Windy Sydney

Ahh... these stupid email comments are getting to me lately. Maybe it's just because my resignation is soon, and I am super-sensitive to all things church related, but I can't seem to understand how *I* am always judged as the bad person. It's not the church, it's always me.

Let's just forget that the founder of Mormonism, Joseph Smith, who claimed to have visitation from God, Jesus, and various angels was an adulterer, a liar, a con man, a pedophile, and otherwise untrustworthy person. Everything he did wrong is justified because he is just a man. He has a free pass to do whatever he wants and get away with it...

I, on the other hand, have never once cheated on someone I was in a relationship with. Not once. I have never conned a person out of something they owned. I have never desired to have sexual relations with an underage person, and I am an honest person who is always there for my friends.

How is it, exactly, that Joe Smith is someone that people love and praise without question and I am seen as a giant manipulator trying to get people out of the church?

Why is it that people who leave are automatically tossed aside and ignored? Because of mind control, my fellow Mormons. You fail to see the obvious... not because you are dumb, or stupid... but because you have been trained how to think.

If Joseph Smith were alive today, and he was making the same claims he did then, including the practice of polygamy, treasure seeking and the sexual relationships with young girls, members of this church would cast him aside as someone who shouldn't be trusted. They would never in a million years believe he was a prophet of God. In the standards we use today, I would be more trustworthy than he would be.

If you hadn't been taught that Joseph Smith was a holy man who restored the gospel, you would be more willing to look at evidence to gain a piece of the bigger picture. Most of the people in the church have been there since childhood. They only know the positive about Smith... and if they know negative things, they don't know ALL the negative things. They assume he is a good man because the people they trusted told them he was a good man.

What if he wasn't? Ever stop to think about that?

What *if* the church wasn't true? If you immediately discard that statement after reading it, you are the victim of at "thought stopping" mindset. You wont even consider it. You would rather believe that I am horrible, just so your whole belief system doesn't crumble.

I guess I just don't get it. I'm stupid.

Andee