Lair of the Demon

I am back on You Tube

2010-06-10T15:49:00.001-06:00

http://www.youtube.com/user/DemonofKolob

You can leave Utah but you cannot escape ruded bigited Mormons

2010-06-10T15:41:00.002-06:00

I was on a Caribbean cruise a few years ago; one of the ports was Jamaica. Here I did an excursion that included Dunn's river falls and river tubing and tour of the local area. Part of the local tour included a stop a couple of factories for a free taste of 2 products Jamaica is known for Coffee and Rum. A group of Mormons on the tour raised such a ruckus that we could not stop at the factories for the samples. Worse this group of Mormons said unbelievably rude things about the friends who were with me on the tour (an interracial couple). These comments included many users of the F and N words and included statements as "Polluting the pure race", "Fu@#@# Nig@#@#" "Devil cursed half breeds" etc. The worst examples of the Mormon Church are sometime the members themselves.

A look into the future, or not. April 1 ,2011

2009-08-13T13:22:00.002-06:00

***BREAKING NEWS*** Mormon Church goes public with IPO, investor reaction mixed
Author: NoToJoe
Mail Address:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
April 1, 2011 (CFN Financial News)- The Corporation of the President
(dba The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) launched its
first day of trading today under the symbol 'CULT' on the New York
Stock Exchange marking the first time ever that a US based religion
has gone public.

Early trading was mixed as the issue started the day at 36.26 but lost
steam in early trading losing 16 points in the first hour of light
trading. Analysts expressed concerns over the organization's business
model which some predict can't survive the loss of tax exempt status
and is projected to run losses into the foreseeable future.

Despite dire predictions, trading strengthened mid-morning as buying
in the Mountain Time zone accelerated and trading became more active.
Analyst LaVerl Smith from Zions bank, the only bank tracking the
stock, was extremely bullish on the offering "I know that this is the
only true stock and that by buying this stock I will receive returns
in the last days."

Institutional investors showed little interest in the company however,
activity from individual investors surprised some analysts. A large
number of small transactions served to boost the stock to 47.50 by mid
afternoon as Mutual fund companies such as Fidelity and TR Price
reported thousands of retirees liquidating their 401(k) accounts to
purchase the stock. Larinda Allred of Sandy Utah was one such investor
who cashed out both her 401(K) and her husband's life insurance policy
so that she could purchase 10,000 shares of CULT. "My Bishop told me
about this investment opportunity during a special interview at
church. I'm putting my life savings into this stock because after
talking with my bishop and praying about it I felt a very special
feeling. I know this stock is the only true stock on the face of the
earth. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen."

Support for the stock evaporated in late afternoon trading due to
several large transactions during the final minutes of trading. The
stock plunged over 47 points to close at 0.19 as a small number of
very large sell orders were received on the floor. Trading records
indicate that 15 key insiders in the church hierarchy all placed
orders to sell once the price topped 46 netting a staggering total of
7.4 billion in profits for those 15 individuals.

After the close of trading officials at the New York stock exchange
announced that the stock will be delisted as it has fallen below $1
per share and no longer meets the requirements for trading on the
NYSE. Attempts were made to contact the LDS church for comment.
However, we were told that church officials are away on personal
business in an disclosed country that has no extradition agreement
with the United States.

How Much CASH Is The MORmON PRophet Of Fraud Thomas S. Monson & His Gang Of Thugs & Goons Raking In

2009-08-12T16:40:00.005-06:00

Written by Utanite
How Much CASH Is The MORmON PRophet Of Fraud Thomas S. Monson & His Gang Of Thugs & Goons Raking In On Just Garments & Temple Clothing Sales Annually?

I think the last time I bought a pair of secret & scared "MAGIC" Mormon garments/underwear, around 4-5 years ago; they were around $12 a pair, as the cost had just gone up. Maybe it was the cost of the type I bought, as I remember they had different prices for different types. I remember when they were around $7.00 a pair but of course that wasn't enough for the money hungry cult leaders/Jesus, who want every cent they can get their grubby hands on!!

If anyone has bought them lately and has a more accurate price range, or can access the LDS website that has all of the different prices; please share the info, so that I can be more accurate. It's too bad that Ebay won't let us sell them, as it would be a fun hobby and we could make a good living...selling Mormon magic underwear on Ebay...LOL!!

I'm guessing with the Salt Lake City, multi-billion dollar mall/downtown construction projects...the cost of garments will be going waaaay up, as someone has to pay for "Jesus'" shiny new malls(big and spacious buildings), right? I'm sure that "Jesus" will be having a very special meeting with Tommy Boy, in the Holy of Holies, regarding the much needed increase of the cost of Jesus' Magic underwear...LOL!!

In any case, if they are say $12 a pair and you have around 3 million active, temple going Saints(could be more or less), that buy say 10 pair a year...that would add up to 360 million dollars a year, minus their cost to make each pair which is what...50 cents or a dollar at most? They pay their workers minimum wage, so it could even be even less than that.

So, in my opinion, I would guess an accurate number would be somewhere between $200-400 million, based on the actual number of active temple goers, the actual cost per pair they buy & how many pair they buy per year. Could even be more than $400 million, which wouldn't surprise me at all...I just know it's in the hundreds of millions, even low-balling it in all of the categories that I just mentioned above.

That's why they want you to buy your garments from them exclusively and why you aren't allowed to make your own garments.(and make sure your cut out and burn the little Masonic marks in them when they wear out, so that you can use them to dust the furniture or wipe your car down, etc...LOL!) Amazing how much power those marks have eh...when there...garments are fully functional...when they're gone...garments are just rags and have lost all of their "MAGIC POWER"...LOL!!

God I was a brainwashed dumb ass to believe all of that bullshit and so is anyone else that does!!

Oh and let's not forget the "money changers" in the back of the temple(ching, ching) that are RENTING the temple clothes for a ridiculous price(what they call "a small cleaning fee"), considering what it actually costs them to wash all the clothes, at the end of the day, in one massive load, in Jesus' sacred and blessed washing machines. I'm sure the washer and dryer were included in the dedicatory prayer, right?("Protect ALL from any devastating influence, destruction, or defacement.")

Hey didn't "Jesus" kick the money changers out of the temple...oops!! THEY'RE BACK...time to return bad-ass "Jesus" and kick them out again...LOL!! I guess now he loves money changers...but we have to also add the daily rental money to the above mentioned profits. I'm sure they make tens of millions on the rental charges, mostly from Utah and all of the brainwashed cultists that reside there.

Even when I was a TBM, I was VERY uncomfortable(as were many of my family members and friends) with a cash register ringing up my temple clothes and costume rental costs and I often wondered how that made sense, knowing what "Jesus" thought of the money changers.

Funny how the cash register bothered me so much, but the death penalties and pantomiming my death(along with and beside my family and friends) by slitting my throat and chest and disemboweling myself, if I ever revealed "THE SECRETS" of the temple; was just fine...man, was I brainwashed!!

I was bothered and disturbed by the DEATH PENALTIES when I first did them(not knowing ANYTHING about them beforehand), but then moved quickly into acceptance, because after all...it was divine revelation while I was in "The Lord's House", that I should be murdered that way, directly from "Jesus" himself, through Joseph Smith and it was the "one and only true church."

In fact, I would deserve it(DEATH) I thought, if I did indeed reveal those SECRET/SACRED things to anyone else, which I promised I'd never do, with the fear and penalty of DEATH.

On top of the garments, let's also not forget the absurd cost of buying the temple ceremony clothes that you play dress up with and also the actual temple dresses and clothes that you wear under the dress-up clothes. It's Halloween baby, every day a MORmON temple is open.

I'd be surprised if the whole garment/temple clothing market of The Corporation Of The President didn't easily top a billion dollars annually! It's funny(in a pathetic way of course) that just that part of the corporation alone, could be its own successful, independent corporation in the real world.

In fact, in some of the poorest countries in the world, like in Africa; they don't even offer clothing rental and those poor people have to BUY their damn temple clothes. Couldn't they just let them use them FOR FUCKING FREE?!!

Of course not, as NOTHING IS FREE IN THE MORmON CULT!!

"They wouldn't appreciate it as much if they were able to use them for free and didn't have to work for it" is what they would say. Yeah, like the MORmON Hierarchy works for all of the money that rolls in, based on fears and threats of eternal separation from everyone they've ever loved?!!

First you have to pay your damn 10% just to get to "Jesus'" temple, then they nickle and dime you once you're worthy(garments) and then shamelessly once again when you get to the temple. It's a threefold hammer...WHAT A RACKET!!

When my Grandma died a few years ago, we went to the official church clothing store to buy her temple dress for her to be buried in(I was still a TBM at that time). They said they could have given her a discount if she was still alive, but since she was now dead...they'd have to charge us full price for the dress!!(It didn't even occur to the lady how offensive that statement was and just came out naturally, like most MORmON BS that they spew)

I believe the regular price was like $75 & they said that they could have sold us the dress for around $45 or something like that if she was still alive and that that was their official policy.

In other words...WE SHOULD HAVE FUCKING LIED!! Once again, the MORmON cult teaches you that lying is the best policy, just like they've done since 1820 until today.

I explained that she WAS DEAD and shouldn't have to pay more in her death, than when she was alive and that it was an absurd and unfair policy!! I asked "if we'd come in to buy the dress when she was on her death bed...would we have gotten the lower price" and her answer was "yes." I was even more furious at that point and I even told her I should have lied then", which she didn't appreciate!!

Then I told her that it was "outrageous that they were going to stick it to my Grandma like that when she was dead, just because of the fact that she was now dead!" I asked "why would you have such an obscene policy like that" and that "it didn't make any sense?" I then asked "is it because you now know you won't make any more money off of her?" I was PISSED!!

I was then, at the point, starting to seriously raise my voice and start to make the lady uncomfortable and cause somewhat of a scene in the otherwise "reverent" clothing store of the MORmON "Jesus."(again I was still TBM, but also very emotional and upset after losing my Grandma and I couldn't believe that "the one TRUE church" was doing this to my Grandma after her death and essentially punishing us for her death.) Where was the love and compassion?!!

It was more about the principle at this point, than the damn $30...kind of like when Bednar said "it was never about the earrings." The difference is that I'm telling THE TRUTH, Bednar was LYING!!

I said things like "I can't believe you're doing this to my Grandma", "are you kidding me", "you should be ashamed of yourself", "this is absurd", etc. She then told me to "please clam down" and relented and said that "even though she wasn't supposed to and could get in big trouble, that she'd go ahead and give it to me for the lower price." Of course she also asked me "to please not tell anybody." I was so FURIOUS and couldn't believe what I'd just experienced and I was having flash backs to the BS that I'd put up with on my mission.

Anyway, the bottom line is that this Mormon cult will admit to gladly PUNISHING and PENALIZING you and your family, EVEN AFTER YOUR DEAD, while trying to squeeze your loved ones for more cash and every last cent they can get. They are cold and heartless!! There is no depth that they will not sink to, in order to make a buck off of you(even after you're DEAD) and like the douche bag Lynn G. Robbins said a few years ago in General Conference:

No bishop, no missionary should ever hesitate or lack the faith to teach the law of tithing TO THE POOR. The sentiment of "They can't afford to" needs to be replaced with "THEY CAN'T AFFORD NOT TO."

One of the FIRST THINGS a bishop must do to HELP THE NEEDY is ask them to PAY THEIR TITHING. Like the widow, IF A DESTITUTE FAMILY IS FACED WITH THE DECISION OF PAYING THEIR TITHING OR EATING, THEY SHOULD PAY THEIR TITHING. The bishop can help them with their food and other basic needs until they become self-reliant. (Lynn G. Robbins, "Tithing—a Commandment Even for the Destitute," Ensign, May 2005, 34)

Lynn G. Robbins, proudly and literally taking food out of children's mouths for "God."

I want EVERYONE to notice(and I'm pretty sure I'm the FIRST person to point this out) is that in the Ensign and on LDS.org, they've added "and other basic needs until they become self-reliant", after he said "the Bishop can help them with their food."
What's amazing to me, is that Lynn G. Robbins was already lying and then I guess Hinckley added another lie to that lie, by knowingly and falsely stating "and other basic needs until they become self-reliant." I guess they felt it was too harsh. But, you've heard the audio and read the "transcript" and you now know THE TRUTH!!

That statement alone by the asshole Lynn G. Robbins, should be enough for any decent human being to leave the church instantly and realize that it's a cult. Who would ask such a thing? When they are literally asking you to give your money to them(without ANY accountability whatsoever as to where it went) and to then literally STARVE your family, including babies, small children, etc...it's A DAMN CULT!!

What type of animal or beast would ask you to do this(it follows their teaching of always putting the church first and your family second)...as they then hypocritically use your money to build $500 million temples that are open "by appointment only", spend over $600 million dollars to bail out the "Jesus/MORmON" owned Beneficial Life, as they fly around the world in private jets, while eating the finest cuisine and being chauffeured around in luxury cars and building multi-billion dollar malls in Salt Lake and a $30 million luxury resort In Laie, Hawaii, etc, etc?!!

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!!

Oh, and the last part referring to the Bishop helping, is a complete CROCK OF SHIT too and just ANOTHER LIE, especially when 99% of the countries the cult is in, have NO WELFARE PROGRAM whatsoever. Hell, they don't even help someone here in the U.S.A. that has faithfully payed their tithing for their entire life "until they become self-reliant."

It's all just another lie, as I have a best friend who has faithfully paid his tithing his entire life, just lost his job and was recently REJECTED by his Bishop for financial assistance of any kind.

Even if you get lucky and the Bishop helps you; it isn't until your "self-sufficient", since I have another friend who was told the limit now is 3 months and they're done with you and kick you to the curb. He was told it was the church's new policy and that was before the economic collapse...it's now probably one week or not at all, like my other friend experienced.

The Bishop told him to "have faith" and of course "to continue paying his tithing(in the spirit of Hinckley and Lynn G. Robbins) and that the 'Lord' would bless him." What a fucking insult and slap in the face...ASSHOLES!!

I of course told him to do the RIGHT THING and to stop paying it immediately and take care of his family and that money wasn't going to fall out of the sky. He ended up pulling out money from his 401K(which he didn't want to do because of the penalties and because it was a temporary problem) and he still paid tithing on it(he was too afraid not to and he seriously considers it his fire insurance...FOR REAL) and after 2 months, things were never worse and he went through hell...so now he's actually questioning, thank the Mormon God!!

Let's say that you've payed tithing for 20 years and averaged $4,000/yr. That would be $80,000(not including fast offerings and every other fund you've foolishly donated to) you've faithfully paid to the MORmON cult, no questions asked(even going hungry on occasions as they tell you to do), with absolutely NO accountability in return as to where it went and then, when you desperately need help(BECAUSE YOU DON'T HAVE THAT EXTRA $80,000 THEY ROBBED FROM YOU)...THEY WANT A FULL ACCOUNTABILITY OF WHERE YOU'RE SPENDING EVERY CENT(EXCEPT WHAT YOU'VE GIVEN THEM OF COURSE) AND THEN THEY TELL YOU TO SHUT OFF YOUR CABLE, TAKE THE BUS AND TO GO FUCK YOURSELF!!

Did it ever occur to the bastard cult leaders that you're mainly in the situation you're in, because you've donated 10-15% or more of you income for you entire life, right into the black hole of MORmON Inc? OF COURSE NOT!! Imagine if you'd just saved half of that money or even 25% of that money...you'd have a nice savings account to help you out in a tough time.

What do you get for paying tithing? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING but a pass to Joe's house of horrors, where you can dress up like a dumb ass, take orders from Satan and at least in the past(changed in 1990 and 2005)...agree to be killed by various gruesome death penalties and have your naked body fondled and touched right next to your genitals and for women, also on your breasts(which would have caused you to receive formal church punishment if you would've done to your girl/boyfriend, what they did to you in the name of "God" and Joseph Smith)

There really should be a class action lawsuit against the cult for the naked touching, which we didn't know about before it happened. Any Lawyers out there reading this interested?

For those who want to know more about the MORmON temple...please visit my good friends site, that has all of the audio and text of all the MORmON temple ceremonies, including a text comparison between the pre-1990 and post 1990 ceremonies. It shows how they actually GUTTED the temple ceremony and took out massive chunks and made gigantic changes and that it wasn't just "minor changes" as The First Presidency claimed and lied about.

Of course no one can talk about it, so everyone just accepted it and bowed their head and said yes, as trained to do in the temple. This is the same temple ceremony that is supposed to "NEVER CHANGE", EVER, without God punishing his cult. What a fraud eh?!!

Now, all of you non-Mormons out there, including Ex-Mormons, can easily learn all of the bullshit handshakes and what to say when you meet Joseph Smith at the Pearly gates and you'll be able to easily get into heaven, since the handshakes are the most important things to prove to Joseph Smith and the "MORmON GOD", that you're a MORmON...LOL...and you didn't even have to pay them 10% of your income to learn them and didn't have to dress up like a dumb ass!!

The ONLY reason MORmON temples even exist today and have been built at such a rapid pace the last few years...is for generating revenue. They are desperate once again for cash(running 90+ days behind on their bills for Jesus' billion dollar malls), just like the late 1800s, early 1900s and the early 1960s, as history is repeating itself once again, as they've gone on this massive building spree, like drunken lunatics. The world is wising up, more educated regarding MORmONISM and all religions(the Internet has a lot to do with that) and they've already saturated their markets.

In order to enter these "houses of horror", you have to be a full tithe payer, which wasn't even required until 1910. In the 1870s, even Brigham Young admitted that he NEVER paid his tithing and said "that neither himself nor anyone else....had ever paid their tithing as it was revealed." When they created a list in the early 1900s of all of the non-tithe payers, the future PRophet John Taylor was surprisingly on the list.

Hmmm...I wonder why the perfect, unchanging "MORmON Jesus" didn't require it to enter the temple until 1910 and then changed it to something they "considered more important than the word of wisdom" and a MUST, in order to enter Joe's cult house of DEATH? If MORmONS didn't require tithing to enter the temple, they'd be no different right now than the reorganized church(The Community of Christ now), because they'd have no money and very few temples.

Notice that they have to use threats and the literal FEAR OF GOD and the literal and eternal separation from your family, friends and loved ones, in order to FORCE you to give them your hard-earned money and to sustain their fat asses, sitting on their thrones in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Like Lynn G. Robbins said in his conference talk, that I shared above, with Gordon B. Hinckley and Thomas S. Monson's proud approval:

"One of the FIRST THINGS a bishop must do to HELP THE NEEDY is ask them to PAY THEIR TITHING."

Why should faithful members have to be accountable for their money when they aren't accountable to them?!!

Aren't they supposed to be setting the example...YEAH RIGHT...DAMN HYPOCRITES...DAMN THIEVES!!

As a side note, as I just eluded to above; that statement by Lynn G. Robbins was never corrected(Hinckley was sitting right behind him and had no problem with anything he said and in fact, had pre-approved it beforehand), stands and is still on LDS.org(it was toned down though in the church news report of the talk to "Destitute families should pay their tithing first and then the bishop can provide food and other basic needs.)

It's truly sickening!!

Mormon Inc. is clearly, beyond a shadow of a doubt, a CORPORATION and a CULT, not a church and I rest my case!!

WAKE UP PEOPLE AND SMELL THE FRAUD!!

