Outer Lightness » Notamormon

Feeds

5179 items (3918 unread) in 60 feeds

• a new eric (547 unread)
• Adventures in Mediocrity (25 unread)
• Agnostic Mom (36 unread)
• Anchor to my Soul (18 unread)
• Beyond Ourselves (25 unread)
• Blog Happens (34 unread)
• blog.mormonanswers.com (4 unread)
• chandelirious (1 unread)
• Cr@ig In The Middle (43 unread)
• CV Rick (281 unread)
• Degenerate Elite (88 unread)
• Doug Humphries' Eight Hour Lunch
• Easy to be Entreated (82 unread)
• emerging from the ashes (54 unread)
• Equality Time (53 unread)
• Every Wrong Move (33 unread)
• Exposing Mormonism (36 unread)
• Floating in the Milk (31 unread)
• Heart of Darqueness
• Hello Waffles (67 unread)
• In the name of religion (14 unread)
• Ishmael, the Wild Ass (12 unread)
• Jer Illuminated (65 unread)
• Kipona
• Kokaubeam voices (7 unread)
• La's Self-Discovery Blog (48 unread)
• Lair of the Demon (32 unread)
• Lair of the Sinister Porpoise (31 unread)
• Letters from a broad... (373 unread)
• Life in the Fast Lane (89 unread)
• Liminal Blather (28 unread)
• MagicCicero's Odyssey (25 unread)
• Main Street Plaza (575 unread)
• Molly The Mormon (18 unread)
• Mormon 2 Catholic (25 unread)
• Mormon 2 Catholic (10 unread)
• My Faith No More
• Notamormon (95 unread)
• On Religion (42 unread)
• One Dude's Mormon Studies (15 unread)
• Quaker Eclipse (2 unread)
• Ramblings of a SAHM (32 unread)
• Rebecca...and all that entails (26 unread)
• salubrious malcontent
• Scottish Brain (12 unread)
• Shallow Thoughts, by Trixie Granny (28 unread)
• Sideon's Sanctuary (24 unread)
• Sons of Perdition (118 unread)
• Talking to God (54 unread)
• The Fork in the Road (50 unread)
• The Freeway Overpass (10 unread)
• The Peep Stone (25 unread)
• this, that, and the other (192 unread)
• Thought Spot
• Thoughts by Sister Mary Lisa (84 unread)
• Todd's Hammer (72 unread)
• Trapped by the Mormons (206 unread)
• UTARNIA
• Winning by the Rules (21 unread)
• Within the Bubble

Notamormon (10 unread)

• 

  Why are Mormons so Mormon?

  Posted: August 30th, 2010, 12:19am EDT by Matt

  Tags:    [edit]

  Mormons are, by and large, nice people. But get them into full Mormon mode and they seem to become crazy people!
  
  I heard of a Mormon woman who had a weird dream about Amazon and her son growing up to look at pictures of women's underwear on the Amazon website, so she has blocked Amazon from her computer!
  
  I mean, how bizarre and flaky is that?!
  
  Who on earth would do something so mindbogglingly dense? Oh. Sorry, yes, I already answered that question. A Mormon would.
• 

  My former Bishop: How I proved him to be a liar

  Posted: August 29th, 2010, 11:05pm EDT by Matt

  Tags:    [edit]

  My former Mormon Bishop was a liar. I already knew he was a bit strange, somewhat creepy and a flake, but I found out he was a liar, too. This was, I think, one of the later points that helped signpost me away from Mormonism.
  
  I went to a party held by someone who was a recent exmo. I was still a practising Mormon at that time. It would have been about 1980 or 1981. A young member of the ward was there, too. She was 16 and had obviously being drinking alcohol before she arrived at the party. She was quite drunk. I was in my very early 20s. I was concerned about the state she was already in.
  
  So I decided to personally deal with her drink 'orders' at the party. She asked for a rum and Coke. She got a coke with a negligible amount of rum. She wanted a Martini and lemonade. She got a Lemonade and did I remember to put in some Martini? Who can possibly say?! Someone at the party (a nevermo) asked me why I was giving her so much booze? When I explained what I was doing, she thought it an excellent plan and gave it her blessing. She expressed concern that Mormon teenagers were not taught how to drink responsibly. To which I agreed. (Much to my then surprise...)
  
  About a week later I was called into the office of Bishop Gold. (Not his real name, but close enough, for real life!) He barked out: “Give me one good reason why I should not put you before a church court?”
  
  I thought: “Well, probably because I haven’t done anything wrong, you idiot.”
  
