Hi! Exmormon and glad to be here!

[Reginus]

You also have to pay a full 10% of your income to the church to be able to enter the temple.

Ah, so that explains everything  

[rlrose328]

Welcome Lea!

I'm in some good Mormon territory here in Oregon.  Can't toss a cat without hitting one.  Honestly, though... if every single Christian were to turn Mormon, I'd be okay with it.  The Mormons are some of the nicest people up here.  While they may KNOW I'm going to hell or at least not the upper level of heaven, they NEVER rub my face in it, never mention it.  They treat me just like any of their contemporaries.  Not at ALL like the Christians I meet.

I had a Mormon neighbor answer pretty much all of my questions a few years back.  While I find it all a crock (yes, South Park was very accurate... it's insane how they justify the "ludicrosity" of it all), the only outstanding question I have is one I couldn't ask her face to face.  Are they ever naked in front of each other, man and wife?  And do you watch Big Love?  We LOVE that show... all the intrigue of a spy drama!

[Lea]

Do they still not allow black people in any position in the church?  Why can't some Mormons own cars?  My GF is an ex-Mormon.  She said when her family left the religion they kept calling and harassing them and it got so bad they had to threaten to call the police and get a restraining order on the church.

The prophet Spencer W. Kimball had a revelation in 1978 in which god said that men of all races could now hold the priesthood and have leadership positions in the church.  Civil rights came late to mormondom.  

I have never heard of members of the mainstream Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints not being allowed to own cars.  Maybe your GF was a Fundamentalist Mormon?  Did she or anyone in her family practice polygamy?  If so, she was a fundamentalist.  When people leave controlling religions like mormonism, the members might try to love bomb them back into the church.  Maybe this happened to your GF's family.  The love bombers say they have good intentions, but  their calls and unexpected visits easily become harassing.

[Lea]

Welcome Lea!

I'm in some good Mormon territory here in Oregon.  Can't toss a cat without hitting one.  Honestly, though... if every single Christian were to turn Mormon, I'd be okay with it.  The Mormons are some of the nicest people up here.  While they may KNOW I'm going to hell or at least not the upper level of heaven, they NEVER rub my face in it, never mention it.  They treat me just like any of their contemporaries.  Not at ALL like the Christians I meet.

I had a Mormon neighbor answer pretty much all of my questions a few years back.  While I find it all a crock (yes, South Park was very accurate... it's insane how they justify the "ludicrosity" of it all), the only outstanding question I have is one I couldn't ask her face to face.  Are they ever naked in front of each other, man and wife?  And do you watch Big Love?  We LOVE that show... all the intrigue of a spy drama!

Mormons are generally nice people.  Although, if they don't try to witness to you, they are not really living what they believe.  They should at least invite you over for family home evening with the missionaries.  But yes, they tend to be less obnoxious than some other Christians.

In past generations, there were some strange attitudes toward sex.  I have heard stories of old couples who had been married 40, 50 years who had never seen their husband/wife undress.  I am not going to speculate how they managed sex, uh, I'll leave it up to your imagination.  I hope its okay if I post this link to a site on Mormon sexuality:

http://www.i4m.com/think/sexuality/

In Mormonism today, if you are in a heterosexual married (no open marriages) couple, your sex life is pretty much your own business.  

I don't have HBO.    Oh well.  Can I get the series on netflix?

[LoneMateria]

Do they still not allow black people in any position in the church?  Why can't some Mormons own cars?  My GF is an ex-Mormon.  She said when her family left the religion they kept calling and harassing them and it got so bad they had to threaten to call the police and get a restraining order on the church.

The prophet Spencer W. Kimball had a revelation in 1978 in which god said that men of all races could now hold the priesthood and have leadership positions in the church.  Civil rights came late to mormondom.  

I have never heard of members of the mainstream Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints not being allowed to own cars.  Maybe your GF was a Fundamentalist Mormon?  Did she or anyone in her family practice polygamy?  If so, she was a fundamentalist.  When people leave controlling religions like mormonism, the members might try to love bomb them back into the church.  Maybe this happened to your GF's family.  The love bombers say they have good intentions, but  their calls and unexpected visits easily become harassing.

I thought I heard something a few years back about a member of the church couldn't attain some position he was otherwise qualified for because he was black.  Anyway no my gf wasn't part of the polygamy sect of Mormonism.  Her immediate family was Mormon for a few years but no one else in her family is.  She doesn't know if the Church was fundamentalist or not.  

Her mom told me they kept harassing them and I guess love bombing is as good a term as any.  She also mentioned something that seemed sadistic to me.  Apparently if you have financial needs, you lose your job or whatever you aren't supposed to go on welfare, unemployment, WIC or anything else government funded.  You were supposed to go ask the Church for money and they would give it to you.  Which to me seems sinister because they want you to build dependence on the church.  From a financial perspective the ROI (return on investment) is more then likely very positive.  Give them money when they are young and you keep them forever, eventually it'll pay out.  I wonder how bad they are doing because of the recession.

