New layout

Thankfully, Mormonism continues to fade from my life. Therefore, I've decided to list only those posts that relate to my journey into and out of the Mormon Church.

It was 27 years ago this month that I joined the Mormon Church. I believe it was a mistake to do so, but I did get my wife, kids and a very good friend out of the deal so it was not all bad.

I hope this blog will explain how and why I joined and how and why I left Mormonism.

All the best to the reader!

"Will B. Dunn" aka Bryan O'Neil

A question with a simple answer

Salt Lake Tribune columnist Rebecca Walsh has an interesting article that asks the question why do Mormons voted Republican:

Walsh: GOP is the LDS addiction
By Rebecca Walsh

Harry Reid is realizing what Utah Democrats have known for a generation: The party of Roosevelt and Kennedy and Obama has a problem in the land of Brigham Young.

"It's hard for me to understand why [Utah is] such a Republican state," Reid said at the Democratic National Convention in Denver last week. "Utah should be a state that believes in what we stand for."

It should.

I'll just say what the Senate majority leader and member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints didn't: Why do most Utah Mormons vote Republican?

Democrats have been scratching their heads for years, trying to make sense of the paradox that has Reid so flummoxed: It seems counterintuitive that a state largely populated by compassionate, peaceful, faithful people who are admonished by their religious leaders to volunteer, give to the poor and live modestly and within their means should hang on the coattails of a political party that does not.

The disconnect is not just intellectual. This year, decades of Mormon Republican loyalty have been brushed aside. Evangelical voters in Iowa torpedoed Mitt Romney's campaign in January and hobbled the best chance for a white horse. Months after Mormon Republicans had worked through that disappointment, presidential nominee John McCain raised their hopes again when he tapped his former opponent to trundle across the country as his proxy, happily swiping at the Democrats. For the record, Romney has four houses - one less than John Kerry.

Utah Democratic Party leaders breathed a collective sigh of relief when McCain picked Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. But there's a gray cloud hanging over the Republican two-thirds of the state. The blogosphere is angry. Sarah who?

McCain has chewed on Reid's conundrum and figured it out. He doesn't need to massage Romney voters. Miffed as they are, Mormon Republicans still will flock to the Grand Old Party come November. A Dan Jones/KSL-TV poll late last week found that 53 percent of Utahns polled believe Romney would have been a better choice for vice president. But 58 percent still planned to vote for McCain.

Kirk Jowers, a Romney supporter, says Utahns will come around to the strategy behind McCain's pick. "I wouldn't think that this pick would cause Mormon Republicans to vote for Obama if they were otherwise inclined to vote for McCain," says Jowers, director of the University of Utah's Hinckley Institute of Politics. If not, there's abortion, gay rights and affirmative action to fall back on as an excuse.

As they do every year, Utah Democrats are trying to chip away at the foregone conclusion.

"I'm a Democrat who is pro-life. I'm a Democrat who believes marriage is between a man and a woman. I'm a Democrat who believes you can keep your gun. And I'm a Democrat who believes that health care is a right," says Bennion Spencer, a candidate in Utah's 3rd Congressional District, painting the gaps between himself and Republican Jason Chaffetz.

It never seems to work.

Two years ago, Democratic congressional candidate Steve Olsen wrote a 15-page treatise on the topic: Why Most Utahns Are Democrats But Just Don't Know It Yet. It was a futile effort; the Mormon bishop still lost to Republican incumbent Rob Bishop.

This year, Spencer has tried a similar tack. He's written a book about how Jesus might vote, tracing political thought back to the Beatitudes. Rather than release the book before the election as Olsen did, Spencer will wait. He tries to explain his philosophy using secular words. "Our issues and our policies have to transcend partisanship," says the former TV reporter and international-relations teacher. "If we can get our message to people, they'll listen and they'll start processing. It becomes logical."

Well, I'll answer that question. It's simple. Jesus Christ is a Republican! A big business, war profiteer, conservative, eco-unfriendly Republican.

There....that's settled.

Just because it's made up doesn't mean it isn't true

That's the doublethink required to believe in the Book of Mormon. A horse is a deer, Nephi and his family took over a major civilization without any struggle from the Mayans Aztecs or Incas and the gold plates were not made of gold but a similar metal.

The Hill Cumorah isn't the Hill Cumorah, Nephi cut off a guys head, put on his cloths and no one noticed all the blood; God ordered people to build a bunch of cigar shaped submarines to cross the ocean (wonder where all the animal manure went?).

How do logical people believe such things? Because they prayed about it and got a very strong feeling that it was true and that it really happened. Fiction becomes true history. Mormons begin to see things the rest of us don't but since they are generally nice people, no one really needs to bother them about it.

The problem comes when they try and convince others that their magical delusion is real. That Nephites and Lamanites were real people despite all the evidence to the contrary.

Believe as you like. If you wish to believe Middle Earth is a real place and that the Sith are dangerous go ahead. But don't get offended when those of us who live in reality dismiss your fantasy as nonsense.

Interesting letter to the editor

This from a reader of a Idaho newspaper:

Learn all you can about LDS before conversion

I have followed the editorials and letters regarding the dedication of the LDS temple and other church members who passed out leaflets. Some of those critical of the other church members may be missing a major point. I have great admiration for my Latter-day Saint friends. It is not that their beliefs differ from traditional Christianity that bothers me; we all have differences. But it is the way that they present - or fail to present - those beliefs that is troubling.

Had I known the "deeper" teachings of Mormonism, about how God became a god and how other men may become gods, I likely would not have converted. Had I fully understood their unique view of the origin of Jesus and his role today, I likely would not have joined. If I had understood the ritual that takes place inside the temple (some of which have been removed since I was LDS), I may not have joined. I would not have devoted eight years of my life to the church, including two years overseas on a mission. And I would have not had to experience the emotional trauma of an excommunication and the pain of disappointing Mormon friends I loved.

True, it was partly my responsibility to learn more about LDS theology, but the missionaries and even church members are reluctant to discuss these sensitive but important distinctions. As an LDS missionary, I was instructed not to delve into these teachings with prospective converts. Perhaps those distributing literature were trying to make others aware of the key differences between the LDS faith and other faiths so that when people do decide to become LDS, they do so having a complete understanding of all the church holds sacred. It's good to hear all sides before making a life-changing decision.

GENE FADNESS
Boise

Amen, Gene...Amen!

The Lord needs some more cash....or anything else you might have.

The Lord needs your money! He'll take 10, 20, 50 or 100%. Just take a look here.

I found some interesting things on the FAQ:

Q.
If I don't have much cash, can I still participate?
A.
Yes. Many people in your circumstances make significant gifts with assets such as real estate, stocks, and bonds. You might consider some of these commonly used methods:
Outright Gifts of Securities and Real Estate. You might incur large tax liabilities by selling appreciated securities and real estate. However, you can reduce your tax liability and build the kingdom at the same time by giving the securities and real estate directly to a Church-sponsored institution or program.
Bargain Sale. A Church-sponsored institution will purchase the asset at a bargain price. The gift you give is the difference between the sale price and the fair market value of the property.
Remainder Interest Deed. This deed allows you to retain the use of your personal residence during your lifetime. At your death, the property is passed to the program you specify. This type of gift would provide you with an immediate income tax deduction.
Q.
What if I still need income to take care of my physical needs?
A.
Your situation is more common than you might suppose. There are many types of plans you can set up to meet your needs and still make contributions to Church-sponsored entities. A Charitable Gift Annuity allows you to transfer assets to the program or institution of your choice in exchange for a lifetime annuity. Annuity payments can begin now or in the future, at your request. A Pooled Income Fund allows several people of modest means to participate in a trust agreement by pooling their gifts. In this type of fund, each participant receives an income for his or her lifetime. When a contributor dies, his or her portion of the fund principal goes to a program specified by that individual. A Charitable Life Income Trust enables you to place an asset in trust, directing the income to yourself or a beneficiary for a specified term or for life. At the end of the trust term, any remaining assets and income go to the Church-sponsored program or institution of your choice.

I also noticed that they don't have any charts or graphs that point out where the money goes. Maybe to help people or maybe to help build their new billion dollar shopping mall. I don't know and neither does anyone else. Yet if you are going to hand over everything you have earned, shouldn't they tell you exactly where you money is going.

I've found this is a very touchy subject for Mormons because they can't even conceive that their leaders would not be totally honest with them about financial matters. What they don't understand (or want to understand)is that without a system of oversight humans will do naughty things with other people's money and it doesn't matter if they claim to piety and righteousness as their sole guide.

Every time I see stuff like this I'm reminded of the words of the late George Carlin:

Religion convinced the world that there's an invisible man in the sky who watches everything you do. And there's 10 things he doesn't want you to do or else you'll be sent to a burning place with a lake of fire until the end of eternity. But he loves you! ...And he needs money! He's all powerful, but he can't handle money!

