Patriotism, honor and religion for exmormons

Today, the 4th of July, I had the honor of being at an event where the head speaker was a prominent political figure working for Dick Cheyney. 

I’ve often wondered how the people making decisions regarding national spying and wars that seem empirical in nature to me, think about their actions.

In his speech, he said, what sounded to me to be “it’s okay because god changes our nationalism into patriotism” and ” god prevents our spreading of democracy from becoming empire building”.  Along with the implication that we are only a nation because we uphold the traditions of the christian founding fathers and our dear heavenly father.

As an exmormon, the mixing of Mormon religion and policies that stripped out parts of the bill of rights is disheartening.  If I had my drothers, Snow den would have spoken and this guy would be hiding in Hong Kong, pursued by governments everywhere.

But, and here is the thing, I still love my country.  Often it is easy to be jaded after leaving a cultish religion, to be jaded by big systems, government, etc.

But one can still show respect and honor the country, the concepts Franklin and Jefferson stood for, or recent SCOTUS decisions and ignore the pieces of religion mixed mingled with politics.

Happy Jul 4th all!!!

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2 Responses to Patriotism, honor and religion for exmormons

  1. Gary Slabaugh says:

    Liked your presentation at Legends on July 7. Forgot to ask about Hugh Nibley’s daughter who wrote a book about her sexual abuse

    • Mithryn says:

      So, that’s a mixed bag. I’ve talked to various members of the family. Mostly they are tired of it. Most of the family feel betrayed by her book and can account for times that she claims things happened that their father wasn’t even home.

      But that being said, I hate to ever call someone who claims “Victim” a liar without hard evidence.

      Really, I’m not sure it matters terribly if he had an odd kink or two that came out in a bizarre way. Certainly she could have been mixing memories (i.e. there was some degree of abuse, but the masks were used during “hide and seek games” and her brain combined the two) that would make the abuse very real but the facts confused enough that family members would doubt.

      Again, I hope that my children never create stories about me, and I try not to give them any room to feel like they NEED to create stories.

      But I really can’t come down on one side or the other on that one. If I had to pick, I’d say “Didn’t happen”.

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