Hello Ex-Mormon Forums, I've been reading the posts on your site for a while now and am very entertained and curious about this type of forum. I hope to ocassionally post and join in on your conversations and hope I can find some solace and maybe even offer a kind word to others going through this process.

Most of you seem like such intelligent and well educated people so I feel a little out of my league in keeping up with the language (and spelling...this thing doesn't have a spell check, so please forgive me in advance).

My choice to leave the Mormon church started many years ago but really came full circle about nine years ago. What has been even harder than just leaving is having it leave me. Inside I still find myself thinking or doing very typical Mormon things, like judging others when I have little or no real information or reason to judge them, or hoarding things in that ridiculous mind set of thinking the world is coming to an end or that it's just practical. Why is it so hard to de-program the messages that were infused over the last three dozen years?

Some of the things make sense. There's a really funny book called, "The Joy of Womanhood" that the church used to sell that tells women how to be happy. It's mostly full of really old fashioned advise that we laugh at now but some of it is just good common sense that anyone in any church or culture would embrace. The hard parts for me seem to be when I'm trying to filter out the bad messages from the good. How do others sift all that they got from the church?

It seems like throwing out the baby with the bath water to expell everything the Mormon church taught me and others. Yet so many things seem deeply entwined, like a mess of wire coat hangers and I'm just trying to get the good ones out but they come with all the cheap twisted ones tangled up. How long does it take to really be free to think for oneself based on common sense and not with the little barbs of Mormon reason (which seems really unreasonable sometimes) clouding one's perspective?

This board seems like a great place to learn and just enjoy other people who have gone through similar things. I hope I can fit in. You all seem so smart and funny.

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Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier.
Mother Teresa

The phrase "like a bird's nest of tangled wire coat hangers" is probably going to stick like a tattoo that you have now left me pondering about. As the LDS experience. My mountain of discarded closet wires is smaller than the one that I might have started with. It's a pile mostly made up of which I have now borrowed from friends and family members.

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God of Poly-Folly Folly

{ If you believe in things that you don't understand, then you suffer ~ Stevie Wonder }
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God of Poly-Folly Folly

[http://neatorama.cachefly.net/minibrains/hanger_gorilla.jpg]

I hope this works. Maybe like the artist did with this project we could make something interesting of the mess we were tangled into. I think I'll use my old wire hangars to make a really big antenna and see if I can get better reception. Things seem fuzzy most of the time and I can't seem to get a good clear picture of the world.

Maybe this will work better
http://virtualanthropology.typepad.com/ ... index.html

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Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier.
Mother Teresa

Okay, Second Hand Rose started the wire art thread so I'll try and add captions. Let me help you get that monkey off of your back. (A gorilla named Monson) Maybe soon we won't feel like a crew so "Lost In Space" (see second piece) Finally, perhaps all that we really experienced as former LDS parishioners was somewhat comparable to a really bad hair day?

See more use for that tangled mountain of used wire coat hangers right here. http://mocoloco.com/art/archives/005331.php

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God of Poly-Folly Folly

{ If you believe in things that you don't understand, then you suffer ~ Stevie Wonder }
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God of Poly-Folly Folly

Cool Art Joseph's Smith!!

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Pissing in the Mormon Koolaide one post at a time. LIE PINOCCHIO!!! LIE!!!!

I'm hooked on that art Joseph's Myth! Linking sites is tricky sometimes but you found even better ones.

Sometimes sorting through the old mindset is like cleaning out a junk drawer. I find one or two treasures that I think are useful but am not sure where to keep them, and lots of old used batteries, ruined film of things long forgotten, broken stuff that never gets fixed, and buttons to pants that don't fit. So much of what I spent so many years learning is useless in the big wide colorful world and so I'm trying to toss it out, but somehow it keeps finding it's way back into the junk drawer.

