I can't think of a nicer way to word the question at the moment. It's in regard to my good Mormon friend who is serving a mission.

I almost feel bad for asking because I believe people have a right to live as they please, however, I also firmly believe everyone deserves to be fully informed before they comit to life-changing decisions...like joining TSCC or remaining a lifelong member. I feel like if my friend was not so indoctrinated, she would try to view evidence against the church in a more discerning light, as opposed to writing it off as anti-Mormon lies.

What I'm unsure about is, if she is genuinely happy with being LDS, is it wrong for me to try to broaden her views? Living the doctrine of The One True Church makes life meaningful to her. Isn't this the same as her trying to convert me? I don't think so since I've viewed both sides fairly, but it would sure look that way. In the end we'd both be hitting brick walls.

Even though the truth can be painful, I feel like the responsible thing to do is to learn it. As always, we get to choose how we live our lives, taking the good and the bad with our choices. I was just reflecting on how many of you on this board have suffered from a lifetime of devotion to TSCC. I see the damage and pain caused for its members. It's a bad force in the world disguising itself as a good one.

I guess I want to prevent my fiend from experiencing that damage, if ever, by trying to inform her. Actually, that's somewhat ironic. She may or may not discover that the church is a scam, but if she does, then I don't want it to be decades later that she regrets all the tithe, time and energy she gave away. It seems like a very deep regret to live with. I'm not the type to think "sorry, that's your own fault," when I can offer insight. What if she discovers one day and wishes someone had informed her sooner? I don't feel I should try to meddle in her personal faith since it makes her happy, though as her friend, I also want to look out for her. What's the right way to go about this, if at all?

>>>>Sorry my posts tend to be long. I'm very thorough in my writing and don't have the easiest time condensing these things. Thanks, to those who read :).<<<<

Edit: Thanks for all the good insight. I've decided to stick with what I've been doing and just support her as a friend :). Although, if I ever have a serious question one day, I'll be sure to ask her. She needs the practice as a missionary, right? ;) Nothing critical, just honest. We're very good about respecting the other's boundaries regardless, because it's more fun to talk about our college experiences, TV shows, jobs, and other stuff like that. I'm Looking forward to Christmas so I can send her something! Getting packages in the mail is so much fun! :)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/19/2014 08:51PM by demoneca.

You can try to inform her, but when I tried to do that, I simply lost the friend.

I accept her and that she's a good person (and a good Christian), so seems my best bet is to forget the frustration. Ah well :/.

Love can reach, Steve Hassan tell his Story here, about what reached him, what questions got him to think.

Releasing the Bonds: Steve Hassan's Story at the NY Ethical Culture Society 10-17-10

from Steven A Hassan PRO Monday, October 18, 2010 at 3:59 PM

http://vimeo.com/15963095

I have just said with a bit of a smile, "You know it's all bullshit, don't you?" It may get a conversation started or it is just brushed off because they don't want to talk about it.

I also have sincerely explained that I didn't leave Moism because I was morally strong enough to live its tenets and explain further from that point.

Missionary work is rude. I don't want religious people bothering me and I don't bother them.

If they seem interested or concerned about any aspect of Mormonism, that's what you might discuss.

You don't inform them. Trust me, until the person is ready to question and investigate things themselves you will only risk losing your friendship. I would just be there for your friend...and recognize opportunities in time to guide as needed. But be careful, you don't want to come across as hostile. I know the motives are good, but the reality is it will almost always come across hostile.

I keep my lips sealed around my mormon friends and coworkers. One has a spouse that left the church and I once asked her is the church was false if she would want to no. She didn't. That was my sign to leave things be. For now.

I lost what I was led to believe was an eternal friend doing just that.

In fact, when I was an enthusiastic investigator she asked me to promise her that I would always be her friend forever, and never to be afraid to ask the tough questions as investigating them would lead to her growing her testimony.

I was a privilege to know, an amazing person etc.... blah blah

All that changed when I asked about and told her a few things starting with the hat and rock trick (of which she told me it wasn't true, even her good BYU friend never heard of that).

I managed to inform her of the Book of Abraham stuff, the racist stuff, Smith asking for other mens wives and a few things while corresponding until I got the shun order from her.

I do think she was meeting with her bishop down in a London ward thinking he would have answers and I'm convinced the asshole bishop told her she should quit communicating with me/ shun me.

He likely responded telling her that she risked losing her Temple Recommend and possibly testimony continuing corresponding with me etc .

Stupid cult leaders. Mormon Bishops are ignorant and clueless. The ones who dare research properly, end up leaving.

