The June 1

[SeattleUte]

Can you expound on this, at least as far as your experience allows? The "exmo" crowd....what is their end game? Do they want to see the Church destroyed and cease all ops? If they could have it their way on a broad scale, what is it that they seek?

Yes and yes. It seems inevitable but they are hoping to see it happen in their lifetimes, so these self-destructive actions always generate optimism.

[chrisrenrut]

My ward solved this by inviting them to the PEC. The CHOI says something like the RS president or others can be invited to PEC as necessary, so we simply found it perpetually necessary. In fact, it often was as welfare efforts and missionary efforts of the ward so often involved RS and Primary and YW that we really couldnt get much finalized without all hands on deck.

Our stake has strongly "suggested" that we hold ward council every week. It is the latest "hastening the work" strategy. So we are essentially doing the same thing, PEC with all auxiliaries present. And the RS president takes up most of our agenda, so I don't see much cowering or submission from the sister-en.

[SeattleUte]

I said that, on CG.

I've been challenged on this. Here's my validation.

http://cougarguard.com/forum/showpos...&postcount=173

[YOhio]

Yes and yes. It seems inevitable but they are hoping to see it happen in their lifetimes, so these self-destructive actions always generate optimism.

Not going to work. This was foretold by prophets and the church is only going to grow, pretty soon it's going to fill the earth. Sorry, but you're wasting your time. I say this out of love.

[Pheidippides]

Honestly, I don't think there always is an endgame. I think a lot of them are mad on general principles. I think this usually has to do with family - they feel their active family is in a complete cult and want to help them get out of it.

But there is a problem. You have a friend who is an alcoholic, you may stage an intervention. Maybe that goes well and maybe it doesn't. Maybe your friend gets clean and is grateful. Maybe your friend gets pissed that you dared interfere. But the fact that alcoholism is bad is not in dispute.

With the church and active family members, it's different. You can't even talk about I'm the subject - can't even bring it up. And they in the meantime think you are hellbound and act accordingly sometimes. Sometimes. Some people are cool about the whole thing. Some people, like my in-laws, are just really passive aggressive about it. Each side thinks the other is mistaken to their horrible detriment.

So the only thing you can do is take it out on the church, and that's where most of the hate is focused. For most people I think it's a phase, a way to process and that's all. For some it is not, and it defines large portions of life.

Personally, I shouldn't care at all. John helped me a lot when I was in a dark place, and for that I'm thankful, but I tried his path for 3 years and considered swallowing the barrel of my pistol (I am not exaggerating - I had my wife remove it). I really appreciate Kate and wish her well - I'm convinced she completely believes, albeit illogically to me. But I have no investment in her getting access to something I think is make - believe, other than generally as a person interested in feminism I suppose.

So I shouldn't care at all. And my choice was the right one for me, easily - my family has had the happiest six months ever, my wife is glowing, my kids are doing great, etc. But I do care, and I think I know why. Leaving was almost - almost - as hard as losing a child, and the feelings are comparable. It took me a number of years of talking and catharsis for me to fully internalize that huge change in my life. I don't it is reasonable to expect much less of most people who make a faith transition from all in to all out. So much of what you see is catharsis, I think, without much purpose or meaning. That, and the application of ingrained Mormon principles to a paradigm in which Mormonism is a damaging cult. I hate the c-word, but it describes the mindset.

Does that make sense? I'm still very interested because I spent so much time studying this stuff over the last 12 years that it is habit to notice. I try to be unemotional and neutral here, and probably often fail, but there are others here I interested. And I never bring this up with my friends IRL. Not even if they ask, unless they themselves are looking for the exit door.

[SeattleUte]

Can you expound on this, at least as far as your experience allows? The "exmo" crowd....what is their end game? Do they want to see the Church destroyed and cease all ops? If they could have it their way on a broad scale, what is it that they seek? Assuming for a second that these Exmos want harm to come to the Church, it appears to me that the Exmo movement is mostly pathetic if it counts these blips as victories towards some sort of larger symbolic goal. As you observed yesterday, most local folks don't even know a single thing about it. Why would anyone else outside of Mormonism care much beyond one or two news cycles?