I wonder how much of the stuff we learned is actually toxic and we could get fined if we put it in a dumpster. Maybe they could use one of those toxic waste sites for all our former Mormon useless hangups and misconceptions. I wonder if such things can be safely contained and what the actual half life of their radioactivity is. Can they cause cancer? How does one go about safely disposing of such worthless information as memorizing the names of dead people or dutiful Conference notes from 1988 (Did anyone's parents actually ever think we'd read these again?)

Sometimes when I'm dressed up people mistake me for a Mormon woman. Does this make anyone else cringe? I know lots of nice LDS women but so many seem sort of dull and easily duped, like they're on auto-pilot and lost the toggle switch to go back to thinking for themselves. I don't mind being seen as happy, but hope that it's because I really am happy and not because I'm just smiling till the pain is numbed. How long does it take to trust one's own instincts after leaving the church?

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Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier.
Mother Teresa

Hi rose. Just wanted to stop in and say I like your inputs and your wit. I'm a fan!

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Jesus save me......[from your followers]

Thankyou for the welcome Curtis. I'm happy to entertain but it seems my questions were more ethereal and evaporated like bubbles in cheap champaigne.

_________________
Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier.
Mother Teresa

Hi Rose! Welcome!

I like your analogy of the twisted coat hangers. Imaginery and our thoughts are so deeply connected to our subconscious aren't they?

The other night, I had this wierd dream. It was set in my childhood neighborhood. I talked a couple of my adult friends (from now) into helping me move 3 large barrels of slug or toxic waste on to doorstep of a neighbor. After we drop the barrels off on the guy's front porch, we split up and run separate ways down the streets. A few minutes later, my cell phone starts ringing, and the neighbor say, "You are f**ked, I just blocked your telephone usage, Ha!" Wierd, huh? I don't really know what that was about, but somehow the nightmares always come back to the church experiences. The dreams always end up with me wandering down streets unable to find my way or riding buses that go no where close to my "destination."

I understand "what" you are going through. Lately, I've been reading a lot about JS history. It is so hard to sift through the crap of what I was taught as a child and young adult. One thing I am sure of is that lds apologists have helped to rewrite history and/ or minimize JS's shennigans with the young ladies and the peep stone stuff.

What do you do? I can hardly throw out the good times growing up even though it was muddled and twisted with a skewed view of the world. Some days, I am ready to "walk" my letter over to the bishop's house. Other days, I think, "It doesn't matter what they think, if I do not consider myself Mormon."

I look forward to your posts.

As time goes by, I feel gradually more free to consider a wider range of possibilities. I remember talking to a client family about the wide differences between their children, and I used the LDS doctrine of pre-existence to help explain it. I didn't know that besides Morons, essentially no Christians believe that way. This happened several years AFTER I'd stopped considering myself a Moron.

Everyone has biases. Moronism is a cult, and so having been brought up in the church means recovering adult Morons will have worse than average baggage to shed. I believe every person's view of the world is filtered as if through a polarized lense, allowing in some wavelengths of light, and reflecting others. Maturation is in part, learning what your blind spots are, what wavelengths you can and cannot naturally tune to, and developing mechanisms for informing yourself about your lacuna, your blind spots.

I was fascinated a few years back to learn that when marine biologists thought of looking at the ocean using infrared light, the same wavelength that snakes use for their vision, they discovered a vast body of micro-organisms that they never knew existed before. Doing some calculating, they discovered that this newly discovered biomass accounted for 25% of the world's total. (My exact retelling may not be accurate in the details--some scientist please help me.) Talk about missing the elephant in the living room!

My point is, we're not unusual in our position as former Morons of having to discover and fill in our blind spots. There may be a few lucky kids on the planet who grow up with completely open and emotionally/intellectually gifted parents who developed the ideal curriculum for teaching their kids about open-mindedness, the balancing of opposing ethics, the virtues and vices of all the world's traditions and the fine line between tolerance and standing up for beliefs. The rest of us must squint through half-opened eyes, folk-beliefs, coloquial wisdom and a few solid rational principles to patch together a decent, personal, semi-robust epistemology.