Kolob mining stock anyone?

Mormonism claims another victim

This time it's the sister of Richard Packham. Unable to deal with the stress and demands of Mormon "perfection" she took her own life. Richard has helped so many people get out of Mormonism and find happy lives. It's a terrible shame that he could not pry his own sister from the grasp of the Beast.

My sincere condolences go out to him.

Following the Prophet: How it works

We've discussed Spencer Kimball and his infamous advice on having children: Don't worry if you are in college, don't worry if you are not prepared...just live together as husband and wife and let the children come.

So this is how following the prophet works- if you do this and everything turns out okay, then it just proves that following the prophet brings blessings. But what if it does not work out. I found this post by a young woman who followed Kimball's advice:

I'm 23 years old, pregnant with our second. I married my husband at the age of 18, jumping into a relationship with him after a horribly abusive relationship with a different young man, one I stayed with because when I asked my BYU single's ward bishop for help, he said I "wasn't sorry enough yet" and needed to repent. With that response, I was sure no one would help me.

My husband is a very nice man, but we're just starting to get on our feet financially, after following the advice given to BYU students by a member of the twelve while we were there, and not waiting to start a family. We soon found, though, that it's easier said then done, especially if both your families can't afford to help you, you have massive health problems while pregnant, and your Wymount ward looks the other way, unless they're upset at you for missing church.

Interesting, too, that while the church is telling college kids to get married and have kids, Utah law meant that as full-time students, we were unable to get any real help from the government, something we tried as a last resort. In the end, we left with my husband barely graduating, us in debt, and me being forced to drop out of school, while sick and pregnant, and then go waitress at Dennys so we could survive.

Looks like old Kimball's "prophetic advice" was a bust here...right? WRONG!

In Mormonism, it's not the leaders who fail... you fail.


You did something wrong, you were not righteous enough, you didn't go to the temple enough, you were not humble, you failed to have Family Home Evening or didn't pay tithing or do your visiting teaching or you didn't ________ enough.



At any rate...if you follow the prophet and it does not work out for you just remember....it's your fault!

I hope they call me on a mission.....

(…when I have molested a kid or two!)

This post begins with a distortion of an LDS children’s song. Yet as twisted as my humor is, this post deals with a serious issue….one that I had to face as a missionary.

On another internet board I found the following post:

I am furious and very confused. Here is the situation:About 4 years ago a friends daughters were sexually abused by an older cousin. The cousin was 15 years old at the time. He not only abused my friend’s girls, but also the daughters of another mutual cousin. The abuse happened repeatedly over the course of about a year. It came to light, it went to court. The boy pled guilty and was sentenced to some sort of counseling. He never completed the program. Fast forward to today. His record has been expunged, and he has submitted his papers to go on a mission. Apparently his priesthood leaders think he is worthy to go. My friend has written a letter to the missionary board, but if what the local leaders have said is any indication, it won’t matter- he is going. She is sick about it. She feels it is a slap in the face to their family, and it is a danger to the community wherever this pervert may be sent.*I* thought the whole raising the bar thing would have eliminated the possibility of a person like this ever serving a mission. I DONT UNDERSTAND!! If he gets a mission call, she is going to the newspapers. Thoughts? What can I do? She is about ready to leave the church over this!

On this posting board there was outrage but also an undercurrent of “forgive and forget”.
I don’t know if it is because the Mormon Church has had to ignore clear evidence that Joseph Smith was a sexual predator or the morbid desire by Mormon leaders to suppress the male sex drive but the LDS leadership has a habit of covering up sexual misconduct among male members from time to time. Much of it depends on where you are and who you are but I’ve always wondered: If I had to deal with a sex offender as a missionary, how many of them are out there?

Here is what happened to me:

While serving as a zone leader, one of the elders in my zone was a cheerful yet somewhat impulsive fellow we will call Elder X. Elder X and I were in the Missionary Training Center at the same time and knew each other from our brief visits there (I was in another group). He was so cheerful that he had the mission nickname “Happy” so I was able to get along with him just fine. When I became his zone leader and had to deal with him several times a week, I began to notice that he could have temper problems and that he had impulse issues. I had NO IDEA that he had molested a girl before his mission! That information was kept from me.

Fast forward almost two years later. I was at Ricks College and in my apartment one day when Elder X (now Brother X) shows up at my door. After a few pleasantries, we get to talk alone and I discover he is running from the law on bad check charges. I contact another former missionary who served with him and we get him to agree that he has to return and face his mistakes but not before he informs us that he has been in trouble with the law once before his mission for trying to fool around with an underage girl. I was stunned to find that out! Here is a guy with a criminal record and they let him become a missionary!

So did his mission reform him? Sadly, no. I was informed that he was convicted of lewdness with a child in the mid-1990s….ten years after his time as a missionary. He is a registered sex offender. The terrible thing is that the LDS Church knew about his record! He was invited into member’s homes…homes that had young children. I wonder now if he did anything while his companions were looking the other way. I knew that one Elder in our mission was sent home two weeks early for looking down the shirt of a ten year old girl. Did our mission president keep tabs on Elder X to make sure he wasn’t doing the same?

I know that the vast majority of young men that serve missions would never do anything like this, but since I came into contact with one who did...I wonder how many are out there that no one knows about.

I get a lot of flak from active LDS members because I want to tell the entire truth about the LDS Church. I feel that their omissions of historical facts lead to a secrecy that permeates Mormon culture and leads to other secrets being kept as well. It’s bad enough not to tell converts about Joseph Smith’s sexual obsessions but when you keep secrets about LDS missionaries who have close contact with the public, it should be criminal act for which the leadership should be held responsible.

Everybody has something to hide! (except for me and my monkey)

I've been in a discussion over on another blog about how honest the LDS Church should be with new converts. While some say honesty is the best policy, it doesn't seem to be when you are trying to get someone to convert to your religion.

Was the LDS Church dishonest with me? Yes. Was I dishonest when trying to convert others to Mormonism? Yes. But beyond that the question remains: how honest should religions be when it comes to telling their members unflattering truths?

Mormonism isn't alone. The Jehovah's Witnesses have some serious problems telling people the truth about their religion. Scientology has some problems in the truth department also. We even find similar lists on the ExMormon site and on the ExScientologist site.

Also, Christianity itself has some pretty dark secrets that I only learned of when I got Internet access. I'd include Islam but I don't want to wake up at 3am to find that my barn and my house are on fire.

Back to honesty. After years of research, I don't think that honesty and religious history are on the same page. I really don't. I love this analogy I found here while reading the different opinions of Mormons on historical honesty.

“Let’s say that I dated and married the hottest woman in Texas. She’s everything I ever wanted…beautiful, talented…it’s my belief that she’s my soul mate.

“Our marriage is awesome….we’ve been married for several years….like every marriage, there are things that pop up that we have to work through…but overall, things are great.
“Since I didn’t know her when she was a little kid, teenager…and even before my mission, I rely on her version of her history…what she tells me…..She says she was always active in the church…she’s never had a drink of alcohol…in fact, I was the first guy she kissed….never even had a boyfriend. I have no reason to doubt her….after all, she’s the perfect wife….and any relationship is built upon trust - she’s done nothing to compromise that.

“As time goes on….and we’re moving some old boxes from the basement to storage, I notice a picture of her at a high school dance…liplocked with some dude that obviously ain’t me! And, I uncover some love letters…that are a little more intimate than I’m comfortable with….as I do a little more looking, I discover a photo of her at a frat party…with what appears to be an alcoholic beverage in her hand….some other inconsistencies pop up…..stuff different than what I’ve always been told.

“I immediately start asking questions….I’m disturbed by this…I’m looking for explanations. When I confront her with the evidence, she challenges me saying that I’m looking for a reason to destroy our marriage…and this is really less about her past than about my ability to trust her. I start asking her family….people I trust to tell me the truth. They acknowledge that my wife did kinda have a history, but that really didn’t mean anything. Nothing fundamental changed - after all….I felt a tremendous love and bond to her…right?

“After a while and with some reluctance, she kinda comes clean….(or I get to the bottom of it one way or another) she claims she didn’t mislead me, but she can’t deny that she had a bit of a wild side in high school, she drank a little bit and actually had several boyfriends.

“In fact, she asserts, it was really my fault for misunderstanding her….the information, she claims, was out there if I would have not been so lazy and studied it out for myself. It wasn’t her responsibility to publish, talk about or disclose information that would potentially harm my perception of her….and our relationship. After all, all that stuff happened in the past…and she does not do that anymore (which seems to be true). She says she just didn’t want to harm our relationship….because she cared about me. She argues that she wasn’t inaccurate or untruthful, just a little bit incomplete…again with my best interests in mind.”

Again it's pay no attention to that man behind the curtain....just have faith.



