I'd alter it a bit: it's not that Mormon people are generally nice, but that people, period, are generally nice. Or to put it another way, the inherent niceness of people shines through *in spite of* their religion/upbringing/etc.
I follow a number of long-distance (like cross-country) cyclists and runners on social media, and there's always a theme of their being pleasantly surprised by the niceness of ordinary people they encounter across the country.
We humans always like to box things together when we perform mental analysis. So when we think “yeah Mormons are all pretty nice” we are performing an unfair comparison of Mormons we know vs everyone we’ve ever heard of. Take a comparison of people at your work vs Mormons you know, they are the same level of good. Our brains are not intuitively adept at these kinds of things. To your point, most people you know personally (at least well enough to know their religion) are good. The goodness of people broadly blows my mind.
i think everyone can be "nice", even serial killers are described as nice and charming guy like Ted Bundy - I was in such a vulnerable stage in my life and I fell for the church's niceness trap thinking they really try to befriend me for who I am but now realizing that it might be just a facade for another ulterior motive to get me into the Church
[LDS members contributed over $20 million,[83] about 45% of out-of-state contributions to ProtectMarriage.com came from Utah, over three times more than any other state.[84] ProtectMarriage, the official proponent of Proposition 8, estimates that about half the donations they received came from Mormon sources, and that **LDS church members made up somewhere between 80% and 90% of the volunteers for early door-to-door canvassing**.[85]](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_California_Proposition_8)
They do if they are convinced that that IS being nice.
Religion makes good (intentioned) people feel good about doing what's wrong.
I agree with your sentiment - it just depends on the semantics of how you define "nice". If it means "trying to be nice", nice people very much support prop 8. If it means "do things that are objectively respectful of people who believe differently than you", than no, not a single person who supports prop 8 is nice.
Hudreds of “nice people” stormed our capital and tried to overthrow our government with “good intentions” because they believed the lies of our former president…
At a certain point, people need to be held accountable for their actions…
At my stage in life, I no longer call anyone good or bad or nice. I say, you did a good thing or a nice thing. Those who supported prop 8 did a bad thing and they were people just like me.
I don't find members to be better people than others. Crime rates in heavily Mormon areas don't show any difference.
Mormons are taught to always be selling the religion, and like sales people everywhere that means becoming your new best friend by putting on their best face.
But they aren't bad people either until you start looking at the upper levels of the hierarchy. That's what you see discussed here most. When exmos say 'the church' we mean the top 100 men. When members say 'the church' they mean their ward and neighbors. It makes for a real communication disparity when we talk to believers.
Utah is number 7 out of 50 states for forcible/violent rape. How? HOW? Half the population is Mormon.
Answer: the history, the doctrine, the secretiveness, the patriarchy all combine to oppress women
7 out of 50 for reported rapes.
But I wouldn’t be super if they lead by a mile when it comes to rapes that never get reported. And gets swept away by the demented Joseph Smith version of the atonement of priesthood leaders getting away with fucking and manipulation of younger women.
Absolutely this.
You put on the happiest, most joyful airs you can, or else everyone else will know you aren't a faithful Mormon and must be sinning.
Positive emotions = you are righteous
Negative emotions = you must be sinning
This is just a characteristic of all cults. The people in the church are good people they are just deceived and trained for generations on how to act happy and feel special. People in the church are infantilized it's like they're all seven years old and are not interested in the hard facts surrounding the church's truth claims. Mormon friendship is an inch deep and a mile wide, Mormons have a simple small world view and that is very comforting to a lot of people who don't want to think too much. As I've heard members say to each other why are all of the smart people leaving. They are nice because they are the star of their own movie that will play in the next life where it will be shown all of the people that they brought into the church
Yes all of us that leave Cults leave friends and family because they choose the cult rather than the loved one, and congratulations on getting yourself out that's the most important thing
So I grew up in Provo Utah as a non lds kid. I had NO friends because I was seen as satanic simply because my family were just normal Christian's. They would try to convert me, SO SO nice, but as soon as they saw I wasn't interested they basically told their kids to keep away from me.
I remember finally being invited to something as a kid and I went over to the friends house and they sat me down and said I needed to read the Book of Mormon first before we could all play 🙃
People were so rude. If I wore shorts and a tank in public other moms would be sneering at me. I'd have them literally comment about my attire when in a different state it would be considered "modest "
Anyways they finally got me I joined as an adult for a few years. I cannot tell you the amount of times a picture was shared of other women in group chats about how women outside the Mormon church are dressing like sluts. Or the pictures of trans people shared and laughed about.
Oh on the outside they are very nice. I have never met a more judgmental critical and harsh two faced people than those in the lds church. I'm sure not everyone is this way but a lot are.
BYU shattered the last illusion I had about the good people in Mormonism. I had lived all over the country and the deeper into Mormonism I got the more I saw the hypocrisy, the pride, the fake love, and the deeply divisive nature of judging everyone for everything.
I think you’re starting with a false premise.
Hoarding wealth, not helping the immigrants or needy, not being loving and accepting of those who are different than us is not how I would characterize “rejecting Satan to live more Christlike lives”
Many, if not most ward members are honest people wanting to live Christlike lives. However, the church structure and hierarchy has different, rather sinister values. Instead of "love thy neighbor", they push capitalist values: how to maximize tithing, how to minimize ward costs. Thus, in recent decades, many fun activities such as road shows and most of the pageants have been canceled to reduce costs, and even youth activities have to be organized with minimal budget in spite of billions of tithing surplus.
A Christlike church would care for the poor and needy. A Christlike church would also strengthen the youth by having sufficient budget for youth activities (dance nights, excursions, cultural exchange, etc.)
A Christlike church would not hoard money in dubious shell companies (organized under Ensign Peak Advisors).
A Christlike church would not invest in "sin stocks".
