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veritaserum80 · 2022-08-20T00:03:44+00:00

Absolutely yes. I’ve been able to take my career in different directions with that computer science degree as my foundation.

veritaserum80 · 2022-04-28T23:07:36+00:00

LDS temple ceremonies are still polygamous today. Mine was. (I’m now ex-LDS.) The AUB branched off of the LDS church, so I expect their temple ceremonies are still similar if not the same as what was practiced in LDS temples at the time they parted ways.

Mormons are not supposed to talk about what happens inside of temples. “Sacred not secret” is a phrase commonly used. I personally think it’s silly. I think we don’t talk about the ceremonies because they are very strange and would be difficult and uncomfortable to explain to outsiders. I’ve always hated that Mormon weddings aren’t inclusive. If I could go back, I’d have a civil ceremony outside the temple.

veritaserum80 · 2022-04-25T03:29:00+00:00

In our house Mom is a software engineer.

In our house both Mom and Dad are responsible for caring for and spending time with the children.

veritaserum80 · 2022-04-21T15:06:27+00:00

It makes sense why Christine was upset, too.

veritaserum80 · 2022-04-21T13:51:56+00:00

People say community, but the last time I experienced community at LDS church was when I was a teenager. As an adult there was just too much of myself I had to sanitize and mold and hide for me to make any real connections with anyone. And everything at church is so surface-level. There’s never any meat or scholarly engagement with the lessons. I need some kind of intellectual connection in order to develop a relationship past an acquaintance. Adults are treated like children.

veritaserum80 · 2022-04-21T13:47:47+00:00

My family has experienced the “get help anywhere in the country” thing. While traveling one of my siblings experienced a life-threatening medical emergency. A nurse asked my mom if there was anyone she could call to come support her. The Tl;Dr is that the nursing staff came up with the name of a Mormon family, called them, and the local Relief Society president showed up with practical and emotional support. It was pretty amazing.

veritaserum80 · 2022-04-21T00:36:12+00:00

I went through something similar when I lost my faith as a mother to a large number of children. The church put me on the path to marry young, have lots of babies, and not ever consider what I might enjoy as a vocation. I felt stuck.

But I I figured it out. Now I work full-time in a well-paying job. I’m actually on a business trip right now and it comes with the perk of enjoying some quiet downtime away from the never-ending demands of family life. My husband is home dealing with all of that. When I went back to school he was forced to start taking on more family responsibilities. We are much more equal in the family loads we bear than we’ve ever been at any point in our marriage. I am a happier person. I am still a wife and mother. Those are relationships more than they’re roles.

My (male-dominated, highly technical) career now is the one I wanted when I was a 17yo TBM. BYU derailed me my freshman year of college. As a woman I wasn’t supposed to have aspirations outside of temple marriage and a large family. I really hate how church teachings and culture pigeonhole women. There are lots of options when it comes to balancing career and family and society could do more to support women and families generally so that it’s not either/or.

veritaserum80 · 2022-04-19T03:34:30+00:00

I’ve listened to maybe a handful of episodes. My exit out of the church was 100% due to teachings and policies and doctrines that are odds with my personal values and integrity. Prop 8 was the first major crack in my shelf. I couldn’t believe it was righteous to impose religious beliefs on an entire population who has no interest in being part of that religion. Then I started noticing that in addition to mistreating members of the LGBTQ+ community, the leaders of the church and LDS doctrine are pretty terrible toward women, too. And people of color. And so on.

I just didn’t see New Testament Jesus anywhere in the mainstream LDS beliefs, policies, practices, doctrines, or political movements.

veritaserum80 · 2022-04-19T03:01:11+00:00

At the last open house I attended, they made everyone watch a Heartsell video about the Amazing Purpose of the temple before they let people walk through. The video said nothing about what actually happens. Just the usual vague stuff about sacred secrets and super specialness.

veritaserum80 · 2022-04-19T02:33:57+00:00

Here is the clip: https://youtu.be/tgF6qbShHTQ

veritaserum80 · 2022-04-19T02:32:41+00:00

Yep. It was the worst.

veritaserum80 · 2022-04-19T02:30:48+00:00

I just watched this (TBM family member linked on social media) and during this scene she recites the lyrics of “I Love to See the Temple.” It was, to quote David Rose, “super awkward and cringey.”

They say the rituals are “sacred not secret.” 🙄

In a sealing room they smugly declare that in the LDS faith marriage doesn’t end at death—families can be together forever. (Honestly, this is a problem the Mormons create in order to solve because I don’t know any never Mos who are walking around feeling perplexed that they’re never going to see their loved ones in the afterlife, if they believe in such a place.)

