So I was wandering around Outer Blogness, and found a bunch more exmo blogs to add to my sidebar!!! Man, there are a lot of exmo blogs all of the sudden!!! How did that happen?
I wish I had the time to go around and contemplate them all and leave a witty and/or insightful comment on every one of them!!! If only I didn't have this pesky nine-to-five job occupying all of my valuable blogging time!!!
Plus I hit upon a stash of borderline and heretical Mormon blogs. Now everyone who is following my blog knows that I'm all about sparking a friendly discussion between current and former Mormons in order to promote understanding. So of course I was pretty happy to find this bunch, and you can rest assured that -- time permitting -- I'll be stopping by their realm with helpful commentary just as I do for my Bloggernacle friends. Since they don't really fit into "Outer Blogness" or "the Bloggernacle" I made a special section for them with an extra-special disclaimer!!!
(By the way, anyone who wants to link to my blog is more than welcome to do so... *hint, hint*)
The one blog I can't figure out though is this one: Latter Day Saints.
This link was posted to RfM as an exmo blog. Yet it claims to be an official LDS site!!! So which is it? It doesn't seem like a pro-LDS blog since I would expect a pro-Mo site to focus on happy eternal families baking cookies together like in a Norman Rockwell painting etc., whereas this one is all about airing all of the most serious LDS doctrinal issues. Yet it follows up with the standard LDS apologetic responses and nothing more...
So I'm wondering -- is it some sort of stealth-anti-Mormon site? Hoping to get unsuspecting social Mormons to wander in by accident and say: "Wait a minute... You mean the original Book of Abraham papyrus is in the church vault? And scholars have studied it and even LDS scholars agree that it is a set of ordinary Egyptian funeral documents that have nothing to do with Abraham and are not even remotely from the right time period? And that's the best the church apologists can do to explain this away???"
So by my reckoning, either it's a pro-LDS site that tried to trick the RfMers or it's an anti site trying to pass itself off as pro... Either way there appears to be some treachery involved...
Anyone else have any insights on this?
The Adventures of a Friendly French-American ExMormon Atheist Mom Living in Switzerland!!!
14 comments:
I was wondering if being an ex-Mormon is like being an ex-protestant, you just stop going to church and believing all the hogwash. Or have you actually been ex-communicated?
Onanite
Hi Onanite!!!
Lots of ex-Mormons are either excommunicated or have renounced their membership by sending the church official letters of resignation. They do this because typically the LDS church continues to "fellowship" members for decades after they have stopped actively participating.
Personally I have done neither, so I'm still on the LDS church rolls -- I've just stopped believing all the hogwash.
Interestingly, though, they don't come around and bug me. I think it's because my "I'm okay, you're okay" attitude confuses them.
I expect that they'll excommunicate me one of these days just to be rid of me, which will be a terribly entertaining event that will be covered in explicit detail here on my blog!!! :D
I went to the blog Latter Day Saints... and I think that it is pro... Reason being. Most of the comments were deleted. The article was very pro-Mormon to my way of thinking. AND, the comments that were left made one think of lite jelly salads. ;-)
PS... I was not excommunicated or asked to be taken off the rolls. My parents were very upset when I suggested it. I felt at the time that it was better to just "fade away." My sis-in-law tried to sick the missionaries on us, but my husband intimidates them. LOL
Ah, so you're a little like me.
Every time I mention on RfM that I haven't resigned, people always tell me I should take charge of the situation and send in the letter. I think it would be more funny though to make them do the leg-work if the want to be rid of me... :D
As far as the LatterDaySaints blog is concerned: It's vey naughty of them then to have tried to trick the RfMers into linking to them!!! However, it's quite helpful of them to be raising awareness among faithful Mormons of the fact that Joseph Smith "translated" the plates through a magic rock in his hat, and other such fun tidbits of wacky Mormon trivia.
Saves the exmos a lot of bother, really... :D
C.L. Yea... actually I think if they want to get rid of me... like you it is up to them. I don't tithe or do fast offerings.