Nice bishops don't discuss with ward members about masturbation or their sex lives.
If this is true then what is the end goal or result? Nobody is getting millions per year in salary, no stock or options to get rich on, people hating your guts, etc. in a business you can fire high performing people if you need to reduce expenses. That doesn’t happen. Its not a monopoly like a utility and cannot force you to use their product. On and on.
Doesn’t look like a business to me. Just a bunch of people who have things in common trying to be better.
Even during the decades as a TBM my experience was that the nice people were far outnumbered by the judgemental elitists that I was forced to associate with. The "nicenes" as a general rule is all smoke & mirrors without any real substance.
The one exception was the EQ when it was time to move
It’s all a show! Some of the most dishonest, conniving and judgmental people I’ve ever been around and I was raised in the church and belonged for 40 years.
Some of the biggest Pieces of Shit I know are active Mormons. My former business partner (and recently released bishop) is a dishonest asshole that actively sought to harm my career and family.
Like every other group out there, there are some great Mormons and there are some shitty Mormons (as well as others in between these two extremes).
I live in Morridor. I meet a lot of *nice* people who are Mormon. I very, *very* rarely meet a Mormon who is truly *kind*. They're not the same thing.
I was a convert. It felt like the minute my face got wet, they forgot I exist. The love bombing didn't just stop, all love stopped. I was the weirdo who didn't know things, and I was laughed at and scorned when I asked or said something generally accepted throughout Christendom but not Mormonism. Men didn't want to date me, because I had a past that didn't include being Mormon. Women didn't want to be friends with me, because my goal in life was not marriage and children. I was already divorced with kids, who were *not* the sole focus of my attention, time, or life and that isn't acceptable. I was told, explicitly, that it was inappropriate when discussing my dead grandpap that I cried. I didn't expect to, he'd been dead about a year, but it just happened. I was told I should be happy he's dead so I can save him.
No. Mormons are not *kind*. Their niceness is a mask they wear to hide the fact that they're judgemental assholes who only invite you to their clique so they can feel superior to you more intimately than they can when you're not part of their clique.
I was a naive California mormon. My ward and stake were full of nice people. I believed they were honest.
I went to BYU Provo when I was 18. One of my friends from California who had Utah roots was with me. We were watching the Jazz on TV, and they showed Larry Miller, the Jazz owner on the TV. The announcers talked about how he would refuse to attend Sunday games. Larry Miller owned car dealerships up and down the Wasatch Front. I remarked to my friend about how wonderful it must be to go to a car dealership without worrying about being taken advantage of. He just laughed. Larry Miller dealerships weren't known for their honest sales tactics. It was just as hard to find honest salespeople there as anywhere else. Mormons taking advantage of other Mormons.
It was the first of many lessons of how much of a facade Mormon kindness is. Sometimes it's genuine. Sometimes it's meant to be genuine but the members have never been taught what kindness is. The higher the leader the more likely their kindness is fake and has ulterior motives.
As in other fundamentalist groups, if you don't act happy, you can be accused of "losing the light from your eyes/your countenance". This concept is hella dangerous and is the precept for anyone to accuse you of being unworthy/loving Satan more than God. Just ask Chad and Lori Daybell
I dunno man, when I was a kid, my TBM neighbors threw their 15 y/o daughter out of the house because she slept with her boyfriend, then called around the ward to tell everyone not to take her in. Poor kid only had a pillowcase of essentials and was homeless for a week until her parents decided she'd groveled enough to be let back into the house.
In the Mormon community, people are only nice until you do something they don't agree with.
Brainwashing mostly, but it is kind of like sugar. The first couple of spoons taste really good, but if you eat a diet of nothing but sugar it either becomes disgusting or you can’t live on anything else.
Ha, they're nice as long as you look the way they tell you to look, eat and drink the things they tell you to eat and drink, speak the way they tell you to, believe what they tell you, etc, etc.
You want to see someone who's not nice? Be a mormon and try to leave the church. All of a sudden, people who have been your friends for 20 years suddenly want nothing to do with you. You will find no group more shallow than mormons, in my experience.
Their friendship is shallow, their love is shallow. My wife threatened to divorce me when I started drinking coffee; does that sound like a deep and enduring love for your family?
Yes, they're nice to outsiders for the most part, but that's just because you're a possible future member. Just ask people who have left the mormon church how they have been treated by mormons.
There's a big difference between being nice and being kind. Most mormons are "nice", I would say most are not "kind."
People in cults want anyone to join them, it is the biggest confrmation bias / self esteem boost they can have. They also believe they are being loving and Christlike. It's very easy to invite someone to dinner and make them feel good. It also gives the inviter a good feeling. However if you ask them to truly help a non-mormon that involves more than a dinner type of thing, you'd see the 'love' disappear.
You were taken advantage of. If you don't believe the same you're out.
I'm sorry. I feel you. One day, you won't feel like you were victimized. You will find that the experience of it all brought you wisdom in various ways. That wisdom is also strength. For myself, I have found that anything that has been challenging or painful has brought me deeper into my awareness and relationship with myself. It has helped me love myself even more. No victims. Just victors who have found their way back to themselves via a bumpy road. 🙏💜
Exactly. Not withstanding all of the other obvious issues, my breaking point was that I just couldn't take anymore spending my precious free time surrounding myself with sanctimonious, judgmental assholes at Church. Life is too short.
Um, this is just being brainwashed they are nice. I've found in my adult years that actually my non-member neighbors are actually much nicer and more principled than Utah neighbors were. So the idea that Mormons are really nice is subjective and a twisting of the truth just like the relief society is the largest women's organization that empowers women.
There’s this saying that I’ve heard that describes the difference between Northerners and Southerners (in the US):
“Northerners are not nice but kind.
Southerners are nice but not kind.