  I looked at him and said, coldly, “Well, Bishop Gold. Why don’t you start by telling me what is on your mind?”
  
  He gave me a cock-and-bull story about how he knew I had gotten a young girl deliberately drunk and that he was not only considering a church court, but also considering reporting me to the police for encouraging underage drinking.
  
  He said: “And I know this is true, because a non-member friend of mine told me that he had been invited to that party and how it had become an orgy!”
  
  I knew this was untrue and that he had probably been given a very distorted version of the events at the party by a rather strange and disturbed Mormon woman who had fried their brains with illegal drugs several years before she became a Mormon.
  
  I suddenly felt very angry at Bishop Gold. Normally I was known for being a quiet and “unassuming” person. Whilst I am usually a fairly placid person who is slow to anger, when I do get angry I do get angry. It was all I could do to restrain myself from really telling Bishop Gold what I (and most of the Ward, as it happens!) really thought of him.
  
  I looked him straight in the eye and said: “Bishop, what I would like to know is, first of all, why you have chosen to lie to me, today? I am not pleased that you asked me to come to a meeting with you, and that you threaten me with a church court and then you lie to me.”
  
  He went bright red. I though: “Bingo! Got you!”
  
  He blustered for several seconds. He then said. “I didn’t lie to you! I… Well…”
  
  I continued: “You did not have a friend from work go to that party.” (I knew all the people who attended, so that was a dumb story to use and was a totally unnecessary invention on his part.)
  
  “In fact, I would guess that Sister Singer (not her real name) told you about the party, didn’t she?” (I could see by the way his jaw dropped that I had scored a direct hit, even though it was only a guess.)
  
  “Did you know that Sister Singer was not at the party? So she obviously passed on to you a juicy snippet of gossip that she embellished and added on to!
  
  “An orgy was it? Well, actually, no. The hostess and her boyfriend kissed, but then, as it was her birthday party, no surprise there. By the way, Bishop Gold, what is the legal age for drinking at a private party in Britain?”
  
  He looked much happier now. Here was an answer he knew! Or thought he knew. “It is 18!” he said, with a sneer on his face. His sneering expression said: “Yes. You think you are clever, don’t you? You spotted I was making it up, you realised who had given me the information but I have got you on this one!”
  
  “You are wrong, Bishop Gold. The drink laws in Britain are complicated. In Britain it is generally the case that the age for drinking alcohol in Britain in licensed premises is 18. Incidentally, if a child of 14 or older is eating a meal with his or her parents they are legally allowed to drink alcohol with their meal, either wine or cider.
  
  "However, as for the legal age for drinking at a private party or in a private home in Britain? You might be surprised to learn that there isn’t one. It is perfectly legal for children to drink alcohol at home or at a private party they are at in someone else's home. You and I might disagree with the law, but that it is the law as it stands.” He went pale.
  
  I then explained how I realised that she had arrived at the party when already drunk (probably with booze from Sister Singer, I suspected, but I didn't voice my suspicions to Bishop Gold) and that that I had given her 'pop' with enough alcohol to give it a smell and taste, but not enough to have an effect on her.
  
  I had won. And he knew it. There was no Church Court. Our relationship thereafter was strained to put it mildly.
  
  But this set me thinking. He had been all for setting up a church court for me (Oh, yes. Bishop Gold liked his church courts) but he had decided to base this on nothing but the gossip of a mentally ill member (she was jealous of the woman hosting the party) his own fatally flawed understanding of the British licensing laws as they stood in the late 1970s and early 1980s and he had chosen to deliberately lie to me. Doubtless he would have seen his lie as a subterfuge to break me and get me to confess. But it was a lie, never-the-less.
  
  Prior to that I had known Bishop Gold as a blowhard, a flake, a martinet and a pompous, creepy, arsehole. I now knew him also as being a dangerously flawed individual who saw nothing wrong in lying to get his own way.
  
  Yes, that was one of the baby steps that lead me away from the Mormon church to the truth. And I never thanked Bishop Gold for his help in that regard!
  
  (The original of this post was created in 2006. This is a slightly different, modified version)
• 

  Was Joseph Smith a martyr?

  Posted: August 27th, 2010, 8:11pm EDT by Matt

  Tags:    [edit]

  Was Joseph Smith a martyr? That's a very good question. If you speak to any faithful Mormon (or TBM as they are sometimes known) the answer will be: "Why, yes! Of course he was! He was martyred at Carthage Jail!"
  
  A martyr is someone who is put to death for his faith. "Like a lamb to the slaughter" is one definition of the act of being a martyr. Or Martyrdom as it is also known.
  