Samuel the Utahnite
Labels: adultery, Assholes, bigots, brainwashing, child rape, clothing, criminals, cult, fraud, garments, Joseph Smith, LDS, liars, Mormon, Mormonism, pedophile, prophet, TBM, temple, Thomas S Monson

I created a new video

2008-04-25T09:04:00.001-06:00

There are still problems the sound is out of sync, but it delivers its message.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2Wqy31Mx90

Repose to Thomas S Monson's come back speech

2008-04-07T10:39:00.001-06:00

"LDS Church President Thomas S. Monson invited "the less-active, the offended, the critical, the transgressor" Sunday to come back and "feast at the table of the Lord and taste again the sweet and satisfying fruits of fellowship with the Saints." "

Tommy Boy Talk is cheap, you do not really mean what you said. If you did you would extend an olive branch with those words ,do something to back them up.
For Example

Be honest about the church's history.
Stop excommunicating and "disfellowshipping" scholars who present you with mountains of scientific and historical evidence that Joseph Smith was an imaginative fraud and the BoM is a hoax.
Repeal the 132nd section of the D&C and admit polygamy was a mistake.
Apologies for the slander and mistreatment of Blacks, Gays and Women by the church.
Welcome back into full fellowship excommicationed members whose only sin was to criticize the church or wrote about the history of the church. Allow criticism of church leaders , be human.

If you are unwilling to do anything to show that the church has changed your words ring hallow and their is no reason for us to believe them. You weren't really speaking to those of us who left anyway were you, just saying words to flock to calm them about all the members who have the church.

Comment from the SLC Tribune Article

Elder George Carlin: said on 4/7/2008 8:51:00 AM

Article sates: "President Thomas S. Monson invited "the less-active, the offended, the critical, the transgressor" Sunday to come back and "feast at the table of the Lord and taste again the sweet and satisfying fruits of fellowship with the Saints."

   Wow, instead of using negative terms like "the offended, the critical, the transgressor", how about using more accurate terms to describe people who left like "intellectual, vocal, critical thinker, and spiritually progressive"? Oh yeah I forgot, many of these people didn't leave...they were kicked out for simply voicing their views and/or questioning historical issues within the church.

   Instead of having a "feast at the table of the Lord and taste again the sweet and satisfying fruits of fellowship with the Saints", I feel, it would have been much more of an accurate description to state "stay away from the table of the Mormon Church and it's judgmental members. Don't keep eating the B***S*** they try to jam down your throat at every turn."

   Monson's speech is just further evidence, the Mormon hierarchy and many devout members "just don't get it." As much as I love my friends and family who are LDS, I feel every wardhouse is simply a "non-thinking ghetto

Some Humor

2008-03-17T09:43:00.001-07:00

The comic is from cectic.com

Expalination here

Book of Abraham

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

For other meanings of this name, see Book of Abraham (disambiguation).

The Book of Abraham is a scriptural text for some denominations of the Latter Day Saint movement. According to Joseph Smith, Jr., the movement's founder, it is "a translation of some ancient records....purporting to be the writings of Abraham, while he was in Egypt, called the Book of Abraham, written by his own hand, upon papyrus".^[1]

The work was originally published in 1842 in the Latter Day Saint movement newspaper Times and Seasons [1] together with facsimiles of vignettes from the papyrus and Smith's explanations of them. In 1851, it was republished in England as part of the Pearl of Great Price, which has been included in the canon of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints since 1880.^[2]

For many years the original papyri were thought to have been lost. In 1966 eleven fragments of the papyri were found in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and are now designated the Joseph Smith Papyri. Both Mormon and non-Mormon Egyptologists examined the fragments and concluded that they are portions of common funerary texts, dating to about the first century BC, and contain no reference to Abraham, bearing little resemblance of Smith's interpretation. As such, their discovery amplified the long standing dispute concerning the authenticity of the Book of Abraham.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Abraham

Why??Utah has twice the national average of anti-depressant use and Utah is 70% Mormon. DO THE MATH!

2008-03-12T07:41:00.001-07:00

Two Studies Find Depression Widespread in Utah

Study Calling Utah Most Depressed, Renews Debate on Root Causes

By RUSSELL GOLDMAN

March 7, 2008—

The still waters of the Great Salt Lake run deep -- and dark.

Take Wendy, a 40-year-old teacher and mother of three from Utah County. To all appearances, she led the perfect life. Just as she was expected to, she went from high school cheerleader to Mormon missionary to wife and mother.

"But life has a funny way of not being perfect," she said. "Three years into my marriage my husband was drinking, using drugs and stepping out on me.

"I knew I was depressed and needed help, but there is a stigma about depression in this area," said Wendy, who asked that ABCNEWS.com not use her last name. "People think it's a sign of weakness. It means you're not capable of being a good mother or wife or teacher."

Wendy's secret is Utah's secret. The postcard image of Utah is a state of gleaming cities, majestic mountains and persistently smiling people. But new research shows a very different picture of the state, a snapshot of suicide and widespread depression.

A recent study by Mental Health America, the country's oldest independent mental health advocacy organization, ranked Utah the most depressed state in the country.

Another survey released last week by drug distribution company Express Scripts found that residents of Utah were prescribed antidepressant drugs more than those of any other state and at twice the national average.

According to MHA, some 10.14 percent of adults in Utah "experienced a depressive episode in the past year and 14.15 percent experienced serious psychological distress. ... Individuals in Utah reported having on average 3.27 poor mental health days in the past 30 days."

The reason for Utah's mass depression, however, is unknown.

"The truth is, we don't know why," said Dr. Ted Wander, spokesman for the Utah Psychiatric Association.

Neither study was broken down by gender, but nationally women are twice as likely to be diagnosed with depressive disorders as men, experts told ABC News.

Psychiatrists point to several factors that could contribute to Utah's high levels of depression: limited mental health resources, restricted access to treatment as a result of cost, poor quality of resources and a varied list of other factors, including an underfunded educational system and a culture deeply rooted in the Mormon faith.

"Availability to resources, a lack of professionals and barriers to treatment, including the ability to pay all drive up instances of depression," said Dr. Curtis Canning, a Logan-based psychiatrist and former president of the Utah Psychiatric Association. "But there is also -- especially when it comes to women and girls -- a cultural factor."

Seventy percent of Utah's residents are Mormon. When Express Scripts issued its first national survey of prescription drug use in 2002, it sparked a heated debate across Utah about what, if any role, the church played in the state's high dependence on antidepressants such as Prozac and Zoloft.

"In Mormon culture females are supposed accept a calling. They are to be constantly smiling over their family of five. They are supposed to take supper across the street to an ill neighbor and then put up with their husband when he comes home from work and smile about it the whole time. There is this sense that Mrs. Jones down street is doing the same thing, and there is this undercurrent of competition. To be a good mother and wife, women have to put on this mask of perfection. They can't show their tears, depression or agony," Canning said.

"Obedience, conformity and maintaining a sense of harmony" are unspoken but widely recognized behaviors, which all contribute to what he calls "the Mother of Zion syndrome."

When Wendy first started seeking professional help and was put on Zoloft 10 years ago, she felt the sting of shame even from her own family members.

"Marriage and family are so important that there was a huge amount of pressure to make things work. I was supposed to try harder, and buck up and that would make me happier and keep my husband from abusing me," she said.

"There are expectations from the community, but mostly from other women," she said. "It doesn't come down from the church necessarily, but it's passed from mother to daughter. My family was reluctant to see me taking the drugs, but since seeing me at my worst, they now encourage me to take my meds."

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Days Saints, however, says the high number of prescriptions is a result of people receiving the drugs they need in Utah more than in other places.

"I don't think it's clear that there's a crisis in Utah," said Brent Scharman, a psychologist and the assistant commissioner of LDS Family Services, a church network that provides counseling. "You've got one camp that says there is more depression and another camp that says we just have more consumers." Scharman said studies on organized religion and depression found that religious people were generally happier than nonreligious people, and that held true for Mormons.

"It always boils down to the issue of what influence the LDS lifestyle has on the depression phenomenon," he said. "Non-LDS and some LDS people say this is a kind of driven lifestyle and that we push too hard and smile too much. But studies show, and those living it out see, that religion is good support. It creates a positive network and helps people get through crises and deal with long-term problems.

"Are there people who feel 'I'm not living up to the LDS ideal,' or 'I'm not living up to my family's expectations'? Absolutely, there is no question. But having done counseling outside the LDS community, I saw people there, too, who were depressed because of perfectionism," he said. "I wouldn't say it is any worse here than in more diverse communities."

The MHA study evaluated information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, each of the 50 states and Washington, D.C., and factored in suicide statistics to determine each state's "depression status."

An Example of Mormon Respect for other religions

2008-03-11T08:02:00.002-07:00

Missionaries in Colorado desecrated and vandalised Catholic shrine. Most commenter's on the Desert News website wondered what the big deal was, they would have felt different if it was an LDS temple.

http://www.chieftain.com/metro/1205046377/1

Not all Mormons approve of this kind of thing but many do. I was a LDS missionary so I know this kind of disrespect is common among them.

Utah's racist senator Chriss Buttars strikes again

2008-02-13T10:41:00.001-07:00

Utah state senator and bigot Criss Buttars took time off from bashing gays to utter more racist comments on the Senate floor. This is the same guy who made national headlines saying "Brown vs Board of Education was the worst decision of the Supreme court".

Here is the article from SL trib

State Sen. Buttars' perceived racial slur brings rebuke and apology

By Robert Gehrke
and Cathy McKitrick
The Salt Lake Tribune

Article Last Updated: 02/13/2008 06:32:32 AM MST

A West Jordan senator shocked his colleagues and later apologized for comparing a bill he opposed to a black baby, calling it "a dark, ugly thing."
    Republican Sen. Chris Buttars' comment came during a debate on SB48, aimed at equalizing school construction funds. Sen. Howard Stephenson, R-Draper, called it "the ugly baby bill," but, as Buttars stood to vote, went further. "This baby is black. It's a dark, ugly thing," he said.
    Sen. Ross Romero, D-Salt Lake City, said he perceived the statement as offensive and took the issue to Senate leaders. "I felt it needed to be addressed and needed to be addressed promptly," he said.
    Sen. John Valentine, R-Orem, said he was surprised by the comment.
    "I didn't see it coming," he said. "I didn't take it as a racist remark, but the more I thought about it, the more I thought it was inappropriate and a breach of decorum."
    Buttars agreed and felt bad about it and asked for a chance to apologize, Valentine said. After senators returned from a 10-minute break, Valentine noted the "breach in decorum," and gave Buttars the floor.
    "I made a comment that I think a lot of people could take racist. I certainly did not mean that in any way but it was wrong and certainly could easily have been taken that way," Buttars said. "I apologize to anyone who took offense. . . . I ask for your forgiveness."
    Romero said there was talk off the floor of censuring Buttars, and he appreciated the apology, but "I have no idea how it would be interpreted not to be offensive."
    Word of Buttars' gaffe spread quickly around the Capitol, leaving members from both parties shaking their heads in disbelief. Leaders of Utah's black community also were shocked.
    "I am appalled that he would utter such words in the capacity as senator and representing the people of Utah," said Jeanetta Williams, president of the Salt Lake branch of the NAACP.
    Sen. Bill Hickman, R-St. George, said he is confident that Buttars, who left the Capitol quickly after the Senate adjourned, didn't mean his comment to be offensive.
    "He felt bad that he had said it," Hickman said.
    gehrke@lsltrib.com
    cmckitrick@sltrib.com

Sad news for Mormons

2008-02-08T08:43:00.001-07:00

Longtime LDS CEO Gordon B Hinckley died last week at age 97. Hinckley has been the Mormon leader for over 25 years , since 1995 as official leader and since 1983 as the De facto leader. Thomas Monson is the new Mormon leader. We called him Two face around the COB because of his extreme spilt personality.

Mitt Romey has quit the presidential race , this puts an end to hopes of the White Horse Prophecy coming true this year. I wonder if the new leadership cut off Mitt's funding.

More insanity from BYU and happy valley

2008-01-22T11:37:00.001-07:00

Here is an article From KSL.com showing the idiocy and hypocrisy of BYU. Provo and Orem are number one in sales of pay per view porn in the whole USA.

From KSL.com

Some students say health club showing pornography

January 16th, 2008 @ 10:00pm

Sam Penrod reporting

Some college students in Utah County are calling some music videos pornographic, and they are trying to get a health club to take them off its screen.

The controversy involves two Gold's Gym locations in Utah County frequented by BYU and UVSC students. Five organizations are banding together to keep the videos from being shown at the gyms.

The organizations that fight pornography in the community are upset with the videos at the gym and say they have collected nearly 1,000 signatures on a petition calling on Gold's Gym to quit showing the videos.

Gold's Gym officials here in Utah agreed to hear their concerns this afternoon, as the students prepared to protest.

The Gold's Gym near the BYU campus is one of 19 Gold's Gyms in Utah. A majority of this gym's customers are BYU students. Dallen Johnson says, "I've had to leave, honestly! There have been four times I've run out of the cardio cinema because of racy and inappropriate things being shown, things I personally view as pornography."

The students have documented five music videos played on the Gold's Gym music video network which they call objectionable. Jesse Yaffe says, "Once you are a member here, you basically don't have the choice anymore. You're forced to watch indecent material because it seems everywhere you go there's a TV. They've got the Gold's Gym membership network, and certain videos they play are extremely indecent, and some are outright pornography."

The protesters say Gold's Gym is not the only business they are concerned about. "The things I see the most is people have no idea how it affects people and how widespread it is and how serious of an issue it is," says Nicole Braden.

Managers at Gold's Gym told Eyewitness News today they use Gold's TV network instead of cable channels like MTV to offer more conservative videos but can't control individual videos that are shown.

They say cardio machines have individual monitors which allow gym members to watch any channel they want.

Gold's says music helps to energize people who are there to exercise and say they don't want anyone to be offended at the gym during their workout experience.

The students gave Gold's 10 days to remedy their concerns before they start picketing the health club. They outlined four specific issues they'd like resolved:

No rated R movies or sexually explicit or racy PG-13 movies.
Change the content of Gold's Broadcasting Network or don't show the Network.
Keep external TV's on decent and clean stations, or let members choose the channels themselves.
Install blinds on the aerobics room to block the dancing, which is very provocative.

Brigham Young’s Deseret Alphabet

2008-01-21T22:51:00.001-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXl1gUBJexY

Brigham Young's Deseret Alphabet

One of the curious items of early Utah history was Brigham Young's effort to introduce a new alphabet, known as the Deseret Alphabet, into Mormon use. Western historian David Bigler observed:

"Old Testament ideas on land ownership and marked ballots were not the only indications that Utah's earliest settlers were bent on creating a society altogether unlike the rest of the country. Soon after arriving in the Great Basin they even undertook to create a new method to write the English language.
"In 1854 the University of Deseret, predecessor of the University of Utah, introduced the Deseret Alphabet, consisting of thirty-eight characters to conform with the basic number of sounds in the English language. The curious set of symbols was created by 39-year-old George D. Watt, an expert in Pitman shorthand and the faith's first English convert.
"Aimed to reform the representation of the English language, not the language itself, the new phonetic system offered a number of advantages. First, it demonstrated cultural exclusivism, an important consideration. It also kept secrets from curious non-Mormons, controlled what children would be allowed to read, and in a largely unlettered society that included non-English speaking converts, eliminated the awkward problem of phonetic spelling. For such reasons, for nearly two decades Brigham Young pushed the new alphabet on reluctant followers. The church-owned Deseret News at Great Salt Lake City, Utah's first newspaper, published portions of its 1859 editions in the distinctive system. And the University of Deseret's board of regents at one time voted $10,000 to print text books in the alphabet for students in classrooms across the territory.
"Like the law of consecration, however, the Deseret Alphabet never achieved widespread acceptance, despite repeated attempts by Young to promote the system. On some things, the people of Utah quietly overruled their strong-minded leader." ( Forgotten Kingdom: The Mormon Theocracy in the American West, 1847-1896, by David L. Bigler, Arthur H. Clark Co., 1998, p.56)

Ex-Mormon Cartoonist Steve Benson Says Romney Not Telling Truth

2007-12-18T16:45:00.001-07:00

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003686826

Ex-Mormon Cartoonist Steve Benson Says Romney Not Telling Truth

By Dave Astor

Published: December 18, 2007 3:50 PM ET

NEW YORK As an ex-Mormon, Arizona Republic editorial cartoonist Steve Benson has strong opinions about current Mormon Mitt Romney. He said the Republican candidate's recent speech on religion should not be trusted by media people and other Americans.

In his talk, Romney said "I believe in my Mormon faith" while also noting that the church's "teachings" would not influence his decisions if elected president.

"Yeah, right," responded Benson, adding that "Romney also believes in misrepresenting what his Mormon Church actually espouses."

Benson is the grandson of former Mormon leader Ezra Taft Benson.

He told E&P that a Mormon believer is required by church doctrine (as dictated by the church's "living prophet") to "obey God's commands" over anything else. He said "Romney, like all 'temple Mormons,' made his secret vows using Masonic-derived handshakes, passwords, and symbolic death oaths that he promised in the temple never to reveal to the outside world" -- and that Romney also secretly vowed to devote his "time, talents," and more "to the building of the Mormon religion on earth."

So, said Benson, the only way Romney could be truly independent of the church as U.S. president would be to disavow Mormon doctrine. "He hasn't done that," said the Creators Syndicate-distributed cartoonist.

"When Mitt says he belongs to a church that doesn't tell him what to do, that's false; it's a 24/7, do-what-you're-told-to-do church," added Benson, who won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning in 1993.

That was the year Benson left what he calls the "Mormon cult." One reason for his decision was disgust with the way Mormon officials tried to fool church members and the general public into believing that Ezra Taft Benson -- Steve's then-94-year-old grandfather and church president -- was still capable of leading the church. "He was not mentally or physically in a place where he could make any meaningful decisions," recalled Benson. "I know it because I saw his condition with my own eyes."

Benson -- who was contacted by E&P for this story -- said journalists have basically given Romney a free pass on the "fundamental contradiction" between being an observant Mormon and a U.S. president. "Most journalists don't know about actual Mormon teachings and practices," noted the cartoonist, adding that they instead see the religion as perhaps "strange" but "rather benign."

Romney "needs to face an informed member of the media with 'cojones' who has a working and perhaps personal experience with Mormonism," said Benson. "It would be harder for Romney to do his well-practiced duck and dodge."

Benson himself drew a post-Romney speech cartoon that pictured John F. Kennedy saying "Ask not what your country can do for you..." followed by Romney saying "...do whatever it takes for me to win Iowa." (Many people believe Romney gave what he hoped would be a JFK-like speech on religion because he was losing support in Iowa.) But Benson said he hasn't heavily focused on Romney's Mormonism in other cartoons. "Religious issues are very touchy," he said. "I do what I can, but I pick my battles."

Another reason Benson distrusts the words in Romney's speech is because the candidate has changed his public positions on issues such as abortion and gay rights to woo conservative GOP voters in states like Iowa rather than the more liberal voters he once courted to become governor of Massachusetts. "He flips and flops like Jesus is coming tomorrow," said the cartoonist. "It's like Romney is reading from the Mormon Church playbook."

Benson explained his last comment by noting that the Mormon Church has also "publicly flipped 180 degrees when it feels it's necessary for its image, for its financial solvency, and for political expediency."

