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WHY I LEFT THE MORMON CHURCH.

JOHNNY HARRIS

This is an interesting video by a young man who gives his reasons for leaving the Mormon Church

Reasons like:

The Mormons insisting on unquestioning obedience to the organisation and its leaders.

The Mormon belief that their package is thenonly true package.

The Mormon belief that if you do it all their way, your life and future life are assured.

Etc

Could a former Roman Catholic say the same things about the Roman Catholic Church?

Yes, they could, and I’m sure many have.

This video brings many things about highly organised religions and churches out into the open.

ME

I have left the Roman Catholic Institution but not the universal Catholic Faith.

In fact, I didn’t leave. I was thrown overboard.

But that has been a great blessing and freedom.

Free from the man made doctrines, laws and dogmas.

Free from obedience to cowardly and / or corrupt bishops and the Vatican.

100 replies on “WHY I LEFT THE MORMON CHURCH.”

Bishop Pat, No doubt many clergy secretly and sometimes not so secretly do envy your freedom of not being answerable to cowardly and/or corrupt Bishops and the Vatican not to mention their deviant colleagues and laity.

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Indeed. I have come to know the true freedom of a son of God. At the time I didn’t realise it, but when they threw me out they did me a great favour. “My chains are gone. I’ve been set free”.

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Now that’s a goodlooking man. Nothing like that in the IRish Church. The pews would be packed if there was

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Why don’t all you moaning morons just f****. off if you want freedom join one of the numerous sects that make up there own rules. I’m sure there plenty of room for you all in the Larne sect.
But knowing you lot it wouldn’t be long before you were slagging off poor Patsy. Bye Bye.

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For someone who speaks as coarsely as you @ 9:38, I hope your last two words apply, and we don’t see you here again: Bye Bye indeed.

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Oh! Niall why don’t you jump in the Neagh, your false outrage about my speaking coarsely shows you don’t read this blog very often. There has been a lot more coarse comments on this blog on a daily basis. I haven’t seen you complaining, so no it wont be Bye Bye from me but I hope you do what I asked in my first comment.😏

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9.38, but that’s what the romanist sect doez: makes up its own rules.
Didn’t you know? 🤔

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Anon@ 10:05: Okay, so you acknowledge that it was coarse and associate yourself with other coarse comments. That’s okay then: ‘nuf said.

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If anyone from the hierarchy is reading this you’ve missed a trick. Optional wearing of scapulars will never be a money spinner, but compulsory wearing of special underwear with masonic symbols, only available from the church and that you have to know the password to buy, will force the credulous faithful to keep paying up.
Incidentally it’s nylon so selling cream for the rash would be good.

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Dear Bishop Pat,

Where is the church or ekklesia or Body of Christ that Jesus founded and the apostles handed on?

Did this humble, persecuted church die or cease when Constantine converted?

And, forgive the questions, but who else will answer them, who is Peter if not the long successions of popes and if Francis, why is he so Machiavellian and v much a man of this world (cover up of child abuse in Argentina and long history of imperious and authoritarianism when a Jesuit provincial).

I’m a layman and these aren’t the kind of questions one can ask a RC priest.

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8:39 A common Protestant view is that the rock on which the church is built refers to Peter’s expression of faith in the verse before the one where Jesus says this to him. Alternatively since elsewhere in the NT Christ himself is referred to as a rock it is taken to refer to him.
Therefore the rock is not Peter himself.
An online search of differing views on the primacy of Peter will give you loads of differing views.

If you want to learn about the problems with RC verification of relics the number of bodies and isolated heads attributed to St Valentine would be a good place to start.

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Yes. The Church of Jesus began to disappear when those early Christians threw their lot in with Constantine and started the Roman Empire MK II.

Peter was never pope and his presence in Rome is disputed.

The bones in St Peters could be and are anyone’s.

Francis has dark secrets. However, he is doing a good job at disturbing the wasps nest.

