(Note: I'm giving this douche way more time than he deserves, but damnit, someone on the Internet is wrong!)

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Some liberal Mormon BYU poster on The Mormon Hub (Facebook) argued a bunch of weaselly stuff, mostly to say that everyone comes to all kinds of different places with their beliefs and disaffection, and one never knows if what one knows is really true or not, so don't judge. He took about 1000 words through a series of posts basically to say that. And that's what really makes me mad: All that bull$4!t just to say: "You disbelievers might change your tune some day, so don't hate on believers because no one knows absolute truth." And I think he argued that way because he wanted to conserve a side of mysticism and miracles--he calls it staying "engaged with the church"--with his enlightened church membership. :p

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Others here may have seen or have access to the bulk of his posts from yesterday, the 19th. He started his thread on the 17th. I'll try summarize and paraphrase him in under 500 words, staying close to his logic, such as it is.

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People leave the church primarily because they ask questions and are told not to. But disaffection and disbelief are two different things, though sometimes they go together.

I'm not talking about people leaving orthodox LDS belief. Just questioning leads people away from that, and if not they end up as apologists on FAIR. Sometimes people lose a belief but stay in the church with another belief. This would happen more if the church wasn't so hateful about doubts and questions. That affects how people view Mormonism! People treated poorly at church will feel validated by what they read at Mormonthink.com. Sometimes these people will become NOMs, but remain alienated in their wards because they aren't all that committed other than enjoying the social club aspects of church.

Some people though don't get a hostile response to their questions from a local church leader! Therefore, facts can lead to disaffection, but what really drives people out of the church isn't learning the truth, it's more mysterious than that. If the person has a good local leader, the person might not become an Ex-Mormon at all.

So a person can still be engaged in the church even if he or she knows the "facts." Look at all the swell people on the Internet who know all the sordid history of the LDS church, but who have puzzled it all out correctly and like the church! Jared Anderson’s Sunday School podcast. Dan Wotherspoon on Mormon Matters. Terryl Givens, Eugene England, Adam Miller, Steve Peck, Armand Mauss. Many of the swell folks at By Common Consent blog, Sunstone, Dialogue. The Mormon Transhumanists. John Dehlin. See how easy it is to stay engaged in the LDS church even when you know all the "facts"?

Some Ex-Mormons could have ended up like these wonderful reformed Mormons. So don't simply trust any story you've made up to help you understand where you are now that you've left the church. We all tell ourselves stories to make sense of our lives, but these stories just could be "masturbatory"--ways we celebrate our new found understanding and disparage others still lost in the church mythology, even though some of those people may be smarter and better than us. I'm speaking generally here, because you might have had to end up where you did. Whether you disaffect or whether you find a way to solve the puzzles that let you stay in the church is a very individual thing.

Of course, believers can be wrong too about their stories. All our stories about ourselves can be wrong. The facts we think we know can be wrong, and that should be something to be happy about. Be careful about the story you tell yourself. You could be wrong and that means you should be nice to other people no matter what story they tell themselves and others. That way there will be more peace in the world. I'm not telling anyone what to do. I'm just describing what happens. All truth is subjective so don't judge others and remember you could always be wrong.


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How's that for a bunch of patronizing, mystical swill? He's a kinder, gentler apologist. If your brain didn't explode, good job.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/20/2013 04:00PM by derrida.

We aren't adult enough to look at the morg, review all the evidence, and come to the conclusion that it's a crockpot full of toxicity and mendacity.



And I've noticed a lot of these new age mormons brush past some of the more detrimental aspects of the church - spiritual and historical issues aside. Destroying healthy sexuality, beginning at an early age. Wrenching mixed-faith marriages apart. Splitting families over temple-funded membership cards at weddings. Forcing women into a mold that, eventually, relegates them to a life as a baby-making and baby-raising shell, unable to choose even the color of her own underwear. Forcing a significant portion of their population into the closet, unable to fully love, to deny to themselves who they know that they are.

The church destroys the mental health of many of its members. It teach dysfunction over function - as the norm.

Where are the clamoring new age mormon voices to discuss?

Oh, that's right, talking about nothing with 1000 word essays.

"We aren't adult enough to look at the morg, review all the evidence, and come to the conclusion that it's a crockpot full of toxicity and mendacity."

Well said. That's where the patronizing comes in. You and Anagrammy have helped me put my finger on why this guy got under my skin. The balls. The sheer balls of, on the one hand telling exmos that they can't trust their own brains. That's a tactic straight out of the LDS church mind control regimen. And then on the other hand, he says Mormons should be treated kindly, while they "shun" and "have punitive customs and temple questions which promote cruelty" to those who believe differently.

"New age mormons" indeed. He's on FB at The Mormon Hub being an apologist, brushing past the church's bad history and bad practices. His main tool is verbal diarrhea so thick that it says 1000 mind numbing words to say a few simple things.

That's funny.

He says people who believe differently than exmos or noms should be treated kindly (ie, TBMs deserve kindness).

While they deny shunning but have punitive customs and temple questions which promote cruelty to friends and loved ones who have committed the crime of believing differently.

A diet of hypocrisy like this can cause a sour stomach, derrida, go easy on your morning reading.


Anagrammy

bump

So basically he's saying, "I know its not true, but that shouldn't matter to anyone. Just come back to church, sit down, and shut up."

No thanks!

If you know it's not true, then why waste your time being involved with it? I used to use the argument, "Well, it's a good place to raise my kids." Come to find out, I was wrong about that too. The guilt they use to keep kids in line creates major problems later in life, like PTSD. If you know something is not true, get as far away as possible.

I think they do it because of family, ancestors, cultural commitments, and because they happen to have and believe in the good memories they have had of being in the LDS church and being raised in its culture. They see it still as a good thing. They don't want to give up the community. Of course, once its supernatural foundations are seen as bogus, there really isn't anything there other than the basic social edifice and the social practices and loyalties of the church that remain, repeating and replicating the past hollowly. So through a combination of loyalty to the memory of the church and loyalty to whatever warm fuzzies they've had associated with the church, they want to conserve a space for it, in spite of it being a sad joke and terrible falsehood. They don't appreciate the huge amounts of pain and dysfunction the church's power causes. They just see or want only to see the thin bits of good they've convinced themselves about it.

Quoting Gordon B. Hinkey again, "Without our history, we are nothing."

Wow, how to analogize this tripe? If you're beating your head against the wall till it's bleeding or been doing so for so long you've calloused your head, your headache isn't real, only the wall is, and the reasons you're beating your head in frustration will help you believe in the wall even more?

The pain is real so stop beating your head. The wall is only something built by human hands and doesn't merit your affection.

I remembered that quote as being from Spencer Kimball, during the sesquicentennial celebration.

Did they both say it?

Standard apologist tripe: people smarter than you know about this stuff and still believe, so what's wrong with you?

...like all religious apologetics...demands constant use of logical fallacies.

Restorting to Authority is one of the most popular. Superior Personal Experience is another.