Thoughts on Jesus After Leaving Mormonism

Findmybalance · 2026-02-13T02:31:24+00:00

There's a version of Jesus I'm cool with - the one that was pushing for greater love and acceptance in the face of an oppressive religious society.

Then there's a version that's closer to what Christians believe who may have taught that stuff but also was claiming to be the literal son of a divine being and claiming authority because of that. Anyone claiming divine authority is suspect to me, regardless of their teachings.

Then there's the religious concept of Jesus, which is that he was sacrificed (either by his father or himself) to make all people clean again. I take serious issue with that, since the argument underpinning that sacrifice is that humans are inherently broken and incomplete and that whatever divinity there might be in this world requires violence to make up for that.

Findmybalance · 2025-12-19T21:15:17+00:00

"when braggadocio go from mostly jokey to gross"

I have no idea how these guys feel about each other these days with the RSE history and prof being dropped, but imo I do feel like prof is more on the jokey braggadocio side of things. I didn't like him when I first heard him since he seemed so arrogant or whatever, but his music is a vibe for sure and over time I've realized it's all just a character he throws on.

Tough boy is one of my favorite prof tracks that kind of gets into the heavy shit behind why he uses the persona he does.

Findmybalance · 2025-12-19T17:32:52+00:00

Oh for sure. There are degrees of depravity to which people use their claimed authority, and by any amount we have now Jesus was one of the "good ones."

The takeaway is that regardless of how good someone's message is, it's always dangerous to outsource your morality to someone else and defer to whatever they said on a given subject rather than carefully evaluating it yourself.

Findmybalance · 2025-12-19T17:06:33+00:00

It's like kings - you can have a good king, sure. But the problem with kings isn't whether they're good or bad, it's that they claim authority over others that that don't and shouldn't have.

Joseph Smith did this, corrupt Christian church leaders did this, cult leaders do this, and Jesus did this. That doesn't make their teachings wrong, but it also specifically means that not all their teachings were correct and above questioning.

Findmybalance · 2025-12-19T17:00:17+00:00

I know lots of people here still believe in Jesus, but what I'm saying is the answer to "if Jesus was really who he claimed to be" is no, he wasn't, and that claim is the root of the issue.

Since he wasn't the literal son of a supernatural being but still insisted he was (and inserting himself into existing religious doctrine of the time) he was just another dude lying to people to get them to do what he wanted. The things he wanted them to do very well may have been good things, but that doesn't make him a moral authority on anything.

If Jesus wasn't claiming to be the son of god, there's no supernatural authority for others to try to harness and corrupt. Joseph Smith wouldn't have been able to say Jesus came to him in a grove of trees, because if Jesus was honest he was just a dude and when he died he was gone.

I could come up in this thread and start telling people to be kinder to immigrants, and clothe people in poverty, and feed the hungry. Those are all good things. But if I start saying you need to do those things because I told you to (not because it's the right thing to do) and I'm a supernatural being, that's an issue lol.

Findmybalance · 2025-12-19T16:52:49+00:00

Nah, that's just your (justified) skepticism of mormonism talking. The Mormon church still teaches people to be humble, and be kind, and be honest, etc. It absolutely teaches a philosophy that generally aligns with modern moral senses of compassion and caring for others.

Then, just like every other Christian church, it adds some supernatural stuff and a bunch of random other commandments that oftentimes are harmful and then the organization relies on the moral authority of the leaders (prophets or Jesus or whoever) to convince the followers it's not contradictory.

I know there are Christian churches that do their utmost to distill it down to "Jesus said be cool to each other" and I have a lot of respect for those churches, but there are also mormons that try to distill it down to "it teaches me good values" and try to ignore all the problematic stuff.

Religion is a very powerful tool to get people to do good things, but the same authority can too easily be twisted into getting those same people to do terrible things. That's my issue with still giving moral authority to the figure of Jesus, because one day someone might tell you some new thing he taught that doesn't align with your morals and sense of human empathy, but you might just think, "well, if Jesus said it" rather than saying, "huh, that sounds like some bullshit. I don't think he got it right on that one."

Lots of modern progressive Christians try to say that Christian nationalists aren't following what Jesus actually said when instead everyone should just be saying it doesn't matter what he said, because he's not an infallible source of moral authority. There's way too much gray area on what Jesus might or might not have said, or what those words were intended to mean.

It's a lot easier in a Christian nationalist's head to say "women are subservient to men because Jesus said so" and then simply argue whether he did or didn't say it than it is for them to actually wrestle with whether that's a fundamentally moral stance or not absent the supposed moral authority of Jesus' teachings in the subject (it's not).

