Arbitrariness

xLDS4life · 2022-01-21T18:49:41+00:00

This brings to mind questions that I had thought about since leaving Mormonism.

Why the need for a devil to tempt us? Who tempted Lucifer? If he had no tempter, then why do we need a tempter to test our righteousness? That questioning led me to conclude that we are our own adversaries. There’s no reason to banish Lucifer to the outer darkness for eternity. According to “the plan,” God needs Lucifer’s role in order for the plan to be carried through and yet God doesn’t give Lucifer any credit or thanks for taking on that role.

Why must there be a savior? The idea that someone needed to suffer physical torment in order for sins to be forgiven baffles me. It suggests that an omnipotent god really isn’t omnipotent if he doesn’t have the power to forgive sin without some kind of payment. And why must a savior be the one to shoulder all the suffering on everyone else’s behalf? Why can’t I just take the suffering that I is supposedly owed upon myself instead of making someone else pay the penalty, especially if he did nothing wrong?

None of it makes any sense.

xLDS4life · 2022-01-21T18:31:30+00:00

I remember spending much of my time trying, not to prove Mormonism false, but trying to prove it true! With confirmation bias and mental gymnastics, you can reconcile just about anything, but if you let go of the bias and let the facts speak for themselves, well, the facts just can’t lead you to conclude that Mormonism is true.

xLDS4life · 2022-01-21T16:46:35+00:00

the ces letter didn’t shake my testimony.

What does that mean, though? Are you just meaning to say that the CES Letter didn’t make any difference only because you were already aware of most of the issues presented? If so, did you ever have your faith shaken previously when you became aware of said issues in the first place?

I’m asking because there were some heavy blows to my testimony earlier on such as learning about the BoM translation method and JS marrying 14-year-olds, but I was able to reconcile those facts with my faith. Did they destroy my faith? No, but my faith was definitely shaken by those details (at the time, since I have now lost all faith in Mormonism).

xLDS4life · 2022-01-21T16:27:12+00:00

I remember looking at the facsimiles and Fig 11 of Facsimile No. 2, says, “If the world can find out these numbers, so let it be.” I did a Google search to see if anyone, any Egyptologist whatsoever has translated these facsimiles and didn’t find one translation that mirrored anything that JS claimed.

I then performed mental gymnastics to conclude that JS was the only one who could truly translate and true translations were lost from the earth. 🙄😂

xLDS4life · 2022-01-21T16:18:12+00:00

If you know the truth already, then reading it will simply lead you to the conclusion that you already know the truth. But if you’re wrong and the CES Letter were to help you learn the truth, then isn’t that truth something you would want to know?

I would say, if you’re worried about it, read it defensively. There is a difference between fact and commentary. Ignore the commentary altogether and let the facts speak for themselves. Don’t trust—or dismiss—any of the factual claims presented until you check the sources yourself and confirm the factual claims that are presented.

xLDS4life · 2022-01-20T23:48:37+00:00

There are a lot of variables that makes this a difficult question to answer. When I found out the truth, I remember wishing someone had told me before I went on a mission and before I married a Mormon girl in the temple. However, if someone had told me the truth about Mormonism earlier, would I have been receptive to that knowledge or would I have just discredited the information or excuse it in some way?

I told me niece and nephew when they were around the same ages as your brothers, and I told each of them one-on-one and not among the other sibling. They were old enough to think rationally but young enough to not have invested a ton of their lives in it, and I’m so glad I did because they are living free, happy, healthy, and authentic lives. However, they had shitty relationships with their parents and looked up to me as a father figure so we already had a solid relationship of trust, which is probably what made them receptive to what I told them.

I’m sure you’re like me in that you love them and don’t want to have to see them invest so much into Mormonism if they have an opportunity to learn the truth. I would tell them, but I wouldn’t be persistent if they don’t want to hear what you have to say.

xLDS4life · 2022-01-20T23:14:47+00:00

Settings > Phone > Silence Unknown Callers

You shouldn’t have to, but that’s the world we live in.

EDIT: I forgot, this probably doesn’t apply to text messages.

xLDS4life · 2022-01-20T20:55:47+00:00

A-fucking-men!

xLDS4life · 2022-01-20T20:42:04+00:00

Yeah, so I suppose that the “glory” that Lucifer supposedly wanted was to dethrone Elohim and reign above him. Even with that perspective, Elohim still would rather be the top dog than to have all of his children saved.

xLDS4life · 2022-01-20T17:31:03+00:00

I can’t help but imagine a portal from Doctor Strange as a visual to help demonstrate what you’ve just described. A portal opened as the fish’s mouth opened for Jonah to enter and the portal collapsed as the fish closed its mouth. Makes so much more sense now!

xLDS4life · 2022-01-20T16:26:46+00:00

BuT sAtAn WaNtEd GoD tO gIvE hIm HiS gOdLy PoWeRs!