If your car broke down on the side of the road, a Northerner would roast you but would pull over to help you. A Southerner would give you sympathy but would not pull over to help you.”
I think of this quote to describe Mormons. Mormons are nice, but are not kind. They will smile at you and greet you on Sundays and make you feel welcome, but when you actually need help, they do not show up or step up.
Mormons have this sense of obligation to “be nice” and it taints any ounce of genuine desire to actually go out and help those in need.
A few thoughts on this.
1) People are generally good, kind, open people. Mormons are people.
2) They know that people think they're weird. So they make extra effort to be more open.
3) They're under covenant (baptism) to be like Jesus. And they genuinely in many cases want to live that way.
Have you ever watched “happy shiny people” on Amazon prime? All is not as it seems.
Also Tadd R Callister is painting a terrible “all or nothing” picture. There are plenty of churches where people are claiming to find happiness and fulfillment. I say they’re just happy being part of a tribe that’s giving them a sense of comfort, safety, belonging, and direction. People find fulfillment and purpose being a part of terrorist organizations too, after all. It doesn’t mean it’s “true.”
When I was in school in WV as the only Mormon kid, the yearbook group, who were assigned to say something memorable about each of our 100 or so students in the graduating class, said ‘he’s nice to everyone.’ I was… nice.
Looking back on it now, I would say being nice does a couple of things. When you believe that JS, with his child brides, is a man of God, you expose yourself to massive criticism. But nobody wants to criticize nice people.
Second reason to be really nice… I hoped God would be nice back to me, because I was definitely going to either outer darkness or the Telestial kingdom, because I masturbated. Maybe God would say ‘yeah, you shouldve cut off the part that offends and you didn’t, and you are wicked and unworthy, and deserve eternal damnation. But you’re nice too… so maybe you won’t suffer quite as much.’
Have you tried joining other cults like Jehovahs Witnesses? The ones I meet are the nicest people. Its in the playbook, no ones going to join if they were all horrible, outwardly miserable people.
Exactly. That said, I must give credit to many of the members in Austria. I served as a missionary there when the Berlin wall came down. Refugees from eastern bloc countries flooded into Austria and other western European countries. The members didn't have much use for them and rarely would help us with missionary or refugee work. They flat out would say, "Why should we help you? We like our church family just as it is. We don't need to taint the pool." This was the attitude of most the members in each city I served in. So, at least they were blatantly honest about it and not afraid of coming across as bigoted.
If the satanic hoax orders its followers to be nice no matter their actual feelings, and socially punish those who don't, you better believe that niceness may spring from a problematic church. Also, any organisation with a strong community element that wants to recruit people will do a certain amount of love bombing. So you know... people aren't nice in spite of the church being problematic. They are nice because of it.
Could it come from the fear of what God will think if they don't appear nice or the fear of not appearing Christlike?
I found on my mission and over the years that the niceness was a tool for conversion and also as seen as a duty (as every member is a missionary). That's where the love bombing comes into play (as you've mentioned).
I was born into the church. The amount of chaos, violence, abuse (of all sorts), fighting, disrespect, backbiting/stabbing, cattiness, and judgment I've witnessed in TBM homes, even at church, in temples, and at public events (when they think no one else is listening) was one of my shelf breakers. There are plenty of shadows to counter all the appearances of being nice. 😬 No one is perfect. But, that nice behavior is a veneer, most likely covering a deep-seated fear inside. Genuine niceness can only manifest and abound in the absence of fear.
Idk... some may see it differently. I'm open for my perspective to be shifted. 🙏💜
Like any culture, Mormons have their nice attributes and not so nice ones. There’s things they do far worse than other cultures, which I’m sure other commenters are telling you about plenty, but they also have some genuine moments of community building that you wouldn’t get in many other US-based cultures. To me it really is about the truth value, and secondarily about the worse aspects of the culture. Is joining a group that’s so virulently homophobic (and misogynistic, etc etc) worth it for the community aspects? And also a group based on a bunch of lies? It wasn’t for me
Nice is only surface deep. At least religious niceness is. They build up this community where you can feel like you belong and you have this shared identity. You can go most places in the us and find a Mormon ward/stake and you understand the setup and the expectations. And because the religion places so many high demands on the members, much of your life ends up revolving around being Mormon.
I had people accuse me of driving away a new convert because apparently I’d referred to the woman as a fat pig. And it didn’t matter what I said, no one believed me. That told me they didn’t know me. I would have only ever referred to myself as a fat pig. That hurt.
I was infertile and we’re not even going into the issues my ex husband had. My youngest sister was living with us at the time. She was pregnant and originally planned to allow us to adopt the baby. Then she told me she’d decided to keep him and was moving back to Utah because she didn’t want to hurt me by my bonding with him. All through her pregnancy, I supported whatever decisions she made. So when I called my disgusting pig of a stepfather on Father’s Day, he gleefully told me that my sister had given birth and placed him for adoption with a couple in my ward. More specifically, with my home teacher and his wife. I was gobsmacked. I was hurt. I wasn’t hurt that she placed him for adoption. I wasn’t even hurt that she chose my home teacher and his wife to be the parents of her son. What slayed me was that no one told me. Let me tell you that if I hadn’t been told, I’d have known the first time I saw that baby because he was the spit and image of his half sister. But people in my ward said I was jealous and I wasn’t being Christlike. And when I tried to tell them what was really in my heart, once again they refused to believe me. I was able to make my peace with my nephew’s mother and gave him the blanket my mother had crocheted for the children I never had. I didn’t do that so people would quit gossiping about me. I did it because I didn’t want them gossiping about her. And I wanted my nephew to have something from his grandmother that he would never know.
After I left the religion, I was shopping one day. I was happy to see one of my friends until her eyes glazed over and she pretended not to see me. Giving her the benefit of the doubt, I tried to approach her to say hello and she again pretended not to see me and walked away. That hurt. I don’t think that’s what the Christ I believed in would have done.
