This board is populated by lots and lots of "honest seekers of truth" -- people who care about others and go beyond the shallow self-serving outlook. People who want to know truth and who seek it out. People who have given the LDS claim more time and effort and emotion than anything else.
IF the Church were true, this board shouldn't exist. There should not be this many decent, caring, honest individuals who are convinced after a deep study, that the Church is fake.
The typical "jack-Mormon" of my youth was someone who "knew" the Church was true but just didn't have the character to live the rules, and so was embarrassed to show up with nicotine stains on the fingers etc.
However the people here KNOW it's not true. That's not supposed to happen. ANYONE who really cares is supposed to be able to KNOW that it's true. If it really were true, we wouldn't exist.
TBMs get around this paradox by trashing our character. We are "too selfish," or "weren't sincere," or "just want to sin," or were so full of ourselves that we threw away our eternal bliss just because someone "offended" us, etc.
Because even THEY know that we shouldn't exist.
Our very existence is not acceptable to their worldview.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/23/2014 11:32PM by baura.
I concur. I like how you explain the Jack Mormon. Many like to equate a former Mormon with a Jack Mormon. Very, very different. Although some former Mormons fall into disrepair and scandal, most of us are slugging it out as people with an affection for being genuine and authentic born into a proven fraud.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/24/2014 03:20AM by gentlestrength.
I wish it were this simple. I still recall the occasional conversation with a missionary who would engage in pretzel logic by claiming that my rejection of the church is proof that it's true. "The greater the opposition, the greater the truth."
Well said baura. There would be no need for this site if the church were true or you could leave without messing with your family and friends.
I initially came to this site for information (the archived posts/articles). I then read the discussion board for more information and for selfish reasons. I had discovered like minded people going through the same challenges I faced.
It has been a tremendous help tp me in finding the truth and in my recovery process.
After a while on this board, many move on and have no need to visit again. Others stay, and are a help and support to the countless thousands struggling with church issues and/or the recovery process.
We all help one another and, as baura stated, we should not even exist.
Thank you Eric for being a true prophet and having a vision for this need in our lives.
"There would be no need for this site if the church were true or you could leave without messing with your family and friends."
Exactly. I NEVER would have come here if I had received ANY respect/compassion/understanding from my TBM family. I would have just left the church and moved on with my life. Unfortunately, the church has trained all my loved-ones to be self-righteous jerks that KNOW the church is true. Devotion to the church will always come first. I'd probably be dead by now if it wasn't for this gathering of understanding individuals.
Right. We should not exist. That is why so many TBM's are scared to death of apostates. The only effective tools LDS Inc has are fear and family pressure, and we are proof that that is no longer sufficient.
They know deep down it is a house of cards, and anyone who leaves is a threat.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/24/2014 08:47AM by Brother Of Jerry.
I did what I was supposed to do, but it didn't generate a testimony. But a TBM isn't going to take MY word for it. Because according to their belief system, that's not supposed to happen. It's easier to discount my experience than it is to challenge their belief system and risk upsetting the apple cart.
Exactly! As my older brother once told me, I honestly don't understand how you are so happy! You are doing everything the church teaches not to do and that it is impossible for you to be happy, yet you are.
Underneath the "we should not exist" is the deep desire to get rid of us because our existence in this happier, truly free state is a repudiation of the self-important egocentric "we have more light" world of Mormonism.
If each of us were a philandering, smoking, drunk, drug-pushing criminal, the Mormons would be having us march in a parade.
Instead, we thrive. In early Mormon history, we were simply killed to avoid the cog dis... and our fellow members who might off us would be deemed to have done us a favor.
Kathleen Waters
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/11/2014 02:23AM by anagrammy.
This explains why my Mormon neighbors and former friends look right through me at the grocery store, the games, at parties--I don't exist!
I do agree with Anointed One, that if we could leave without messing with our family and friends--if we could just walk out the door, as most Christian churches allow--we wouldn't need all this help to "recover."
Yeah, it's interesting how people still can't wrap their heads around the reason I left the Church. They just can't understand why a BIC bishop who knows all about Church history and have no visible flaws of character would leave the Church.
RFM is here to help people recover from a nasty mind virus. The notion that people here are damned is just more proof that TSCC doctrine is bad for you. Love isn't something you get, it's something you give. TSCC is about getting in the hereafter, so it's fake.
It was this line of thinking that helped me realize that the church had failed. "What would it and the world look like if it were true?" was the question I asked myself.
The church has had 200 years to show what it is capable of. If it were really run by the Power of the Priesthood and the Holy Ghost: - Utah should function better than any other state or country, a harmonious and well-ordered land in which individuals find their greatest personal potential and is where the world turns for guidance and comfort. - Great events both wonderful and terrible are foreseen by prophets and planned for with wisdom and care. - The members find collective strength in unity and love, and are not rocked by the fads and follies of the surrounding culture, or resort to petty competition for status and position. - Great truths of science and art are brought forth by enlightened and spiritually guided members. - The best of the rest of the world would be attracted to it, and missionary work would be unnecessary. - Poverty of soul and body are vanquished.
Etc. The church's best hope is that it is not true, if what they've done is the best that the one, true church. can produce.
Exactly. Measure the church by its own yardstick, "by their fruits shall ye know them" and the results speak for themselves. TSCC is a pack of lies in a godly wrapper.