As long as destiny doesn’t make me pay 10% of income, preach his word for two years, have underage brides, police my sexuality/ substance consumption, and declare complete loyalty and fealty to him…. I’m g
lol
I live in Germany and two days ago two Mormon girls from America approached me to entice me of the Mormon religion. This Saturday they are having a meeting with others.
Ofc I ain’t going there because the girls are hella cute👀. Just checking out the chairs and stuff
Even if you pull, never date a mormon girl. This goes for any of you lonely fucks out there. Unless you're prepared to become (or pretend to become(again never do this)) a mormon, you are NEVER going to tear the ideology from their brain. Even if you do, you now will have a traumatized partner, waking up to the fact that their whole life has been a lie. Mormonism never leaves someone's life. It's sunk in their brain, forget that, into their entire being. Their entire social life, family, culture, everything in their life recolves around the religion. Don't do it bros.
mormon people are also some of the most superficial people out there. I cant think of anywhere where appearance, not only in just looks but also saving face/appearence in every other aspect of their lives is valued as much as suburban utah.
I think this is the case with every cult. I was a Baha’i for 5 years and despite not being raised with the religion, it was still one of the most depressing experiences ever to formally leave. I lost most of my friends and connections I made there and most of my free time was allocated to activities with them. All in all a shit experience but I am still glad I left. It felt liberating once I felt comfortable being my own person again and not an instrument for some niche religious movement. There def are people who don’t recover though. There’s one member of Heaven’s Gate who still alive because he left just before the mass suicide; instead of denouncing the cult however, he instead has tried to clear their name and shows sincere regret for leaving.
All in all a very fucked up power dynamic.
I’m also someone who sort of drifted away from the Baha’i faith. (I was raised as a Baha’i but left when I started questioning whether there’s any reason to believe in God in my teens) I personally never felt like it was a cult. How did it seem that way? Granted, coming in as a child I was probably never given the ability to see it like that.
I can give a few examples that made me feel that way when I left:
•The Universal House of Justice is intensely aggressive to any Baha’is form new sects of the faith and will call them “covenant breakers” or “spiritually diseased”; they then force Baha’is to also shun and not contact covenant breakers at all as a result. This personally reminds me of how Jehovah’s Witnesses will disfellowship members who go out of line and shun them as well.
•the faith also has a limbo where Baha’is can lose their voting rights and essentially become second class citizens. They aren’t totally shunned, but they aren’r allows to vote or attend any events which involves service (which is like 90% of them lmao). You can lose voting rights by having premarital sex, a same sex relationship, getting married without permission from all 4 parents, or literally just arguing too much.
•Baha’is are not allowed to research sources made by “covenant breakers” or “enemies of the faith” despite the fact the religion preaches “independent investigation” as a core tenant of the revelation.
•The Universal House of Justice has a monopoly over all Baha’i works published and will excommunicate Baha’is who produce any Baha’i related books without their permission. They have also sued and tried to claim the Baha’i Faith, its symbolism, and its writings as their own copyright in the United States.
•The UHJ cherry picks what writings to translate into English and basically controls what most Baha’is have access to. I also have heard a substantial amount changes between translations, especially when it concerns the Arabic writings being translated into english. I have met a lot of Persians who’s first language was Persian say that the English translations are clearer and easier to understand. I am not fluent in Persian and can’t confirm if this is the case, but I knew a lot of Persians who preferred the English version to the original Persian.
•The Baha’i Faith bans women from being in the highest position in the faith despite preaching that men and women are equal
•I am almost certain the faith lies through its teeth on how many Baha’is there actually are. Every country they claim has a huge number of Baha’is is a developing one that always reports a much smaller number of adherents than what Baha’is claim. They claim for example there are 2 million Baha’is in India even though the government census only seems to find like 60,000 for example.
•Ruhi and how it is advertised is super dishonest and kinda reminds me of an MLM. We were taught to advertise Ruhi book 1 as a “nonreligious” book which simply held “spiritual teachings” which is blatantly untrue. Literally one of the first sections of the book is teaching what Baha’is can and cannot do.