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9.46: Pat, many, many of us keep our eyes on Christ. Not to do so by any priest is to eventually rot spiritually. There is an urgency today for priests to refind Christ anew, to ponder the deeper things of God, to pray. It is easy to go astray without realising it. I suspect many priests of 40 years plus in ministry are questioning the theology and spirituality of priesthood and church. We seek to renew it in our lives. The challenge is very difficult and the culture we live is apathetic and hostile at times against all things religious or Roman Catholic…

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‘many, many of us keep our eyes on Christ.’
What could possibly be wrong with this? Given that 9:58 is talking about a denomination.

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@9:46am
That’s just sour grapes from you Patsy, I’m sure you will repent and return to the bosom of The Church where. deep down you long to be. Don’t forget His Holy Mother, Ad Jesum per Marium.

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An awful lot of videos of late, Bp Pat, which I never watch. I prefer a dirty abbot story or a nice long email. He’s not even a mormo.

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If anyone suspects I am heading in that direction, I hope they send for the vet to put me down 😀

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By Post Author

Do we need organised religion ?
Organised religion is an excuse to have power over the vulnerable people who are terrified they are going to be burning over a hot fire in darkness for eternity. The abuse of power over who should receive holy communion. I believe anyone who needs Jesus help and wants to receive should receive. Jesus came to
save sinners and touched sinners when on earth. Canon law says catholics with a pure heart only allowed receive. Why was brother Roger a protestant the first person allowed to receive holy communion at pope John Paul’s funeral and there was a furore when president. Mary received communion at a protestant service.? I think some priests get a power surge when he sees the baddies remaining in their seats. All are welcome to enter the building with a fee but no guarantee you will be fed.

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Yes, I’ve effectively left the RC Church. I just became aware that there was a lot of self serving front going on, and once the veil was lifted and we began to find out about the dysfunction and criminality of so many clergy and the cover up by the institution that was interested in protecting its ass rather than seeking the truth, I began to look more closely at what the Church and its clergy had fed me over the decades. I mean, if they could be found so seriously wanting and deficient in such matters, then it should make us question what they say and do about everything else. I began to think that the Church over decades has constructed a self serving narrative, scripturally, theologically, morally and institutionally in order to bolster its clerical dominance and control. Some of the stuff we have been taught is is so twee, naff and silly, evidently conveniently constructed for self-serving purposes, but delivered with such coercion and authority that we swallowed it. One example is the whole theology of priesthood and the complete ontological nonsense that goes on there. Even the narrative of salvation seems so conveniently constructed. I mean, why for God’s sake, did God suddenly decided to do what he did 2000 plus years ago, out of a universe history of billions of years ? Too convenient. Too artificially constructed. So, I’ve pretty much given up on what the Church has said and continues to say, and if I bother to listen to it I filter it through many layers to work out what is really going on, what they are really saying, and whether it has any truth in it. Yep, I’ve left the RC Church behind, I’m better off without it.

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9:26am A dysfunctional and criminal mindset seems to be a common feature when you take a closer look at clergy and their inner circles these days. That coupled with all the outstanding business they have failed to mediate or resolve with abuse victims etc., surely means they should be disbanded by the State in the interests of public safety. The United Nations Public Statement on The Roman Catholic Church is a good starting point for this process to commence. No regrets, in light of all the lives they have unrepentantly ruined and continue to ruin whilst dressing themselves up in pompous garb and pretending to be holier than thou.

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@ 11:15. You’ve well expressed the reality of those who have thrown off the shackles and really thought about who and what we are, and our place in an infinite universe .
Thank you.
MMM

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Have you maintained a spirituality? What form does it take? Genuine questions. Genuinely interested.

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I have also left the church. I have maintained a spirituality. I start my 30 mins meditation with “O God come to my aid. O Lord make haste to help me” I love the psalms, John of the Cross, Teresa of Avila etc. There are nuggets of pure gold in the church. I take the gold and dump the dross.

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I love that part of the Gospel where Jesus says: forget the black sheep. You white, one’s should form an exclusive pen.