He mentioned, by way of example, that black Mormons weren't allowed into the priesthood until 1978. And while polygamy has been publicly disavowed by the Mormon Church, Benson said "the church still holds that it will be practiced as a matter of eternal doctrine in heaven. The church also currently performs polygamist marriage 'sealings' in its temples around the world."

Benson predicted that Romney will not win the Republican presidential nomination. If Romney somehow IS nominated, added the cartoonist, he will not defeat his Democratic opponent.

Voters, said Benson, "are not ready for someone in the Oval Office who has committed to absolute obedience to a religion they feel is extremely odd and not in the American mainstream. I trust the rational U.S. electorate, not the weird Mormon God."

Dave Astor (dastor@editorandpublisher.com) is a senior editor at E&P.

So much for the theory that Mormons are happy people

2007-11-29T09:13:00.001-07:00

So much for the theory that Mormons are happy people

From the Salt Lake Tribune

We've got the blues: Report labels Utah most depressed state in nation

The Salt Lake Tribune

Article Last Updated: 11/28/2007 02:25:28 PM MST

Posted: 11:31 AM- Utah is the most depressed state in the country, according to a national analysis released Wednesday by mental health care advocates.
    The report card by Mental Health America was funded by Wyeth Pharmaceuticals and draws together federal health data. Utah ranked 51st for its "depression status," based on national surveys conducted by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
    In 2004 and 2005, slightly more than 10 percent of adults and adolescents in Utah reported they had a major depressive episode.
    In 2004, Utah reported 377 deaths by suicide. That number, adjusted for age and population, ranked it 45th in the nation, the report said.
    An average of 315 Utahns die by suicide each year. Utah launched a five-year suicide prevention plan in May, an effort that focuses on raising awareness through ads and providing support groups.
    The report instead suggests states improve access to care, and provides statistics on each state's mental health resources and policies.
    Mental Health America, formerly known as the National Mental Health Association, is a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping people live mentally healthier lives.
    "Ranking America's Mental Health: An Analysis of Depression Across the States" is now available at http://www.mentalhealthamerica.net.

New Music video posted to my you tube site

2007-11-14T16:10:00.001-07:00

How to answer Mormon Missionaries
http://www.youtube.com/KolobDemon

Faith, conflict and excommunication from the East valley Tribune

2007-10-10T11:41:00.001-06:00

Faith, conflict and excommunication

Lawn Griffiths, Tribune Columnist

Mormons have called themselves "a peculiar people," a group set apart and forged by the adversity of the church's history and grounded by its distinct teachings.

Known for wholesome family life, close-knit support of each other, a model welfare system and detailed order in all they do, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints also have a natural desire to be accepted and to belong. The church works hard for legitimacy as a bona fide Christian faith. But detractors pore through the church's considerable writings and cannot reconcile their findings with "accepted" or orthodox Christian tenets and practices.

Church leaders say they don't need others to give them a Christian seal of approval.

The made-in-America church can't seem to fully shake its polygamist past, and it raises eyebrows about secret temple rites and afterlife attainment of "exaltation" and "godhood" through full obedience on earth.

"The Excommunication of Lyndon Lamborn" could be the title of a movie coming soon to a theater near you.

The critics of Tribune articles about the Mesa man going public with his ouster from the church for apostasy have dismissed them as a gimmick to sell newspapers — and dismissed Lamborn as one isolated, disgruntled member out of 13 million Mormons. From the moment I first read Lamborn's e-mails and then sat down and interviewed him, I recognized him as a highly educated, articulate and sincere man who had put his 49 years of life into trying to live the Mormon way. His church assignments across 30 years are unimpeachable, as a missionary, Boy Scout leader, teacher and more. The engineer and father of three doesn't come across as strident or a publicity seeker, nor someone vindictive. He says he wanted to leave the church quietly through the stroke of authorities' pens.

Unlike so many people who come to me dissatisfied with their own church, Lamborn, a fourth-generation Mormon, arrived equipped with a large body of written work, references for his investigation, and a solid narrative of his quest to find truth. He believes that claims of the church are refuted by evidence.

Lamborn's stake president wrote him Sept. 2 that he intended to have bishops in the wards (eight in all) announce his excommunication for apostasy on Sept. 23. Lamborn believed that rare step was planned because, during a disciplinary council on Aug. 19 with 15 church leaders, "I was pretty much in your face with the brethren. ... I wouldn't consent to any rules." He was informed that even with excommunication, he could attend regular meetings and services, but could not "give a talk" and "offer a public prayer." Lamborn said it made no sense that he couldn't pray for his friends inside a chapel. He even suggested they could get a court injunction to "prevent me from coming because you have no authority over me."

Those announcements to priesthood and Relief Society groups in wards were never made. I spoke with stake President R. James Molina two days before the scheduled announcement and told him that Lamborn had contacted the Tribune and was furious over the plan to make his excommunication public. That Sunday, Lamborn said he asked Molina about the change of plan. Molina told him he had been undecided all along about having the announcement read and that, with the Tribune article Sept. 23, any announcement was unnecessary because word would surely get around.

Molina chose not to tell the Tribune why he canceled, or delayed, the announcement.

So many of the more than 1,400 online comments made on two articles I wrote about Lamborn revolved around whether Mormons are able to freely investigate the church's history and teachings and how much pressure there is to be loyal or unquestioning. Some wrote of being disciplined, of being warned against sharing concerns and doubts about the church with others, and of being excommunicated themselves. But a great many defended the church. An example is "James," who said the Book of Mormon is "the plainest and purest message of the gospel of Jesus Christ ever written." Unlike the Old and New Testaments, "there is something sweeter about the Book of Mormon," he said. "As I have read it over the last 40 years, my life has been filled with joy because of it."

Other said that true faith can remove all doubt. Other said Lamborn fell victim to the influence of heretical materials.

Lamborn said he believes that the church went into "damage control" when he first shared his doubts with his bishop and stake president. He revealed he had discussed those same concerns about church teachings with his five brothers, all of whom had gone on two-year church missions and were active in their wards. "The following week, all the bishops of my brothers had received a phone call, and each of my brothers got a visit from the 'men in black' over the next 30 days," he said. "They were each questioned about their beliefs."

Many Mormons say that Lamborn could not have been easily sheltered about the church's polygamist history as he had claimed.

"Polygamy is not hidden. ... Polygamy is discussed openly in the church, and it is in all of our history books," wrote Jean White of Maricopa. "Many members can trace their heritage to polygamist homes." She said during the early years of the church, a time of persecution, "there were many parentless children and widows who had lost children and mates. We were a hunted people at times."

"We are not ashamed of our history," White said. "When the government said it was outlawed, it was discontinued."

Most of Lamborn's friendships are with church members, relationships he wants to keep. "They know me and trust me and are tolerant of the fact that I may not believe the way they do and vice versa," he said. He talks about "recovery from Mormonism" but says he has no immediate plans to embrace any other religion.

"I am sure the correct path will present itself to me in time," he said.

Reader comments (63)

This site does not necessarily agree with comments posted below. Responsibility lies solely with the comment author.

My comment disappeared! What's going on?

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Equality

Thanks for continuing to tell this important story. Mormons are often misunderstood and many misconceptions abound regarding the church to which a major presidential candidate has pledged a death oath of loyalty.

From the article:
"'Polygamy is not hidden. ... Polygamy is discussed openly in the church, and it is in all of our history books,'" wrote Jean White of Maricopa. 'Many members can trace their heritage to polygamist homes.' She said during the early years of the church, a time of persecution, 'there were many parentless children and widows who had lost children and mates. We were a hunted people at times.'
This comment from one of the faithful members, in an attempt to discredit Lamborn, actually supports his argument.

It is true that most members of the church think the purpose of polygamy was to take care of widows and orphans that resulted from the "persecutions" against the Saints and the hardships faced on the trek west and during the settling of the Utah Territory. What is generally NOT known (or talked about or EVER mentioned in church-produced materials) is that polygamy had NOTHING to do with taking care of widows and orphans or deal with a surplus of women out west. What Lamborn was never taught, and what most Mormons are to this day unaware of, is that polygamy was started by Joseph Smith (not Brigham Young) and that Smith had at least 34 wives; that he married 11 women who were already married to other men (sometimes faithful Latter-day Saints); that he married a number of teenage girls, some as young as 14. One of his 14-year-old brides he secured by promising her father that if he sacrificed his "lamb" by giving her to the Prophet, the whole family's salvation would be secured. Joseph Smith hid his polygamous relationships from his first wife Emma, and he publicly denied that he was a polygamist right up until his death. These facts are not disputed by church leaders and LDS apologists, and the information is available to those who look for it. But the average Mormon doesn't know about this or a host of other things about Mormon history and doctrine, and there is no place in the church for people like Lamborn to ask questions, to discuss these matters openly without fear of recriminations, as happened to Lamborn.

Thanks to the East Valley tribune for shedding some light on the darker underbelly of Mormonism and showing the side of the faith that the PR machine out of Salt Lake City doesn not want people to see or discuss. Suggest removal of this comment

October 6, 2007

Lyndon Lamborn

In addition to what Equity so aptly pointed out, it was the SECRECY that was part and parcel to Joseph Smiths polygamy that struck me. The other huge red flag was his approach to these women. He told these women that an angel of God appeared to him with a sword and threatened to slay him if he did not propose marriage to these women. The church teaches that in the mouths of two or three witnesses all truth is established, in this case we have at least four.

My thanks to Lawn Griffiths for his responsible reporting. Lawn and his editors were reluctant to report the controversial issues surrounding polygamy/polyandry in the early church, which is completely understandable. However, the facts are out there, and they are stubborn things - they just don't go away.

Once again the POLYANDRY, the SECRECY, and ANGEL WITH THE SWORD approach to woo the women are the REAL issues that led me to investigate the whole history. These aspects of polygamy should be presented to the general membership of the church, because they are well established FACTS. Suggest removal of this comment

October 6, 2007

Hellmut

When our leaders behave unreasonably by excommunicating people for exploring history with members of their family then it is little wonder that our religion's reputation suffers.

However well intentioned, President Molina's pettiness damaged Mormonism worldwide. He makes us look like a bunch of irrational zealots afraid of reality.

That is unfortunate because there are so many wonderful Mormons. Had President Molina shown only a modicum of respect for Lyndon Lamborn's conscience and liberty much damage could have been avoided.

President Molina may not realize that his behavior will actually have serious consequences for Mormons around the world. It's pretty hard to assert one's freedom of religion when our own Church punishes people for discussing a book with their brothers. The claims of Mormons in Germany, France, Russia, and many other countries to tolerance will now appear to be hypocritical.

For the sake of my friends and family members, some of whom have paid dearly for joining a small American religion, I hope that American Mormon leaders would afford dissenters more respect and tolerance. Suggest removal of this comment

October 6, 2007

Lincoln

Thanks for the follow up article Lawn. It brings out many areas of Mormonism that are not usually discussed in public.

Mormonism is very much misunderstood among Mormons ourselves. For example, quoting Jean White in your article, speaking about polygamy she said "When the government said it was outlawed, it was discontinued." This is just not true. Polygamy was outlawed by the government far before 1890, when it was semi-officially discontinued by the Church. But most believing Mormons do not understand that. And therein lies the issue. Many members are simply unaware that the Church has taken measured, calculated steps to hide uncomfortable facts from the view of the general membership. If I could make one point to all people reading these articles, who are from other faiths and belief systems, it would be this: The Mormon Church has suceeded at muddling its official history so much that the majority of good active Mormons have no idea about the foundations of their own religion. Many scholars who are critical of Mormons mistakenly assume that we are all operating from the same set of facts and information. We are not. Some of us, such as Equality, Lyndon Lamborn and others have been so dedicated to Mormonism, that we took it at its word, and studied it with all of our hearts. The principle taught to all of us from our youth, in the Church, was to avoid "anti-mormon" literature at all costs. The teaching was that
Satan influences those who produce such material, and it is just a pack of lies about Joseph Smith and other founding members of the Church. Many of us have taken these leaders at their word and only read information purchased at Deseret Book, the official church bookstore. For years we felt that we knew everything about Mormonism and that all the critics were just duped by Satan. From my interactions with other disaffected members out there, I have discovered that pretty much all of us were in the same boat. Conscientiously following church leadership, keeping our "shoulders to the wheel" (an old pioneer reference referring to work) and pushing forward "building the Kingdom." But when certain issues in Mormonism just didn't make common sense, it made you wonder.

Usually when I wondered about polygamy, or an odd book of Mormon teaching (killing to serve God - i.e. Laban), I would simply push those doubts to the back of my mind. I believe that most Mormons do just that. We are taught that Satan creates doubt, and that we should have faith in the Church and in the leadership.

At a certain point any member realizes that anti-mormon literature really could pose no danger to truth. And since we were taught that the Church has always been truthful and divine, I reasoned that no lies or distortions from history could ever ruin my testimony of the Church. I also knew that many former church leaders have encouraged intellectual development. My patriarchial blessing encourages me to develop my intellect and grow in knowledge. At one point in 2005 while Warren Jeffs was being hunted by the feds, I clearly saw the parallel to Joseph Smith, and I decided to examine my beliefs about polygamy. In my research, I discovered other issues in 19th century Mormonism. I was shocked to learn that critics of my Church claimed that the Book of Abraham was a complete fabrication. I was determined to get to the bottom of the issue, and figure out where they had gone wrong so that in the future I would be able to discuss these issues intelligently with my friends and neighbors and be a good missionary. Mormons are always encouraged to seek missionary experiences, and I was simply preparing myself to be able to answer the questions of those at work, just like Lyndon Lamborn. My co-workers had made light of Joseph Smith, told me the Book of Abraham has issues, and ridiculed the discontinuance of polygamy as abandoning sacred beliefs for the US government. I was determined to get to the bottom of these issues so that I could explain to my co-workers how wrong they were, and help them see the light, and hopefully help them into the Church one day.

What I did not know is that I was operating with only a partial set of the facts. My subset of facts was so small, I learned, that many of their criticisms actually had merit. What a shock that was to my system?! The books I have read about Mormon history paint a far different picture than I was taught growing up. I discovered a concerted effort to hide many facts of Mormon history in my youth. I was raised in Utah, the heartland of Mormonism. I met many of the church's general authorities as I was growing up. I was raised going to church every single Sunday, wearing my white shirt, passing the sacrament, being ordained to all levels of the priesthood, serving a full time mission for two years, marrying in the temple, being an instructor in the Church for most of my married life, but not knowing the history of my own church from an accurate perspective. I know this sounds shocking, but after taking all those years of Seminary and serving a mission, you would assume that I knew about my own church, right? I was given one side only, the Church's version, which eliminates or de-emphasizes many of the facts and historical issues in Mormonism. I did not know this. Most Mormons don't. We can't even begin to comprehend it.

I was not taught about the seerstones Joseph used for years to dig for treasure. I was not taught about him using the seerstone in a hat to translate the Book of Mormon. I was not taught that Joseph Smith practiced polygamy during his lifetime, and that many of his wives were teenagers or other living men's wives. I was not taught about the facsimiles of the Book of Abraham being the breathing permit of Horus, a dead Egyptian, and not an account of Abraham. I was not taught that many parts of the temple ceremony were copied from the freemasonry ceremony that Joseph Smith had just learned.

I could make a list of a hundred things I was not taught as a youth, even though I was a seminary graduate, college graduate, returned missionary, and had served in leadership callings in the Church. I discovered another world of Mormonism than the one I had grown up and cherished. I discovered reality. I discovered that Mormonism is not a perfect little religion as I had been taught all those years. This was a difficult discovery to make. It is not the discovery I wanted to make. It was extremely painful to discover that my parents had unknowingly misled me about some of the basic assumptions I made about existence.

I applaud you Lyndon Lamborn. You are a brave and courageous man to teach the truth you have learned about the Church. Many other leaders have followed your path. In older days, the three witnesses, and nine of the original twelve apostles in Kirtland. Today, Wendell Hall, former Argentine mission president, Jerrell Chesney former Oklahoma temple president, Ken Clark former Institute director, Steve Sims former Portugal mission president, have decided to depart Mormonism after learning of the truth of its origins.

For those of you out there that are highly critical about Mormon beliefs, try to remember, the majority of Mormons do not even have the slightest idea of the issues within our own Church. We are not given the full story, while we were trusting that others were telling us the truth. I hope that people can take it easy on those Mormons who practice the religion without knowing all the sordid details of its history. Many of the good people of the Church would leave if they had an inkling as to the deception they have received. Many have no idea what the actual facts are. Many are just doing the best they can in life. I think all of us are certainly doing that. People like James come here and try their best to obscure the historical facts, but the preponderance of evidence weighs against people like James, and their puny efforts to fight against truth.

To those of you who will criticize this post, and paint me as a heretic or critic I would just say to you. Have you examined the actual history of our Church? I'm not talking about the Deseret Book version, or the Sunday School correlated version. I am talking about the books of actual historians such as Bushman, Compton, Quinn, Roberts, Arrington, and others who were members of the Church and actually openly discuss actual church history. Have you read any of the Journal of Discourses (Conference talks for 30 years in Utah) or the History of the Church by Roberts? Before dismissing Lamborn, many would be well served to study things out themselves. Then they wouldn't be so quick to judge him. The Lord has promised "treasures of knowledge and wisdom" to those who seek. True scholarship does not occur without a free open exchange of ideas. Current Mormonism encourages conformity and obedience to men, instead of obedience to God.

Thanks for this forum to express my ideas. As an active member of the church I see the good and bad within my religion. I am very disgusted and embarrassed by many of the things I have learned about my Church. I am embarrassed by the withwashed history. I am embarrassed by the deceptions and inaccuracies. But I do feel it is an organization that has many good people who try to follow Christian principles. Many disillusioned members such as myself simply try to follow the New Testament teachings of Jesus, without proclaiming the one trueness of Mormonism. With the internet, many more members will go through what Lyndon Lamborn has gone through, hopefully with more understanding leaders than he had.

I need to get back to listening to conference now. Oh, Boyd K. Packer just said that the ordinary members of the Church are what is meant by the weak things of the world. Ouch. Oh, and Mary N. Cook just told us that if the parents examples are bad, then it is the children's responsibility to break the cycle. Sheesh. Ouch. Nothing like family unity.

Time to go explain the truth to my children.

Suggest removal of this comment

October 6, 2007

SkepticToo

For more accurate information, go to MormonThink.com Suggest removal of this comment

October 6, 2007

Tu Tio Verde

And what are life-long members who have discovered troubling inconsistencies to do? As a fifth-generation Arizona Mormon I was discouraged from reading about the church from outside sources. Now that looked into those forbidden non-faith-promoting histories where can I go?

For the last few years I have lived with my doubts and kept them to myself. My wife shared some questions with her bishop and he actually said that there is nowhere for us to go with our questions. Even writing to the general leadership with questions is discouraged.

Now with this story about Lyndon Lamborn it's clear that we can't even talk amongst ourselves without risking a church court.

This feels like I'm living under a gag order. The church that I was taught was the source of all truth is the one organization that forbids me to discuss the truths I've found.

The result is that I am feeling increased pressure to leave. I can't stand the feeling of unrighteous gag order on my thoughts and speech and am not willing to risk the implied slander and gossip that comes with a secret church court and public excommunication.

I don't think I'm the only who feels this pressure more strongly than even thanks to Pres. Molina's actions and I doubt I'll be the only one that leaves the church because of it. Suggest removal of this comment

October 6, 2007

GG

I can't tell you how much I appreciate this article in the Tribune. Thanks to Lawn for having the courage to write the article about Lyndon Lamborn. Lyndon is not alone in his feelings toward the LDS church.

