DiscussMormonism.com

In my experience, the majority of nevermo family baptisms here in the US were typically only the women.

What does this do?

Quite often, the couple was just fine and happy, living "until death do they part".

Along comes a pushy Mormon coworker, neighbor, friend, or the heavy knock of the dweeb duo dressed in shark suits.

They play on the emotion of the woman, who is then baptized and the hubby opts out.

The newly baptized wife is now expected to attend her wonderful new church service ALONE as often her husband wants nothing to do with it. IF he does attend, he quickly feels the sting be label as the "non member husband".

She is greeted with pitiful stares from the condescending women of the Relief Society. "Oh look, another convert who has a hard hearted stubborn husband huh?"

For her to fit in, she feels like she must publicly commit herself to converting her non Mormon hubby so that she can be with her children as a forever family.

In reality, this typically does not happen and soon this poor woman is an emotional train wreck waiting to happen. My wife saw it far too often while she served as the secretary in the Relief Society. Many will end up divorced because it literally drives a wedge between the once happy couple.

Hey Mormons, for the love of decency, please leave the non Mormons ALONE. Leave them to live their lives as they see fit. Necro dunk em if you must, but keep to your cultish selves, K?

If you do not, I will continue my exmormon mission until the day I grow old and die. My children are already following my example and reavealing the ugly truths of Mormonism to friends at school.

I have the upper hand. It is far easier to tell the truth about your cult than it is for you to lure one to pass through the turnstile in the baptismal font at the stake center.

Oh those poor women......who were they?

Oh yeah...

my happily married Seminary teacher and her mechanic husband who still loves it when I show up and talk.

My old Primary teacher.....but her husband got baptized and was my Deacon's Quorum Advisor. He's now in a Bishopric.

My friend's mom whose house I spent a lot of time at. Her husband taught me how to write primitive DOS viruses and how to upload them on to BBS's that booted me....he was also instrumental in teaching me how to shut down the High School's computer network for several days and not get caught. Great guy. Still makes sure the Missionaries come over every so often.

Then there was the sister who married a Jehovah's Witness who lives a miserable life. I feel sorry for her husband more than her though. She is constantly begging for him to get baptized but he's happy where he is. I liked him. We used to fence back when I did that.

There's also the girl I know who got baptized. Became friends with her husband. Their lives went a little crazy. They added another female to their relationship (she went less-active before this). They're looking for another guy right now. I was offered the place and declined despite how much fun all three of them are and the two girls are very, very cute. They seem happy.

So.........many happy stories and one sad. Enjoy.

Wow Nehor, that was like when they show Michael Jordon in slow motion fly over the heads of the opposeing team and slam dunk the ball. Way to go.

For her to fit in, she feels like she must publicly commit herself to converting her non Mormon hubby so that she can be with her children as a forever family.

I know a never-Mo woman who was drawn in by the promise of being with her infant who died at birth for eternity. She made attempts to convert the husband (with help from missionaries) and when that didn't pan out, she took up with one of the male members in the church. The husband ended up trying to kill himself which was thwarted by US posters on an online message board who sent the cops directly to his door in the UK. The wife ended up leaving him AND the kids. She did this believing that the church would support her financially. When they wouldn't, she ended up in government assisted housing.

Gazelam wrote:Wow Nehor, that was like when they show Michael Jordon in slow motion fly over the heads of the opposeing team and slam dunk the ball. Way to go.

Go get a room you two love birds.

Polygamy Porter wrote:My children are already following my example and reavealing the ugly truths of Mormonism to friends at school.

Any chance you will have them making crank calls to the on-line missionaries?

moksha wrote:

Polygamy Porter wrote:My children are already following my example and reavealing the ugly truths of Mormonism to friends at school.

Any chance you will have them making crank calls to the on-line missionaries?

Once they are as smooth as I am and if the chat room is still around then.

in my opinion, the chat room will not last long.

Desert Book had a discussion board a few years ago that was closed only after a year and a half. It was overrun by the meat wagon.

Polygamy Porter wrote:It was overrun by the meat wagon.

"the meat wagon." just spit my coffee.

The only irony I see is that most non-LDS Christians already believe in forever families. If I had to imagine Heaven, and what heaven would be, it is that you are reunited with those you love.

Most non-LDS Christians talk about past loved ones and about being reunited. The mindset that they will see and be with loved ones is actually pretty much the overwhelming thought behind heaven, as far as I can tell. Christ promised life after death and that is the relief of Christians everywhere. The thought that their loved ones are in heaven and they will all be together again is great comfort, and the point of Christianity isn't it?

I have to say, out of all the things that strike me as not being necessary is the sealing of the forever families. Christ promised this, didn't he when he essentially sacrificed so others have life after their death? I guess I don't really understand the LDS position that many would be apart from their families in heaven. That isn't what I understand when I read the Bible. Does the Book of Mormon have a different take on this?

I don't think you'll find anything in the Book of Mormon that will speak to this, barrel. If you haven't already noticed there is a difference between early Joseph Smith (Book of Mormon) and late Joseph Smith (everything else). There are plenty of contradictory elements between the two bodies of his writings. He made it up as he went along, or perhaps he only decided to produce a full-blown religious organization after the success he had getting people to believe in the plates; this would explain why the "two halves" aren't tightly joined.

I agree with you that most standard issue christian sects imagine the afterlife as a place where one will be reunited with friends and loved ones. The difference for the LDS is that the afterlife is imagined as an endless cycle of gods producing spirit families, testing them with planetary trials, exalting them to start the whole thing over again. I think it is partly this that gave rise to the obsession with lineage that sealing is about. It also, I think, has roots in some of the ideas recently discussed on several threads here, that different lineages, bloodlines etc, are more righteous and have higher status. It also ties in with the racial ideas that I think run through Mormonism like the notion that when you are baptized, endowed, etc., given your tribe, your blood literally changes to that "tribe blood"---you become on a kind of biological level non-Gentile (ok, I actually need help fleshing this one out. Anyone give me some sources for it, so I can think/write more?).

That's the "theological" side as it were. The practical/cultural side is what other posters have been detailing: the stress it puts on parents and marriage partners if anyone should "fall away." As Gaz quotes, not only are individuals judged, but we are also judged as families. Thus, you supposedly endanger your family's salvation/exaltation if you apostasize (though there are also ways this is contradicted too, through sealings and other beliefs).