I’ve become one of those… One of those Bloggers who don’t regularly update and stay engaged.
Forgive me.
I find comfort in the fact that most likely no one noticed.
The truth is that an array of events have left me someone disengaged. First there’s the nasty fact of trying to scrape together the money to eat and pay the rent. It takes a toll I tell you! Most of my energy revolves around that essentially… so much so that EVERYTHING else pales in comparison.
At this moment in time I’m doing OK.
Surviving.
In other exciting news I got another Mormon self-righteous, arrogant, religious fanatic comment on my blog! Oddly enough, it was a comment on a very old post Book of Mormon on Broadway – a Non Mormon Study Guide, a post that I considered pretty benign.
What better way to jump back into my blog after a brief hiatus than to respond!
First I guess I should thank you for not being an angry and hateful ex mormon. They’re sort of cliche, there are so many.
You know what’s also cliche? Lumping any group of people who say things that you don’t like into one group and calling them “angry and hateful.” Thank you, though, for recognizing that anger and hate are not my primary motivators. Others would disagree with you, but it was a very clever way to begin your comment because it made me read all the way through.
That said, you display very little actual knowledge of the church you left.
If you are going to make such a bold claim, you need to follow it up with facts and details in my post that prove I don’t have adequate “knowledge of the church” I left. You provide none. Therefore, I’m going to conclude that you’re merely butt-hurt that I’ve pointed out some truths that you just don’t like.
Sure, I see plenty of well-deserved criticism of the culture surrounding the gospel
Me too. (Matthew 7:16)
but when you speak personally of your own mission, it becomes apparent that you didn’t have the knowledge or any desire to have that knowledge and you shouldn’t have gone on a mission in the first place.
Aaaand now we have a problem….It is a bit disingenuous to make this comment when we both know there is tremendous pressure on ALL young men to serve a mission. When a missionary admits that they want to leave a mission there is a great deal of coercion to stay. I find it curious that a stranger over the Internet finds my 18 year-old self unqualified to have served a mission while my then-Bishop, my then-Stake President and the then President of the LDS Church felt otherwise. In the same vein, in order to teach at the MTC in Provo, my then-Mission President wrote a letter of recommendation attesting to the fact that he considered me in the top 10% of missionaries who served with him. Yet 30 years after the fact, you a stranger on the Internet, are able to discern otherwise.
And second, do you honestly believe the gospel teaches you, as a gay man who left the church, has a worse punishment coming than Hitler? I mean, seriously? I don’t think you do, and said it just for shock value. I think you know deep down it’s not true but you tell yourself that to justify your decisions.
Let’s see what Mormon doctrine itself teaches about hell and apostates:
“Sons of perdition are those who receive “no forgiveness in this world nor in the world to come—having denied the Holy Spirit after having received it, and having denied the Only Begotten Son of the Father, having crucified him unto themselves and put him to an open shame” (D&C 76:34-35; see also D&C 76:31-33, 36-37). Such individuals will not inherit a place in any kingdom of glory; for them the conditions of hell remain (see D&C 76:38; 88:24, 32).
I know Mormon High Priest and Elders Quorums would have a field day arguing what level of knowledge it takes to actually have received the “Spirit” and “deny” it in order to receive the punishment described. But I find such back-pedaling disingenuous when they, you and I testified boldly that we “KNOW.” Are you going to now tell me that they, you and I don’t REALLY know enough? Are you saying that the common member has a lower level of “knowing?” If that’s true, then you should start saying “I believe” rather than “I know” like the less cult-like religious do. Do you know? Or do you NOT know?
Secondly, considering that since my apostasy no one has been eager (or even attempted) to rebaptize me or bring me back into the fold, I can only conclude that by contrast their enthusiasm to vicariously baptize Hitler means that they see him as a more likely fellow Saint.
Make the other guy look bad so you don’t need to explain yourself. I see this time and again in people who leave the church, and it’s just silly.
I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that you don’t have as much exposure at all to people who leave the church as you think you do. It’s a common fallacy to ascribe the most most vocal minority opinions to an entire group. There are millions of baptized Mormons who have left Mormonism either officially or who just have nothing at all to do with it in their daily lives. Most of them are silent and just go on with their lives without looking back at the disaster that is the LDS faith. That’s what happens most typically. A few vocal Internet bloggers such as myself couldn’t possibly give you an idea of what it means to leave for the majority of people.
You made your choice. You don’t need qualifiers. Live the life you want to live and bear the consequences (and trust me, being a gay apostate doesn’t even come close to Hitler on any scale, no matter what you tell yourself).
I’d like to comment here, but I confess I have no idea what you are talking about. I am living the life I want to live and bearing the consequences…just as every single person on this earth is doing. Alrighty then. Awesome advice!
Just remember, next time you vote or march in a gay pride parade, that every cultural belief system has its own form of indoctrination. Everyone is selling the idea that they’re better, their way is the only way to personal enlightenment, that everything else is a fraud.
Uh… not really.
This part more than anything tells me that you need to get out more. I have an idea! Go to a Unitarian Universalist meeting. Talk to one of their members or the pastor and find out how they “indoctrinate” their children just like everyone else! There are a lot of belief systems without the strong indoctrination methods that religions such as Mormonism employ. There are people on this planet who do not believe that their way is better for someone else. That’s a uniquely fundamentalist religious perspective. A lot of people believe there are many paths to enlightenment and feel no compulsion to convert or convince others that the one they have found fits everyone else too.
Also, I’ve never marched in a gay pride parade… but I do vote.
Maybe you’re still brainwashed, just by someone who doesn’t bother challenging your beliefs about yourself or trying to help you become something a god might be proud of.
So you do agree that I WAS brainwashed? Cool.
Believe me, one doesn’t live a life of a gay apostate in the Jello Belt without daily encountering challenges to my belief system. And I do believe your imaginary friend would indeed be proud of me and the life I am living today.
See also:
A Religious Fanatic Comments
Another Mormon Nut Stops By