Editor & writer published in Best American Essays, NY Times, Bitch, Slate. I prefer skirts to trousers, questions to answers, authentic despair to false hope.
Jun 5 • 20 tweets • 7 min read
Among the reasons it was so hard for me to leave The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is that I wanted it to be "true" at the same time I felt it not only couldn't but *shouldn't* be true, because its god is a monster.
So many people have professed astonishment
🧵1/
at my assessment of God, even though its by no means origin or unique. I mean, have they really never listened to the lyrics of "Blasphemous Rumours" by Depeche Mode?
2/
Sep 26, 2022 • 14 tweets • 4 min read
A question for Latter-day Saints: Do you agree with the statement below? Have you heard this exact statement or statements like it in Conference? Do you accept it as official church doctrine?
"The prophet cannot err when making official pronouncements of faith and morals." 1/
If you are/were a Latter-day Saint, you may have heard this saying: “Catholics say the pope is infallible but don’t really believe it; Mormons say the #prophet is #fallible but don’t really believe it.” 2/
Sep 25, 2022 • 17 tweets • 4 min read
Belonging to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints damaged many of my relationships, but one of the most profound was my relationship to the whole world, which the church deliberately sought to poison. 🧵1/
#Worldliness was a terrible sin. Especially when I was in college, we were told to "keep ourselves unspotted from the world" & to be "in the world but not of the world."
The world = evil & danger, the church = righteousness & safety. 2/
Sep 23, 2022 • 30 tweets • 7 min read
In a facebook discussion of the crappy Mormons who felt entitled to stiff a 15-year-old girl who babysat 7 kids for 9 hours because they went to the temple, someone pointed out that this is a clear example of "moral licensing." 🧵1/
Moral licensing is the psychological phenomenon wherein humans feel that doing something they perceive as good--say, working out at the gym--gives them permission or license to do something they perceive as bad, or at least less good--like having an extra large smoothie. 2/
Sep 13, 2022 • 14 tweets • 3 min read
Another way Mormonism was very bad for me is that I was a literal child who took the promises of the leaders & the scriptures very literally, as the church taught me to do. Moroni 10:5 states, "by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things." 1/
It doesn't say you may "believe" or "hope" the truth of all things; it says "know." People would stand up in testimony meeting all the time & declare, "I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that XY&Z are TRUE."
