Yeah, I don't do the whole negative points thing. I am out to control your mind though!!! Come on, what do you think?!

You are obviously still passionate about the church. Are you interested in anything else? I'd like to like you but you seem so angry. Do you frolf or hike? Watch movies? What book are you reading? When did you leave the church? Where in Utah do you live? What do you do when you are not gathering at temple square to protest conference?

Something you hear a lot from angry ex-Mormons is a retreat to the safe cover of "you're calling me angry because I’m questioning" not "you're calling me angry because I am intentionally confrontational, sarcastic and offensive”. You can absolutely disagree with anything you want, just be truthful about your intentions. You are not prudently warning others. You are insulting others. A warning is “don’t go near the stove, it’s hot and you may burn yourself” not “You’re stupid to believe there even is a stove and the only reason you believe it’s hot is because you’re too dumb to see that heat is a conspiracy”. Don’t feign benevolence when confronted with your own rudeness. If you feel you were lied to, it’s time to say “fool me once” and let it go. If you feel your time and money was wasted with the LDS church, why would you want to give anymore time or energy? Truly, wasting your life blogging and AB’ing about the LDS church will do little to nothing to hinder that institution. They’ll roll forward without giving you a second glance. What it will do is make a small, caustic, bitter life for you. There is a spiritual maturity demonstrated by those who can accept religious common ground with others and also respectfully acknowledge differences. Your comments come across either as misguided utterances or as deliberate attacks. True collaboration, and, even warning, is not possible until we have the will and the maturity to listen to, understand and respect each other.

TheicidalManiac, I wish you luck in finding whatever healing you're looking for. Your arguments are making less and less sense. This “discussion” is disintegrating into silliness. The real kicker to the whole darn thing is this: I haven’t been active in the LDS faith for years. I just live in Utah and every other ex-Mormon is an affected, hateful, preachy, sanctimonious, hypocritical, inappropriate, ill-mannered, immature fool. We get it, we get it: it wasn’t for you. You were raised here and socialized to be Mormon and you never fit in at church. You tried really hard for a while but finally you just had to leave. You’re not a sheep. You’re a questioner. A thinker. You know all the $5 words. Why, oh, why can’t they just accept you for who you (and all your friends) are! You’re pissed. You want revenge…blah, blah, blah. Your church leaders were hypocrites. You’re parents made you, now you’re dealing with a lifetime of guilt, family estrangement and the vague fear that you may be wrong and they may be right. There are so many more important injustices in this world than that you feel like you got duped by a church. Homelessness. Abused babies. Minority schools being under-funded. Darfur. Underage pregnancy. Our obsession with celebrity. George Bush is running this WHOLE DAMN country – now that is a real injustice. Racism. Sexism. Ageism… there are so many ‘isms out there. Pick one. Move on, pal.

they do have a nasty habit of deflecting and/or changing the subject i've found. though, to be honest, it's something that i think all humans do whether they're religious or not. those that are not comfortable with the line of questioning will deflect every time.