"It's good to inoculate or families"... and, essentially, doubt your doubts (he says: "cope with doubts"), and stay strong no matter how irrational the church seems (he says: "gradually building a healthy spiritual immune system that can help us stay strong").
Of course, the writer is a big time TBM who has grown a thick skin on debating on TSCC side for years.
The LDS church teaches that doubt is a bad thing which takes a while to be deprogrammed from.
Having been out for nearly 20 years now, I can tell you that having honest doubts rather than foolish certainties lends to better life decisions as well. I can also see with other members of my family who didn't go that route have paid the price.
Aside from the obvious problem of the author trying to defend the indefensible, a problem I have with this sort of article is:
Why is all this explainin' necessary?
According to the article, here are just some of the issues which create or complicate doubt:
- doubts from the Internet - DNA evidence against the BOM - imperfections of our faith - imperfections of the church - assumptions and biases that need correction - things we were taught in Sunday School that just aren't true doctrine - mistakes from mortals in the church - incomplete knowledge - incomplete beliefs - not enough rest and nourishment taken between challenging issues - easy issues with answers not easily found - difficult issues which require lifetime of faith and patience - discovery that BOA manuscripts are just funerary texts (although some portions of BOA manuscripts may yet be found) - anti-Mormons pulling the wool over our eyes - deceptive editing in the information provided by anti-Mormons - Nephi's implausible journey across the Arabian Peninsula and the unlikelihood of NHM place names existing there - racist restrictions on the priesthood - imperfect teachings regarding the racist restrictions on the priesthood - old cloudy lenses issued to church members - polygamy
Wow. This kind of betrays Nephi's declaration:
"For my soul delighteth in plainness; for after this manner doth the Lord God work among the children of men" (2 Nephi 31:3).
If the plan of happiness is so simple, why does it seem so complicated?
This guy is a liar. Those ARE the the scrolls Joseph used. They ARE the facsimiles, they have text aside them that is the same poor effort as from JSs translation book attempt
Yes, it would be easy to state without lying that "I KNOW this church is NOT true." Suppose could try that in a meeting and see if anyone notices.. ;)
But I'm tapering off going to any meetings.. DW is guilting me for doing so, of course, but the more I learn about TSCC's past & practices, the more oppressing the idea of stepping in the meeting house becomes. Hiding in an empty meeting room while the classes are in progress is no longer sufficient.. one still hears small kids singing: "follow the prophet, follow the prophet.."!
My takeaway: "Deal with your doubts one at a time. It's a lot easier to keep yourself convinced the church is true if you focus on DNA evidence as if it's the ONLY problem. Then, once you've convinced yourself it's not that big of a deal, you can move on to polygamy, or blacks and the priesthood, or BoA, or any of the other things people get us on."
"You may never understand it all in this life, but the church can still be true because it feels good to believe in it. It's totally cool to keep doing things that don't make sense to you, because this guy I know says it'll all get explained to us after we're dead. Don't worry about figuring things out on your own through intellectual honesty."