Monday, February 23, 2009

Joke Religion


I joined a joke religion. Not the usually "a priest and a rabbi walked into a bar" kinda joke religion. I joined one of the one word punch line religions. "What are ya a mormon?" Badumpbump. I'm here all week...tip your waiters.

I have said before that when some little kid tells you he saw god in the bushes you DON'T give him 10% of you income...you give him Haldol. Mormonism is wacky. It is seriously bizarre. Oh I know they want you to focus on those nice kids in white shirts but face it...they brought polygamy to America. Oh I know they claim they don't do it anymore. But do you see new age Aztecs trying to convert people to their cult and telling them: "Hey we really don't like to focus on the human sacrifice...we stopped doing that a while back"? So let's just admit this is a rather bizarre bunch of folks.

BUT....the true level of crazy is really not revealed until you start hanging with the exmormons. When I left mormonism, the exmo world was a big help. There were people who had researched the wacky church history and were very knowledgeable. They shared some of their research and understanding and it really helped me question things that I had always just assumed I knew. The history you learn in church is pretty inaccurate. They leave out things like Joseph Smith having more than 30 wives and that some of them were already happily married to other guys while others were as young as 13. It was pretty fucked up....and who knew?

So the exmo world was helpful...AT FIRST. After a while you begin to realize it is a hang out for bipolars and borderlines. I mean these people are NUTS. I have gone on the site from time to time just for curiosity. But now it is just too painful to have to read the ramblings of these weak minded dolts. They pose idiotic false dichotomies like "would you rather your kid was "unclean" and had sex out of marriage or was dead?" They tell the same fucking story over and over of how miserable they are because they hate the church but they can't leave 'cuz great gramps crossed the plains in a wagon and the family will be destroyed if they leave.They stay married to people who hate them or continue to hope that the mormon church will start treating gays right. They ask for which book, passage of scripture, magazine article, website, or god knows what they can show their family, friend, bishop that will make them leave the church. They are nuts.

I seriously believe part of why it is so hard to recover...is that you have to admit you were a moron to believe in the first place. So instead of just taking your lumps and moving on, you have to convince everybody, including yourself, that you were a victim and that the joke religion can control your life. Sure it can if you let it. But there was always the option to just leave it. Take a look and you will see that these ex-mo folks have done just exactly that.