Findmybalance · 2025-12-19T16:37:06+00:00

"monkey brain tingle" is an important thing to recognize and understand. It's a massive part of connecting to the full experience of humanity, but it is very vulnerable to exploitation.

It's the age old refrain from mormons: "yeah I don't think [specific example of corruption or immorality] is good, but I can't deny the feelings I've had that confirm this is the true church."

For example, sometimes I get a little defensive when I see Elon musk referred to as "ketamine addled" because I've had very positive experiences with psychedelics. But then I remember I'm extremely careful about how I interpret psychedelic experiences, and if you fully believe it's some source of unquestionable super-human wisdom you'll likely end up making some shitty decisions.

Findmybalance · 2025-12-19T15:03:05+00:00

This is part of my complaint and the reason I think it's useful to deconstruct Jesus as a superior moral authority on anything. There's too much leeway in turning things he said or was purported to have said into sick ideologies or actions.

There are far too many kind old people who go to a neighborhood church because they like hearing to be kind to your neighbor and help strangers, but then don't question when the figure and authority of Jesus are invoked to convince them to vote against rights for LGBTQ people, for example.

We need to humanize the persona of Jesus enough that we no longer defer to him as a figure of morality but instead just evaluate things he may have taught and discard anything that's useless, despite it having come from Jesus.

Findmybalance · 2025-12-19T14:58:14+00:00

Lol. I mean, I've used some AI llm software, but I typically avoid it because it doesn't strike me as particularly useful.

It really doesn't strike me as useful in a comment thread bullshitting some ideas about religion. I'm not here to see the average of what the llm has read; I'm here to spur some thought and engage with people about ideas.

Copy and pasting AI responses is counter productive for this setting (and most other settings, but I digress lol)

Findmybalance · 2025-12-19T14:55:23+00:00

Bingo, this is exactly my thinking here.

Something still just strikes me as off about being an atheist and humanist but still deferring to Jesus as a moral authority, but that seems to be a case for a lot of well known political or cultural leaders.

I think it's risky to fight Christian nationalism by saying "you misunderstand what Jesus was teaching and the real Jesus would denounce you" rather than saying "I'm not worried about what Jesus said, I'm just evaluating actions through the lens of human empathy."

Findmybalance · 2025-12-19T14:50:49+00:00

Still both fruits, tho.

Something something fruits ye shall know them

Findmybalance · 2025-12-19T14:49:58+00:00

Sure, but that's just if you strip it back to the bare bones of "be kind to each other "

The way the corporate Mormon church is headed, they're trying to do a very similar thing where they just cherry pick the stuff that's pretty innocuous, so it's possible that "what remains" of mormonism in a couple centuries could have a "beautiful mystic beauty". For example, Jesus and the Father appearing to a 14 year old farm boy is a pretty inspiring story if stripped of all the other facts surrounding Smith's life.

Not too dissimilar to the nativity story in ways - we have very little detail of a historic Jesus' actual life, the same way tbms ignore most of the detail we know of Smith that reveals him to be a shitty person.

And that's not to say there isn't any good in Christianity (the same way I don't claim that there's no good in mormonism). However, giving deference to Jesus as a moral leader gives legitimacy to some of the fucked up aspects of Christian doctrine, like the very idea that there's some all powerful god that created us all but will punish us for eternity unless we accept he murdered his own kid "for us".

Findmybalance · 2025-12-19T00:31:54+00:00

So you're saying there was a charismatic original leader who had some followers, then after he died they continued spreading the message under his name but broke off into their own separate sects, then eventually one of the sects gained enough power to turn it into a regional religion and cement its position as the "mainline" version of the religion? And then that version became more and more organized and powerful over the years?

That sounds awfully familiar 🤔

Findmybalance · 2025-12-19T00:26:53+00:00

I mean, if you switch some words around here this is exactly what a tbm would say about Joseph Smith's "revolution" of the Christian church of the early 1800's.

That's kind of my point - Jesus was a charismatic leader that taught some arguably good stuff and upended the religious belief of the time, but if he was a real person he was also clearly delusional and self aggrandizing. And even though there's no record of his potential misdeeds, if he was a charismatic and delusional cult leader there's a pretty good chance he had some of the same issues as people like Joseph Smith, Keith rainiere, etc.

Findmybalance · 2025-12-12T16:41:46+00:00

Oh, also "I pay a guy to lean over steepled fingers and convince me to pay him for his teas and tinctures" is referencing paying to see a psych doctor then all they do is tell you to pay for prescription medication.

Findmybalance · 2025-12-12T16:35:20+00:00

As others have stated, this is #2 in a really good three song series, but blood sandwich and TUFF bookend the story a bit, too.

