Its hard to believe that people can show so much hate. Where is the Christian love?

You know, the Mormon Church is pretty screwed up, but at least I wasn’t born into the Westboro Baptist Church. They are completely convinced that they are the only correct church and all other churches are an abomination. That sounds so familiar.

One of the main issues which the Westboro Baptist Church members was the idea that what is desired is what is to be feared.  They claim that temptations exist to cast people into the greatest sins.  However, they forgot the greatest temptation of all: the ideas of God and eternal life.  Temptation exists most strongly with the idea of eternal life and the idea that you are among a “chosen few” who are to enjoy it in the presence of a God.

That was chilling.  Extremely difficult to listen to.  If a person were to peel back the layers on Shirley’s mind, how deep would one have to go find the woman who has compassion for her own children.  It’s in there, we saw a glimpse of it in her response to her son getting hit with the drink, but clearly it’s buried very deep.  I feel so sorry for the children.

WOW! I am blown away! That was so sad and scary. I just want to rescue the children and put them in a safe environment. I thought the older teenage girl was laughing through her tears. What a waste of time and energy that could be channeled into positive actions… oh yea, thats what I felt while sitting in the Mormon church week after week listening to the same thing over and over and over and over....

I find it interesting that no matter what happens in the world with respect to churches with extreme views that the contributors to this website seem to find a way to connect it to the lds church.
I am also intrigued that even though we are free to join or leave the mormon faith that many of those who leave are not content to simply disassociate themselves.  If someone wishes no sever his or her association with the church they have simply to request that they have no further contact. 
Further I have yet to hear someone complain when they have been the recipient of the countless forms of charitable service that the church routinely and freely gives to members and non members alike.
I have a schizophrenic cousin who spends seemingly every waking hour making spurious allegations and complaints against the church while at the same time standing there with her hand out every time she is short of cash or there is an unexpected medical bill to be paid.
I think that those who seemingly spend so much of their time “reaching out” to the “victims” of the opressive hand of mormonism should examine their own motives.

glencho, it’s not easy to just dissasociate and walk away from Mormonism, as you would have us do, when so many people are suffering in silence because of Mormonism and have no one to talk with about what they’re dealing with. It would be like walking away from a train wreck that you just survived while knowing full well there are people still entangled in the mess who could use some help. Sorry, but I just can’t bring myself to be so irresponsible.

Glencho, I was raised in an organization that taught its members that when they find the truth they are duty bound to share it with others. I spend 2 full years teaching New Yorkers about the Church and wholeheartedly believed in the “every member a missionary” concept after my missionary service. The truth is that the LDS church is not what it claims to be. What makes you think that sharing the truth with others is now a bad idea? I haven’t taken a single dime from the LDS Church and as I recall only gave and gave and gave (tithing, fast offerings, 2 years of my life, church callings, etc.). Glencho, if you were defrauded by a company would you recommend that any of your friends or family members do business with them? Even if the people that worked at the company were good people that truly believed in their product? Maybe Consumer Reports should just stop picking on the poor old Ford Taurus. The Mormon Church is the one pushing its fraudulent product and is openly against any kind of full disclosure policy (see faithful history policy). What I suspect you haven’t done is actually watch some of the videos in the SoundThinking Magazine. Very little of it is directly critical of Mormonism though I am critical of all religion and uncritical thinking. You are absolutely right that I could just leave Mormonism and never criticize it. I could also keep my mouth shut when someone tries to push a get rich quick pyramid scheme or email scam. Regarding the Westboro Baptist Church. Why is it crazy for them to teach that God is cursing America now because we’ve turned our back on God when the Mormon Church teaches that’s exactly what happened to the Lamanites here in America? For the record you’re both wrong. Would you recommend that any of your friends or family members join Westboro Baptist? It’s difficult for you to see the similarity in uncritical thinking because of confirmation bias. I have, and continue to examine my motives in regards to what I post on the SoundThinking Magazine. I don’t do it out of malice or spite for the LDS Church. I do it because of a deep respect for fellow human beings that they not be defrauded regardless of the good intensions of the Church. I hope you stick around and let us know what you think of some of the other video and audio clips. It’s always important to hear from those with different perspectives and opinions.