Seriously, this isn't complicated. I heard an interview on NPR over the weekend of an apostate Orthodox Jew, a woman, who left the community and the faith. This is happening more and more often and their reactions are exactly like exmos. She had written a book she was pushing in the interview, has a website and a blog related to an organization for women who have been oppressed by and left and are recovering from any monotheistic religions. She said that her organization now includes women who are Muslims, Mormons, etc. as well as Orthodox Jews. Something cool she said was that at one time she'd have felt she had nothing in common with women from these other faiths.

Then she said that her family pronounced her dead and they have not spoken for seven years, having explicitly shunned her. I don't consider the stories I've read on the Internet -- which totally ring true -- from apostate Mormons to be too different from that. In-laws meddling in their children's and siblings marriages, etc. Mormons shun, just like Orthodox Jews, Muslims, etc., it is one of those atavistic religions in that and many other respects. (Except for age and size what's the difference between these faiths and a cult? None as far as I'm concerned.)

So, why do exmos still care about the church? Why do they hate it and want to see it destroyed? Whether they realize it or not, they love and terribly miss their family, and they are deeply hurt that their families appear to love the LDS Church more than them. And to the extent it was ever hard for an exmo to leave the LDS church it was only because of the people. So they want to see the institution destroyed. There is nothing about this institution outside of people you love that is anything but stultifying and outdated if not ridiculous. I have not one good memory in an LDS event outside of interactions with other LDS.

[Dwight Schr-ute]

And...it appears Jeffery Westover is back online! http://www.jefferywestover.com/13-li...dainwomen-org/

Lie #1 – Only boys and men, however, are ordained to the lay priesthood and have ritual and administrative authority in the Church. Despite their gifts, talents, and aspirations, women are excluded from almost all positions of clerical, fiscal, ritual, and decision-making authority.

This lie deceives in several ways. Boys and men ordained to the priesthood do NOT have ritual and administrative authority in the Church. I am a man, I have the priesthood and I do NOT conduct any rituals or possess any administrative authority in the Church. Like millions of other men ordained to the priesthood I might be assigned, under certain conditions, to such tasks. But I don’t have any more authority than anyone else who is a member of the Church.

Women are not excluded in the operation of the Church. In fact, almost any local ward council likely has more female members than male members. A ward council is a pivotal advisory group that provides input and implements action in auxiliaries of the ward. Half of these auxiliaries are staffed by women in leadership roles (Primary, Young Women, and Relief Society).

It kind of goes down hill from there.

[myboynoah]

Cowering after thought? While women never dominated our ward councils, I have never been in one (three wards, over 12 years worth) where I would describe the women as either cowering or an afterthought.

Bizarre. Must be a Texas thing.

[Eddie]

Honestly, I don't think there always is an endgame. I think a lot of them are mad on general principles. I think this usually has to do with family - they feel their active family is in a complete cult and want to help them get out of it....

...So, why do exmos still care about the church? Why do they hate it and want to see it destroyed? Whether they realize it or not, they love and terribly miss their family, and they are deeply hurt that their families appear to love the LDS Church more than them. And to the extent it was ever hard for an exmo to leave the LDS church it was only because of the people. So they want to see the institution destroyed. There is nothing about this institution outside of people you love that is anything but stultifying and outdated if not ridiculous. I have not one good memory in an LDS event outside of interactions with other LDS.

I agree that in my estimation it is all about family as well.

I'm sure there are some elements of feeling like they've been deceived and want to help their family out, like Niku states.

And I'm sure there is some element of loss as SU states too - though I think it is rare for LDS families to completely disown their "fallen" family members.

From my own perspective I think there is an element of a combination of:

A) The concept of the eternal family results in the active LDS family members continuously attempting to rescue those who have left the church.

and

B) Those who have left wanting to provide some kind of evidence that the church they left is false and that they were not wrong and do not need to be rescued. (I honestly feel like the majority who have left the church don't have a problem with their family staying in it if it makes them happy - so long as it doesn't result in the perceived judgmental looks and ongoing feeling of being a "project" for the active LDS family members. Along with the emotional roller-coaster of "he's coming back because he attended this church function with us" followed by "he's slipping further away because he drank in front of us at the BBQ".)

I can see this cycle manifesting itself a number of ways, all of which I can see resulting in awkward if not outright hostile circumstances from each misunderstanding each other going forward.