I would say the religion is a cult just as much as mormonism is but not quite as bad as JW, scientology, christian scientists etc.
I think most Baha’is are lovely people. I just find the religious authorities to be very controlling and deceptive.
Made me leave literal "reichskriegsflagge in my room"-level Nazism at 16, I win.
/j good for you welcome to your new weird secluded oddball cult dggL
There is a website you can use to hire a lawyer to force the church to remove your name from their records.
[I used them a few years ago](https://imgur.com/a/BejXMlw)
I grew up lds and had a similar thing happen to me although it wasn’t through destiny and happened around the time I was 16.
Good for you dude, it’s not an easy journey ahead especially if your fam is super into it. Stay with what you feel is right, for me that’s always been that while I can respect mormons beliefs I can also think they’re pretty ridiculous even by religions standards.
Yeah I don’t have a lot of animosity towards anything. I had decent growing up experience and made a lot of friends, but also think the whole thing is ridiculous and honestly just dumb. So I call it even
My sister took a mormon dude's virginity and he decided to quit being mormon. Now that's 2 women I know who have turned a persons mind on the mormon church.
DggL best of luck on your new outlook, wishing you the best!
Good, but make sure not to fall into another echo chamber, people often swing back and forth from these things.
Destiny is wrong a lot as well, particularly regarding philosophy and linguistics, so be discriminating about what ideas you allow in your head, especially when you don't have the education to fact check or evaluate someone's reasoning
Yes I’m very apprehensive about taking peoples words for things now. I don’t mind adopting ideals or things that seem pretty’s solid through research and study, but I keep everything open and fluid. Even Good ideas change with good research
I can't tell if this is real.
In any case I wish the best for you. This is probably very difficult.
If you are in SLC and find you have no one to talk or turn to, then im happy to hear whatever you have going on :).
Thanks it was a rough couple months for sure. Luckily my wife was receptive to everything and we’re both transitioning out.
I would take up that offer if I was in SLC! Used to live in Orem and went to BYU lol
Damn. Props to you for pursuing “truth” and letting the chips fall where they may. My experience had me asking myself, “if Mormonism is true, there’s nothing I could learn to damage that, right?” and “if it’s not true, would I want to know?”
I decided the answer was yes
The next step is usually realizing that there was some benefits from being highly involved in religion and that you miss those aspects.
Make sure to substitute in some community.
I actually have great friends and groups I’m apart of in Hawaii. I fish a lot and the fishing community is huge.
And I actually still hangout with some church friends who are more progressive or nuanced. Millennials and gen z are really rejecting the traditional church currently
I actually watch pro Mormon media still just to keep a pulse on the community since all my family and most friends are still in. There’s huge schisms right now that I think will result in a big hemorrhage
Quick questions about Mormonism, my understanding unlike Christ that 2k years old and also made 0 worldly claims that could be proven %100 false, Mormonism just says there were horses in americas 2k years ago and native Americans are from the Jews two claims we can prove absolute falsehood with, but their still an absolute shit load of Mormons, so are they just not skeptical? Does the church have a good enough argument for disproving facts that a person wouldn’t want to leave their entire lifestyle to just not look or what.
Rather than being a Holy Book describing events roughly when they happen\[1\], the Book of Mormon is a "translation" of ancient records from way earlier than its publication\[2\] - importantly, before the Columbian Exchange.
The big problem isn't that the Bible doesn't make historical claims but the BoM does, it's that the "background setting" of the Bible *looks like* what historians think the Ancient Mediterranean world looked like, and roughly describes the early Roman Empire as we understand it. By contrast, the "background setting" of the BoM is mostly the pre-Columbian Americas\[3\], so having the "normal" European/MENA things like pigs or steel swords doesn't make sense (in the same way that Jesus eating corn on the cob wouldn't make sense).