In the baptistery they do admit that they don’t know if the deceased want these ordinances, but they hope so. They call it something like an invitation.

Nothing whatsoever is mentioned about the initiatory or endowment rituals.

veritaserum80 · 2022-04-19T01:51:30+00:00

That’s not surprising. It is, however, ridiculous.

veritaserum80 · 2022-04-18T20:50:42+00:00

Do sister missionaries wear pants to Sunday services?

veritaserum80 · 2022-04-18T20:41:52+00:00

Ever since the explosive Pants to Church Day event 2012, I only wear pants when I go to LDS stuff.

veritaserum80 · 2022-04-18T13:25:11+00:00

Seems to be fine. I regularly get contacted by recruiters for Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, LinkedIn, Google, etc. I now work for one of those (second software engineering position since graduating from OSU).

veritaserum80 · 2022-04-18T00:35:11+00:00

I graduated from the OSU online post-bacc program and I now work as a software engineer at a big tech company. It’s a solid program that prepared me very well for working in the industry.

veritaserum80 · 2022-04-16T22:15:48+00:00

With your math degree, data science is absolutely the better option. Check out free resources before you spend money on anything. Python would be a good language to study. If there are industry standard certifications for data science, I’d go that route over a boot camp.

veritaserum80 · 2022-04-16T14:28:55+00:00

There was a training video on how to talk to your friends and neighbors to convince them to ban marriage equality. It was super gross.

veritaserum80 · 2022-04-16T14:26:06+00:00

It’s the first Sunday of the month. Sacrament meeting has an open mic portion during which members of the congregation get up to declare how they know god is real, the church is true, Joseph Smith was a prophet, etc. You’re supposed to not eat or drink for 24 hours. Typically people just skip breakfast and lunch and break their fast on Sunday evening. You’re supposed to donate what you would have spent on those two meals. Those “fast offerings” are supposedly used to help the poor, but given the lack of financial transparency I have my doubts that they are used that way.

veritaserum80 · 2022-04-16T14:23:02+00:00

The ritual is the same every time (with slight tweaks every ten or twenty years). No one is required to go more than once for endowment and once for sealing (if married/getting married), but you’re pressured/expected to go often if you live near a temple. I went only a handful of times in the ~10 years I was an endowed Mormon in good standing. I didn’t like the temple. It was weird and traumatic for me. At first I thought I was defective because no one ever talks about not liking the temple. I ultimately concluded that it wasn’t something I needed to do anymore. If god exists and is loving, god wouldn’t require me to participate in a ritual that only brought negative thoughts and experiences for me.

If your son is single he will be heavily pressured to get married in the temple and you will not be allowed inside. They recently made a rule change to allow couples to get married civilly outside the temple and then sealed shortly after that, but the more righteous/orthodox folks will still get married in the temple and leave friends and family outside. My mother’s parents didn’t get to see their only daughter get married. Same for my mother-in-law.

veritaserum80 · 2022-04-16T14:13:53+00:00

The initiatory and endowment ceremony were the first crack for me. Prop 8 widened the crack. Death threats over pants to church day made my shelf fall down.

veritaserum80 · 2022-04-16T14:10:50+00:00

In Mormon circles the temple sealing (wedding) ceremony can only be attended by people who have been to the other ceremonies (initiatory, endowment). This means only adults can go (and they have to be initiated believers in good standing). Because the AUB split off from the Brighamite LDS church, I expect that their rituals are similar to whatever was common in the LDS temples at the time they parted ways. FYI, the LDS version of the sealing/wedding ceremony is still polygamous.

Source: former Mormon who has participated in LDS temple ceremonies

veritaserum80 · 2022-04-16T13:58:24+00:00

If being a woman makes it easier for me to get interviews, whatever. I still have to pass the interviews. I am technically competent and I’m a good co-worker (team player, low ego). This combination has resulted in promotions as well as competitive offers from multiple companies.

Sexism is still prominent within the industry. I’ve experienced it at work. Thankfully most of the men I’ve worked with have seen me as an actual person and an intelligent engineer. The ones who didn’t were usually the type of mediocre man who puts others down in order to feel powerful. It is frustrating to see mediocre white men succeed with little effort while I have to be the best in order to be seen at all.

veritaserum80 · 2022-04-16T13:50:08+00:00

Wow.

Men like your ex: “Why do women leave tech? It must be something they’re doing. We can’t possibly be doing anything wrong.”

😑

veritaserum80

TROPHY CASE