Yep, it would be great if religions were required by law to be totally truthful with their adherents. But then that would be like blowing up the foundation of a house and expecting the walls and the roof not to fall in. ;)

Spencer Kimball: Man of mystery

When I joined the Mormon Church in 1981, Spencer Kimball was the prophet. Had he been an ordinary man, he would have been in a rest home then but a Mormon prophet serves for life and so they propped him up and Gordon Hinckley ran the store.

I've mentioned Kimball in other posts. I refer to him as a man of mystery because he was two different people: a public scold and a private nice guy. Kimball wrote an awful book called The Miracle of Forgiveness. While in Mormonism I read the book and it's basic message is that if you are perfect...absolutely perfect...you can be forgiven of your sins. Some Mormons think it's the greatest book next to the scriptures. Others think it's a manual for becoming despondent.

I've reviewed Kimball's being fooled by Mark Hoffman and his sexual obsessions. Also, he had the idea that Indians who joined the Mormon Church would become develop whiter skin.

Beyond all of this was a man who could meet with people and make them feel at ease. He worked very hard for the Mormon Church but rose to a position of power through the influence of his cousin.

Personally I have no respect for the man because of the following idea that he taught:

The training you get in the universities, while excellent, is limited. It is but a very tiny percentage of the total knowledge. We encourage knowledge and its proper use, but we know there will be a thousand years to study about things, and compared to the years spent in universities, that great learning period is relatively limitless. When we're ready to create our own worlds and give leadership thereto, we will have great knowledge. Since knowledge is power, we will have power. Since knowledge can make us creative, we can be creators. Since knowledge can lead to judgment and wisdom, we can be just and worthy and wise. But we cannot wait for marriage until we have accumulated the knowledge we finally will need and want to have in order to create.

But, of course, marriage cannot wait for that. We shall marry, have our families, teach and train them, while we are learning these other things and building toward our creatorship. Marriage should come when we are reasonably young, to procreate and bear children, to have the patience to teach and train them and to grow up with them. Hence, marriage is a must, an early must. Of course, we would decry child marriages, but when young people are in their upper years of collegiate work surely it is time to plan this important life's work. Missionaries should begin to think marriage--when they return from their missions, to begin to get acquainted with many young women so that they will have a better basis for selection of a life's companion. And when the time comes they should marry in the holy temple and have their families, and complete their education, and establish themselves in a profitable and rewarding occupation, and give themselves to their families, the gospel, and the Church.

I have told many groups of young people that they should not postpone their marriage until they have acquired all of their education ambitions. I have told tens of thousands of young folks that when they marry they should not wait for children until they have finished their schooling and financial desires. Marriage is basically for the family, and when people have found their proper companions there should be no long delay. They should live together normally and let the children come.

Marriage is basically for the family; that is why we marry--not for the satisfaction of the sex, as the world around us would have us believe. When people have found their companions, there should be no long delay. Young wives should be occupied in bearing and rearing their children. I know of no scriptures where an authorization is given to young wives to withhold their families and to go to work to put their husbands through school.

As to sex in marriage, the necessary treatise on that for Latter-day Saints can be written in two sentences: Remember the prime purpose of sex desires is to beget children. Sex gratifications must be had at that hazard.

During my early years in the LDS Church the leaders pushed the Kimball agenda with a zeal to the point that some missionaries were being taught that they must be married within six months of their missions.

But in private the stories were that he was a super nice guy in private taking others into his home. Boy, in public he could be a real bastard.

Yes, I was sucked into it. I was young, gullible, trusting of religious leaders and an easy mark. The sad thing is that Mormon leaders are still telling young people to follow this doctrine of disaster.

I'm still trying to recover from "following the prophet" on this one.

Speaking of the LDS stand on gay marriage....

It seems that once every decade the LDS Church gets wound up on some issue that it's leaders see as a threat to civilization. Today it's a fear that 1-3% of the population will destroy marriage. Yesterday's "fears of destruction" were no less silly.

Looking back, in the 1950s and 1960s it was the civil rights movement. The late Apostle Mark Peterson, (who is reported to have once said in a speech before a Mormon conference ""I've been married to my wife for 44 years, and never once have seen her body uncovered."), took the anti-black feeling in the church at the time and ran with it.

Peterson gave a talk at BYU in 1954 and said, among other things:

The discussion on civil rights, especially over the last 20 years, has drawn some very sharp lines. It has blinded the thinking of some of our own people, I believe. They have allowed their political affiliations to color their thinking to some extent, and then, of course, they have been persuaded by some of the arguments that have been put forth.....

We who teach in the Church certainly must have our feet on the ground and not be led astray by the philosophies of men on this subject.....I think I have read enough to give you an idea of what the negro is after. He is not just seeking the opportunity of sitting down in a cafe where white people eat. He isn't just trying to ride on the same streetcar or the same Pullman car with white people. It isn't that he just desires to go to the same theater as the white people. From this, and other interviews I have read, it appears that the negro seeks absorbtion with the white race. He will not be satisfied until he achieves it by intermarriage.

That is his objective and we must face it. We must not allow our feeling to carry us away, nor must we feel so sorry for negroes that we will open our arms and embrace them with everything we have. Remember the little statement that we used to say about sin, 'First we pity, then endure, then embrace.'...

Now we are generous with the negro. We are willing that the Negro have the highest kind of education. I would be willing to let every Negro drive a cadillac if they could afford it. I would be willing that they have all the advantages they can get out of life in the world. BUT LET THEM ENJOY THESE THINGS AMONG THEMSELVES, I think the Lord segregated the Negro and who is man to change that segregation? It reminds me of the scripture on marriage, 'what God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.' Only here we have the reverse of the thing— WHAT GOD HATH SEPARATED, LET NOT MAN BRING TOGETHER AGAIN.

Just goes to show you what going 44 years without seeing a naked woman will do to you.

During the 1970s it was the Equal Rights Amendment. Spencer Kimball and his cronies got all worked up over....nothing.

“The basic concern of the Church with regard to the ERA as a moral issue is that women will be treated less favorably in many fundamental regards; and also that the family unit—in the Mormon sense of a sacred and eternal relationship—will be denigrated, causing great and substantial damage to not only the Church but also the nation and the basic ideals which have made this country great”

Women pretty much have the rights promised by the ERA even though it didn't pass. The family unit is under attack...by corporate America and the materialistic orgy that it has to keep people participating in in order to reap huge profits for it's share holders. But all the worry and work they did was just a waste of time in the long run.

Now it's gay and lesbian marriage. But with the LDS Church there is a wicked twist that they don't want to talk about. When it comes to marriage it's the Mormons verses the Mormons. Let's get READY TO RUMBLE!!!!!

1. Our modern era has seen traditional marriage and family – defined as a husband and wife with children in an intact marriage – come increasingly under assault. (LDS.org website)

Challenging that notion we have the Mormon Prophet John "The Assaulter" Taylor:

... the one-wife system not only degenerates the human family, both physically and intellectually, but it is entirely incompatible with philosophical notions of immortality; it is a lure to temptation, and has always proved a curse to a people.

2. Strong, stable families, headed by a father and mother, are the anchor of civilized society. (LDS.org website)

Putting a body slam on that nonsense is Mormon Apostle George Q. Cannon:

It is a fact worthy of note that the shortest lived nations of which we have record have been monogamic. Rome...was a monogamic nation and the numerous evils attending that system early laid the foundation for that ruin which eventually overtook her.

3. The experience of the few European countries that already have legalized same-sex marriage suggests that any dilution of the traditional definition of marriage will further erode the already weakened stability of marriages and family generally. (LDS.org website)

As they say, to BE the prophet, you have to BEAT the prophet...and these modern Mormons just can't beat Brother Brigham Young!:

Since the founding of the Roman empire monogamy has prevailed more extensively than in times previous to that. The founders of that ancient empire were robbers and women stealers, and made laws favoring monogamy in consequence of the scarcity of women among them, and hence this monogamic system which now prevails throughout Christendom, and which had been so fruitful a source of prostitution and whoredom throughout all the Christian monogamic cities of the Old and New World, until rottenness and decay are at the root of their institutions both national and religious.

So, early Mormon leaders taught that monogamy was the source of a lot of evil. Today Mormon leaders teach that gay and lesbian marriage will be the source of a lot of evil. The end result is that they all end up looking like fools.

Past leaders have been wrong about civil rights for black people, ERA, monogamy and a host of other things. The worst thing to come out of all of this is that future generations of Mormons will have to once again tell people "But that was just personal opinion...it was never official doctrine."

In conclusion I think we all want to know one thing: Did Mark Peterson ever get to see his wife naked?

The Gift of Discernment

In Mormonism, I was taught that the leaders had something called the Gift of Discernment. It basically means that your bishop or other high ranking leaders are blessed with a special gift from God when they are called to their positions. It's suppose to work this way:

If you are in an interview with your bishop and lie to him about something, then the "Spirit of the Lord" is suppose to inform him that you are lying. In practice it's less reliable than Sylvia Brown.

