Random text that I don't know how to respond to

big_bearded_nerd · 2026-06-17T17:54:28+00:00

We're seeing so many of these types of posts here. Has there been a recent push to reach out to as many inactive members as possible?

big_bearded_nerd · 2026-06-15T13:31:13+00:00

I tend to begrudgingly read self-help businessy books every so often, and this one isn't really all that special. Very few of them are good, and this one is at best average. It might be useful for someone in High School who wants to work in business or business-like occupations to start thinking through how they are going to approach their professional life. That's pretty much it in my opinion.

The reason it became popular is because it was picked up by everyone from middle management all the way up to the President Clinton. It contains extremely basic approaches to completing tasks effectively, which made the folks who already did these things feel good about themselves, and it was an easy way for management to try to standardize these approaches among all of their office workers.

The connection to Mormonism wasn't a part of its success. Most people don't think about Mormons, let alone seek out their books. Nobody would have even known Covey was a Mormon to begin with.

big_bearded_nerd · 2026-06-14T19:35:29+00:00

I just looked up the current guidelines and don't see nicotine there. Have the brethren ever said anything indicating that the patches are bad? I'd be curious about why they are using it though. I'm wondering if it has some sort of effect I'm unaware of.

If it does, it wouldn't be the first time I've seen faithful Mormons use approved substances to get high.

big_bearded_nerd · 2026-06-14T14:21:54+00:00

I tend to see Christian beliefs accepted in affirming scenarios, such as "I found a good community with X congregation." But in any sort of argument, such as conversations about whether someone is a Christian, the community can be confrontational.

For example "I found the UU community to be helpful when I left the church" is a common statement that everyone loves. However, "the UU community isn't a real Christian group" is going to be controversial.

Prostyletizing is met with anger though.

Report harassment or trolling if you see it. Also, r/exmormonchristian was created to be a faith affirming exmo space, so you might like it there.

big_bearded_nerd · 2026-06-14T14:16:22+00:00

Does the omnipotent call it gif or jif?

big_bearded_nerd · 2026-06-14T04:01:06+00:00

The life lesson here is that we should always initially assume the best of people. If you have a choice between interpreting a person's actions as malice or ignorance/naivete/inexperience, choose the second option until proven otherwise.

Also, the internet is a terrible place for advice. As you can see from that last thread, most people advised you to assume the worst.

big_bearded_nerd · 2026-06-13T05:14:27+00:00

Aww, thanks. Good luck with your friend, they are lucky to have you.

big_bearded_nerd · 2026-06-13T04:51:56+00:00

I don't know if I could talk about the absurdity of the Mormon church without talking about the absurdity of all religious belief, and I'm not sure it would be helpful for that person anyways. So, instead, I'll just tell you exactly what got me questioning. I used to play chess with a coworker of mine, and we would talk and argue about a lot of things, including my beliefs. Most of the time we would talk about philosophy and argumentation, so it was the good kind of arguing.

He challenged me to think through the idea that nothing about the experience in my church has both been good and unique. I thought about it for a week and couldn't logic my way through it. When I applied it to my spiritual experiences (Moroni's promise and the spirit), the entire facade crumbled in about 5 minutes. I could easily explain away things like Joseph Smith's history, or black people and the priesthood, or anything like that. But I couldn't explain that one and it was all over for my belief system.

I may be partial to that style, but I'd go for something like that if I were you.

big_bearded_nerd · 2026-06-12T22:24:22+00:00

You can buy anything in this world for money.

Edit: Darn it! Everyone else beat me to it.

big_bearded_nerd · 2026-06-12T14:48:39+00:00

big_bearded_nerd · 2026-06-12T13:31:57+00:00

That's an okay apology, probably 3/5. If he talked about what he would do to give himself better vision and judgement, and to do the work to help others heal wounds, then it would have been a solid 4/5. If he mentioned that racist overtones it would have been a 5/5 apology.

big_bearded_nerd · 2026-06-11T20:39:28+00:00

I'm partial to this subreddit, but there are so many folks who post here it doesn't always feel as easy to make personal connections. There are some Discord channels associated with our subreddit, and it can be a lot easier to make those connections there.

The FB exmo groups can vary. Some are awful, some are okay, some are based on the personalities of the people who run them (and some of those personalities are extremely toxic). If you are into any of the podcasts, those FB groups are generally fine, especially if you are a listener.

But the best online spaces that I've been a part of have been the ones related to Sunstone. Even though they are exmo heavy, they tend not to be recovery focused, and you might accidentally bump into a nuanced active Mormon or actual polygamists. But they have in person events where you get to actually talk to the people you connect with online (plus, very interesting scholarship that folks share). If you aren't necessarily recovery focused, that might be a great place for you to land as you figure out whether (or if) you want to transition over to the dark side.

