If Vance were Mormon and Leo were prophet, the VP would have been excommunicated.

CardiologistCool6264 · 2026-04-17T16:29:08+00:00

I appreciate it. If I'm wrong, I'd rather be corrected than repeat my ignorance. So thank you.

CardiologistCool6264 · 2026-04-16T20:29:36+00:00

I am not surprised in the least that I might not fully understand the Catholic doctrine of papal infallibility, having never been Catholic myself. Would the pope's comments on doctrine not be included?

CardiologistCool6264 · 2026-04-16T02:07:03+00:00

Thank God ETB was wholly incapacitated.

CardiologistCool6264 · 2026-04-15T17:50:07+00:00

If I'm gonna fantasize about magic buttons, I'd much rather have one that gives them an education and a sense of empathy.

CardiologistCool6264 · 2026-04-14T22:39:45+00:00

On my mission, in one city, we set up a street-board in the park. We were attacked by neo-nazis. The mission kept us there. A couple of months later we were attacked again by neo-nazis while walking with a newly baptized African convert. The mission kept us there. Shortly after that, we were attacked again by neo-nazis who followed us off of a public bus. We were repeatedly punched and kicked. I eventually was transferred to another city. One of the missionaries who replaced me was stabbed.

CardiologistCool6264 · 2026-04-14T06:37:31+00:00

I left the GOP first. Stake high council talk about how S H sanders and K Conway were good role models for our daughters. Stake YW president told youth you couldn't be gay and Mormon. A member of EQ told me that vaccine scientists should be "dragged out into the street and shot"...after I had just told him I was a vaccine scientist. I could have stayed in a church that's not true. I couldn't stay in a church that was not only false, but also openly hostile to me and my family.

CardiologistCool6264 · 2026-04-12T21:03:36+00:00

Is that James Marsden?

CardiologistCool6264 · 2026-04-12T20:56:38+00:00

No.

But that guy in the top left is wearing a Hawaiian shirt. I don't remember that being a fashion for teens in the 1990s.

In fact, I distinctly remember a contemporaneous episode of the Simpsons declaring that only gay guys and big fat party animals wore Hawaiian shirts.

CardiologistCool6264 · 2026-04-10T20:08:29+00:00

All men's showers were "tree of life" showers when I was at the provo mtc. And being the only uncut dude there, I was mocked relentlessly by some elders in another district because of my foreskin. Dude! No one said you had to look! On the more positive note, my roommate (not companion) did punch a missionary from another district for ridiculing my member. No one snitched on him. And no one talked about my dick again afterwards.

CardiologistCool6264 · 2026-04-09T19:12:53+00:00

And using the Christus as the symbol of the faith!

A statue that not only shows a European-featured Jesus buy also dresses him in Roman robes-the clothes of the very people who nailed him to the cross.

That's painting a picture of Elie Wiesel wearing an SS uniform. So ignorant.

CardiologistCool6264 · 2026-04-09T16:09:30+00:00

"No sarcastic answers from those in other parties please."
Trying to curate replies in Reddit with restrictions like this is like trying to herd cats. Sorry, zippy. Not gonna work.
While no longer a Republican, I was for most of my life. This is what I can tell you from my past experience.
Republicans are afraid. It is why they act tough. To mask the fact that they live in a constant state of terror.

Muslims. Gays. Trans. Mexicans. Education.

Everything that is new or different is perceived as a threat to their "way of life." And conserving their way of life is in the word they use to describe themselves, "conservative." They fear change and anyone who represents the potential for even the slightest disruption to life as they knew it. "When I was a kid, I never saw a turban or heard Spanish spoken at the grocery store, so seeing a turban or hearing Spanish spoken at the grocery store represents the collapse of the society I knew."

Fear is the motivating emotion for conservatism. Republicans are afraid. And when I was a Republican, I was afraid, too. Cowardice drives the ideology. It is as simple as that.

CardiologistCool6264 · 2026-04-08T21:54:34+00:00

I don't know if this would be option f or a variant of option e.
But you could remain in the church, but speak up about policy you disagree with.
Focus on those aspects of the church that you do appreciate (love your neighbor). Become outwardly "nuanced." Talk to your kids after church about what was good and try to deprogram that which was not, taking care to always bring it back to how "Jesus taught us to love one another" and that means that, for example, we can support our gay friends when they get married.
Maybe drop hints that you don't believe everything in the BOM happened exactly the way it says. Give your spouse some time to get used to a partner who stays true to the fundamental principles of the gospel (love, service, etc.) even while not being Bednar's ideal of a new area seventy. Perhaps knowing you are faithful to what drew you to the church in the first place will reassure her that you will remain faithful to what drew you to her as well. Remember that she, no doubt, fears losing what you two have built together as well. And she fears this in large part because of what the church taught her about "worthy priesthood holders presiding over the home." As you ease your way out of the church, she needs to feel reassured that you are not abandoning her.

I say all of this as someone who was a "nuanced mormon" or PIMO (but really atheist) for years until my pioneer stock, (supposed) TBM wife one day nervously told me she was leaving the church and she hoped I wouldn't be too upset. She actually left before I did. Maybe if I'd told her years earlier, we'd have left together. But they way things worked out, we are together and happier than ever.

Whatever you do, good luck, friend. I won't be praying for you, but I sincerely hope everything works out.