You are dealing with an evil, hideous, lying cult with brainwashed members and deluded men who think they have special priesthood powers and are mostly completely uneducated as to real church history.

As far as I know she is still a deluded, uneducated cult recruit and has a history of being a sucker. You know the usual stuff like Amway and other scams, including Affinity fraud ( once was scammed by her Branch President).

The fact is that Mormons are only interested in you if they can convert you or impress you with their cult.

Best wait until she comes home unless she approachs you first. If and when she starts questioning the church be there for her.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/19/2014 05:59PM by michaelc1945.

The sudden decompression after a mission is one of those life moments when Mormons are vulnerable and questioning. We can be there for them with tactful and accurate answers. The truth can set them free from the guilt and stress they thought they had left behind them when they came home.

ask question about doctrine that is way out there. make sure it is referenced and you appear to be an honest seeker of truth.

You can't . I've tried. And when I did, they lied to me about what they believe and then sent me links from lds.org to prove how true and good their church was. That in itself was enough for me to step away shaking my head at the brainwashing. Here I am, I'm telling you that your church lies to you, and you send me propaganda from your church saying it's true?! How stupid can you be... Or how stupid do you think I am?

A Mormon never reacts well to even the slightest criticism of the LDS Church, until they're ready to say something negative themselves.

They're an extremely touchy bunch.

Well, I wish someone had shared the truth with before I wasted 2 years on a mission and all of my young adulthood being in the church.

Are Mormons REALLY happy in the church? There's very few people who have been our if the church for a long time who wish they still believed.

That being said, you can't force people to look at the truth either.

I would TRY to inform her but you have to go about it the right way and even going about it the right way isn't going to guarantee success...but it's worth a try because you never know what seeds you may plant.

I suggest taking a laid back approach. That's how I was and I brought out of the church about a dozen friends and family.

Let her bring up the church and let her provide the opportunities for you to share the truth. If she asks if you saw general conference, THEN tell her you didn't because you no longer believe in it. Say it in a respectful tone and tell her you hope it in no ways affects your friendship.

She will most likely ask WHY you no longer believe. THAT is the opportunity for you to open up and plant some seeds. But make sure you KNOW what you are talking about and can back EVERYTHING up with documentation. None of this "I read somewhere on the internet that..."

If you can't back it up with reliable LDS sources then don't bother mentioning it. Next, be clear you state opinions as your own. don't simply say Joseph smith was an adulterer. Say something like, "I know you don't share the same conclusion but he married women under questionable circumstances amy personal opinion that he may have used polygamy as an excuse to be with other women. I know you don't feel that way but I can't help but feel that way." Thus way you aren't forcing herself to have to defend the church.

Don't ever argue over opinions. Allow her to disagree. If she keeps the dialogue going then keep feeding her with more truth. But be careful you don't come across as "hung ho" where you are trying to change her mind. Don't get pushy and get preachy. If she seems to be getting uncomfortable or wanting to change the subject then say, "if you really want to learn more about my reasons for no longer believing feel free to ask and I can also forward you more info later if you want." Then change the subject.

You don't inform them.

Let them figure it out for themselves. Trying to convince them

of what a lie it all is, before the person has expressed any

interest in whether it is or not will only end in disaster..

You can't talk someone out of believing if they have no desire

to listen.

I wouldn't if you want to retain her friendship. Live and let live. If she ever asks why you don't want to be active/a member, then you might give her one fact, i.e. you feel uncomfortable with the fact that Joseph Smith "married" young teenage girls and other men's wives. I tell my active Mormon friends that I could never sit through the three hour block. They're lifers, and I wouldn't want to try to change them.

Many people advise either asking a question about a concern you have or asking would they want to know if the church was not true.
If you have a question or concern about the lds essay here are links to them.
http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,1180178

The Salt Lake Tribune has this article about them:
I searched: LDS Essays at http://www.sltrib.com
and found this article:

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/blogsfaithblog/58446368-180/church-essays-faith-tribune.html.csp

A news article about "How the Mormon's make Money" got us to checking up about Bonneville Inc. and looking in the Bible for Scriptures about Charity. We ended up studying the New Testament compared to the LDS "Gospel Principle" manual.
The rest is history for us resigning from the Mormon church.

Without reading any of the responses www.cesletter.com

You are a good friend, and you must decide if it is worth risking your friendship. Read some of the stories about one spouse wanting to tell the other spouse. Often it ends in divorce.

