Does this article really depress anyone else?

[miss taken]

http://www.fairlds.org/pubs/conf/2005BitD.html

George Q. Cannon and the Apostates
by Davis Bitton

"If we had the power to count all those who have started out to achieve this great salvation and glory," said President George Q. Cannon in 1895, "we would be astonished at the number that have fallen away. … Many men whom I knew in boyhood in the Church have gone into oblivion. Whole families have disappeared, and their names are no longer numbered among the saints of God. Instead of having a posterity that shall be numbered with the righteous, their children are unknown among us." Cannon knew what he was talking about. Since his conversion to Mormonism more than a half century earlier, he had accumulated many experiences with apostates from the faith.

Well, there it is for us 'apostates'... If he is correct, then the Mormon God is a stranger to me. I cannot see God behaving in this way to those who honestly cannot accept the claims of Joseph Smith.

I can't tell you how depressed this stuff made me feel. So judgemental. I don't judge any mormons. As far as I am concerned they are all going to the CK if they are good people. Reminds me of my methodist friend telling me I would go to the devil if I kept being a mormon.

Why does religion have to be so divisive??

Mary

[dogzilla]

Don't let it depress you.

I find it amusing. What a myopic world view. Must suck to be so ignorant.

[elder_nomo]

.....Many men whom I knew in boyhood in the Church have gone into oblivion. Whole families have disappeared,.....
What a sad, self-centered thing to say... just because they are not in your church, they have gone into *oblivion*?? and have *disappeared*??

Hmmf... I'm not in that church anymore, and I think I'm still here [::e.nomo pinches self::] OUCH... yes, still here.

Maybe it's not so much the apostates that have a problem, maybe it's those with such a limited view that they cannot see anyone outside their own church walls.

[Born Free]

http://www.fairlds.org/pubs/conf/2005BitD.html



Well, there it is for us 'apostates'... If he is correct, then the Mormon God is a stranger to me. I cannot see God behaving in this way to those who honestly cannot accept the claims of Joseph Smith.

I can't tell you how depressed this stuff made me feel. So judgemental. I don't judge any mormons. As far as I am concerned they are all going to the CK if they are good people. Reminds me of my methodist friend telling me I would go to the devil if I kept being a mormon.

Why does religion have to be so divisive??

Mary

My old mate Spong summed it up well ; I'm Ok, You're not OK.

Most people who hold that position have major problems, and have been exposed to some form of abuse in childhood, which limits their ability to connect and empathise with other human beings.

They not only see themselves as separate from, but as superiour to. Tragic really.

Daryl

[miss taken]

What it does, is demonises people who cannot accept the truth claims of Joseph Smith. I don't much like being demonised. It reduces all that I am to one thing. I DO find it very depressing.

I just cannot see God in it. Not one whit of a loving God. If anything puts me off the church it is that attitude.

We are talking about demonising people for their core and sincerely held beliefs here, not for their actions or sins, but simply for their beliefs.

I just don't understand it.

Mary

[free thinker]

"We reserve the right to worship God according to the dictates of our own concsience, and allow all men the same priveledge. Let them worship who, where, or what they will."


Sound familiar Mary?

Don't let these theological nitpickers get you down. What kind of heaven could it be with folks like this there? Sounds to me like that place would depress you.

They have an agenda.

ft

[peter_mary]

Perhaps they really WERE obliterated. Recall that it was during Cannon's day that the best treatment for an apostate was to "escort him to the edge of the basin," a euphamism for "blood atonement."

So yeah, it's depressing, especially if you read it THAT way...