Jon's Friendica Node | Jonathan Lamothe (he/him) @ Jon's Friendica Node

Jonathan Lamothe (he/him)

me@social.jlamothe.net

Programmer and free/libre software enthusiast. This is my *primary* account on the Fediverse. See my website for an authoritative list of accounts.
https://jlamothe.net

Ontario, Canada

https://jlamothe.net

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Jonathan Lamothe (he/him)

5 months ago • •

Jonathan Lamothe (he/him)
5 months ago •

I guess with the influx of new users to the Fediverse, we're doing introductions now, so here's mine:

I'm a #FreeSoftware and #OpenCulture enthusiast and developer. I'm also an #ExMormon who's trying to create safe spaces for those who are recovering from high-demand control groups.

#introduction

#freesoftware #introduction #exmormon #OpenCulture

10 people like this

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Jonathan Lamothe (he/him)

7 months ago • •

Jonathan Lamothe (he/him)
7 months ago •

So this whole #Friendica #SelfHosting experiment has been a smashing success. This will be the last post I boost from my legacy accounts, and I'll be checking them with less frequency. If you've not followed the new account, now would be a good time.

I want to extend a special thanks to opencube and fosstodon for giving me my first taste of the #fediverse.

#Friendica #fediverse #selfhosting

2 people like this

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Jonathan Lamothe (he/him)

2 months ago

Jonathan Lamothe (he/him)
2 months ago

Content warning: Mormonism, child sexual abuse, meme

#NotACult #Mormon #LDS #LazyLearner

Jonathan Lamothe (he/him)

2 months ago

Jonathan Lamothe (he/him)
2 months ago

Content warning: Mormonism, child sexual abuse

#NotACult #Mormon #LDS

Sotolf likes this.

3 comments - Show more

Jonathan Lamothe (he/him)

2 months ago

Content warning: Mormonism, child sexual abuse

Jonathan Lamothe (he/him)

2 months ago

Content warning: Mormonism, child sexual abuse

Jonathan Lamothe (he/him)

2 months ago

Jonathan Lamothe (he/him)
2 months ago

Content warning: Mormonism, child sexual abuse

#NotACult #Mormon #LDS

4 people like this

M. Grégoire

2 months ago •

Content warning: Mormonism, child sexual abuse

Jonathan Lamothe (he/him)

4 months ago

Jonathan Lamothe (he/him)
4 months ago

Content warning: Cult Vault Podcast (my episode)

#NotACult #Mormon #LDS

Nicholas Chavie

4 months ago •

I'll give a listen, I am an #exmormon and I am interested in hearing peoples stories about it. So bizarre this popped up in my feed given the subject matter, especially in the fediverse.

#exmormon

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Jonathan Lamothe (he/him)

5 months ago

Jonathan Lamothe (he/him)
5 months ago

Content warning: Mormonism, violence/"blood atonement"

#NotACult #Mormon #LDS

16 comments - Show more

mudflap

5 months ago

The doctrine of “blood atonement” is one of the things that the mainstream LDS church has tried really hard to whitewash from its history.- - - - - -

actually, no.... here are two references to it:

Jonathan Lamothe (he/him)

5 months ago

I challenge you to find for me a single reference in material that would be covered in a typical Sunday School, Elders Quorum or Relief Society meeting. It is nowhere to be found in the standard correlated curriculum.

In the few places it *is* mentioned, it is seldom brought up that they were part of the endowment ceremony in the St. George temple for about a half a century. They try to write it off as some crazy theory that Brother Brigham had but was never official doctrine.

Jonathan Lamothe (he/him)

5 months ago

What's even more interesting is that in the church essay, the phrase "blood atonement" doesn't even appear in the text.

Jonathan Lamothe (he/him)

5 months ago

Jonathan Lamothe (he/him)

2022-05-17 20:10:52

In the few places it *is* mentioned, it is seldom brought up that they were part of the endowment ceremony in the St. George temple for about a half a century.

I just realized that this was an error on my part. It wasn't the blood atonement that was included in the St. George endowent ceremony, it was the Adam-God doctrine (another thing they've been trying to sweep under the rug... it's so had to keep all these secrets straight sometimes).

That said, it could fairly easily be argued that the penalties that were removed from the endowment circa 1990 are remnants of blood atonement.

Jonathan Lamothe (he/him)

5 months ago

"But the plans were on display…”
“On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.”
“That’s the display department.”
“With a flashlight.”
“Ah, well, the lights had probably gone.”
“So had the stairs.”
“But look, you found the notice, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” said Arthur, “yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.’”
-- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

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mudflap

5 months ago

challenge denied, but because I don't agree with the direction of the lovey-dovey woke-feely "curriculum" either. 😀

Jonathan Lamothe (he/him)

5 months ago

@mudflap So we agree that it's not in the curriculum tjen?, and hasn't been for a long time?

Also, I've never heard anyone refer to the church curriculum as "woke" before.

@mudflap

mudflap

5 months ago

So we agree that it’s not in the curriculum tjen?

not in the Sunday morning curriculum, no. But it's not "whitewashed" - it's on their official website and their official encyclopedia or whatever that is.

Also, I’ve never heard anyone refer to the church curriculum as “woke” before.

it's been a while since you've been, then, eh? ;) me too - they got me in primary playing the songs for the kiddos. 😀

Jonathan Lamothe (he/him)

5 months ago

@mudflap The essays were added as a knee-jerk means of damage control when they realized that the internet made it impossible to keep the information as tightly controlled as they have in the past. Have you ever tried finding those essays on the site without using the search feature? You'd never find them if you didn't know they were there in the first place.