[rlrose328]

I don't have HBO.    Oh well.  Can I get the series on netflix?

Yes, you CAN get the first few seasons I think, if they stock it.  WE don't get HBO all year, just when that show is on, but I think we're waiting this time for the series on DVD or Bluray.  It's excellent.  My neighbor moved away 4 years ago, so I don't know any Mormons well enough to ask how common they find the situations on there.  But it does represent the lunatic fringe, I think.

[Lea]

You also have to pay a full 10% of your income to the church to be able to enter the temple.

Ah, so that explains everything  

Yes.  I post on an ex-mormon forum too.  We frequently refer to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints as LDSinc.  They own huge cattle ranches in Florida, many corporations, a tourist destination in Hawaii, and they are in the process of building a multi-billion dollar shopping/entertainment/living center in Salt Lake City.  Yet the members get little back from the church.  There is always a scarcity of funds for church activities and the members act as janitors, each family in the church has a turn (or turns) to clean the church building each year.

[Lea]

Do they still not allow black people in any position in the church?  Why can't some Mormons own cars?  My GF is an ex-Mormon.  She said when her family left the religion they kept calling and harassing them and it got so bad they had to threaten to call the police and get a restraining order on the church.

The prophet Spencer W. Kimball had a revelation in 1978 in which god said that men of all races could now hold the priesthood and have leadership positions in the church.  Civil rights came late to mormondom.  

I have never heard of members of the mainstream Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints not being allowed to own cars.  Maybe your GF was a Fundamentalist Mormon?  Did she or anyone in her family practice polygamy?  If so, she was a fundamentalist.  When people leave controlling religions like mormonism, the members might try to love bomb them back into the church.  Maybe this happened to your GF's family.  The love bombers say they have good intentions, but  their calls and unexpected visits easily become harassing.

I thought I heard something a few years back about a member of the church couldn't attain some position he was otherwise qualified for because he was black.  Anyway no my gf wasn't part of the polygamy sect of Mormonism.  Her immediate family was Mormon for a few years but no one else in her family is.  She doesn't know if the Church was fundamentalist or not.  

Her mom told me they kept harassing them and I guess love bombing is as good a term as any.  She also mentioned something that seemed sadistic to me.  Apparently if you have financial needs, you lose your job or whatever you aren't supposed to go on welfare, unemployment, WIC or anything else government funded.  You were supposed to go ask the Church for money and they would give it to you.  Which to me seems sinister because they want you to build dependence on the church.  From a financial perspective the ROI (return on investment) is more then likely very positive.  Give them money when they are young and you keep them forever, eventually it'll pay out.  I wonder how bad they are doing because of the recession.

Despite what you have heard, in principle, there is nothing in Mormonism that should impede blacks from attaining any position of authority.  However, in practice, you almost never see black men among the mid to upper levels of church hierarchy.  

When a family is in need, the Bishop of a Ward congregation (geographical area, smallest unit in the church) has all the say in the conditions of that family receiving help from the church.  Sometimes he will ask to see all the families financial records and then he will tell them what they should eliminate to reduce their expenses before they get any help from the church.  My late husband's father at one time had 3 children on full time missions for the church.  His family had to pay for  these missions in Canada, The Dominican Republic, and in South Africa.  He was having difficulty making ends meet while supporting 3 children in foreign countries.  He asked his bishop for help.  The bishop told him that he should sell the baby grand piano that he had recently purchased, and then the church could help out financially.  My former father-in-law had always wanted a baby grand, he had inherited some money at the death of his mother, and he found this piano at an incredible deal.  He would probably never find another deal like it, so buying another piano in the future would most likely be impossible.  Anyway, he kept the piano and they scraped by without help.

My father was a bishop, and from my experience bishops usually encourage people to take advantage of government programs for which they qualify, as well as getting help from the church.  But there are different bishops some more liberal than others.  Maybe your gf's family had a bishop who was way out on the right fringe.  Bishops have complete say as to what goes on in their ward.  They usually don't have interference with higher ranking church officials unless they do something really horrible, like forget to collect the tithing money.

[Spencer'sDad]

Yo, Exmormon:  
(You could take the second "m" out of "mormon" and still be right.)
So happy for you, Bub.
I was raised as a Baptist - same strict religious code of behavior, but no Donnie and Marie.  I never quite "felt right" in church, nor did I ever truly believe in god.  I was a teenager before I admitted it to myself.  We who are blessed with a good mind are the ones who yank the shroud of indoctrination from our brains and experience the exhileration of true freedom of thought.
I just can't help feeling sorry for those who still  "believe."  But they will ever be among us.  Maybe not on this site, but they're out there.
Got to go.  Have to be up early to donate blood tomorrow.  Atheist blood.  I have this gleeful, devilish little hope that somehow my blood will save a fundamentalist preacher's life, and then, once it gets flowing through his brain, he will wake up one morning and realize that religion is a load of horsecrap.
George

[Renegnicat]

Oh, they know, all right. They know...

The ones at the top always know that they're just fooling everyone. If they actually believed in that mind-control, then they wouldn't be leaders!