Don’t question the Church, ever!!!

A young woman’s discovery leads to severe punishment:
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In the Endowment video, I noticed that it had fish and birds created on the 5th day of creation but also had all the animals created on the 5th day. Then Adam is created on the 6th day. After I got home from my travels to the Temple, I checked my Bible and sure enough. The animals were created on the 6th day, the same as man. Then I check the Book of Abraham and the Book of Moses. Both had the animals created on the 6th day. This started to really bug me so on my next trip to the Temple a month later, I paid special attention to the creation as it was portrayed. Yes, they had it wrong.

I made an appointment with my Bishop when I got home and told him about my discovery and asked for an explanation. Quite honestly, he replied that he had never noticed that discrepancy and would be going to the Temple the next weekend and would check it out. When he got back, he called me to come in for an appointment and the Stake President was also there. That should have been a clue that something was up. Anyway, my Bishop confirmed that in fact the Temple ceremony DID have the animals created on the 5th day. That he had called SLC to get clarification and was told by GA that it was "Newer Revelation". I asked him how I was supposed to teach my primary kids the creation story as it is in the Bible and Pearl of Great Price, knowing in my heart that it was wrong. The bottom line for them was, "Did I believe in new revelation?" I told them I thought new revelation should be consistent with prior revelation and not totally different. Wrong Answer. They questioned my commitment, my conduct, my thoughts, my studies, and readings. Something must have caused me to "lose my testimony." It was a 4-hour ordeal, I cried a lot, I didn't know how to answer them. Finally, they said since I was female, I was not allowed received revelation since I didn't have the priesthood. So trying to find an answer for the obvious conflict was beyond my spiritual reach. I received a letter a few days later from my stake president indicating that I could no longer wear my temple garments, I could attend services but could not take sacrament. I was welcome to continue paying my tithe. Within just a few days I had gone from what seemed a seemingly insignificant error to being an Apostate.


MY THOUGHTS:


Is the church EVER wrong? It seems to me that they can use the 'Newer Revelation' as a cover-up for mistakes in doctrine. They don't REALLY believe that the sequence of events in the Creation story have been re-clarified in this new order. They used it as an excuse to chastise someone who would dare to question their authority on the matter. Since she wouldn't accept it as a real answer, she was punished for her insubordination. And since she is lowly female, she has no way of receiving any answer independent from what the Brethren tell her. Females do no receive revelation, because they do no have priesthood authority, she is told. But that is also a lie. Females in the early Mormon church, the one that Joseph Smith founded, were given priesthood authority equal to the men, and this continued until Brigham Young and his successors slowly ebbed it away to nothing. The modern Mormon church has apostatized from it's original restoration. Modern revelation is nothing more than a series of cover stories designed to cut out dissenters and doubters. Fear is now the motivator to keep the members quiet.

What would possibly be gained by questioning authority? Your family and friends would avoid you, you would not be able to maintain an equal status with them if it were not for that golden recommend. The only way to keep those people close to you is to stay in step with them, do what's expected of you and never let a doubt or question interrupt your testimony. The only thing waiting for you on the other side is hostility, frustration and separation from them, the ones whose opinions you treasure the most. And as long as appearances and acceptance mean more to you than honesty, truth, and personal integrity, you'll stay right where you are, changing and molding your beliefs with every new issue of the Ensign magazine, or every General Conference broadcast.

You silly sheep. You can't see that you are guarded day and night by ravenous wolves who look for any excuse to cast you outside the fence and make you into an example for others to avoid. Or, like lobsters, your family and friends whom you hope to impress are the ones who keep pulling you down further into the basket, keeping you from seeing the daylight above. They don't even care to see it for themselves, but they aren't going to let you see it either.

What would be the worst thing about reading some article that comes into direct conflict with your beliefs? You might change your mind. That sort of thing is unimaginable in the Mormon world. And if you come to believe that you have been lied to, and you leave the church, would you be upset that your chance to be permanently sealed to your family in the afterlife is gone? I would be more upset that they told me such a thing existed in the first place! They do not have the power or authority to perform these multi-generational sealings, they cannot promise a link between families through temple rituals and handgrips. It's all been a huge hoax from the start. And it is often assumed that the real reason I am angry and hostile towards the church is because I am not ALLOWED to partake in this blessing. Let me be perfectly clear when I say this: I am angry because THEY believe their rituals have any binding authority, and they are smugly excluding me from it because of my UN-belief. I have NO belief that the Mormon church has any such power or authority to determine my worthiness for its blessings. I have NO belief that families who are sealed together in the temple are better off than families who are not. And I especially don't believe that you should work harder to maintain relationships with family you have been sealed to, and cut everyone else off because they aren't MORMON.

Here's what really bites my ass though:

An individual that I know has maintained a relationship of sorts with her ex-husband, his new wife, and his entire family, even though the central cause of their divorce was HIS arrest and conviction of molesting as many as 10 children, including a niece and a nephew of HERS, and because of this temple sealing that they had 15 years ago, and the children they have that were born "in the covenant", she feels perfectly justified in continuing on with attending family events on her ex-husband's side, including weddings and family reunions, EVEN THOUGH she is remarried AND her new husband has adopted the kids as his own. They even go bowling once a month with her ex husband and his new wife, (who knows that she can't have any children with him because he's a sex offender), AND they invite the ex husband and his new wife over for events the children are involved in, (even thought the niece and nephew live in the same town and are never aware that he is around) AND they've even had dinner together at her house with the children referring to him as "Uncle", knowing very little about the circumstances that led him to be separated from them. AND ALL OF THIS IS IN THE NAME OF MORMONISM!!!

What a f*cked up plan of Heavenly Father's this is?! Why the hell would I want to be part of that system? If families are forever, I don't want any part of that family, the ones who stay put together in dangerous relationships and risk the serious psychological unhinging of their children from being forced to include such sick individuals in their lives forever, all in the name of MORMONISM.

That's why I hate this church. They teach you that your common sense and rational thinking are secondary to promoting the faith and maintaining family connectedness (as long as their all Mormons too). What would happen on the day that this individual decided to research the church history and doctrine and decide to leave it? This family that she has fought so hard to keep together and maintain relationships with, all in the name of Mormonism would soundly reject her, reject her children, reject her place among them, the righteous Mormons that they are and have been for generations. And since she is a convert, with no claims to family sealing in her own family, she has no choice but to avoid doubts and reinvest herself solidly in the Mormon belief system.

I was lucky. I had virtually no one to upset when I left. Just my mom and sister. I didn't have to worry about disrupting a plan of family togetherness, since there is NO WAY my mom will be sealed to a man in this lifetime (and even if she did, I wouldn't get sealed to HIM). None of my other brothers or sisters will ever rejoin the church, none of their spouses will ever join, no children are being raised Mormon, except my sister's. What's the f'n point of all of this? There's no way my mom will get what the Mormons promised her 22 years ago. She is working for nothing. There will be nothing to gain except the futile hope that she might just be worthy to be assigned to 'another worthy man' once she gets to the afterlife. Someone she doesn't know and has never met. But that's the best she can hope for.

As for my sister, she fared a little better. But she can't leave, ever. Too much invested. Too much to lose if she were to start questioning. Stupid Cult. I wish I had never heard of it.