[quote author=“Teddy”]I just watched part two.
A good point from the program: Mormonism demands a deeper life commitment than any other Christian sect. You are required to tithe 10% of your income and give away 2 years of your young adult life. This requires Mormons to take their faith very seriously. It’s not just a weekend religion.
Not only that, but if you are taking Mormonism seriously, you most likely will have what they call a “calling” which requires usually about 5 to 6 hours of time per week outside and away from your family. That would be a low level calling. Higher volume leadership callings are more like 10 hours a week and upper echelon Bishop or Stake President callings might as well be a full time job. The common theme in the medium to high volume callings are the auxillary meetings. It is a common joke in Mormonism that the saints have meetings so that that they can plan their next meetings. I found this to be very true.
On top of that, you will need to visit about 4 families at least once a month to deliver a church sponsored message that takes about 1/2 hr to an hour to study and prepare to deliver. In many parts of the world, the 4 families you are required to visit live far away. Here in California, my four families lived on average about 15 to 20 minutes away. Usually, I tried to visit them on Sunday but many times I was out with my “home teaching companion” a couple times a month at night trying to get that assignment done.
In addition to these items, Mormons are strongly encouraged from the pulpit to reach a par of once per month temple attendance. This is a 2+ hour session not including driving time. Again, in California our closest temple was Oakland and that meant 2.5 hours driving for us each way. So to get to the temple required 5 hours driving, and at least 2 hours inside the temple. Normally, if we were speedy, we could get up there and back in about 8 hours. Every month. And no, kids were not allowed on these trips. More time away from the kids! I seriously used to snicker at the TV when my religion used to advertise in primie time slots some touching story about family stuff and then always end it with…
Families… isn’t it about…. time??
On my way out I railed against stuff like that. I mean it really irked me that I had to be away from my kids and wife so dang much. I had a newborn baby and a quasi post partum wife that desperately needed me home to support them. I complained to the authorities. I was chastized for not having enough faith, told my wife was a very strong woman who could take care of things and that through serving the Lord, my home would be blessed immeasurably. If Mormonism was about families, I sure wished I could be with mine a little more. I recall one time when I was reminded about the home teaching program that was designed to take care of family needs. He was suggesting that while I was away serving the needs of other men’s families, those other men would be available to serve the needs of my own family. That really sent me over the edge. Here’s a rogue concept, people.. Why couldn’t I, Noggin, take care of my own family’s needs???
pffffffffffffft.
Okay, so where was I in this purge of a post. Oh yes. Church is 3 hours plus driving every single sunday. Homemaking meeting for the ladies is 2 hours a month at the chapel, ward service projects usually once a quarter.
Members are strongly encouraged to read a 1/2 hour of scripture every day. Prayer is suggested at a minimum of 3 times a day and additionally at every meal.
If you have non mormon friends, you are guiltified to turn their names over to the missionaries so that they can come over to your house and teach them all about your religion. If you do not do this, some bishops will see you as a slacker Mormon.
Case in point: Mormons are proxy-baptizing the worlds dead as we speak. They have ceremonies where a live Mormon will undergo baptism for multiple dead people. They have over a billion names of dead people stored in their archives under a mountain and they have proxy-baptized over 100 million dead people already! That is just spooky.
You are learning a lot! I have done the proxy baptisms. They are called, plain and simple.. Baptisms For The Dead. And every member is encouraged to have all their geneology done as far back as major impeding record dead ends will allow. Even then, you must persist in trying to uncover the stone that impedes your geneological data. Many tales are told about ghosts who handwrite clues as to who they are on pads of paper during the night so that the living can find them and baptize them. I am not joking. I have heard so many stories of people having visions while they slept or recieving impressions upon their mind to look in some forgotten record that they normally would not have gone to and VOILA! there the trail picks up again and poof! Long lost Aunt Millie from the 17th century is finally found and baptized into the kingdom! The visions are very hard to process and counteract from a non believer’s perspective but I have succeeded a time or two other times I just shrug and figure the story is bogus and they are just grandstanding to make a great faith promoting rumor blossom. But still. How do you tell a person that they hallucinated the name of the person who held the vital information, and whom they never would have thought to contact… except for a dead guy coming to you in your dreams telling you that living person’s name?
