Dan thinks ex-Mormons are sad and pathetic on Sundays for coming together online

[drumdude]

There are two deeply hostile and mocking, mostly aggressively atheist ex-LDS message boards that I look at fairly often. (I like to know what’s agitating the people there.)

On one of them, there’s invariably a thread every Sunday wherein people list all the wonderful things that they’re doing that day instead of attending church.

And, for all I know, they may well be giving an accurate summary of their Sundays. They may really spend the first day of each week gathering berries from beautiful alpine meadows, playing Rachmaninoff piano preludes, winning marathons, finishing novels, and being served breakfast in bed by their fashion-model former-Olympian spouses.

Or maybe they’re not.

But one thing is clear: They seem to spend at least some amount of time each and every Sunday — and, it would seem, for certain of them, a rather substantial chunk of time — sitting alone in front of a computer screen expressing their anger and contempt to a similarly-minded group of invisible strangers for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and its members.

Whether that’s really better than singing and serving and socializing with friends at church is a choice that everybody has to make for himself or herself. Church isn’t always exhilaration and bliss, of course, but their alternative doesn’t, frankly, look particularly appealing to me. It doesn’t seem healthy. It doesn’t seem very happy.

Some justify their often insulting and sometimes quite hateful posts with the notion that they’re merely attempting to “recover” from the horrors visited upon them in their days as active believers. They’re just using candid and blunt rhetoric — precisely as some who briefly show up in my blog comments do. But blunt rhetoric, for too many, is just a disingenuous euphemism for what you say when you want to indulge yourself without reflecting on the impact it has on others. Such people don’t appear to care about that impact. They don’t seem to know or care that those they’re abusing are real. They don’t even try to hide their rage.

Sad. Not happy.

I know the impact this has had. It has led thousands out of the cult. And it warms my heart to see the number of active posters on the ex-Mormon subreddit that he watches growing exponentially.

[drumdude]

Some numbers from the ex-Mormon subreddit:

Membership records as of Dec 31 2021: 221,557
Membership records as of Oct 12 2022: 256,213
+13% growth this year

LDS meeting houses Jan 1 2022: 19479 Meetinghouses
LDS meeting houses Oct 10 2022: 18479 Meetinghouses
-5% growth this year

[Gadianton]

But one thing is clear: They seem to spend at least some amount of time each and every Sunday — and, it would seem, for certain of them, a rather substantial chunk of time — sitting alone in front of a computer screen expressing their anger and contempt to a similarly-minded group of invisible strangers for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and its members.

Whether that’s really better than singing and serving and socializing with friends at church is a choice that everybody has to make for himself or herself.

Except we know from their own admissions that the apologists are just going through the motions "serving and socializing with friends" when in reality they're glued to their phones checking the message boards. They suffer through meetings. They've admitted it. I believe DCP when he says it doesn't get any better than going to restaurants with his friends. I think it's a little shallow, but it's believable that he's so into it. Sitting through church meetings is a totally different matter. I don't believe that he nor his generals enjoy church. It's a chore and a sacrifice.

[IHAQ]

He holds a very stereotypical view of anyone that doesn't believe like him.

Most people who were once committed members but had dropped out of the community of the Saints seemed to me then, although I can’t prove it and although I may be wrong, to have pretty much drifted away. Sometimes it was because they had lapsed in their adherence to the Word of Wisdom or to the law of chastity. Sometimes they had been offended. Sometimes, they simply found the demands of the Church — e.g., the meetings, the callings, and so forth — too onerous, and they wanted a break.

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeters ... h+services

Wanted to sin...check, offended...check, lazy...check.

[IHAQ]

January 2022

I recycle here, with a small handful of slight modifications, some thoughts that I jotted down a few years back. I think they’re still relevant:

Not infrequently, I read comments from purportedly liberated ex-Latter-day Saints about the glories of churchless Sundays. Instead of attending mind-numbingly dull and repetitious meetings, they seemingly claim to spend most of their Sundays skiing, golfing, biking, reading classic literature, listening to superb music, perfecting their highly toned bodies through exercise, enjoying the beach, and sipping fine imported wines.

And perhaps they do.

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeters ... hurch.html

He seems to throw it in when he's suffering from a low word count.

[drumdude]

This time he threw in something about a supermodel spouse.

Very strange. Why is that on his mind, I wonder?

[Dr Exiled]

It's clear DCP would rather be traveling and going to restaurants than going to church. So, perhaps he should. He's hinted that he had his 2nd anointing and so according to his made-up fantasy religion, he can do whatever he wants on Sunday, including hiking the Alps up to a mountain restaurant of his choosing. Sounds great, eh, DCP?

[Doctor Scratch]

Lol. The thing is, what he does most Sundays is even worse--i.e., he sits on *his* butt alone in front of a computer and gets into endless arguments that go on for hours with Gemli. He has done this dozens and dozens of times. At least the RfM people are doing meaningful activities in addition to posting--such as hiking, spending time with family, and so forth. DCP doesn't seem to do anything besides suffering through sacrament meeting while on his smartphone and then picking fights with Gemli.

[drumdude]

Lol. The thing is, what he does most Sundays is even worse--i.e., he sits on *his* butt alone in front of a computer and gets into endless arguments that go on for hours with Gemli. He has done this dozens and dozens of times. At least the RfM people are doing meaningful activities in addition to posting--such as hiking, spending time with family, and so forth. DCP doesn't seem to do anything besides suffering through sacrament meeting while on his smartphone and then picking fights with Gemli.

I love the passive aggressive Mormon saying uttered when former members are living their best life without the church. “Wickedness never was happiness…”

[Tom]

But one thing is clear: They seem to spend at least some amount of time each and every Sunday — and, it would seem, for certain of them, a rather substantial chunk of time — sitting alone in front of a computer screen expressing their anger and contempt to a similarly-minded group of invisible strangers for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and its members.

Whether that’s really better than singing and serving and socializing with friends at church is a choice that everybody has to make for himself or herself.

Except we know from their own admissions that the apologists are just going through the motions "serving and socializing with friends" when in reality they're glued to their phones checking the message boards. They suffer through meetings. They've admitted it. I believe DCP when he says it doesn't get any better than going to restaurants with his friends. I think it's a little shallow, but it's believable that he's so into it. Sitting through church meetings is a totally different matter. I don't believe that he nor his generals enjoy church. It's a chore and a sacrifice.

I am reminded of something that Dr. Midgley once wrote: "I know that [church] meetings are sometimes dull and the lessons and sermons are boring. So what? When I preach or teach I am confident that some are bored." I understand that when Dr. Peterson is stuck in a boring church class, he punishes himself by rereading Investigating the Book of Mormon Witnesses.