During the time I was a member of the Mormon leadership (First Councilor in a Branch Presidency) one of the toughest things to admit to myself was that there was no special power by which the Branch President and the rest of us ran that branch. Our decisions of who should fill the various callings in the branch were based on educated guesses, hunches, and how we felt things should be run. We prayed and tried to "seek God's help" but I never felt that our branch was lead by any spirit of inspiration and certainty not by any Gift of Discernment.

In a case like ours it was really no big deal. The callings were filled and we functioned as normally as possible. But what happens when members trust that their bishop really does have the Gift of Discernment and can see the evil in other people? Sometimes that sort of blind trust can lead to tragic consequences as evidenced in the following news item from England:

A MORMON involved in youth activities at his church has appeared in court accused of years of sexual abuse. Martyn Conway, a former member of the congregation at the Church of Jesus Christ and Latter Day Saints in Cambridge's Cherry Hinton Road, is alleged to have committed serious sexual indecency on two boys under the age of 16 in the 1980s and 1990s. One incident is said to have taken place in a room at the church after Conway - entrusted with the building's keys - let himself and the child in after hours.

The 48-year-old former postman, of Princess Court, Hills Road, Cambridge, faces eight charges claiming he carried out persistent abuse over several years on one of the boys. Conway, who denies all charges against him, is also accused of carrying out a serious sexual act on the second youngster in the 1990s. Opening the trial at Cambridge Crown Court, Tim Brown, for the prosecution, told the jury: "The thing common to both boys is the church and Conway became someone to be trusted to look after and mentor the children."This case is about events that took place a long time ago. It is a feature of these sorts of cases that, very often, it takes time for things to come out."

It was not until last year that the younger of Conway's alleged victims - both now grown men - felt able to go to police to explain what had happened to him, although he had confided in his mother two years earlier, the court heard. After police became involved, the older alleged victim also "found the courage" to speak out. In video evidence, the first man described how Conway began the abuse by being "huggy", which Conway said was alright because it was "a church thing". "He would say he loved me, but said that was fine because that was a church thing too," he said. The abuse escalated from fondling over the boy's clothes to Conway's insistence on being massaged. Trips to the seaside and camping followed which the alleged victim described as "just an excuse to get me in a place where I was naked", followed by more serious sexual acts.

Conway, he said, made his "skin crawl" but made him swear to secrecy. Making it clear he did not want the sexual activity to continue, the boy made a pact with Conway and got him to sign it, in a bid to get him to promise that he would not touch him any more, the court heard. But Conway soon reneged on the deal, he said, and the boy felt there was "no escape" from him.

Now, if the charges are true....where was the bishop? Where was the famous Gift of Discernment? The above story has been repeated time and time again in Mormon Churches all over. Yet the response I get from most LDS members is "well, it happens in other churches! Look at the Catholics". Yes, but still...what about the Bishop's Gift of Discernment? If he can be mislead by molesters and other liars, then what else can he be mislead about? After all, we have seen how Mormon Prophet Spencer Kimball was fooled by a conman's fake documents.

In the winter of 1829 Joseph Smith said that God had revealed to him that he should send Hiram Page and Oliver Cowdery to Toronto, Canada. There they would sell the copyright to the Book of Mormon. But their mission didn't turn out the way the revelation had said it would. Smith then got another "revelation" from God which said:
Some revelations are of God: some revelations are of man: and some revelations are of the devil.

Perhaps it is time for the Mormon Church to come clean and admit they are just trying to figure out things like the rest of us are instead of claiming some special spiritual power of "discernment" that they've never had.

Perhaps it's time to introduce the Gift of Reason and Common Sense. The problem is, if they did this, it would lead to questioning and as we have seen in other posts here questioning your leaders is a pretty big sin in Mormonism.

So keep on discerning! Hey if Sylvia Brown can get away with her false predictions and misfires, Mormonism can too!

Baptising Mike

While on my mission I ended up spending half of my time as a zone leader. That's the next step up from district leader. One of my jobs was to interview potential converts to make sure that they were "worthy" to be baptised. Becoming a Mormon is pretty simple but there are steps you must go through.



1. You must be taught a series of lessons about Mormonism called "discussions".

2. You must be interviewed by a priesthood leader (usually a missionary). Here are the questions you must answer.



If you make it through those two things, the missionaries then set a date and arrange a baptismal service.



I first met Mike when I interviewed him for baptism. He was a sort of former Hell's Angels type and to be honest he gave me the creeps. Well we got him baptised but Mormonism is a very bureaucratic religion. We found out that Mike was in the wrong ward (geographic area). The guy lived on the wrong side of the street. He was supposed to be introduced to a new ward, but I was transferred out of the area and I suppose that Mike was lost in the shuffle. Given the type of withdrawn personality that he was it would have been best to leave him in the ward he was baptised in. But rules are more important in Mormonism than people are so much of the time.



But we got to count him as a statistical baptism! That's what really matters.



I sometimes wonder what happened to Mike, but I can guess. The Mormon Church has over 13 million members world wide but won't disclose how many of those members are active. Each year LDS missionaries baptise thousands who almost immediately go inactive or leave the church altogether. I think Mike was just one of that great throng of thousands.



I hope he made it in life okay but he came from such a harsh background. I still feel bad that we didn't do more to help him....but helping someone didn't transfer into statistical progress.

Speaking of Pastor Hinn....

It seems that he has something in common with the Mormon leadership: he won't release his financial records either. I think it's fair to ask why the LDS Church won't release it's financial records. If you have nothing to hide....then why hide it?

A word from Dr. Peterson

In the Mormon Church, you would think that the chief defender of the faith would be a prophet or an apostle. Yet out of the general membership comes BYU Professor of Islamic Studies and Arabic Dr. Daniel Peterson. Peterson is fairly big on internet boards as an expert on LDS apologetics. I've read some of his things and don't he's that much different from other internet apologist but he does seem to be a legend in his own mind.

He recently gave a talk reported by the Mormon Times:

He said that people have to want the gospel to be true. If they don't want the gospel to be true, the evidence is not designed to be so overwhelming that they have no choice."A lot of times it's a matter of asking, 'Do you want this to be true?' " Peterson said. A person who has a love of the gospel, but may have some problems with some things, is reachable. But not everybody wants the gospel to be true......The Lord will not force people to believe what they do not want to be true. The goal is to present things so that people will want it to be true, so they will be willing to take the experiment on the word. If they take the first steps, Peterson said, their testimony will grow.

I'm a bit tired right now...but let me see if I have this straight. In order for something to be true you first have to want it to be true? I don't think it works that way.....or maybe it does?

Do you want this to be true?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxIEaJXSPmA

People have to want the healing power of Hinn to be true. If they don't want the healing power of Hinn to be true, the evidence is not designed to be so overwhelming that they have no choice."A lot of times it's a matter of asking, 'Do you want this to be true?' " I said. A person who has a love of the Benny Hinn Ministries, but may have some problems with some things, is reachable.

The Lord will not force people to believe what they do not want to be true. The goal is to present things so that people will want it to be true, so they will be willing to take the experiment on the word. If they take the first steps and go to a Benny Hinn crusade their testimony of Benny Hinn will grow. Just make sure they don't see Benny's multi-millionaire lifestyle.

God it's so easy to scam people!!!

The rest of your life to think about it

There is a saying in the mission field: Two years to do it, the rest of your life to think about it.

Well, there is one thing that I did in the mission field and I will have the rest of my life to think about it. It's something that will haunt me until the day I die.

Being "spiritually macho" in the mission filed is really encouraged by the Mormon leadership. Working ungodly hours, sacrificing your health and mental well being and putting your mission before all else is seen as a sign of dedication. At least it was in my mission.

The Mormon Church has a current advertising slogan that says "Family: Isn't it about time?" Well believe me, when it comes to family, it isn't about time.....it's about the Mormon Church! I'd like to go now to a post I found on the ExMormon board that shows just how family oriented this "pro-family" church is:

Recently, a good friend's teenage daughter was in the final stages of dying from a long term illness, and the father wanted his other older daughter to come home from her mission to give her final farewell. The father called his daughter's abusive Mormon mission president (a former "corporate" leader), and he said that it was Church policy that missionaries should NOT go home for the death of an immediate family member. The abusive Mormon mission president then "dictated" a phony letter for the father to write to his missionary daughter essentially saying that they (the parents) did not want her to come home under any circumstances.

Well, this good Father was a convert and had a much broader Christian experience than Mormonism and, after a lot of prayer, he did not feel good about keeping his missionary daughter away from her dying sister. So, he started making calls to everyone he knew in Church leadership. He even made contact with a daughter of the Prophet. Well, eventually someone finally called the abusive Mission President, and he in turn called the Father and asked how he could "help". And, of course, he then "allowed" the missionary daughter to come home.

