After reading the KSL and Trib article about online "misinformation" and reading some of the comments; I was reminded that I discovered the true history of the church after I had decided that the church was not what it claimed to be.

It is very rare that I have a fully open conversation with a TBM but when I do I never start with the history, I start with the plan of salvation. The first and most irrational assumption that the POS (chuckle) makes is that we had to receive a body to further our eternal progression.

I could go on and on but the point is for me at least the history is ugly but the doctrine is damming

Please continue your interpretation of how the POS is damning doctrine. Sounds interesting.

God is powerless in the POS. He cannot save us unless we get a body. After creation since it was perfect He cannot save us, He has to get Satan to infect His creation. After His creation is infected He cannot save us because we are infected so He requires a sacrifice of something has not been infected. After that sacrifice He still cannot save us unless His creation swears fealty to Him. After all of that He is still powerless to save us because his creation must be worthy of saving.

This God is either not all powerful, because He is unable to save us unless we do a little dance and kiss His ring, or not all good because He is unwilling to save us.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/02/2012 11:32PM by jacob.

I remember hearing it was suppose to be your 25 year old body. Gee, if you had breast implants before then, do they come with your "new" body too?

I was fat at 25. Can it not be 18?

Before converting I knew most of the historical problems and told myself that human organizations will just have problems. The doctrine had goofy bits, but every monotheist religion has goofy elements.

Bottom line: I wanted it to be acceptable (note: not "true"--what did truth have to do with it?). We knew three nice young families that were in the LDS church, so we had a lot of connection going in.

Finally though I left because I wasn't happy with the hamster wheel life of busyness and all the time the church sucked away. There also just wasn't enough intellectually going on in the Sunday school, priesthood lessons, and sacrament talks. Too much milk and not enough interesting meat.

One will hear of people at BYU who happened upon professors willing to talk about difficult elements of LDS history and doctrine, but that's not the rank and file experience of the the Church Education System. Mormonism as taught in the chapels isn't compelling. The myth is dumb and the history distorted. I guess one thing I found was that questioning wasn't allowed. Reading unapproved materials wasn't looked upon favorably. To me these were read flags: Controlling people mentally with fear and peer pressure isn't a mark of truth but of something unhealthy.

Up to a point, some historical and doctrinal problems I could deal with, but the church cannot ask for everything from its members when its own basis is so clearly imperfect.

God's one true church could ask anything, but the LDS church is just another human organization with a tradition and a charitable ideal. It also uses authoritarianism and lots of social control to keep people in line. I object to those things as well: If the LDS church isn't the one true church then it cannot enjoy total rule over people's lives and it cannot fairly use all the social control that it uses to wield power over free adults.

Other than being BIC, my feelings/experiences were very similar to yours. It just wasn't worth it.

Cut the losses, and move on.

Doctrine was a smoking gun for me to. It simply didn't make sense.

So we are to suppose that God's "One and Only True Church" has only existed for the last 182 years. A very small percentage of humanity will ever accept this "true" gospel. Mormons have the convenient work for the dead idea, but, that still doesn't make sense to me.. extremely inefficient and why does God require these rituals to have his sons and daughters return to him?

Another problem with LDS doctrine...

An all loving God is perfectly fine with 99% of humanity living in the lower glories...never being able to being his presence again..it is all about his chosen few who receive exultation.

Mortality doesn't make sense either. We are eternal beings who will be judged on this miniscule life (in the eternal scheme of things) and have a veil put on our minds.. impairing our judgement... how does that seem fair or make sense?

The biggest contradiction and mind screw of all time is to imagine both spontaneously being created or devine creation. Think of it like this, what came first, the chicken or the egg?

What came first, the spontaneous quantum leap from something to nothing or the devine creation by a deity?

It will rack your brain. Either way, something had to come b4 God.

That very question kept me up for hours while I was on my mission. I finally had to shove it deep into an unused brain chunk for post-mission processing.