I spent 42years giving, giving , and giving to the LDS church. My dad was in the stake presidency for 13yrs. and my mother was stake relief society president for years. As the oldest daughter of seven children everything I did was for the building up of the kingdom. I was faithful and hard working in all my many, many, callings including being on three seminary councils during my youth. I was the perfect Mormon daughter and my family was the example for our Ward and stake. I gave all my time, talents and a lot of money not just in tithing but gas taking youth groups to activities, meals, to the sick etc, etc… never asking for anything in return. I went to BYU, married a returned missionary and raised five children in the church. All I asked from the church was the truth and when I discovered the answers to the “misteries” my world fell apart. As Jeff said it is not easy to walk away from Mormonism and dissociate yourself from it. It was my life and soul. Everything that I was and much of what I still am has been informed by what I lived and was taught for decades. To suggest that I not connect what I see, hear, read, experience not be connected to my association with the Mormon church upbringing is to deny my existence. What is so frustrating to me is that I can’t say anything negative about the church without someone accusing me of being a Mormon basher. The comment that I made about the Westboro Baptist video was my first comment on this site and I was immediately chastised. I hunger and thirst for a safe place to express opinions and maybe vent a little that will be taken with respect and given the validity that it deserves.

sorry.. I mis-spelled “mysteries” ( still trying to be perfect)

Well, I certainly seem to have struck a nerve.
I have heard more sob stories in the past 24 hours of how the mormon church has ruined everybody’s otherwise completely bliss filled and fulfilling life.  I sincerely never intended to debate the entire staff of post mormon inc.
I suppose I brought this onto myself.  Mea culpa.
Can I cry uncle?

“I have heard more sob stories in the past 24 hours...” - glencho

That’s a rather insulting and uncalled for comment, don’t you think glencho?

Glencho, the Mormon Church continues to teach that God cursed the Lamanites because they turned their back on God. Then he removed his protection from the Nephites for their disobedience and let the Lamanites kill them all. They continue to teach that from the Old Testiment that Moses and Joshua were great moral exemplars, justified in their genocidal, infanticidal bloodletting of neighboring tribes (that’s the part that other religions are guilty of as well). If the Westboro Baptist Church members lived a couple thousand years ago in Gomorrah you would be reading their stories to your kids for bedtime. “Now little Johnny, weren’t the Phelps family brave for preaching God’s commandment to the wicked inhabitants of Gomorrah. It’s too bad God had to kill them all because they wouldn’t listen to the Phelps. When the Phelps were fleeing the wicked Gomorrah, Shirley Phelps looked back and was turned to a pillar of salt.”

Glencho:

It must be difficult to find a whole group of people who don’t seem to have much positive to say about the thing you hold must dear – and a knee-jerk response is to launch into an invective, as you’ve done. Before you group everyone on this site in with your schizophrenic cousin, you may want to think about the claims you made.

#1—Yes, it is interesting, as you noted, the similarities between the cults of the world. Cults essentially are religions with extreme views. It doesn’t get much more extreme than the tall tale of God and Jesus visiting Joseph Smith personally, telling him where to find some gold plates hidden in a mountain, and giving him (and only him) tools with which to translate them for the purpose of bringing the rest of the world to “the truth.” Especially when the fullness of that truth includes polygamy, racism, and masonic rituals (until, of course, those “tenets” become out of vogue, in which case they are promptly altered to keep members interested...i.e., polygamy no longer doctrine, blacks now hold the priesthood, temple ceremonies altered.)

#2: You probably are not aware that “simply requesting that [we] have no further contact” with the church doesn’t work. Nice idea, though. Perhaps if I uprooted my whole life and moved to another state, which I’m not ready to do just yet due to practical considerations, it might. Unfortunately, I still get ward newsletters, approached by fast-offering boys weekly regardless of my continued request that they don’t come by, asked to perform musical numbers, asked to have my daughter photographed for the nursery room wall (though we’re not Mormon) and, oh yeah—completely ignored by my Mormon neighborhood since I don’t fit in with their worldview. Not to mention the fact that many I love are still TBMs. It’s not so easy to rip Mormonism out of your life when it’s the predominant ideology in your geographic locale.

#3: Do you really think that church members live up to the ideal of treating non-members the same as members? Absolutely not, and I know this BECAUSE I was a member for so long. Non-mos are to be treated as “potentially like us...” and when they neglect to show an interest in “being like us” they are often treated as second-class citizens. The hand is occasionally re-extended to “be like us!” but it is really not a hand of love, acceptance, and community.

Most of us on this board once stood where you now stand. Until you are open to the idea of really contemplating alternate opinions on Mormonism, I doubt you’ll find this website a very comforting place.

