Further Light and Knowledge

Is that a stretch, he defends the fucking church doesn't he?

You're either with us or against us.



lmao

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He never said it would be worth it; He only said it would be easy.

Who exactly is "us"?

I think it's a joke. A riff on Bush, perchance.

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Take this sinking boat and point it home
We've still got time

Uh, no. There's no irony in it. There was no need for a call for "more chillness" in the first place, and there has been reflection ad nauseum around the particular topic at issue here. Much of which you have admitted yourself you haven't been around for. It's a little presumptious, don't you think, from one who has only lately arrived on the scene?

And, if you'll recall, you are the one who repeatedly used the word "revile," which is an even stronger term than "hate." Or is that just another "expression?"

Dial it back, dude.

At first, I thought: "Me, use revile in a way stronger than hate?" Perish the thought! Revile is poetry.

Reviling isn't a "stronger term than hate." It is not even on the sliding scale of hate -- it's not like "dislike" is at one point, and "hate" is more extreme and "revile" is even more extreme. No, reviling refers to an action...of speaking of someone or something abusively, or of berating.

Now, you might berate/revile someone because you hate them, but it doesn't make the terms synonymous. And if we've already established that no one hates John here, all that's left is to determine if there has been berating.

I'm pondering if I should leave everyone be about the past (which I concede I do not know) or if I stand up for my point about the present that I am well acquainted with, and which doesn't seem to warrant everyone's effigy burning of something long past.

I suppose I'll take my leave.

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I blog a lot more than I post, so you might want to check out Irresistible (Dis)Grace sometime.

Well, we've munched and crunched on John in the past, and I believe we all have come to the consensus he tastes like chicken.

Big green hugs,

Froggie

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"Mormon culture is a combination of well-intentioned naïveté, the Stepford Wives, and the Holy Inquisition." ~Dr.Todd Ormsbee
http://froggey.wordpress.com

This is in a nutshell why we resigned as a family. Yeah, our parents are angry about it and are sure we are going to hell. And our neighbors don't understand, and are all certain we are going to hell.

But out kids are going to grow up free to live their own lives and make their own choices, free from the guilt and the shame and the mind control and the fear...

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"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away."
--Philip K. Dick

I for one admire Dehlin's perspective. I do understand why a NOM approach is despicable to some of you that have left the church. We are wolves in sheep's clothing, we are hypocrites, we are cowards. You are right.

But my relationship to my wife and my parents are worth the 3 hours of intense Cognitive Dissonance I must go through. I would do anything, I mean anything to keep my marriage together. It truly sucks that I'm put in a position like this, but my wife and kids are worth it.

Maybe some of you think that I should put my "integrity" in front of my marriage, my parents and my kids. Maybe some of you here have done it yourselves. And maybe your outcomes have turned out for the best.

I tested the waters early on. I announced my disbelief to anyone that would listen. I even wrote a resignation letter. All my dearest relationships began to suffer tremendously. I stopped attending church and stood my ground. My family and my marriage began to break down. My SP even made an example of me and outed me to my ward leaders and many other leaders in my stake.

I was completely desperate, so I entered professional therapy for the first time in my life. I was humiliated, broken and on the verge of divorce. Those few months were complete hell. My wife started to go to the temple with her parents, my kids began to get negative comments from their friends about me, the list goes on and on.

I saw two options. Stand on what I knew what true and watch everything I loved and cherished leave me. Or I could go back to church to make my dearest of relationships survive. I choose the later.

Take your shots at Dehlin, take your shots at Sub, hell take your shots at me too. I deserve it. You guys have your integrity and I am a coward.

But I would do anything, and I mean anything, even to go back to church, if it means that I can keep my marriage and my family together.

Nice to hear from you, Absolutist.


And this is precisely why I consider people who knowingly support the church, when they face no such dire personal consequences, to be despicable for enabling the continuation of the monstrosity that is tscc. Some people have no choice, and those do what they must to survive. But the people who know better, and support tscc willingly anyway? Fuck them.

Not saying John D does or does not have dire personal reasons for staying with tscc. I don't know anything about his situation. But defending it to exmos who damn well know better? Weak.

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Fear will keep the local systems in line.

I understand where you are coming from, Absolutist. I lived this limbo for seven years. It was a painful place. I refuse to judge a person if they choose to straddle the fence to maintain relationships of loved ones.

