I knew when I posted a response to Jeff Lindsay’s “Anti-Mormon Liars” post I was going to get some heat. Sure enough, shortly afterward I got this response from Robert. He’s “sad,” just like so many other Mormons who read my blog, because he believes me so misguided. He also latched onto something I said to mistakenly believe I had serious mental and guilt issues, and was blaming the Church for them.

Robert wrote:

“someone just made a mistake and we should forgive them for giving us LIFELONG MENTAL ISSUES AND YEARS OF REPRESSION AND GUILT”

I became really sad when I skimmed your blog and witnessed your attitude against the church, Natalie. I tried to find something to explain to me why you write what you write, because it gives me a bad feeling, but the most revealing sentence I could find was the one above. Why blame the church for your mental issues and feelings of guilt? What could have possibly happened to you that makes you different from everyone else? There are so many people in the church who aren’t bitter against it and don’t blame it for their “mental issues and guilt.”

It is a natural fact of life that people feel guilty when they do wrong; everyone messes up. Why blame the church for those feelings? Do you think the things it cautions against aren’t wrong, perhaps? When I feel guilty, I don’t blame the church or its teachings; I know the guidelines that are there are for my benefit. No, when I mess up I blame myself for falling short. I take responsibility for my actions. And those feelings of guilt go away when I repent; they don’t stay w/ me. I could deal with my guilt by saying that the church is wrong; surely my life would be easier if I didn’t always have it telling me what to do. But would it be better, if I ignored my conscience and fought against the church because I didn’t want to take responsibility for the things I had done that made me feel guilty?

I don’t know, your problems with the church probably go way deeper than I can ever know. But it makes me sad to hear you blame your guilt on the church. This world needs more responsibility, more self-control, and more people willing to do the right thing even if it takes more effort and sacrifice. The church has never expected perfection from anyone, so our feelings of imperfection are only natural. Why not embrace those feelings and let them motivate us to be better people, rather than despise them and blame them on the church?
Robert | 08.07.05 - 4:07 pm | #

Whatever made you think I don’t take responsibility for my actions. It’s not that I couldn’t live up to the LDS Church standards, Robert. It’s that the CHURCH could not live up to mine.

But you go ahead and try to infer I have mental problems and guilt. After all, why ELSE would someone else choose to leave the Church? In the meantime, I have a solution for your SADNESS problem. It’s called Prozac. I won’t tell Tom Cruise if you won’t.

It’s Sunday and things are quiet, and I’m avoiding the revisions from hell, so I decided to go blog-hopping. I ended up at Jeff Lindsay’s Mormanity blog, because it’s usually (unintentionally) entertaining. Today was no exception. When Jeff opines for endless paragraphs about the gloriousness of the Gospel, my eyes usually glaze over, but luckily, he is always throwing in rants against anti- and ex-Mormons, and those liven things up.

Today’s post was no exception. I’m sure Jeff had a purpose when he started this Popsicle post, but it’s Fast Sunday, which means he probably hadn’t eaten, and thus was ready to chew the arm off anything that got close to his mouth, so I guess we can forgive him his food allegory, and the fact he ended up sounding like he had dementia. Lack of food does that to people. Have you had your blood sugar checked, Jeff?

Jeff wrote:

I’ve become rather weary of the steady anti-Mormon whining about how the Church has “lied.” They’ve stated their complaints a thousand times, and continue to repeat such accusations on this blog. We all know the routine: Joseph lied, the temple is a lie, the Book of Mormon is a lie, Gordon B. Hinckley lied, BYU is a lie, and we are all living a lie. I’m sorry some people are so bitter about whatever bad experiences they may have had with the Church or some of its members, or about human failings in the mortals in the Church. However, this blog is not the forum to repeat such accusations.

First of all, why not? Oh yeah, it’s YOUR blog, and you don’t want to hear it, and besides YOUR DAMN HUNGRY. We can talk about it here on MY blog.

Jeff continues:

The harping about how the Church has “lied” to us all reminds me of a phase I went through around age 6. I became convinced that my dear mother was a horrid liar, and began keeping a chart with tick marks for every time she “lied.” My indignation began one summer day when I asked for a popsicle. She said not now, but that I could have one when we got back from shopping later that day. A couple hours later, we returned and ate lunch. It was probably a big lunch - I was a big eater then and was fairly overweight. I then asked for a popsicle and she said no, probably because I had already eaten too much. I cried and protested but she said I would have to wait a while longer. While I can safely report that, over the years, I have eaten dozens of popsicles since returning from the store that summer day, I was nevertheless outraged at my mother’s lie and felt betrayed. While her words “after we get back” were hardly meant as a promise or, shall we say, a “prophecy,” the temporary delay in its fulfillment convinced me that there was a fatal flaw with my mother, though she is truly an honest and highly moral person and has always been a great mother. Over the next week or so I began scrutinizing her every statement, looking for more examples of “lies,” and was up to a count of about 60 when I came to my senses. It’s easy to find “lies” when that’s your goal! “She said we’ll eat in 10 minutes - ah hah, it’s already been 20. Where’s my pencil?”

Jeff, first of all, EAT SOMETHING. I implore you. You feel MUCH better. Now let’s address this cute little story. Are you comparing your mother’s denying you a popsicle to the fact that LDS Inc. claims that they have the ONE AND ONLY TRUTH, nameofjesuschristamen? Your mother saying no you couldn’t have a popsicle doesn’t even come close to being told “THIS IS THE ONLY WAY IT IS.”