She was home for two weeks. Her sister died within a few days in the arms of her missionary sister, and she stayed to personally bereave and help comfort her family. And, of course, the whole time, the abusive Stake President was hounding the family to send her "immediately" back to the mission. The Father told me about the enormous load that the Mormon Church put on him and his family from that experience. But, like Jesus's parable of the unrighteous judge, he just kept confronting the Mormon abusers until they grew weary of his petitions. Part of the problem is when you are unfortunate enough to have a former "corporate" leader serving as a "mission president" the corporate leader will never neglect "productivity" (knocking on doors) to "serving" the needs of the sick, dying, and bereaved.

The Mormon Church is very insensitive to the needs of families, despite its public relations campaign. So, does anyone wonder why Utah has the highest per capita use of anti-depressants in the United States? The members have to do something to recover from the constant abuse of their Mormon leaders.

One final thought, a good friend, who served as a Mission President (and was a medical doctor) told me that the biggest mistake he had made was not to allow a missionary son to return home when his brother had been killed in an automobile accident. He told me that he would have insisted until his son could have come home. The returned missionary had severe depression from the experience, and has never fully recovered....

How does this relate to me? When I was five months into my mission, my mother had her leg amputated. She had been sick for a few years prior and this was the last resort to save her life.

I should have been there. For her, for my father, for my brother. I have no excuse and it still is a shame and blot on my character that I put some stupid Mormon Church before my family. Yet in an atmosphere of spiritual machismo it was cool not to care about anything but your mission (hell, I even had to permission to call my mother after her operation!). I was not contacted by my mission president, and the mission leaders who were present when I found out didn't seem to care either.

I was later to discover that in Mormonism life is cheap. While individual members may care and show compassion, the corporate church does not. The individual means nothing compared to "the work". As Mormon scripture says, faithful Mormons should "...waste and wear out [their] lives..." teaching Mormonism to the world.

Mormonism seems to say nothing about the guilt still felt by a person 25 years after neglecting his own family in their time of need.

Just a few notes here on the dark side of my long strange trip through Mormonism.

Mormons against Democracy

I was reading about a recent controversy in the LDS Church and noticed that in the comments section of the official Mormon Newspaper in Salt Lake that a person had written the following:

"Let's get one thing clear here... The LDS church is not a democracy. If you have a problem with the doctrine either get over it or leave, it's that simple. The doctrine of the church comes from God, not from men, so who are men (and women) to question the authority and doctrines of God? Come on people! You can argue and 'discuss' all you want, but that will never change the facts or the church's stand on issues."

So many times while I was in the Mormon Church I heard that same line: The LDS Church is not a democracy !


Okay, so what is it then?



If it's not a democracy, it must be a fascist or communist styled governing system. Perhaps it's more like Iran where religious law overrides secular law. But the fact that Mormons define the LDS Church as "not a democracy"raises the question of whether Mormons view Democracy as a good form of government or not. An interesting discussion of what form of government Mormons really want can be found in this article but without going into that depth of discussion here, I can offer my observations of the ideas and attitudes I came across during my time in Mormonism.



From my experience, I'd have to say that it's a theocratic dictatorship with the First Presidency and Quorum of the twelve acting as a Supreme Soviet. If anyone looks at the LDS Church and thinks that I'm being extreme, imagine Barack Obama saying the following at the Democratic National Convention:



"Obedience is a fundamental law of the the United States Government. It is not only the demonstration of our loyalty but also will be the foundation of my administration. But the philosophical standard of the world holds that unquestioning obedience equals blind obedience, and blind obedience is mindless obedience. This is simply not true. Unquestioning obedience to an Obama Administration indicates that a person has developed faith and trust in me to the point where he or she considers all inspired instruction — whether it be from my Cabinet members or the words of my administration — to be worthy of obedience."

Obama would be thrown out and Hillary would get the nomination hands down. Yet in the LDS Church, the main governing idea is unquestioning obedience to the brethren.

Perhaps this was one of the main reasons I left Mormonism. I was raised in the American Democracy and love it's freedoms. I can't and won't accept any other form of government in my life. I won't live my life behind a Zion Curtain.

LDS Missions

Me as a 19 year old missionary

Of all the twenty years that I spent in the LDS Church, the most interesting time was the 18 months that I lived, ate, slept and breathed missionary work. I think this week I'll relate some mission stories and how that even now, 24 years later, I still think about that intense period of my life.

While other guys my age were drinking and chasing skirts in college, I was going door to door in Las Vegas, Nevada on my own dime trying to get in people's homes and teach them about Joseph Smith and the Restoration.

In reality, all we did was bother people. They may have been busy getting ready to go somewhere. They may have been cooking dinner. They may have been relaxing in front of the T.V. after a long day. We really didn't give a damn what they were doing. It was not important. What was important was what we had and that was the Gospel of Jesus Christ Restored to the Earth by a Modern Prophet™. That meant we could come on their property, and knock on their doors any time we felt like it. We were giving these poor schmucks a shot at godhood. They had better not reject us!

Today I realize how arrogant we were and how disrespectful it is to bother people at all hours of the day with religious pap. I wish that there were a way to pass a national law that would allow people to get on a list similar to the "do not call list" so that Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses and other door to door irritants would be stopped from bothering people.

To the people of Nevada:

I want to apologize for bothering you. I'm truly sorry that I came on your property uninvited and tried to get into your homes. I'm sorry for worrying you with the weird quirky religion of Mormonism.

Most of all I'm truly sorry that I was not one of those missionaries who had the good fortune of having a good looking woman answer the door completely naked.

Fooling God's Prophet

The picture you see to here is one of the biggest embarrassments the Mormon Church has ever had to endure. It is a picture of master forger Mark Hoffman fooling "God's prophet" the late Spencer W. Kimball (in the middle of the picture with the magnifying glass).

Also fooled along with Kimball were (from left to right) N. Eldon Tanner, Marion Romney, Boyd Packer and Gordon Hinckley. While Tanner and Romney were fellow apostles and councilors to Kimball, Hinckley later became President of the Mormon Church and Packer is, as of this writing, next in line to become Church President.

Mormons revere leaders like these as "Prophets, Seers and Revelators" and have a unique belief about them. As the late apostle John Widtsoe wrote:

"...a prophet is a man who receives revelations from the Lord...A seer is one who sees with spiritual eyes. He perceives the meaning of that which seems obscure to others; therefore he is an interpreter and clarifier of eternal truth. He foresees the future from the past and the present....."A revelator makes known, with the Lord’s help, something before unknown. It may be new or forgotten truth, or a new or forgotten application of known truth to man’s need. Always, the revelator deals with truth..."

The document that Kimball and the others are looking at is a fake. Hoffman faked it to prove to the world that the leaders of the LDS Church don't have any special powers as claimed by Widtsoe and all other Mormons. He also did it to make money off of his forgeries.

After it came out that Hoffman fooled the Prophet, the Twelve Apostles and all the faithful, the Mormon Church went into damage control mode. Apostle Dallin Oaks was given the task of helping questioning members to see the light. In a talk given at the time he said:

"It is one thing to depreciate a person who exercises corporate power or even government power. It is quite another thing to criticize or depreciate a person for the performance of an office to which he or she has been called of God. It does not matter that the criticism is true. As Elder George F. Richards, President of the Council of the Twelve, said in a conference address in April 1947, 'when we say anything bad about the leaders of the Church, whether true or false, we tend to impair their influence and their usefulness and are thus working against the Lord and his cause.' ... The Holy Ghost will not guide or confirm criticism of the Lord's anointed, or of Church leaders, local or general. This reality should be part of the spiritual evaluation that LDS readers and viewers apply to those things written about our history and those who made it." (Apostle Dallin H. Oaks, "Reading Church History," CES Doctrine and Covenants Symposium, Brigham Young University, 16 Aug. 1985, page 25)

In other words, pay no attention to Kimball and his fellow apostles being fooled! If you do, God won't like it!

While the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve had egg on their faces, I along with a good friend of mine really never bought Hoffman's story. We made jokes about our "pet salamander" and thought it seemed suspicious that one guy could come up with all of these documents.

But the Mormons have the unspoken iron creed of the Infallibility of the Prophet:

“The Lord will never permit me or any other man who stands as President of this Church to lead you astray. It is not in the programme. It is not in the mind of God. If I were to attempt that, the Lord would remove me out of my place, and so He will any other man who attempts to lead the children of men astray from the oracles of God and from their duty.” (Mormon President Wilford Woodruff)

Years later, when I began to question Mormonism, I found the above picture in some of the things that I had collected about the church over the years. I was given a copy of it and the article that went along with it by a member of the first branch I belonged to. He told me it was more proof that Joseph Smith was a prophet. In the article Kimball thanks Hoffman for bringing it to the attention of the LDS Church historical department.

