You guys are still at it! (why am I not surprised?)

[MG 2.0]

I'm pretty sure MG is well informed.

I would guess that's true. More than the average person sitting in the pew.

And truthfully? That has done me well.

I'm a lot more comfortable in my own skin than I was before I took the time and effort to dig deep.

But I still don't have all the answers.

Life is kind of like that.

Regards,
MG

[Marcus]

It's an extremely common issue for virtually everyone online, and has nothing to do with intelligence or brightness. Read Poe's Law at rationalwiki, the history of the development of the term is quite interesting.

A couple of excerpts:

What does this have to do with being obtuse?

One minute before you posted the above, you edited out the part of your post that I was responding to. (Edit times are noted at the bottom of posts in small print.) I could recreate it and be more specific but you must have edited it for a reason. I don't know why you would remove your words amd then ask the above question but this thread is probably not the place to do it if you'd like to discuss it further.

[IWMP]

What does this have to do with being obtuse?

One minute before you posted the above, you edited out the part of your post that I was responding to. (Edit times are noted at the bottom of posts in small print.) I could recreate it and be more specific but you must have edited it for a reason. I don't know why you would remove your words amd then ask the above question but this thread is probably not the place to do it if you'd like to discuss it further.

I removed it because I thought you hadn't replied and so felt maybe I sounded like I was over-explaining. After I edited I saw what you wrote and realised that must have been your reply. I will go put back in the jist of it helps. For those who might be reading this I removed where I talked about how I struggle to detect humour, I also struggle with sarcasm and sometimes I think people are joking when they are serious. I think I may have wrote that I see all these scenarios but struggle to choose which is the right answer because they all look the same. That's the jist.

If your response is that it's a researched fact that online, people find it difficult to detect humour because of the nature of it being online, then yeah I get that and appreciate that. But, then where did the obtuse comment come from?

[IWMP]

I'm pretty sure MG is well informed.

I would guess that's true. More than the average person sitting in the pew.

And truthfully? That has done me well.

I'm a lot more comfortable in my own skin than I was before I took the time and effort to dig deep.

But I still don't have all the answers.

Life is kind of like that.

Regards,
MG

I've been on that pew whilst being on this forum discovering all the bad stuff. If a person is going to leave the church, it comes from within themselves. I still went and still wanted to believe and still prayed to God about my testimony and opened the Book of Mormon in random places to find answers (which worked somehow), I questioned but I enjoyed church. Me leaving the church has nothing to do with anything I learned on these forums and on the internet and I looked. I indulged in the antimormon literature that my patriarchal blessing warned me about and more. Was elbow deep into reading about freemasons and everything I could find. And yet... That's not the turning point for me.

So no one here is going to convince anyone else how to live their lives unless they want to be convinced.

[Marcus]

One minute before you posted the above, you edited out the part of your post that I was responding to. (Edit times are noted at the bottom of posts in small print.) I could recreate it and be more specific but you must have edited it for a reason. I don't know why you would remove your words amd then ask the above question but this thread is probably not the place to do it if you'd like to discuss it further.

I removed it because I thought you hadn't replied and so felt maybe I sounded like I was over-explaining. After I edited I saw what you wrote and realised that must have been your reply. I will go put back in the jist of it helps. For those who might be reading this I removed where I talked about how I struggle to detect humour, I also struggle with sarcasm and sometimes I think people are joking when they are serious. I think I may have wrote that I see all these scenarios but struggle to choose which is the right answer because they all look the same. That's the jist.

If your response is that it's a researched fact that online, people find it difficult to detect humour because of the nature of it being online, then yeah I get that and appreciate that. But, then where did the obtuse comment come from?

I responded to you abt 40 minutes after you posted, saying you thought you didn't get something because you weren't intelligent or bright enough, and I was trying to be supportive by saying, no, everyone has that issue, and then backed up my opinion with some interesting research. If I recall correctly, i used the word obtuse several posts before that, in a context re Shulem's joke.

[IWMP]

I removed it because I thought you hadn't replied and so felt maybe I sounded like I was over-explaining. After I edited I saw what you wrote and realised that must have been your reply. I will go put back in the jist of it helps. For those who might be reading this I removed where I talked about how I struggle to detect humour, I also struggle with sarcasm and sometimes I think people are joking when they are serious. I think I may have wrote that I see all these scenarios but struggle to choose which is the right answer because they all look the same. That's the jist.

If your response is that it's a researched fact that online, people find it difficult to detect humour because of the nature of it being online, then yeah I get that and appreciate that. But, then where did the obtuse comment come from?

I responded to you abt 40 minutes after you posted, saying you thought you didn't get something because you weren't intelligent or bright enough, and I was trying to be supportive by saying, no, everyone has that issue, and then backed up my opinion with some interesting research. If I recall correctly, i used the word obtuse several posts before that, in a context re Shulem's joke.

Ok.