  Generally, a martyr just accepts their fate and dies for their religion. They do not fight back. Some of them even make jokes about their martyrdom, and or forgive those that are martyring them.
  
  Did anything like that happen in the case of Joseph Smith? No. It did not. Because Joseph Smith fought back. He drew a pistol on the mob who were attacking him and his companions and either injured or killed some of them.
  
  Now, that was his right. Every man and woman has a right to defend themselves against attack. Even if this necessitates killing the attacker in extreme cases. And, let's face it, being attacked by a mob baying for your life is an extreme case.
  
  But for followers of the church Joseph Smith founded to claim that Joseph Smith was a martyr is just plain wrong. A victim of a murderous attack, yes, he was. But a martyr? No. To describe Joseph Smith as a martyr is stretching the definition of that word beyond breaking point.
  
  Here is a link to some 'real' martyrs for comparison:-
  
  [en.wikipedia.org]
• 

  Another dull summer

  Posted: August 22nd, 2010, 11:53pm EDT by Matt

  Tags:    [edit]

  We have had another pretty dull summer in Britain. Poor weather, cloudy and cool in August. Now, that's just not fair, is it?
  
  When people on RFM mention that they are suffering from heat waves in the 30s, I can only point to the fact that one evening it was 12c, and the heating decided to kick in that night, as it was so cold! Oh, well. All the rain makes Britain a very green place to be. Though we do, actually, have a desert in England.
  [gertsamtkunstwerk.typepad.co.uk]
  will take to a picture of said desert.
  
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeness_%28headland%29
  
  Rather like the Mormon church. A desert, least where one would expect it.
• 

  Top Mormon Guilty of 'Million Dollar Fraud'

  Posted: August 15th, 2010, 9:46am EDT by Matt

  Tags:    [edit]

  R. Dean Udy, of Brigham City, pleaded guilty today to two felony criminal counts in regards to his solicitation of $1,313,500 from 5 investors.

  Udy pleaded guilty to making false statements to the Division of Securities in connection with a 2002 investigation it was conducting and he pleaded guilty to securities fraud, for failing to tell later investors about his disciplinary history.

  In the December of 2002. Udy was a licensed securities agent. He consented to the entry of a disciplinary order by the Division of Securities relating to promissory notes that he had sold to investors.

  As part of that order, Udy claimed that he had disclosed all notes that he had issued. However, it transpired that this was far from the truth. In fact, a subsequent investigation by the Division proved that Udy had issued at least five promissory notes totalling $1314,500 which had been kept hidden from the Division.

  In October of 2003, the Division took the decision to revoke Udy's license as a broker-dealer agent and barred him from the securities industry.

  However, it transpired that Udy sold at least two additional promissory notes after his license had been revoked. On December 21 2005, the Utah Attorney General filed four felony counts against Udy for providing false information to the Division. This was for failing to disclose important information to investors, and for selling securities without having the necessary license.

  A spokesman said: “The guilty pleas entered by Udy will be held in abeyance for 36 months. During that time, Udy is required to pay full restitution to those who gave him money to invest and provide accurate information to the State about those investors.
  

  “If he makes full restitution and complies with the other terms of the plea agreement, the two felony counts will be reduced to Class A misdemeanours and the convictions will be entered on his record.”

  Brother Udy was a prominent Mormon, having served on a Stake Presidency (similar to the Diocese in the Episcopalian or Church of England) and as Regional Representative (Ogden Utah, Riverdale Utah, Syracuse Utah, and Clearfield Utah regions) of the Presidency of the LDS/Mormon church, the largest of several sects of the original polygamous cult founded by Joseph Smith.

  It has been claimed that Udy cheated investors, many of whom were friends and fellow Mormons.

  
  

  
• 

  Why I think you should blog.

  Posted: August 14th, 2010, 8:46pm EDT by Matt

  Tags:    [edit]

  Do you blog? If you don't, I think you should at least consider it. I use Blogger.com, but there are many other systems you can use like Wordpress. Some are free, some charge. Check them out, and see what would suit you the best.
  
  Blogging can be very cathartic and can help you put your own thoughts in order. Many times I have written a post and then realised why I had reacted to something in the way I had done.
  
  Obviously, you need to be careful what you put in. Too much Real Life Information (or In Real Life Information) can be a bad thing, if you do not want your family to know certain things. So, be careful what you post, under those circumstances.
  
  The Recovery From Mormonism website has a list of blogs you can read. You can also have your blog listed there, too, if it is related to ex-Mormonism.
  