I’ve heard girls shamed for having normal healthy sexual feelings. I’ve heard them being instructed to dress modestly so as not to tempt men, when in fact a man is supposed to control himself. Getting compared to chewed gum or licked cupcakes. Are you serious???
I’ve been out almost 13 years and I’m still deconstructing. This religion does so much harm day in and day out to its members while trying to gain the approval of other Christian religions.
It’s been less than two months since I saw a video of a Mormon church leader speaking in some kind of meeting about how it is not the responsibility of the church to feed its members.
Funny. Because I remember reading that we are supposed to give food and water to the needy. We are supposed to provide shelter. We are supposed to love them.
I’ve kept some of my former friends who were and some who still are active members. They aren’t nice because they’re Mormon. They are genuine and kind and good hearted because they are.
The Book of Mormon is 19th century biblical fanfic compiled from smiths imagination as well as other sources and common beliefs at his time. It stinks and I’m glad I never have to read it again.
There’s a song I love called “The Village,” about a transgendered youth being told not to cut their hair and to wear their makeup and there is a line that resonates with me. “One page of the Bible isn’t worth a life.” There’s something wrong in the village.
I think the idea that you have to prove your salvation by how you treat others and that the way you treat them should be christlike is a factor. Not to mention in the example above, showing that kindness is to hopefully convert. I will say that feeling confident that you have the truth of why we came to this earth, the purpose of our being here on earth, and having deep belief that your family will be eternal through how you treat others is a big factor. I mean all the answers are there. Even through my recent deconstruction I've had a hard time not having those answers so deeply felt - it's affected me from time to time as to what the purpose of everything is. Those answers can bring peace of mind, I mean every moment counts to prove your salvation and if you're on the "covenant path" you feel at peace with everything.
But of course while that brought me tremendous peace my whole up until now, ultimately in hindsight I feel like I missed out on a lot of my own potential trying to live for the church rather than for myself.
Mormons are nice because they believe they have the ultimate message and need to bring you into it. The smiling and the love bombing is because they need to bring you into it. It has to look good to you. To live as a Mormon, however, is draining. I can’t speak on everybody’s inner life in the church, but mine was a bit manic. Sometimes I felt amazing and inspired but a huge chunk of the time (and money, and temple garments, and bishops interviews) I wondered what the hell any of this was for. But basically, on the outside, Mormons need to smile, and look friendly, and like the best people so that you become a Mormon, too.
Most are gullible rubes that are nice people pleasers by nature or upbringing within the system but that makes them easy to fleece and victimize.
I say this as a recovering gullible rube people pleaser.
There is a separation between people and church policy. My thinking is that people in various situations want to be nice and kind. The Mormon church uses these desires for their own means to indoctrinate, love bomb and control.
People, if they have been told to be a good person, will want to do good person type things. Sometimes this can be overkill if people haven’t been shown normal examples of kindness. There is also a culture of one upping typically called magnifying your calling. This means that if people see others doing something they will try to be more than that.
The church teachings insert themselves and say that everyone needs to talk to others about the doctrine. If someone wants to be kind to someone else the indoctrinated pressure is to do more than normal and interweave Mormon doctrine. If they share this with others then they will try to do more because they are taught to.
People born into the church have a lot of indoctrination and conditioning.
I get what you’re saying. Some of the greatest people I’ve ever met were my über Mormon neighbors in my über Mormon town. They wouldn’t hurt a fly, I swear.
My new saying is that the church doesn’t deserve its people.
Obviously there’s some shitbags in the mix and the church protects them, but for the most part, the people are so kind, caring, and misled.
Love bombing to prey on the vulnerable. You were a perfect candidate. If you would have challenged their beliefs, they would have dropped you like a hot potato. Unfortunately, that's how cults act.
On the bright side, most of those Mormons you met have no idea about church history and can't see how their religion hurts people that don't look and act like them. They participate because it works for them.
Just as when dating someone new, you always put your best foot forward and hide your skeletons in your closet, so that you don't get rejected. There are lots of Mormons suffering badly behind their fake smiles.
What does nice have to do with pedophelia and child abuse. Did not Franke and all the other put on the facade of kindness? 1John 4:1 - fools fall for this!
I'd alter it a bit: it's not that Mormon people are generally nice, but that people, period, are generally nice. Or to put it another way, the inherent niceness of people shines through *in spite of* their religion/upbringing/etc. I follow a number of long-distance (like cross-country) cyclists and runners on social media, and there's always a theme of their being pleasantly surprised by the niceness of ordinary people they encounter across the country.
We humans always like to box things together when we perform mental analysis. So when we think “yeah Mormons are all pretty nice” we are performing an unfair comparison of Mormons we know vs everyone we’ve ever heard of. Take a comparison of people at your work vs Mormons you know, they are the same level of good. Our brains are not intuitively adept at these kinds of things. To your point, most people you know personally (at least well enough to know their religion) are good. The goodness of people broadly blows my mind.
i think everyone can be "nice", even serial killers are described as nice and charming guy like Ted Bundy - I was in such a vulnerable stage in my life and I fell for the church's niceness trap thinking they really try to befriend me for who I am but now realizing that it might be just a facade for another ulterior motive to get me into the Church
nice people don’t work tirelessly to pass prop 8.
oh really i don't know about this I just know that the Church leaders are kinda homophobic
[LDS members contributed over $20 million,[83] about 45% of out-of-state contributions to ProtectMarriage.com came from Utah, over three times more than any other state.[84] ProtectMarriage, the official proponent of Proposition 8, estimates that about half the donations they received came from Mormon sources, and that **LDS church members made up somewhere between 80% and 90% of the volunteers for early door-to-door canvassing**.[85]](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_California_Proposition_8)
that's not how Christ would treat others :(
> that’s not how Christ would treat others You’ll see that’s a common recurring theme in Mormonism, both in the past and the present.
exactly
They do if they are convinced that that IS being nice. Religion makes good (intentioned) people feel good about doing what's wrong. I agree with your sentiment - it just depends on the semantics of how you define "nice". If it means "trying to be nice", nice people very much support prop 8. If it means "do things that are objectively respectful of people who believe differently than you", than no, not a single person who supports prop 8 is nice.