I am a "non-believing" Mormon that attends every week. I faithfully complete church callings. I have served as RS President along with many other leadership positions. I just can't believe that this is the only true church anymore. But because of family ties, I keep my feelings and beliefs to myself. It is just not possible to ask questions about some of the more controversial subjects about mormon history in Sunday School. Believe me, this is not an easy lifestyle and somethng that I wouldn't wish on anyone. There is a large community of us out there that the general mormon population is not aware of.

I am just like Lyndon in that I found out things about the church that I was born into just a few years ago. It is a misconception that we life long mormons should know about church history and all of the warts. I have had women in the church come up to me and ask if I knew that Joseph Smith had more than one wife. What is odd is that when they talk about it, they whisper. Why should we have to feel like that?

My thanks to Lyndon for speaking out for people like me Suggest removal of this comment

October 6, 2007

dan boyle

in earlier times, the catholic church tried to silence galileo when he found out the earth was not the center of the universe, as the church taught. He was placed under house arrest for heresy. mmmmmmm, don't the church's actions look silly now? I guess galileo was right all along.

The mormon church is making the same kind of error today, trying to ruin a good man's name (lyndon's) in order to protect itself from the truth. Since the church's claims do not stand up to scrutiny, the church's only defense is to attack the messenger. This tactic failed the catholic church centuries ago, and will fail the mormon church today. I wonder if the mormon church will learn from history or be doomed to repeat it...
So far, they seemed determined to repeat the same failed strategy. Congratulations to Lyndon, history looks favorably on those who stand up for truth. And it laughs at those institutions whose primary goal is self-preservation at all costs. What "danger" did Lyndon pose to the church? Only the truth, that's all. Suggest removal of this comment

October 6, 2007

Hellmut

Tio, you are not alone. There are thousands of Mormons who feel like you. Since we did not feel free to speak, there was the illusion that we were on our own but we are not.

Once people start to speak their mind, you will find that with respect to some of your problems most Mormons agree with you. We saw that when the LDS leadership finally dropped the priesthood ban in the late 1970s. Suddenly most Mormons admitted that they were relieved that they no longer needed to support a racist policy. Before that many of us felt very lonely.

Anyways, today you can find like minded Mormons on the Internet even if you cannot discuss these important matters in your local congregation.

You might enjoy the Mormon Stories podcast, which attempts to bridge gaps between Mormons at different levels of believe.

If you click my name, you will get to a blog, which attempts to list as many Mormon websites as we can identify.

The first half of the blog roll contains more orthodox, the second half post-Mormon blogs.

You might also enjoy the New Order Mormon message board, which is very sensitive to people such as yourself. Another good community that will allow you to speak openly about your Mormon experience is the post-Mormon message board. Personally, I like Further Light and Knowledge and Main Street Plaza, although they are a little more strident and rigorous.

There are so many different places for Mormons to come together these days, no one needs to remain lonely or silent any longer. I wish you lots of luck, Tio, and hope to see you on one of the fora soon! Suggest removal of this comment

October 6, 2007

Mayan Elephant

thanks Lawn.

that was very thoughtful and brave of you to submit this column.

please accept a small criticism in your opening paragraph where you state - "But detractors pore through the church's considerable writings and cannot reconcile their findings with "accepted" or orthodox Christian tenets and practices."

while there are some detractors that pore through the writings you reference, the issue as it relates to lamborn and others like him is where good, faithful and lifelong members of the church pore through the writings.

lamborn was not a detractor when he began his search, and i dont suspect GG began her search as a detractor.

in my case, the age of my children was a major motivator for me to find more answers about the church. the reasons people look into the history are very diverse.

also, it is true that detractors and active mormons look into the church's writings. research shows very quickly that those writings are often deceiving in their omissions and simplicity. most often, the gory details, including those that have been discussed here at the east valley tribune, are those found in the works of individual authors that are not sanctioned by the church. an example is rough stone rolling by richard bushman. while he is a mormon, his book is an independent publication and includes details that are not typically available in church writings and publications.

thanks again lawn. i think you are doing a great service to present a personal image of what it means to be mormon, whether one participates fully or not. also, you will help many families and individuals by dispelling the "anti-mormon" label that is used by so many mormons to describe non-correlated details of the history of their church, even if the details are true. Suggest removal of this comment

Wired funny story from BYU and Provo

2007-10-08T11:33:00.001-06:00

"Ordained" BYU Students Rebuffed in Party Bid

A couple of BYU students looking for a way around tough Provo city ordinance became ordained ministers over the Internet so they could legally throw a party. Apparently Provo's city ordinance prohibits public dances without state-certified security guards, metal detectors and surveillance cameras. The exception? Government groups, schools and churches. Thus, the friends, both LDS, were ordained by the Universal Life Church in a 10-minute Internet ceremony that basically required only their names and addresses. The first Provo party was scheduled during the week of Halloween, a costume dance that was closed down by the police chief. One frustrated student said, "We were trying to comply with the ordinance. As far as we knew it was a legitimate church." Another student said, "It's difficult to have good clean fun in this town, and that's what we're trying to do. Even when we try to do it legally we're being accosted from all sides." The students are requesting help from the ACLU, whose representatives were trying to contact the students. Of course, belonging to two churches goes against BYU's Honor Code. However, a BYU spokesperson said that the school would not take action. (Deseret News, 11/7/01)

Abuse lawsuit alleges widespread problems with Mormons, Boy Scouts

2007-10-05T11:47:00.001-06:00

from the D-new SLC Abuse lawsuit alleges widespread problems with Mormons, Boy Scouts

By William McCall
Associated Press
Published: October 4, 2007

PORTLAND, Ore. — A $25 million sex abuse lawsuit against the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Boy Scouts of America filed Wednesday alleges that child abuse has been widespread since the 1960s and little was done to prevent it.

The new lawsuit also claims the church and the Scouts "knew that assignments were being used by pedophiles to victimize children...."

Kelly Clark, the attorney who filed the complaint on behalf of six men now in their 40s, called it an "infestation of child abuse, stretching across the country, involving hundreds of predators and thousands of children."

Clark also said the LDS Church and the Boy Scouts "failed miserably to take responsible steps to clean up their organizations."

Stephen English, a Portland attorney for the LDS Church, said only one individual was accused of abuse in the complaint — the same man as a previous lawsuit.

"The LDS Church has always adamantly condemned child abuse and we will thoroughly investigate these allegations," English said.

A Scouts spokeswoman in Portland said officials had not seen the lawsuit and had no immediate comment.

Clark noted there is a strong relationship between Mormons and the Scouts, with the church sponsoring 28 percent of all Scout units nationally in 2006.

Clark has represented dozens of alleged abuse victims in successful lawsuits against the Roman Catholic Church, and he said the problems alleged in the complaint against the LDS Church and the Scouts "at least rival ones we've seen in the Catholic Church."

The new lawsuit adds four men to a previous complaint by two brothers who claim they were molested by a former LDS Church teacher and Scout leader. The men allege they were abused in the 1980s by Timur Dykes, a former Boy Scouts leader and a Mormon Sunday school teacher.

Dykes has several child sex abuse convictions and is listed by the state as a predatory sex offender.

Efforts to reach Dykes were not successful. County probation officials said they would leave him a message seeking comment.

The Web site for the Multnomah County Department of Community Justice Parole & Probation notes that "Dykes gains access to victims through positions of trust (Boy Scouts, church membership, befriending single mothers); targets vulnerable boys and families; has used intimidation and threats to maintain victim compliance."

The LDS Church has been ordered to turn over extensive financial records in another sex abuse lawsuit filed by Clark, and the Oregon Supreme Court rejected a church appeal.

Clark said settlement talks are continuing in that case.

© 2007 Deseret News Publishing Company | All rights reserved

Lyndon Lamborn - Stake Prez declines to announce ouster

2007-09-28T10:24:00.000-06:00

Since3 Lyndon took the wind from sails by going public first , the Skate Pres backed away from his plan

MORMON LEADER DECLINES TO ANNOUNCE OUSTER
Lawn Griffiths, East Valley Tribune

"Lyndon Lamborn was excommunicated from the Mormon church for doubting some of its claims, but on Sunday his stake president backed away from a plan to publicly announce his ouster."

Read more here: http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/story/98421

Mitt Romney asked me for money!

2007-09-26T15:54:00.001-06:00

I got a big letter from Mitt Romney asking for dollars to help with his campaign. I would will never give money to help a cult puppet get elected. Hey Mitt every time you ask for money I will give it to someone else to help defeat you.

To Young Men Only Boyd's KKK horrible suicide inducing talk

2007-09-25T08:44:00.001-06:00

This is the text of the infamous talk by Boyd KKK Packer who purpose is too drive guilt into young Mormon men. This talk is still distributed in leaflet to young LDS boys, however the LDS church has removed all records of it online ,and they will he gave it. Many young have suffered in the last 30 years because of this bullshit, same have been as far as suicide. To preserve a record of this horror here is the talk.

To Young Men Only
by
Boyd K. Packer
General Conference Priesthood Session, October 2, 1976

There are present in this priesthood session only brethren. I approach a subject that could not appropriately be discussed if there were others present. I have prayed fervently for inspiration as I speak to young men of Aaronic Priesthood age: to young men only.

I wish to discuss a subject that fathers should discuss with their sons. Because some young men do not have fathers and because some fathers (and some bishops) do not know how to proceed, I approach a very personal subject, one that is important to every young man.

You have been given a mortal body with which to experience earth life. Through it you will be tested. Your body is the instrument of your mind and the foundation of your character. It has within it powers which, if properly used, will contribute greatly to your exaltation. If you use this gift worthily, it will serve your throughout all eternity.

Never be ashamed of your body. No two are just alike. Some young men worry because they think their body is not well proportioned. They think they are too short or too tall or too stout or too thin or too something else. Physical proportions need have little to do with success, particularly spiritual success. Be grateful for your body.

Strive to keep it healthy through proper nourishment, rest, and exercise. Develop your body to full and useful capacity. Develop many stamina and control. Take nothing into your body that would harm it. Do not use tobacco, alcohol, drugs, or any other harmful substance.

A young man should learn to rule his body. Like his temper, he should keep it always under complete control. That sometimes is not easy to do.

Within your body you have the power of creation. You will one day find a mate and desire greatly to express fully your love with her. The righteous expression of this physical love in marriage is approved of the Lord. She then may conceive and give birth to a boy or a girl, a baby of whom you will be the father.

This is a very sacred power. The Lord has commanded that you use it only with one to whom you are legally and lawfully wedded. He has decreed serious penalties indeed for the misuse of it.

This power beings early in life, with some when you are hardly in your teens. This has a purpose, for with this power come the attributes of manhood. You notice changes in your stature and in your voice; a beard and other masculine characteristics become part of your nature.

Your feelings also change. This physical power will influence you emotionally and spiritually as well. It begins to shape and fit you to look, and feel, and to be what you need to be as a father. Ambition, courage, physical and emotional and spiritual strength become part of you because you are a man. You become very interested in young women --and want to be with them. This is as it should be.

This power of creation affects your life several years before you should express if fully. You must always guard the power with many wisdom. You must wait until the time of your marriage to use it.

During that waiting, what do you do with theses desires? My boy, you are to control them. You are forbidden to use them now in order that you may use them with worthiness and virtue and fullness of joy at the proper time in life.

I wish to explain something that will help you understand your young manhood and help you develop self-control. When this power begins to form, it might be likened to having a little factory in your body, one designed to produce the product that can generate life.

This little factory moves quietly into operation as a normal and expected pattern of growth and begins to produce the lifegiving substance. It will do so perhaps as long as you live. It works very slowly. That is the way it should be. For the most part, unless you tamper with it, you will hardly be aware that it is working at all.

As you move closer to manhood, this little factory will sometimes produce an oversupply of this substance. The Lord has provided a way for that to be released. It will happen without any help or without any resistance from you. Perhaps, one night you will have a dream. In the course of it the release valve that controls the factory will open and release all that is excess.

The factory and automatic release work on their own schedule. The Lord intended it to be that way. It is to regulate itself. This will not happen very often. You may go a longer period of time, and there will be no need for this to occur. When it does, you should not feel guilty. It is the nature of young manhood and is part of becoming a man.

There is; however, something you should not do. Sometimes a young man does not understand. Perhaps he is encouraged by unwise or unworthy companions to tamper with that factory. He might fondle himself and open that release valve. This you shouldn't do, for if you do that, the little factory will speed up. You will then be tempted again and again to release it. You can quickly be subjected to a habit, one that is not worthy, one that will leave you feeling depressed and feeling guilty. Resist that temptation. Do not be guilty of tampering or playing with this sacred power of creation. Keep it in reserve for the time when it can be righteously employed.

One of you, perhaps, has not fully understood until now. Perhaps your father did not talk to you. You may already have been guilty of tampering with these powers. You may even have developed a habit. What do you do then?

First, I want you to know this. I you are struggling with this temptation and perhaps you have not quite been able to resist, the Lord still loves you. It is not anything so wicked nor is it a transgression so great that the Lord would reject you because of it, but it can quickly lead to that kind of transgression. It is not pleasing to the Lord, nor is it pleasing to you. It does not make you feel worthy or clean.

There are ways to conquer such a habit. First of all, you must leave that factory alone long enough for it to slow down. Resisting is not easy. It will take weeks, even months. But you can get the little factory slowed back to where it should be.

I have other suggestions. The power to prevent such habits or to break them rests in your mind, not in your body. Don't let that physical part of you take charge. Stay in control. Condition your body to do the will of your mid. To do this you must keep your mind on worthy thoughts. Divert your thoughts from things that lead your into mischief. Vigorous physical exercise helps young men in many ways. You are most vulnerable when you are idle or when you are discouraged. This is the time to be on guard.

I know a way to keep your thoughts worthy. It has helped me, and I explained it to on one occasion in a general conference talk. Let me repeat it for you.

Probably the greatest challenge to people of any age, particularly young people, and the most difficult thing you will face in mortal life is to learn to control your thoughts. As a man "thinketh in his heart, so is he." (Proverbs 23:7.) One who can control his thoughts has conquered himself.

When I was about ten years old, we lived in a home surrounded by an orchard. There never seemed to be enough water for the trees. The ditches, always fresh-plowed in the spring, would soon be filled with weeds. One day, in charge of the irrigating turn, I found myself in trouble. As the water moved down the rows choked with weeds, it would flood in ever direction. I raced through the puddles trying to build up the band. As soon as I had one break patched up, there would be another.

A neighbor came through the orchard. He watched for a moment and then with a few vigorous strokes of the shovel he cleared the ditch bottom and allowed the water to stay in its course, you'll have to make a place for it to go," he said.

I have come to know that thoughts, like water, will stay on course if we make a place for them to go. Otherwise, our thoughts follow the course of least resistance, always seeking the lower levels.

I had been told a hundred times or more as I grew up, that thoughts must be controlled, but no one told me how. I want to tell you young people about one way you can learn to control your thoughts, and it has to do with music.

The mid is like a stage. Except when we are asleep, the curtain is always up. There is always some act being performed on that stage. It may be a comedy, a tragedy, interesting or dull, good or bad; but always there is some act playing on the stage of the mind.

Have you noticed that without any real intent on your part, in the middle of almost any performance, a shady little thought may creep in from the wings and attract your attention? These delinquent thoughts will try to upstage everybody. If you permit them to go on, all thoughts of any virtue will leave the stage. You will be left, because you consented to it. to the influence of unrighteous thoughts. If you yield to them, they will enact for you on the stage of your mind anything to the limits of your toleration. They may enact a theme of bitterness, jealousy, or hatred. It may be vulgar, immoral, even depraved. When they have the stage, if you let them, they will devise the most clever persuasion to hold your attention. They can make it interesting all right, even convince you that it is innocent --for they are but thoughts.

What you need to do at a time like that, when the stage of your mind is commandeered by the imps of unclean thinking, whether they be gray ones that seem almost clean or the filthy ones which leave no room for doubt? If you can control you thoughts, you can overcome habits, even degrading personal habits. If you can learn to master them, you will have a happy life.

This is what I would teach you. Choose from among the sacred music of the Church a favorite hymn, one with words that are uplifting and music that is reverent, one that makes you feel something akin to inspiration. Go over it in your mid carefully. Memorize it. Even though you have had no musical training, you can think through a hymn.

Now, use this hymn as the place for your thoughts to go. Make it your emergency channel. Whenever you find theses shady actors have slipped from the sidelines of your thinking onto the stage of your mid, put on this record, as it were. As the music begins and the words form in your thoughts, the unworthy ones will slip shamefully away from your mid. Because it is uplifting and clean, the baser thoughts will disappear. For while virtue, by choice, will not associate with filth, evil cannot tolerate the presence of light.

In due time you will find yourself, on occasion, humming the music inwardly. As you retrace your thoughts, you discover some influence from the world about you encouraged an unworthy thought to move on stage in your mind, and the music almost automatically began.

Once you learn to clear the stage of your mind of unworthy thoughts, keep it busy with learning worthwhile things. Change your environment so that you have things about you that will inspire good and uplifting thoughts. Keep busy with things that are righteous.

Another thing will help both to prevent and to overcome such habits. At times of special temptation skip a meal or two. We call that fasting, you know. It has a powerful effect upon you physically. It diverts some of that physical energy to more ordinary needs. It tapers desire and reduces the temptation. Fasting will help you greatly. In the scriptures, fasting and prayer are generally mentioned together. Prayer is a powerful instrument to bless young men. If a missionary, for instance, indulges in these unworthy practices, the Spirit of the Lord will leave him. When he is prayerful and will fast, the Spirit of the Lord sustains him. He soon develops a manly restraint and worthiness.

Resist those temptations. Do not tamper with your body. If you have already, cease to do it --now. Put it away and overcome it. The signal of worthy manhood is self-control.

This power is ordained for the begetting of life and as a binding tie in the marriage covenant. It is not to be misused. It is not to be use prematurely. It is to be known between husband and wife and in no other way. I you misuse it, you will be sorry.

Now a warning! I am hesitant to even mention it, for it is not pleasant. It must be labeled as major transgression. But I will speak plainly. There are some circumstances in which young men may be tempted to handle one another, to have contact with one another physically in unusual ways. Latter-day Saint young men are not to do this.

Sometimes this begins in a moment of idle foolishness, when boys are just playing around. But it is not foolishness. It is remarkably dangerous. Such practices, however tempting, are perversion. When a young man is finding his way into manhood, such experiences can misdirect his normal desires and pervert him not only physically but emotionally and spiritually as well.

It was intended that we use this power only with our partner in marriage. I repeat, very plainly, physical mischief with another man is forbidden. It is forbidden by the Lord.

There are some men who entice young men to join them in these immoral acts. If you are ever approached to participate in anything like that, it is time to vigorously resist.

While I was in a mission on one occasion, a missionary said he had something to confess. I was very worried because he just could not get himself to tell me what he had done.

After patient encouragement he finally blurted out, "I hit my companion."

"Oh, is that all," I said in great relief.

"But I floored him," he said.

After learning a little more, my response was "Well, thanks. Somebody had to do it, and it wouldn't be well for a General Authority to solve the problem that way"

I am not recommending that course to you, but I am not omitting it. You must protect yourself.