Jeff continues:

I’m not quite sure what sparked the change in my deadly attitude - it may have been a Primary lesson on forgiving or honoring your parents. Wait, I think it was something I heard in a lesson about how if we don’t forgive, we have the greater sin, or not judging unrighteously - something like that. And I think she did something especially sweet and loving for me one day that reminded me that this was no villain lurking in my home. The chart came down, the “watching for evil” mentality was dropped, and I soon found that I was not such a victim as I had thought. In fact, looking back over the years, I don’t think she’s ever actually lied to me.

ALREADY YOU’VE FORGOTTEN ABOUT THE DAMN POPSICLE?! She lied. SHE LIED. Oh wait. I think I lost my focus. That’s what happens when you are reading circular logic written by people like Jeff. They muddy up the waters so badly you completely forget where you were swimming and end up heading to the wrong island—in this case, the island of “I-have-a-stick-up-my-ass-named-truth.”

I THINK we were talking about why anti- and ex-Mormons get angry about being lied to. I also THINK Jeff is trying to say they weren’t REALLY lied to, DNA evidence and contradictions aside. It was a misunderstanding. Come on, someone just made a mistake and we should forgive them for giving us LIFELONG MENTAL ISSUES AND YEARS OF REPRESSION AND GUILT because, after all, people are only human. Apparently, as long as they have our best interests at heart, it’s all good.

Jeff said:

Unreasonable expectations, honest misunderstandings, and natural human flaws can, with the right lens, be magnified into massive “lies.”

This ain’t no popsicle for the fat boy, Jeff. Those honest misunderstandings are handed out to LDS faithful as absolute truth out of the mouths of prophets. You don’t get to pick and choose which one of those “misunderstandings” and flaws you get to believe. You are REQUIRED to believe it all. How could you have forgotten that? The Prophet of God is infallible. When the prophet speaks, the thinking is done. Now you are telling us we need to forgive the ones that turn out to be wrong, because the speaker was only human, while expecting us to embrace the ones that haven’t been TOTALLY disproven yet?

I think I need a popsicle. My brain is on fire. Jeff, may I suggest you no longer post on Fast Sundays, at least until you have had something to eat? You are not doing your Church any favors. Possible converts happening upon your blog are going to read it and run like the wind. Especially when they figure out they are expected to sit in Church on the first Sunday of every month, with an empty, growling stomach, and listen to people like YOU drone on and on about the truth, while conveniently dodging the truths that are no longer viable, explaining them away with popsicle stories.

The bottom line here is: EITHER THE WHOLE THING IS TRUE or the WHOLE THING ISN’T TRUE. That’s the way the Church was set up. Why, you yourself, Jeff, said:

‘If Joseph Smith were a fraud and the Book of Mormon a work of his imagination, mingled with scarce facts Joseph was able to put together, time would be his biggest enemy. For, over a period of time, a fraud will be surely revealed as such.’

And that’s just what is happening.

Joseph Fielding Smith, the 10th prophet and president of the Mormon Church stated:

Mormonism, as it is called, must stand or fall on the story of Joseph Smith. He was either a prophet of God, divinely called, properly appointed and commissioned, or he was one of the biggest frauds this world has ever seen. There is no middle ground. If Joseph Smith was a deceiver, who willfully attempted to mislead the people, then he should be exposed; his claims should be refuted, and his doctrines shown to be false, for the doctrines of an imposter cannot be made to harmonize in all particulars with divine truth. If his claims and declarations were built upon fraud and deceit, there would appear many errors and contradictions, which would be easy to detect. The doctrines of false teachers will not stand the test when tried by the accepted standards of measurement, the Scriptures. (Doctrines of Salvation, 1:188)

I’m not going to go into ALL the facts that show Joseph has been proven a fraud, but will state the one that stood out to me more than any other.

There are at least THREE versions of the “First Vision,” two of them vastly different from the one that is told today, and that I was taught as a child. This version was first seen 18 YEARS after it reportedly happened, and ten years after Joseph Smith started his missionary efforts.

Remember, Mormonism must stand or fall on the story of Joseph Smith. And there are at least three versions. Somebody get me a popsicle. And don’t tell me no.

And just so Jeff can’t say I took his post out of context, here is a link to it, so you can read it yourself.

Currently, the most searched for name that brings people to my site is Simon Southerton. He’s followed by Martha Beck. Natalie R. Collins is currently not in the top ten.

Should I start every post with Simon Southerton?

When Simon Southerton announced he had been excommunicated by the LDS Church for adultery (”You wrote a book? DNA Evidence? Oh, no, we have heard NOTHING of that. No, no, it’s because you did the naughty with someone you weren’t sealed to for time and eternity. It was ADULTERY you heathen.”), someone on an ex-Mormon mailing list I belong to said they had heard that a Court of Love, or a Bishop’s Court, was like being gang-raped by Care Bears.

I just can’t say anything else more appropriate.

My friend Anna McGinty sent me some slides of the time Cambre and I spent down in Moab, when I did a signing at the Back of Beyond Bookstore. You remember Moab. The place in Utah that is only about 26 percent Mormon, which means not very many people want to stone me? (Don’t ask me for exact figures, please. You KNOW how I feel about math.)

Moab is the home of Arches National Park, a spectacularly beautiful place, and somewhere in Utah you absolutely WOULD want to visit.

For example, consider this:

And this:

And there is no place quite like Sanddune Arch for tumbling, as Cambre demonstrates here:

Sometimes, despite all the hate mail I get, there are advantages to being in this business. Spending time with Cambre in Moab was one of those times. Thanks to Anna for taking pictures that brought it all back.