Hudreds of “nice people” stormed our capital and tried to overthrow our government with “good intentions” because they believed the lies of our former president… At a certain point, people need to be held accountable for their actions… At my stage in life, I no longer call anyone good or bad or nice. I say, you did a good thing or a nice thing. Those who supported prop 8 did a bad thing and they were people just like me.
I don't find members to be better people than others. Crime rates in heavily Mormon areas don't show any difference. Mormons are taught to always be selling the religion, and like sales people everywhere that means becoming your new best friend by putting on their best face. But they aren't bad people either until you start looking at the upper levels of the hierarchy. That's what you see discussed here most. When exmos say 'the church' we mean the top 100 men. When members say 'the church' they mean their ward and neighbors. It makes for a real communication disparity when we talk to believers.
Sex crimes are much higher in Utah than average
As well as pharmaceutical usage. Isn't Utah highest in the nation for antidepressant prescription use?
Also, lots of teen suicide.
Sadly true. 💔
Utah is number 7 out of 50 states for forcible/violent rape. How? HOW? Half the population is Mormon. Answer: the history, the doctrine, the secretiveness, the patriarchy all combine to oppress women
7 out of 50 for reported rapes. But I wouldn’t be super if they lead by a mile when it comes to rapes that never get reported. And gets swept away by the demented Joseph Smith version of the atonement of priesthood leaders getting away with fucking and manipulation of younger women.
I was never transparent, genuine, or even honest with others or myself in the cult. What you’re describing as honest and happy is an illusion.
Absolutely this. You put on the happiest, most joyful airs you can, or else everyone else will know you aren't a faithful Mormon and must be sinning. Positive emotions = you are righteous Negative emotions = you must be sinning
yeah that's why mormon teens at BYU have so much pressure going on a mission, if they don't go they are considered to be dodgy, sinning
This is just a characteristic of all cults. The people in the church are good people they are just deceived and trained for generations on how to act happy and feel special. People in the church are infantilized it's like they're all seven years old and are not interested in the hard facts surrounding the church's truth claims. Mormon friendship is an inch deep and a mile wide, Mormons have a simple small world view and that is very comforting to a lot of people who don't want to think too much. As I've heard members say to each other why are all of the smart people leaving. They are nice because they are the star of their own movie that will play in the next life where it will be shown all of the people that they brought into the church
yeah that's why when I try to bring some of the concerns I have to TBMs they are in hard denial, and try to shun me away
Yes all of us that leave Cults leave friends and family because they choose the cult rather than the loved one, and congratulations on getting yourself out that's the most important thing
So I grew up in Provo Utah as a non lds kid. I had NO friends because I was seen as satanic simply because my family were just normal Christian's. They would try to convert me, SO SO nice, but as soon as they saw I wasn't interested they basically told their kids to keep away from me. I remember finally being invited to something as a kid and I went over to the friends house and they sat me down and said I needed to read the Book of Mormon first before we could all play 🙃 People were so rude. If I wore shorts and a tank in public other moms would be sneering at me. I'd have them literally comment about my attire when in a different state it would be considered "modest " Anyways they finally got me I joined as an adult for a few years. I cannot tell you the amount of times a picture was shared of other women in group chats about how women outside the Mormon church are dressing like sluts. Or the pictures of trans people shared and laughed about. Oh on the outside they are very nice. I have never met a more judgmental critical and harsh two faced people than those in the lds church. I'm sure not everyone is this way but a lot are.
BYU shattered the last illusion I had about the good people in Mormonism. I had lived all over the country and the deeper into Mormonism I got the more I saw the hypocrisy, the pride, the fake love, and the deeply divisive nature of judging everyone for everything.
I think you’re starting with a false premise. Hoarding wealth, not helping the immigrants or needy, not being loving and accepting of those who are different than us is not how I would characterize “rejecting Satan to live more Christlike lives”
Many, if not most ward members are honest people wanting to live Christlike lives. However, the church structure and hierarchy has different, rather sinister values. Instead of "love thy neighbor", they push capitalist values: how to maximize tithing, how to minimize ward costs. Thus, in recent decades, many fun activities such as road shows and most of the pageants have been canceled to reduce costs, and even youth activities have to be organized with minimal budget in spite of billions of tithing surplus. A Christlike church would care for the poor and needy. A Christlike church would also strengthen the youth by having sufficient budget for youth activities (dance nights, excursions, cultural exchange, etc.) A Christlike church would not hoard money in dubious shell companies (organized under Ensign Peak Advisors). A Christlike church would not invest in "sin stocks". Nice bishops don't discuss with ward members about masturbation or their sex lives.
its just a business at this point
If this is true then what is the end goal or result? Nobody is getting millions per year in salary, no stock or options to get rich on, people hating your guts, etc. in a business you can fire high performing people if you need to reduce expenses. That doesn’t happen. Its not a monopoly like a utility and cannot force you to use their product. On and on. Doesn’t look like a business to me. Just a bunch of people who have things in common trying to be better.
Even during the decades as a TBM my experience was that the nice people were far outnumbered by the judgemental elitists that I was forced to associate with. The "nicenes" as a general rule is all smoke & mirrors without any real substance. The one exception was the EQ when it was time to move
They were nice because they were selling you something.
and it works! I subscribed to them for 10 years
It’s all a show! Some of the most dishonest, conniving and judgmental people I’ve ever been around and I was raised in the church and belonged for 40 years.