One missionary tried to explain that to my husband. He gave them the look and then said: Oh... Old Testament. I choked. Of course, since they are very patriarchal... they don't bother me. I prefer not to even deal with it.
And, all my relatives are mormons. Can you think what it would be like if they couldn't talk to me because of the Mormon stance on ex-mormons??? LOL
I'm still on the fence about the Latter Day Saints blog. If the intent is more hits via the RfM crowd, then they suck. If it's a stealth move (lookin' all LDS but really being subversive and passive aggressive about the LDS weak points), then I still think they suck. Jeebus, lay it all out, be up front and honest or shut the hell up. :)
As for membership, I resigned. I haven't attended since I was 12, never paid a cent of tithing, never went on a mission, never wore garments, and never did the secret hokey pokey handshakes in the temple. As a gay man, I have high personal standards towards hedonism and self expression that I'm afraid the LDS church cannot embrace, let alone even think about :)
Chanson - I love your site. You are on my 'to-do' list: reading Exmormon. I'm not in school this quarter, so I definitely have time.
Hi c.l., thanks for linking to me...I've returned the favor on mormAnarchy (the blog where I have enough control to do so). I'm also a contributor to Purim, which is a collaboration of politically left/right and religiously faithful/not-so-faithful...I, of course, am the left-wing-moonbat-heretic.
I'm looking forward to reading and commenting here...hope you don't mind, but you kind of invited me.
Excellent... Everything is going exactly according to my evil plans... Hehehehe!!!
Um, I mean, nice to meet you, Watt!!! ;^)
Personally, I don't care in the slightest what they've decided amongst themselves as to whether or not I'm a member of their magical club.
I think it would be funny if they bothered to ex me, but aside from that it's pretty irrelevant.
(Of course that's easy for me to say living here in France where I never have to deal with them at all if I don't want to...)
They probably won't ex me though since they tend to only ex people who actually have some interest in being members... :D
p.s. I emailed you.
Yea.. when I was living in Germany they did not bother me at all. We had more problems with those pesky Jehovah Witnesses. In fact my landlord (A GERMAN WITH A SENSE OF HUMOR), would call me down to talk to him because he didnot want to... LOL
Anyway, I am too sick to be a good member (Wegener's Granulomatosis), so they don't bother me.. they bother my husband. And, he thinks they are totally nuts. While I was doing a lot of sleeping a couple years ago, he was studying the religion... because he was dealing with my family. Yep he also thinks my family is nuts, too. :-)
Hi C.L.,
Watt told me that you listed my blog. Thanks a lot.
I am a postmormon. At a cultural level, some part of me will always remain Mormon. I just don't like it when people get abused for dissenting with authority, race, or sexual orientation. While believing Mormons are eager to obey the Brethren, I suspect that many of them want to do the right thing by their neighbor.
Creating spaces where Mormons, post-Mormons, Jackmormons, Sunstone Mormons, anti-Mormons and neighbors of Mormons can talk to each other is a little revolution in itself. At least, for the few individuals that are involved.
Cheers, Hellmut
Exactly, Hellmut!!!
You've hit it right on the nose!!!
I'm still a listed member. So is my husband. When we moved to our new home someone snitched on us and gave the ward our new address!!!! Can you believe that?
The bishopric did a pop-in, because you know that's what they do when they want to corner someone who doesn't want them. I told him that I no longer believed the church was true; that I prayed about it for a year and felt it was wrong.
The bishop, who I had only men two minutes before, a stranger on my doorstep had the gall to ask me, "Were you doing something that would have kept the Holy Ghost away?"
They harrassed us for two years. This ward is good. We got multiple calls, letters and visits every single month.
There must have been a leadership change because it all suddenly stopped. I haven't bothered to have my name removed. I kind of enjoyed having funny stories to tell my friends.
I agree Noell -- the stories alone are a good reason to to bother to send in the letter!!! :D
Looks like Cynthia has a similar idea...
Those Mormons work in mysterious ways, don't they? ;^)
On an unrelated note, I'm surprised nobody has asked me the obvious question: "What do you mean you're all about 'sparking a friendly discussion'? I thought you were all about trains!!! what happened to trains?"
;^)
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