Bitterness and anger against Mormonism and Mormons and exactly how can you forgive a Mormon?

TBM: “You are just bitter and you hate the Mormon church!”EXMO: “Now, what on earth would I have to be bitter about regarding the Mormon church? And why would I hate it?”

Could it possible be because before my parents joined the Mormon church my mother was a kind, loving and wise person, yet within 20 years had degenerated in to a shrill, hateful sour person who was unrecognisable as the woman who had raised me?

Could that be it do you think? Or perhaps it might be because the Mormon church took my father who was sensitive and creative and fucked him over so much that he became totally dependent on the church for every aspect of his life?

My father used to have hobbies. The Mormon church made certain that he had no time for hobbies. How? Their stupid incessant “busy, busy, work, work” programme of meetings, all part of their cult brainwashing techniques.

Or could it be the fact that my little brother was subject to psychological abuse by the Bishop, do you think? Would that make someone bitter, do you think? Possibly? I wanted to beat the crap out of him, but my mother begged me not to. Years later I feel anger towards myself for NOT beating up the shit.

Do I feel anger that my parents wanted to move us back to our home city, yet were forced by the local Mormons into staying in an area that they really were not comfortable with and in which we never really fitted in? Who, me? Angry?

Do I feel bitter that the Mormon church forced my parents to stay in an area with a very poor educational system, rather than going back to our home city which had a very good educational system so that I would have been able to get a degree and lived a fuller and better life? Who, me? Bitter?

Am I angry that the Mormon church made my parents stay in an area with low job prospects as well as a poor educational system?

Some people will say: “Well, Matt, that’s a little unfair. You cannot blame the Mormon church for every bad thing in your life, since your parents joined the Mormon church.”Oh, really? Who says? I say that everyone who is a Mormon or who was a Mormon has been damaged by the Mormon Church to a greater or lesser extent.

I call it the MDO, or Mormon Domino Theory.

If you have 1,000 dominos, all lined up together, if you push domino 1 down, eventually the who line of dominos will have fallen over and domino 999 will knock down domino 1000. So, domino number 1 had nothing to do with it, then? Why, yes! Of course it did! It started the whole process off!

Another example. Let’s imagine there are three people on a railway station platform. Person three deliberately pushed person two, knocking them into person one on purpose, causing person one to get killed by a train. Who caused the death? Person two? Or person three? It is cause and effect.

A different example. Let’s picture the following scene. A child is walking along a pavement (aka sidewalk) and a drunken driver mounts the pavement and strikes them, causing them such terrible injuries that they lose most of the use of their leg.

Now, for the rest of their life as they grow up, that person will always walk with a limp. They’ll work hard to compensate for it, but they WILL always walk with a limp. Nobody in their right mind would say: “Oh, for God’s sake! Stop walking with that limp! You have walked with a limp for years, ever since the car ran you down!”

And that is another way to view the terrible damage caused by Mormonism. You get up and leave Mormonism (recover from the accident) but there’s always the fact that you were a Mormon and the brainwashing/cult indoctrination damaged the way you think, the way you react to situations, etc.

You CAN recover from Mormonism, but like the person in the Road Traffic Accident, you will always have a limp of some kind, no matter how hard you try to cope with it and to hide it.Bitter against Mormonism? Angry with it? Hell, yes. I AM! And I DEMAND the right to be bitter and angry with the cult that destroyed my family and damaged my life.

I created the above post in March 2006. And it received the following comment within the past week:

In March 2006 I posted about the bitterness and anger that I felt about the Mormon Church. Someone read this post within the past week and sent me a comment, which I allowed to be published on the site.

This is what Sam said:
“Hey Matt - sorry to hear of your bad experiences with mormonism. You have every right to be angry. Unfortunately as long as you have bitterness and hatred, it still has power over you. If you want to be free, it has to be God's way - through forgiveness. If you want help to come out from under this curse through Jesus, go to www.freedomkeepers.com or http://www.boblarson.com/”

Well, that’s kind of Sam. But exactly how do you forgive a Mormon? Can Mormons really accept forgiveness?”

But exactly how could I forgive the Mormon Church? It is not a sentient being, so forgiving the Mormon Church would be impossible.

Could I forgive what Mormons did to me? Did against me? Well, in theory, yes. But exactly how could I offer them my forgiveness?

Mormons are not capable of accepting forgiveness (at least from someone they would view as an heretical apostate) because Mormons do no wrong.

I can think of at least 20 times when members of my Mormon family did the dirty on me, including when they lied to me, lied about me, gossiped about me, backstabbed me, cheated me (in a business deal) when my brother and sister-in-law and Sister and brother-in-law all moved house at the same time (just after my mother went on her mission) without bothering to give me their new addresses or new ‘phone numbers. And those are only a few of my favourite things, to quote Julie Andrews.

But in order to be forgiven, my family would need to understand and accept that their behaviour has been wrong and that it merited an apology and the opportunity to accept my forgiveness.

I actually tried this a couple of years ago. And it was thrown back in my face. I wrote my mother a letter that took me weeks to write, going through several editions. The letter I got back from my mother was vindictive, mean, cruel and filled with lie upon lie.

I reminded my mother why I left the Mormon Church (I put Moroni’s promise to the test.

(Moroni 10:3-5.
3 Behold, I would exhort you that when ye shall read these things, if it be wisdom in God that ye should read them, that ye would remember how merciful the Lord hath been unto the children of men, from the creation of Adam even down until the time that ye shall receive these things, and ponder it in your hearts.

4 And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost.

5 And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things.

Imagine (in 1982) my surprise when I received, in answer to much prayer, a personal answer from God that the Mormon Church was not true.)

My mother wrote back that she did not believe what I had told her: “We know the REAL reason why you left the church!” This “we” referred to the family, so it is clear that I have been a source of constant gossip, lies and innuendo in my family from 1982 to the present day. God knows what my mother meant by her remark. I chose not to ask her as I really did not want to know what sick, warped nonsense they have cooked up against me.

So, it is not possible –for a filthy apostate, at any rate- to forgive a Mormon anything. Because as Mormonism is perfect, the Mormon cannot be at fault. So the only other option is that the other person (the wronged person!) is the one who is at fault!

Forgiving a Mormon is never easy. Because they have no concept that their behaviour is in any way wrong. Your average Mormon is forever the naughty little boy who, with biscuit crumbs on his clothing, with chocolate daubing his face, with his hand in the biscuit jar who says, through a mouthful of biscuit: “Me, mother? Eating the biscuits mother? Oh, no! Not I!”

In order to be forgiven, a person must first have the self-knowledge that they have done wrong. And most Mormons don’t have that.