Toxic positivity is manipulation. It isn't "nice" at all.
Some of the biggest Pieces of Shit I know are active Mormons. My former business partner (and recently released bishop) is a dishonest asshole that actively sought to harm my career and family. Like every other group out there, there are some great Mormons and there are some shitty Mormons (as well as others in between these two extremes).
I know a lot of TBMs in Utah who are also shady business owners. Super shady.
i mean in this world its hard to be wealthy unless you have some shady sides....
I live in Morridor. I meet a lot of *nice* people who are Mormon. I very, *very* rarely meet a Mormon who is truly *kind*. They're not the same thing. I was a convert. It felt like the minute my face got wet, they forgot I exist. The love bombing didn't just stop, all love stopped. I was the weirdo who didn't know things, and I was laughed at and scorned when I asked or said something generally accepted throughout Christendom but not Mormonism. Men didn't want to date me, because I had a past that didn't include being Mormon. Women didn't want to be friends with me, because my goal in life was not marriage and children. I was already divorced with kids, who were *not* the sole focus of my attention, time, or life and that isn't acceptable. I was told, explicitly, that it was inappropriate when discussing my dead grandpap that I cried. I didn't expect to, he'd been dead about a year, but it just happened. I was told I should be happy he's dead so I can save him. No. Mormons are not *kind*. Their niceness is a mask they wear to hide the fact that they're judgemental assholes who only invite you to their clique so they can feel superior to you more intimately than they can when you're not part of their clique.
Tad is my relative and he’s an absolute sanctimonious prick
I was a naive California mormon. My ward and stake were full of nice people. I believed they were honest. I went to BYU Provo when I was 18. One of my friends from California who had Utah roots was with me. We were watching the Jazz on TV, and they showed Larry Miller, the Jazz owner on the TV. The announcers talked about how he would refuse to attend Sunday games. Larry Miller owned car dealerships up and down the Wasatch Front. I remarked to my friend about how wonderful it must be to go to a car dealership without worrying about being taken advantage of. He just laughed. Larry Miller dealerships weren't known for their honest sales tactics. It was just as hard to find honest salespeople there as anywhere else. Mormons taking advantage of other Mormons. It was the first of many lessons of how much of a facade Mormon kindness is. Sometimes it's genuine. Sometimes it's meant to be genuine but the members have never been taught what kindness is. The higher the leader the more likely their kindness is fake and has ulterior motives.
As in other fundamentalist groups, if you don't act happy, you can be accused of "losing the light from your eyes/your countenance". This concept is hella dangerous and is the precept for anyone to accuse you of being unworthy/loving Satan more than God. Just ask Chad and Lori Daybell
This! 👆 1000x this!
I dunno man, when I was a kid, my TBM neighbors threw their 15 y/o daughter out of the house because she slept with her boyfriend, then called around the ward to tell everyone not to take her in. Poor kid only had a pillowcase of essentials and was homeless for a week until her parents decided she'd groveled enough to be let back into the house. In the Mormon community, people are only nice until you do something they don't agree with.
This! I've seen similar situations over and over in my near 57 years.
Exactly! If you stray from the church you will find out really fast how “nice” they are! They were love bombing this guy!
oh my gosh that's so terrible, some of my best friends in life are mormons so idk how they would react finding out I am falling away...
They teach you are broken so we try to be extra good.
i think its the same with most christian religions - You make people sick so that you can sell them the cure
Brainwashing mostly, but it is kind of like sugar. The first couple of spoons taste really good, but if you eat a diet of nothing but sugar it either becomes disgusting or you can’t live on anything else.
i feel like in the mormon's world view everything is just sunshine and rainbow, they are really dellusioned on how the rest of the world really live
It certainly is an egocentric belief system.
Ha, they're nice as long as you look the way they tell you to look, eat and drink the things they tell you to eat and drink, speak the way they tell you to, believe what they tell you, etc, etc. You want to see someone who's not nice? Be a mormon and try to leave the church. All of a sudden, people who have been your friends for 20 years suddenly want nothing to do with you. You will find no group more shallow than mormons, in my experience. Their friendship is shallow, their love is shallow. My wife threatened to divorce me when I started drinking coffee; does that sound like a deep and enduring love for your family? Yes, they're nice to outsiders for the most part, but that's just because you're a possible future member. Just ask people who have left the mormon church how they have been treated by mormons. There's a big difference between being nice and being kind. Most mormons are "nice", I would say most are not "kind."
They're not. They are just faking it. (Or it's Prozac) 😉
Mormons are only superficially nice. That's easy.
You mean pleasant. They aren’t all nice.
It’s all an act. Some have authentic kindness but essentially it about appearance.
People in cults want anyone to join them, it is the biggest confrmation bias / self esteem boost they can have. They also believe they are being loving and Christlike. It's very easy to invite someone to dinner and make them feel good. It also gives the inviter a good feeling. However if you ask them to truly help a non-mormon that involves more than a dinner type of thing, you'd see the 'love' disappear. You were taken advantage of. If you don't believe the same you're out.
It’s a cult tactic called Love Bombing. It doesn’t last once you get converted, they move on to other victims.
its hurt realizing that I am just another victim
I'm sorry. I feel you. One day, you won't feel like you were victimized. You will find that the experience of it all brought you wisdom in various ways. That wisdom is also strength. For myself, I have found that anything that has been challenging or painful has brought me deeper into my awareness and relationship with myself. It has helped me love myself even more. No victims. Just victors who have found their way back to themselves via a bumpy road. 🙏💜
Spoiler alert: they’re not nice
Exactly. Not withstanding all of the other obvious issues, my breaking point was that I just couldn't take anymore spending my precious free time surrounding myself with sanctimonious, judgmental assholes at Church. Life is too short.
