Mormons hate Sundays

... they will never admit it. Mormon folklore has it satan tries to oppose the work of god. Satan does all in his power on Sunday morning to make it difficult to be where god wants you to be: church. Satan will stop your alarm clock, make you tired, make the kids whinier or hungrier or make you want to enjoy your Sunday relaxing instead of at church. Its most popular form in practice is the temple story. Allow me to demonstrate:

"I felt the spirit prompting me to go to the temple. I hadn't been for weeks, and my husband was too busy with work to go out for ward temple night. Every day that I planned to go to the temple, something came up: the kids were sick or my car broke down or my temple clothes weren't washed. I know that satan was trying to stop me from enjoying the blessings of the temple. When I went, I felt the spirit so strongly. I know that the temple is a sacred place, and we should all prepare ourselves to be worthy of its blessings. I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, amen."

The reason this woman doesn't go to the temple is because satan doesn't want her to. Satan makes her kids cry or the car break down. Satan will use his incredible (apparently) power over people and inanimate objects. Satan makes her feel like she doesn't want to drive to spend time saving the dead (read: watching a two hour movie that she has seen several times before). Satan makes it so that she feels like she is wasting time, or that she would rather be with her family.

Satan makes it so that on Sunday morning she doesn't like getting her children ready to sit in boring meetings for three hours. Satan makes the kids complain, or soil their nice clothes before church. Satan makes her feel like she just wants to crawl back into bed, or have a slow, relaxing breakfast, or go out to eat with her family on Sunday.

Satan cares so much about what mormons do -- they ARE building the kingdom of god on earth, after all -- that he personally tempts each and every one of them to give into the natural man, to become an enemy to god.

Most of satan's temptations center on getting mormons to be more like normal people. It is natural that children cry when they are bored, that people want to make their free time their own. It is natural that people want to relax on the weekend, not spend 3 hours hearing the same things that they have heard their entire lives. There is never anything new. It is natural that people wouldn't want to go.

Mormons seem to forget that when you don't want to do something, psychologically you come up with any excuse. For me, I would always convince myself that I was "sick" on Sunday morning. I was so run down from my busy schedule, and it was only Sunday that I couldn't get out of bed. I had no problems going to school, maintaining a crazy work schedule, writing paper after paper, going out with friends. But on Sunday, I felt so "sick" that I couldn't get out of bed. I didn't wanna go, so I made myself sick enough to avoid it.

Mormons who talk about satan keeping them from church of the temple, tempting them to break the dietary restrictions or give in to their own natural healthy sexuality, they are just being more authentic to themselves. If you don't want to do something, you won't, or you will avoid it as much as you can.

This natural tendency to do what you enjoy and avoid what is unenjoyable is demonized in mormonism. Instead of talking about personal responsibility, they blame all their desires, all their "sins" on the seductions of an imaginary omnipotent/powerless being.

Being an athiest, I chose to be responsible for my own actions. It is not satan making me be bad or god encouraging me to be good. My good is MINE, and my mistakes are my own. It is terrifying for someone who has always believed in and depended on a higher pwer, but it is also so liberating. I am alone in my head, and I like the solitude.