They Do It So You Don’t Have To

Is the Mormon church cool with this? If so, they are some laid back individuals.  Or are they unaware of the motives behind it?

TThese people are sick, they should go get a homeopathic remedy at the earliest possible opportunity.

So what, if they did lie, the whole process they went through is a shameful lie, why tell the liars that you’re lying!

Former/recovering Mormon here.  I can’t wait to listen to the podcast, but to those wondering if the church (or the missionaries) were cool with their being the subject of an experiment like this, my $0.02:  On my mission, we would not have thought twice about teaching/baptizing a young, friendly, enthusiastic couple like this.  (I assume they acted at least a little enthusiastic in order to make the charade last five months…)  We would have been walking on air, counting out blessings we had found such a “golden” (i.e., ready for the message) couple of “investigators” (baptismal candidates).

The idea that someone might “go all the way” like this and get baptized — for ulterior motives — doesn’t even figure in.  Well, it might, *now,* but zero-t0-baptized in under six months is the dream, and goal, of every Mormon missionary out there.  They wouldn’t question the sincerity of two people who took all the lessons and appeared to be “into it” — on my mission we baptized people who were absolutely not sincere — I was in an iron-curtain-adjacent mission in Europe and we had a lot of baptizees who were only in it because they thought the church would be able to find them work/get them a visa in the US.  We knew it, and we baptized them anyway.

But no, neither the Mormon church nor the missionaries involved here would be cool with this, at all.

I love it.

It was an undercover operation, that both illuminated the interior of this religion, while tying up the resources of at least a few missionaries who would otherwise be off brainwashing innocent people looking for meaning in life. Nice gig.

Don’t become scientologists. There’s no way to do that without giving CoS large sums of money and playing right in to their game.

In all seriousness, don’t become scientologists. They are vicious and relentless; a Cults and Religions professor at my local university does extensive research on scientologists, and must keep all his materials on university property at all times, to protect himself from lawsuits. Look what happened when Southpark made fun of Scientologists. These people do not mess around. I shudder to think what kind of harassment this couple would get if they were caught “spying” and creating negative publicity for the church. At the very least, if they choose to take on Scientology, they should do so with their eyes open. 

By all means, though, go take the introductory Scientology test where they measure your thetans with what is essentially a potato battery…..that’s just good clean fun.

How about making up a dead relative and going to see one of the assholes who claim they can talk to the dead? I don’t know if it would be legal to record it, but I’d love to see them punk one of those exploitative pricks by letting them go on for 30 minutes about specific details of the imaginary relative and then go “Oops sorry, I just completely made that up”.

I follow way too many podcasts as it is, but dammit, this is just too interesting to pass up.

Don’t they know that it is nearly impossible to get away from the Mormons once you join? Seriously, people like me who were born into the religion have spent serious time and effort to stop church members from trying to contact them. It’s like the mailing list you can’t get off, only in person. Even if you move, they will find you. 

Basically, you can check out anytime, but you can never leave.

I grew up around Mormons and always wanted to do this type of undercover operation, to see what “really” goes on!  In more strident days of youth, I even wanted to “convert” for a nice Mormon girl and go all the way with a Temple marriage, then document every detail for the outside world.  But I could never bring myself to hurt one person that badly (and unless I found that one secret Mormon-raised non-believer who would go along with the deception, she would be deeply hurt).

Anyway, what you’re saying rings true.  Every missionary’s got to have a “body count” to show for your two years in the field.  They’ll baptize anyone who’s willing to be on the list for all time and eternity (or at least, it seems like an eternity when they’re knocking on your door and you’re pretending not to be home).

What I said above. Listen to the podcast.  They were SO honest. They developed good relationships with these people, and even after coming clean with them about not wanting to continue down the path, they remain friends with their elders.  Seriously. LISTEN to it.

In episode 5, we tell the missionaries about the podcast. We expected them to be very upset. What happened will probably surprise you. =)

Just in case someone gets confused by the term “couple”. Ross and Carrie are not a couple.

Ross’ wife would be against that, I think  😉

All the more reason why I appreciate their efforts.  It’s like they took one for the team.

Haha! I’m glad you guys are aware of this issue though. I was worried you had gotten yourselves into a lifetime of stalking without knowing. They are very persistent.