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9.50

You just keep making the Church look better and better with your distinct lack of charity. But that’s not the main beauty here. Oh, no! The main beauty is that you have the humility neither to see nor understand what you are doing.

You are a living, and near perfect, example of someone living Jesus’ words : not to let the left hand know what the right one is doing.

God bless you.

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Yes I have maintained a spirituality. I just don’t pay any credence anymore to the waffle and drivel that comes out of the Roman Catholic Church by and large. It just seems so self-serving. However there are aspects of the core that I still maintain. The gospel values by a large mean a great deal to me. But not necessarily because they are in the gospels or because the church teaches them but because they seem to be in tune with humanity, or at least the better side of humanity. I think that comes from something spiritual deep within us and from a creator who is probably nothing like the kind of God that the Catholic Church portrays or indeed is portrayed in the Scriptures . So I try to live a life that is in touch with the unknown and spiritual and which bears good fruit. I guess as for the eternal I just think that we will be reabsorbed into whatever exists eternally. I don’t see that in a personal sense or in a physical sense or in a heavenly sense . I don’t think I even really believe that me as me continues to exist but me as me is absorbed into something greater. So that’s about the extent of my spirituality but I feel much happier and healthier having cast off so much silliness and idiocy that you find in the Christian narrative and particularly in the Catholic Church‘s presentation of it .

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9:34 Your comment has made me laugh (at 9:50’s expense) so much, thank you. I wouldn’t however like to know what either of 9:50’s hands is doing or where they’ve been.

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And most of those authentic saints were tortured by the hierarchy of their day.

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I’m howling at the cathbots having a go at people leaving their cult and confirming they did the right thing 😂

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9:27am. 🤣🤣. It’s that “power thang”, they always, but always just have to have “the last word” even if it means making themselves look like complete idiots! Ego Maniacs.

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@ 3:57pm

You made me laugh too🤣 I’m sure your hands are anything but clean I suspect they are covered in ink from your incessant writing to every poor Bishop and Papal Nuncio. Not to mention what you are known for writing, malicious letters to your victims!🤣🤣🤣 Guess who?

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Robert Nugent and his like epitomise the triumphalist belief that they, like the Mormons, have the ‘one truth’.

Neither Robert nor the Mormons, would probably see any irony in this : that they ALL claim to have the ‘one truth’.

Whenever I hear anyone (not just RCs and Mormons) claim to have the ‘one truth’, I can hear God first sigh, then see him shaking his head before burying it in his hands.

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10.06 am
Most religions are a cult each with its own version. At the end of the day it is about spirituality. Upon death our spirit will leave our bodies and we will return to the spirit world. We will all be reborn and it is in the next life on earth that we will pay the price for any wrong we have done in this life.
Is there a greater power? Indeed yes.

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Why do we have to pay a price for our wrongdoing, 12.35?
Why can’t God just forgive and forget?
Why should we if he isn’t prepared to do so?

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@3.29 pm Paul

Sorry love but it doesn’t work like that. We are here for one reason only and that is to be better people – like Jesus Christ.

We get away with nothing, absolutely nothing. On our passing to the spirit world, to a higher dimension, first we rest for a while, especially if death has been through a long and painful illness.

The whole of our life is played out for us (not all in one go, but in stages). We have to account for our actions, why we did this, why we did that.

The next life which we are born into (the spirit enters the unborn baby before birth). This life must reflect the life just passed, so as we learn how to be better people.

Therefore, if for example you have been cruel or a bully, you will experience this in your next life so as you can learn from it.

Everyone will face Judgment Day, no escape. God’s Law is a Perfect Law.

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Anon@ 4:28: You seem to have much knowledge most of us lack. Could you please explain the sources for this knowledge, and specific references also would be much appreciated.
I’m always open to new reputable information.
MMM

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9:49am A lot of local shamelessly self serving business types and big wigs sign up as lay church hierarchy. Church is all about money and power.

