All 7 Of Jacob Hansen's Siblings Have Left The Church

[The Stig]

In my opinion, Hansen has the intellectual depth of a dry puddle. On top of that, he's an asshole. It's a lovely mix.

In my opinion, that is a rather shallow view of a larger picture.

It almost sounds like something a teenager might say without giving it much thought.

Regards,
MG

Get over yourself. I'm far more familiar with his nonsense than you give me credit for. I've argued with that idiot more times than I can count and it's always the same shallow understanding of the subject, dismissive hand waving, and name calling from him every single time. Go to his "X" account and look up the time he tried to argue that Nazi Germany was actually a "Socialist" regime simply because the Nazi party had "Socialist" in the name. It's a fine example of him relying upon a superficial reading of the facts with no understanding of the actual history that occurred, and that's not even an example of his many, many, shallow useless arguments where he attempts to shame exmos and critics. He's just another bomb-throwing miscreant on the Internet, when it comes right down to it.

[Rivendale]

So Hansen and MG 2.0 are like brothers from different mothers?

I don't know Jacob in real life. What I can say is that I have traveled, in certain respects, a path similar to what it seems he may have traveled in order to arrive at a place of faith in the restoration narrative.

I traveled it years before he did.

I think that the time and effort he has put into his faith is admirable. I watched a conversation between him and his brother:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMydBGkvnKM&t=3525s

It has always been interesting to me how differently people can view/see the world even when presented with the same evidence. (I'm saying this in regards to Mormonism specifically.)

Regards,
MG

Forrest didn't get a word in edge wise. Jacob wouldn't shut up. We never got to hear how they both looked at the same information and came to different conclusions. Forrest had good rebuttal on the fact that the church went from not being true to not being good but lasted a whopping 30 seconds.

[MG 2.0]

In my opinion, that is a rather shallow view of a larger picture.

It almost sounds like something a teenager might say without giving it much thought.

Regards,
MG

Get over yourself. I'm far more familiar with his nonsense than you give me credit for. I've argued with that idiot more times than I can count and it's always the same shallow understanding of the subject, dismissive hand waving, and name calling from him every single time. Go to his "X" account and look up the time he tried to argue that Nazi Germany was actually a "Socialist" regime simply because the Nazi party had "Socialist" in the name. It's a fine example of him relying upon a superficial reading of the facts with no understanding of the actual history that occurred, and that's not even an example of his many, many, shallow useless arguments where he attempts to shame exmos and critics. He's just another bomb-throwing miscreant on the Internet, when it comes right down to it.

The OP presents a current presentation Jacob made. I'm assuming that by this time you've viewed it and given it careful consideration.

May I ask you the same question that I've asked Marcus and IHQ?

Did you ever have a firm faith and belief/testimony of the mission of Jesus Christ and in God the Father...at any time? Meaning before or after your loss of faith...assuming you had faith at some point/time in your life.

This is directly connected to the latter part of Jacob's faith journey. Do you feel he is mistaken in his 'pyramid' analogy and the unfortunate possibility that many people have inverted that pyramid and ended up losing their faith when it might have turned out differently if they had centered on Christ and Heavenly Father and developed a solid belief/faith in them to begin with?

Regards,
MG

[MG 2.0]

I don't know Jacob in real life. What I can say is that I have traveled, in certain respects, a path similar to what it seems he may have traveled in order to arrive at a place of faith in the restoration narrative.

I traveled it years before he did.

I think that the time and effort he has put into his faith is admirable. I watched a conversation between him and his brother:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMydBGkvnKM&t=3525s

It has always been interesting to me how differently people can view/see the world even when presented with the same evidence. (I'm saying this in regards to Mormonism specifically.)

Regards,
MG

Forrest didn't get a word in edge wise. Jacob wouldn't shut up. We never got to hear how they both looked at the same information and came to different conclusions. Forrest had good rebuttal on the fact that the church went from not being true to not being good but lasted a whopping 30 seconds.

They both have YouTube channels that you can dig into if you want to know why they came to different conclusions. As it is, it might be the older brother, younger brother thing. I think they both respect each other and Forrest may have given way to Jacob at times. Although when I watched it, I must say, I came away looking at Forrest as being well spoken and having the opportunity to speak when he wanted to. He may have a quieter/subdued personality than Jacob.

I don't know that I would judge Jacob too harshly.

Regards,
MG

[Rivendale]

Forrest didn't get a word in edge wise. Jacob wouldn't shut up. We never got to hear how they both looked at the same information and came to different conclusions. Forrest had good rebuttal on the fact that the church went from not being true to not being good but lasted a whopping 30 seconds.

They both have YouTube channels that you can dig into if you want to know why they came to different conclusions. As it is, it might be the older brother, younger brother thing. I think they both respect each other and Forrest may have given way to Jacob at times. Although when I watched it, I must say, I came away looking at Forrest as being well spoken and having the opportunity to speak when he wanted to. He may have a quieter/subdued personality than Jacob.

I don't know that I would judge Jacob too harshly.

Regards,
MG

Don't link to a video that doesn't support what you say. I refuse to sort through a swamp land of nonsense.