[wally]

...So, why do exmos still care about the church? Why do they hate it and want to see it destroyed? Whether they realize it or not, they love and terribly miss their family, and they are deeply hurt that their families appear to love the LDS Church more than them. And to the extent it was ever hard for an exmo to leave the LDS church it was only because of the people. So they want to see the institution destroyed. There is nothing about this institution outside of people you love that is anything but stultifying and outdated if not ridiculous. I have not one good memory in an LDS event outside of interactions with other LDS.

I wonder what fraction of Jews ar orthodox, what fraction of that fraction completely dissociates with apostate children or family and whether that fraction is increasing or decreasing?

My observation is that in the LDS communities I am witness to, this trend is dying. Parents I know are much more willing to love and accept children who have moved on from the faith. If this trend continues, will the angst between related believers and non-believers die out over generation? Like the question of whether the tea party is has reached its apex and is now descending back into relative obscurity, will the size of the angry exmo crowd be an artifact of the right mix of dogma and access to seedier information, and if so where on the parabola are we?

As for whether there is a passive aggressive flavor to the family interactions that a non-believer might have, that is left to be observed in the eyes of the beholders, but suffice it to say that if you want to get along with family and maintain a loving relationship, it is best not to be a judgmental asshole, whether you are inside the religion or outside it, or whether you are liberal or conservative or whether you DoTerra or not!

Also, too often when we perceive someone has dramatically different opinions than us we deploy our own paranoid thought police convinced that we are being weighed and found wanting from a spiritual or intellectual basis.

I still like to be a Mormon. My brother, not so much. That is fine by me. The thought has crossed my mind that he may think I am a brainwashed fool and that somehow I am concocting artificial "spiritual experiences" by imagining the scene from Rudy where that little son of a bitch actually gets a tackle, in order to shed a few tears at the right times at church. That thought has crossed my mind, but I choose instead to believe him at face value when he says that he doesn't think I'm like every other asshole that goes to the LDS church and that is enough for me. I hope that he does the same when the thought crosses his mind that I view him as a godless, moral derelict. Which I do think, but would never say to him because I love that godless son of a bitch!

[MarkGrace]

Our friends are blessing their baby next month and the bishop has invited the mother to hold the baby in the circle if she wants.

[hostile]

Our friends are blessing their baby next month and the bishop has invited the mother to hold the baby in the circle if she wants.

Heresy!!!

[Sullyute]

Our friends are blessing their baby next month and the bishop has invited the mother to hold the baby in the circle if she wants.

[Pheidippides]

My observation is that in the LDS communities I am witness to, this trend is dying. Parents I know are much more willing to love and accept children who have moved on from the faith. If this trend continues, will the angst between related believers and non-believers die out over generation? Like the question of whether the tea party is has reached its apex and is now descending back into relative obscurity, will the size of the angry exmo crowd be an artifact of the right mix of dogma and access to seedier information, and if so where on the parabola are we?

As for whether there is a passive aggressive flavor to the family interactions that a non-believer might have, that is left to be observed in the eyes of the beholders, but suffice it to say that if you want to get along with family and maintain a loving relationship, it is best not to be a judgmental asshole, whether you are inside the religion or outside it, or whether you are liberal or conservative or whether you DoTerra or not!

I agree that things are getting better. My inlaws were pretty good about things - at least until I left their place this last weekend, and then they started getting passive-aggressive with my wife. But they are new to this concept and I expect the will learn to deal with it in time. In the meantime, I just don't discuss politics or religion with them and everything is okay.

My experience that is that most of the individual people of the church have been pretty awesome about things. The leaders have been kinda sucky sometimes, but I can (and do) blame that on the actual organization. I maintain that the organization of the church is an entity/consciousness that is quite separate and distinct from the sum of its parts. And today I only have one quibble with them: the damn golf carts they drive all over the sidewalk in downtown SLC. Roadhogs.

[wally]

Our friends are blessing their baby next month and the bishop has invited the mother to hold the baby in the circle if she wants.

Whelp, we have found a bishop to fit into one of the 8 slots accompanying John and Kate. MG, I hope that you have reported this to the strengthening the members committee. I also hope (like Sooner) that they save one slot for that smug brother Jake, though.