True - nothing like a test in which you don't even know it's a test and there are thousands of plausible answers to choose from - the most likely path being the one that you've just happened to have been born into.

Recognising just how minuscule TSCC is in the grand scheme was the catalyst for me.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/03/2012 01:50AM by sherlock.

Me too.
I had never read an "anti" source at the time my testimony collapsed.
In many ways the history doesn't matter.
The "doctrine" speaks for and against itself.
I was overwhelmed by it. It was a painful burden that, over the years, made less and less sense in the context of reality and experience.
Finally it just collapsed. I knew in a moment it wasn't true. It took me a year to study up on the historical problems I never knew about.

For me, TRASH LDS DOCTRINE is so enterTWINED with the TRASH LDS HISTORY that there is no sense in making a distinction between the two. In fact I dare say you have fallen into the trap of doing that due to LDS spin over that deal. LDS contend that LDS doctrine is perfect, but that early church leaders/ members faltered in trying to carry out the perfect LDS doctrine so the LDS history is flawed while the doctrine is not.

You have correctly pointed out that LDS doctrine is CRAP/ FLAWED, which instantly breaks down the MORmON trap on the matter. Contrary to what MORmONS try to say LDS history is flawed because LDS leaders/ members implemented their CRAP doctrine. So trying to make a huge distinction between the two is just dabbling in MORmON folly.

IF Joseph SMith got a revelation to marry/ RAPE teen age girls and other mens wives, declared it as doctrine and then refused to do anything like that because it was too repugnant to him. THEN there might be a big distinction between LDS doctrine & history, even if its one that would not serve LDS flim flam apologist attempts. NEVER the less, that distinction doesnot exist.

MORmONISM has CRAP history because its members tried to live CRAP LDS doctrine and the imprint of one is clearly seen in the other. The two feed back into each other because SMith created doctrine along the way to fix up earlier blunders
(history).

Its not possible to end with a building like Taj Mahal
or the Parthenon by nailing shipping crate lumber together
until the proximate magnitude is achieved.

on inspection SMith's LDS doctrine looks like a giant collection of mining town shanties built on top of each other
even if they do reach 20 stories hihg before collapsing, and not like a magnificent capital bulding as MORmONS try to claim. When the shanties collapse on each other and fall into a rubble pile, that is LDS doctrine in action and it is the ongoing one distaster after another style history of the LDS church.

Questioning their god's lack of integrity leaves them speechless.

I haven't fallen into any trap, I am just saying that for me the church was false before their history, not because of their history. I don't really care how people come to a testimony of the falseness of the LDS church, I'm just telling you how I came by that testimony.

You do raise a good point. We can argue what really happened until we are blue in the face, and certain people will chose to follow the official line over the true one. However, pointing out the consequences of actual doctrine, and how it fails to produce in practice what it promises in theory, right now in our own lives, that is harder to dispute.

I don't believe their stories because I have DEEP philosophical differences with their religion.

Naturally they fall for it every time: "Let's discuss it! Why not?"

"Nope. First of all, you people mistake dogma for philosophy. I do not. Second, your church doesn't encourage you to study philosophy. I can not possibly have a conversation with you about the difference between what you believe and what I know without educating you in philosophy first."

"We have time!"

"I do not, and you want for free what others pay for, which means you will never place real value on it. Come back after you have studied philosophy as intently as you've studied your own religion and maybe we will talk then. Good bye."

Of course they never come back, but I always hope they at least tried to learn something later. What I learned long ago is that you can not convince others of the falseness of their own position: they either convince themselves and effect change, or they stick fast where they are.

Please continue doing this. It was people like you that got me thinking outside the Morgbox when I was a missionary.

Like a Catholic setting aside the atrocities committed by his church, I might have been able to dismiss the historical crap of Mormonism if the theology and doctrine worked for me. But it didn't. It just made me hate myself.

My issues were with doctrine. Compound that with the time and financial drain from callings made me decide to leave. If it wasn't true, the time drain was too much to take.

It wan't until I started looking for an example resignation letter that I found out about the history issues.