Always Thinking wrote:When faced with ALL the questions about the church, its history, etc., eventually I realized that there is only one simple answer that satisfies every single question about Mormonism (and every other religion out there)!!
That answer is simply that it isn't true.
Once that answer is given space inside your head, it takes hold and that's all there is to it.
It's amazing that this is the only explanation that requires no shelf. It explains everything.
Always Thinking wrote:When faced with ALL the questions about the church, its history, etc., eventually I realized that there is only one simple answer that satisfies every single question about Mormonism (and every other religion out there)!!
That answer is simply that it isn't true.
Once that answer is given space inside your head, it takes hold and that's all there is to it.
I'm not sure I agree with this. There ARE some things in Mormonism that I haven't been able to explain by saying it's a fraud. The creation of the Book of Mormon still hasn't been fully explained. Why would Joseph Smith go to his death? Why would he allow his children to die? I mean, truthfully, he DID suffer a lot of persecution. More than I think someone would just to keep a con going.
But, the mountains of evidence against the church vastly outweighs any of that, in my opinion.
Last edited by Guest on Thu Aug 23, 2007 5:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.
2) Those that are disaffected, like myself, Runtu, Liz and others here that are dealing with the betrayal of trust in our various ways. Some remaining active with little faith in the leaders/church doctrine but with a belief in Christ, to the other end - discarding all spiritual truth and finding balance of life in atheism
This is a fairly broad category. is it not? Here you have lumped marginalized Mormons together with those who have sought other pathways of faith, to those who have abandoned faith altogether. It is so easy to get in this category. I was never able to follow a strict party line past the age of reason, much less to missionary age like many of you.
Apologists:
3) Those that "know" the actual recorded history from even unauthorized church sources (like the JOD etc, journals of faithful members etc.) and have determined that they will hold the Mormon party line in spite of the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. They tend to be very academic in their approach (as there is an unspoken requirement that to be qualified you must also be "trained for the ministry". They speak little of Jesus' good news, but bundle it as a less significant portion of the whole. I get the impression that most are multi-generational Mormons that believe it is their sacred duty to protect the name of their ancestors in spite of their unrighteous walk.
Although you mention "trained in the ministry", for the most part, I have noticed a curious absence of God-Jesus talk from the posts of many apologists. Perhaps they are concentrating of defending purely Mormon items. Your observation that they speak little of Jesus' good news, and thus bundle it as a less significant portion of the whole, seems accurate.
I had put a lot of issues on the shelf, and for the longest time I wasn't even interested in looking at them thoroughly ... I just mostly tried to ignore the fact that they existed. I tried not to think about them becuase I knew that I didn't have any really good explanation for them - the priesthood ban and Joseph Smith's polygamy (specifically, the sneaky, underhanded way that he went about it) were the two main ones that I tried not think about. I contented myself with assuming that there was evidence of the Book of Mormon out there, or that it was forthcoming with enough archaeological research. I didn't understand the magnitude of the problems with the Book of Abraham, and thought that there must be some deep and significant meaning behind the actual egyptian words on the hypocephalus. Hilariously (in retrospect), I even had Facsimile #2 custom designed as a decal for my snowboard, because I thought that it would be neato to have such a cool-looking and important hieroglyph as a graphic.
My shelf didn't collapse under the weight of these issues. Rather, over the course of a few years, I had a growing realisation that the doctrines of Mormonism didn't really explain what I observed about the world. Mormon doctrine started to feel a lot more like a fantasy world to me than a serious explanation of reality. The summer before I started graduate school, I decided that, for my own integrity, I needed to figure out for myself, once and for all, if I really truly believed in Mormonism. So, I set about researching everything that I thought was relevant, trying to see if I could make the church's claims jive with my perception of the world. The more I researched, the more and more obvious it became that the church's plan of salvation wasn't god's one true plan for all of humanity, rather it was the (somewhat silly) imaginations of an extremely creative 19th century con man.
Scottie wrote:I always said that any 1 issue, in a vaccum, I could probably overlook as just not understanding, or that it was taken out of context or whatever.
But when you have the mountain of evidence against the church, it just gets too hard to overlook everything.
Excellent point, Scottie,
Color me skeptical, but a time may come when those (the apologists and those at the helm) mining the mountain for only what they consider valuable, will discover that they have rendered the structure entirely unstable.
There might be a handful that will warn of the dangers, but ultimately it will take a series of "seismic bumps" to wake everyone up - even those that were unaware of the mountain at all. No doubt, some inside may even be caught unawares.
