‘We’re trying to follow Jesus Christ’s example.’ ibid. mother of sleep-over family
Sending young people out on recruitment drives around the world is vital for church to prevent their numbers from falling. Adam will soon start attending mission school and learn how to recruit new church members from the street. ibid.
The number of missionaries returning home early has increased dramatically with many of them citing mental health issues. ibid.
‘We don’t recognise marriage between same-sex couples.’ ibid. mother
Since primary school Adam has been exposed to the idea that going on a mission is the right thing to do. So was it really his decision? ibid.
The Church of Jesus Christ has built lavish temples all over the world funded largely by members who are expected to donate ten per cent of their income. This gives the church an annual revenue in the billions. And being a religion, it operates tax-free with little accountability of how it spends members’ money. ibid.
A lot of what I’m hearing seems to come from a good place. ibid.
If you believe the church is true?
Give all of your time, talents and energies to the building of the kingdom.
Pledge everything which you have, or may have in the future, to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Give 10% of your income as tithes. Contribute a generous fast offering, give to the perpetual education fund, the ward missionary fund, the general missionary fund, the Book of Mormon fund, the temple construction fund.
Spend two years of your life away from your family on a mission, perhaps even to a foreign country, perhaps even to a developing country where sanitation, healthcare and physical safety are causes for concern.
Give up countless hours of your free time in callings and assignments, home and visiting teaching and going to firesides and conferences, taking kids to dances, seminary, youth activities, primary activities, doing family history research, preparing talks and lessons.
See each and every one of the people you know who are not members of the church as a potential member.
Spend your energies in cultivating friendships and relationships with others, not for its own sake you understand, but so you can be more effective at bringing them into the fold.
Spend countless hours at the temple, dressed in clothes that you can only purchase or rent from the church, covering underwear that you can only buy from the church.
Read magazines that are approved by the church which, naturally, you can only purchase from the church.
And if you discover at some point later that its actually not true?
Just walk away and never give it another thought.
Do people seriously think that people can just walk away from the scam of the century without feeling a little pissed off? Darquestar, board post 24th May 2006, ‘The Church Can’t Have it Both Ways’
A devout Mormon is going on the record to say he’s not a Christian.
In an op-ed published in The New York Times this week, David V Mason, an associate professor of theater at Rhodes College, distanced himself from fellow Mormons who maintain that they are Christian and declared, ‘I’m perfectly happy not being a Christian.’
‘I want to be on record about this. I’m about as genuine a Mormon as you’ll find – a templegoer with a Utah pedigree and an administrative position in a congregation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I am also emphatically not a Christian,’ he stated. The Christian Post online, article Audrey Barrick 15th June 2012, ‘Devout Mormon Declares I am Not a Christian’
I was expelled from a meeting of Latter Day Saints when I first went to Salt Lake City ... You will be with your families for ever – so I put my hand up and said, ‘But what happens if you’ve been good?’ ... What a ridiculous idea ... It’s just the most awful destination imaginable. Stephen Fry’s Mormon Encounter
So many gods, so little time. Thousands and thousands of them. All created in the image of mankind. That is why they are so diverse. The creativity and imagination of humans just never stops! SusieQ#1, board post 18th May 2007
I am referring to a specific kind/type of ‘voice’ that is distinctly Mormon female, particularly Utah Mormon female. Know what I mean? It is soft, sweet, has that ‘nice-nice’ tone.
I mention this because one of the things that used to make my skin crawl is the number of adult women who talked in that ‘voice’! Most of them used it to some degree.
You all know it: high pitched, slighter louder than a whisper, so syrupy sweet it drips that sounds like a scared little girl. SusieQ#1, board post 1st September 2006, ‘As a Female Did Your Voice Change When You Left Mormonism and Took Your Power Back?’
The largest supporter of the Boy Scouts in the US is the Mormon Church. Penn & Teller, Bullshit! s4e1: Boy Scouts, Showtime 2006
Roughly 60% of America’s Boy Scouts troops are sponsored by religious groups. ibid.
Being seven means you’ve reached the age of reason and you’re now capable of committing any and all sins against God and man ... God will start keeping notes on you and begin your permanent record. Julia Sweeney, Letting Go of God, Julia’s dad
Two Mormon missionaries came to my door ... From Jerusalem to America by boat in 600 B.C.? ibid.
After Jesus died on the Cross for our sins on his way up to heaven he stopped by America and visited the Nephites. ibid.
What kind of sadistic test of loyalty is that to ask someone to kill his or her own child! ibid.
Jesus was much angrier than I expected him to be. ibid.
The Bible gives advice on how you should keep your slaves. ibid.
That’s right: Jesus condemns a fig tree to death. ibid.
I left the church thinking, Is this one practical joke? ibid.
My mother said, Julie, I just ignore what I don’t like. ibid.
To suffer and die for our sins – why? ibid.
Why would God create people so imperfect than blame them for their own imperfections? ibid.
So God gave us the gifts of intelligence and curiosity and rationality and then we’re not supposed to use them? ibid.
I just didn’t believe in any of it. ibid.
Joseph Smith – he is the Alpha and Omega of Latter-Day Saints. To the Mormons Joseph Smith is their prophet. Frontline: Helen Whitney, The Mormons I, PBS 2007
Act 1 ... The third son of a family of nine children. ibid.
Act 2 ... Smith’s book was leather bound and costly. ibid.
He had forty converts by the end of May. ibid.
Act 3 ... Persecution ... Most Americans don’t even know about the dark days that haunt Mormons until today. ibid.
The State government issued an extermination order: ‘The Mormons must be treated like enemies’. ibid.
The Saints’ new gathering place: Nauvoo ... By 1944 Nauvoo’s population had swelled to 12,000. ibid.
Joseph Smith had launched himself on a path of self-destruction. ibid.
The [Nauvoo] Expositor in its first and only issue exposed Smith’s secret practice of polygamy. ibid.
The people in the surrounding counties who had welcomed the Mormons now wanted to get rid of them. ibid.
He [Joseph Smith] was in his own words ‘a rough stone rolling’. ibid.
For his followers Mormonism was the American Dream writ large. ibid.
Act 4 ... Exodus ... Young thought he had found the Mormons a new home outside of America. ibid.
Brigham Young and the first contingent of Mormons finally reached the valley of the Great Salt Lake. ibid.
Act 5 ... Mountain Meadows Massacre ... When the massacre was over at least one hundred and twenty men, women and children were murdered. The Mormons had spared seventeen children ... Who gave the orders? ibid.
Act 6 ... In Nauvoo in the summer of 1843 in his office above the general store Joseph Smith dictated the revelation authorising polygamy. ibid.
Young would officially marry more than fifty women. ibid.
Polygamy had put the Mormons in conflict with themselves and their country. ibid.
They had been driven out of Ohio and Missouri. Frontline: Helen Whitney, The Mormons part II
A fifty-year struggle with the US government over their practice of polygamy and political control of the US territory. ibid.
Act 1 The Great Accommodation: by the end of the nineteenth century the LDS Church had made an uneasy peace with the federal Government. ibid.
Act II: The Mission ... There were 71,000 converts in Great Britain alone. ibid.