Mormonism rears its ugly head at the most unexpected times

[lizziec]

I know this isn't really, or shouldn't really be, the first concern of anyone hearing about the huge earthquake in Chile but this just struck me and I wanted to ramble briefly on LJ about it. It truly doesn't mean I'm being callous about the victims or anything.

Hi, I'm Lizzie and I'm an ex-mormon. I've been out for around 7 years. There are still some things I do, or largely don't do, like not really drinking alcohol at all, ever, and not drinking tea and coffee, that flag me as culturally mormon (I never got into the habit of drinking them after I left), but more and more I find that I just don't think about Mormons or Mormonism much any more. Which is actually quite nice.

When I woke up this morning and heard about the 8.8 magnitude earthquake in Chile my thoughts went to just one thing, which really irritated me as soon as I realised what had happened in my brain. The first thing I thought, coming so soon after the Haiti earthquake was "It's the latter-days" (According to LDS Church teachings...It is...believed that there will be increasingly severe wars, earthquakes, hurricanes, and other man-made and natural disasters prior to the Second Coming.)

When I was growing up the fact that I was part of a priviledged generation who would be around for the Latter Days and Second Coming was constantly brought up in Primary and Young Women and Sunday School. In it, the thought both scared and inspired me. Out of it, I would imagine they've been saying this stuff to every up-and-coming generation since the formation of the church.

As time has gone on since I left, these irrational moments, where my brain falls back in the first instance to Mormon teachings happen less and less, but I'm finding they irritate me more when they do happen, like this morning.

Seriously brain, WTF?

(Cross posted to exmormon)

Comments

[alisondh.livejournal.com]

Without boring you with my life history, things you were taught from an early age do have a way of staying with you, even when they're part of something you've broken with. One of the things I hate about all forms of organised religion is the way that things are dinned into children who are far too young to be able to make their own minds up about things or to understand that there are different ways of looking at things, but that's the way most religions work. Thoughts like that are bound to pop into your head from time to time - hope they don't upset or annoy you too much, and that you can try not to think about them too much if they do.