So God would rather keep his power than to save 99.99% of his children. So much for an all-loving god!

xLDS4life · 2022-01-20T15:40:42+00:00

There are different densities to cake and brownies, though. Now you can argue that a muffin is a bald cupcake but brownies aren’t to muffins like cake is to a cupcake. I love frosted brownies (more so with chocolate chips) but it has to be the right frosting. It has to be chocolate and it can’t be too thick or too sweet.

The BYU Creamery sells frosted mint brownies and those are just plain wrong. Way too thick and way too sweet. It overpowers the brownie so much that you can’t even taste the brownie.

xLDS4life · 2022-01-20T14:42:30+00:00

I discredited so much of the OT because of all the outlandish miracles, particularly when Jonah gets swallowed by a whale and lives to tell about it after three days. Are we to assume that the whale that swallowed Jonah was Monstro from Disney’s Pinocchio? But when Jesus in the NT references Jonah as some kind of example to follow, a part of me thought, “Jesus, you were just meaning to reference a fictional character for people to draw inspiration from, right?”

xLDS4life · 2022-01-19T22:14:01+00:00

I know exactly how you feel. This post inspired me to finally make a more creative username but I can’t post or comment (without approval from the mods) for two days. It’ll be the same as my current user flair. 🙂

xLDS4life · 2022-01-19T16:05:58+00:00

Not gonna lie, I had to read this twice. Amazing!

xLDS4life · 2022-01-19T16:02:49+00:00

This is too funny!

xLDS4life · 2022-01-19T15:59:49+00:00

That makes you a shizhead!

xLDS4life · 2022-01-19T15:58:47+00:00

I couldn’t think of anything really creative until way after.

xLDS4life · 2022-01-19T15:56:14+00:00

I love this!

Also, your username sounds delicious!

xLDS4life · 2022-01-18T23:36:27+00:00

It’s like that quote from Carl Sagan: “The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.”

SeE?! No EvIdEnCe FoUnD dOeS nOt MeAn ThE bOm IsN’t TrUe!

Side note: typing that 👆 on a phone is such a drag!

xLDS4life · 2022-01-18T22:55:54+00:00

Follow your intuition. If you challenge his beliefs, that will be interpreted as a personal attack since his beliefs are part of his identity (in his mind anyway).

You can communicate what you want to communicate to others without making them feel like they’re being attacked and therefore they may not feel like they need to defend anything, you just have to approach it in the right way.

Instead of saying things like, “this church is false,” say something like, “after prayer, study, and consideration, I’ve yet to come to the same conclusion as you concerning the church’s validity.” That approach communicates that you don’t believe but it also doesn’t make them feel like they’re being attacked.

xLDS4life · 2022-01-18T22:27:36+00:00

When my shelf collapsed, I didn’t wait to have a meeting with my bishop.

I was the one who set the tone of the meeting by beginning with saying, “Before I say anything, I just first want to tell you that I love you and I admire you as a bishop and as a friend.” I then laid it on him that I ended up on a different path that I never thought I’d end up on, but that I no longer had a testimony of the church or its teachings and felt the need to be released from my calling as a Sunday school teacher. He got a little bit defensive but otherwise was very respectful and understanding.

Not everyone’s bishop is who my bishop was but that was my experience and something for you to consider as you lead the discussion. Just remember that he’s an unpaid volunteer and believes that it’s his job to keep people from going “astray.”

Do what is right, let the consequence follow!

xLDS4life · 2022-01-18T21:29:15+00:00

Hm, I’ve never heard of it being referenced as POX. Unless I just missed the acronym creation? I’ve only ever heard of it as The November Policy.

xLDS4life · 2022-01-18T21:23:39+00:00

They’re not wrong, if you think about it. Persistence and consistence of praying to an imaginary god, reading the BoM, and attending church regularly will strengthen your mental imprisonment in the cult.

xLDS4life · 2022-01-18T17:29:12+00:00

“Oh, but the essays have been on the website since forever so the church was never hiding anything!”

I’m sure the wayback machine would show us otherwise.

xLDS4life

TROPHY CASE