[ExI] Do you have a secret family pass phrase?

[efc at disroot.org]

On Mon, 20 Jan 2025, Kelly Anderson via extropy-chat wrote:

> As a former missionary, I can tell you that you do have a point here.
> Although there were a few agnostics in my mission who were there just
> because of social pressure. It almost worked on me, I lasted until I
> was 45 as an active Mormon. Eventually, life just hit me over the head
> with a 4x4 and I figured things out.
>
> But... on my mission, converts were definitely what we were going for.
> I myself converted around 72 people. I am not especially proud of

I enjoy talking to the very polite, business suit clad guys when I 
meet them. Sadly, after we get into to deep philosophical waters, they 
lose interest and move on. ;) I often wonder if I managed to sow some 
seeds of doubt in them during our conversations. =)

> that, and I'm sure there aren't 10% of them that are still active. But
> I am not ashamed of it either, because I was just as much a victim of
> the brainwashing as they were. Not believing in free will now gives me
> a pretty solid "out" for what I did. And, I actually feel good about
> the one Jehovah's Witness that I converted. Mormonism is definitely
> better than that craziness. Kids who die from not being given the
> choice to have blood transfusions because of their parents are
> considered martyrs. That's really messed up. Baptism for the dead
> doesn't hurt anyone, by comparison.
>
> -Kelly
>
> On Sun, Dec 29, 2024 at 10:21 AM Darin Sunley via extropy-chat
> <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>>
>> The LDS missionary program is only secondarily about recruiting new members from the general population. Really, the people running the program don't care if the nice young people in the shirts and ties and nametags ever convince anyone of anything.
>>
>> The program is designed from the ground up to cement the lifelong emotional loyalty of the missionaries themselves, who are barely trained children spending two years living away from home in a commune under a complete media blackout.
>>
>> The carrot is that, after they finish their stint as a missionary (which they themselves paid tens of thousands of dollars for the privilege), they are on a track that, if they pursue it, can take them into senior leadership positions within the church..
>>
>> They are barely equipped to even present the elevator pitch for their own theology, much less grapple critically with anyone else's, because That Is Not The Point.
>>
>> On Sun, Dec 29, 2024 at 10:11 AM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>>>
>>> On 27/12/2024 14:45, efc at disroot.org wrote:
>>> > The mormons often seem more afraid of me, than I of them, when we
>>> > start to discuss philosophy and they soon tire of the conversation. ��
>>>
>>> I've had a similar experience with Jehovah's Witnesses. It's odd that
>>> the god squad seem most reluctant to talk to people who seem to actually
>>> know something about religion! It's like mathematicians being leery of
>>> anyone who shows any knowledge of maths.
>>>
>>> This may be my cynicism showing, but I suspect that it's because they
>>> are more interested in compliance with their particular viewpoint than
>>> understanding. If you want to understand things, you're obviously not
>>> good convert material!
>>>
>>> I think it was Luther who said that reason is the enemy of faith. Seems
>>> he was right.
>>>
>>> --
>>> Ben
>>>
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>>
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