Posted by:
almostthere
(
)
Date: May 04, 2013 11:47AM
I posted this on an ex-JW board as part of a discussion on how the WTO discourages doubt. I see lots of parallels with TSCC. Here it is:
In the LDS church, we are taught that people doubt or leave for a few reasons.
1) They were prideful and think they know better than God.
2) They were offended by members and were so petty they gave up their salvation over it.
3) They were deceived by Satan.
4) They were lazy, or couldn't handle all that was asked of them (by God).
5) They wanted to sin.
6) They had committed some sin which caused them to lose the Spirit and be deceived.
7) They were never truly converted, or never truly "had a testimony". This is, of course, their fault.
It is an unspoken (well, sometimes spoken) rule that anything negative that is published about the church is "Anti-Mormon", and therefore full of lies. We should feel guilty for even looking at it. This makes it easy to discount ANY criticism- we already know it is full of lies.
If we ever do run across something that might cause us to question our faith, we think of Proverbs 3:5, or many other similar scriptures: "Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding." We assume that the church must be true, so it is our understanding that is wrong. We teach that pride is a major sin, so if we doubt, we need to humble ourselves and trust God (meaning the church). The first time I expressed to a loved one that I was questioning the church, the first thing he said was, "Are you keeping the commandments?" We definitely blame doubters for their doubt.
We must avoid real apostates. In order to enter LDS temples, you have to pass "Temple Recommend Interviews", which are private interviews with leaders regarding your faith and obedience. We believe that leaders have the "spirit of discernment", so they can tell if we are lying. But even if they can't, God can. One of the requirements in the interview is that we do not associate with or sympathize with any apostate group or any teachings or ideas that go against the church. This is a strong motivator to avoid apostates and their ideas. There is no official shunning, but no LDS member is going to seriously consider anything an apostate has to say. That would jeopardize their salvation.
Here are some recent quotes from LDS leaders. You can see how they put the blame on us for finding out damaging info and discredit the info at the same time.
"Some have immersed themselves in internet materials that magnify, exaggerate, and in some cases invent shortcomings of early church leaders. Then they draw incorrect conclusions that can affect testimony. Any who have made these choices can repent and be spiritually renewed."
Elder Quentin L. Cook, General Conference, October 2012
"There is no need for you or for me, in this enlightened age when the fullness of the gospel has been restored, to sail uncharted seas or to travel unmarked roads in search of truth... A loving Heavenly Father has plotted our course and provided an unfailing guide — even obedience. A knowledge of truth and the answers to our greatest questions come to us as we are obedient to the commandments of the Lord."
President Thomas Monson, General Conference, April 2013
There are a number of ways we handle doubt. We say that doubters are "confused". This, once again, comes with the assumption that the church is right, therefore your understanding must be wrong. Some say that when something that would cause doubt comes up, they "put it on the shelf", meaning that they acknowledge the difficult fact, but they feel that they will understand it in the future (probably in the next life). We also ask, when a difficult question comes up, "Is this essential to my salvation?" It is easy to discount the facts as unimportant.
We also overcome doubts by saying that "The Church is perfect, the people are not." When we find out horrible things past prophets said, we say, "He was just speaking as a man, not a prophet." We say that whenever they get something clearly wrong. Of course, we accept everything the current prophet says as God's word.
Another unique way the LDS church discourages doubt is through the idea of the Holy Ghost. We believe our feelings can lead us to truth and tell us right from wrong. Because we are taught that doubting is wrong, we feel guilty and fearful when we doubt. We then think that those feelings of guilt and fear come directly from God. The idea of going against God terrifies us, so we "humble ourselves" and try to forget about our doubts.
There are, of course, tons of apologetics out there. The apologists are very smart and can find some sort of an answer for just about anything. If you want to believe, they can make a way for you to do so. It is very difficult for someone to fully "prove" the church to be false, since they come up with answers for most individual questions. A lot of the time, it is clear that the answers are a stretching reality, but a believer will accept them. It's only when you look at all the damaging info together that the fraud becomes clear. Most believers will never do that. We will try to find an answer to the one thing that bothers us, accept what we find, and move on.
Interestingly, the LDS church does not directly sponsor any of these apologetics. They are all unofficial, so if they are ever proven wrong, the LDS church has plausible deniability. In fact, it seems to me that most of the apologetics out there focus on plausible deniability.
I think this is an important parallel:
"Most importantly, many of us just didn't want to know. If we research something that brings up questions, it just makes our lives more difficult - and no one wants that. We just want as few stumbling blocks to the New System in front of us as possible."
[This was quoted from a response I received]
This is exactly how it works! There are people painfully close to me that simply will not look into any of the issues that caused my disaffection. They want to believe. That is powerful.