asbestosman wrote:Oh come on Sethbag. I think you feel that way about all Mormons. I'm sure you feel that way about the stuff I write. Probably even the stuff I write to be silly on purpose.
I know this wasn't addressed to me, but I want to use this as an opportunity to make something clear. My opinion about charity comes from numerous bad experiences exchanging posts with her, when I was posting under my two pseudonyms (in succession, not contemporaneously). I don't have it in for all Mormons. I do lose patience for people who seem incapable of seeing both sides of an issue, and who have a persecution complex in spades.
For the last 6 years of my time as an active member, I was able to see positives and negatives in the LDS Church. When I posted on FAIR in criticism of the apologists and various Church policies, it was not as an ex-Mormon, but as an active Mormon that I did so. Still, I was accused of being anti-Mormon whenever I brought up things that seemed controversial, although they were well-established fact, or I disagreed with current Church policy in any way.
I have a great deal of respect for apologists who show some flexibility in their views--who are willing to entertain the possibility that Joseph Smith did not literally translate the Book of Abraham from those papyri or a missing papyrus, who think one can be a faithful LDS person and not believe in the historicity of the Book of Mormon, who may have issues with the fact that women do not have the priesthood, or gays are expected to be celibate their entire lives.
Such flexibility suggests to me a willingness to acknowledge the facts, and to value people over institutions. That I can respect.