Mothers day barbeque with the whole tbm family clan, at my mom's today. We are sitting around and some how polygamy comes up. The regular comments, and justifications. "Oh our mind frame will be so different when we are in the celestial kingdom, somehow it will be so wonderful there." Then my cousin says, " well it was never really practiced very long, maybe 30 years?" So I clarified that noooo, even after the manifesto around 1900 prophets and leaders were still taking plural wives, and sealing plural marriages. It wasn't until the government really started coming down hard that the church tried to stop it in reality. About twenty years later. How pathetic that that's all it took to end that conversation. We can't have an thoughtful, adult conversation about it. Nobody was even aware of it, but the second that facts are brought up, that make us feel at all uncomfortable about our faith, our brains turn off and we turn to the standard self assuring testimony. And that's just what happened. Mind you he is an educated intelligent 45 year old man. He just thoughtfully says, " well there are a lot of things I just don't understand. Sometimes all we can do is know that the spirit is in this work and that's how we know it's of God." WOW. And everyone just sits around nodding. They don't even understand how my one little comment, about the correct time line, shut down the whole conversation.
That is the standard Mormon pattern of thinking: the minute you come across something that, I won't even say challenges, but makes you feel at all uncomfortable with the church, then you just turn off any possible thinking about it and just bear testimony. It's understandable, because the spirit feels warm and comfy, doesn't it? So when you start to feel uncomfortable about your faith, well clearly that is not how the spirit feels. Ergo.....
They are conditioned to turn their brains off. And I was right there with them, not even a year ago.

When it comes to critical thinking in regard to the church, they do not even have to turn their brain off, because their critical thinking process has been put into remission completely. The only way to bring that ability to the surface is a life altering experience, or many small consecutive experiences.

Suggesting that the brain needs to be turned off when they face criticism suggests they actual feel that the person questioning mormonism has credibility. They do not even grace us with that as an afterthought.

This form of thinking trickles down into other aspects of life. From that point in they are in a real mess.

Polygamy in Utah makes me laugh. All you Mormons out there who do not live in or visit Utah listen up. Polygamy is practiced openly and freely in Utah. The simple rule is this. Do not get caught using the state welfare system to support your polygamist life style.

As long as you support yourself and your brude the number of wives you have is never questioned.

Want proof? Visit any Costco on any given Saturday in Utah at around two or so in the afternoon.

Right. Whenever polygamy gets brought up, I always think back to a religion professor I had at BYU-I. In class one day, polygamy was brought up and he told the class that there were many students attending BYU-I that came from currently practicing polygamous families. At that time I was only familiar with the FLDS, and I knew there was no way students were coming from them, so I was completely confused. It wasn't until later that I found out about the many other groups out there that still practiced polygamy; I was floored.

...is a big part of what faith is. It's a form of willful ignorance. One does not go about trying to figure out if faith is misplaced, because that demonstrates a lack of faith.

Son's seminary teacher (about 1998) spouts off that the second coming is happening in 2006. (Exactly 2006) Plus a slew of other conspiracist nonsense that we've all heard at church a bunch of times.

Darling son is actually disturbed that his seminary teacher is a crack pot. But when he broaches the subject with the other students, he discovers no one heard it. They have already learned not to pay attention when certain things are said.

There is a big problem being informed enough to be able to discuss every element of every part of Mormonism. General understandings were accepted on faith, not facts.

Today, there is so much information, most LDS folks, most likely, rely on what they have known and understand and that has more to do with the actual principle (such as polygamy) and not the details.

I can understand that challenging the details might shut down the conversation as they most often don't have the information needed to know if it is correct or not.

Again, we are dealing with faith, which is the core of religion as a whole and not actual historical verifiable facts.

Wow I guess just coming off of being tbm myself, I really didn't notice it. But I would have been nodding right along also. Accepting only the things I could make myself feel warm and comfy about and simply not thinking about anything g else.

It's true that polygamy is currently practiced in Utah. My youngest brother recently moved into a plyg house formerly owned by the Jessop family. It's old and has been remodeled for many bedrooms and bathrooms.

Yeah, my friend moved into a house in Logan that must have been a plyg home. It had one large foyer area and a huge kitchen with two stoves centered in the middle of the house. Off to either side was a staircase that had a master bedroom with two smaller bedrooms, and each side had its own living room as well.

It is interesting how I was in that mindset myself just a year ago, like you. Now that I'm free, I can't hardly stand to be around that kind of conversation. It's less pleasant than beating my head on a brick wall.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjCfE1n6nW4

I think this is going to be the featured hymn in the next edition of the Mormon hymnal.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/14/2013 10:34AM by forbiddencokedrinker.

Had a similar (not polygamy) discussion with two friends about a lot of priesthood misbehavior I had seen while working for CES. Friends agreed wholeheartedly that a lot of that behavior goes on inside LDS, Inc. I was mostly the ranter and when I was finished one friend simply stated, " yes, that's all true but the only important thing is that the gospel is true". End of conversation.

Kind of makes you want to pull your hair out.