The defrauded people we trusted with our very lives and eternal destiny at one time who are still stuck inside a cult they cannot accept for what it really is.

The boondoggled and so brainwashed, so self-deceived they continue to deceive others - as they call those outside its net the "lost ones."

Who is really lost?

With the writing on the walls around them, and yet they choose to ignore the facts for basically blind faith inside a cult they refuse to accept as one.

Are they forcing themselves to stay as their family and relatives leave one by one? What makes them stay given what they must already know by now if they've been paying attention?

Being a "cultural Mormon" isn't a good enough reason IMO. That makes them liars if that's the rationale employed for staying.

I don't know whether to feel more sorry for them, or lament what I've lost with many in my family trading cult beliefs over family. Example: one of my TBM brothers who's been a real d*ck over the space of decades; he believes his misdeeds are justified in the name of everything holy. And that it will all sort itself out on the other side.

He's been brainwashed his entire life while his wife is a cultural Mormon. She pretends to go along because that's what pacifies him.

While they continue to spin their cocoons of deceitfulness within their family.

It's sad beyond words.

I agree with the view that cultural Mormon's - those who actually know the facts and know it isn't true as opposed to those who can't be bothered with the details and only attend for social things - these people are liars.

There were a number of them in my old ward. What irks me is after i left and came out as a vocal non believer, some of them came and spoke to me to persuade me to stay on revealing they hadn't believed in a longtime.

One annoying likened Mormonism to Christmas and Santa, saying it is a positive lie, like the one you tell kids at Christmas knowing it creates a sense of magic. To an extent i can agree with this, it is the old truth vs benefit debate. But the rub for me is that his benefits comes at a cost a real financial cost to the many who see him as an example of 'faith' in the church and its leaders, when secretly he didn't believe at all. He was encouraging others to believe so he can keep his club together so he can reap the benefits socially - in effect a fraudster seeking to keep the kudos' coming in.

There were a number of these in my old ward, all High Priests, which suddenly explained why HP lessons were such a dirge, because most of them had mentally checked out and didn't want to debate why Gandalf's cloak was Grey yet Sauroman's was white...because it is all made up, there is no mystery, the writer just wrote it that way.

I believe this certainly encapsulates a lot of the GA's who lie to themselves trying to rationalise that taking money from broke people is somehow helping them. That somehow in the scheme of things those people who can't pay their rent or college costs but are paying tithing will be better off...and this whilst they receive free college, free healthcare, free accommodation.

When i see a GA all i see is either an idiot or a fraudster. There is nothing in Mormon theology that justifies any respect.