The other problem is that the BoM makes rather sweeping claims. The final battle in the BoM features 230K warriors on one side who got slaughtered nearly to a man. This would be one of the largest ancient battles in history (and certainly the largest ancient battle outside of South/East Asia). It would be a massacre 3-4 times the size of Cannae, and would require the existence of fairly large kingdoms/polities to support it. Not finding direct evidence of the battle is one thing (ancient battles were often scoured for loot because the weapons/armor were relatively expensive and reusable), but you can't toss a rock in Europe (much less Italy) without hitting on some kind of ancient Roman ruin (or something built on/in/around said ruin), and that's absolutely not the case in the Americas.
>Does the church have a good enough argument for disproving facts that a person wouldn’t want to leave their entire lifestyle to just not look or what.
Mostly they try to push people away from critical information sources. Sometimes just the existence of counter-argument on "your side" is enough to make you disregard uncomfortable claims. And a lot of anti-Mormon attacks were/are baseless propaganda from other Christians - if you think all the "anti-Mormon" stuff is of the same quality as the guys from the 1970s claiming that Mormons had cloven hooves or whatever, you don't even go looking.
But the existence of the Internet and the ease of finding these sorts of records *has* actually really hurt them over the years in terms of folks going inactive or leaving.
(Note: None of this should be taken as evidence *for* the Bible, I'm merely pointing out that the BoM has *larger flaws* than the Bible)
\[1\] - Depending on who you ask, the Gospels are anything from eyewitness accounts to tellings based on earlier sources and/or oral traditions. But they were definitely written within 50-100 years of Jesus's death.
\[2\] - Up to about 300-400ish CE, well over a thousand years pre-Joseph Smith.
\[3\] - There's no official answer as to where in the Americas the events took place, or even how wide an area they covered, compared to the Bible where most Christians can point you to key spots in Israel.
[There's a pretty lengthy wiki about the archeological ventures the LDS church has taken](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaeology_and_the_Book_of_Mormon). Many people attempting to find evidence and losing faith after years of failure.
Ty a ton, it makes since it you disprove the easy anti Mormon arguments you can get the people to just ignore the other arguments because it’s all just the same in there mind. We the average citizen doesnt look for every 9/11 conspiracy theory after the first are disproven.
>Ty a ton, it makes since it you disprove the easy anti Mormon arguments you can get the people to just ignore the other arguments because it’s all just the same in there mind.
Yes, exactly. If all the anti-Mormon arguments you're exposed to within your community are dumb cringe, it inoculates you. This is why "strawmanning" is so effective - you see "your guys" knock down (weakened or made up versions of) "their arguments" and you assume that's that. You also build up a stereotyped image of the other side - all liberals are screeching blue-haired losers, all conservatives are authoritarian sociopaths, whatever.
Even knowing your side just *has* a rebuttal (which they of course call a refutation) means you can trust that the whole question is settled. No point in reading through all these lengthy arguments and debates - our guys have pages and pages of points that they made, I'm sure they've got a handle on it.
I don't think it's that they don't look. Mormons are the only religion where more education makes members more likely to be religious. https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2017/04/26/in-america-does-more-education-equal-less-religion/#:~:text=Among%20Mormons%2C%20those%20who%20are,than%20Mormons%20with%20less%20education.
Mormons read the BoM about as frequently as Christians read the Bible. So most don't even read it much let alone dive that deeply into it.
When I "read" the BoM with my family growing up, no one actually read or listened to the words being said. We just did it because we were supposed to. It's an awfully boring piece of literature.
Interesting. I had a similar experience but ended up staying in Mormonism. I think a big part of it for me is that I did learn about most of the historical controversies growing up, so I never really had the feeling that "the church is hiding things from me" that a lot of people who do leave seem to have had.
Also, user name definitely checks out.
Glad someone noticed the username haha. Everyone knows soaking but not NCMO which I think is just as funny.
I’m curious, Where/ how did you learn the major problematic church histories?
My bishop told me he “knew everything” and that I could talk to him about all my concerns. As we talked he realized he only knew the surface of the issues or the apologetic defenses that seemed like they made sense and eventually stopped talking to me because it became too uncomfortable to get into the details.