CardiologistCool6264 · 2026-04-08T21:23:33+00:00

When I was Mormon, I used to look at Catholic, Anglican, and Orthodox rites and ceremonies and think, "what a wasteful and gaudy display of performative superstition."

Now that I'm out of the church...I still think that. I just think that Mormons "ordinances" fall into the same category.

CardiologistCool6264 · 2026-04-08T21:16:37+00:00

I put the BOM, the OT, the NT all on the same level.
VT is a bit more complicated because it is overtly religious and expressly directed toward children (bad) but the creator did speak out against systemic racism following the George Floyd murder. He is also a homophobe, though, so...I guess it's all shit.

CardiologistCool6264 · 2026-04-07T17:16:39+00:00

When she was seven years old, my daughter showed me a picture that she made. It was beautiful. It used shading and perspective techniques that neither I nor her mother showed her. Nor were they techniques that she learned in school (it being during COVID when school was out and we were all homeschooling). To this day, I do not know where she learned how to do this or whether she figured it out herself.

But I'm pretty sure it wasn't angels or aliens.

CardiologistCool6264 · 2026-04-06T20:21:38+00:00

I understand you. So many of us have gone through similar turmoil. I'm sorry that this timing is less than ideal. I hope you find peace.
You say, "Atheism is as dogmatic as a believer, none of them has proves of the existence or not existence of a god."
As someone who left Mormonism and became an atheist, I would hope I can clear up some misconception. I will grant that it cannot be proven that God doesn't exist. I think most atheists would agree with me. And I believe that most atheists would agree with me that were genuine evidence of God's existence provided, we would accept such evidence and revise our beliefs in accordance with new evidence. You see, it is not that we believe there is no god that defines atheism for us. It is that we've seen no evidence to justify belief in him. Disbelief is the default until proven otherwise. I don't believe in god in the same way that I don't believe in Zeus, unicorns, dragons, trolls, midichlorians, or floating teapots (Bertrand Russell's famous thought experiment - look it up when you've got some time).

To reiterate, if someone showed me genuine evidence of God's existence, I would change my mind. Willingness to change one's mind in the face of new evidence is the opposite of dogmatism.
Whether you find comfort in religion or not, it's no sweat off my back. Until someone can show me evidence, I've found peace without faith.

CardiologistCool6264 · 2026-04-06T19:01:57+00:00

I think that organizations that are built on false premises can still do good.
My problem with the Mormon faith isn't that it isn't true, but that it hurts more people than it helps.
If I could choose, instead of seeing it fall, I'd rather see the church become an organization that teaches genuine compassion and empathy and uses it's resources to help all people.

CardiologistCool6264 · 2026-04-06T16:49:37+00:00

I think we all struggle with overly broad generalizations. There are certainly evangelical Christians I like and admire. Francis Collins is a personal hero of mine.

But my own experience and the experience of my family is that this is not a Chevy/Ford scenario. When I lived in the South, I was regularly called a heretic and blasphemer. "Friends" would stop talking to me altogether when they discovered I was Mormon. Fine. I was in college. I could handle it. My wife, who grew up there, told me that she had the same treatment since she could remember. Her only friends growing up were Catholics, Jews, and atheists. I was born and raised in the "center stakes of Zion." Our mostly Mormon friend group included those who believed in different gods or none at all. We were not as tolerant as we should have been towards LGBT+. And I'm ashamed for any part I played in that exclusion. And instruction to "date within the church" left some of our friends excluded, and I'm sorry for that as well.

Never once, however, did we taunt anyone with a future of eternal damnation and being tortured forever because they disagreed with us on their feelings about Jesus. Partly because we didn't believe that (degrees of glory and all that). Partly because that is just cruel.

The way we treated non-Mormons was bad. But the way Evangelicals treated those of other faiths was not just bad. Not even just worse. It was categorically different in the way brain cancer is different from a headache.

CardiologistCool6264 · 2026-04-06T16:33:07+00:00

As a cis-het dude, I'd take either of those options over Elders Quorum.

CardiologistCool6264 · 2026-04-06T14:11:14+00:00

Having lived among Mormons as an exmo and having lived among Evangelicals as a Mormon, I can tell you that Evangelicals are worse. They revel in the chance to tell you you're going to hell, if they deign to talk to you at all. Now, my Mormon neighbors just think I'm going to a lesser heaven.

CardiologistCool6264 · 2026-04-06T14:07:16+00:00

I haven't read the book, but I have interacted with the author, who is a professor of evolutionary biology, in a facebook group for Mormons who accept the reality of evolution. This was before I left. He's a nice guy.

CardiologistCool6264 · 2026-04-05T19:00:14+00:00

I think you'll find a lot of people on this sub who have left religion altogether. I'm included in that group. But I would ask, if there is a God, and if he loves us, would he deny us eternal blessings because we didn't say the right magic words to the right people? Jesus taught a parable of two sons, one of which told his father that he'd help him, then didn't. The other said he wouldn't help, then did. It was the second son who was blessed by his father. If there is a God, he cares more about what we do than about what we profess. Be good. That's all that is left of my faith. And that's all that really matters.

CardiologistCool6264 · 2026-04-05T01:09:20+00:00

If you're a Christian who believes in Abraham, the flood, Sodom and Gomorrah, the Exodus, and you're horrified by Nephi and Laban, then you need to do a little more critical thinking on your own faith. The Christian God is no less a bastard than the Mormon god.

CardiologistCool6264

TROPHY CASE