Mor(m)ons view themselves as peculiar, chosen, special, god's own. Such a self view is nearly universal of all people. We should try hard to avoid that same trap, thinking we're burdened by a background that is MORE difficult, ESPECIALLY challenging and UNIQUELY twisted beyond that of other people. We have a different flavor of challenge in a Baskin-Robbins shop full of myriad challenge flavors, some easier and many, many worse than what we have to overcome.

Even so, your question is a valid one. On the other hand, in some ways, the Moron background sensitizes us in ways others are not, giving us advantages that never-mos don't have. I believe my valuing of my family, for instance, can be attributed to the emphasis the church instilled in me to value my family. (I spent the 4th with all 6 of my kids. What wonderful people they are.)

What is truly me and not just indoctrination? I help teenagers answer the questions about personal identity everyday. What do you like? What do you hate? What do you have natural curiosity for? What do you feel no interest in? What have you never explored? What are you drawn to? What's the funnest thing you ever did? What are you good at? Bad at? What fits your body best? What doesn't fit? All these, and dozens of other questions have to be asked and answered. The church discourages open exploration of some areas and overemphasizes others, some of which counter nature (the ban on touching yourself, for instance). Families outside the church often are more free to explore, and encourage their children without boundaries besides safety. Many families outside the church, perhaps most across the world, do not have freedom to explore identity, similar to Morons.

I had another experience like yours when I divorced. Despite leaving, my anger at my soon-to-be-ex dominated my thoughts. I had to divorce what I carried around inside me that was related to her in order for my physical leaving to pay me dividends. I did that mental divorce by filling my time with the constructive pursuits that were denied me by a bad marriage.

Mental principle: the human mind only hears the positive side of any command. So if you tell yourself, "don't think about the naked lady running on the beach," your brain hears everything except the "don't." You end up doing opposite of your intentions. Ask your brain, "What is the most fulfilling way I could spend my time today?" and the embedded, positive command will be heeded by your brain as it thinks about delightful things you could spend your time on.

And so on...Sorry for being so preachy. I'm so opinionated......not so funny....

I've heard that in order for you to "not" do something as in "don't think of pink elephants" that the only way is to focus your attention on the thing you do want and take action on that.

There was a training program called " Enlightened Leadership" (and book) where the trainer talked about that specifically. If you want to change the course of your life, you need to focus on and take action on the things you want.

As for our thinking I understand there are numerous ways that we have created and continue to develop our models from which we live our lives. I think that was probably the challenge many of us feel about the LDS Church though it would have been true of any religion or group that limited our world view. Isn't that what we find so irritating the idea that as young people we were duped into seeing the world a certain way?

I guess we can take solace in knowing it could have been much worse and that we did get out...we did discover our situations.

Think of the Muslim youth with bombs strapped around his waist thinking that to praise God he has to take out as many infidels as he can.

Think of the Buddhist monk who spends his life praying and meditating endlessly.

Think of the Catholic priest or nun who spends his/her life trying to control their normal human appetites.

I think our frustration comes from the deceit and realizing we lost some time and resources.
But on the outside, we're missing the part of belonging to a tribe and we don't have someone telling us what to do.
We don't have that false sense of assurance that we are a part of something bigger than ourselves.

Seems to me, as in all things, there are "good" and "bad" parts of everything and what is good and bad depends a lot on our individual interpretation at that time.

Last week driving through Sigurd, Utah I was thinking just how close I came to marrying one of the locals. (My girlfriend called it off a month before the wedding) In hindsight I would have likely moved there...living a life in Mormon land and the thought occurred to me how awful that would have been to come to that realization of the fallacy of the Church while living in small town LDS Utah.

Thirty years ago when the gal told me she was calling off the wedding I was heart broken. Now I'm about ready to look her up to thank her for saving me from living in podunk Utah. I really dodged a bullet but didn't realize it at the time.