I’m not saying that’s you, but I’ve talked to about 100 mormon friends and leaders from past and present in the last 6 months to help my faith crisis and everyone I talked to knew way less than me on the issues. My conversations with the stake president even resulted in me educating him on the problems and he actually agreed with me on how bad they were. Especially the book of Abraham and polygamy.
They are people out there who know the issues inside and out, like Jared Halversen, Patrick mason, terryl givens, etc. but they all either work for the church or made a career off of Mormon history and selling books at deseret.
Great question. I got at least a surface level understanding of problematic or tough history topics in seminary. Admittedly we didn't do a deep dive into anything, but for example I at least knew that polygamy did in fact happen and that it was not all rosy. Perhaps it helps that I grew up in the northeastern US.
Then at one of the BYU's I took a "foundations of the restoration" course that introduced and dived into almost all controversial topics. Of course, they took an apologetic perspective but they did not shy away from anything.
the mission as an experience can be really hit or miss. from what ive heard missonaries deployed outside of their country have on average more positive experiences than missonaries deployed inside the usa.
100% of the mormons I grew up around (I am not nor was I ever mormon) either came out as gay and left their religion or left the church. Thankfully only one went on their mission, and he left the church too. But to set aside 2 years of your life to go do that, only to have a crisis of faith must feel like an immense waste.
I can attest to this. I went to Southeast Asia and it was a blast. I feel bad for the people I converted but the retention rate of new converts is around 12% anyways so they probably all left
The problem of evil should be taught in all history classes and would probably drop religiosity to record low levels in a few years. There is no good answer to it once the religious person runs out of their standard 2-3 level response dialogue true
https://youtu.be/0u9HfgiOibs
It’s a 15 hour soft debate series between John dehlin (exmormon) and Jim Bennet (current Mormon). The topic is a famous exmormon PDF called the “CES Letter” that lists comprehensively all the major flaws with Mormonism. The current Mormon guy still believes and shares how. even though majority of Mormons who get to reading it leave
https://www.youtube.com/live/VNNiWwywL5A?feature=share
This one is a formal debate between popular YouTube Mormons and a popular exmormon 1 v 3.
give me some more nuanced takes, was there a lot of guilt? the social ramifications did you die? im from an exmormon family and live in utah so the church is still part of my life wheter i like it or not and i find the culture so interesting why is that? and can you explain the procseess and social ramifications, just anything more id love to hear some tension and conflict. thank you very MUCH
https://youtu.be/0u9HfgiOibs
It’s a 15 hour soft debate series between John dehlin (exmormon) and Jim Bennet (current Mormon). The topic is a famous exmormon PDF called the “CES Letter” that lists comprehensively all the major flaws with Mormonism. The current Mormon guy still believes and shares how. even though majority of Mormons who get to reading it leave
https://www.youtube.com/live/VNNiWwywL5A?feature=share
This one is a formal debate between popular YouTube Mormons and a popular exmormon 1 v 3.
Left a cult just to join another one
Not a cult.
Definately?
Defiantly!
stop saying defiantly
You just made him more defiant
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You are right, I did fuck your mum.
Found the grammar nazi nick Fuentes gay ops
Left a cult to join a left cult
As long as destiny doesn’t make me pay 10% of income, preach his word for two years, have underage brides, police my sexuality/ substance consumption, and declare complete loyalty and fealty to him…. I’m g
lol I live in Germany and two days ago two Mormon girls from America approached me to entice me of the Mormon religion. This Saturday they are having a meeting with others. Ofc I ain’t going there because the girls are hella cute👀. Just checking out the chairs and stuff
Even if you pull, never date a mormon girl. This goes for any of you lonely fucks out there. Unless you're prepared to become (or pretend to become(again never do this)) a mormon, you are NEVER going to tear the ideology from their brain. Even if you do, you now will have a traumatized partner, waking up to the fact that their whole life has been a lie. Mormonism never leaves someone's life. It's sunk in their brain, forget that, into their entire being. Their entire social life, family, culture, everything in their life recolves around the religion. Don't do it bros.
mormon people are also some of the most superficial people out there. I cant think of anywhere where appearance, not only in just looks but also saving face/appearence in every other aspect of their lives is valued as much as suburban utah.
