Mormonism 'poisoning the well' for Christianity in general
I've seen more than a few comments on here about how 'it's too bad that ex-mormons lose all faith in god and Christianity - they throw out the baby with the bathwater when they deconstruct', or something very similar. Wanted to add my 2 cents to that. I think the story of Abraham and Isaac is a good example.
On the surface, the story of Abraham willing to sacrifice his son is awful, no question. But it can be used as a metaphor to ask 'what would you be willing to sacrifice for God?' Combined with the scripture of 'what you do for the least of these, you have done for me', we can ask, 'would you be willing to sacrifice your coat to a homeless man? Would you be willing to sacrifice some of your hard earned money to send a church mission to Africa to dig wells? By doing these sacrifices on earth, we are sacrificing for God.' ect ect. With some stretching and as a metaphor, you can craft a pretty good and Christ-like message out of it. One that I would probably be very open to.
But now, post deconstruction, I know that Joseph Smith used this scripture (the abrahamic sacrifice) to manipulate his dumb-as-shit follower Heber C Kimball into allowing him sexual access to his 14 year old daughter. Its so gross the whole thing makes me nauseous. Now, even just the mention of the abraham and isaac story makes me think of this. I don't want anything to do with it, not even the metaphorical message outlined above. The whole thing can just fuck right off.
Joseph Smith wrecked this for me. He poisoned the whole thing. Even the good bits.