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"The price we pay for the security we think we have is the life we could have lived."
"What you do shouts so loudly, I cannot hear what you say." Emerson
"The greatest risk is not taking one."

The Enron scandal that broke in about 2001 and obliterated millions of dollars of working class pensions and 401K investments is one of those grotesque parts of the financial meltdown of this century. Thousands of hard working people in the US who had spent half a lifetime with one company or another had invested their pensions and savings into various companies that were related to Enron and it's subsidiary companies. The hardest hit were the folks who were close to retirement. Many were in their 50s or early 60s and having given over years to various companies with the goal that one day they'd retire in comfort and have rewards for the sacrifices and work they'd given over the previous 20-30 years were now nearly bankrupt and their pensions virtually disappeared. Too old to start a new career and too invested to walk away, they were trapped in a mess that even the Federal Govt. couldn't fix. They became the flood of new greeters at Wal-Mart, hoping to get enough hours to qualify for some miniscule health insurance.

Now play that same level of time, devotion, work, and in some ways financial investment into the LDS church. There's folks who have been members since birth, giving 10% of their income, 50% of their time, their children, their talents, their skills and so much more, even their hearts and souls to a church that promises enormous returns and a cushy retirement in the Celestial Kindgom.

As the scandals break and various bits of information leak out regarding the fraud of the early founders, the historical lies, the doctrinal lies, the cultural lies it is almost too much for most of those so heavily invested to comprehend. They continue to contribute in hopes that they can salvage the disinigrating corporation but deep in their hearts they may know that it was all for naught. Then there's others, many others that no matter how many pieces of the puzzle you put before them they refuse to see the big picture. It would negate so much of what they've devoted their lives to that it's just incomprehensible to think that it couldn't be real, therefore, don't look, don't think, don't read, don't investigate and it will all be ok.

There are many others,especially in the heirarchy that are like Kenneth Skilling, or Arthur Anderson, or Gee Duhbya who have all kinds of financial incentives to lie about the dark twisted shennanigans and placate the masses in order to avoid implication or prosecution. Instead of being more transparant in the information they in essence "Kill the messengers" who point out the flaws and lies. For those so heavily invested, it seems easier and more comforting to believe those who are the liars and villians, than to aknowledge the lies. The alternative is just too horrific to imagine. "Please God, don't let it be true that we were lied to all these years.".

I suppose with anything we invest so much into, our children, our careers, our homes it's just too terrible to see the flaws. The work of repairing or starting over is so daunting that maybe it's easier to just keep investing, even though we know deep down that the payoff is not there.

For those of us that do finally leave, we're the semi-retirees, working as greeters at Wal-Mart. Starting over at the bottom. Knowing that what we gave was thwarted, wasted, lost and not to be seen again. We get together here in the lunchroom and bitch about it but bottom line is that we just have to start from scratch. I sometimes feel old. Too old to re-invent myself but in truth, the things that I am, was, will be are all still there and just need to find their way out. Maybe that's all any of us can do is just rely on our own soul and talents and ideas and make the best of whats left after the ashes blow away.

If you don't want to resemble a Mormon woman, get a tattoo or pierce your ears twice. That really pisses them off. While people in the world are starving, being raped, at war, and dying of Malaria, the Mormon God is busying himself with new and everlasting prophecies on the number of tiny holes a good virtuous woman can have in her earlobe.

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Pissing in the Mormon Koolaide one post at a time. LIE PINOCCHIO!!! LIE!!!!

No, I'm sorry. You questions might not have had a immediate response. But they did not even begin to go UN-noticed. I have little authority to untangle your very own pile of tangled used coat-hangers. That does not mean that I might like to borrow a few so that I might finish my next gorilla wire sculpture. In a more timely fashion. SHR, you are a very skilled writer and composer. We're all probably "hooked" on your contributions already. It is so refreshing to just meet another casualty of bad LDS doctrine whom has more than "just survived" and conquered perhaps as many fears as the rest of us.

