Incite Blog
Reason #194: Because I get to answer snarky letters
Here’s a recent letter to me via this site:
Another one bites the dust, ha ha. :) Anyhow, I think it\’s sad that you allowed Dan\’s love for you to also infect your faith. I didn\’t see anything new here or in your books — basically a rehash of the faded blue jean arguments of the Tanners, who, like so many others, have left Mormonism but just can\’t seem to leave it alone. In all sincerity, I hope you find peace because there doesn\’t seem to be much of it here. Heck, there\’s more turmoil here than in the spin cycle of my washing machine. :)
Best regards,
Alan
My response:
Thank you for your interest.
I found it remarkable — in every sense of the word — that you referred to what you found “here” (on the site, perhaps?) as having “more turmoil. . .than in the spin cycle of my washing machine.”
The spin cycle of my washing machine doesn’t have turmoil. The agitation took place in the wash cycle. The spin is a final process, using centrifugal force, to extract the last bit of dirt and rinse water from things.
That’s where I am in my life, married now for 38 years to the same Dan who says he is the happiest man in the world, with two adult children who are responsible, happy Christians married to Christians and with stable home lives themselves; with loyal friends, attending the same church I joined 38 years ago surrounded by lifelong brothers and sisters who love me.
It has taken that long to finally spin out the damage that Mormonism did. But I am free of it, and have a happy life, a wonderful honorable career, and great, satisfying, soul-deep peace with God.
I pray the same for you.
Reason # 193: “Doctrines That Are Going Away”
I am a “lurker” on an Internet message board where LDS historians and others speak about “doctrines that are going away” (their words, not mine.)
Q: How can a DOCTRINE go away? A practice, yes. But a definition of God shouldn’t “go away,” right?
Here’s another quote (which I assume is tongue in cheek, but telling):
“Mormons, we used to be peculiar, but ever since 1995 we have been just as normal as you!”
For more information, see The Mormon Mirage 3rd Edition: A Former Member Looks at the Mormon Church Today (Zondervan, 2009). Also available as an audiobook and as an expanded-text E-book for Nook, Kindle and other reading devices.
Reason #192: Romney’s Candidacy Highlights the Role of LDS Secrecy
”That aspects of the religion of a devout president of the United States should be concealed from all but 2 percent of us may be a legitimate question that merits pondering.” Quote from a provocative article in The New York Times: Everyone is asking this question.
Reason #191: What would a Christian Church have to Change to Become Mormon?
A VERY big unspoken assumption Mormons operate on is that all blessings (except the most general ones of having life itself and “rain on the just and the unjust” and Romans 1:18-20 type things) are only available through the LDS Church organization and priesthood as gatekeepers. I can’t emphasize enough how tied together the idea of eventual reward in heaven, is to membership in the LDS church.
A very insightful question was asked by another ex-Mormon to a Mormon once: “What would my congregation have to change in order to be a Mormon congregation?” The answer is, almost everything they believe about salvation, the identity of God, and what practices are necessary, both in corporate worship and individual lives. LDS believers would demand those kinds of changes.
Of course, leading a moral life would be a commonality, but what most Mormons can’t get through their heads — I couldn’t — is that a moral lifestyle isn’t the point — nor the means — of approval from God. It’s waaaaay down the food chain, because it’s a result, an end of the process.
Want to read a compelling account of how people live Mormonism? See Latter-day Cipher, a novel that gives an insider’s view to the struggles of remaining Mormon.
For more documentation on LDS doctrines, history, and practices, see The Mormon Mirage 3rd Edition: A Former Member Looks at the Mormon Church Today (Zondervan, 2009). Also available as an audiobook and as an expanded-text E-book for Nook, Kindle and other reading devices.
Reason #189: A Breakthrough about the Eternal God
It’s been 38 years since I left Mormonism.
For the first time, today, I thanked God for being eternal, infinite and unmeasurable, by time or any other means. For the first time, I am emotionally grateful that God is not the god of Mormonism.
Goodbye, little god.