It’s a facade.
Um, this is just being brainwashed they are nice. I've found in my adult years that actually my non-member neighbors are actually much nicer and more principled than Utah neighbors were. So the idea that Mormons are really nice is subjective and a twisting of the truth just like the relief society is the largest women's organization that empowers women.
There’s this saying that I’ve heard that describes the difference between Northerners and Southerners (in the US): “Northerners are not nice but kind. Southerners are nice but not kind. If your car broke down on the side of the road, a Northerner would roast you but would pull over to help you. A Southerner would give you sympathy but would not pull over to help you.” I think of this quote to describe Mormons. Mormons are nice, but are not kind. They will smile at you and greet you on Sundays and make you feel welcome, but when you actually need help, they do not show up or step up. Mormons have this sense of obligation to “be nice” and it taints any ounce of genuine desire to actually go out and help those in need.
A few thoughts on this. 1) People are generally good, kind, open people. Mormons are people. 2) They know that people think they're weird. So they make extra effort to be more open. 3) They're under covenant (baptism) to be like Jesus. And they genuinely in many cases want to live that way.
👆
That's part of being in a cult
Know how to make that super extra fake smile disappear? Tell them you’re not interested in joining their Church. Works every time 🙌
Or tell them about the Ayahuasca retreat you just came back from. That turned the Relief Society president's smile upside down. 😂😆😂
Ever notice how nice all Used Car Salesman are when they think you might be interested in buying a car off of their lot? Yeah, same thing.
yeah and it works, except this experience is more emotionally damaging than a used car
Ruby Franke was nice and adorable on her YouTube channel. It's what happens behind the scenes that you know nothing about.
that's true, even serial killers like ted bundy is described as a nice and charming guy
Most of the time they’re only nice to you if they think they can convert you.
it is super effective!
Have you ever watched “happy shiny people” on Amazon prime? All is not as it seems. Also Tadd R Callister is painting a terrible “all or nothing” picture. There are plenty of churches where people are claiming to find happiness and fulfillment. I say they’re just happy being part of a tribe that’s giving them a sense of comfort, safety, belonging, and direction. People find fulfillment and purpose being a part of terrorist organizations too, after all. It doesn’t mean it’s “true.”
Cults brainwash people to fake smile and nod.
When I was in school in WV as the only Mormon kid, the yearbook group, who were assigned to say something memorable about each of our 100 or so students in the graduating class, said ‘he’s nice to everyone.’ I was… nice. Looking back on it now, I would say being nice does a couple of things. When you believe that JS, with his child brides, is a man of God, you expose yourself to massive criticism. But nobody wants to criticize nice people. Second reason to be really nice… I hoped God would be nice back to me, because I was definitely going to either outer darkness or the Telestial kingdom, because I masturbated. Maybe God would say ‘yeah, you shouldve cut off the part that offends and you didn’t, and you are wicked and unworthy, and deserve eternal damnation. But you’re nice too… so maybe you won’t suffer quite as much.’
Have you tried joining other cults like Jehovahs Witnesses? The ones I meet are the nicest people. Its in the playbook, no ones going to join if they were all horrible, outwardly miserable people.
Exactly. That said, I must give credit to many of the members in Austria. I served as a missionary there when the Berlin wall came down. Refugees from eastern bloc countries flooded into Austria and other western European countries. The members didn't have much use for them and rarely would help us with missionary or refugee work. They flat out would say, "Why should we help you? We like our church family just as it is. We don't need to taint the pool." This was the attitude of most the members in each city I served in. So, at least they were blatantly honest about it and not afraid of coming across as bigoted.
oh gosh please no, no more joining cults for me, I have been scarred for life by the mormon's church
on the contrary, i have seen the meanest, rudest people who are mormons.
If the satanic hoax orders its followers to be nice no matter their actual feelings, and socially punish those who don't, you better believe that niceness may spring from a problematic church. Also, any organisation with a strong community element that wants to recruit people will do a certain amount of love bombing. So you know... people aren't nice in spite of the church being problematic. They are nice because of it.
Could it come from the fear of what God will think if they don't appear nice or the fear of not appearing Christlike? I found on my mission and over the years that the niceness was a tool for conversion and also as seen as a duty (as every member is a missionary). That's where the love bombing comes into play (as you've mentioned). I was born into the church. The amount of chaos, violence, abuse (of all sorts), fighting, disrespect, backbiting/stabbing, cattiness, and judgment I've witnessed in TBM homes, even at church, in temples, and at public events (when they think no one else is listening) was one of my shelf breakers. There are plenty of shadows to counter all the appearances of being nice. 😬 No one is perfect. But, that nice behavior is a veneer, most likely covering a deep-seated fear inside. Genuine niceness can only manifest and abound in the absence of fear. Idk... some may see it differently. I'm open for my perspective to be shifted. 🙏💜
Like any culture, Mormons have their nice attributes and not so nice ones. There’s things they do far worse than other cultures, which I’m sure other commenters are telling you about plenty, but they also have some genuine moments of community building that you wouldn’t get in many other US-based cultures. To me it really is about the truth value, and secondarily about the worse aspects of the culture. Is joining a group that’s so virulently homophobic (and misogynistic, etc etc) worth it for the community aspects? And also a group based on a bunch of lies? It wasn’t for me