Here are a couple of those questions that have yet to be given more voice.

"I wonder how much of the stuff we learned is actually toxic and we could get fined if we put it in a dumpster. Maybe they could use one of those toxic waste sites for all our former Mormon useless hangups and misconceptions. I wonder if such things can be safely contained and what the actual half life of their radioactivity is. Can they cause cancer? How does one go about safely disposing of such worthless information as memorizing the names of dead people or..."



The answer is really pretty easy. The worst lies are the most toxic before being deleted and then replaced with the healthy stuff. The rest is filled wit a little bit of truth and a whole lot of mindless inert fluff. Sort of poorly camouflaging their really bad crap.

The really ugly and horrible lies that you might make sure are replaced might start with these two. "I can become God and family members who quit or do not believe the first lie. Are extraordinarily evil apostates and need to be forever ostracizied if not served their blood atonement"

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God of Poly-Folly Folly

{ If you believe in things that you don't understand, then you suffer ~ Stevie Wonder }
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God of Poly-Folly Folly

When I meet people who have been shut out from their tribe, or for whatever reason feel left out I feel such helplessness. I have heard all the little cruel statements from active members on how they view those who question or leave and feel such great shame at the narrowness of their limited perspectives.

If I were like Insanad I'd probably slap them and use some of her hilarious biting wit to put them in their place. Most of the time I get to sit on the sidelines and watch others do what I wish I had the courage to do.

Joseph's Myth, you can come and untangle all the hangars you want from my twisted mess. If you can loosen up even a little corner of the gangly blob that are my hangups then I would be forever greatful. Most of the time I would rather just shove it all back in the closet and not look. If I open it just a crack long enough to toss another cheap hangar on the pile and then shove the door closed it doesn't bother me so much. I just hope I never have to sell the "House" and try to clean all this junk out. With scrap metal prices booming right now maybe I can just take it in in one glob and get a few coins and go for a makeover.

Thanks for the compliments.

_________________
Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier.
Mother Teresa

insanad is really great isn't she? We need her badly. Thank Goodness there is only two chances that the LDS rank and file will ever get to sign that one back up. Excuse me, "slim chance" has already left the premises an now all that apparently remains is "no-chance" as the now single possible option. I am glad to have her on our side!
At the very least we know that there are no more twisted wire hangers adding onto our pile. So once the tangled mess begins to deteriorate with the deliberate active sorting and time. It inevitably becomes smaller. The dirt less dirty. The chaos becomes more UN-chaotic. Are you comfortable with that? Or is the concept of having a more organized shelf, drawer or closet much too daunting?

Insanad wrote:
"I suppose with anything we invest so much into, our children, our careers, our homes it's just too terrible to see the flaws. The work of repairing or starting over is so daunting that maybe it's easier to just keep investing, even though we know deep down that the payoff is not there."



So, exactly how many of those twisted metal used hang-ups do you think that can you spare?

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God of Poly-Folly Folly

{ If you believe in things that you don't understand, then you suffer ~ Stevie Wonder }
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God of Poly-Folly Folly

Wow, you make it sound like I'm Joan of Arc, only slightly saggier and older, and probably meaner. As long as the Mormons don't try to burn me at the Stake House.

When my kids were little they looked at my mom and noticed her wrinkles, especially the laugh crinkles around her eyes. I can't remember the line they said but she replied that she'd earned every wrinkle and they were a sign of a long and happy life. Now if we could count fat cells and cellulite the same way we'd really have something to be proud of.

It seems most of our hangups and flaws also give us dimension, color, and character. To expell the whole lot (as if it were possible) might wipe the slate so clean as to leave it invisible. I find the little pocks and nicks of ones life and soul to be far more interesting than the plastic superficial or artificially enhanced bodies and faces of the "Beautiful ones". Keep your wad of hangars and make them into something interesting or hang socks on them, anything to "let your light so shine".