There is a falsehood that some are born with an attraction to their own kind, with nothing they can do about it. They are just "that way" and can only yield to those desires. That is a malicious and destructive lie. While it is a convincing idea to some, it is of the devil. No one is locked into that kind of life. From our premortal life we were directed into a physical body. There is no mismatching of bodies and spirits. Boys are to become men --masculine, manly men --ultimately to become husbands and fathers. No one is predestined to a perverted use of these powers.

Even those who have been drawn into wicked practices and are bound by almost unyielding habits can escape. If one of you seems trapped in that, escape. Go to your father or bishop, please. Your parents, your bishop, the servants of the Lord, the angels of heaven and the Lord himself will help redeem your from it.

Young Latter-day Saint men, do not tamper with these powers, neither with yourself alone nor with one of your own kind. Never let anyone handle you or touch those very personal parts of your body which are an essential link in the ongoing of creation.

Many on the world would, I'm sure, be amused by this counsel. Let them be amused. They live by another standard, a lower one. We live by the Lord's standard and continue to teach it.

It is normal and proper for a young man to become interested in young women, to begin to date, eventually to pair up. We encourage that, but be careful. Keep your relationships with young women pure and chaste. Reserve those life-giving powers for marriage.

Then you can enter into the new and everlasting covenant. You and your sweetheart will be sealed together for time and for all eternity. These sacred life-giving powers will then be released for your use. They will become a binding tie in your marriage. Through them you will become a father.

But for now, you prepare and follow the instruction in the scripture: "Be ye clean that bear the vessels of the Lord."(D&C 133:5.)

God bless you, our young brethren, as you strive to be clean. In doing so, you will please the Lord and his prophet, of whom I bear witness, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

LDS church publicly outes an aposate

2007-09-24T15:03:00.001-06:00

The lengths the Mormon cult is going to punish the people who leave keeps increasing this means they are desperate to keep people from leaving.

From a Phoenix, AZ newspaper: The east valley tribune

E-mail Save License

September 23, 2007

Mormon ousted as an apostate

By Lawn Griffiths
Tribune

Teachings questioned: Lyndon Lamborn, whose personal research led him to question Mormon church teachings, is livid that a letter is being read at ward meetings today announcing his excommunication.

Lisa Olson Tribune

Being excommunicated for apostasy by the Mormon church is one thing, but Lyndon Lamborn is livid that his stake president has ordered bishops in eight Mesa wards to take the rare step of announcing disciplinary action against him to church members today. "I thought if he could go public, so can I," said Lamborn, a lifelong member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who said his research into church history gave him "thousands of reasons the church can't be what it claims to be."

Stake President R. James Molina acknowledged Friday he intends to have Lamborn's excommunication announced to the wards at men's priesthood meetings and womens Relief Society gatherings, even with Lamborn now taking his case public. Molina, as well as officials at church headquarters in Salt Lake City, call such a public warning about an ousted member extremely rare.

They say, however, church members must be protected from what discordant ex-followers may say to damage the church.

In a letter to Lamborn dated Sept. 2, Molina noted that a disciplinary council had been held Aug. 19 and excommunication was ordered. Lamborn, 49, a Mesa resident who has been a priesthood leader for 20 years, was informed he was no longer a church member, could not "enjoy any membership privileges, including the wearing of temple garments and the payment of tithes and offerings."

He could attend public meetings if his conduct is orderly, but would be denied giving any talks, offering prayers, partaking of the sacrament or voting.

"Because of the nature of your excommunication and your involvement with people in this area, an announcement will be delivered to the Melchizedek Priesthood quorums and Relief Society in each of the wards in our stake ... on Sunday, September 23, 2007, that you have been excommunicated for apostasy," Molina wrote.

"We need to let people know if there is a danger to them, such as him teaching doctrine that is contrary to what is taught by the church," Molina said Friday.

Lamborn, a member of the Thunder Mountain Ward, said his Mormon roots go back generations, with a great-grandfather in the famed Mormon Battalion that trekked from Iowa to San Diego in 1846 and 1847.

Lamborn served a two-year Mormon mission in 1977-79 in Belgium, was elders quorum president four times and led a Mormon Boy Scout troop. Most recently, he said he was assigned to teach older men in his ward and held other roles.

But everything changed in early 2005. Lamborn, an engineer employed at Boeing in Mesa for nearly 25 years, was asked by a work colleague about the wives of church founder Joseph Smith. She had read "Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith" by John Krakauer and asked Lamborn if what she had read was accurate.

Smith, the first LDS prophet and president, had at least 33 wives by many accounts.
"Well, I had no knowledge of multiple wives, so I did some research, including using the church's own genealogical Web site, familysearch.org," Lamborn said.

He found the information concurred with the book. "Nonmembers seemed to know more about the personal life of Joseph Smith than me," he said.

Lamborn conducted further research, which led him to question many church teachings. He said he went to Molina with his questions, but received no definitive answers.

Lamborn has been attending the three-hour ward meetings with his wife and 16-year-old son. His two daughters, 22 and 24, "are totally out of Mormonism."

He said he learned that his five brothers "were doing the same research and arriving at the same conclusions" and doubts, he said. The same was true for his best friend since childhood. In a meeting earlier this summer with Molina, Lamborn acknowledged that he wanted to give up his church membership.

"I was planning to leave the church quietly, but was denied that opportunity, presumably because I was speaking openly to other members about my findings and (was) writing things down," Lamborn said.

Lamborn has compiled his research into a lengthy testament called, "Search for Truth 6/07," in which he states: "There comes a time in the life of many church members when the desire to know the truth about the church becomes stronger than the desire to believe the church is true."

He said he intends to continue to accompany his wife, Nancy, to ward services.
"It is tough to go, tough to attend, but I enjoy the fellowship," he said.

He said he has no desire to join another church, adding that the Mormon faith has many merits, such as its strong family values and its internationally recognized welfare system to help those in need.

The public announcement of his excommunication will be toughest on his wife, Lamborn said. "There's the embarrassment," he said. "Friends won't know how to treat her. The awkwardness. It is going to be tougher on her than anybody."

Clark Hirschi, manager of the area relations division in Salt Lake City, said Friday he talked to Molina after the stake president was contacted by the Tribune.

"Despite the fact that he has told you this is going to happen, it is up to the priesthood leaders," Hirschi said. "There may be a letter read to some of the adult members this Sunday. It might be in a few weeks. It may not happen. That is going to be at the discretion and call of the stake president."

Hirschi said he has never been in a meeting in his own 20 years as a Mormon where a public announcement about an excommunication has been made. He said he had only heard of one being made in a neighboring stake.

Update: Police abuse in Utah

2007-08-23T00:56:00.001-06:00

Orem city has charged the old lady with 2 crimes.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20399892/

I think I will stay out of Orem.

Police abuse in Utah county, Utah

2007-07-31T11:27:00.001-06:00

What is it that about the heat that causes Utah county police to forget about human rights. An Orem Senior citizen was roughed up and arrested for a dry lawn in a drought year. Last year they sent the SWAT team to a legal dance concert calling it a drug rave. The video was circulated on the Internet of them roughly arresting innocent concert attendees. The Utah county sheriff said the raid was justified because he "had a feeling they were going to break the law"

Here is the link to the article about the lady arrested for the dry lawn.

http://www.sltrib.com/ci_6319911?IADID=Search-www.sltrib.com-www.sltrib.com

Sin & Death in Mormon Country: A Latter-day Tragedy

2007-07-16T11:07:00.001-06:00

Sin & Death in Mormon Country: A Latter-day Tragedy
April, 1986
By Mark A. Taylor*

On March 2, 1982, Kip Eliason, age 16, distraught and filled with self-hate over his inability to stop masturbating, committed suicide. Before asphyxiating himself, Kip left his father a note:

"Dear Dad,
I love you more than what words can say. If it were possible, I would stay alive for only you, for I really only have you. But it isn't possible. I must first love myself, and I do not. The strange feeling of darkness and self-hate overpowers all my defenses. I must unfortunately yield to it. This turbulent feeling is only for a few to truly understand. I feel that you do not comprehend the immense feeling of self-hatred I have. This is the only way I feel that I can relieve myself of these feelings now. Carry on with your life and be happy. I love you more than words can say.
—Your son, Kip"

Kip Eliason's five-year struggle to overcome masturbation started at age 11 when his grandmother persuaded him to join the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), whose members are better known as Mormons. Kip was an intelligent and sensitive young man, perhaps too sensitive. The death of his mother when the boy was six had profoundly affected him. At times he was quiet and reflective, spending hours alone in his room, and yet he was outgoing by nature. He was a born leader. His classmates and teachers admired him for his friendly way and all-American good looks. Kip was truthful and possessed a farm-community naiveté.

He loved the Mormon Church — which has 5.5 million members worldwide — and was devoted to its teachings. His father, Eugene Eliason, a non-Mormon, believes that in some ways the church may have played a substitute-mother role for the boy. (For clarity, Eugene Eliason will be referred to as Eliason throughout this report; his son will always be called Kip.)

Kip was not the kind of youngster you'd think would commit suicide, but when his church told him that he'd find guilt, depression and self-hate if he masturbated, he believed so. When it said he'd go to hell if he didn't stop, he believed that too. And when he was told that masturbation was a "building block of suicide," he took the church at its word.

Kip's death rocked the predominantly Mormon agribusiness community of Boise, Idaho, where he was a high-school senior at Capital High School. Of course, there were the stories that occasionally filtered through the congregation about young people who, like Kip, committed suicide because they couldn't live up to the church's stringent anti-sex doctrines. But they were just stories and, if they were true, they didn't happen in Boise; they happened some 300 miles southeast, in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Salt Lake City is the headquarters of the Mormon Church and the power base from which it wields enormous financial and political influence. (Mormons comprise 70% of Utah's population.) There Kip's death was indeed viewed by church leaders as an unfortunate tragedy, but it wasn't the isolated incident the church would like its brethren in Boise to believe.

Today Kip's story is one told more and more often in Mormon wardhouses. Behind the scenes the church and community mental-health agencies in Utah are quietly fighting a sex-related mental-health epidemic among Mormon men and women. Mental-health fallout in Utah communities has been substantial and pervasive. Utah has the highest birthrate and the largest families in America. More than 50% of all births are by teenage mothers, with seven of ten out of wedlock, and it has one of the highest divorce rates in the nation.

While the number of teen suicides in America has tripled in the past decade, Utah has consistently been 3.5% higher than the national average. According to that state's Department of Vital Statistics, it ranks 13th nationally in child abuse, but comparing Utah statistics with those compiled by the National Association for the Protection of Children, the incidence of reported child abuse is six times higher in Utah. The incidence of sexual abuse — including rape, incest and intercourse — is 33% more than the national average, and the child-murder rate is five times higher.

Besides having a powerhouse football team, the Mormons' very own Brigham Young University — alma mater of Donny and Marie Osmond and 1984 Miss America Sharlene Wells — has one of the highest coed-pregnancy rates in America.

Kip and countless others have fallen victim to guilt, self-hate, mental illness and suicide created by their inability to control healthy sexual desires as mandated by the Mormon Church. Making things worse is its amateurish attempts to provide counseling that utilizes powerful behavioral-modification techniques with inadequate training.

Mormon anti-sex indoctrination start early. Children are taught that sex is dirty and disgusting, that it is the tool of Satan. The church uses guilt and the threat of eternal damnation to drive its message home. When a child reaches adolescence, the conflict between what he or she has learned and sexual feelings experienced can create devastating consequences.

After Kip's death, Eliason moved to Salt Lake City. He was angry and hurt. There he met parents who had stories like his — youngsters ending up in mental institutions or worse, committing suicide. Eliason worked through his grief and anger by talking to anyone willing to listen and by going to the library and researching teen suicide and the Mormons. In October 1983 he filed a $26-million wrongful-death suit against the Mormon Church, alleging that the Latter-day Saints went a step further than just providing his son with spiritual, moral and personal guidance when they subjected him to sex- and masturbation-counseling. The suit accuses the church of negligence for providing counseling that fell outside the realm of religious teaching and for not requiring or providing training for its counselors.

The suit charges that this counseling, combined with the church's harsh anti-masturbation indoctrination, were the direct cause of Kip's depression, self-hate, suicide attempts and eventual death.

Moreover, it alleges that the church knew or should have known that its attempts to indoctrinate and provide sexual counseling for Kip were having a severe and adverse reaction on him; yet they continued. The suit charges that this failure to exercise a proper standard of care was negligent.

The suit also contends that the Mormon Church subjected Kip to what amounted to an intentional attempt at mind control by using brainwashing techniques under the guise of spiritual teaching.

A pretrial affidavit was filed by noted sex-behavior expert Dr. Jack Annon, clinical and forensic psychologist, author of three books on sexual dysfunctions and disorders, and a member of the American Association of Sex Educators, Counselors and Therapists and of other professional societies. Annon stated: "Based upon my review of even a limited amount of literature and on documentation specifically pertaining to Kip Eliason, it appears clear that the LDS Church promoted and engaged in behavior-modification counseling in the specific areas of masturbation."

In letters to his father and in his remarkably well-written journal, Kip chronicled his fight to overcome masturbation. He wrote: "I know immorality is a very serious sin. I really want to repent and be free of this terrible and degrading burden of masturbation. I am willing to do anything I have to do, even excommunication, to be able to repent and be free of this sin. I would rather go to hell and suffer there than be unworthy."

Eliason recalls that before Kip became involved with the church, he was happy as a lark: "He got along with everyone just beautifully. We water-skied, boated, fished, snow-skied and did everything together. We laughed and had a ball."

Mormons are taught that only by achieving perfection on earth will they reach "godhood" and find eternal life in heaven. To reach "perfection" one must first be found "worthy." Bestowing "worthiness" is a shared responsibility between God and the church's elders.

For most Latter-day Saints, including Kip, the constant battle to become "worthy" is a hopeless struggle. Becoming "worthy" and ultimately reaching "perfection" means living up to the church's 4,300 commandments — including those condemning natural sex acts.

To his classmates at Capital High School and fellow Mormons, Kip seemed jovial, outgoing and, well, almost perfect. In many ways he was a model child — highly motivated, voted most inspirational member of the track team, a straight-A student, a seemingly well-adjusted individual immersed in his church beliefs and in striving for perfection. Mormon elders often used him as an example of what a fine young man should be, someone others could aspire to be like. Kip often talked about going to college and earning a degree in a humanitarian field.

Kip's aunt Janice Ballatore, an active Mormon with whom he lived for two summers, remembers him telling her of his masturbation problem one day while running errands: "I told him not to worry, that all young boys probably do it. He seemed very relieved. Kip was a smart, good-looking kid who took the church perfection business seriously. He really thought he could be perfect. He said, 'The church told me I could if I really wanted to try.'"

Mormon Sex "Education"

In a devotional speech to young adults in 1974 the late Spencer W. Kimball, Prophet, Seer and Revelator of the Mormon Church, admonished teenagers: "Immorality [petting, premarital sex, adultery, homosexuality and masturbation] brings generally a guilt deep and lasting. These guilt complexes are the stuff of which mental breakdowns come; they are the building blocks of suicide, the fabric of distorted personalities and the wounds that scar and decapitate individuals or families."

In Love vs. Lust, a pamphlet written for teenagers, Kimball told young men that premarital sex is a serious sin, one just short of murder. He wrote: "The young man is untrue to his manhood who promises popularity, good times, security, fun and even love, when all he can give is passion and its diabolical fruits — guilt complexes, disgust, hatred, abhorrence, eventual loathing, and possible pregnancy without legitimacy and honor."

Insisting on anonymity, a young, attractive woman sums up 20 years of Mormon sex indoctrinations: "They tell you it's filthy and ugly. They say you'll be shamed and damned. By the time you're 21, you've got more sexual hang-ups than you can deal with. It's crazy."

Even married people are told that sex for pleasure is out, that the only legitimate purpose of sex is to be the tool of "procreating new spirits." In a confidential letter responding to an inquiry from a married couple asking if oral sex was permitted, the late Mormon Prophet Harold B. Lee stated: "I was shocked to have you raise the question about 'oral lovemaking in the genital area among married couples.' Heaven forbid any such degrading activities which would be abhorrent in the sight of the Lord. For any Latter-day Saint... to engage in any kind of perversions of this sacred God-given gift of procreation would be sure to bring down the condemnation of the Lord whom we would offend were we to engage in any such practice."

Once known for their practice of polygamy (multiple marriages), today's Latter-day Saints are ultraconservative, tight-knit, industrious and secretive. The church demands absolute faith in and conformity to all its teachings and doctrines, and it attempts to govern all aspects of its congregation's lives, including their sex lives.

In a letter to his father, Kip wrote: "I think since you're my father who I love very much, I can tell you something about me that I have a problem with. It started when I was around nine or ten years of age. I had my first wet dream and was experiencing new feelings. I really don't know how I got started, but it doesn't matter. I did it for about a year, then out of fright that I would go to Satan if I did things like that, I stopped doing it. Then about a year and a half later I was starting with it again. It was the first week of junior high in the 7th grade. I really don't know what it was that got me doing it again. For about a year I rationalized that it was right; it really wasn't a big problem then. But I did feel guilty. Then through my guilt and what I was learning [from the church] I knew it was wrong for me."

Eliason remembers: "Initially, Kip came to me and said he'd begun to have nocturnal emissions. He asked if I thought it would affect his church priesthood. I told him, 'No way! It's normal, and every man goes through it.'"

Kip desperately wanted to be a good man and prove himself worthy. At first he even tried lying, but he couldn't lie to himself. He wrote: "I had lied about it to everyone, even the bishop and myself. I would go in for [bishop] interviews, and when the 'golden question' was asked, 'Are you morally clean?' I looked in his eyes and lied. My life was downhill all the time. I felt horrible inside, and it showed. I didn't have many friends. I felt too humiliated to see the bishop. I tried a million times to stop on my own. But it was an obsession. A hideous habit that I thought to be totally impossible to quit. I knew Satan had me twisted on his little finger. I thought I would never be able to lose the chains that held me fast."

When Kip finally told his bishop the truth, the bishop scheduled regular counseling sessions to assist the youth to stop masturbating and to monitor his progress. The church would supply the information he needed to overcome his sin, but he alone would have to stop — that is, if he really wanted to.

Unlike churches that require clergymen to have training and even college degrees before providing counseling, Mormon bishops and elders have little or no training in psychology or sexology. The only instruction they receive comes from either The Bishop's General Handbook or the litany of pamphlets and instructional manuals pumped out by the LDS publishing arm.

One pamphlet written for teenage boys is titled Steps to Overcoming Masturbation [reprinted on this website—see link below]. It recommends avoiding being alone whenever possible, but "if you have a friend who masturbates, end the friendship immediately — don't fool yourself by thinking you can stop together; it will only lead to even greater perversions."

As a reminder of their particular sin, Mormon masturbators are instructed to carry a pocket calendar with them wherever they go. They are told to paint the days they masturbated black. Masturbators are also told not to read about or talk to anyone about their problem.

In the bathroom, Mormons are advised to always leave the door slightly ajar to avoid being alone, and to never admire themselves in the mirror. "Never stay in the bathroom for longer than five minutes, even to bathe-then GET OUT FAST." The author recommends never touching the "intimate parts" of the body except during normal toileting.

In the bedroom they are instructed to dress for security. The more layers of clothing, the better. If the urge to masturbate becomes unbearable, yell "STOP!" as a way of changing the subject. Another option is to grasp a Book of Mormon and hold it tightly. In severe cases the masturbator is told to tie his hand to the bedframe so that semi-sleep masturbation doesn't occur.

