The Real Reason I Left

[_Runtu]

OK, I confess. The real reason I left the LDS church is that a ward member offended me while I was drinking coffee and contemplating adultery, and I suddenly realized I had never had a testimony in the first place.

[_Inconceivable]

I was offended by members as well: Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, Eliza Snow, Farms...

[_Some Schmo]

I left because I was offended at how boring church was.

I was also offended that they thought I was so stupid, I'd believe what Joe Smith had to say.

[_Blixa]

As most of you know, I was offended by the poor/missing aesthetics...

[_Some Schmo]

As most of you know, I was offended by the poor/missing aesthetics...

*That* was the thing I wanted to comment on from your blog! (I knew there was something, but this point was made first and I'd read so much after that...)

I can so relate to your comment, although it wasn't as overtly conscious for me as it seemed to be for you. And I wasn't really disappointed in the aesthetics as compared to other religions and their buildings, art, etc (although you really do have to admire the architecture of some other church's buildings).

I think that mostly, it had to do with a feeling that I associated strictly with being inside a Mormon building. I came to dislike the buildings due to the way I'd been conditioned to feel whenever I was there.

So you know, now that I think about it, it was the religion that made me dislike the buildings, not the other way around. The end result is the same, though.

[_Blixa]

I guess Schmo that in the West (I don't know where you are from/are) you see a lot of Mission era Spanish Catholic Churches and also in SLC there is the Cathedral of the Madeline, etc. That was such a stark comparison!
However, I do think as a child a lot of it was the contrast between our house and the ward house. There was no way it seemed "special" to me on any level, either design or the activities it housed.

There are lots of lovely older homes and buildings in SLC, too...I still love all the big houses that line South Temple. Another one of my "style grudges" against the church is located there, too. Wall's mansion, the home of "Colonel" Wall and family, played a part in my family history. My grandmother's extended family came to the US from northern England around 1913 and her Uncle was hired there as head butler. Uncle Harry and Aunt Florence lived in a small apartment above the stables behind the mansion and he used to tell me about it when we visited him when I was a child. We even have a few "relics" from the place that Harry and Florence bequeathed to my grandmother. Wall's mansion later became the LDS Business College and they bascially destroyed its architectural integrity: painting it a sad beige (its supposed to be white), adding those two godawful cheap looking "wings," and gutting the interior to make clapboard classrooms.

I wonder what will happen to it now that the LDS Business College has relocated. Perhaps its been purchased already???

[_Lucretia MacEvil]

OK, I confess. The real reason I left the LDS church is that a ward member offended me while I was drinking coffee and contemplating adultery, and I suddenly realized I had never had a testimony in the first place.

Me too, but I was also shopping on Sunday.

[_Blixa]

Good gracious, Lu! What about skiing on Sunday!!! That was, I think, in the top three of Evil Things To Do back in my day...

1) Deny the Holy Ghost
2) Have premarital sex/get raped
3) Ski on Sunday
4) Murder
5) Lie, Cheat, Steal, etc...

[_Lucretia MacEvil]

Good gracious, Lu! What about skiing on Sunday!!! That was, I think, in the top three of Evil Things To Do back in my day...

1) Deny the Holy Ghost
2) Have premarital sex/get raped
3) Ski on Sunday
4) Murder
5) Lie, Cheat, Steal, etc...

Anyone around here who skied on Sunday was garuntEED to break their leg.

[_Gazelam]

Have premarital sex/get raped

What has the first part got to do with the second?