My own grandmother (rest her suggested eternal soul) told us of the account of spidery handwriting on her bedside tablet one morning after a fitfull sleepless night worrying about where one particular ancestor’s data was hiding. That alone galvanized me to Mormonism for, like, forever.
so anyway… mysterious spidery handwriting and VOILA! another flood gate of names opens up.
It’s creepy stuff. This is the stuff and stories that kept me cemented in Mormonism for the last two decades. I could not argue against it.
But you don’t go to all that trouble if you’re not serious. They have the most detailed genealogy records in the world. Their mountain fortress looks like something NORAD built.
very true… the records are kept in a nuclear bomb proof collosial sized granite vault in the hills of Utah. They actually carved vaults into the granite mountains. All for records of dead people that now have been baptized into the Mormon church. Nothing else… oh sure there are a few prized historical items there but you should see the reels and reels and reels of microfiche data all humidity controlled environment.
See? Do you get the magnitude of seriousness I have had to go up against? I mean, do you get it??
The good:
They showed massive amounts of Mormons traveling to Louisiana to assist Hurricane victims. It was good to see. It didn’t seem like the charity was meant as a recruitment/conversion effort.
You can thank the current prophet Gordon Hinckley for that. He has done an immense effort of mainstreaming Mormonism in front of th eyes of mainstream christianity. Efforts like these have really parlayed the overall general consensus across the board for their wacky image. But then again, you will see Scientologists running amuck at disaster zones to and fro across the world likewise. It could just be part of the general plan to get more recruits.
The sad:
There was a husband whose 42 year old wife died giving birth to their 8th child. Despite her age and medical issues, they tried to get pregnant because they felt God wanted them to have one last child. The widower spoke with certainty about being with his wife in heaven. I don’t always see this level of certainty from other Christians. It’s sad she sacrificed the only life we get in the false belief that she was doing Gods will. Listening to the husband say that there are days when he regrets having the 8th child was really sad. One of his sons was away on his mission when the mother died and didn’t return home.
This is a tragedy. And I understand the son not attending the funeral. He is programmed to “know” that Mom is in heaven busy doing missionary work. So get on with life… no need to be sad. Mom is in a better place! There is a case to be made somewhere here for government intervention though I would never want to be the one to start it (I detest gov’t intervention). So Mom dies giving birth to baby #8. It’s counterpart is the millions of 19 year old young girl teens that will marry in Provo, Orem, Payson, Sandy and Salt Lake City… and Boise, Idaho Falls etc. This trend now extends to the outer regions of the church. I have three sisters. 2 of them married at age 19. My cousin is almost 19 and is dating a guy at BYU now. They are “serious”. This means that in the next couple of months I should be getting an engagement announcement. We just attended our baby sitter’s wedding last month. She just turned 20. These girls are programmed for teen marriage and by the time they reach early twenties, they have 4 or 5 kids already and if they don’t—what in Jesus’ name is wrong with you girl?? Or worse.. Sister, is your husband unwilling to father children with you? As IF IT WAS ANY OF THEIR BUSINESS. You guys think I make this up. I would too if I was reading this account from the outside in. It is crazy crazy stuff.
My first wife and I never got pregnant while we lived in Provo Utah for 5 years. We divorced (long story). But the looks people gave us as a barren couple are preciously recorded in my mind forever. I can’t tell you how many times Mormon authority told me at the last 3 years we were together that I should seriously reconsider putting off starting a family for my wife’s career. They never considered that we just could not get pregnant. I was told I was selfish and would regret it later if we could not have kids and we missed our window to have them.
**he shakes his head**
Noggin
