Ok, so I initially started out thinking that I would do all of these writing prompts in order of how they are suggested.....but number three is asking whether I have the same religious beliefs as I did as a child....and if so, why not?
Jesus take the wheel.
I'm ex-Mormon. It's messy, it's complicated, and no, it's not because I couldn't obey the rules or because I really love the taste of Jim Beam. I never had premarital sex and I have never done drugs. I was one of your "good" ones. Really. I was. Grew up in the LDS church. Primary class president, beehive class president, mia maid class president, laurel class president. Never missed a day of mutual. Went to church dutifully every week, played the piano like a nice Mormon girl does. Married in the temple to my first husband. High school seminary council member. Stake missionary. Bishop's perfect little daughter. Taught primary after I was married.
So much life wasted.
It's a sham, people. Seriously. Put down, on the ground, all that everyone else has ever told you about that religion - go ahead, try it, it's terrifying, I know, but it's also liberating - and try to look at the whole thing, with all the REAL history that is documented (not the one you are fed), and be open-minded. Please. Put down the fear. If you were allowed to just listen to yourself, and not some OTHER PERSON who magically has been given a gift of discernment for how God wants YOU to live YOUR life, what would you find? Why do you need someone else to give that to you? Are you not good enough? Does this God person not love you, or trust you, or think you equal to a man, or another person who is somehow magically blessed by an invisible being and has all the answers? You don't have to take their word, you know. You don't. Please investigate it, on your own. It's not the beautiful, simple thing you were fed. Look into the history of Joseph Smith and his arrests. Look into the Book of Abraham in the Pearl of Great Price, and what happened when professionals really did translate those scrolls that Joseph claimed were the Book of Abraham. (Spoiler alert, they were plain old Egyptian funeral writings.) Look into the Mountain Meadows Massacre. Look up marriage records of Joseph Smith. Investigate his use of seer stones, and buried treasure seeking, and his family's tendency toward swindling people. There are court documents to back these things up. Seriously. The temple ceremony was copied from the Freemasons. Look up Duncan's Ritual of Freemasonry. Joseph Smith wanted to be a Freemason, man. Oh there is just so much to refute it all and it's just.....sad. Sad that so many nice, kind-hearted people do things in the name of that religion. Nice people! Do those things in the name of YOU! Because you don't need a religion to make you a nice person! You don't!
Those niggling questions in the back of your mind? Yeah. Those are not "the devil" speaking to you. It's common sense and your own internal warning system. Even if it's scary to go against everything you've ever been taught about the universe, and people, and families......and you might lose family and friends over it.......because they are taught to shun the non-believer.....
It. Is. A. Sham.
It took me long painful years to come to grips with it, so it will take me long painful years to convey to you just how well I understand the Mormon church to be a giant fake that destroys families. Including mine. So yeah, if I come across as irritated, it's because I am. Because I am still feeling the effects of the shunning by my family because their religion says that I am a sinner, even if I save babies for a living. Even if I end up single-handedly saving the world from World War III and curing cancer....I am still going to be an outcast in their eyes, and influenced by Satan. Because I exercised my "free agency", as they so often tout they let people do. Unless your free agency takes you away from them. Then let the shunning begin. For a religion that claims such martyrdom because they are different they sure do know how to roast and burn people who end up choosing different from them.
And please please please don't think I hate Mormons. I love Mormons. Sooooo many of them. I don't love their religion. My mom is still Mormon....and one of my best friends. We just don't discuss religion, and that's ok. I don't want to hurt her by saying all of these things to her face (because Mormons will generally take these facts as a personal attack, when it isn't! It's facts! Against a religion! That is not YOU!), but boy how much nicer it would be to have a mom who didn't have people telling her that her ex-Mormon daughter (who, incidentally, took her into her own home when her other perfect LDS daughter treated her like crap after their father died) is going to burn in hell. It would be nice if other people didn't get to scare my mom like that.
So ANYWAY now that I got that off my double D's.....
What was the prompt for this one?
I guess I ended up answering the original prompt, after all. Whoops.
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