I'm still suprised that I didn't allow this to affect my belief in Kimball as a prophet at the time that it happened. If the entire leadership of the Mormon Church, the leadership that God would never allow to lead me astray, were fooled by a slick con man and forger....then what else might they have been wrong about?

I was too far in to ask that sort of question. I had too much invested emotionally and all my friends were Mormons. I had no where else to go at the time.

I had to pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.

Whole lot of "Shaken" going on!

As I have pointed out in another post, since the days of Joseph Smith, Jr. there have been people who have, shall we say, doubted that Mr. Smith's stories of angels, golden plates, and visions might not be what he and his church have claimed them to be. These people became known as "anti-Mormons" (not to be confused with the anti-Nephi-Lehis in the Book of Mormon).

Back in the day when I hooked up with Mormonism (1981) the "anti-Mormons" consisted of Evangelical Christians who had "seen the light and come to the Real Jesus™". Most of these people came across as ignorant fanatics so it was pretty easy to dismiss them with the saying "consider the source".

Among them were a married couple, Sandra and Jerald Tanner. The Tanner's were the true king and queen of darkness because, unlike the Evangelical preachers who taught that Mormonism was a perversion of True Christianity®, both Sandra and Jerald were former members who had gone into the LDS archives and come out with some pretty faith shaking stuff.

None of this mattered much in the days before the Internet. Now, apparently, the faithful are having some trouble in cyberspace and it's just not the priesthood masturbating to naked women this time!

Mike Ash, an Ogden, Utah electronics salesman has come up with a pretty clever name for the new Internet anti-Mormon plague called "Shaken Faith Syndrome".

In his new book Shaken Faith Syndrome: Strengthening One's Testimony in the Face of Criticism and Doubt, Ash seeks to sooth the nerves of the faithful who find out that Joseph Smith married a 14 year old girl and are tired of the cognitive dissonance that leaves the sacrament water tasting foul.

For the faithful Utah based Mormon who's family goes back to the handcart pioneers, this is a good book to get. It will help them to fit the square pegs of LDS Church history into the round holes of modern Mormonism. But it's main premise that "Much of the problem comes not from the doubt-causing material, but from the mind-set of the person who encounters it" runs into serious problems right off the bat.

At the recent FAIR Conference Ash said "It seems that those who are prone to fundamentalist, dogmatic or closed-minded perspectives about the gospel or early LDS history are more likely to suffer from shaken faith syndrome when they encounter challenging issues."

What Ash fails to point out is that dogmatic and closed-minded perspectives about Mormonism are just what the leaders of the Mormon Church teach!

"Each of us has to face the matter—either the Church is true, or it is a fraud. There is no middle ground. It is the Church and kingdom of God, or it is nothing." (Gordon B. Hinckley, "Loyalty", April General Conference 2003)

"Mormonism must stand or fall on the story of Joseph Smith. He was either a Prophet of God, divinely called, properly appointed and commissioned or he was one of the biggest frauds this world has ever seen. There is no middle ground. If Joseph was a deceiver, who willfully attempted to mislead people, then he should be exposed, his claims should be refuted, and his doctrines shown to be false..." (Joseph Fielding Smith "Doctrines of Salvation," vol. 1 pp 188-189.)

" 'The Book of Mormon' must be either true or false. If true, it is one of the most important messages ever sent from God... If false, it is one of the most cunning, wicked, bold, deep-laid impositions ever palmed upon the world, calculated to deceive and ruin millions... The nature of the "Book of Mormon" is such, that if true, no one can possibly be saved and reject it; If false, no one can possibly be saved and receive it... If, after a rigid examination, it be found imposition, it should be extensively published to the world as such; the evidences and arguments on which the imposture was detected, should be clearly and logically stated, that those who have been sincerely yet unfortunately deceived, may perceive the nature of deception, and to be reclaimed, and that those who continue to publish the delusion may be exposed and silenced... by strong and powerful arguments - by evidences adduced from scripture and reason..." (Orson Pratt's Works, "Divine Authenticity of the Book of Mormon": Liverpool, 1851, pp. 1, 2.)

This is the mindset of Mormonism: it's either true or it's false. When I was taking the missionary discussions I was taught that if the Book of Mormon were true, then Joseph Smith was a prophet because "God would not give a true prophet a false book or a false prophet a true book".

So again in Mormon apologetics we see it's the Mormon apologists verses the Mormon Prophets.

I wish Mr. Ash well on his new venture and honestly believe he will sell many books in the LDS community. Better yet, the Mormons need to save the money they would have spent on his book and just bear testimony to themselves in the mirror and forget what they read on the Internet.

Shaken....but not stirred.

A rather common indiscretion

Human sexuality and the desire on the part of religion over the ages to squash it has long been of interest to me. It's just so damn weird!!! Jesus comes across as a celibate sex hater if there ever was one. Paul follows his master proclaiming that it is "good for a man not to touch a woman".

Most Christians today turn a blind eye to all that talk. To them the Bible is a buffet that they pick and choose from. The teachings of Jesus and Paul on sex is the funky smelling tuna salad on the buffet that no one wants.

But not the Mormons. It's not enough for a person to abstain from sex before marriage and to remain faithful afterwards. They have be as fanatic and extreme as they can possibly be.

I've mentioned their desire to control what married couples do behind closed doors. They also want to control what teenagers do. Thus their holy war on masturbation.

In another post I quoted former Mormon President Spencer Kimball on the subject where he claimed that masturbation was "a rather common indiscretion" in Mormonism. Sounds pretty innocuous until you realize that Mormon leaders don't treat it that way. Here are a few choice gems from the LDS Church on how to fill your children full of guilt and self loathing:

"A boy should be taught about the power of creation within his body and that the Lord intended that this power should be used exclusively in marriage. He should be cautioned against sexual self-stimulation (masturbation)." (“Teaching about Procreation and Chastity,” Family Home Evening Resource Book, 1997,253)

"...masturbation is considered by many in the world to be the harmless expression of an instinctive sex drive. Teach your children that the prophets have condemned it as a sin throughout the ages and that they can choose not to do it. Throughout childhood, boys and girls have touched their own genitals frequently to wash and to dress. This is a behavior that usually has the same meaning as keeping one’s feet warm in the winter, enjoying a swim on a hot day, or scratching an itch. We ought to be friendly to our bodies and appreciate the body’s marvelous range of senses. This innocent touching is not the kind of behavior warned against by prophets through the ages. The sin of masturbation occurs when a person stimulates his or her own sex organs for the purpose of sexual arousal. It is a perversion of the body’s passions. When we pervert these passions and intentionally use them for selfish, immoral purposes, we become carnal.
Masturbation is not physically necessary. There is already a way by which the male system relieves excessive spermatic fluid quite regularly through the nocturnal emission or wet dream. Monthly menstrual flow expels the female’s egg and cleanses the womb. For both sexes, physical or emotional tensions can be released by vigorous activity. Thus, in a biological sense, masturbation for either gender is not necessary. In a gospel sense, it is a sin: “Masturbation, a rather common indiscretion, is not approved of the Lord nor of His Church regardless of what may have been said by others whose ‘norms’ are lower. Latter-day Saints are urged to avoid this practice” (Spencer W. Kimball, Love Versus Lust, Brigham Young University Speeches of the Year [Provo, 5 Jan. 1965], p. 22)." (Teaching Adolescents: from Twelve to Eighteen Years,” A Parent’s Guide, p.35)

"In modern society, it is far too common a tragedy for young people to cultivate a strong sexual appetite even before they begin to date. One cause of this serious problem can be the sin of masturbation. Children should be taught, at around the first signs of puberty, what masturbation is and why it is wrong. Parents who avoid guiding their children in this matter do them a disservice.
Masturbation can be described as manipulating one’s own sexual organs to produce sexual excitement." (Talking with Your Children about Moral Purity. Ensign, December 1986)

"Now, my young friends, and I am sorry to say, many adults, how about all those of you who have a masturbation problem? If the names of those who had the problem were projected across [a] big, huge scroll, would your name be there, or would you be able to sit back confident and pure in heart?" (Vaughn J. Featherstone, “A Self-Inflicted Purging,” Ensign, May 1975, 66)
[Featherstone gave this talk before the men and boy's session of General Conference]

Of course, it's not just enough to teach all of this. There has to be a personal Inquisition to root it out. This is called a "bishop's interview". The bishop takes a teenager into a room by themselves and asks them questions. Among them is the question "do you masturbate?" I asked a few people about their experiences with this and got these responses:

From a former Mormon Mission President: Just for the record, I got so tired of hearing about masturbation from the elders. I never brought it up, but I sure heard about it. At the end of every interview I always asked "is there anything you'd like to talk about?" I really wanted to add "EXCEPT MASTURBATION". Such guilt over something so natural and normal. I think my elders were pretty shocked when I said something like "so what?" But then that got around the mission and they all decided they wanted to confess after all. SIGH Those old boys on South Temple are such wankers!

