You're only happy because Satan won
Posted: Mon Nov 14, 2022 7:00 am
"You're only happy because Satan won."
This seems to be the favorite new response by TBMS to people who leave the church and proclaim that they feel freer and happier now.
It's been around for a while. The first time I remember seeing it was when Simon Southerton published a letter he received from Vaughn J. Featherstone after he resigned from his calling as a bishop. Featherstone informed Southerton that the reason leaving the church made him feel like a weight had been lifted from him was because the demons who had been harassing him up to that point had finally made their victory and moved on to torment some other poor faithful Mormon.
I have seen people on other forums posting statements with similar sentiments from their TBM loved ones. The general conclusion seems to be, "...you may think you're happier in this life, but it's only temporary!"
So, unless I'm misunderstanding these folks, they're saying that it is normal to feel miserable and unhappy in the church because you are constantly being tormented by Satan. I assume the more devout you are the bigger the target on your head, and the juicer prize for Satan and company. To follow this logic I would have to assume that any active member who claims to be must be suspect, because somehow they are somehow appeasing Satan and his demons enough to leave them alone?
Let's do some math. Anthropologists say there have been as many as 100 billion people on the earth over the course of the human race. Let's include in that number all of the billions more who will be here until the 2nd coming, which is always about 20 years away, right? That number represents 2/3 of the host of heaven in the pre-existence, which means the remaining souls who followed Satan were cast down to earth to serve has his angels would number around 50 billion. They are among us now, all at the same time. Again, just to be safe, let's cut that number in half. The church claims 16 million members. Let's be generous and say half of those are active, faithful members of the LDS church right now. The prime objective of the cast-down Satan followers is to gang up on those poor members and lead them astray. That's a ratio of 25 billion to 8 million.
This means that every single believing Mormon man, woman, and child has a cloud of 3,125 agents of Satan following them around and screaming in their ear every minute of every day, filling their heads with thoughts of all of the alluring sinful things they could do to make them flip from the Light Side to the Dark side. The way people talk about it, it really is an entirely black and white propoiton: either Satan has won, or he is still hammering away at you. The only determining factor that keeps the light switch in the ON position is your ability to say "the LDS church is true."
So, if you are tormented by thousands of demons 24/7, there is a magic spell to make them go away. Just close your eyes and say, "the church is NOT true." Poof!
But it's only temporary!
This seems to be the favorite new response by TBMS to people who leave the church and proclaim that they feel freer and happier now.
It's been around for a while. The first time I remember seeing it was when Simon Southerton published a letter he received from Vaughn J. Featherstone after he resigned from his calling as a bishop. Featherstone informed Southerton that the reason leaving the church made him feel like a weight had been lifted from him was because the demons who had been harassing him up to that point had finally made their victory and moved on to torment some other poor faithful Mormon.
I have seen people on other forums posting statements with similar sentiments from their TBM loved ones. The general conclusion seems to be, "...you may think you're happier in this life, but it's only temporary!"
So, unless I'm misunderstanding these folks, they're saying that it is normal to feel miserable and unhappy in the church because you are constantly being tormented by Satan. I assume the more devout you are the bigger the target on your head, and the juicer prize for Satan and company. To follow this logic I would have to assume that any active member who claims to be must be suspect, because somehow they are somehow appeasing Satan and his demons enough to leave them alone?
Let's do some math. Anthropologists say there have been as many as 100 billion people on the earth over the course of the human race. Let's include in that number all of the billions more who will be here until the 2nd coming, which is always about 20 years away, right? That number represents 2/3 of the host of heaven in the pre-existence, which means the remaining souls who followed Satan were cast down to earth to serve has his angels would number around 50 billion. They are among us now, all at the same time. Again, just to be safe, let's cut that number in half. The church claims 16 million members. Let's be generous and say half of those are active, faithful members of the LDS church right now. The prime objective of the cast-down Satan followers is to gang up on those poor members and lead them astray. That's a ratio of 25 billion to 8 million.
This means that every single believing Mormon man, woman, and child has a cloud of 3,125 agents of Satan following them around and screaming in their ear every minute of every day, filling their heads with thoughts of all of the alluring sinful things they could do to make them flip from the Light Side to the Dark side. The way people talk about it, it really is an entirely black and white propoiton: either Satan has won, or he is still hammering away at you. The only determining factor that keeps the light switch in the ON position is your ability to say "the LDS church is true."
So, if you are tormented by thousands of demons 24/7, there is a magic spell to make them go away. Just close your eyes and say, "the church is NOT true." Poof!
But it's only temporary!