As for those trapped miners (apologists), although those outside will make every effort to rescue them, regretably it will be determined that abandoning the mountain would be much safer and cost effective than risking additional highly speciallized miners or the honor of the management.
Besides, those trapped will most likely be burried so deep that it will be impossible to determine whether they even have a pulse.
I'm not surprised. I do think there are people who know the history and the problems but nonetheless choose to believe. Most of these people, in my experience, believe because they have had some powerful spiritual experiences that they interpret as supporting belief in Mormonism. Unless I'm reading you wrong, that seems to be the case with you.
I can't begrudge someone's resting their belief on subjective testimony. If it works for you, go for it.
I agree with you Nehor. It was a broad brush. You are unique in your way of remaining unaffected and very capable of accepting only the peace within the eye of the hurricane.
2) Those that are disaffected, like myself, Runtu, Liz and others here that are dealing with the betrayal of trust in our various ways. Some remaining active with little faith in the leaders/church doctrine but with a belief in Christ, to the other end - discarding all spiritual truth and finding balance of life in atheism
This is a fairly broad category. is it not? Here you have lumped marginalized Mormons together with those who have sought other pathways of faith, to those who have abandoned faith altogether. It is so easy to get in this category. I was never able to follow a strict party line past the age of reason, much less to missionary age like many of you.
It's pretty broad but among all the contrasts in our lifestyles/philosophies I think this is our common thread.
My main issue with the LDS church is that it isn't "true" in that mormonistic jargon version of the word, ie: it's not really a church set up by a God who actually exists, and invested with his "authority".
Quite simply, the LDS church is a manmade creation, which is no more true than any other church out there.
That's an issue that they cannot ever resolve. There is no answer they can give to any question of history, which will take the church from manmade to Godmade. There is no God, and this non-existent God did not deputize Joseph Smith, and this same non-existent God did not grant Joseph Smith any Heavenly authority to build an earthly kingdom for said God. The LDS prophets, seers, and revelators, never reveal anything, they never "see" anything, they never prophecy anything, they are just old men who have toed the party line in the Mormon church for long enough that they've entered the inner circle of power, with a lifetime appointment.
The entire thing is well-intended by today's believers, but good intentions do not make a manmade institution into the Eartly Kingdom of God that the believers claim it to be.
There is no answer, to any question, which can change any of this. The church wasn't true before Joseph Smith made up the Book of Abraham. The church wasn't true before Joseph Smith screwed Fanny Alger. The church wasn't true before Joseph Smith sent some men on missions and then propositioned and bedded their wives while they were gone. The church wasn't true before the Book of Mormon was invented by whomever was responsible for it, or the Kirtland banking scandal, or the Missouri Mormon wars, or anything else. It was never, ever true to begin with. Everything else about Mormon history is merely symptoms of this not being true; they aren't the cause of it.
So many Mormons who have the kind of attitude mentioned in the OP seem to regard the church as holding an a priori presumption of truth, and non-belief is an aberration that must be explained and justified. If they can only resolve whatever issue it is, you'll have to come back, and whatnot. Well guess what? The LDS church is no more worthy of belief, or deserving of belief, nor is belief or allegiance owed to it in any greater degree than they are owed to any church on the face of the earth. Which is to say, it's owed nothing by us. This church is not presumptively true until proven otherwise. It's presumtively just as not true as any other church until and unless they can prove otherwise.
Mormonism ceased being a compelling topic for me when I finally came to terms with its transformation from a personality cult into a combination of a real estate company, a SuperPac, and Westboro Baptist Church. - Kishkumen
Sethbag wrote:This church is not presumptively true until proven otherwise. It's presumtively just as not true as any other church until and unless they can prove otherwise.
This is the fatal flaw in your logic here. No matter how much evidence against the church, the "whispering of the spirit" is counted as proof. It's not evidence, it is downright proof, and denial of this proof is outside the realm of reality.
In the TBM mindset, there are 2 kinds of people. Those whom the spirit has confirmed the truth, and those who the spirit has yet to confirm the truth to. The evidence doesn't matter.
Scottie wrote:This is the fatal flaw in your logic here. No matter how much evidence against the church, the "whispering of the spirit" is counted as proof. It's not evidence, it is downright proof, and denial of this proof is outside the realm of reality.
In the TBM mindset, there are 2 kinds of people. Those whom the spirit has confirmed the truth, and those who the spirit has yet to confirm the truth to. The evidence doesn't matter.
Yeah, it's interesting to be one of those people who did receive that spiritual "confirmation" and yet who rejected the church because of the evidence and my conscience. I must be a son of perdition or something.