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I would love to be able to leave the RCC behind. Move on with my life. I am stuck in a rut. I love that everyone in the community recognises me. I hate their entitlement.

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10.46
Are you sure you are using ‘shibboleth’ correctly? It normally means a precise wording, ironically in your case, since its origin is biblical. You did mention at an earlier stage, the education you received in Ireland was ‘mediocre’ or some such word. And that it wasn’t until you travelled to England and Scotland for higher studies that you blossomed educationally. (God between us and all harm!)

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12:25 MMM refers to the other use of the word that you are apparently unaware of.
One of the hallmarks of good education is an ability to check what you think is true, such as by using a dictionary, before making a fool of yourself on the internet.

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4.10
The other use? There’s no such other use. You are talking through your Unionist orange hat for the umteenth time. Your sad rhetoric doesn’t make what’s false any less so. But you do know something about a chronic inability to avoid revealing sham.

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Oh dear! I just have to groan when reading a comment such as at 9:26.
I’ve said this previously, but it’s worth repeating.
It’s a reality that stupidity, a deficit of intellectual reasoning capacity, adversely affects the very ability, the self awareness, to appreciate one’s own limitations. So hampered, indeed severely limited, albeit unacknowledged and unknown to themselves, those thereby affected , like @ 9:26 clearly demonstrate their deficit. The volume of their proclamation of “facts” is invariably in inverse proportion to reality.
MMM

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Unionist Orange hat? You’re even more stupid than I thought you were. I’m Serbian Orthodox.

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It’s good to see increasing number of comments here questioning the shibboleth of organised religion, especially the RCC. Thank you @ 9:26 & 9:06 and others.
I too began questioning some 50 years ago, and over time, have realised all the more the sham, and worse, the pariah nature of religion. It’s demonstrated by the behaviour of its clerical administrators. Its debilitating effects are seen by some of the ad hominem vicious comments regularly seen here.
I commented here on 26/3 @10:15 on the origins of religious beliefs. The emotional insecurities I mentioned there are often displayed here too, such as @ 8.50, 8.58 & 9.38 above.
Bon Voyage on the barqe of questioning.
MMM

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Saw a comment last night re rcc couldn’t survive with sodmites..
If rcc kicked out all the sodmites that they have to date in all dioceses or religious orders. Rcc wouldn’t be able to survive with all the remaining (approx) 30% straight or asexual priests. It would cause a lot of church closures or church services severely curtailed.
BTW, I decided to drop in Dominicans church at last min. Guess what, I recognised a seminarian who was kissing priest’s hands way over the top. Parishioners complained it as consequence of his actions. Quite frankly, it turned me off two Easters ago re him as now he’s joining as a Dominican seminarian instead of a dicosean. Also recognised ex soccer player Mulryan there as well.

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Deaf Guy, I often wonder what would happen if they did kick out the gays.
If based on their own statement I think few would get kicked out because lying and denial are what they’re all about.
If it was based on actual sexual attraction identified through testing obviously they’d get the results you predict.

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Anon at 10.14am
So practically you are confirming
to us that it’s gay priests, gay bishops or prelates are holding rcc up as a life raft so to speak.
Its hypocrisy par excellence 👆.
Otherwise rcc would languishing in doldrums🤔🤷‍♂️with far less fewer priests all straight or asexual if rcc followed the rules of evicting all priests with homosexuality.
That said, which in turn less church services to the laity then in turn less income stream for them. Its the states and Europe, who were giving monies to the vatican in the past for a good while until now.
Ex abused Marie collins said RCC Ireland is in a freefall for now until when🤷‍♂️. How long will rcc 🇮🇪 reach the bottom or rise🤷‍♂️😉

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Why are you going into Catholic Churches deaf geezer when you keep being adamant you have turned your back on the whole thing. Doesn’t add up or maybe you just can’t resist it.

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2.12: You’re right. Deaf Guy has an obsession with churches and priests: a very unhealthy obsession and never shuts up…..He has too much to natter on about..

