I was recently talking to my inactive sister who also doesn't believe in mormonism. He husband is one of those people who, well, All I can say is that the essays were written for someone like him...

She told me that he got out his phone and was talking to his younger kids and reading the Js first vision essay from lds.org out loud and trying to talk to his kids as he read it, so my sister could over hear because that is how they communicate apparently.

My sister already knew the rock in the hat version from south part as a teenager. So her husband is reading this and says wow that is awesome! Lots of prophets have used stones to receive visions, isn't it great everyone.

after he was done my sister calming says to him, why do you think you never knew that version before?

He says because my parents never taught it to me?

she says, Um no! It's because the church never taught it to you! Did you learn that in primary? In sunday school? Did you teach that on your mission? NO! Because it was never taught until now? DOn't you think that is strange? Why is that?

He was completely unfazed! And just ate it up like it was a new revelation or something!No questions! No concerns!

Good job F*@#ing cult, good job!

At least that's what the apologists say. If members primarily get there information from the Sunday School lessons and never find out that this or that happened, IT'S THEIR FAULT for being lazy. But then when they aren't 'lazy' and find this stuff out and it challenges their testimony, they STUDY TOO MUCH and THINK TOO MUCH. You just can't win.

You don't know, you are lazy
You do know, you are to smart for your own good.

Believers look for things that validate their belief, since belief is what they have in the absence of compelling evidence. They don't usually go looking for things to deflate their belief. Even if they should encounter it, they'll reshape it in a way that validates their belief.

And why does this still surprise me!! I'm starting to question my own sanity sometime! Why am I the one to fight against this kind of BS. I'm not that smart and yet I can see through it!!

It can be REALLY HARD to challenge your faith in or to leave the belief system which you hold so dear, which you cherish as close to your heart, and which you wholeheartedly believe in. It can be even harder if you have given so much of your time, effort, money, or energy to it, or if your family, friends, or co-workers are also in it. Fear of the consequences - the earthly consequences (in the form of lost job opportunities, cut off ties with family, loneliness, depression, feeling spiritually lost, mistrust of faith or authority, lost friends, a smaller social circle, gossip and rumours, amongst other negative things) as well as spiritual consequences (such as being cast into the lake of fire of eternal hell, into the Telestial Kingdom or into Outer Darkness) - can further make it difficult to leave. That is in addition to the gradual challenging of all your preconceived notions and misguided beliefs of the faith (and perhaps, also of other faiths, especially as you leave one faith and consider the possibility of taking on another faith, as many of us did) which can in itself be a difficult process. As intelligent as you may be, human emotion and material conditioning is powerful and can attack even the best of us. Dealing with those is easier for some than for others. Have sympathy and empathy. :-)

I doubt my mother would even read the essays since she has so much faith none of the details matter to her--but if she did, I am sure she would just embrace it as further revelation as well.

showing all the problems with the church and she told me...

"This proves NOTHING. The church is true because I have had that warm feeling testifying to me that it is true. Why are you showing me these lies of Satan." and then she ripped it up.

If not, then it's not important.

I was told this so many times I can't remember. Details are often irrelevant to someone with this mindset. That's why many rarely read anything at all, faith promoting or not. Those people are a lost cause.

Doesn't Jesus say in 3 Nephi 11 that his ENTIRE gospel is faith/repentance/baptism and anything more is from the devil? Does your wife believe in the BoM? Suggest that maybe the temple is of the devil and that she's putting her eternal salvation at risk by participating in satanic "ordinances".

Matthew says love God & neighbor, on those hang the law AND the gospel



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/06/2014 02:38AM by GNPE.

How can a Mormon believe the BoM and believe, teach, and participate in LDS temple ordinances is a mystery. Those that are aware of 3 Nephi 11:38-40 must surely have a shelf that is nigh onto collapsing.

3 Nephi 11:38-40

38 And again I say unto you, ye must repent, and be baptized in my name, and become as a little child, or ye can in nowise inherit the kingdom of God.

39 Verily, verily, I say unto you, that this is my doctrine, and whoso buildeth upon this buildeth upon my rock, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against them.

40 And whoso shall declare more or less than this, and establish it for my doctrine, the same cometh of evil, and is not built upon my rock; but he buildeth upon a sandy foundation, and the gates of hell stand open to receive such when the floods come and the winds beat upon them. the winds beat upon them.
The Book of Mormon (3 Nephi 11:38-40) says that declaring more or less than "repent, and be baptized in my name, and become as a little child" cometh of evil.

How does she know her warm feelings aren't from Satan? How does she know the claim that one can know what's true based on feelings isn't Satan's decpetion?

My DW told me a few weeks ago that Polyandry and marrying a 14 yr old make sense to her and she has no problem with it.

Some are just so far down the rabbit hole that rational thought doesn't make sense.

She's A-Okay with polyandry and marrying 14-year-olds. (I hate the word "polyandry." It gives the practice a dignity it doesn't deserve. Like, it's a legitimate social arrangement: "In Tibet, polyandry is traditionally practiced." What JS did was screw other men's wives in secret. That's called fornication, not polyandry.)

Anyway, Mormons typically adopt a smug, superior attitude, "I don't have a problem with it." As though, that's that! Really, though, that makes your DW immoral. Accepting fornication from a prophet of God is not a tomato, tamahto issue.

"Honey, you might not have a 'problem' with it, but I do. And I refuse to follow a church founded by an immoral, so-called prophet."

Yup, great answer! I've been waiting to pull something much like that out for my mom the next time she says it was just fine to marry 14 year olds.
They're being all nonconfrontational about churchy sh!t, and so am I, so I can wait as long as it takes. I've definitely taken the very last jab I will ever take from them about not keeping their so called higher standards. Higher standards my ass! Comfortable with rapists and conmen... Geez. It actually explains so much about my childhood. Horrible horrible people.

This doesn't surprise me. I found out about the rock in a hat as a TBM as well. It didn't bother me much. It was other things (more cultural things) that caused me to stop going to church, I knew lots of the "shocking" history about the early church for quite a while before I stopped going and it didn't bother me that much.

I run into Mormons often that say they "don't have a problem with it".
My rote response it:
"Is there anything the apostles/prophets could do that would cause you to have a problem with it?"
Silence is the usual response.

LOL here, that was totally me and my exH!

My Mormon friend turned red when he told me about the rock in the hat. Embarrassed. He probably wanted to bury his face in a hat at that moment.

I was talking to a friend tonight and I was saying to her, Joseph was a pedophile! She says, no he wasn't. Show me. So I show her he was shtooping 14 and 16 year old girls. She says, well, that polygamous thing doesn't bother me. I am OK with it.

They will justify it and spin it in their minds however they want to be OK.

For those members who say things like "I know about [insert disturbing church history issue here], and it doesn't bother me."... you could respond with "Well, maybe you think those things are OK, but in my opinion any God that would not only condone those things, but then later ask people to accept it without explanation, is not a kind and loving God worthy of worship."

Or something to that effect.

I'm having trouble putting the concept into words, but you get what I mean.

Call them on it when they act like accepting those things so easily is something to be proud of. I like to think that if there is a God, that he/she is offended and dismayed when his/her followers are so quick to believe he/she commands such sick and twisted things.

SG

Of course my parents never taught me about the stone in the hat! They didn't know themselves. I doubt if they know now. I'm certainly not going to be the one to tell two 90 yo people who have given their all to the church that they've been scammed. What's the point?