I have a cruddy old house in Utah and I'm always adding some artsy thing to the yard or windows but sometimes I long for one of those perfect new homes that I design for others. Still, when folks drive by and it's my little cruddy shoebox they find interesting it's pretty exciting, especially when the prettier, newer, bigger houses around me would seem more inviting. Our flaws make us human. Flaunt them.

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Pissing in the Mormon Koolaide one post at a time. LIE PINOCCHIO!!! LIE!!!!

I live in an old farmhouse with a balloon structure and bad insulation and I would like to have a tire house to cut down or eliminate my heating bills but even with used tires, it is still expensive to build anymore. All the construction laws that are emplaced for "our protection" also irritate the hell out of me because they increase construction costs and take away things like fireplaces in our bedroom. There needs to be some oversight but daddy government makes sure baby citizen is well cared for and doesn't have to think for himself.

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Quanti canicula ille in fenestra

My perspective that the Moron background isn't so bad comes in part from the exposure I get from my clients to situations that are worse. On a 0 to 10 scale, 0 being the worst, Moronism ranges between, say, 2-6, given the average SM congregation, depending on all the potential factors, I think. Examples are out there from Moronism, of course, that rank at zero, and on the other end, maybe some 7s here and there.

By comparison, my client, a 6 year old boy, abandoned by his father, oldest of 3 who have also been abandoned by their fathers, whose mother is on her 4th baby with the 4th father who is already absconded, a woman who is working 2 jobs in her 8th month of pregnancy--he's low on the scale. Then there's the 56 year old whose father was in the KKK, was incested by him from age 5 to 21 (all the way to three years after she was married), sold to his friends at $100/rape, neglected and envied by her narcissistic mother who went along with it all--there's a 0 for ya. To her credit, this lady used the church to help her escape this mess and avoid passing the legacy on to her kids.

Another 13 year old female client has a heroin addicted mother who has never been there for her, and a loving father who died 3 years ago when she was 10 and is being raised by her grandmother whose vision went from okay to "can't read, drive or cook" in the last 2 weeks. Having a family member who cares raises her score to a 3 maybe?

I could give examples aplenty...

My point is this: people raised in the church, while given challenges to overcome in adulthood, including the tasks of finding a new tribe, and discovering who they are aside from their indoctrination, still have it better than a huge segment of the western population, and better than much of the world. I am not defending the church, which I loathe. I'm simply trying to maintain perspective and not fall into the natural human trap of elevating my situation to an exclusive plateau that is, when I look around, heavily populated with refugees from all kinds of backgrounds.

Cool Thantos, you can de-rail real guud. I love to talk about houses and construction and alternative construction..... and then in some glorious bizarre circular reasoning, tie it back to the construction of our souls.

I watched a documentary on IFC or SUndance or the Green channel or something about an architect in New Mexico that started a whole communal effort about 15 yrs ago or so where he tried to promote all the various green and recycled styles of construction, including tire/rammed earth, straw bale, geodesic domes, etc.. For a few years it was ok till the surrounding land started to go up in value and drew in richy rich folks who wanted CCR's and all the little nit picky things that go with it.

Before he knew it, he was slapped with lawsuits and one hassle over another that impeded his goal and would cost him hundreds of thousands of dollars and his architectural liscence. He went to the State Legislation to try to change the laws and was shut down numerous times.

Then he and his crew went to Indonesia after the big Tsunami that killed thousands and left them homeless and in two weeks was able to take those skills in alternative building and show the locals how to build a very sturdy viable home with the refuse left after the storm. NO regulations, no govt. interference, no lawsuits, no holdups. TWO WEEKS and the help of the local community and they built a viable home from trash and mud that was comfortable, functional, and eco-friendly. He showed the locals how to do it and soon they took off with the concept and were solving their own housing problems with no money, no govt. support, and cleaning up the landscape as well.

I'm all for alternative building and less interference too but I too see tons of places like the train crash that is Colorado City (Polygamist town) and other places around the SW that are not just eyesores because of their shoddy construction, but are downright dangerous.