  Just visit www.exmormon.org and follow the links to the Bulletin Board.
• 

  My Sunday as an ex-Mormon

  Posted: August 14th, 2010, 7:23pm EDT by Matt

  Tags:    [edit]

  I have just tended to the eye of our cat and then fed him some fresh chicken. I have just added Stat Counter to my blog, and will do some tweeking of it and perhaps some other websites I run, later.
  
  My wife, due to three people calling in sick has had to go into work (she is a carer in a nursing home) and we may go out for dinner, later.
  
  I could go to church (not the Mormon 'church', of course!) later, but probably will not. But the choice you, see is entirely mine. Nobody will love bomb me with false and syrupy "oh, we missed you soo much!"
  
  I might visit an online church, or see if I can find The Time Team archaeology TV programme on view again on the Internet. But that's it, you see. My time, as an ex-Mormon is my own. No Home Teaching visits to people who have only ever attended one meeting of the Mormon church 30 years ago, before they realised that they had made a ghastly mistake and that the meat they had after the milk was rancid and had gone off big time.
  
  No attending PEC meetings and discovering that the Bishop is a damned liar, the High Priest Group leader a vicious and waspish fool and that the Relief Society president is a gossipy, delusional shrew. I was the ward executive secretary and discovered the hard way that attempting to influence the meetings let alone control them (they never would stick to the agenda. Apparently the real role of the PEC meetings was to gossip about people who were not there, score points of other people (all the better if they were not there!) and generally behave like a bunch of "crazy fools." (Thank you, Mr T.)
  
  Eventually my behaviour as Ward Executive Secretary (I kept insisting that the Bishop, a weird and somewhat creepy individual who I had a subsequent run-in with, and upset him further by winning and proving him, again, to be a liar) actually at least tried to operate in accordance with the rules of the Mormon church!) meant that I was removed from the calling. The next Executive Secretary made exactly the same mistake and he lasted even less than I did. The Bishop kept casting around for more pliable priesthood holders until, summarily, he was made not Bishop any more.
  
  I think I posted about the run-in I had with the Bishop a while ago. I'll see if I can dig it out and do another piece on it. It did come as a shock when I realised that the man I was supposed to look up to was nothing but a rather dirty liar, but that's another story!
  
  But as for now? I'll enjoy my Sunday, thank you very much!
• 

  Eye drops for a kitty

  Posted: August 14th, 2010, 1:58am EDT by Matt

  Tags:    [edit]

  Today, my wife is at work and I am on Saturday duty to ensure our little Persian cat gets his eyedrops every two hours after his eye surgery.
  
  He doesn't like the collar he wears and he is starting to hate me, as I am his designated eyedrop giver.
  
  He will have another post-operative check-up on Monday. Then if that goes well, more eyedrops, then a follow-up operation to remove some stitches, I think.
  
  He is looking really miserable. I hope it works and that it saves the sight in his eye. Poor little mite!
• 

  Ex-Mormon websites

  Posted: August 12th, 2010, 10:05am EDT by Matt

  Tags:    [edit]

  If you have any other websites that you feel need to be added to this list, please email me at matt_exmo@yahoo.co.uk
  
  Some of these websites are atheist, some Christian, others have no bias, one way or the other.
  
  [south-bay-soliloquies.blogspot.com]
  
  http://www.josephs-myth.com
  
  http://www.mormoninformation.com
  
  [www.integrity.com]
  
  www.exmormonfoundation.org/
  
  [www.exmormon.org]
  
  [www.cephasministry.com]
  
  [www.lifeafter.org]
  
  [en.wikipedia.org]
  
  [www.exmormonforums.com]
  
  [www.exchristian.net]
  
  [www.port7.co.uk] (UK exmo board)
  
  [www.salamandersociety.com]
  
  [www.cephasministry.com]
  
  [www.lifeafter.org]
  
  [www.jasperridge.com]
  
  [www.exchristian.net]
  
  [www.contra-mundum.org]
  
  [diatribedamsel.blogster.com]
  
  [www.infidels.org]
  
  [www.cafepress.com] (“Mormon” beer labels!)
  