Invective?
If what I say seems like “invective” I would only respond that it looks like
someone is a little testy westy.
You guys need to get some new “talking points”.  If I didn’t know better I
would think that none of you had ever heard them before.
And yes, I still suggest that you just try to get over it.  I cannot help
you find peace and neither can this incessant moaning.
Whether you believe in “mormonism” or not is irrelevant.  What you seem to
have forgotten is that Christ said “my yoke is easy and my burden is light”.
Have you considered that if you could shrugg the chip off your shoulder and
pick up the cross that your burden might be lightened?

Glencho, you continue to be insulting, childish and rude in response to comments that are thoughtful, reasoned, and absent of personal attacks and put-downs. You’re a product of Mormonism—enough said.

Okay,
Since nobody at this site is going to let me off the hook for being a “TBM” I have decided to add postmormon.org to my favorites list.
I feel like I have made so many new friends.  When I login I feel a peacefull feeling like I have never experienced anywhere else. (childish sarcasm)
I have developed a new appreciation for those whose lives have been trampled by mormonism.
What I don’t understand is why I keep getting nastygrams from all my new friends.
I am sure that you all really believe that if I would just read, ponder, and pray that I would see the error of my lifelong beliefs since it is clear I have no real faith and that I have just been brainwashed all my life by my fellow cult members.
I really had no idea I was being insulting childish and rude in response to all of the thoughtful, reasoned, and absent of personal attack and put down responses I have received in the past week or so.  Maybe I need to be evaluated for mental stability. (sarcasm)
Oh there I go again with the childish and rude comments!  I really am just an incorrigible bad boy.
Sincerely folks, I am really a nice guy once you get past the veneer of hostility and insecurity.
Jeff, next time you are up here hanging paper in Idaho Falls stop by and we’ll go get a taco or something.  There is this really great hole in the wall mexican restaurant where the tortillas are fresh all day.  My personal favorite is adobada (spicy pork).  My cardiologist says I should cut back on the fatty foods so I don’t get over there as often as I would like.
If you don’t like mexicans then we can go over to my place and I can make wings.  I make killer hot wings.
All joking aside I am a friendly guy and am sure you are a great person.  I really think most if not all of the contributors to this website are sincere in your efforts to reach out to all of the ex-mormons or prospective ex-mormons out there.  I can’t imagine spending this much time and energy if you weren’t sincere.
Seriously lets get together and have a caffeine free Doctor Pepper.  (I had to go caffeine free and cut back on the soda because I got kidney stones.)
I have a refrigerator in my office that I have built into the wall that I used to keep completely full of Doctor Pepper.  I got a star on the DP walk of fame and the company sent me a really cool tee shirt.
That one and my “old guys rule” tee are my favorites.
Hey, how about a joke?
Alright here it is:
Q: How can you tell a good mormon from a bad one?
A: By the temperature of their caffeine!  LOL
You know one time I was sitting at my computer snickering and my oldest daughter who is a missionary in Greece said: “You really crack yourself up Dad don’t you.  Well, I guess I do.
TTFN amigos!

Glencho, THANK YOU! I have not gone to church in 4 years, but my parents are active members. It’s hard to choose a different path then how you were raised, but that doesn’t mean you have to lash out. You’re always going to have extremists in any group- I guess I just don’t see the point of pointing fingers and basing your opinion of a whole culture from individuals. That kind of thinking is kind of what makes the Westbro church so isolated. I don’t know; Judging by the degree of bitterness towards the church I’ve seen in other posts, maybe I got lucky.