In the pamphlet Love vs. Lust, Kimball warned masturbators that if they don't stop, they will end up homosexual: "Masturbation is the introduction of the more serious sin of exhibitionism and the gross sin of homosexuality." And in Tools for Missionaries the church states that medical doctors believe masturbation "dulls the mind and has adverse effect on the memory."

Dr. Vern Bullough of State University College at Buffalo, New York, is the author of many books on homosexuality and masturbation, including Sexual Variance in Society and History. Bullough, who also heads the Society for the Scientific Study of Sex, takes issue with Mormon claims of medical backing: "Obviously, members of the society would take exception to the attempts of the LDS Church to claim scientific backing for their stand on masturbation; their science is about 80 years out of date, and it was questionable even 80 years ago."

If the church's stand on masturbation is based on turn-of-the-century science, its controversial treatment for homosexuals might be right out of the futureshock novel and cult-film classic A Clockwork Orange.

The so-called electroshock conditioning starts in the downtown Salt Lake City office of psychologist and active Mormon Robert Card. First, electrodes are strapped to the homosexual's arms or fingers, biofeedback monitors are attached to his head, and a circular electronic sensor is placed around his penis. Next, the patient sits in a darkened room where he views videotapes of heterosexual and homosexual sex acts.

If the patient gets an erection while watching the heterosexual tapes, a biofeedback digital-display monitor registers a positive numerical reading. But if the patient begins to have an erection while viewing the homosexual tapes, the electrodes strapped to his arms or fingers deliver an electrical shock.

Don Atridge, an ex-Mormon homosexual who was also a member of the famed Mormon Tabernacle Choir, underwent five months of shock treatments conducted by Dr. Card, whom he refers to as Dr. Frankenstein. "Every time I left his office, I was hornier than ever. Many times my arms were red and cut up from the shocks — they looked like hamburger."

Another ex-Mormon gay, Les (who wanted only his first name identified), is very angry. "It's horrible having the hell shocked out of you when you get sexually excited. The entire thing was disgusting." Les even considered suicide. "After a while suicide looked like the most honorable thing to do. Many Mormon gays do it. I had it all planned, an automobile accident on a certain curve in the mountains; it was a way my children and family would be spared."

In February 1984 the Australian television version of 60 Minutes aired a segment about the treatments, titled "Saints and Sinners." Utah native and ex-Mormon Gary L. Stone told producer Warren McStoker that be didn't just leave the church after being treated by Dr. Card. He kidnapped his four-year-old daughter from his ex-wife to get her away from the church and then moved to Australia.

"Getting myself and my daughter away from the Mormon Church was the best decision I've made in my entire 32-year life." About Dr. Card's treatment he says, "It's destructive. They are purposely trying to destroy you. If you are a homosexual in the church, you have only three options — you can lie, you can die or you can disappear."

While publicly abhorring any form of pornography, the church uses porn to treat homosexuality. And although it doesn't openly embrace Dr. Card's treatment, many higher-ups endorse the therapy and even refer church members for treatment.

The Mormon instructional pamphlet Homosexuality outlines and suggests specific therapeutic methods to be used in sex counseling. They include establishing rapport and confidentiality, assessment counseling, fantasy-changing, goal-setting, thought-stopping, chain-breaking and aversion therapy. The church believes that all homosexuals started out as masturbators; so counselors are instructed to identify the masturbator, gain his confidence, assess his needs and then design and implement a plan to help him stop before it leads to "more perverse and repugnant sins."

Although the church encourages the use of these potentially dangerous therapies, it fails to offer implementation guidelines. Bishops have no way of recognizing emotional and psychological problems or even mental illness. Also, they have no way of knowing whether the therapy is helpful or harmful.

Again, Dr. Jack Annon: "It is my professional opinion that the LDS Church has gone a step beyond propounding a certain viewpoint that masturbation is a sin, and has actually instructed its leaders, teachers and bishops to provide counseling and to utilize behavior-'modification skills that can have very dangerous and adverse effects."

After Kip admitted his "sin," he felt relieved. "It has been exactly 11 weeks ago that I was called in by my new bishop to have an interview with him for the On My Honor Award. I knew that the question would be asked, 'Are you worthy?' I prayed for strength to tell the truth before I went for the interview. I felt a little nervous at first, but then I was relaxed. The question was asked and I told him the truth. I felt as clean as I felt at my baptism. I feel 'new' again! I have not masturbated for 11 weeks now. This is after I tried and tried to stop. After I saw the bishop, I knew I would never be immoral ever again. The chains are loose, and I am free.... New doors to truth and happiness have opened up to me."

Unfortunately, Kip's hopes were dashed when he eventually masturbated again. He wrote: "It seems I have tried to stop a billion times, but it's the same old feelings. It affects every part of my life. If I could only get rid of this one sin, I know I could be a better person. I know I will run into a lot more problems in my life, but I think having a good self-image will help a lot through those times. Being rid of this ugly immoral sin will save my life and make it worth living."

By the time Kip was 15, he and his dad discussed the problem regularly. Eliason continued to try to convince Kip that masturbation was a normal and even healthy part of growing up and discovering one's own sexuality. He supplied Kip with books by medical experts refuting the information supplied by the Mormon Church. Even though Kip loved him, Eliason's influence couldn't match the well-oiled anti-masturbation campaign of the Mormons.

In a letter to his father, Kip regurgitated his indoctrination. "Now I know you are going to say it's good, it's natural, and 99.9% of the human population does it. Dad, I have read the statistics; I have read the sex books: I know the authors are professionals with all the 'facts.' But for me, it is wrong! For others it may be right, but not for me."

At school, friends noticed a difference in his behavior. He clammed up and seemed lost in thought. The church was demanding an ever greater commitment from him. If he wasn't in school or doing homework, then he was at the Mormon wardhouse.

Nearly five years had passed since Kip's first wet dream and feelings of sexual awakening. For most, adolescence is a time of personal exploration, discovery and excitement, but for Kip it was a time of torment and self-disgust.

Eliason noticed a change in Kip's personality. "He seemed down in the dumps for no apparent reason. He began spending a lot of time in his room. I found out later he was praying and reading the Scriptures for hours on end." After Kip's death he found an extensive library on sex, human reproduction and scores of pamphlets and books that the church had supplied the boy.

In a letter to an unnamed church elder, Kip pleaded for help: "How can I have the confidence that I won't let myself fall into this temptation ever again? I really want to fulfill my priesthood calling, and I can't if I am not morally clean. I don't even deserve it! I am willing to do anything I have to do to be able to repent and be free of this sin."

By the fall of 1981 the once-active, outgoing and well-liked teenager was withdrawn and profoundly depressed. On December 10, 1981, Kip tried to kill himself by drinking a bottle of iodine mixed with alcohol. He had come to hate himself so completely, he believed that death and damnation were all he deserved.

If there had been any doubt concerning the severity of his emotional conflict or state of mind, Kip's attempted suicide should have silenced it. The Eliason suit alleges that the Mormon Church was aware of the suicide attempt, but continued to counsel him in complete disregard for his deteriorating mental state.

Dr. Annon believes, "It is my firm professional opinion, based upon information that I have at hand, that the LDS Church attempted to teach very stringent and difficult standards to a boy who was vulnerable to emotional conflicts, and that the counseling was inadequate and appears to have contributed to the boy's suicidal ideations."

On January 10, 1982, just a month after his first suicide attempt, Kip was ordained into the Aaronic priesthood. One in a series of Mormon priesthoods, the Aaronic demands greater responsibility, commitment and perfection.

On Valentine's Day, February 14, Kip made another attempt to end his life by again drinking a mixture of iodine and alcohol. He was taken to the psychiatric unit of the St. Alphonsus Regional Medical Center, where he was diagnosed as suicidal. (The medical facility is a codefendant in the Eliason suit.) Eight days later Kip was released to his father.

Eliason recalls picking his son up at the hospital. "He seemed happy to be going home. Before we left, he introduced me to a 16-year-old girl he had met there. She had told him she was there for the same reason he was. Kip seemed very taken by his new friend and, when they said goodbye, he took her into his arms and kissed her. I'll never forget it."

On March 2, 1982, Kip was home alone while his father made an overnight business trip, About 9 p.m. Eliason called him from his hotel. "Kip seemed all right. I asked him if he'd taken his medicine, and he said he had. I told him I'd be home soon, and that was about it."

Sometime after the call, Kip wrote a suicide note. He went to the closed garage, started the family car and went to sleep.

Dead at 16, Kip Eliason had but two "vices," masturbation and telling the truth. He was unable to stop masturbating and too honorable to lie — something tens of thousands of other Mormons must be doing right now.

Every time Eugene Eliason returns to Boise, he visits Kip's grave. Sometimes he drives through their old neighborhood. He feels closest to Kip there. If a Mormon neighbor recognizes him, they pretend not to notice. Now labeled an anti-Mormon, he worries about all those young people who, like Kip, are giving their all to the Mormon Church.

Today Eliason shows his anger less frequently than he did two years ago, even though his precedent-setting clergy-malpractice suit has cost him everything. (After several lengthy delays and setbacks it is slated to go to court this spring [1986].) It's not that his anger has subsided the way it might have had his son been killed in an auto accident, say. That kind of natural dissipation of anger doesn't apply to him. Until he can find justice and reconcile the fact that Kip died not only believing himself a failure at age 16, but also believing that he deserved to die as punishment for his "despicable sin," Eliason's anger and grieving will continue.

[*Journalist Mark A. Taylor, a native of Salt Lake City, has written feature articles for a number of Far West publications.

--
Dragon777
Kent Belliston
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dragon777

LDS Church Finances to be Revealed in Court????? From the Oregonian

2007-07-12T15:15:00.002-06:00

From the Oregonian




Church can't hide its worth Supreme Court - The LDS church loses a round in a fight to keep its finances secret on religious grounds Thursday, July 12, 2007 ASHBEL S. GREEN The Oregonian Oregon's top court has rejected the Mormon church's bid to shield detailed financial information about its net worth -- a closely held secret for nearly half a century. Despite the legal defeat, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints did not immediately release the financial information to lawyers for a Portland-area man who claims he was molested by a church "home teacher" in the late 1980s. "The church is considering its position," said Stephen F. English, the LDS church's lead Portland attorney. "The church respects the rule of law but has profound constitutional concerns based on its constitutional right to protect the free expression of its religion." English said he would renew the church's legal arguments in a hearing Tuesday before Multnomah County Circuit Judge John A. Wittmayer. Kelly W.G. Clark, a Portland attorney whose client is suing the LDS church, said a jury should have the financial information before considering his request for $45 million in punitive damages. "A jury needs to know the entire financial context to know whether a punitive award is too much or sufficient or not enough," Clark said. A trial is scheduled for Aug. 6. The LDS church has not released financial information since 1959. A book claims it is among the most affluent churches in the world. "Mormon America: The Power and the Promise" estimated the church's net worth at between $25 billion to $30 billion in the late 1990s. Richard N. Ostling, a former Time Magazine religion writer and co-author of the book, said the church had about $6 billion on Wall Street and in church-controlled businesses and cash. It owned $5 billion in real estate. "The land owned by the church is roughly comparable to the state of Delaware," Ostling said. LDS church officials said his estimates were exaggerated but did not offer its own numbers, Ostling said. "The full financial facts are probably known to only 15 or 20 men in Salt Lake City," he said. Timothy N. Kosnoff, a Seattle attorney, was seeking the church's financial information in 2001 on behalf of a former Oregon man who claimed he was sexually abused by an LDS Sunday school teacher. Kosnoff never got the information because the church agreed to pay his client $3 million, the largest publicly known sex abuse settlement in the country at the time. "It's the secret of secrets," Kosnoff said. "They don't share it even with their own members." The latest legal showdown over the net worth of the LDS church stems from a 2006 lawsuit that accuses Kenneth I. Johnson Jr. of molesting a Beaverton youth as frequently as two times a week from 1987 to 1989. Johnson was the boy's home teacher, a church-sanctioned lay official authorized to provide educational and religious guidance, according to the suit. Johnson denied molesting the boy in court papers. He did not return calls seeking comment. The suit says the church is responsible for Johnson's conduct because he used his position as an LDS home teacher to gain access to the boy. English said Johnson was acting as a family friend, not a church official. LDS church officials did not know about the alleged abuse while it was going on. They excommunicated Johnson when they found out a decade later. Even if the jury finds the church responsible for Johnson's conduct, English said, forcing it to turn over detailed financial documents goes too far. "The church feels very strongly that these are part of their religious belief system and are confidential," he said. "When you're seeking punitive damages against Johnson, the church's net worth ought to be irrelevant." Clark said Oregon's punitive damage law requires defendants -- religious and secular -- to turn over financial information. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that laws that treat religious and nonreligious groups the same do not violate the First Amendment. "We're arguing that the same rules that apply to everybody else in society apply to the LDS church," Clark said. The LDS church sought emergency relief from a trial court order to turn over the financial information, but the Oregon Supreme Court late Monday rejected the appeal. The pre-trial decision was reached on narrow pre-trial grounds and doesn't mean the court would not ultimately agree with the church's position that the Constitution protects its right to keep financial information private. Ashbel "Tony" Green: 503-221-8202; tonygreen@news.oregonian.com ©2007 The Oregonian

2007-06-29T11:03:00.000-06:00

The Mormon Way MP3

New Podcast "The Mormon Way"

2007-06-27T14:25:00.001-06:00

There is a phrase I heard once about the Mormon way of doing things. When I first heard it I found it very offensive but now I think that it may be right. This is a disscusion of "The Mormon Way"

Mormons are asked when they go to the temple if they are honest in all thier dealings. What type of example does the leadership of the church set to the mebership of being Honset in all your dealings what is the true "Mormon Way" of doing things?

The Mormon Way MP3

Bothered by the Missionaries again

2007-06-27T08:59:00.001-06:00

The missionaries woke me up early on a Saturday morning again. Man this is tiresome.

GB Hinckley lied, The Church knows all about Mountain Meadows Massacre

2007-06-21T14:20:00.001-06:00

They just posted a long article about the Mountain Meadows Massacre on LDS.org this will run soon in the ensign and they have book coming out about their version of events at Mountain Meadows Massacre.

http://www.lds.org/portal/site/LDSOrg/menuitem.b12f9d18fae655bb69095bd3e44916a0/?vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD&locale=0&sourceId=1c234dc029133110VgnVCM100000176f620a____&locale=0

At the dedication of the new monument Mormon prophet and CEO Gordon Hinckley claimed "that no one knows what happened here" , that was a lie as the Church now claims it knows all about the Mountain Meadows Massacre.

New videos posted on youtube

2007-06-21T10:06:00.001-06:00

http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=KolobDemon&p=r

Mormon Church will not listen to the Descendants of MMM

2007-06-18T14:51:00.001-06:00

Mormon church, foundation at odds over Mountain Meadows monument

The Associated Press
Salt Lake Tribune

Article Last Updated:06/18/2007 12:30:51 PM MDT

Posted: 12:32 PM- Descendants of a 120-member Arkansas Mormon pioneers say their plea for federal stewardship of the Mountain Meadows mass grave site has been rejected by LDS Church.
    Phil Bolinger and Scott Fancher of the Arkansas-based Mountain Meadows Monument Foundation say they got the news June 6 in a telephone call from Elder Marlin Jensen, who oversees the church history department.
    "He told us that President (Gordon B.) Hinckley had turned us down. He doesn't think it's in the best interests of the church to allow federal stewardship in the meadows," said Bolinger, the foundation president who is related to 30 of those killed. "That really bit me bad."
    Jensen declined an interview, but confirmed through spokeswoman Kim Farah that the church will not pursue federal stewardship of the site. A similar request was also rejected in 1999.
    Descendants want the site in the hands of a neutral third party because they believe the institutional church is complicit in the murders.
    "It's not right for the people who had complicity to the killings to be the grave owner," said Bolinger, who discussed the issue with Jensen on April 25 in Salt Lake City.
    "I asked him, 'How you do you think the Kennedy family would feel if the Lee Harvey Oswald family had control of the Kennedy tomb?'"
    History hangs the Sept. 11, 1857, event on southern Utah Mormon leaders and a small band of Paiute Indians, leaving the culpability of then-church president Brigham Young up for debate. An upcoming book from church historians takes the same position.
    Headed to California, the wagon train led by Capt. Alexander Fancher and John Baker arrived in the Utah territory at the same time the federal government was mounting pressure on the Mormon church for its practice of polygamy and disregard for federal oversight.
    They camped first near Salt Lake City and then headed south to the meadow, a well-known stopover on the old Spanish Trail. The immigrants were attacked and spent a week engaged in gun skirmishes before local Mormon Elder John D. Lee rode in on horseback with a white flag to negotiate their rescue.
    Persuaded to walk single-file and unarmed from the valley, the immigrants were shot at close range, stabbed or beaten to death. Their bodies were not buried.
    Seventeen children were spared, all of them under age six _ young enough, some said, not to remember or speak of what they saw. The youngsters were adopted by local families and later returned to their relatives in Arkansas.
    Lee was tried, convicted and executed for the massacre 20 years later and is the only person ever held responsible.
    Today, the Mountain Meadows monument site is a 2,500-acre parcel in a rolling scrub-pine and sagebrush valley about 35 miles northwest of St. George.
    The land is a patchwork of public and private holdings, some of which was passed down through families from pioneer ancestors.
    There are four known mass grave sites and two memorials _ the rock pyramid known as the Carelton Cairn on the valley floor and a memorial wall on Dan Sill Hill, which overlooks the valley and is inscribed with the known names of victims from the 29 different families on the wagon train.
    The monument is already on the National Park Service's Register of Historic Places, but the designation doesn't guarantee public access or public input before construction or other site changes, foundation attorney Scott Fancher said.
    Foundation members believe a higher designation, such as national monument status, would better protect the interests of all and salve the wounds of many Fancher party descendants, said Bolinger, of Hindsville, Ark.
    "Federal stewardship of this grave site ... that's all it would take to put this to bed," he said.
    Federal oversight might also have prevented the Aug. 3, 1999, maintenance work on the cairn when a church crew accidentally unearthed the remains of at least 28 men, women and children. A forensic evaluation was begun, but cut short on an order from Utah's then-Gov. Mike Leavitt, a descendant of some who participated in the massacre.
    At a dedication ceremony of the rebuilt cairn that September, Hinckley said the church carries a moral responsibility to remember the victims, but fell short of acknowledging church complicity to the crime.
    Mormon church leaders are committed to appropriately preserving the Mountain Meadows site, Farah said.
    "The church has owned the monument site at Mountain Meadows for many years. The property is open to the public and considerable time and resources are allocated to ensure that the property is well-maintained, open to the public and that those who perished there are appropriately remembered," she said.
    Farah also confirmed what Washington County recorder's office records show - over the past few months, the church has increased its holdings in the meadow. Since March at least two families have deeded their property over to the church.
    "The church intends to administer and maintain this property in like manner, thereby preserving it from either residential or commercial development," said Farah.
    Bolinger said the foundation, one of three descendant groups, shared concerns that residential development in fast-growing Washington County would damage the site. But he's rankled by the church's acquisition of more land and says he'll continue to push for federal stewardship.
    "It's the highest honor we could pay these people," Bolinger said.

