I get very annoyed when someone says “Oh I’ve met a few Mormons, they were very nice!” That’s like saying a politician you met was nice. The politician is just after your vote, Mormons are just after your credulity, your free time, your peace of mind, and 10% of your income. Beyond that surface-level, always be selling, always preserve the church’s reputation, attitude, Mormons are just like everyone else, a mix of shitty and tolerable.
It’s like religious people can’t ever answer a question if they’re not allowed to lecture, patronize, and mislead you. They can’t ever give simple answers because it takes just years of brainwashing to agree with them.
In passing. At the store. We were in the same aisle, and I said hi. I wasn’t sure why at first. There was a part of me that wanted to keep my eyes down and hope he didn’t see me. But I didn’t. I stopped him, we talked briefly. It was awkward. But I wasn’t scared.
Five years ago I would have been afraid of him. Afraid of his judgment and condemnation. I would have been sick imagining what he was thinking of me, what he was remembering from those closed door meetings where I had to confess my sexual sins and answer his questions, tell him I’d failed again, I’d fucked myself again. He was the one man who held my worthiness in his hands. No other person in my life has made me feel more depraved and pathetic and repulsive and evil as he did. And now five years later I can ask him how his kids are without hesitation.
He’s just a man. He doesn’t have God’s ear, he doesn’t have authority. He doesn’t have any power over me anymore. I’m done with all that.
I feel like when I lose my virginity I won’t be worried about running back to the church ever again. It’s the last big thing I’m scared of, the last responsible, adult, freely chosen thing I haven’t done yet. Once I’m out of things to be scared of, out of mysteries, what need would I ever have for religion?
Really? You really believe that? Then how come you only remind yourself of this when it turns out one of your bishops or prophets was a racist or a pedophile or lead teenagers to suicide? How come you only admit this after the fact? How come you can't try and discern in the moment what commandment is from god and what might not be? Oh it's too hard for me to think about the morality of statements from an authority figure in real time! I need hindsight to make that distinction! That would require having my own opinion of what's right and wrong and maybe even *gasp* not following the prophet to the letter!
Mormons, grow up. Take responsibility for the cruel people or directions you choose to follow.
So I have always loved tank tops. They just feel so light and breathable, they frame your cleavage perfectly, they're very flattering. When I was 14 I started wearing them under all my t-shirts and dresses, since as a Mormon I couldn't wear them on their own. At 16 I got a little bolder, and began wearing them in the privacy of my own room, to bed.
Now I knew I would get in trouble for what I was doing. I was being immoral, slutty, selfish. So I didn't put on my tank top till I was absolutely ready to sleep. One night though I made the mistake of getting a glass of water, and my mom caught me upstairs in the kitchen with bare shoulders.
Immediately she shamed me, and I let myself be ashamed because I believed the same as she did, I believed in the sinful power of female shoulders. However I also believed that it wasn't in this case a big deal since I was just going to bed like that, not out and about. For some reason I stood my ground, a very unlikely event, and told her as much.
Her response is fantastic. And I mean that. It is fantastically twisted, depraved, stupid, and lacking any self awareness. Word for word, this was her response to a 16 year old me confronted by the dangers of sleeping without sleeves: " What happens if there's a fire in the middle of the night and you don't have time to put on a shirt before you run out of the house?"
Oh. My god.
At the time I immediately agreed with her, I went and got my water, went back downstairs to bed, and then, not 60 seconds later, I saw the problem with her argument.
If the house catches fire and it is so severe I have to evacuate, I think I have bigger problems to deal with than the odd chance a fireman might see my shoulders.
For some reason every time I have been the most shamed for my sinful, evil ways it involves tank tops. Mormons, or at least the strict ones I have the misfortune of knowing and being related to, are obsessed with the imagined depravity of those few inches of skin, they are offended and sickened by the sight and basically I am absolutely sick and tired and done with this nonsensical raving mess of a moral system.
If the focus of Christianity and Mormonism was ever on being a good, kind person and loving mankind, it isn't anymore. It's about being right. It's about being chosen and elevated. It's about being a victim in a dying world.
"Just have faith!"
Translation: Don't think about it.
I started on my way to atheism when I realized my religious behavior was causing harm to myself and keeping me from being fully kind to others. I took time out to figure out why I was acting that way. I didn't have even one good, verifiable reason. So no, I didn't leave just so I could "sin".
Hey I have a question. So we're you a conversation to the LDS church or did you grow up in it?
Shoot sorry if you sent this a while ago, I'm not on tumblr much so I'm pretty bad at navigating. Yeah I was born into the church. My family is very, very Mormon. So much so that the last convert in my family was a great grandpa at least, and to find another exmormon you'd have to go as far as second cousin. I have ancestors that crossed the plains and ancestors who were commanded by good old Brigham to branch out and settle parts of Arizona. I come from a big tribe. 😝
Why do most religious groups dislike or go out of their way to disagree with atheists more than people of other faiths? Because it's easier to convert another believer than someone who is skeptical. There's really not much difficulty in switching from one nonsensical system of belief to another.