I was just reflecting.  I have been doing a lot of that lately.  I was thinking about my lifetime of membership, my folks forcing me to go to church, going on a mission to Peru (not to mention all that silly masonic temple stuff).  I had a friend who went to Korea on a mission.  Did you know that they say “neh”.  I don’t know what it means but is sounds dum (sp?) He tells me that eating dog, which is a Korean delicacy is no longer practiced in N Korea because of shortages caused by 50 years of communism and collectivism.  Communism is dum too.  When I was in Peru there were lots of stray dogs who used to bark at us all the time and chase us.  Well, they used to put out poison from time to time and kill all the dogs.  They would lay in the gutter having convulsions and die.  I was thinking that since there are no more dogs in Korea cuz communism killed all the dogs, that instead of killing all the dogs that they could put all the Peruvian dogs on a boat and send them to Korea where they ran out becacuse of communism.  Maybe that wouldn’t work because Peruvian dogs probably taste different than Korean dogs.  I wonder if a great dane tastes different than poodle?  You know the corn fed beef tastes better than free range beef.  Except that all the dogs eat garbage so it all probably tastes the same.
Then I went to BYU but never graduated.(probably because of repressed issues from having to attend church against my will and not ever being able to think for myself) I have been active all my life.  I have even been offended by dum people at church.  I suppose I never stood a chance.  I was destined to become a TBM.  I’m so ashamed! 
My brother attended AA (I went with him a few times) and he said that the very first of the 12 steps is to admit that your life is out of control.  Maybe that is the third, I can’t remember because I was always drunk.
Anyway, I am really excited because of all the new friends I have made since getting my own account at Post Mormon Inc.  Is it okay if I call it Post Mormon Inc.?  I think Post Mormon Inc is much catchier than Post Mormon.org.  Jeff, this whole website thing is great!
Well gotta go now.  I have to teach Gospel Doctrine tomorrow.  Oh, I almost forgot!  Do you think I could use some of the material from this site in my lessons?
You know what?
We have what some people call the “Stage Class” in our ward.
They sit around on the stage and tell each other that they are so much smarter than the rest of us that they can’t attend Gospel Doctrine because it is dum.
They all subscribe to Sunstone Magazine.  The articles are too long for me to read.  I can’t read anything longer than what I can finish while I am sitting on the throne.  My wife doesn’t want that magazine in the house.  I guess she must just be too insecure or something like that.  (I learned that one from this site too) Anyway, on the cover of Sunstone Magazine it says that it is the “premiere forum of independent LDS thought”
I am really lucky because my neighbor across the street gets it.
Maybe that is why all the guys who sit on the stage every Sunday are so much smarter than the rest of us “sheeple” (I learned that one here too)
Someone told me that the bishop should tell those guys that they can’t meet there anymore.  I said that they weren’t hurting anything so we should leave them alone and that they are probably smarter than the bishop too.  He is really smart. 
He told me that the Book of Mormon was true but he doesn’t read Sunstone so maybe he isn’t all that smart.  Momma says “stupid is as stupid does”
I never could figure out how someone as uneducated as Joseph Smith could make up all that stuff.  They say he never went to school or not much anyway.  Did you know that there was this guy at FARMS or somewhere like that who wrote his whole dissertation on five verses in the Book of Mormon that had something on Chiasmus (sp?) (I never knew Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery could write Chiasmus since nobody in 1830 knew what it was. I bet he was really smart.  Probably almost as smart as the guys who sit on the stage every Sunday Well, I read that some minister said that all the stories and names in the Book of Mormon were just names and stories from New York state at the time and Joseph Smith just copied it all.
Anyway he and Oliver Cowdery, who later told the world that they just made it all up anyway.  Oh, no now that I think about it Oliver Cowdery who left the church and became an enemy of Joseph Smith never did deny it all.  I guess old Joe S. was just lucky and had a really good imagination.  Must have been from not having his mind ruined from all the education he never had.
Anyway, I am lookng forward to hearing from you all some more.

glencho, I wish you the best of luck in your life.

Bye bye!

