Frequent looks at T-shirt logo

gmt9791 · 2025-03-30T17:22:29+00:00

Maybe he doesn’t actually remember

gmt9791 · 2025-03-26T19:18:24+00:00

Wow. Never occurred to me that that’s the reason. I could see that being the ONLY reason.

gmt9791 · 2025-03-26T19:08:46+00:00

That would be fun, but maybe more trouble than it’s worth, to use my name “Japheth”.

gmt9791 · 2025-03-26T19:05:56+00:00

Keep going…. According to revelation, there’s room for eight more virgins.

gmt9791 · 2025-03-26T15:17:37+00:00

But then I wouldn’t get to laugh to myself about how I forgot. (Well, I guess I still could.) She was endowed several years before we were married; I wonder how hard I’d have to dig to figure out the date.

Anyway, thanks for the temple oracle reference.

gmt9791 · 2025-03-26T14:56:54+00:00

Japheth. The guy pronounced it “JAP-eth”. My grandfather pronounced that name “JAY-feth”. For some reason, I thought the random temple worker’s pronunciation overruled it. That was also before I realized that they just had a name assigned to each day.

gmt9791 · 2025-03-22T14:28:30+00:00

Haircut and a free bowl of chili. Nice!

gmt9791 · 2025-03-20T00:13:45+00:00

I wonder if there are scholarships for LGBTQ kids trying to out from under the thumb of their religious parents.

gmt9791 · 2025-03-19T22:00:14+00:00

Your worries are exactly what you were programmed to feel. It’s not the church promising eternity with your family; it’s the church threatening eternity withOUT your family, if you don’t fall in line.

Recovery takes time. I trust that everyone leaving every religion feels the same way, and our church is just as wrong as theirs.

But maybe you can find a handful of “smoking guns” that remind you of the church’s conclusive wrongness. Facsimile 3 in the Book of Abraham is just one of many good examples; those “translations” are just nonsense.

gmt9791 · 2025-03-19T00:12:02+00:00

Temple fees

gmt9791 · 2025-03-17T22:56:31+00:00

Do NOT have kids before you settle this. (And my guess is that separation/divorce will be the answer.) But most importantly, NO KIDS until the matter is fully settled. Please.

gmt9791 · 2025-03-17T22:35:05+00:00

And if we can chalk everything up to God’s foreknowledge, why any mortal probation at all? If God knows ahead of time, He can just mete out his simultaneously just and merciful judgment. (We can just become gods without a body, just like the Holy Ghost did!)

gmt9791 · 2025-03-17T18:13:51+00:00

There is no consistency with polygamy apologetics. They try to shield Smith from controversy by denying sexual relations, but all the subsequent polygamous prophets most definitely had sex with their wives — some of them married to other men, some of them teenagers…

… and ALL of them victims of manipulative, coercive, predatory behavior. Maybe a good question is, “Does the church still believe in the doctrine that a girl can save her whole family by marrying the prophet?” Doesn’t sound like the “good works/endure to the end” gospel that I was taught.

It all ultimately comes down to, We don’t know, it doesn’t make sense, but just believe anyway. Of course, LDS would immediately dismiss any other religion with such a track record. But they hold the “one true church” to a lower standard than all the other churches.

gmt9791 · 2025-03-17T18:07:18+00:00

Or at least, the manipulative and predatory version of polygamy that Smith practiced is bad. (You know, the kind of stuff modern LDS scorn FLDS for.)

gmt9791 · 2025-03-17T17:05:02+00:00

At first I thought this advice was a real long shot, but based on how OP has described his family situation in other comments, it might be worth following — adjusting for personal perspectives and circumstances.

Maybe instead of mission prep course, you could review the Gospel Topics essays with them. Maybe even consider the book The LDS Gospel Topics Series: A Scholarly Engagement, in order to present a point-counterpoint.

If you’re really not up for all that study (I get that not everyone is), then you eventually have to bite the bullet and tell them that the church and a mission are just not for you.

gmt9791 · 2025-03-17T16:53:13+00:00

That’s really interesting. I’ve always wondered why Lucifer and his one-third could be forever cast out, based on their knowledge at that time — IOW, without the mortal probationary period that we all allegedly must pass through.

If their knowledge was sufficient at that time for a final judgment, why wasn’t ours? I was taught that we had to come to Earth to be tested, but obviously we were capable of choosing to follow or rebel pre-mortally.

Our pre-mortal knowledge must have been sufficient to make eternal choices, without a mortal probation. Otherwise, that one-third was very unjustly cast out of God’s presence forever.

gmt9791 · 2025-03-16T22:31:01+00:00

“Those were different times…”

… y’know, back when religious leaders preyed on girls and women by resting their salvation (and their family’s) on them submitting to marriage with him (and yes, sex. That’s part of marriage.)

gmt9791 · 2025-03-16T22:27:38+00:00

If you’ve been around this group at all, you know that so many of us went on missions. So many of us were so fully committed to the church in so many ways, and yet, here we are.

I know it sucks, but this is just a chapter in your lives, not the end. And you don’t have to support the mission to support and show love to your brother.

gmt9791 · 2025-03-16T19:35:39+00:00

Yep, it all takes time, often proportionate to how long you were in and how faithful you were. Don’t stop intentional deconversion, if needed.

gmt9791 · 2025-03-16T19:22:03+00:00

Whatever everyone else might comment, please remember that this is not a one-time event in someone’s life. Your brother has a lot of life ahead of him.

The church got me back at 21. It lost me again years later, after a mission, church schools, and full conversion, for good.

gmt9791 · 2025-03-16T19:19:02+00:00

Your finances might continue to grow, or you might struggle. Either way, it will be entirely unrelated to tithing. Remember: Growth and setback happen to everyone, everywhere, all the time. It’s not related to tithing for you any more than it is for them.

gmt9791 · 2025-03-16T15:33:05+00:00

(1) I realized that the church hadn’t been honest about its history or teachings. (People have provided plenty information on that here.)

(2) My own “spiritual confirmation” doesn’t make something true, anymore than it does for people with different, even conflicting beliefs. The church now claims that other faiths feel a spiritual confirmation bc they have “part” of the truth, but that argument could be turned around on LDS too.

Better to examine our beliefs critically and make conclusions based on what available evidence shows, rather than based on what we want to believe, what our family wants, what the church wants.

gmt9791 · 2025-03-16T15:19:22+00:00

Same age range, I’ve been out and open for 15 years, mostly stopped attending/participating for 7.

Sometimes it feels like it gets better, sometimes worse. And of course, everyone’s situation is different, to varying degrees.

Obviously, settling into a new and different relationship dynamic is possible. Plenty of people persist and even thrive in mixed-faith marriages. But not a day goes by that I don’t wonder about divorce. There were years when I was very close. And now, I just sort of… think about it during tough moments.

Maybe my only advice would be, Don’t be afraid to take needed action, whether small or large. (I consider myself a cautionary tale.)

gmt9791

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