There are some attitudes that I witness over and over again that leave me exasperated and frustrated. Coming from the Mormon context, I routinely see these comments and attitudes on display:

  • People who are not LDS can not be counted on to be good people. There is genuine surprise when non-LDS people do nice things.
  • Spiritual information that is non-LDS is inherently flawed, incomplete, and therefore worthless. Other religions are dismissed. Other beliefs are ignored.
  • People who have left the LDS church are all misguided and wrong and will suffer god’s wrath

On the other hand, whenever I associate with ex-Mormons, I see exactly the same things being said. I find this incredibly hypocritical, because there are people who left Mormonism because the fundamentally disagreed with it, and yet they perpetuate its flaws. They say:

  • People who are LDS are only accidentally good people. They are deluded and blinded, and they are set up in an organization that institutionalize cruelty, abuse, and pain
  • LDS spirituality is inherently flawed. It is (potentially) completely made up, so it is therefore ignored or ridiculed.
  • People who stay in the LDS church are all misguided and are only causing themselves and others to suffer.

All of this is just two sides of the same flawed and broken coin. They are both wrong. They are both misguided. They are both insufficient and will both lead you to mire in your own overinflated and unrealistic sense of self-importance.

I despise both of these positions and have little patience with people who espouse either of them.