Happiness vs Joy

I hate how the church redefines these terms in a fashion that allows them to be weaponized against non-believers. They teach that happiness is fleeting and circumstantial, but joy is divine and enduring. The latter is just for believing obedient members.

This enables the rhetoric that nonbelievers—especially former members—may look happy and even experience fleeting moments of happiness, but they'll never know true joy unless they repent and become obedient members of the church.

This is manipulation and simply false.

The @Ch_JesusChrist is not the only organization that does this. This rhetoric is used by lots of groups to reinforce the necessity of adhering to their principles. Notably, it is particularly common in fundamentalist religious movements, and most prominent in high demand ones.

But here's the thing: happiness and joy are two words for the same thing. These aren't different emotions that are exclusively available to select people. There isn't some hierarchy where some people are truly joyful whereas others are merely happy. Being happy is to be joyful.

This goes both ways. Sometimes exmos do the same thing regarding members of the church by suggesting that the happy faithful aren't truly happy, and can't be so long as they are controlled by the church. Let me be clear: this is the same false rhetoric weaponized in another way.

I've been happy and joyful in the church, and just as happy and joyful outside the church. When I was a believing member, sometimes the church and Mormonism brought be happiness and joy, and sometimes it disrupted my happiness and joy. That remains true today, just differently.

In summary, the church doesn't have a monopoly on joy. Neither is it the case that all believing members are unknowingly depressed. These are both oversimplified views of reality that reflect unhealthy relationships with the church. We can do better.