[MG 2.0]

They both have YouTube channels that you can dig into if you want to know why they came to different conclusions. As it is, it might be the older brother, younger brother thing. I think they both respect each other and Forrest may have given way to Jacob at times. Although when I watched it, I must say, I came away looking at Forrest as being well spoken and having the opportunity to speak when he wanted to. He may have a quieter/subdued personality than Jacob.

I don't know that I would judge Jacob too harshly.

Regards,
MG

Don't link to a video that doesn't support what you say. I refuse to sort through a swamp land of nonsense.

I suppose we'll have to leave it there rather than argue the point. What I've said is true.

Regards,
MG

[The Stig]

Get over yourself. I'm far more familiar with his nonsense than you give me credit for. I've argued with that idiot more times than I can count and it's always the same shallow understanding of the subject, dismissive hand waving, and name calling from him every single time. Go to his "X" account and look up the time he tried to argue that Nazi Germany was actually a "Socialist" regime simply because the Nazi party had "Socialist" in the name. It's a fine example of him relying upon a superficial reading of the facts with no understanding of the actual history that occurred, and that's not even an example of his many, many, shallow useless arguments where he attempts to shame exmos and critics. He's just another bomb-throwing miscreant on the Internet, when it comes right down to it.

The OP presents a current presentation Jacob made. I'm assuming that by this time you've viewed it and given it careful consideration.

May I ask you the same question that I've asked Marcus and IHQ?

Did you ever have a firm faith and belief/testimony of the mission of Jesus Christ and in God the Father...at any time? Meaning before or after your loss of faith...assuming you had faith at some point/time in your life.

This is directly connected to the latter part of Jacob's faith journey. Do you feel he is mistaken in his 'pyramid' analogy and the unfortunate possibility that many people have inverted that pyramid and ended up losing their faith when it might have turned out differently if they had centered on Christ and Heavenly Father and developed a solid belief/faith in them to begin with?

Regards,
MG

Yes. So much so that as my testimony began to falter, I became suicidal when I could not seem to get the Heavens to communicate with me. For a full year, I got up every morning and willed myself to keep believing, even though the facts did not support such a belief. I lost my marriage, many friendships, and the equivalent of many, many days of time trying to recover that testimony. All I could think at the time was that there was something seriously wrong with me or that I was engaging in some terrible sin (neither was true) because I couldn't get an answer to a single prayer to reaffirm my belief in the Church's truth claims. When I finally admitted to myself that I didn't believe in the Church, it was less than an hour later that I could no longer justify belief in any form of a deity. Why? Because the Church had done such an excellent job of helping me pick apart any other religious belief system (I served my mission in Tennessee), that I realized every single one of them was filled with nonsense.

So, the next time you arrogantly affirm that "we" (as exmos) never actually believed, why don't you remember me and people like me who desperately wanted it to be true and then lost everything because we just couldn't believe it anymore. While you're at it, you can shove that condescending attitude about this topic straight up your ass. I, and I alone, am the sole expert on how strong my belief was and you have no business, whatsoever, telling my otherwise.

[Rivendale]

Don't link to a video that dosen't support what you say. I refuse to sort through a swamp land of nonsense.

I suppose we'll have to leave it there rather than argue the point. What I've said is true.

Regards,
MG

Same old same old. Post a link that shows nothing of substance and then run.

[Gadianton]

I think you would see that I am of the opinion that God is MUCH BIGGER than any one religion can wrap their doctrine/practice/mind around. God is in and through ALL things. Hinduism, Taoism, Buddhism, Confucianism, etc. Any belief system that brings people to greater

Right, a belief system can bring a person to greater things as a Mormon, even if Jesus is just a story like Vishnu. In other words, contrary to what you told me originally, it doesn't require a real connection to an actual real person called Jesus or a real person called Vishnu.

[Gadianton]

MG's line is parallel to Calvinist explanations for the backslidden Christian. If a person gets saved, makes a big to-do about it, and them goes off and forsakes belief later down the road, then how is it explained? One view is that the person is still saved. Once saved, always saved. The more popular view is that the person was never saved in the first place. It's not that you work to get saved, but if the "works" aren't present in the eyes of fellow Christians, it might indicate salvation never really took place. Jonathan Edwards had this kind of thinking worked out in detail, in order to avoid the possibility of ever being wrong. He went so far to say that there is no firm relation between a person's life and the elect whatsoever, in the end. A person could be elect without ever walking into a church, and a person could be a life-long Christian and wind up in hell.

It's not that he would have believed salvation is a total crapshoot, which is what his doctrine collapses into, he would have likely made all the familiar judgement calls his peers would about this person or that person. What he produced was what was necessary to ward off the problem way in the distance of a great Christian who walks away from it. His extensive legal framing of the situation is necessary in order for a loss of faith to ever count against belief in God.

MG is basically pulling the same stunt. While Mormonism doesn't believe in election, it's a one-for-one pacing of the basic idea: If you were a fire-breathing missionary and temple married and all that and you walked away, then you must not have ever really believed in the first place.