"I don't believe in magic underwear. Sorry, dad."

My name is JAPR, and I'm an ex-Mormon. Also, that wasn't really very "fluent" Japanese lolololol.

time to invest in a tripod weard realy cos editing and framing/focus was realy nice


Japanise girls r pritty

So you're saying deep down inside, people are still people? That we're more than labels? It'll never catch on.

Is Robert from the future?

It's interesting that he spoke very specifically about his fond memories, but didn't go into his reasons for leaving the church at all. I'm sure he had good reasons, but since he skipped that part it almost comes off as "the Mormon church was wonderful to me, and that's why I left".

This was nice and sweet.

(by the way, ex Mormon chicks are hawt.)

>> ^entr0py:

It's interesting that he spoke very specifically about his fond memories, but didn't go into his reasons for leaving the church at all. I'm sure he had good reasons, but since he skipped that part it almost comes off as "the Mormon church was wonderful to me, and that's why I left".


I think it has more to do with his travel. He acknowledges that he had a good life in the Mormon church, but many religious communities such as the one he was in are a closed system, and only upon seeing the world from outside did he realise that he could be happy without the church.

At least that's the message I got from what he said.

Downvote because i find absolutely no value, whatsoever, in the existence of this video. The Mormons that knock on my door ever week annoy me as much an anyone else, but what the hell was the point of this video?

>> ^JAPR:

My name is JAPR, and I'm an ex-Mormon. Also, that wasn't really very "fluent" Japanese lolololol.


In fairness, he did say he was fluent in Japanese.

I'm not really sure what we're supposed to get out of this either. It seems like a clip from a video dating service or something.

I live a really active lifestyle: I love wake boarding, mountain biking, hiking, rock climbing, long walks on the beach...

^ i think the video is more for people who are currently in the church, saying "i was mormon, i'm not anymore, and i'm still a good person!"

Agreed, I wont upvote this, but I'm not going to downvote it either. It's simply for an audience other than me.

Hi Robert!....

I thought it was going to be a Toyota viral when it began.

I paused the vid during the "read a lot of books" bit and it turns out to be a well-thumbed-through set of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time.

That's pretty far from the Book of Mormon.

My wife is a Mormon. I, on the other hand, am an Atheist. When we first met and started dating, I was very honest and up front about my stance on god and religion. She was cool with it. When we got serious and had that same talk with her Mormon parents....it went....badly. They tried to convert my (non)beliefs. They tried to tell her I wasn't good enough. They sent missionaries to our house. I always had frank, open and honest talks with them all, but they weren't convincing me of shit. I told them that they could take our kids to church and I would teach them the other side of thing as well. They could then be free to make their own choices about religion and I would support it 100% either way. Two of my kids love going to church and are into the religion thing but my oldest son doesn't believe in god any more. He asked me "how can god exist of santa doesn't?" He is a smart little boy. The other two will come along shortly.

I think the point of the video is that non-religious people are pretty normal.

There seems to be an assumption by certain religious people that atheists are evil and don't enjoy anything about life. Here you see a guy talking about how he enjoys the same things as religious people... he just isn't involved with religion.

This won't convince anyone to examine their beliefs about gods, but it may serve to dispel some misconceptions about those who choose to leave religion in their past.

(upvote)

Yeah, I agree this video is for current Mormons thinking about getting out.

From what I understand (my wife is a former Mormon) it's a very closed in social group. People who've been raised inside the community partially fear leaving because they'll lose all social connections. They know they'll be shunned by their family and former close friends upon leaving the church.

Apparently this video is meant to show that you can be happy and active outside the church. That might seem like common sense to you and me but people within strong religious communities don't see the world the way we do. They've been raised with a false sense of what the world outside their community is like. There's a disorienting period of adjustment involved when you discover the world is not what you believed it to be.

>> ^Hive13:

My wife is a Mormon. I, on the other hand, am an Atheist. When we first met and started dating, I was very honest and up front about my stance on god and religion. She was cool with it. When we got serious and had that same talk with her Mormon parents....it went....badly. They tried to convert my (non)beliefs. They tried to tell her I wasn't good enough. They sent missionaries to our house. I always had frank, open and honest talks with them all, but they weren't convincing me of shit. I told them that they could take our kids to church and I would teach them the other side of thing as well. They could then be free to make their own choices about religion and I would support it 100% either way. Two of my kids love going to church and are into the religion thing but my oldest son doesn't believe in god any more. He asked me "how can god exist of santa doesn't?" He is a smart little boy. The other two will come along shortly.


Good for you, and them.

Priorities: this man has them.
>> ^westy:

Japanise girls r pritty

49 votes for a guy saying he's an ex-Mormon. Wow.

That's it?

Add me to the "I don't see the point of this video" group.

From 1:20 to the end he explains "the point" of his video.

>> ^Don_Juan:

From 1:20 to the end he explains "the point" of his video.


Yeah, I don't know how everyone missed that part. For further clarification here is a transcript, people:

I always got told when I was thinking of leaving:
"Oh, you'll be unhappy, you'll be miserable."
That's not true.
I've never been happier.
I believe in honesty and integrity, and those things just seem to be missing even though the church seems to preach it so hard.

Nice. A man opens up to the whole world about his life and his divergence from a faith he used to hold dearly, and all you can do is criticize him for not making the video professionally enough. How insightful.>> ^westy:

time to invest in a tripod weard realy cos editing and framing/focus was realy nice

Japanise girls r pritty

As an ex-Mormon, I'm going to do something a bit weird and quote myself from 2 years ago when this topic came up. I wish the guy in this vid had talked more about his reasons for leaving; I would have been interested to hear more about why he thinks their church is not honest or why it doesn't have integrity. Original comment posted for this video.
>> ^SDGundamX:

I was a Mormon for several years (lived in a rural area, was the closest church in town until I was about nine and a new Presbyterian church was built closer). I have to say I'm a bit confused at all the hate that's delivered towards them. Of all the churches I ever attended (and I attended lots as a kid), theirs had the most caring and active community I've ever seen. If you were sick, church members were there the same day with food and asking what they could do to help. They had lots of great family activities all year round, such as picnics and camping trips.
But what impressed me the most about the Mormon church is that they basically taught me the morals I hold true today. They didn't just teach the kids in Sunday school not to lie because "God says so." They explored the consequences of things like lying and stealing. We'd do role-plays where they'd make us think about the consequences our actions had on other people. Like, for instance, if you shoplifted a toy you really wanted, how would the toy store owner feel? How would he feed his family if people kept stealing the stuff in his shop? The fire-and-brimstone Christian churches I later attended never impressed me much with their Bible beating compared to this style of teaching.
This is not to say Mormons aren't without their flaws. In some ways, they do resemble a cult. When my family left, they hounded us for years trying to "save our souls" and get us to come back. They would just show up unannounced at our house or call at random hours. It was more annoying than anything else.
Another downside was the whole proselytizing thing--I distinctly remember being told as a child that if I wanted to be able to play with my friends in heaven that I'd have to convince them to become Mormons too. Otherwise I wouldn't see them there. To put that into perspective though, my Dad's priest (he was Catholic as a kid) told him the same thing about his Protestant friends back when he was a kid. The Mormon religion hasn't got a lock on the conversion market by any means.
All things considered, I find the Mormon religion to be relatively harmless. Yes, they believe in some odd things like the Book of Mormon, but at the end of the day, unlike a lot of self-proclaimed Christians, I found the Mormons to do more than just give lip service to their values and actually practice what they preach.

Consequentialism isn't exactly an evolved moral code. I guess it's better than "because God says so".