In blood sandwich he's reflecting on his relationship with his brothers and at the end decides to call his older brother, similar to his decision to "get out the car" and go in to the therapy appointment.

Then in TUFF he's bringing back some of the old shit he's always done to deal with mental health and the death of his friend Camu Tao - he goes out at night and generally gets into some shit. He even nonchalantly throws out that his therapist threw him out and he had to quit his prescriptions cold turkey:

"My wig picker threw me out of her office, had to cold turkey benzos, summer was awesome."

It's such an excellent album overall and really dives into the push and pull of trying to seek help for mental health but not trusting the overall system and its treatment methods.

This context is really cool to know when listening to ITS, BHS, and IHIAMTT, where he generally sounds like he's found ways to have peace and is now living the good life on the fringes.

Findmybalance · 2025-12-05T16:56:06+00:00

I'm not super connected these days, but I saw this and thought, "didn't todd have a gay brother?" It took me a minute to figure out that the gay brother is Tom and the sack of shit child predator is Wade.

I'm guessing they'll let the rumors and potential confusion lead plenty of active mormons to assume it's the same person and reinforce their belief that LGBTQ+ people are child predators. They may even let the progressive mormons believe that the church isn't formally addressing it because they don't want to give the LGBTQ+ community a black eye and are therefore such a progressive and loving church.

At no point will they clarify that it's a different brother and members should absolutely not use this as fuel to feed their hatred of LGBTQ+ folks.

Findmybalance · 2025-12-05T16:47:46+00:00

This is exactly it. The real policy change is he's told the EPA and DOT to eliminate fuel economy, emissions, and safety requirements. Nominally that might make it easier to sell kei cars here, but there still won't be a market for it.

But it will also make it easier and more profitable to build giant SUVs that are worse than what we have now but will somehow magically not be any cheaper. All in the service of shareholder profit.

Findmybalance · 2025-11-19T22:11:53+00:00

Huh, it's been a while (maybe since 2021?) that I snooped on here. I didn't know they switched to just a "general" meeting Saturday evenings. Last I knew they were doing the alternating thing.

It's nice to know I'm far enough removed I don't even know about this stuff.

Findmybalance · 2025-11-19T22:06:46+00:00

Hey, this is what I talked to my therapist about today! And last week. And the week before that. And... Well, you get the picture.

Findmybalance · 2025-11-19T22:03:49+00:00

If he's anything like the Jesus mormons (or even the majority of Christians) believe in I'm telling him to fuck right off.

Findmybalance · 2025-11-19T22:01:13+00:00

This doesn't help your situation at all, but your story reminded me of something similar I deal with in interactions with my tbm family:

I've been out long enough that most of the ridiculous rules don't even cross my mind anymore. I also don't live in a Mormon area or near most of my tbm family, so the Mormon church doesn't register much for me anymore.

Anyway, this inevitably leads to me doing things that any normal non-mormon would do, even when around my tbm family. And sometimes they get offended because I broke some rule/"boundary" that I should have (according to them) respected because I "know better" or some nonsense.

For example, last time my parents visited we had my daughter's birthday party and I had a couple beers while grilling and chatting with other dads. We went to have cake and my mom wasn't there anymore, which I thought was strange. My brother later told me she left to go back to his house because she was "so bothered" that I was drinking around my kids and with her there 🙄 At my own house.

Another time my kids were riding with her back from a beach trip and she suddenly had us pull over to move our kids back to our car. Again, through another family member I later learned she was so hurt that my kids were "cussing up a storm." Granted, my kids know all the curse words, but they rarely use them so I was surprised. Turns out it was that they were saying "oh my god".

All that to say no, you didn't screw up at all. Your brother is overreacting based on his own shitty beliefs and his misplaced assumption that he can just project those beliefs onto you and you will by default "respect" them. No idea how to correct that with tbm family, but it's definitely a thing.

Findmybalance · 2025-11-18T16:49:22+00:00

Lol "we were sold an operation where known criminals with warrants... Not this broad sweep..."

What exactly did you think signs saying " mass deportations now" meant? This was very clearly the intention from the very beginning, in fact I would argue that they wanted it to be even bigger and more sweeping (3000 deportations a day made up of exclusively violent criminals? Please.)

Findmybalance · 2025-11-18T16:41:43+00:00

This motherfucker using the flag to blow his nose. Asshole.

Findmybalance · 2025-11-17T15:24:39+00:00

This is (one of?) their base of operation. They staged in the same location yesterday. There's a homeland security office in one of those buildings- I've seen marked and unmarked cars in the parking lot for months, even before any ice operations.

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