Replies

CC, i know many who have left the church, and not become anti Mormons. BTW, my definition of an “anti” is someone who goes about trying to destroy the faith of people in a religion. Indeed, I see anti Mormons, anti Catholics, baptists, and even anti Christians. I hold them all at the same level of “respect”. In short, it's not that you left the church, that is between you and God, it's what you are choosing to do with you life and it's negative consequences on you, and on others.

IMHO, antis of all stripes do themselves far more harm by being negative all the time than they do to any religion, or belief system they oppose.

Are you an ex-Mormon, yep are you an anti, well you have declared yourself to be and your actions give me no reason to question your word. I am really sorry you had a bad experience with a bishop and what sounds like a loser of a husband, but in truth, there are people of all stripes in all religions, what is the net effect of the religion? is it a positive message? No good thing can come from Satan. I believe that almost all churches have some redeeming qualities, anti’s don't appear to have that opinion.

anyway, gotta go, sorry this post was so long, I didn't have the time to write a short one. /sic

Are you an ex-Mormon, yep are you an anti...

Delf, you know I'm actually trying to change my habit of assuming Mormons believe all things "Mormon." I'm seeing that younger generational Mormons tend to be a bit of all things...
...part secular...part HS & college-campus secular...part multi-media bathed secular...
...certainly culturally Mormon...but not necessarily doctrinally through and through Mormon...
...some have picked up more from the Bible than other Mormons...
...some have picked up more emphasis from Evangelical Christianity...
...some Lds, especially younger New Age, may have even some New Age thought tinged into their beliefs -- or beliefs from other non-Mormon, non-Christian sources...

My point? While we still need to have a lexicon for how our culture currently describes things, overbroad knee-jerk labels & stereotypes are becoming less helpful all the time -- at least the broad overarching labels. Our labels need to be more specific to head off automatic assumptions.

I mean, what is the current Mormon ad campaign if anything than to show the diversity of Mormons? And it is. You perhaps have 20% who are "temple" Mormons. You have "jack" Mormons. You have cafeteria Mormons...and you can probably come up with a list much longer than mine. And then even with these sub-groups, are individual unique Mormons.

The key thing is that we have to get know each person individually. We're all unique; though different groups share many characteristics and beliefs.

Therefore, I declare that the "anti" label is one of these. A person can be pro-Mormon the person and still be anti-belief system re: MormonISM. A person like Szonian can dearly love his Mormon wife and still oppose the system.

We are ALL opposed to some ideology...hence, in that sense, we are ALL "anti"...something. (Some beliefs are just easier to not object to or assimilate into your own worldviews than others).

What we object to comes down to provocation, passion, opportunity, and calling.

A parent practicing "tough love" on a teen going off the deep end into a brainwashing cult is actually engaged in more pro behavior than anti behavior...because they have the best interest of that teen at heart. And if our "best interest" is informed by the Bible and led by the Holy Spirit, then we have a Source beyond us guiding us.

We'll never lose the labels. (And I'm not advocating that we do away with them). We simply need to be slower & more cautious before we toss them out. We need to get to know people better.

Otherwise, what I find is that people use labels as an excuse to automatically write off what people are saying.

There's one FR poster who I use to view as a thread disruptor. I then reviewed his decade long posting history to see what he had gone through spiritually and found out we had a lot more in common than I thought. My respect for him increased. My understanding did, too.

We still clashed, but I was able to see him more as a multi-dimensional person, vs. me simply writing him off.

(That's all I'm suggesting we do).

BTW, my definition of an “anti” is someone who goes about trying to destroy the faith of people in a religion.

So then; ALL of those 52,000 MMs are ANTI's?

CC, i know many who have left the church, and not become anti Mormons.

I took a look at your page on FR and saw all of the research, questions and answers you have posted.

Your page and with this thread, has interested me enough to start reading an online version of the BOM for the first time. It's very interesting and I wanted to say thanks for your work FRiend!