From other people who had to endure the "interview":

1.-When it came time for my deacon interview I went to the chapel w/dear old Mom.....We waited outside the Bishop's office and pretty soon it was my turn. I went in and he asked if my Mother was going to come in too. I told her I didn't mind so she came in. I went through the questions, answering them honestly just waiting for the big question. And then it came " So ______, do you masturbate?" I looked at him straight in the face and said "What's that?"My poor conservative Mother was stunned, the Bishop was speechless. I guess he didn't have to explain it in detail very often. I waited, there was some mumbling then he said " well uh, do you uh, play with your private parts?" I said "Oh that! No."

2.-I had no idea it was coming. We had just moved from Pennsylvania to Oregon, and I was thirteen. My father told me I needed to interview with the bishop--this was the first time I met the man. In a closed room, with no one else present, the bishop asked me if I "abused" myself. I honestly didn't know what he meant. "Why would I hurt myself?" I replied. "Do you play with your penis?" he asked. I was mortified; I could hear blood pounding in my ears. I don't even remember how I answered him. When I left the room I was angry and upset. My father was mad at me, the bastard. Couldn't he at least have given me a heads up?

3.-My parents never knew because they did not go but made me go to church. I was so shocked and young that I did not know what he was talking about. I don't remember how he phrased it but he had to ask a few times in different ways. I remember saying no and thinking (what is he talking about and why can he ask me this??) I am still angry and it was like 1959. Please parents, if you are not going to save your kids from this cult, at least say no to any interviews. You will have to educate your kids to never go behind closed doors because you may never know when they will do this without your permission.

4.-(From a female)The Bishop asked if I masturbated, and when I admitted that I had before he wanted to know where I did it, how often, what I thought about, how it made me feel and told me it was a sin.I never answered his questions. They enraged me... I was 12. I walked out of the office, out of the building and sat down by my dad's car until he came out and found me. Then I told him I was going to move in with my mother who had been excommunicated for committing adultery. I knew she wouldn't make me go back.

5.-Ok, I'm going to breath and be calm on this one because it fires me up. Those religious freaks really screwed me up over this one. I was one of those 12 year olds who had to go through the years of guilt and shame because of the church's stance on masturbation. I had to do the whole bishop asking these kinds of questions to me thing when I was [young]. It really, really messed me up because their entire system is designed to shame you about your body and put you through completely unnecessary guilt and torment.

6.-I confessed to jerking off to so many bishops and mission presidents that I lost count. I became a veteran confessor. I could just never do the forsaking part. Nobody ever helped me get to the root of why I wanted to do it. Now I know why. They have about as much connection to the God they're preaching as Madonna has to Kabbalah. It's my body and that's how it works. It helps me cope with the lousy life the Mormon church helped me to build.

So that's the hell that can be a bishop's interview. Another strange thing: Most of this talk about not masturbating is directed at young males. So women don't do it? Oh yeah, women don't have sex drives...I forgot.

I can testify that this is the one thing in Mormonism that caused me and countless others needless pain and suffering (as witnessed by the above postings). It has even killed some people.

Like polygamy, this is one teaching that Mormons downplay with prospective converts....or at least the LDS missionaries did with me.

It's a rather unpleasant side to the long, strange trip through Mormonism.

A tale of two churches

Even though I was the son of a United Methodist minister growing up, I can't say that I really ever examined that faith. I went to church every Sunday because that was my dad's job. Being a "P.K." is like that I guess.

I think one of the reasons I began to search for another church to attend shortly before I met the Mormons was because I was looking for a "normal" church experience.....one where I was just part of the group instead of having a spotlight on me all the time.

Twenty-seven years later I think it's time to compare the two religions that influenced my life side by side.

1. The United Methodist Church- On their website I find a lot about Christian service to others. Helping to eradicate malaria, Katrina relief, remembering Hiroshima and Nagasaki, flooding in Indiana as well as an overview of their beliefs and church structure.

2. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints- At their website there are articles on Internet safety, an art competition, buying canned food online to store as well a a section on beliefs and helps for church members.

I know that at this point I'm biased, but the LDS site doesn't seem to offer much in the way of reaching out to others. It seems to be geared toward people who live in their own little world.

Also I noticed that the United Methodist Church takes a stand on the war in Iraq. In part, the article said:

"More recently, the United Methodist General Conference held in Pittsburgh in 2004 passed resolutions:
Calling for prayer for peace and for our military personnel.
Calling for a full investigation of the alleged abuse of prisoners of war in Iraq and for adherence to the rules of the Geneva Convention.
Promotion of better relationships between Christians and Muslims based on understanding and respect for one another's beliefs.
Condemnation of terrorism and repudiation of violence."

The LDS Church has no section or a clear stand on Iraq. I had to do a search and found this article from May 2003 by Gordon Hinckley. After proclaiming that the Mormons "have no quarrel with the Muslim people" and that "...modern revelation states that we are to 'renounce war and proclaim peace' ", Hinckley seems to endorse the war:

"...we are a freedom-loving people, committed to the defense of liberty wherever it is in jeopardy. I believe that God will not hold men and women in uniform responsible as agents of their government in carrying forward that which they are legally obligated to do. It may even be that He will hold us responsible if we try to impede or hedge up the way of those who are involved in a contest with forces of evil and repression."

[As an aside, I find it humorous that Hinckley also says, "...as citizens we are all under the direction of our respective national leaders. They have access to greater political and military intelligence than do the people generally." As events have unfolded we see that, once again, Hinckley was way off the mark for someone who claimed to get revelations from God.]

Perhaps it's because the United Methodist church is more mainstream and has more members in the U.S. but they seem to be a lot more interested in helping others. The LDS Church, while it helps others, will always be enslaved to one thing: The Church™. Everything LDS members do must be with an eye singled to building the organization and making sure the organization gets good P.R. so that it will grow.

I'm jus glad I'm out of the P.R. machine.

Staying in for so long

One of the facets of human behavior that interests me is our toleration for pain, suffering and stupidity. So many of us stay in jobs, relationships, and other uncomfortable situation for long periods of time and are absolutely miserable. We put up with tons of horseshit from others.

Why?

Well, there is that strange thing called hope. We hope things will get better....we hope it will all work out eventually. Sometimes it does. Often it doesn't and we continue to put up with the garbage handed to us.

Then there is fear. We don't quit that job because we fear what will happen to us financially. We fear what will happen if we do leave a bad relationship. We fear lots of things.

At last we have duty. People may treat you like crap, but you feel duty bound to stay in that job or that relationship or in that situation and work it out. I feel duty in these situations is a mixture of guilt and ego. You feel guilty for letting the situation "whip" you and by god you are going to endure it till the bitter end!

A post today over at the exmormons board got me to thinking about this. When asked how she could think about sharing a husband in the afterlife (polygamy) one poster wrote:

"It sat on the cobwebby back shelf of my mind, right up there with JS's face in a hat and other disturbing facets of mormonism. Every now and then, it would pop out and cause me some moments of worry--but then I'd shove it farther back, and think about something else.I know. It was dumb, and no way to deal with disturbing doctrines--but that's how I did it."

After thinking about it, I realized that along with fear and guilt, I used this same process to deal with my "Mormon problems" over the years. The problem is that the shelf in your mind one day becomes over loaded with stuff and collapses. Unless you build more shelves I guess.

"You know it's true" ( I do? Well then let me bear my testimony!)

One of the problems I have discussing the LDS Church with it's members is that they usually want to know the story of why I left. I usually decline to go into any detail now because I find that they really don't want to know why I left.

The just want to argue with me about my decision to leave.

You see, in Mormonism, you start with the answer and mold the question to fit it. Therefore it's inconceivable to them that a person would leave Mormonism because they discovered that Joseph Smith was a con man and a sexual predator who made up the entire story of the First Vision. To them it's not that Mormonism isn't true, it's that Mormonism simply can't be false. You can question it, you can study all about it, you can read up on both sides of the issue. But at the end of the day there is only one conclusion: The Church is true!

There is no other option for a True Believing Mormon.

So if you leave the LDS Church, there must be some other reason why you did so.

The LDS Church seems to have an unofficial reason why members leave: Questioning and finding fault with church leaders.

The membership is a little different. People who leave the LDS Church are "weak" or"sinners who didn't want to live the commandments". No matter what you tell them, no matter what you show them, it comes down to two things:

1. "You know it's true deep down"

2."You never really had a testimony"

To me these two responses say one thing: the Mormon arguing with you doesn't want to know and really does not care where you have been and the struggles you have been through in your life with their religion. They simply want to make sure that you don't reveal their own insecurities about Mormonism and that, at the close of the conversation, a testimony of The Truth™ prevails over all. That's one reason that when logic, reason and all else fail in a conversation about the LDS Church it's members are encourage to "bear their testimonies" of the Mormon Church, Joseph Smith, The Book of Mormon, etc.