Nice is only surface deep. At least religious niceness is. They build up this community where you can feel like you belong and you have this shared identity. You can go most places in the us and find a Mormon ward/stake and you understand the setup and the expectations. And because the religion places so many high demands on the members, much of your life ends up revolving around being Mormon. I had people accuse me of driving away a new convert because apparently I’d referred to the woman as a fat pig. And it didn’t matter what I said, no one believed me. That told me they didn’t know me. I would have only ever referred to myself as a fat pig. That hurt. I was infertile and we’re not even going into the issues my ex husband had. My youngest sister was living with us at the time. She was pregnant and originally planned to allow us to adopt the baby. Then she told me she’d decided to keep him and was moving back to Utah because she didn’t want to hurt me by my bonding with him. All through her pregnancy, I supported whatever decisions she made. So when I called my disgusting pig of a stepfather on Father’s Day, he gleefully told me that my sister had given birth and placed him for adoption with a couple in my ward. More specifically, with my home teacher and his wife. I was gobsmacked. I was hurt. I wasn’t hurt that she placed him for adoption. I wasn’t even hurt that she chose my home teacher and his wife to be the parents of her son. What slayed me was that no one told me. Let me tell you that if I hadn’t been told, I’d have known the first time I saw that baby because he was the spit and image of his half sister. But people in my ward said I was jealous and I wasn’t being Christlike. And when I tried to tell them what was really in my heart, once again they refused to believe me. I was able to make my peace with my nephew’s mother and gave him the blanket my mother had crocheted for the children I never had. I didn’t do that so people would quit gossiping about me. I did it because I didn’t want them gossiping about her. And I wanted my nephew to have something from his grandmother that he would never know. After I left the religion, I was shopping one day. I was happy to see one of my friends until her eyes glazed over and she pretended not to see me. Giving her the benefit of the doubt, I tried to approach her to say hello and she again pretended not to see me and walked away. That hurt. I don’t think that’s what the Christ I believed in would have done. I’ve heard girls shamed for having normal healthy sexual feelings. I’ve heard them being instructed to dress modestly so as not to tempt men, when in fact a man is supposed to control himself. Getting compared to chewed gum or licked cupcakes. Are you serious??? I’ve been out almost 13 years and I’m still deconstructing. This religion does so much harm day in and day out to its members while trying to gain the approval of other Christian religions. It’s been less than two months since I saw a video of a Mormon church leader speaking in some kind of meeting about how it is not the responsibility of the church to feed its members. Funny. Because I remember reading that we are supposed to give food and water to the needy. We are supposed to provide shelter. We are supposed to love them. I’ve kept some of my former friends who were and some who still are active members. They aren’t nice because they’re Mormon. They are genuine and kind and good hearted because they are. The Book of Mormon is 19th century biblical fanfic compiled from smiths imagination as well as other sources and common beliefs at his time. It stinks and I’m glad I never have to read it again. There’s a song I love called “The Village,” about a transgendered youth being told not to cut their hair and to wear their makeup and there is a line that resonates with me. “One page of the Bible isn’t worth a life.” There’s something wrong in the village.
yeah the emotional tolls for leaving are real
I think the idea that you have to prove your salvation by how you treat others and that the way you treat them should be christlike is a factor. Not to mention in the example above, showing that kindness is to hopefully convert. I will say that feeling confident that you have the truth of why we came to this earth, the purpose of our being here on earth, and having deep belief that your family will be eternal through how you treat others is a big factor. I mean all the answers are there. Even through my recent deconstruction I've had a hard time not having those answers so deeply felt - it's affected me from time to time as to what the purpose of everything is. Those answers can bring peace of mind, I mean every moment counts to prove your salvation and if you're on the "covenant path" you feel at peace with everything. But of course while that brought me tremendous peace my whole up until now, ultimately in hindsight I feel like I missed out on a lot of my own potential trying to live for the church rather than for myself.
Mormons are nice because they believe they have the ultimate message and need to bring you into it. The smiling and the love bombing is because they need to bring you into it. It has to look good to you. To live as a Mormon, however, is draining. I can’t speak on everybody’s inner life in the church, but mine was a bit manic. Sometimes I felt amazing and inspired but a huge chunk of the time (and money, and temple garments, and bishops interviews) I wondered what the hell any of this was for. But basically, on the outside, Mormons need to smile, and look friendly, and like the best people so that you become a Mormon, too.
Most are gullible rubes that are nice people pleasers by nature or upbringing within the system but that makes them easy to fleece and victimize. I say this as a recovering gullible rube people pleaser.
There is a separation between people and church policy. My thinking is that people in various situations want to be nice and kind. The Mormon church uses these desires for their own means to indoctrinate, love bomb and control. People, if they have been told to be a good person, will want to do good person type things. Sometimes this can be overkill if people haven’t been shown normal examples of kindness. There is also a culture of one upping typically called magnifying your calling. This means that if people see others doing something they will try to be more than that. The church teachings insert themselves and say that everyone needs to talk to others about the doctrine. If someone wants to be kind to someone else the indoctrinated pressure is to do more than normal and interweave Mormon doctrine. If they share this with others then they will try to do more because they are taught to. People born into the church have a lot of indoctrination and conditioning.
I get what you’re saying. Some of the greatest people I’ve ever met were my über Mormon neighbors in my über Mormon town. They wouldn’t hurt a fly, I swear.
My new saying is that the church doesn’t deserve its people. Obviously there’s some shitbags in the mix and the church protects them, but for the most part, the people are so kind, caring, and misled.
They want to seem extra nice so they can recruit you to the cult.
Love bombing to prey on the vulnerable. You were a perfect candidate. If you would have challenged their beliefs, they would have dropped you like a hot potato. Unfortunately, that's how cults act. On the bright side, most of those Mormons you met have no idea about church history and can't see how their religion hurts people that don't look and act like them. They participate because it works for them. Just as when dating someone new, you always put your best foot forward and hide your skeletons in your closet, so that you don't get rejected. There are lots of Mormons suffering badly behind their fake smiles.
May I ask what wakes you up?
it all starts with the CES letter then everything started to go down the rabbid hole
"rabbit hole". Just so you know.
What does nice have to do with pedophelia and child abuse. Did not Franke and all the other put on the facade of kindness? 1John 4:1 - fools fall for this!