So I'm talking with a TBM and it goes like this (paraphrased):
Me: "I'm surprised that they wrote that new essay on Polygamy." TBM: "What are you talking about?" Me: "The new one. They admit polygamy was a pervasive lifestyle in the 1850's". TBM: "No, it was only a select few called by Heavenly Father. Not more than 3%!" Me: "Half of Mormons were somehow involved." TBM: "LIES! You've been reading that hurtful internet!" Me: "Internet yes, but from LDS.org" TBM: "Show me." So I bring it up. That's not new, it's been out for forever! See, it's under their topics. I know all of that. I read it a long time ago. Nobody's ever hid anything!" Me: "New. Been up for less than a month. See, here's new media reports calling it new."
The missing dateline, silent release and apologetic believers are working just like they're supposed to. The idea that they were mistaken about the percentage didn't even register. They should teach a course on how to rewrite history without alienating the people who depend on the history being true.
Mormon: "I've never heard that--it's an anti-mormon lie!" Thinking Person: "But here's the proof, from church sources..." Mormon (without skipping a beat): "Oh, I've known that all along."
"They should teach a course on how to rewrite history..."
I am convinced that they think 1984 was meant to be an instruction manual.
speaking of Orwell, your friend is a 'goodthinker' - he knows exactly how to interpret the essays without being told:
"A Party member is required to have not only the right opinions, but the right instincts. Many of the beliefs and attitudes demanded of him are never plainly stated, and could not be stated without laying bare the contradictions inherent in Ingsoc. If he is a person naturally orthodox (in Newspeak a goodthinker), he will in all circumstances know, without taking thought, what is the true belief or the desirable emotion."
"Crimestop means the faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought. It includes the power of not grasping analogies, of failing to perceive logical errors, of misunderstanding the simplest arguments if they are inimical to Ingsoc, and of being bored or repelled by any train of thought which is capable of leading in a heretical direction. Crimestop, in short, means protective stupidity"
I've said it before...this is very Orwellian and the fact that the main character of "1984" is a guy whose last name is "Smith" is, well, at least a little ironic.
I noticed that they rank quite high on Google. Methinks they have a bunch of missionaries clicking and linking all day long.
That, too, is one of the intended purposes, I think: getting lds.org high up when unsuspecting potential cult victims Google controversial subjects. Until now, when you Googled polygamy or magic rocks in hats, you'd get to "anti" sites by definition because the church didn't acknowledge it.
I'd be surprised if mormonism gets any significant amount of new converts. "Geez, Brother Smith, what do we do with all these missionaries?"
The church is targeting those who are already entrenched; specifically those who are happy with hearing only the words within their fishbowl or wishing to defend their precarious position.
I know a TBM lady who claims to know everything I ever brought up about shady things the church says and does. She acts like she's all knowing and I know nothing about the religion I was born into 60 years ago. She claims that the church was very upfront about the whole Mark Hoffman incident. She informed me that the church has always taught JS had a gun and had been drinking in jail.
I suspect the real truth is that its the first time she ever heard any of that, and she thinks i'm either misinformed or making it up. Whatever. Mormons have crazy making 101 fine tuned.
I honestly don't see how "I knew that all along" is a defense. If they knew damning information about their church and either ignored or justified it, doesn't that make them pretty bad people? Good people try to right wrongs and try to keep from being exploited and take a stand against evil. If they know about the bad behaviors of their church and it's leaders and shrug it off, HOW exactly do they think that they are defending themselves or the church? Why do they think this makes them look good?
They want to be right more than they want to be good.
Yes, and a very good point CA girl. My experience with abusive Mormon parents is that they always wanted to be right. Being good is meaningless to people who beat toddlers.
That's a magical place where saying "I know" makes things true.
If you can say "I know all this information and I still know the Church is true," then it has been "dealt with." Not only should the person saying this have no bothersome doubts but the person it is being told to should ALSO, because of being told this, have no doubts either.
Time and time again people have posted here on RFM that they've gone to their Bishop with "questions" and "bothersome information" only to be told by the Bishop that "this doesn't change my testimony." Mormons think that everyone else should lay down and just trust their "testimony." That's all that matters.
Long ago I was watching a program on Utah television. It was WAY back at the early days of the gay-rights movement. There was a representative of a gay-rights group and a representative of a "no 'special rights' for gays" group. The anti-gay-rights guy was obviously Mormon.
The anti-gay-rights guy mentioned how anal sex was not right. The gay guy pointed out (correctly) that the majority of anal sex in the country and in the world involved heterosexuals.
The anti-gay-rights guy shot it down (in his mind) with "well my wife and I NEVER do anything like that." When you are a Mormon the universe revolves around YOU.
When I was discussing the Book of Mormon's historicity or lack thereof with my Brother the Institute Director, the main "evidence" he produced was as follows:
(1) He didn't really have a testimony when he went on his mission. He hadn't read the Book of Mormon all the way through but he and his companion decided they would and after he had he said it really seemed true to him.
(2) He gets up every morning and does a deep study of the Book of Mormon and everything he's read makes him think it's true.
(3) Once he missed his daily BOM reading and he had a bad feeling all that day.
(4) He would not devote his life to a fake book.
That was what he presented me with. Then he berated me for ignoring his "evidence" and for coming back with tired old stuff about archaeology, linguistics, genetics, zoology, botany, etc.
TRUTH to a Mormon is what they "testify" is true. It is YOUR responsibility to believe them and roll over and play dead in their presence.
I had to teach EQ this past Sunday (still there w/family, for now..), and I started by providing the links to the essays to everybody. "I've been reading a lot recently, and I just came across these interesting new essays the church has been putting out." Then I went on to discuss "my other discoveries," such as the second anointing.. "I had never heard about it before.. pretty interesting stuff!!"
Something for people to think about. Obviously in that setting it needed to appear innocuous. :D
Yes, absolutely. As many here have postulated, the essays are an attempt to innoculate the faithful...nothing more. Doesn't surprise me that they would work with the TBM crowd... for a while.
The Mormon cult is in full decline as attested to by the fall in "unit numbers"(Wards and Branches). They are about the only reliable numbers released by headquarters.