  [enc.slider.com]
  
  [www.rickross.com]
  
  [www.mormoncurtain.com]
  
  [www.truthandgrace.com]
  
  [mormondiscussions.com]
  
  [www.towertotruth.net]
  
  [www.factnet.org]
  
  [exmormonfoyer.blogspot.com]
  
  [www.godandscience.org]
  
  [mormontruth.blogspot.com]
  
  [www.religionnewsblog.com]
  
  [www.mormonismi.info]
  
  [www.utlm.org]
  
  [www.irr.org]
  
  [www.lds-mormon.com]
  
  [www.lds-mormon.com]
  
  [frank.kirkman.com]
  
  www.exmo-social.com
  
  [www.myspace.com]
  
  [scottishbrain.blogspot.com]
  
  [www.wivesofjosephsmith.org]
  
  [www.hismin.com]
  
  [www.authorsden.com]
  
  [www.whatismormonism.com]
  
  http://home.teleport.com/~packham
  
  [www.2think.org]
  
  [www.reachouttrust.org]
  
  [www.mrm.org]
  
  [www.hiddenmysteries.org]
  
  [www.watchman.org]
  
  [www.xanga.com]
  
  [www.mmmo.org]
  
  [www.religioustolerance.org]
  
  www.exmormon.org
  
  www.frontiernet.net/~bcmmin
  
  [nowscape.com] (Not exactly ex-mo, but good fun)
  
  [nowscape.com] (Shows how "different" Mormonism is...)
  
  www.xmission.com/~country/reason/reason.htm
  
  www.mormonconspiracy.com
  
  www.realmormonhistory.com
  
  [www.mormonsinshock.com]
  
  [www.refutingmormonism.com]
  
  [www.bible-truth.org]
  
  [www.leavingthesaints.com]
  
  [www.rickross.com]
  
  www.affirmation.org/news/1999_41.shtml
  
  [www.mormonnomore.com]
  
  [www.zaksite.co.uk]
  
  http://home.comcast.net/~zarahemla/foyer.html
  
  [www.aimoo.com]
  
  http://mormontruthpodcast.blogspot.com
  
  http://livingtruthpodcast.blogspot.com
  
  http://mormondeception.blogspot.com
  
  www.josephlied.com
  
  www.bookofabraham.com
  
  [mazeministry.com]
  
  [trialsofascension.net]
  
  www.postmormon.org
  
  [www.lhvm.org]
  
  [www.helpingmormons.org]
  
  [www.bookofzelph.com]
  
  http://mormon2catholic.blogspot.com
  
  [mormonscripturestudies.com]
  
  [www.truthandgrace.com]
  
  http://www.mormonstudies.com
  
  [www.skepticsannotatedbible.com]
  
  [www.mrm.org]
  
  [www.newordermormon.org]
  
  http://sideon.blogspot.com
  
  [www.gospelhelp.com] (Melissa's Mormon Experience)
  
  [skepticsannotatedbible.com]
  
  [www.zondervan.com] (A link to buy an anti-Mormon book by Christian scholars, should you really want to buy it!)
  
  [www.moonmac.com] (Fun on the net!)
  
  [rumandmonkey.com]
  
  [www.afcministry.com]
  
  [wesclark.com] (The Utah Baby Name website. If this doesn't put you off, what would?)
  
  [leavingtsccbehind.blogspot.com]
  
  [darqueheart.blogspot.com]
  
  www.thechurchisNOTtrue.com
  
  [tomanyquestions.blogspot.com]
  
  [www.mazeministry.com]
  
  http://sistermarylisa.blogspot.com
  
  http://kitakazoo.blogspot.com
  
  [nut-job-jen.blogspot.com]
  

  http://www.exmormonconnect.com

  
  www.latayne.com
  
  www.exmohomo.com
  
  This is a re-post of the list. If there are any amendments to be made, please email me at matt_exmo@yahoo.co.uk. Thank you.
• 

  What was the worst thing your parents ever did?

  Posted: August 12th, 2010, 10:40pm EDT by Matt

  Tags:    [edit]

  To my mind, the worst thing my parents ever did was to join the Mormon church or cult if you will.
  
  This has caused misery and heartache down the years. It also put up barriers between our side of the family and other people in the extended family, where it is certain that none existed before.
  
  My mother cannot understand this. I could tell her why, but then that would only feed her "Oh, we are being persecuted for our faith" paranoia. And I really do not think that would help at all.
  
  But why should people associate with Mormons? The problem with Mormons is that they have an extremely limited range of conversational topics. It goes something like this:-
  
  1) Mormonism
  2) Joseph Smith
  3) The Temple
  4) General Conference
  5) Mormonism
  6) Joseph Smith
  7) The Temple
  8) General Conference
  9) And so on....
  
  People get bored, especially when they realise that Mormonism is nonsense. For an ordinary person to fall amongst Mormons must be like when an ordinary person finds themselves accidental enmeshed in a convention of War Game enthusiasts. I mean, you can see why people would be interested in the fantasies created by a master story teller, but you might not be interested in it yourself. But as for war gaming? That's an entirely different kettle of fish!