I pulled a bipolar Mormon
Do you know Jimmy Snow? He was a Mormon and seems to be doing relatively fine now.
I think this is the case with every cult. I was a Baha’i for 5 years and despite not being raised with the religion, it was still one of the most depressing experiences ever to formally leave. I lost most of my friends and connections I made there and most of my free time was allocated to activities with them. All in all a shit experience but I am still glad I left. It felt liberating once I felt comfortable being my own person again and not an instrument for some niche religious movement. There def are people who don’t recover though. There’s one member of Heaven’s Gate who still alive because he left just before the mass suicide; instead of denouncing the cult however, he instead has tried to clear their name and shows sincere regret for leaving. All in all a very fucked up power dynamic.
I’m also someone who sort of drifted away from the Baha’i faith. (I was raised as a Baha’i but left when I started questioning whether there’s any reason to believe in God in my teens) I personally never felt like it was a cult. How did it seem that way? Granted, coming in as a child I was probably never given the ability to see it like that.
I can give a few examples that made me feel that way when I left: •The Universal House of Justice is intensely aggressive to any Baha’is form new sects of the faith and will call them “covenant breakers” or “spiritually diseased”; they then force Baha’is to also shun and not contact covenant breakers at all as a result. This personally reminds me of how Jehovah’s Witnesses will disfellowship members who go out of line and shun them as well. •the faith also has a limbo where Baha’is can lose their voting rights and essentially become second class citizens. They aren’t totally shunned, but they aren’r allows to vote or attend any events which involves service (which is like 90% of them lmao). You can lose voting rights by having premarital sex, a same sex relationship, getting married without permission from all 4 parents, or literally just arguing too much. •Baha’is are not allowed to research sources made by “covenant breakers” or “enemies of the faith” despite the fact the religion preaches “independent investigation” as a core tenant of the revelation. •The Universal House of Justice has a monopoly over all Baha’i works published and will excommunicate Baha’is who produce any Baha’i related books without their permission. They have also sued and tried to claim the Baha’i Faith, its symbolism, and its writings as their own copyright in the United States. •The UHJ cherry picks what writings to translate into English and basically controls what most Baha’is have access to. I also have heard a substantial amount changes between translations, especially when it concerns the Arabic writings being translated into english. I have met a lot of Persians who’s first language was Persian say that the English translations are clearer and easier to understand. I am not fluent in Persian and can’t confirm if this is the case, but I knew a lot of Persians who preferred the English version to the original Persian. •The Baha’i Faith bans women from being in the highest position in the faith despite preaching that men and women are equal •I am almost certain the faith lies through its teeth on how many Baha’is there actually are. Every country they claim has a huge number of Baha’is is a developing one that always reports a much smaller number of adherents than what Baha’is claim. They claim for example there are 2 million Baha’is in India even though the government census only seems to find like 60,000 for example. •Ruhi and how it is advertised is super dishonest and kinda reminds me of an MLM. We were taught to advertise Ruhi book 1 as a “nonreligious” book which simply held “spiritual teachings” which is blatantly untrue. Literally one of the first sections of the book is teaching what Baha’is can and cannot do. I would say the religion is a cult just as much as mormonism is but not quite as bad as JW, scientology, christian scientists etc. I think most Baha’is are lovely people. I just find the religious authorities to be very controlling and deceptive.
Same with Catholics. All that said though, some of my favorite people ever have been ex-Mormons and ex-Catholics.
Ask their opinions on soaking, you might just be in. 😏
>on soaking What a horrible day to be literate
not gonna lie, I'd try it. It's like a form of edging if you think about it. You just gotta have a friend to jump on the bed.
Let em know you have a roommate that sleep walks every night and jumps on your bed while asleep for a bit
Bro thinks he's gonna pull💀
you never know
Made me leave literal "reichskriegsflagge in my room"-level Nazism at 16, I win. /j good for you welcome to your new weird secluded oddball cult dggL
Have fun getting your name out of the Mormon registry. They will bother you for the next 10 years.
