_Paul Osborne wrote: ↑Tue Oct 20, 2009 11:25 pm
The time has come, alas! My apostasy . . . .
I no longer pledge my obedience or faithfulness to the brethren of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or to any church for that matter. Screw them all!
I no longer believe that Thomas S. Monson is a prophet, seer, or revelator although I think he is a nice guy. I think the LDS church is run like a business and by white collar men who love power, money, and position. Screw them.
I have no regrets for living Mormonism and value my experience in the church as an important part of my life's mission on this earth. It was a great ride while it lasted. But the ride is over.
I do however retain my belief in God and Jesus Christ. I feel like I can breath now. There really is air outside of Mormonism wherein life does exist. It feels pretty good, folks. I'm in the process of being debrainwashed and am coming along OK. However, with all that said, there is a possibility I could go back to the Church but that would require the absence of faith and the church proving what it claims to be. I doubt that will happen because the Church doesn't have a good track record of proving anything.
Thoughts? I don't know if I'll comment much. This is a difficult moment for me. I'm sure you all understand.
Paul O
Thanks for bringing this piece of history back. I'm sorry that I don't feel I can spare the time to read through the next twenty pages, with comments from a lot of people I've never known, and all. A condensed version would be interesting.
When I was following Ex-Scientology, a popular metaphor was "peeling the onion". The idea was that when people first left Scientology, they usually decided that the Church of Scientology had become corrupt but that L. Ron Hubbard was still a great guy and his "tech" still had a lot of value. Gradually, though, their skepticism would work further inwards. For a while some of the "tech" was just silly and Hubbard had flaws, but some was good and Hubbard had some great ideas. Slowly the few remaining babies in the bathwater turned out to be just lumps of dirt, until they finally accepted the fact that the "tech" was all stupid—the only "workable" things in it were simple things that had been around long before Scientology—and Hubbard was just a glib charlatan who lied about everything.
I wonder how far that metaphor applies to Mormonism, which doesn't pretend to be an entirely new revelation like Scientology, but instead tries to hijack Christianity and Judaism. Does Jesus slowly shift from being the guy who was betrayed again by Joseph Smith into just an earlier Joseph Smith? Does ancient Palestine come to seem just like Utah? Or is it more a matter of the ancient world fading into unknown ancient stuff, that loses relevance to the modern world when Smith's Restoration is revealed as a scam?
I don't mean to pry into your own private views as an individual, but just to ask what might be the appropriate short public bio for a Mormon apologist turned Mormon critic.
I'd ask the same question to Philo Sofee, for the same reasons.
I was a teenager before it was cool.