New Podcast where I tell my story leaving about Mormomism

2007-06-07T11:29:00.000-06:00

http://mormontruthstories.blogspot.com/

I also interview Chad(Swedeboy) about his story about leaving the LDS church.
Thanks to Samuel the Utanite for editing and hosting these Podcasts

The History Channel new Show" The States" on Utah and the Mormons

2007-05-31T10:29:00.001-06:00

History channel has new show called the states where each week they profile several states and tell about it's History , Landscape . local culture etc. This last week they did Utah. Highlights they talked about were Mountain Meadows Massacre, Polygamy and the Utah War. They also mentioned that 64 % of Utah is Mormon and this is 15% of Mormons Worldwide. Utah also has 2.2 million residents.

It is good to see things like Mountain Meadows Massacre and the Utah War being included in the history of Utah, these are things the Church will no longer be able to keep hidden.

Brothered by the Missionaries Twice last week

2007-05-29T10:21:00.001-06:00

Don't they get it NO means NO, I had was harassed by Missionaries getting by mail Wednesday night and my door was knocked the next day. I think I need a restraining order.

Inside report from Missionary Department - by cricket

2007-05-23T10:07:00.001-06:00

Recently I spoke with a missionary department staff person (female) who told me the following:

The most missionaries serving was 62,000 about 5-7 years ago. Currently there are about 52,000 out and about.

Of these 2,800 are "older missionaries" and 13,000 are sister missionaries.

About 5% of missionaries are on some form of psychiatric medications for depression, moods swings or anxiety. On average more sisters than elders are on psych medications.

About 20 elders a year have a psychiatric break down (either become psychotic or suffer dibilitating depression) and most do not return to their missions.

The missionary department works much harder at stabilizing and maintaining the elders than the sisters with psychiatric problems in order to keep them out in the field. On average more sisters return home early with psych/emotional problems than elders. (no percentage given)

An elder may be returned home for psych treatment for up to six months and then sent back out the mission field.

On average missionaries in South America demonstrate more psychiatric problems.

The reason for decline in overall missionary numbers is due to baby boom demographics, etc. They saw the decline coming and tried to prepare for it.
........................

Note: This was the best info I could get from this person without them becoming suspicious. She was not in a position to cite actual reports or studies. Rather, these were her impressions from working in the department the past few years.

She seemed to think that prospective missionaries with severe emotional problems are being screened out better thus preventing them from entering the mission in the first place.

So there you have my "return and report from my labors in the Church Office Building day."

Answer to TBMs "The only reliable source for information about the Church is the Church" augment

2007-05-18T10:35:00.001-06:00

TBM (True Believing Mormons) always say . the only reliable source for information about the Church is the LDS.org or the Missionaries, This is insane it like sayings the only reliable source for information about the Used car you are thinking about buying is the oily Salesman who is selling you the car, and his manager. The Salesperson and his dealership will not tell the truth about the car they have an agenda to get your money ,and unload the car the car on you. You should not check Carfax to find out that the car has been in 5 accidents, you should not ask your good friend the mechanic who fixed this car after all the accidents and says it is terrible shape. You should not trust the former owner of the car who could never get it to start and had nothing but trouble with it. No the only reliable source of information about the car is the Dealership and the salesman who are hoping to unload the lemon on you. Of course only trusting the salesman is insane, there are many ways to check out the condition of the car without letting the salesman play you for a sucker.

The LDS missionaries and LDS.org have one purpose to sell Mormonism ,they have an agenda they are not unbiased reliable sources. The LDS have a doctrine called "Milk before Meat" to justify telling lies and partial truths about the church to potential converts. Mormons are trained to deflect questions to the ones they want to answer. If a person wants the truth about the Mormon Church they must ask all sources , including ex-members, unbiased books , so called anti-mormon internet sites. The LDS salesmen are the last people to tell the truth about the lemon they are trying to unload on unsuspecting converts.

How things work in the church . . . by Some Lady from RfM

2007-05-16T23:55:00.001-06:00

In the beginning, there was The Plan
And then came the Assumptions.
And the Assumptions were without form,
And the Plan was without substance.

And eventually darkness was upon the face of many members and they spoke amongst themselves saying, "It's a crock of shit and it stinks."

And those members went unto their Bishops and said,"It is a pail of dung and we can't live with the smell."

And the Bishops went unto their Stake Presidents saying, "It is a container of excrement and it is very strong, such that none may abide by it."

And the Stake Presidents went unto their Area Authorities saying, "It is a vessel of fertilizer and none may abide its strength."

And the Area Authorities spoke among themselves, saying to one another, "It contains that which aids plant growth and it is very strong."

And the Area Authorities went to the Apostles saying unto them, "It promotes growth and it is very powerful."

And the Apostles went to the Prophet saying unto him, "This new plan will actively promote the growth and vigor of the church with very powerful effects."

And the Prophet looked upon the Plan and said it was good, and the Plan became Policy

YouTube video site online

2007-05-11T00:30:00.000-06:00

I have posted copies of my videos on YouTube.com

http://www.youtube.com/KolobDemon

Worst experience at the MTC from RfM

2007-05-10T16:36:00.000-06:00

I am going to start reposting things here that are really good or that I find very meaningful to me. This is from the Recovery from Moromismism board or Rfm

http://www.exmormon.org/boards/w-agora/index.php?bn=exmobb_recovery

Subject: What was your worst experience at the MTC?
Date: May 10 11:14
Author: Lee
Mail Address:

A week before I went to the MTC I wanted to cut my hair so I used an electric shaver but I forgot to put the clip on! I ended up looking like a skinhead! The second I got into the MTC I was pulled aside and threatened for being rebellious and I was told “the MTC will break you!” by the arrogant leader. “But,” I said,” the barber made a mistake, I don’t want hair this short!” and he only smiled patronizingly and let me go. Then during the weekly teacher interview I was also harassed about my short hair. I again explain the reason but they only looked at me like I was lying. I was even threatened that if my hair didn’t grow out by the end of two months I wouldn’t be allowed to go with my group! I would be held back and forced to wait until my hair was the proper length. (Of course my hair grew back but I only had to get a haircut once in two months).

The MTC has such a creepy feel to it. I disliked the MTC – it reminded me of a re-education camp used during the Cold War. It was 10 times worse than the mission field. Everybody always talked about how wonderful it was but I truly felt like a prisoner. We had to study 12 hours a day and rarely had time to even breath, relax or study what we wanted to. They pushed us so hard in the languages classes and I was a slow learner so I was labeled dumb. Many of the “Elders” were immature Happy Valley style Mormons who giggled at silly Mormon jokes and then suddenly became serious to cry about their testimony.

Anyway, it was only until after the two months that one teacher took me aside and say “I’m sorry that I misjudged you because of your short hair – you’re a pretty nice guy.”
That was the only closure that I got.

So, what was your worst (or best) experience at the MTC?

Subject: One of my worst moments in life (adultish or childish)
Date: May 10 11:43
Author: Duder
Mail Address:

I was the only one awake in my room. In my room, we had real trouble because we stayed up so late. After 3 or 4 days of almost no sleep, I was the only one who got up with the alarm. I stumbled into the big group shower to see if I could wake myself up.

For those who haven't been, the MTC has classic locker room showers (at least my dorm did). I think there were three big columns with four showerheads sticking out of each. Thus, if it was crowded, you're pretty much bumping into other dudes while you shower, and you almost always have another naked fellow in your line of sight. Even for guys who aren't shy, it's a pretty odd experience.

For some reason, our showers were plagued with some sort of flies. They usually congregated near the posts by the walls. That meant I had a choice to make. Since I was the only fellow in there, I decided to opt for the center post - where I would get absolutely no privacy, maybe a bit more wind, but no flies.

At this point in my life, there were few things I enjoyed more than a nice long shower. Unfortunately, one thing I enjoyed more was masturbating. I'd been as good as I could leading up to the MTC. The prospect of no women for two years was weighing on me - especially since two of my teachers were quite foxy. After about 10 minutes in this warm shower with no interruptions, I began to wonder if I shouldn't just release some tension. I began to wonder if I wasn't throwing away my youth.

As I was arguing with myself, I heard someone else come into the bathroom. I thanked heaven I was saved. For a moment, I was convinced that God was going to help me stay righteous. Wonderful.

What happened next has scarred me forever. My new shower mate began singing. I don't remember what he was singing, just that it was loud and rather fruity. Then, he undressed in front of me, and asked if he could join me at the center post. I thought this was a bit odd, but the fly business really was gross.

Just as he was getting started at the shower, I caught sight of his penis. It was a monster. Until that moment, I had considered myself reasonably well-endowed. This guy made me afraid for his wife.

He resumed singing. His voice echoed all over the place. Then, we were joined by another missionary. Turns out, the two were both singers. They started to harmonize with each other at the top of their lungs, naked, next to me.

"Grandma's Feather Bed." I still shudder each and every time I hear the song.

Anyway, there have been several times in my life where I've realized those two goons are probably perfectly righteous fellows who could not have been happier than at that moment.

I was miserable. I'm pretty sure I don't belong in the celestial kingdom. Well-hung harmonizing bastards.

Subject: Meat gazer. n/t
Date: May 10 17:33
Author: KimberlyAnn
Mail Address: 4girlsmom@cox.net

Subject: I tell you I had no choice
Date: May 10 17:54
Author: Duder
Mail Address:

It was like the basilisk was coming out of the Chamber of Secrets. I froze.

Subject: The feeling that my roommates didn't like me... n/t
Date: May 10 11:46
Author: Wanda, a.k.a. "Eve"
Mail Address: wanda_torres@comcast.net

Subject: Re: What was your worst experience at the MTC?
Date: May 10 11:50
Author: Crathes
Mail Address:

While I was in the LTM (I am old!), my comp had to go the dentist. While waiting with him, instead of studying the discussions, which was on the agenda for that time slot back at the ranch, I studying the Bible. I was not studying Time Magazine or anything else. Just the Bible. When we returned, I was asked what I had done with the Lord's 1 1/2 hours. I said, with confidence, that I had studied the Bible. I was yelled at for a good 15 minutes that I was to be studying the discussions, that I had been told this, or at least I should have known that is what I was to be doing. I was asked if I would be disobedient every time I was not under the direct supervision of a leader, etc., etc. What Bull!

Subject: Here are mine.
Date: May 10 12:00
Author: Apostate D.A.
Mail Address:

1. Waking up every morning an extra hour early to read the Book of Mormon, and Joseph Smith history, to get that testimony of Joseph Smith that I was lacking. It never came. After a while, I stopped waking up even more early and figured that I was just not hearing the spirit right.

2. Watching a group of missionaries go into a fist fight over a basketball game and feeling very dissappointed, because everyone should be more spiritual. People were very competative.

3. Realizing for the first time how poor I was growing up when meeting the Utah mormons. I grew up in Idaho, and we were very poor, but I really didn't know it. Some of the guys in my group, in fact, most of the guys in my group, were very rich. One rolled an SUV that his dad gave him, just for fun, and bragged about it. My family was too poor to every even drive an SUV.

4. Watching all the guys struggle with whether to repent. Slowly, one by one, we broke down and went to our Biship to confess.

Subject: Re: What was your worst experience at the MTC?
Date: May 10 12:10
Author: hollowman
Mail Address:

Eight dudes farting in a 10X10 room, serious air quality issues.

Subject: Was anybody else expecting a dance?
Date: May 10 11:55
Author: Duder
Mail Address:

I don't mind saying, I was a pretty good-looking guy when I went to the MTC. I was also very comfortable talking to women.

One of the things that tripped me out about the MTC was that so many of the sister missionaries were very pretty. I figured it was just because I was so incredibly horny, but there were some pretty girls there. Several times, my companion reported to our district that I was flirting with a sister missionary. When we were set loose to "golden question" other missionaries, I only went for pretty girls.

After a few weeks, I realized that I was half-expecting some sort of dance. I was pretty sure that at some point we'd all be taken to one of the huge assembly areas, given a little speech, then the lights would dim, balloons and crepe paper would appear, and Spandeau Ballet would start blaring from the speakers.

Subject: I got kicked out of class at the MTC once
Date: May 10 11:57
Author: racer
Mail Address:

I got kicked out of class and had to sit in the hall for 2 hours for quoting Arnold Scharzenegger's famous line: "I'll be back." It's been so long I don't remember the context behind me saying it, but I was a good kid, so it had innoncent intentions. I didn't swear, I didn't blaspheme, all I said was "I'll be back". The teacher flipped out at me for quoting a line from a rated "R" movie. He said I totally ruined the class by causing the spirit to leave with my quote which came from a "R" rated movie. He asked me what the Savior would think if he was in the classroom and I quoted a line from a "R" rated movie.

I told him that I didn't think the Savior would care one way or another since I said nothing offensive. He then asked me to leave the class and wait in the hall until it was time for lunch.

My MTC experience wasn't too traumatic, but I felt I was in a concentration camp and I felt sorry for those foreign language guys that had to stay for a couple of months instead of 3 weeks.

Subject: Hehehe... you were one of those 19 yr olds I loved to hate ..n/t
Date: May 10 12:41
Author: Wanda, a.k.a. "Eve"
Mail Address: wanda_torres@comcast.net

Subject: OMG, that was so funny I spit out my coffee!! n/t
Date: May 10 15:04
Author: shadowgirl
Mail Address:

Subject: Best time of my mission....
Date: May 10 12:17
Author: jerichomagic
Mail Address:

I went to Japan, and loved Japan. Hated the work, but had a lot of fun. In the MTC, I remember getting a list of rules, maybe 30 rules or so. The only one I didn't break was making out with girls. Along with a few other missionaries, I snuck out of the MTC many times, went to get pizza, at at Wendy's, got a haircut at a real salon, drove a friend's car with my companion's girlfriend with us in the car, hung out at BYU. Got caught once climbing a fence to leave by another missionary. He asked if I had permission to leave. As my coat was caught on the top of the fence, I told him that I had permission. He just said OK and that was it. If I had followed all the rules, the MTC would have been the worst experience of my life.

Subject: THE FOOD! ugh! (sorry for yelling)
Date: May 10 12:31
Author: tigerbiter
Mail Address:

Some of it was palatable, like the fresh fruit, salad and the cereal, but that other crap... gag. I lost 15 pounds in the MTC because I tried to eat as little as possible. MTC food made the grade school green and pink hot-dogs of my youth look delicious. I think my problem was that my mom was a damn good cook, and MTC food paled in comparison.

I actually had a really good time at the MTC, some of the people were asses, a number of guys in my district were crazy (we called one guy "prophet murrow" that's how looney he was). Plus I had a really cool MTC comp from So-Cal.

Subject: Yeah the food was nasty. I pretty much lived on Crunch Berries at the MTC. n/t
Date: May 10 12:51
Author: racer
Mail Address:

Subject: Hurting my Thumb playing football in the dorm
Date: May 10 12:53
Author: Primus
Mail Address:

and then getting chewed out by the Branch President for playing football in the hall. Yeah, you idiot, I learned my lesson, thank you! Can't you see my thumb is the size of a hotdog now!?

Subject: Gym was a joke too...
Date: May 10 13:11
Author: Primus
Mail Address:

In my group we had 2 State Wrestling Champions, and a couple other High School wrestlers. I wasn't a wrestler, but I was an avid walker and runner. Anyways, pretty much all of us were healthy 19 YOs out of High School.

So we are all sitting there in the morning BSing with each other, and I guess we got on the 'gym instructors' nerves.

He walks up and goes...

"Quiet down!" We ignore the guy and keep gabbing.

"Alright 15 Push-ups!" He demands.

OH NO 15 Push-ups!

We all look at him and start laughing, and one of the guys says...

"Do you want me to do that with the left arm or the right arm?"

And I said...

"Uh, we're adults dude, not high school students. Don't treat us like kids."

He turned red and stomped off.

Subject: I had a psycotic, suicidal companion in the MTC.
Date: May 10 13:05
Author: Rubicon
Mail Address:

I was one of the guys who never had a testimony and went on a mission to find it. I had just finished a semester of college and was frustrated because I had no idea what I wanted to do. I felt serving a mission would help me to know myself better and gain a testimony.

All was well and I was excited about serving a mission until I went to the temple for the first time. The initiatory and endowment cerimonies creeped me out big time. I can remember sitting in my parents car riding back home from the temple feeling like I had been duped and had made a huge mistake. I honestly can say, what made me go into the MTC was social and family pressure. I was like the bride that went through the marriage; even though, she knew it was the wrong thing to do because canceling everything the last minute would bring shame and embarrassment. Knowing what I know now, I should have bolted after my temple experience but like many in the church, I couldn't shame myself to do the right thing. When my mission president jokingly said,"Nothing like finding out you were lied to when you finally get out here." The mission president was right. He knew how the church opperated, it sold the mission experience to young people growing up and then when we got out in the mission field, we found out we were duped but it was too late. Going home now would bring discrace from the family and home ward. It was my real first education on how the church really opperated.

So I entered the MTC wanting to never be there. I was assigned a companion that was really psyco. I knew there was a problem when he was drawing a decapitated head in a bird cage in his scriptures. The dude wouldn't shower and went downhill quickley. The MTC was making him crack. The branch president said I was responsible for this guy and oh yeah, were making you district leader and you are in charge of getting everyone's mail. I never could do what I went to the MTC for because I was too busy running my companion to the MTC councelor and then down to psyciatrists on the BYU campus. I wasn't getting the mail and the other missionaries were pissed at me. I was missing the eating times in the caffateria. Then I was told my companion had been sexually abused growing up and he was too far gone to serve a mission. I was told this guy's MTC experience was to help straighten him out so he wouldn't be a multigenerational abuser himself.

Ok. Later the guy tried to kill himself. Oh yeah, they made me in charge of making sure all the missionaries got to the mission field . Thank's. I looked so bad at the airport my mom and aunt didn't recognize me! My mom wanted me not to go on the plane but the MTC had already removed me mentally from my parents. What a huge mistake! I was given a second chance to bolt by my own mom!

We missed a connecting flight due to our incomming flight leaving late. Had to switch airlines and ended up arriving in mission at 4:00 AM. We were chewed out by the mission president because his wife had made us a fancy dinner and we missed it. The guy was an asshole from the get go. He never got better either.

The MTC for me was a living hell. It was worse than any other place I have been, Seriousely.

Subject: MTC=Mental Torture Center
Date: May 10 13:12
Author: Rubicon
Mail Address:

Even my mom mentioned she hated how they took control of her children right in front of her. It was some authoritarian saying, "Ok, missionaries go out this door and parents go out that door." No time to visit, it was some church egomaniac dictating to families, the MTC now owned the missionaries ass.

Subject: Rubicon, it sounds like your Mom isn't too far in the cult...
Date: May 10 15:03
Author: runner
Mail Address:

Is she a TBM? I bet that was hard on her as well. I can't imagine going to the airport to find my son, looking like hell, and then letting him get on the plane.

My oldest is 10 and I hope he chooses to not go on a mission.

Subject: Re: What was your worst experience at the MTC?
Date: May 10 13:48
Author: Bob Loblaw
Mail Address: exmodropbox@gmail.com

I went on a mission to get a testimony, like many of the missionaries out there. (side note: a lot of pressure was put on me to only go if I had a testimony, not to go just to get one. You are of course asked if you have a testimony to get a temple recommend prior to going. SO..... since many admit, after "getting" a testimony, that they didn't have one when they left, that means that many of the missionaries LIED to get into the MTC, and then spent two years PRETENDING they believed, telling others that they should get a testimony as well. Isn't there something fundamentally wrong with that? But, I digress) I didn't have one, and figured this was my shot. Since I was pressured to go, I may as well try to get a testimony while I was out there.