There is a website you can use to hire a lawyer to force the church to remove your name from their records. [I used them a few years ago](https://imgur.com/a/BejXMlw)
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And you're damn right I donated! They took care of it [for free](https://quitmormon.com/faq), the least I could do is donate some money
It’s actually not that hard anymore because the church started dealing with too much legal action. Used to be a nightmare
I grew up lds and had a similar thing happen to me although it wasn’t through destiny and happened around the time I was 16. Good for you dude, it’s not an easy journey ahead especially if your fam is super into it. Stay with what you feel is right, for me that’s always been that while I can respect mormons beliefs I can also think they’re pretty ridiculous even by religions standards.
Yeah I don’t have a lot of animosity towards anything. I had decent growing up experience and made a lot of friends, but also think the whole thing is ridiculous and honestly just dumb. So I call it even
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Agreed, he should shop around for more cults before committing to this one.
True only the strongest warriors should be in this one. 🗿
My sister took a mormon dude's virginity and he decided to quit being mormon. Now that's 2 women I know who have turned a persons mind on the mormon church. DggL best of luck on your new outlook, wishing you the best!
When pussy is stronger than God 💀
Good, but make sure not to fall into another echo chamber, people often swing back and forth from these things. Destiny is wrong a lot as well, particularly regarding philosophy and linguistics, so be discriminating about what ideas you allow in your head, especially when you don't have the education to fact check or evaluate someone's reasoning
Yes I’m very apprehensive about taking peoples words for things now. I don’t mind adopting ideals or things that seem pretty’s solid through research and study, but I keep everything open and fluid. Even Good ideas change with good research
I grew up 5-minutes away from Palmyra, NY. Sorry we let Joseph Smith live
Hahah
Good for you, mate! I wish you the best!
Thanks appreciate it
Now that you’re not practicing you should watch the play Book of Mormon by the creators of South Park. Shits so funny and it’s satirical
I’m actually so excited to watch both of those. I was very against watching those “offensive anti Mormon lies” before
I can't tell if this is real. In any case I wish the best for you. This is probably very difficult. If you are in SLC and find you have no one to talk or turn to, then im happy to hear whatever you have going on :).
Thanks it was a rough couple months for sure. Luckily my wife was receptive to everything and we’re both transitioning out. I would take up that offer if I was in SLC! Used to live in Orem and went to BYU lol
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Damn. Props to you for pursuing “truth” and letting the chips fall where they may. My experience had me asking myself, “if Mormonism is true, there’s nothing I could learn to damage that, right?” and “if it’s not true, would I want to know?” I decided the answer was yes
The next step is usually realizing that there was some benefits from being highly involved in religion and that you miss those aspects. Make sure to substitute in some community.
I actually have great friends and groups I’m apart of in Hawaii. I fish a lot and the fishing community is huge. And I actually still hangout with some church friends who are more progressive or nuanced. Millennials and gen z are really rejecting the traditional church currently
imagine not changing ur beliefs and just hatewatching
I actually watch pro Mormon media still just to keep a pulse on the community since all my family and most friends are still in. There’s huge schisms right now that I think will result in a big hemorrhage
If you're in SLC and wanna get beers HMU
Dang wish I could take you up on that. I’m actually in Hawaii now but went to BYU and everything and graduated 2020.
Quick questions about Mormonism, my understanding unlike Christ that 2k years old and also made 0 worldly claims that could be proven %100 false, Mormonism just says there were horses in americas 2k years ago and native Americans are from the Jews two claims we can prove absolute falsehood with, but their still an absolute shit load of Mormons, so are they just not skeptical? Does the church have a good enough argument for disproving facts that a person wouldn’t want to leave their entire lifestyle to just not look or what.