Because I have been here, I also know how many splinters I dealt with in all of the straddling. I know we choose to do this, I also know it is not the ideal. It is not a tenable place. I would not recommend it. And for the life of me, I don't understand why John does recommend it. Maybe I got bigger splinters than him.

It is such a relief to finally choose a place of integrity without having to redefine integrity.

Big green hugs,

Froggie

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"Mormon culture is a combination of well-intentioned naïveté, the Stepford Wives, and the Holy Inquisition." ~Dr.Todd Ormsbee
http://froggey.wordpress.com

Put away the victim card. No one said anything about Dehlin or anyone else being a coward.

You're staying in the church for your family. I sincerely wish you the best with that.

John seems to be staying in for the church itself. Big difference (another huge difference is that you don't seem to be going out and actively defending the church). If there are extenuating circumstances in his life also, then I understand. If, like I said, it's for the church itself, I don't understand. In fact, I entirely disagree, as per Swedeboy's post.

No one's taking shots at anyone. I take issue with Dehlin's position (given certain assumptions I admit may be incorrect). Some defend it. Nothing more than that.

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He never said it would be worth it; He only said it would be easy.

Junesu said what I was trying to say, much better.

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Fear will keep the local systems in line.

Whatever. Get over it. Effigy burning? You really don't have a sense of how out there your rhetoric is here, do you? And if you don't know about the past and make NO effort to factor it in, and dismiss it as unimportant, then I'd suggest you don't really know as much about the present as you think you do. Which results in you just coming off sounding rather ignorant and pompous.

No one has berated, HATED, reviled or otherwise abused John Dehlin here in any way. But you know best clearly. You know all about our past experience here--or enough to know that you can dismiss it with a wave of your hand--you know all about the present, and you know all about all the many meanings and degrees of meanings of many words. Which of course is something I know fuck all about, though I have certainly meant to get around to it, when I can fit it in between all the berating, hating and reviling I have to do, which just takes up so much of my time. You know how it is.

Thanks for the semantics lesson. It was oh-so-enlightening.

So are John's reasons selfish or selfless? Is he returning to the church for personal reasons, or because he's received e-mails from 1,000 people just like Absolutist and is trying to reach out to a different audience all over again?

If Absolutist and thousands of others like him are truly stuck in the church, shouldn't we be commending John who is not stuck, yet chooses to remain to reach out to those similar? Who else is going to do it?

I just fail to see how one can be okay with Absolutist's position and reasoning for remaining active and not okay with John's position, as John's whole premise now seems to be reaching out to people similar. Absolutist stays in the church for his family, and I'm sure one of the reasons John stays in the church (and does his podcasts), is for the families of people like Absolutist.

-Vahn

I am painfully aware that there are many in the Mormon Church who are slowly trying to both free themselves and their families from the clutches of this damnable fraud. I wrote about such on the Foundation site a few months ago: http://exmormonfoundation.org/messege.html I am not someone who says that everyone should just stand and leave despite the personal costs to marriage and familial relationships. However, once the fraud is known, I do feel that it is important to begin the process of extrication and moving on for the sake of ourselves and our families. I have five children, and the thought of my little ones being subjected to the lies was worth any pain to get them out.

I have suffered a loss in extended familial relationships for so doing, but my children mattered more to me than the pain I would endure. Fortunately, my wife eventually came on board following an extensive study of her own, and for this I am very grateful. I know this does not always happen, and divorce and heartache are at times the price paid for religious liberation. But our voices count. Our leaving and standing against the fraud has tremendous power. I believe that we will continue to see a greater and greater amount of people leave the ranks of Mormonism and other authoritarian religious nonsense in the decades to come. The information age is having a tremendous impact on the bottom line of Mormonism and other like cults the world over.

So for those of us who are actively reaching out to those trying to ford their way out of the cult in a manner as complete and intact as possible, John's position is just something which goes against my internal grain and upsets me. I cannot understand it, and it leaves me exasperated as I think upon the many, many people whom I have come in contact with who have struggled to gain a footing outside of the cult, and live their lives on their own terms, not to mention those who live the life of desperation as they are continually forced to bow their heads in positive affirmation when everything within them screams NO! This is an affront to them and to those of us who have trod the trail of exit and renewal.

I don't know John personally, but I am sure he is a swell guy. I am sure he has a good heart and a desire to help. I don't dispute this, but his approach does support the fraud. I don't know any other way to see this, perhaps my box is too tight.

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"Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity." -Martin Luther King, Jr.