One plyg family lived in a windowless basement with just a flat roof over the top because the father couldn't afford to build the house after he poured the bsmt. The house caught on fire and four of his nine children burned to death because there was no way out.

I see both sides of the fence but I prefer to live in a place where I have as little interference as possible. I keep my place up but some of my neighbors don't, so it does impact my land value. I see some folks get pretty riled up on that issue. As an American and a really independent one, I find it NONE of their business what I do on MY property, but in many cases, it becomes their business. I've been chastized for having a school bus on my property but when all the neighborhood kids love to play in it it seems silly to complain about it.

With alternative building getting more attention in the media with the "Green" craze, I suspect it will just be a matter of time before some govt. entities get on board.

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Pissing in the Mormon Koolaide one post at a time. LIE PINOCCHIO!!! LIE!!!!

Hey Danpont, you snuck that one in while I was rambling.

In defense of the Mormons and just a Christian Western European whatever lifestyle compared to what many suffer in so many situations, regardless of religion or economic status I can say that having certain moral platitudes taught and reinforced with music, lessons, etc. do make a difference in kids. I couldn't have raised my kids alone and have them turn out as well as they did and I attribute my involvement with other good people and families to the influences that helped them choose good friends, wholesome activities, and worthwhile humanitarian and service endeavors.

It's not the churchs cultural goals that I resent, especially the ones where they would like to help people become better citizens, more family oriented, honest in their businesses and hard working. For some young men the scouting program is fantastic. For some young women the YW program really does give them a sort of base for their various challenges. In Primary I saw lots of support for young families. SOME of the things done in RS and Elders Quorum are really useful and worthwhile. I enjoyed many very fun activities when I was a young woman and new mommy while I was active in the church.

There's a Unitarian church that BABB's mom goes to and I see all the same kinds of things there. I'm sure most Christian groups could regale us with the various activities they promote for their groups. I don't have any experience with Jewish Synagouges or Muslim or other groups but I assume they are equally involved in the communal efforts of their parishoners.

The deep resentment that I've felt, and from what I read about others seems really universal is that the LDS suck up your whole life, time, income, and the lives of your family in a lot of really pointless, useless, tedious, mind numbing and redundant crap. (read that last sentence for an example of redundancy). Three hours of the block meeting on Sunday, hearing the same stuff you've heard for the last century, in the same tone, same same same. Monday family night, Tuesday, Wed., Thurs, youth and women meetings, Scouts, cub scouts, primary, RS, EQ, High Priests, correlation meetings, meeting to plan more meetings, meetings about what was said at the last meeting.... If you could sum up the value of all those tedious meetings and lectures they'd fit on a 3 x 5 card with margins left over for doodling. So much of it seems like such a huge waste of time.. (as opposed to blogging all freaking day, which is really time well spent..)

The entire temple experience is absolutely utterly and insanely stupid and pointless. Baptizing DEAD folks? Who thinks this crap up? Performing marriage rituals for people who may or may not want to be stuck together for time and all eternity? WHAT A LOAD OF CRAP!!! Sitting for three hrs. in an endowment session watching a really bizarre stupid movie that's badly acted, badly lighted, poorly written, and outright ridiculous and then interrupting the naptime to stand up, sit down, stand up, sit down, cross your bowells, slit your throat, chant Pay Lay Ale, repeat a droning prayer, get touched by a dry old lady, stand up, sit down, snooze, stand up and go to the next room and get touched by a dry old man, .... ok, you get my drift. WHAT A FREAKING WEIRD THING! And the devout do this every week or month and pretend to look forward to it. People go on two year missions and become the dry old lady and dry old man that touches strangers, at their own expense!!! That alone makes blogging on the internet seem like a far more worthwhile endeavor.

Ok, I'm on a bender now. I'd better take some blood pressure medicine.

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Pissing in the Mormon Koolaide one post at a time. LIE PINOCCHIO!!! LIE!!!!