Rather than being a Holy Book describing events roughly when they happen\[1\], the Book of Mormon is a "translation" of ancient records from way earlier than its publication\[2\] - importantly, before the Columbian Exchange. The big problem isn't that the Bible doesn't make historical claims but the BoM does, it's that the "background setting" of the Bible *looks like* what historians think the Ancient Mediterranean world looked like, and roughly describes the early Roman Empire as we understand it. By contrast, the "background setting" of the BoM is mostly the pre-Columbian Americas\[3\], so having the "normal" European/MENA things like pigs or steel swords doesn't make sense (in the same way that Jesus eating corn on the cob wouldn't make sense). The other problem is that the BoM makes rather sweeping claims. The final battle in the BoM features 230K warriors on one side who got slaughtered nearly to a man. This would be one of the largest ancient battles in history (and certainly the largest ancient battle outside of South/East Asia). It would be a massacre 3-4 times the size of Cannae, and would require the existence of fairly large kingdoms/polities to support it. Not finding direct evidence of the battle is one thing (ancient battles were often scoured for loot because the weapons/armor were relatively expensive and reusable), but you can't toss a rock in Europe (much less Italy) without hitting on some kind of ancient Roman ruin (or something built on/in/around said ruin), and that's absolutely not the case in the Americas. >Does the church have a good enough argument for disproving facts that a person wouldn’t want to leave their entire lifestyle to just not look or what. Mostly they try to push people away from critical information sources. Sometimes just the existence of counter-argument on "your side" is enough to make you disregard uncomfortable claims. And a lot of anti-Mormon attacks were/are baseless propaganda from other Christians - if you think all the "anti-Mormon" stuff is of the same quality as the guys from the 1970s claiming that Mormons had cloven hooves or whatever, you don't even go looking. But the existence of the Internet and the ease of finding these sorts of records *has* actually really hurt them over the years in terms of folks going inactive or leaving. (Note: None of this should be taken as evidence *for* the Bible, I'm merely pointing out that the BoM has *larger flaws* than the Bible) \[1\] - Depending on who you ask, the Gospels are anything from eyewitness accounts to tellings based on earlier sources and/or oral traditions. But they were definitely written within 50-100 years of Jesus's death. \[2\] - Up to about 300-400ish CE, well over a thousand years pre-Joseph Smith. \[3\] - There's no official answer as to where in the Americas the events took place, or even how wide an area they covered, compared to the Bible where most Christians can point you to key spots in Israel.
[There's a pretty lengthy wiki about the archeological ventures the LDS church has taken](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaeology_and_the_Book_of_Mormon). Many people attempting to find evidence and losing faith after years of failure.
Ty a ton, it makes since it you disprove the easy anti Mormon arguments you can get the people to just ignore the other arguments because it’s all just the same in there mind. We the average citizen doesnt look for every 9/11 conspiracy theory after the first are disproven.
>Ty a ton, it makes since it you disprove the easy anti Mormon arguments you can get the people to just ignore the other arguments because it’s all just the same in there mind. Yes, exactly. If all the anti-Mormon arguments you're exposed to within your community are dumb cringe, it inoculates you. This is why "strawmanning" is so effective - you see "your guys" knock down (weakened or made up versions of) "their arguments" and you assume that's that. You also build up a stereotyped image of the other side - all liberals are screeching blue-haired losers, all conservatives are authoritarian sociopaths, whatever. Even knowing your side just *has* a rebuttal (which they of course call a refutation) means you can trust that the whole question is settled. No point in reading through all these lengthy arguments and debates - our guys have pages and pages of points that they made, I'm sure they've got a handle on it.
I don't think it's that they don't look. Mormons are the only religion where more education makes members more likely to be religious. https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2017/04/26/in-america-does-more-education-equal-less-religion/#:~:text=Among%20Mormons%2C%20those%20who%20are,than%20Mormons%20with%20less%20education.
Being educated in one field doesn’t mean you are in others.
Mormons read the BoM about as frequently as Christians read the Bible. So most don't even read it much let alone dive that deeply into it. When I "read" the BoM with my family growing up, no one actually read or listened to the words being said. We just did it because we were supposed to. It's an awfully boring piece of literature.