You have shortcomings. Not sins.
So about three years ago my sister had just had her first kid, my adorable niece. My sister and her husband were both in school. My sister was getting her nursing degree and her husband was about a semester away from getting his law degree. Since they both had sizable course-loads my mom would take the baby for a while every day. It was a neat arrangement since mom had only one kid at home at not much to do.
Except my mom wasn’t happy with it. Not that she didn’t like or terribly minded baby duty. She was mad and she was worried because in her mind the baby should be spending as much time as possible with her mother, so they could bond. Something to do with the mystical sacredness of motherhood. *skeptical eye roll* Anyway. Even though my sister was about to graduate, she believed she had a semi-sacred responsibility to abandon her education to spend more time with her newborn. My sister and her husband felt differently. And of course since all three are Mormon the argument had to escalate into the realm of the eternal.
My mother claimed that the Holy Ghost had undoubtedly told her that my sister HAD to drop out. She prayed about it earnestly, that was her answer. Meanwhile my sister and her husband had also prayed, and had gotten the opposite response. I used to hear them arguing about it, my mom saying how if my sister stayed in school she was a terrible, unaffectionate mother who would have a harder time earning her child’s love, my sister rationally insisting it was only a few more months and she’d been working for this for years, both of them claiming to have God on their side.
Now Mormons and other Christians will likely claim one of them was mistaken, and wasn’t divinely inspired after all. But isn’t that the point? If your own thoughts, opinions, and instincts sound EXACTLY like divine promptings, how can you ever claim to be certain you know gods will? What value can the spirit have if you never know for certain whether it is him or not? Do you only find out for certain when it is proven true or not? Labeling after the fact does nothing to prove legitimacy, what you decide is god could be just your own lucky guess. The sprit seems to be just a meaningless tool to enforce your own opinion over those of others or to refuse further deliberation. I see no reason to lend it any weight.
I lived with an abusive family who used the spirit to try to manipulate me and do what they wanted me to do. It’s terrible and I don’t know why mormons do it.
They do it because it's an easy way to insist that you are right with no justification. I am not saying this is always done maliciously, but it easily can be.
Sorry you went through that dude. Hope you are out of that bad situation.
So about three years ago my sister had just had her first kid, my adorable niece. My sister and her husband were both in school. My sister was getting her nursing degree and her husband was about a semester away from getting his law degree. Since they both had sizable course-loads my mom would take the baby for a while every day. It was a neat arrangement since mom had only one kid at home at not much to do. Except my mom wasn't happy with it. Not that she didn't like or terribly minded baby duty. She was mad and she was worried because in her mind the baby should be spending as much time as possible with her mother, so they could bond. Something to do with the mystical sacredness of motherhood. *skeptical eye roll* Anyway. Even though my sister was about to graduate, she believed she had a semi-sacred responsibility to abandon her education to spend more time with her newborn. My sister and her husband felt differently. And of course since all three are Mormon the argument had to escalate into the realm of the eternal. My mother claimed that the Holy Ghost had undoubtedly told her that my sister HAD to drop out. She prayed about it earnestly, that was her answer. Meanwhile my sister and her husband had also prayed, and had gotten the opposite response. I used to hear them arguing about it, my mom saying how if my sister stayed in school she was a terrible, unaffectionate mother who would have a harder time earning her child's love, my sister rationally insisting it was only a few more months and she'd been working for this for years, both of them claiming to have God on their side. Now Mormons and other Christians will likely claim one of them was mistaken, and wasn't divinely inspired after all. But isn't that the point? If your own thoughts, opinions, and instincts sound EXACTLY like divine promptings, how can you ever claim to be certain you know gods will? What value can the spirit have if you never know for certain whether it is him or not? Do you only find out for certain when it is proven true or not? Labeling after the fact does nothing to prove legitimacy, what you decide is god could be just your own lucky guess. The sprit seems to be just a meaningless tool to enforce your own opinion over those of others or to refuse further deliberation. I see no reason to lend it any weight.
Doesn't it demonstrate complete and utter species-driven arrogance to personify the forces of good and evil as human-God beings? Oh no the world was not created by a complex series of cosmic forces, it was a man who did it, a very big, very special, very talented man. No, it wasn't the interaction of environmental and biological factors that drove me to commit a wrong action, it was the devil, it was a very bad, very powerful, ancient man who has it out for me and persuaded me to do it. I realize it's comforting to understand the world purely through supernatural interpersonal relations, but it's also very stupid.