[drumdude]

MG,

If you were raised as a Scientologist, with all your family and friends as very devout practicing Scientologists, do you think you would be able to easily leave and never look back?

You have to empathize a little here with everyone’s circumstances. Try imagining that your whole life was spent in Scientology before you realized L Ron Hubbard was a fraud. You donated over $100,000 to Scientology that you can never get back. You spent 2 years in the Sea Org trying to convert others.

Coming to know the truth was a slow painful process. And no one in your family or friend circles believes you. In fact, they think your soul is at stake for rejecting Hubbard.

I think that might help you understand what it’s like.

Is there no positive things about having been LDS? I think the network of people, the love I felt, the friends, the people who gave me a second family and had shown me what normal (more normal than mine) families look like. It's hard to make friends in the world but the way church members fellowship, makes having friends easier, yeah, they all disappeared when I got with a non member and it probably was all fake in the end up, it's still good memories for me. And linger longer was just awesome. For me EFY was borderline traumatising but it opened the doors to me realising I was different and seeking help.

I don’t think Mormonism is as bad as Scientology. I think they’re on a spectrum, towards the end where the religion is high demand/cultish.

I think there are plenty of things that are perfectly good in Mormonism. But I don’t have Catholics shunning me for not going to church. And they don’t constantly bombard me with messages that they’re worried for my immortal soul.

My overall concern with MG is that he thinks we’re just here to trash beliefs. I don’t think that’s correct, and I think it ignores the lived experiences of ex-Mormons.

[IWMP]

Is this serious?

As a heart attack.

You have to read Shulem's posts as a whole. While just breathing. Running off fiddling while in a boxing ring is not easier than watching someone dot i's and cross t's while ignoring their meaning but it's definitely more meaningful. Also look up obtuse.

Absolutely. Yes. But with a little tongue in cheek just for fun. I mean, keep the entertainment rolling along!

Exactly.

So. The "look up obtuse" in a reply quoting me, and following things I said (which I have no clue what you are saying by putting those sentences together like that but I didn't ask) was directed at something shulem said? And then when I responded saying not sure I understand, and then said something like, if that makes me obtuse then sure you responded with something like, sounds like I do understand. So I responded with thanks for the clarification and so on...

I appreciate the reassurance but clearly I have misinterpreted what you have said once again.

On paper, I'm relatively intelligent. At uni I did tests and scored in the top 1 percentile for verbal reasoning. And that was over a decade ago and I only just discovered what that meant a couple of months ago. So yeah. Not too bright. Its the story of my life lol.

[MG 2.0]

I indulged in the antimormon literature that my patriarchal blessing warned me about and more. Was elbow deep into reading about freemasons and everything I could find. And yet... That's not the turning point for me.

So no one here is going to convince anyone else how to live their lives unless they want to be convinced.

If I'm not prying too much...what was the turning point?

Regards,
MG

[IWMP]

Is there no positive things about having been LDS? I think the network of people, the love I felt, the friends, the people who gave me a second family and had shown me what normal (more normal than mine) families look like. It's hard to make friends in the world but the way church members fellowship, makes having friends easier, yeah, they all disappeared when I got with a non member and it probably was all fake in the end up, it's still good memories for me. And linger longer was just awesome. For me EFY was borderline traumatising but it opened the doors to me realising I was different and seeking help.

I don’t think Mormonism is as bad as Scientology. I think they’re on a spectrum, towards the end where the religion is high demand/cultish.

I think there are plenty of things that are perfectly good in Mormonism. But I don’t have Catholics shunning me for not going to church. And they don’t constantly bombard me with messages that they’re worried for my immortal soul.

My overall concern with MG is that he thinks we’re just here to trash beliefs. I don’t think that’s correct, and I think it ignores the lived experiences of ex-Mormons.

I've not had anyone concerned for my soul. I do think there is an element of how can you believe when the (whatever the.acronym for the church around here is) does this and that and Joseph Smith did this and that ,which can be seen as trashing beliefs.

I totally understand that people have had horrific experiences. I watched that documentary last week about the franke woman abusing her kids and that could make anyone think Mormonism is bad. I personally think they strayed and created their own belief system.

I think the whole point is to share opinions and discuss them and that can look like trashing beliefs and it can also look like the other side enforcing their views. And that can be triggering to people who have had those bad experiences. But then you lose the discussion. It becomes personal and people attack and feel attacked and then it's not a discussion but an argument that no one is going to win.

I'm not taking sides. MG started this thread in a way that clearly was going to get a rise out of people. But maybe, there's some interesting things in here that can be discussed.

I haven't looked much into Scientology. I sort of get the feeling it's like a celebrity elite thing and there's lots that can be said about that.

In my mind I see a cult as being like a group of people who are involved in abuse and are following a person blindly when they knowingly are taking advantage of others. So maybe in some areas within lots of organisations there is a cult like environment and in other areas there isn't.