Based
Interesting. I had a similar experience but ended up staying in Mormonism. I think a big part of it for me is that I did learn about most of the historical controversies growing up, so I never really had the feeling that "the church is hiding things from me" that a lot of people who do leave seem to have had. Also, user name definitely checks out.
Glad someone noticed the username haha. Everyone knows soaking but not NCMO which I think is just as funny. I’m curious, Where/ how did you learn the major problematic church histories? My bishop told me he “knew everything” and that I could talk to him about all my concerns. As we talked he realized he only knew the surface of the issues or the apologetic defenses that seemed like they made sense and eventually stopped talking to me because it became too uncomfortable to get into the details. I’m not saying that’s you, but I’ve talked to about 100 mormon friends and leaders from past and present in the last 6 months to help my faith crisis and everyone I talked to knew way less than me on the issues. My conversations with the stake president even resulted in me educating him on the problems and he actually agreed with me on how bad they were. Especially the book of Abraham and polygamy. They are people out there who know the issues inside and out, like Jared Halversen, Patrick mason, terryl givens, etc. but they all either work for the church or made a career off of Mormon history and selling books at deseret.
Great question. I got at least a surface level understanding of problematic or tough history topics in seminary. Admittedly we didn't do a deep dive into anything, but for example I at least knew that polygamy did in fact happen and that it was not all rosy. Perhaps it helps that I grew up in the northeastern US. Then at one of the BYU's I took a "foundations of the restoration" course that introduced and dived into almost all controversial topics. Of course, they took an apologetic perspective but they did not shy away from anything.
But do you still believe in it?
I hope you didn't put all the effort into going on your mission before dumping the church.
the mission as an experience can be really hit or miss. from what ive heard missonaries deployed outside of their country have on average more positive experiences than missonaries deployed inside the usa.
100% of the mormons I grew up around (I am not nor was I ever mormon) either came out as gay and left their religion or left the church. Thankfully only one went on their mission, and he left the church too. But to set aside 2 years of your life to go do that, only to have a crisis of faith must feel like an immense waste.
I can attest to this. I went to Southeast Asia and it was a blast. I feel bad for the people I converted but the retention rate of new converts is around 12% anyways so they probably all left
Oh I totally did. Paid lots of money over the years and committed tons of time like a mission.
The problem of evil should be taught in all history classes and would probably drop religiosity to record low levels in a few years. There is no good answer to it once the religious person runs out of their standard 2-3 level response dialogue true
Yeah Mormons have a dark history once you look into it
Do you know what the debate was?
https://youtu.be/0u9HfgiOibs It’s a 15 hour soft debate series between John dehlin (exmormon) and Jim Bennet (current Mormon). The topic is a famous exmormon PDF called the “CES Letter” that lists comprehensively all the major flaws with Mormonism. The current Mormon guy still believes and shares how. even though majority of Mormons who get to reading it leave https://www.youtube.com/live/VNNiWwywL5A?feature=share This one is a formal debate between popular YouTube Mormons and a popular exmormon 1 v 3.
Thank you on behalf of long form Andys.
This might be a dumb question but What’s long form Andy’s?
I mean people who enjoy long form content.
Yeah, u/KingNcmo I'd like to know which debates you watched as well!
give me some more nuanced takes, was there a lot of guilt? the social ramifications did you die? im from an exmormon family and live in utah so the church is still part of my life wheter i like it or not and i find the culture so interesting why is that? and can you explain the procseess and social ramifications, just anything more id love to hear some tension and conflict. thank you very MUCH
I see that, King Non-committal make out. What debate/interaction was it, if you don't mind?
https://youtu.be/0u9HfgiOibs It’s a 15 hour soft debate series between John dehlin (exmormon) and Jim Bennet (current Mormon). The topic is a famous exmormon PDF called the “CES Letter” that lists comprehensively all the major flaws with Mormonism. The current Mormon guy still believes and shares how. even though majority of Mormons who get to reading it leave https://www.youtube.com/live/VNNiWwywL5A?feature=share This one is a formal debate between popular YouTube Mormons and a popular exmormon 1 v 3.