Someone left Mormonism

[Tzaia]

Yesterday I met a lady whose entire family left the Mormon church after about 28 years. One of her sons sat down and actually read the NT while on his mission and discovered that the book of mormon (I first spelled it moron) deviated from the NT.

That they had been deceived.

She has her PhD and taught at BYU, and somehow managed to not know any of mormon history. As if it had somehow been kept from her.

She found nothing odd about the temple ceremonies, despite the strange costumes and utter secrecy.

She knew nothing about the racism, misogyny, and polygamy.

One of the pastors of the church I attend has been spending weeks on the fallacies of the mormon church. Why an expose on the mormon church? Why not dwell on the fallacies of the Catholic (capitalized only to differentiate it from the term catholic) church? Why not talk about how the denominations have persecuted and murdered 10s of thousands over doctrine?

Why not talk about how John Calvin murdered over doctrine?

Why pick on the LDS church?

Because self examination is hard.

I have been asked why I have not become a presbyterian. I point blank say that I can't agree with doctrine that somehow gave a man the right to murder others over points of doctrine. That this "godly" man, IMO, missed pretty much the whole point of Paul's gospel, which deviates greatly from the gospel taught by Jesus. How can one follow a man who did those things? Would you follow Jesus if he had done those things? At least Paul was a repentant murderer. John Calvin was not.

I want to scream, "Haven't we all been deceived?"

So they wanted me to run AV for the 2 hour presentation. I told them I'd rather nap. Seriously. She was standing there and I said that Sunday was my nap day. It is, but more importantly I have been watching previous seasons of Game of Thrones. I prefer doing that to listening to someone talk about how they have left one rather innocuous religious cult organization for another.

Someone tried to sell me her book. Will I buy it? No. I doubt if I'd read it even if someone gave me a copy. Reading about someone's escape from Islam is far more compelling.

[Oakspear]

I want to scream, "Haven't we all been deceived?"

Yup...we have

"Mainstream" Christians mock the Mormons for their so-called crazy beliefs and practices, but don't seriously look at their own

My Catholic family shook their heads at my "cult" involvement while explaining away the flaws in their own church

Everybody else's religion is just nuts...not the truth that we have!

[Tzaia]

Yeah, the day my little neighbor boy was telling me how the Catholic church does not believe in the death penalty. He was young, but I did tell him to read up on church history and when he got older we could talk about the utter irony of that.

We were discussing mormonism at church the other day and I point blank said that pretty much no one does families better. I still have my "Womanly Art of Homemaking" book that I had to beg my local christian bookstore to order for me back in the 80s. My experience with mormon families who are invested in the church and community is that the kids are smart, polite, and have a good work ethic. The marriages are good even though they tend to be patriarchal. What fault can be found in that?

I just don't need to go down that infighting path anymore. So I won't participate.