"You can't argue with a testimony" they tell you. No, and you can't argue with a mental patient who sincerely believes that he had dinner last night with George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Albert Einstein. A delusion is a delusion.

To set the record straight, deep down I know it's all a charade and that Joseph Smith was never a prophet. I once had a very strong testimony that he was until I was able to gather all the facts and look at them without blinders on.

That's my testimony.

"So what do you believe now?"

"So what do you believe now?" I get that question a lot when people find out that I've left Mormonism and no longer attend any church at all.

Let's see if I can sum it up:

I believe that in the vast expanse of the Universe that there might be a force or a persona or whatever you might want to call it that created all of this. I don't see any evidence of it but I'm open to it. That would make me an agnostic.

I don't believe in any of the gods that man has created over the last thirty to fifty thousand years to explain his place in the Universe. I don't believe in _______.(insert your personal god here). That would make me an atheist.

So I guess the best answer to "what do you believe" is agnostic atheism. Beyond that I believe in:

1. Treating others as they want to be treated
2. Reason
3. Logic
4. The Scientific Method
5. That the only real sin lies in hurting other people unnecessarily. All other sins are man made nonsense.
6. Good sushi
7. Peace, love and my family and friends

I don't believe in religion and I strongly doubt if I ever will again.

As Steven Weinberg once said, "Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you'd have good people doing good things and evil people doing bad things, but for good people to do bad things, it takes religion."

So yeah, that's what I now believe.

Let's talk about sex ("confess your crimes against the party!")

I was reading over another post that I had made and noticed that I touched on polygamy and a little on the Mormon quest for sexual purity. So let's talk a little about sex and Mormonism and how far they will go in seeking "ultra purity".

Most people have the idea that what you do sexually after age 18 is your own business and that after you get married you should stay faithful to your spouse. From what I have observed, there are different degrees of concern among the religious about pre-martial sex from thinking that it's a sin that will send you to hell to thinking that Jesus will forgive you of every broken law no matter how many times you break it.

In Mormonism, any sexual behavior outside of marriage is the equivalent of robbing a convenience store and shooting the clerk in the head on the way out. The Mormon Church and it's leaders are absolutely obsessed with sexual matters! Even more extreme, Mormonism even wants to regulate the sex lives of married persons!!! Check out a few quotes for here on how the leaders of "God's One True Church" must fight a war with the devil all the time so that married couples won't engage in oral sex.

And they wonder why people think that the Mormon Church is a cult?

Mormon leaders know that if they can use guilt to manipulate you when you are young, they can use it to keep you in line when you are older. One particularly vile old man named Spencer W. Kimball was the master of guilt about sex. He was "prophet, seer, and revelator" and President of the Mormon Church from 1973 until 1985 although he became senile much earlier than 1985. When it came to "sexual purity" Kimball was a foaming at the mouth fanatic. Here is a sample of his twisted thinking:

"Since courtship is prelude to marriage and encourages close associations, many have convinced themselves that intimacies are legitimate—a part of the courting process. Many have cast off bridle and harness and have relaxed the restraints. Instead of remaining in the field of simple expressions of affection, some have turned themselves loose to fondling, often called “necking,” with its intimate contacts and its passionate kissing. Necking is the younger member of this unholy family. Its bigger sister is called “petting.” When the intimacies have reached this stage, they are surely the sins condemned by the Savior..." [Geez! How in god's name did this man ever get an erection long enough to impregnate his wife?!?]

"Masturbation, a rather common indiscretion, is not approved of the Lord nor of his church, regardless of what may have been said by others whose “norms” are lower. Latter-day Saints are urged to avoid this practice. Anyone fettered by this weakness should abandon the habit before he goes on a mission or receives the holy priesthood or goes in the temple for his blessings.

Sometimes masturbation is the introduction to the more serious sins of exhibitionism and the gross sin of homosexuality..." (New Era, Nov 1980, 39)

So all you guys out there looking at pics of naked women on the Internet......YA GONNA ALL BECOME HOMOS!!!!

Kimball even hated it when people kissed!

"Kissing has been prostituted and has degenerated to develop and express lust instead of affection, honor, and admiration. To kiss in casual dating is asking for trouble. What do kisses mean when given out like pretzels and robbed of sacredness? What is miscalled the "soul kiss" is an abomination and stirs passions to the eventual loss of virtue. Even if timely courtship justifies the kiss it should be a clean, decent, sexless one like the kiss between mother and son, or father and daughter. "(The Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball, p.281)

It's been my experience in life that people who go on an on like this do so because they feel a need to cover-up their own private sins which turn out to be much worse than those they accuse others of. I don't know what Kimball had going on in his private life, but his teachings sure indicate something wasn't quite right. The last line of that quotation is just plain creepy!

Yet the leaders of the LDS Church are on a zealous crusade to fight passion and lust. Just as Kimball's quotes indicate, Mormon leaders are leaving no stone unturned in their witch hunt for transgressors...unless your last name is Marriott. After all, sex may be very bad and sinful, but losing tithing revenue off of 10 billion dollars is much worse!!!

If you are unlucky enough to have "sinned" sexually, then the Mormon Church has a special treat for you. You get to go an confess your sin face to face with a bishop. In the LDS Church a bishop isn't a trained clergy person. Because of their all volunteer priesthood no one (except for the leaders in Salt Lake City) gets paid so LDS bishops all work other jobs and are part-time ministers. You could be confessing to a dentist or to a bricklayer!

If your sex sin is really bad, then you must go before a group of priesthood leaders for a disciplinary council where you face a group of men and must confess your crimes..er...sins again.
Mormons like to call these "Courts of Love". Here is one example of what can go on.

The irony in all this is Joseph "horny Joe" Smith, the founder of the Mormon Church was a total sex pervert . Yet Mormons sing praises to him. Yet the average Joe has sex before marriage and gets crucified.

Just another twist in the long, strange trip through Mormonism!

The war of the underwear

From here on I'm going to share the little experiences that I had while I was in the Mormon Church. It took 15 years of my life so there are a lot of funny, sad, happy and just plain weird stories.

Today's story is in the weird category. It has to do with the sacred underwear that Mormons call the garment of the Holy Priesthood or just plain garments.

The LDS Church is the only religion I know of in which the members are required to wear special underwear. Yet not just any Mormon can wear them. You have to meet some basic requirements first. You must be a temple Mormon. Young men 19 years old and going into the mission field or young women getting married qualify. Otherwise you usually have to wait until you are 25 years old or older. Most of the time it depends on your situation but persons under 18 rarely if ever wear garments. Also you must go through a special ceremony inside the temple to get them.

That secret ceremony is briefly outlined here. I've discussed most of it in an ealirer post but after the water and oil washing and annointing you move to another booth and a temple worker puts the garments on you while repeating the following to you:

"Brother Dunn, under proper authority, the Garment placed upon you is now authorized and is to be worn throughout your life. It represents the Garment given to Adam when he was found naked in the Garden of Eden, and is called the Garment of the Holy Priesthood. Inasmuch as you do not defile it, but are true and faithful to your covenants, it will be a shield and a protection to you against the power of the destroyer until you have finished your work on the earth."

You can take the Garment off for sex, bathing and to go to the beach. Otherwise, you must keep it on all the time. I can even recall a church authority fussing at members for leaving the garments off after having sex. "After you finish you must put the Garments back on" he said.

A picture of a man and woman in their garments can be found on this link.

Before I joined Mormonism I thought garments were cool. They had certain types of mesh garments that not only looked cool but were cool in southern summers. But by god did the ever stand out if they came untucked from your clothing. The result was that you always had to make sure that your cloths were tucked in, you couldn't wear shorts and you always hoped that people would not find out about your underwear and make fun of them. Also, you could never throw them on the floor. They had to be put on a towel rack while you were in the shower. They were so very sacred...and in the long run a big pain in the ass.

When I discovered that Mormonism was a hoax, the first thing I did was ditch the garments. It was like tearing down my own personal Berlin Wall! Unfortunately my wife didn't see it that way. I'll never forget the crying jag she went on when she discovered that I had bought myself some normal underwear. She told me that the garments were symbolic of our "eternal temple marriage" (something that I had never heard before).

For the next few years we engaged in the "war of the underwear". She went out of her way to make sure I knew how "ugly" normal underwear was. It got so bad at one point that I actually put the damn things back on. After a while she realized that Satan wasn't going to ride his Harley out of hell and cut my head off for not wearing the Jesus Jammies but only after I went out in public "commando" for a few times. Better some underwear than no underwear at all.

Over the years I came to see garments for what they really were: the chains that bound you to the Mormon Church. Just part of the vast system to control the average member as much as is possible. I do know one thing: I sure don't miss them. Especially when the heat index in 105!