 years now. Bingo, you're straight and narrow path led right to apostateville.

The only difference between me and you good ol' boys is my being drawn to come into Christ for real before I discovered Mormon hypocrisy.

There is the sum of it. Hence the opposite polarity. Positive and negative.

[_Bazooka]

You got the better deal.

By what objective standard is this statement true?

By the objective standard with which Mormonism teaches us we may know the truth of all things...I feel good about it!

[_Jesse Pinkman]

But Apostles do.

I don't personally know any apostles...so I can't speak to that...

As I understand it, they sign everything over to the Church who pays for everything from then on, extended to their families including grandchildren etc.

You don't understand it correctly.

[_Bazooka]

But Apostles do.

I don't personally know any apostles...so I can't speak to that...

As I understand it, they sign everything over to the Church who pays for everything from then on, extended to their families including grandchildren etc.

You don't understand it correctly.

By all means supply the corrective details.

[_Ludd]

My best friend and best man at my temple wedding has just been called as a new Mission President. He is a good person and the church is lucky to have him represent them....but I have to admit that I always thought that this would be my life path rather than his. He was the kid that messed around with the girls in HS while I remained morally clean. He drank at the parties and got drunk, I never drank alcohol. He smoked weed, I refused it when it was passed my way. I was a dedicated, rule keeping, tracting missionary serving as DL, ZL and AP, he liked to go to the museums and take pictures. I was EQ and YM President...while he served in supporting positions. I was on the High Council while he was a counselor in the bishopric. I asked tough questions and doubted, he doubled down and became more devout and unwavering. We both came to a fork in the road I went right while he turned left. He is now a Mission President while I'm a f*****g apostate...

You almost sound like you are battling some regrets here. I guess that's understandable in a way. I have a cousin who was recently called as a MP. I talked to him and his wife at a family funeral earlier this year, right before they left. I have to admit that as I was driving back home from the Wasatch Front, I had some very melancholy feelings about the whole thing. Nothing turned out anything like I imagined it would when I got back from my mission, got married, etc.

Opening your eyes to the "real world" and leaving "The Church" are things that, once they've happened, it's not like you can "put the genie back in the bottle" afterwards. For better or worse, you're changed from that point forward. Everything is changed. And no matter how much you'd like to, you can't do like Cypher did and re-enter the Matrix.

[_Tchild]

My best friend and best man at my temple wedding has just been called as a new Mission President. He is a good person and the church is lucky to have him represent them....but I have to admit that I always thought that this would be my life path rather than his. He was the kid that messed around with the girls in HS while I remained morally clean. He drank at the parties and got drunk, I never drank alcohol. He smoked weed, I refused it when it was passed my way. I was a dedicated, rule keeping, tracting missionary serving as DL, ZL and AP, he liked to go to the museums and take pictures. I was EQ and YM President...while he served in supporting positions. I was on the High Council while he was a counselor in the bishopric. I asked tough questions and doubted, he doubled down and became more devout and unwavering. We both came to a fork in the road I went right while he turned left. He is now a Mission President while I'm a f*****g apostate...

Apostate sounds so negative. You awoke from the Mormon fog. Sounds more like you are Andy Dusfresne and your friend, Brooks Hatlen (old guy who hangs himself when "free" of prison) from the Shawshank Redemption.

Since the Mormon God is a human construct there ain't nobody keeping score except you.

[_Tchild]

Prior to and when I first left the fold, I often felt those pangs of meloncholy, and the comparisons of myself to others achievements in business, family, life and in LDSism.

You know, that is what I absolutely loathed the most about my time as a member; that sense of failure of not living up to some scripted version of life and success...the narrative of the way things are supposed to go. The Mormon version is a pure facade, it celebrates wealth, achievements and the outward appearances as the signs of success and spirituality.

Truthfully, I just cannot fathom how people find this life to be fulfilling or successful. I feel it to be the so utterly depressing and bereft, because one is mentally imprisoned to beliefs that are fixed and stale, imprisoned to a life that doesn't allow for expression beyond the prescribed bounds, fears and constraints of a dead worldview. That is the antithesis of the evolving of personal truth.

Next time you drink coffee while looking at the sunrise on a beautiful sunday, you ought to fall to your knees and cry out in total gratitude to the Gods of freedom.

[_mentalgymnast]

Truthfully, I just cannot fathom how people find [life as a Mormon] to be fulfilling or successful. I feel it to be the so utterly depressing and bereft, because one is mentally imprisoned to beliefs that are fixed and stale, imprisoned to a life that doesn't allow for expression beyond the prescribed bounds, fears and constraints of a dead worldview. That is the antithesis of the evolving of personal truth.

Next time you drink coffee while looking at the sunrise on a beautiful sunday, you ought to fall to your knees and cry out in total gratitude to the Gods of freedom.

Sitting around drinking coffee and watching a sunrise on Sunday is what you consider to be the culmination of "expression beyond the prescribed bounds"? That's what enlightened people do...and that's how ultimately being "fulfill[ed] or successful" pans out? That's "freedom"? There's got to be something more to it than that.

What are you referring to in your non "imprisoned" life that is heads and tails above your experience as a Mormon? I am not asking in jest...I'm actually interested in how your life is SO much more qualitatively FULL than it was when you subscribed to the LDS lifestyle/beliefs.

Regards,
MG

[_mentalgymnast]

Opening your eyes to the "real world" and leaving "The Church" are things that, once they've happened, it's not like you can "put the genie back in the bottle" afterwards. For better or worse, you're changed from that point forward. Everything is changed. And no matter how much you'd like to, you can't do like Cypher did and re-enter the Matrix.

Folks have done so, however. Don Bradley for example. Anyone who finds out the in depth history of the church and chooses to believe...the Givens...Bushman...and others. So it is possible to re-enter life as a Mormon after having deconstructed faith and reassembled it into something that fits the "real world", as you say.

Regards,
MG

[_Tchild]

What are you referring to in your non "imprisoned" life that is heads and tails above your experience as a Mormon? I am not asking in jest...I'm actually interested in how your life is SO much more qualitatively FULL than it was when you subscribed to the LDS lifestyle/beliefs.

Regards,
MG

How would you describe the Grand Canyon to a blind man?