BaldProphet

joined 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] -1 points 8 months ago (8 children)

Housing crisis, 40-year out of date poverty level, a minimum wage that hasn't been increased in 15 years and that has had a continuously decreasing purchasing power for almost 60 years. Most expensive healthcare, rampant student loan debt, record-breaking corporate profits, a self-immolating middle class, etc. etc.

Honestly, it's hard to find much to be happy about here right now.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 8 months ago (6 children)

I went to my Glassdoor account and the only place I could see my name was in the community part, where people ask questions of other professionals. Some users still seemed to have their names hidden, so it must be possible to do so. My company reviews are still anonymous.

I honestly can't find any evidence that what the media are saying is happening is actually happening. I feel gaslit tbh lol

[–] [email protected] -1 points 8 months ago

Have you ever asked a former member why they left? What did they say?

I helped a person rejoin the Church when I was a missionary. It was obviously not a representative experience, but he had left at a time in his life when he was angry at members of his ward for not supporting him the way he felt he should have been supported. At the time it seemed he had felt a bit more entitled to special attention than was reasonable (keeping in mind the Church has a lay ministry and we're all just regular people with regular lives outside of church), and he had also tried to have an affair with someone's wife, IIRC. He had requested his records to be withdrawn because he wanted members to stop contacting him. He was a lot different when I met him than when he left the Church, and had a lot of rough life experiences that emphasized the value it brought to his life.

I have not had any close friends or family leave the Church, so I haven't had any opportunities to actually have a discussion about it with anyone else other than online. Those online interactions have been mostly hate-filled and vitriolic by the former members.

Like most members of the Church, where I live I am a religious minority. It's far more common for people to ask me questions about my faith than for me to interact with former members.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

You're also misunderstanding. I won't deny that US companies seek profit wherever they can, even from unethical sources. I also don't doubt their involvement with law enforcement and intelligence agencies. But a company seeking profit through a partnership with the United States federal government is not the same as the totalitarian Chinese government requiring oversight of Chinese companies.

It might not seem like a big difference to you, but it's an important one to me.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago (16 children)

US companies != US federal government

[–] [email protected] 14 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Latter-day Saints were some of the earliest white settlers of Las Vegas, if you can believe it.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Latter-day Saints have absolutely no prohibition against interacting with former members of the Church. Unfortunately, many former members leave under difficult circumstances and distance themselves from their friends who remain in the Church. We would love nothing more than to stay in contact with them and still be friends.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 8 months ago

I have never supported Trump. I was serving my mission in 2016 when he was elected and I couldn't find a polling place to vote, and I sort of had a favorable impression of him at first just because my family are big Trump supporters. However, many of his policies and his hateful rhetoric are impossible to square with my religious beliefs, which I consider to be mostly centrist. I think most Latter-day Saints are in a similar boat. We are serious about our religion and aren't going to support a political leader who goes against many of our most deeply-held moral doctrines.

The most important thing we believe are the commandments given by Jesus Christ in Matthew 22:36-40. These are summarized as "love God with all your being" and "love everyone around you as well as you love yourself". I can't see how it could be possible to support Trump and sincerely believe in those commandments at the same time.

For me, however, the final straw was when Trump started speculating on live television about injecting light into people to fight the Covid virus. It was utter loony talk and I was completely disgusted. January 6th didn't surprise me at all (Trump was laying the groundwork for it a year in advance) and at that point I almost registered as a Democrat. Now that Trump has taken control of the Republican party I'm definitely registering as a Democrat before November.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago

The beehive isn't the significant religious symbol to Latter-day Saints that you think it is. Those of us not from Utah barely know about the symbol's relationship to the history of the Church.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Although I do concede that Mormonism is worse with the fabrication that the mark of cain is upon non white people, and that Islam doesn’t really call for discrimination against other races.

I don't know about minority Mormon sects, but Latter-day Saints do not believe in the "mark of Cain" and do not believe in racial discrimination. We're pretty big on the "Golden Rule".

A recent sermon by one of the leaders of the Church on the topic: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2022/10/28christofferson?lang=eng#p7

view more: ‹ prev next ›