Posted by:
cludgie
(
)
Date: November 24, 2014 07:17AM
Once a year I put this back up on the forum for the new people here, and also for review by the old members here. It is a 2003 quote from Paul Toscano, who has always been a real wordsmith. I was privileged to know him right after he got off his mission (2 1/2 year mission to Italy), and I thought, "Man, this guy is SMART!" He always wanted us to ask all the hard questions. It was no surprise to me later when he was kicked out of the church later so publicly and by the highest levels. I posted this last year near my birthday, so I'll probably be doing it about the same time next year.
One of the most helpful quotes ever for me to understand the LDS church:
"[The church] is like a cherished old relative with advanced Alzheimer's disease. The tabernacle stands, but the lights are winking out. The Church is preoccupied with exteriorities. It prizes righteousness over holiness, image over inspiration. The Church is no longer the Saints, but an increasingly judgmental, puritanical, and authoritarian corporate entity.
"It has become an arch conservative culture built on the sand of family and tribal values, with respectability as its chief cornerstone. Its adherents are less like living stones in the mystical temple of God and more like living stiffs in a morgue of quiet conformity.
"Members are relentlessly pressured to strain at gnats by avoiding alcohol, tobacco, coffee, tea, facial hair, tattoos, body piercing, R-rated movies, public displays of affection, nudity, erotica, masturbation, necking, petting, premarital sex, disrespect or questioning of authority, dissent, and anger, while being constantly encouraged to swallow camels by tolerating elitism, racism, misogyny, lack of intimacy, homophobia, xenophobia, moral superiority, purification by exclusion, institutional secrecy, theological correctness, spiritual abuse, class discrimination, disdain for civil liberties, and the abdication of personal judgment and responsibility."
That last huge sentence ("Members are relentlessly pressured...") is one we should commit to memory.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/24/2014 09:43AM by cludgie.