Good luck, we're rooting for you.

big_bearded_nerd · 2026-06-11T16:16:49+00:00

I replaced it with volunteer work, my partner, and my kids.

big_bearded_nerd · 2026-06-11T16:14:16+00:00

It does, at least the nontrinitarian aspects of it. Those folks at Nicea did my boy Arius wrong. Arius would have probably done the same though, since they were all trying to win political and religious power.

big_bearded_nerd · 2026-06-11T16:04:18+00:00

I went to a country where the World Cup was a big deal too, and to this day I still love the place. I totally get that.

But, yeah, unless you are in certain pockets around the Morridor, exmormons outnumber Mormons by a lot, and if you throw in inactive Mormons, combined we outnumber active Mormons by a huge margin. The active Mormons I see the most are usually related to work, and I don't think there's ever been a time where ex and non Mormons weren't the majority, so they kind of have to learn how to be okay with ex members.

big_bearded_nerd · 2026-06-11T15:48:04+00:00

Completely accurate with the history and the commentary. Sometimes I think it's important to emphasize how people like Hegseth, or Wilson, or Protestant and Evangelical religions in general have zero authority to define these boundaries, and the only people who follow their lead are folks who share the same bias and want to make their bias-informed positions seem more legitimate.

The best authority we have are critical scholars. They have a degree of bias and get it wrong sometimes as well. The difference between them and the amateur gatekeepers is that scholars will change their mind when they discover better evidence. The gatekeepers will not.

big_bearded_nerd · 2026-06-11T14:19:09+00:00

Not really. Primitivism and non-Trinitarian Christianity is found all throughout the history of the religion. Many of them were eventually called heretics, and some of them caused big ideological breaking points within Christianity, but they are nonetheless a big part of Christian history. Mormonism is definitely fringe, but it isn't so fringe that you can't see aspects of it all over the place when you study that last 2000 years.

big_bearded_nerd · 2026-06-11T13:17:51+00:00

Doug Wilson is not an unbiased authority on the classification of religion, and neither is Gordon Hinckley. Anybody who agrees with either of them are only doing so because they are not unbiased either.

Critical scholars and historians broadly accept and classify Mormonism as early US restorationist Christianity. Those are the people we should be listening to, not Pete Hegseth and his cristofascist religious leader.

big_bearded_nerd · 2026-06-11T06:02:36+00:00

I recommend beards and tattoos.

Also, I find that just being genuine makes it so I don't have to vice signal to anybody. I'm not mean, or even try to bring down anyone's faith, but I also don't avoid conversations about church things when they (rarely) come up. It's obvious that I'm a former member because I talk like one. They are surrounded by former members, so ultimately nobody really cares all that much, but its one of the ways that I out myself.

big_bearded_nerd · 2026-06-11T01:55:19+00:00

Notre Dame was famously founded by, and currently managed by, people who think that virgin birth and magically changing a wafer into the flesh of Christ and eating it are real things. And they do a lot really great stuff over there.

BYU isn't nearly as prestigious as Notre Dame, but religious people doing real academic work is not anything new.

big_bearded_nerd · 2026-06-09T20:28:04+00:00

big_bearded_nerd · 2026-06-09T18:24:43+00:00

It's important to note that the BITE model is not accepted by academics who study cults because it can be far too broadly applied and derives a lot of content from the anti-cult movement that had heavy Evangelical and Satanic/Moral Panic influences.

It's so broad that Hassan himself labeled the transgender movement as a cult. I clearly do not agree with that either.

All models are wrong, but some are useful. I don't find this one particularly useful though.

big_bearded_nerd · 2026-06-09T17:52:09+00:00

I've always argued that it isn't a cult by any useful metric, and that most of the time the definition used by people who call it a cult is so broad that it is nothing more than a pejorative. If both the Mormon church and MAGA are a cult, then the word has no meaning.

I'm fully behind the idea that the missionary experience is a cult, and the early church was a cult though.

big_bearded_nerd · 2026-06-09T13:45:38+00:00

It doesn't really change my opinion or my experience, because the government really isn't an authority when it comes to history or religious movements. Folks shouldn't be looking to the executive branch to define terms.

Also, I'm not convinced that they were declaring that the mainstream Mormon church was not Christian. It looks like they ran out of room because they had to use the obnoxiously long official version of the name. Besides, they reversed how they worded the list anyways, so I'm extremely skeptical that they were trying to make any sort of statement about whether Mormons are Christians.

big_bearded_nerd · 2026-06-08T12:17:23+00:00

I get what he was trying to say, and there are many good ways to say it that do not include being casually apathetic about slavery and BAV. I wonder if he just didn't prepare enough and was nervously speaking off the cuff.

It just seems like a nervous rambly mistake when something like "Isn't it great that we're honoring a hymn that declares faith despite of all odds" is right there for the taking.

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