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Anon at 2.12pm
Will stop commenting on this blog soon.
You can’t have both ways re rcc.
Anon at 9.43pm
Lol re cappa Magna as I gotten over this. It doesn’t appeal, just reactive reaction 😉.
MC or MMM should be contributing, not me.
I m sitting on a fence re rcc as today blog push me out re rcc can’t survive without gay priests. It’s clear for ourselves to see when rcc get more and more exposed re their facade and veneer. It’s sheer and blatant hypocrisy on their part.

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Russia have hit Lviv with cruise missiles.
Our Lady hates Ukraine or else the consecration has had no effect whatsoever.

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12:15 A disgusting use of the slaughter to try to evade criticism of talking to invisible friends.

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Personally I always read Seamus’s comments in Mrs Brown’s voice with that little chuckle at the end.

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I have also left the church.
It is not what it ahould be. You cannot talk about priests ‘obeying’ their bishops when they live as they want. They take an oath of celibacy. Why are several in NI using Grindr? I am told their bishop is aware.
But of course it’s a “weakness”.
The best trade union in the world: the Catholic hierarchy.

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Johnny Harris tells a beautiful story of personal and spiritual growth. He has moved from what Richard Rohr OFM describes as first to second life spirituality. This can well necessitate a temporary or permanent break with the faith community, and a repudiation of religion altogether. It is part of a journey. The problem with most if not all organized religion is that it infantalizes adherents, which was cogently explored by the religious educationalist Professor John Hull back in the seventies. He is known for the film Touching the Rock concerning his blindness.

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Can you live a Catholic/Christian life individually, not belonging to a parish, body or gathering of other believers?

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Slightly off topic but it must be said. Some priests really have their needle stuck in the grove when it comes to preaching. The same message being read into every Gospel. The homily is not a moment to target people or situations. A preacher never does justice to the dynamics of a situation in this way. People are only made to feel ill at ease in their own parish church which is wrong on so many levels. Find the good word, the affirming word that people deserve to hear as they face into another week. Read a book, make a holy hour, do what needs to be done to find a different insight, but for God’s sake fathers, change the record!!

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1:34pm Our local bastardo can say what he likes about most of the Parish in his homily at this stage – there’s only his own small fan club there to hear and no one cares what they think anymore when you see what they get up to all week. They reap what they sow so in the words of that nasty swearing priest who was on here earlier today, they can **** ***.

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I think it was at Roccasecca that Reggie Foster told us this amusing story about his dealings with Mormons.

A Mormon student decided that it was her duty to save his soul. Accordingly she inundated him with all manner of Mormon literature, books, pamphlets and printouts amongst others. He appreciated her good intentions and endured her missionary attempts until he could no longer. Finally he told her that he had enough problems with believing in all aspects of his own Catholic religion and was certainly not going to take on her religion.

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If anyone wants to leave the Catholic church, there’s no difficulty in doing so. It’s a free world: just leave. Theres a general apathy towards organised religion and just as in Jesus’s time, when some chose not to walk with him, so today, people can leave or choose to have no particular religious affiliation. Millions still find great comfort, a sense of community, a purpose and fulfilment in their lives through their christian faith. Millions have been inspired by their faith to engage in charitable works and the gospel values have inspired many to great humanitarian works of justice. Those of us who stay with our religious faith and church do so with sincerity, conviction and commitment. Surely, all very commendable.

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I think many of the people who still attend mass have already left the RC Church in some important ways. They go to mass for their own reasons and comfort, but they retain a certain independence of thought and spirituality. We are no longer, so many of us, slaves to the church, to the clergy, and to what we hear from the pulpit. People will listen and be respectful and courteous, but they go away and think carefully for themselves and weigh up what they have heard, and make their own mind up about things. The days of the strangle hold the church and clergy had on our society have long since gone. Thank God. Any little fascist clergyman who decides that he knows best and will tell people what to do is quickly disabused of his self importance, even though he might not know it himself. People will smile, but they will think he’s a tosser, and make up their own mind in conscience. Way to go !

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