I don't know about you, but I was repeatedly warned not to delve into the "deeper doctrines". I was told there was danger in "looking past the mark". I'm willing to bet that you've heard similar things.

You are right about one thing though. It's been a while. I resigned my membership about two years ago. If you're curious about the details, I made a video about it a while ago.

@mudflap

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Jonathan Lamothe (he/him)

5 months ago

@mudflap Just for fun, I put "blood atonement" into the search on the church website. This was the first result. It's such a blatant attempt to throw the searcher off the trail.

To be fair, the gospel topic essay (the one that only briefly mentions it, and doesn't even contain the phrase) is the third result, but given the way the results cone back, which do you think is going to get the most clicks?

This is not what transparency looks like.

@mudflap

Ian Molton likes this.

mudflap

5 months ago

Well, obviously, Blood Atonement, as taught (for maybe 20 years?) in the St. George Temple, and not related to the Atonement of Christ - is not going to be the "first hit" on a search, when compared to the Atonement of Christ, which has been taught for nearly 200 years. It's really a blip, IMO. There are a lot of resources and accounts of it out there - it's not THAT hard to find if you know a few keywords. Obviously, the church doesn't want to promote it as a "top hit" on their website, much like the Catholics wouldn't want to promote their ugly side either, but I don't think it's hidden, and they at least don't deny it.

The essays were a "main item" on the website when Hinckley was president, but yeah, I couldn't find them right away yesterday - they are hidden under "gospel topics" now. That part, I think is a little weird - here they were trying to "be more open" about things for a while - they even had a press conference a couple years ago where they showed off one of Joseph Smith's "seer stones" and admitted he did look into a hat, lol. I mean, I already knew that AND TAUGHT it to the 14 year olds in my classes (ha ha - maybe that's why I got released....?) I like to know stuff. But now, they seem to be getting away from that again, so there is some truth to what you say. whatevs. playing piano in the primary is a fine calling, IMO. If you want some really eye-opening "sunday school lessons", look up the Hugh Nibley articles in the Ensign from the 1970's - that's when they were teaching Meat, instead of the milk we get now.

Sorry you had a bad experience - really. I watched your video - I'm sorry all those things happened. I hope your family is doing better.

I hope I don't "assume", but you seem a bit "to the left", if I had to guess, while I would consider myself "on the right", politically. I'm a bit miffed that the church is not teaching "food storage", "prepping", "individual freedom and responsibility"; but instead they want to focus on "BLM", prophet worship, "white prejudice" / racism (yet we have an Asian bishop, a black guy on the high council, and the "grandma" of the ward is a black lady. There's no racism that I can see here - "in the South"). And the "gospel doctrine" sunday school lessons have turned into "how does it make you feel to know that Moses...." instead of just basic Bible stories and doctrine.

I guess what I find somewhat amusing (ironically amusing?) is that we (you and I) are disappointed - but from probably opposite ends of the spectrum.

Well, anyway, we will probably disagree more than agree, but it was a nice insight, thanks for sharing. I wish you well.

Jonathan Lamothe (he/him)

5 months ago

@mudflap All I'm saying is that with how strong the church's SEO game is, I find it hard to believe that these things happened accidentally.

@mudflap

mudflap

5 months ago

it was the Adam-God doctrine (another thing they’ve been trying to sweep under the rug… it’s so had to keep all these secrets straight sometimes).

lol. I was a little confused, but thought, "well, ok..." non-Christ Blood atonement was a pretty twisted idea, I'll give you that.

Adam-God is interesting - BY and Heber Kimball said that anyone who didn't believe in it would never get to the Celestial Kingdom. Fast forward to the 1980's, when my MIL was attending a private "sunday school" in someone's home, and then the stake president ex'd the teacher and said anyone promoting the doctrine would also get ex'd. So.....I guess things change?

of course it's not accidental. agreed. 😀

You might have missed the recent conference talk during the pandemic where one of the 12 basically gaslighted anyone who complained about not being warned to stock up on basic food supplies during the pandemic - they basically said, "we've always talked about it" (but a search of keywords like "food storage" and "storing" and "two year supply" yields minimal results in conference talks from 2000 - 2019, then all the sudden, it conveniently pops back up in 2020:

~ https://www.lds-general-conference.org/ (good website - you'd like it).

Corpus of LDS General Conference Talks, 1851-2020

Search all LDS General Conference talks, 1850s-present

^{www.lds-general-conference.org}

Jonathan Lamothe (he/him)

5 months ago

mudflap

2022-05-18 14:28:56

You might have missed the recent conference talk during the pandemic where one of the 12 basically gaslighted anyone who complained about not being warned to stock up on basic food supplies during the pandemic - they basically said, "we've always talked about it" (but a search of keywords like "food storage" and "storing" and "two year supply" yields minimal results in conference talks from 2000 - 2019, then all the sudden, it conveniently pops back up in 2020:

Yeah, I haven't paid as close attention to conference as I once did, but I do recall Radio Free Mormon doing a whole episode on that debacle.

mudflap

5 months ago

totally off topic: wife and I both got up in the middle of the night one night in January 2020 and said we both felt like we were prompted/inspired to get some extra food storage and toilet paper. So we made a plan for the next month to get a few extra things. It was surreal in April when we walked through Walmart not panicking, knowing we were stocked up, but looking at frantic people and empty shelves. I really feel like God was looking out for us. we are hoping to finish our debt-free DIY log home this year - got inspired to get out of the city back in 2012, and finishing and moving into this home will be the end of "phase 1" of our plan. I don't know what other people are being inspired to do, but this feels right to us.

just cuz you're "not mormon" anymore, doesn't mean God doesn't care about your life path.