Anyway, I hated the MTC. It was like a prison that you had to pretend you wanted to be at. My companion was an ass. He would draw pictures of knights fighting satan with a CTR shield, or of Joseph Smith meeting a sasquatch-like Cain (mo myth! I had to have that one explained to me, and even then thought it was shit) And he got up early every day just to have time to read more scriptures. He once told me that he had an appointment with the branch president to talk about something that was bothering him. After his interview, the branch president asked to talk to me, and told me that my companion had come to talk to him about me, that he thought it was wrong that I joke around at a spiritual place like the MTC, and wanted to talk to him about it. The branch president was nice enough about it, but it amounted to him ratting me out for trying to deal with the shitty MTC stress by cracking a few jokes! I wanted to beat the shit out of him! What a prick!

Also, there was always this obvious difference between the Utah Mos and me. Like, in class a teacher would ask one of us to pick a hymn, and he'd be like "348!" and everyone would go "I love that hymn!" and I was like "what the hell is 348?" and would have to look it up. I felt like I obviously didn't belong. And, I didn't. So glad to be out of that cult, and so glad my daughters will never have to experience that kind of stuff.

Bob Loblaw

Subject: Re: What was your worst experience at the MTC?
Date: May 10 14:08
Author: Wandering
Mail Address:

My worst experience happened five times. I didn't serve a mission, joined the church at 19 and was in love, sure wasn't going to take off for two years for something I barely understood. But then I got to send five of my children off to missions. Every time I walked into the MTC and saw how cold and brutal those people were as they told us not to walk down the side of the stupid hallway that our missionary children were to walk down, I thought something doesn't feel right here. Don't they realize I just spent 19 years loving and caring for these precious kids and they expect me to just let them take over my son or daughter and I'm supposed to be the obedient cult member and just be quiet. I hate the place and the whole brainwashing project that it represents. I didn't feel the spirit there or God's presence. Just a cult-like smothering atmosphere. And It scarred some of my kids and I hope my grandkids don't have to experience it.

Subject: My MTC Easter experience...
Date: May 10 14:19
Author: Deconstructor
Mail Address: ldsgems@hotmail.com

Here's my big MTC experience:

This is one of my true MTC experiences, and looking back, was when I learned what "keeping and feeling the spirit" was really all about.

I was in the MTC during the start of the Gulf War in early 1991. Before the war, the MTC had an open-door policy for families and relatives hand-delivering gifts to missionaries in the MTC. But then the church decided to use the start of the war as a pretext to set a ban on accepting any hand-delivered care packages from families to MTC missionaries.

I was an AP in an MTC Branch at the time the new rule took affect.

(As a sidenote, I learned later that someone started a business just down the street from the MTC, that would take family care packages and for a fee, "deliver" them to the MTC. For security reasons, said the MTC rule, the MTC would only accept packages from couriers but not from family members.)

There had been a long tradition for years that every Easter Sunday, a certain member family that lived directly behind the MTC, would make tons of cinnamon rolls and hand them over the fence to missionaries. My MTC Branch roomed in one of the buildings at the back of the MTC, closest to this member family's yard, which shared a fence with the MTC.

My Branch President pulled me in the Sunday before Easter Sunday and told me that under no circumstances should anyone accept cinnamon rolls from the family. He told me that the tradition violated the new rule against hand-delivered packages and he would hold me PERSONALLY accountable if anyone in the Branch broke the rule and got a cinnamon roll. He called on me to get up in Sacrament Meeting and talk on obedience and warn everyone not to take a cinnamon roll "lest we lose the spirit."

The Branch President also insisted that I remind each missionary individually about the rule and admonish them not to go near the MTC fence on Easter Sunday. At the time, I was a TBM and took the whole thing to heart, obeying the Branch President's every word in order to "keep the spirit."

Easter Sunday came and went and I thought we had made it through the day without incident. Looking out my window, the family stood at the fence with plates of cinnamon roles and nobody dared go near them.

Three days later, the First Counselor in the Branch Presidency pulled me out of my language class for a "Personal Priesthood Interview." He escorted me to the Presidency's office, where the other counselor and the President were waiting. They were all furious. Apparently one of the missionaries in our Branch was caught eating a cinnamon roll in his room the afternoon of Easter Sunday. He got caught because someone else had snitched on him in the mandatory weekly letter confessional to the Branch President.

The hard thing was, the presidency was furious with me, not the missionary who had eaten the cinnamon roll. They ripped me up one side and down the other - for not being a true leader, disappointing my family and losing their trust. I felt like a piece of sh*t, seriously. They quoted scriptures on obedience, priesthood authority and losing the spirit.

Worst of all, I felt like I had committed a terrible sin. I had repented for some things before my mission, but the guilt I felt for this incident was almost unbearable - worse than the guilt I had felt for other more serious "transgressions" prior to my mission. This guilt over the cinnamon rolls was the most horrible, incredible guilt I have ever felt in my life! I really feared that I had lost "the spirit" for good.

At the time, my only defense was that I didn't understand how accepting a cinnamon roll from a member family violated Christ's spirit of love. But the First Counselor cut me off, saying in a raised voice, "Elder, I don't think you can even feel the spirit anymore!"

They immediately released me as AP and gave the calling to my companion - a fate I felt was close to death. As part of my repentance, they had me write a one-page paper on why I had failed as a mission leader, which was given to my Mission President when I entered the mission field. In my written confessional-of-sorts I wrote that I had disobeyed one of the Lord's Commandments and therefore, had lost his spirit and "amen to my authority as a leader."

That was the low point of my mission, for once I left the MTC I felt like I had "the spirit" again. I went on to prove my obedience and priesthood worthiness in the mission field, baptizing in all of my areas and serving in several leadership positions.

It wasn't until after my mission, going through my papers that I stumbled across that confessional paper I had written in the MTC. I was so angry reading it again, realizing for the first time that they had manipulated my faith and desire to be righteous. All that guilty torment self-loathing over a cinnamon roll that I didn't even eat...

And then it hit me, the whole Mormon thing was a guilt trip! They could make me feel guilty for anything they wanted. Those pangs of guilt weren't coming from God, they were coming from my religious conditioning. I had let church leaders program my conscience!

If my faith in the Mormon gospel meant the leaders could make me feel guilty about cinnamon rolls, then it meant they could make me feel guilty for anything. They used my faith to pull at my guilt strings, and they were doing the same thing with things like tithing too! The whole evil control process of the church unraveled for me.

That day I decided I would never let anyone play the guilt trip game on me again. I would decide for myself, based on true ethics (not external obedience or "keeping the spirit"), what of my own behaviors were wrong or right. I would never again turn that guilt control over to someone else - especially an institution as manipulative as the church.

It would take several more years before I would eventually leave the church, but that decision helped me through all the other guilt headgames my family tried to play on me for "falling away." I hadn't fallen away, I had freed myself from their guilt control.

I see petty rules come from the prophet against earrings, tattoos and beards and wonder how many people out there are suffering the "cinnamon roll guilt-trip" as my wife now humorously calls it.

Subject: I guess you committed a sin next to murder..eeh gad! nt
Date: May 10 14:57
Author: Primus
Mail Address:

Subject: Re: My MTC Easter experience...
Date: May 10 15:13
Author: PM
Mail Address:

My grandparents yard connected to the mtc and they would give out goodies to the missionaries. One day when we were wandering around I saw them working in their yard and I called over to them to say hi and they waved but would not come over to talk. I hated them after that experience. When everyone talks about how family oriented the church is I just laugh. All they do is drive wedges in family relationships. I used my mission as a 2 year vacation.

Subject: Dealing with all those whiny, tattle-tale, selfish babies..oh, uh...I mean associating with all those other fine Elders! 8^D n/t
Date: May 10 15:12
Author: flattopSF
Mail Address: flattopSF@yahoo.com

Subject: Re: What was your worst experience at the MTC?
Date: May 10 17:27
Author: Flash
Mail Address:

I am too old to have gone through the MTC but I did spend a week in the mission home in Salt Lake City before going off to Virginia to be a door to door salesman for Joe Smith in 1977.

In that week I was there, I saw the cruelty of the church manifest itself as the missionaries were separated from their families. I had never seen so much anguish and sadness erupt in so many people all at once when the families were told to leave. Since I was from California, I had already had my own tearful goodbyes 2 hours prior. How gut wrenching was that scene to see so many people suffer so and while this ugly scene was transpiring, I saw the mission home leaders smile with a sanctimonious glee that made me want to deck them on the spot.

I can honestly say that by the time the week was over, my testimony was gone. All that I was taught that a mission would be was trashed. I can still remember the day where everyone was gathered in one room and the GA speaker asked what our jobs as missionaries was to be. This one elder stood up and said “…to teach the gospel of Jesus Christ and bring people into the church.” The response from the speaker was, “NO Elder, you are totally wrong. Your job is to not teach the gospel but to tract and baptize.” That elder looked so humiliated and stunned. I was stunned. This is not what I came here for. From that moment on, I kept asking myself, “I gave up my girlfriend, educational opportunities, my car, my good life to do this shit?” I wish I had the courage to just walk out the door right their and then but at 19, I was too much of a coward.

The experiences in that mission home and what I experienced for the following 2 years, showed me what the Mormon church really is: A money hungry corporation with a thin veneer of a church on the outside for tax purposes.

Others here have said how they saw a love/hate relationship the church has with its missionaries. I agree, and I am convinced that the Mormon church is the only church on the planet that persecutes its own missionaries. How grateful I am to be out of that mess now for 17 years.

Subject: Being ridiculed for being the only virgin in my dorm room
Date: May 10 18:35
Author: Demon of Kolob
Mail Address:

And I thought fornication made you unworthy to serve a mission

PBS Documentary comentary now online

2007-05-10T08:45:00.001-06:00

go here to listen or download the Podcasts

http://mormontruthuncensored.blogspot.com/

I created 2 new Videos

2007-05-09T20:34:00.000-06:00

http://www.dailymotion.com/demonkolob

New Videos posted

2007-05-07T16:09:00.000-06:00

New Videos posted on my Daily Motion Site. Thanks to Paul M. for these.
http://www.dailymotion.com/demonkolob

The MORMONS PBS documentary.

2007-05-01T11:02:00.000-06:00

How bad does your organization have to be when a biased program(in your favor) still makes you look bad.The PBS documentary is not a competly unbiased look at Mormonism, it is has a pro Mormon slant, yet it is still having a devastating impact on believing Mormons.

I have recorded a special podcast with fellow Exmo Scholar Samuel the Utahnite. This will give two different takes on the PBS show and should be a very informative and interesting show. It will be online soon.

Interesting quote from a decedent of the Fancher Party (MMM)

2007-04-28T04:45:00.000-06:00

This is a Interesting and touching quote from a decedent of the Fancher party. (Mountain meadows massacre). This is from the IMDB forum on Setember Dawn the new movie about the Mountain meadows massacre.
source =http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0473700/board/thread/32387507

Catherine Baker wrote:
My name is Catherine Baker. Captain John T. Baker was my grandfather's, Peter P. Baker 1879 - 1970, great-uncle. This wagon train was not the first trip west made by either, Captain John Baker, nor Alexander Fancher. John Baker had made previous trips to California for the purpose of herding cattle to sell. The members of this materially rich wagon train were headed to California to make it their permanent homes. I speak only for myself when I state that I attended the memorial services in Cedar City, UT in 1990 by invitation of President Hinkley. I was touched by President Hinkley's message of forgiveness and reconciliation when he acknowledged the Mormon Church's participation in the Massacre and simultaneously absolved the Piute Indian Nation. I remember too, following the speech of President Hinkley, a beautiful prayer given by a Piute Chief in his native language. I didn't understand the words, but my heart understood the melodic blessings. I regret being unable to recall his name. At the time, the descendents of the Massacre did not question President Hinkley's edict that no cameras, recorders etc would be allowed at the memorial (attended by hundreds), nor did we object to the Mormon members searching our pockets and handbags before we entered the roofed stadium. President Hinkley announced at the beginning of the ceremonies that "the Church" would be recording the ceremony on video and we could "obtain copies" at a later date. Ironically, none of the descendants have ever been able to "obtain" that video. I had always considered the delays a matter of massive-church-red-tape; until . . . Mr. Hinkley, current President of the Church of Latter-Day-Saints, stated at a public re-dedication ceremony at Mountain Meadows in 1999, "My presence here today is in no way an acknowledgement of the church's participation in what happened her in 1857." My family attended the memorial that was held in Cedar City in 1990. I'll never forget sitting in the front row of the "descendents," between my 85 year old uncle and my 81 year old father. One of the most touching moments was when President Hinkley spoke and said the Mormon church was "taking responsibility" for what happened that day. (My grandfather required all of us kids to read Juanita Brooks, "Mountain Meadows Massacre" when we reached the age of 13. Even as recent as the 1960s and 1970s, there were still some Mormons who insisted the Church was not involved; but instead, it was the Piutes. So, when President Hinkley made that statement we truly trusted and believed the sincerity of the extended hand of attempted resolution and forgiveness. President Hinkley, at one point, asked the Morman members sitting in the stands (surrounding the descendents sitting in chairs on the stadium floor) that if they were related to, or knew someone directly involved in the massacre to please stand. I'm guess-ti-mating that 60-75% of the people stood. It was a very powerful moment. I (and we) felt the enormity of feeling coming from those who stood and in so doing, we felt, took responsibility for the actions of their ancestors - something they, personally, did not do or condone stood in a way for us and extended their hearts to us. (A humorous aside: my 86 year old uncle always uncomfortable in emotional moments turned to me and whispered as the thousands of Morman church members stood, "look how many of them there are - wonder if they just brought us here to finish us off?") Now, sadly, it wasn't that long ago, I read the speech given by president Hinkley on the occassion of the 1999 memorial and he said, "my presence here is in no way an admission of our participation" in the event that took place here in 1857. For me all that feeling of healing dissipated in the words of one, short sentence. In 1990, after the formal ceremonies in Cedar City, everyone drove to Mountain Meadow for the dedication. Most everyone had nametags on, so it was easy to identify who was who and which side of the 50-yard line they stood. I didn't feel anger, but instead, I felt an immense sadness because of the number of Mormons who approached me to talk. Over and over I heard those words, "we understand" or "I understand" why they did what they did. They would tell me that our family had called them names, insulted them, poisoned their water, killed their farm animals etc. etc. In truth, several times, my face turned red with rage and frustration because I truly believe those folks did not hear what they were saying. To my ears, they were excusing, or at the very least "understanding" those murderous actions. In an nutshell, it is what I was told by my grandfather, whose father was a brother to Captain Jack Baker... he required in-depth reading of Mountain Meadow and in-depth discussion after we read it. He tried to teach us this "I do not want you to look upon these deaths and feel that your feelings of revenge or hate is justified. It is not. I want you to look upon this event as a repetition of man's inhumanity to man. We all have that potential to be evil and it is a choice we make. Look back through history and know 'the evil of men live after them and the good oft interred with their bones' . . . over and over again in history - the Egyptians enslaving the Jews, the Christians burning the 'heretics' at the stake, the Germans killing the Jewish people, the Americans enslaving the Blacks, the Irish Protestants and the Catholics killing each other for centuries, Henry VIII killing all the priests, nuns and Catholic people in his realm and then his daughter comes to power and kills all of Henry's people who converted along with him. Over and over and over and over for thousands of years and we still continue to choose evil." catherine baker

Attention to all LDS Missionaries "Leave Me Alone" and "No means No"

2007-04-26T13:42:00.000-06:00

Last Saturday I was finally having a chance to sleep in and get a good sleep when early in the morning the doorbell rang. I tried to go back to sleep but the bell kept ringing 5 times until I had to get up ,it was only 8:45 on a Saturday morning. It was Mor(m)on Missionaries bothering me again. Just because the Cult you are recruiting for does not allow you a life the same is not true of the rest of us.I do not like being bothered all the time. Since I was once part the Cult I know all about it.
Why do Missionaries lie so much , I heard the Missionaries talking to my neighbor saying " We appreciate you are Catholic ,we are not Trying to take away from that or change your religion just teach about Christ" . What a big crock of shit you are Missionaries your goal is to convert people to your Church, that is your only purpose. Be honest with people!
When people say NO I am not interested , leave the alone , you never take no for an answer. To quote ,rape counseling "No means No" this applies as much to you as anybody. When someone tells you no they mean it. Why does it take threats or swearing to get you to know we are not interested. Remember No thanks you means "Go Away".

Welcome to my Lair

2007-04-26T13:33:00.000-06:00

This will be an experiment to see how often I can update this Blog. I am part of the Mormon Truth Skyecast.

http://mormontruthskpyecast.blogspot.com/2007/04/mormon-truth-skypecast-april-17-2007.html

I will posting thought frustrations in this Blog, we will see how it works out.

Lair of the Demon

I am back on You Tube

You can leave Utah but you cannot escape ruded bigited Mormons

A look into the future, or not. April 1 ,2011

How Much CASH Is The MORmON PRophet Of Fraud Thomas S. Monson & His Gang Of Thugs & Goons Raking In

I created a new video

Repose to Thomas S Monson's come back speech

Some Humor

Book of Abraham

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Why??Utah has twice the national average of anti-depressant use and Utah is 70% Mormon. DO THE MATH!

Two Studies Find Depression Widespread in Utah

Study Calling Utah Most Depressed, Renews Debate on Root Causes

By RUSSELL GOLDMAN

An Example of Mormon Respect for other religions

Utah's racist senator Chriss Buttars strikes again

Sad news for Mormons

More insanity from BYU and happy valley

Brigham Young’s Deseret Alphabet

Ex-Mormon Cartoonist Steve Benson Says Romney Not Telling Truth

So much for the theory that Mormons are happy people

New Music video posted to my you tube site

Faith, conflict and excommunication from the East valley Tribune

Faith, conflict and excommunication

Lawn Griffiths, Tribune Columnist

Reader comments (63)

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Wired funny story from BYU and Provo

Abuse lawsuit alleges widespread problems with Mormons, Boy Scouts

Lyndon Lamborn - Stake Prez declines to announce ouster

Mitt Romney asked me for money!

To Young Men Only Boyd's KKK horrible suicide inducing talk

LDS church publicly outes an aposate

Update: Police abuse in Utah

Police abuse in Utah county, Utah

Sin & Death in Mormon Country: A Latter-day Tragedy

LDS Church Finances to be Revealed in Court????? From the Oregonian

Church can't hide its worth

New Podcast "The Mormon Way"

Bothered by the Missionaries again

GB Hinckley lied, The Church knows all about Mountain Meadows Massacre

New videos posted on youtube

Mormon Church will not listen to the Descendants of MMM

New Podcast where I tell my story leaving about Mormomism

More Missionary Problems (It is the Christians now)

The History Channel new Show" The States" on Utah and the Mormons

Brothered by the Missionaries Twice last week

Inside report from Missionary Department - by cricket

Answer to TBMs "The only reliable source for information about the Church is the Church" augment

How things work in the church . . . by Some Lady from RfM

YouTube video site online

Worst experience at the MTC from RfM

PBS Documentary comentary now online

I created 2 new Videos

New Videos posted

The MORMONS PBS documentary.

Interesting quote from a decedent of the Fancher Party (MMM)

Attention to all LDS Missionaries "Leave Me Alone" and "No means No"

Welcome to my Lair