Mister Scratch wrote:Yes, I'm well aware of this. Instead, you have become a mocker of ex-Mormons and ex-Mormonism, and quite a violent one at that.
You talk like ex-Mormonism is some kind of idea, group-think, or movement. I became a liberal Mormon in 1985. I became an ex-Mormon in 1987. Where were you then, Scratch? In diapers? In all of my sporadic returns to the Church, I was liberal, and in 2000 a senior apostle who read my writings was hesitant to let me back into the Church. This is what I understand from what I heard from my bishop at the time.
I'll put it to you bluntly, Scratch, what you and others are "going through", I went through in the early 1980s. I'll be bold enough to say there are apostates unborn (!) who will go through
every stage I went through. All of the exmos who have commented in the last five or six years, and all of the ideas/emotions they expressed, I went through in the early '80s. I even
predicted this. Here is what I wrote in my blog (which I have now ceased, and changed the URL link);
Twenty years and two months ago I walked away from the Church. Not before I gave this warning to the Church leaders - you need to be more open and honest about Mormon history, because if you aren't, there will be mass apostasy on a grand scale in the future. These were the pre-Internet days, the late 1980s. With the advent of the Internet, and the creation of ex-Mormon websites in the late 1990s (primarily Recovery From Mormonism), and the rapid spread of information, the prediction I made began to come true. I had been studying "alternative" Mormon history since the early 1980s when this realisation struck me. Now I've always been an advocate of seeking knowledge, and I found all the sources I needed to learn everything I could about Mormon history. In the mid-80s, when I was at university doing a BA degree majoring in history, I spent countless hours reading up on anything I could on Mormonism, mainly on Saturdays. I would spend some four or five hours every Saturday, apart from my course of study, reading volumes of books, checking microfilm, perusing journals, and I began ordering books from alternative publishers of LDS history, like Signature books. By the time of the Internet, there was little I didn't know. But now everyone could easily access what I had learned in the 80s through much effort. People who didn't have the drive or interest I did in LDS history could now access everything through a keyboard at home, in minutes. A housewife, a son or daughter, could digest information from a multitude of sources that formerly required painstaking perusal of hardcopy on library shelves, usually only done by the most foolhardy.
Even Steve Benson only "recognised" what I recognised, ten years after I did!
I'm really tired, and have to go to bed, but I'll be succinct in my summarisation:
You don't know a fart. The critics of Mormonism don't know a fart. What they are now expressing, including what Kevin Graham is now expressing - is child's play. The only reason Kevin is popular here is because he mimics "truths" which
dumb people never researched for themselves. Because his faith has been killed stone dead, he seriously believes that others will be likewise affected. Kevin
still does not understand the
real underlying basis of belief. Book of Abraham studies are
boring, "
s*** boring", because they do not address the
real basis of
belief.
If Kevin thinks he has some "revolutionary" "insights", "understandings", which will "wake up Mormons", he's sadly mistaken. 95% of them will will use what he writes for toilet paper. Likewise
you, Scratch. You don't have
clue what motivates true belief. Your commentary is absolutely
asinine, and all it will do is
enhance belief. You are a complete JOKE to Mormons, especially those who post on MADB. When you finally grow a brain, in regard to Mormonism, I will show you how to approach this more intelligently, and in a more objective way.