Rosetta Stone,
Can I call you Rose for short?
Rose is lots easier to say than Rosetta Stone unless that is your whole name and you want people to call you by your full name.
Okay, from your last message I got right above here I am getting the sense that you don’t consider me a friend.  If you were a friend you would want to send me responses to all my postings.  I thought all the gang at Post Mormon Inc were my new friends.  Friends don’t let friends believe in Mormonism, right?
I have had the time of my life writing to you all and getting all your compelling responses over the past week or so.  I mean that sincerely with no sarcasm or childishness.  I really like getting emails, at least the ones that aren’t spam like the travel offers and the ones that want me to buy all the stocks that are guaranteed to triple in the next 33 minutes so I had better hurry and spend my life savings if I want to make a fortune by the end of the week.
I read some really well written stuff by Orson Scott Card the other day.  The most well reasoned stuff I think a democrat ever wrote.  He says he is a registered democrat but that he never voted for Bill Clinton and dang sure wouldn’t vote for Hillary.  Not even if hell froze which it surely won’t at the rate we are warming up the earth.  I haven’t seen An Incomvenient Truth because I think Al Gore is boring and dum too, but I did read most of Earth In the Balance.  I don’t believe he wrote that since it was a series of essays on virtually every religious group and philosophy since the dinosaurs roamed the earth and how their philosophies mesh or do not mesh with conservation of the earth.
The main reason I don’t believe that he wrote it is because he has been a senator forever and who could have enough time to do all that research on all the world’s religions and pholosophies when you are busy passing legislation to save the world from the evils of our capitalist imperialist excesses not to mention pollution and greenhouse gasses?  Not only that, when he wasn’t busy saving the world he was working on inventing the internet and pulling cat 5 wire down the hallways of every elementary school in the country plus he was Bill Clinton’s vice president and that must have kept him pretty busy.  I say that because Pres. Clinton couldn’t have ever gotten anything done because he was always with that woman Monica Lewinksy not having sexual relations.
With the president busy with Monica and when he wasn’t busy with her he was entertaining Larry Flint and all those Chinese businessmen and not taking their money for staying in the Lincoln bedroom of the Whitehouse in exchange for all our technology.
And besides when Al Gore wasn’t busy running the country when the pres. was busy not doing you know what, he was raising money for the Democrat party from his office in the whitehouse from the phones there.  Getting ready to not win the presidency and then suing the guy who really won and taking it to the supreme court costs a lot of money and so raising all that money probably took a lot of his time.
So, that’s why I don’t believe Al Gore wrote Earth in the Balance.  Anyway, how could he possibly know how much the ocean is going to rise when the world gets warmer.  I went to the coast and tried to measure the sea level and it kept going up and down all day while I stood there with a ruler to try to measure the water.  How can you tell how much the ocean will rise when you really don’t know how high it is before you start?
Well, I have probably taken enough of your space here so I will sign off.
What I said about having Jeff for lunch goes for you too Rose although I can’t tell if you are a guy or a girl.  The name sounds like a girl’s name.
Speaking of rosetta stone, I actually found that in the sand when I was in Egypt one time with Napoleon.  I saw the corner of this thing sticking out of the sand near one of those giant pyramids so I told Napoleon (he really was short and his stomach hurt all the time and later some people tried to poison him with arsenic when he was exiled off the coast of Africa) I said “Napoleon, hey look what I found” it was this thing with letters of all different kinds some of which he had never seen.  Anyway, my friend Joseph (you know who) when we were translating the gold (you know whats) already knew what those squiggly things meant.  But it was new for Napoleon so we kept it.  Did you know that the word dum was originally spelled without a “b” at the end?  Seriously you see there was Egyptian, Hebrew and Greek on this stone and the word dum comes from the Greek city Dumopolis which is where the Greeks made all the really stupid people live because they were annoying and nobody wanted to be around them.  Well, the people who lived there married other stupid people and they all had stupid kids and they became known as the Dumikans kind of like the Spartains but only they weren’t as good fighters.  Well, we now refer to stupid people as dum for short.  Some people spell it dumb but I think that is dum because that is not how you say it and besides who wants to waste all that ink.  All those unneccesary consonants really add up, not to mention all the server space from all the wasted ones and zeros it takes to spell all those extra “b"s that you don’t even pronounce.
Well anyway let me know if you all get up here to Idaho Falls and we can go get a bite to eat and talk about all the good times.
Later, Glencho

PS.  The woman from Westboro Baptist is dum too!

Hey Rose,

Are you ignoring me?
I read in the Post Register that there were so many anguished recovering mormons that you were getting about 500,000 or 2,000,000 hits an hour or something like that. 
I am surprised that in the week or so I have been visiting I never see more than a few people logged on or signed in. 
I left my last thoughtful and reasoned comments at least two hours ago.  I half expected a response by now.
Well it is Saturday night and all you guys are probably at some singles web site instead of here with us boring family guys who have no life.
Well, Happy Father’s day to all you fathers.
See you next time same bat time same bat channel.
Glencho

Glencho, I’ve closed further comments to this because the length of your comments and the kind of conversation you want have are more suited to The Community Forum. I encourage you to continue your conversation there.

Regarding your implications that we’re not telling the truth about our website statistics, you can see the statistics for yourself by going to Member Options > Website statistics, then follow the links from there. As of today we have 3.3 million hits for the month of June, whereas it took all month in May to rack up 3 million hits. I think we’re growing faster than the Mormon church.

One more thing. I hope you don’t really think science measures the depth of the ocean by going to the beach with a ruler.