I had a boyfriend at BYU, who just put the information out there for me to read. He loaned me the books, "No Man Knows My History" and "Mormonism and the Magic World View," and when I returned the books, he asked me what I thought about them. I said, "Interesting." No discussion. We dropped the subject. To this day, he is still one of my true friends.

I married another boyfriend, who later found out the Truth and left the cult. He said, essentially, "It's a #@!! cult! I won't support it. I won't give it another dime." He said he wouldn't give me and the kids a hard time about staying in it, and he didn't. He wouldn't go to our performances, talks, or activities. Instead, he gave us family fun on Sundays after church, and weekend trips, and we volunteered at the children's schools together. We made non-Mormon friends.There was more to life than Mormonism, and I chose my husband and family over church.

Gently, in your own way, let her know the Truth. Be her friend, but don't support her mission. Don't go to her homecoming, but welcome her back to life by going out and having fun together. Keep it within her standards. Introduce her to your non-Mormon friends. Don't criticize her beliefs. Don't argue.

"if she is genuinely happy with being LDS, is it wrong for me to try to broaden her views?" - are the PRISONERS in Plato's cave happy with their lot in life? Should they be dragged out of the cave into the real world to see what is the reality they have been kept away from?
Well in MHO, Plato didn't call them prisoners for lack of another word. So you have to ask...ARE PRISONERS HAPPY AS PRISONERS?

Yeah, that's part of my dilemma. This is why I think people should try to know all they can before committing to the church. They cheat themselves if they don't. On the other hand, she could easily use the same reasoning of "non members aren't really happy (because they want to 'sin')." Or, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." It's not quite the same because everyone here has experienced *both* sides and can make their own choices based on that, but the reasoning can still stand. I'd have more respect for Mormons if they didn't try to argue how awful it is to be a non member, when they were BIC and never experienced life outside the church, or those who think living in a bubble is good (it's not!).

Our experience if it helps:

We were resistant to two sons who tried to talk to us about what was wrong about the church.

First one planted seeds about what he was concerned about (LDS corporation owning so many businesses in Utah - Bonneville inc.) but did not pursue talking or griping to us.

The other son was upset about what he found on the internet and came across angry so we stopped talking about religion with him and worked on building our relationship in the family with him.

Needless to say it took our own concerns and a news article "How the Mormons make Money" for us to wake up to get us to study things out for ourselves.

I really like what Steve Hassan has to says about cult thinking:

http://vimeo.com/freedomofmind

Steve Hassan has been at the forefront of cult awareness activism since 1976 and have authored critically acclaimed books – Combatting Cult Mind Control: The #1 Best-selling Guide to Protection, Rescue, and Recovery from Destructive Cults (1988) and Releasing the Bonds: Empowering People to Think for Themselves (2000) and e-book and paperback book in July 2012, Freedom of Mind: Helping Loved Ones Leave Controlling People, Cults and Beliefs.

External Links
freedomofmind.com

or at https://www.youtube.com/
search: freedom of mind steve hassan

Not ONE mormon has ever asked me why I left the mormon church. The people who know me, know I'm a reader and I research a lot of different things. Not just online either. They know I've literally read volumes on this topic. They don't want to know what i've learned. It scares the crap out of them that I left.

madalice Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Not ONE mormon has ever asked me why I left the
> mormon church. The people who know me, know I'm a
> reader and I research a lot of different things.
> Not just online either. They know I've literally
> read volumes on this topic. They don't want to
> know what i've learned. It scares the crap out of
> them that I left.

Interestingly, after being out for 33+ years, and being in the same boat as you, just a few months ago I had a mormon ask me why I left.

I do part-time tutoring of high school & college kids in math & science. Last year, I worked with a kid I'd known for 9 years (he used to be on my son's little league team), tutoring in calculus and SAT prep. He was a high-school senior. His parents knew I was ex-mo, but they'd never asked why. He knew, but he never asked why. I never brought the subject up with him, not one bit. We met two times a week for 11 weeks; he got a good SAT score, he got an A in calculus, and he was supposed to be off to an athletic scholarship at Boise State, where they were going to "hold" the scholarship for him while he went on a mission after 1 year of school.

A few months ago, he called me out of the blue. A bit of small talk about how college was, etc. Then he tells me he's getting ready to turn in his missionary papers. All I said was, "good luck." He gets quiet on the phone...then asks if he can ask me something. "Anything," I reply.
"Why did you leave the church?" he asks.

"Do you really want to know?" I asked..."It's not exactly faith-promoting."

"Yes, I really want to know," he said.
So I told him. I told him about 'Lamanite' DNA, BOM anachronisms, BoA fraud, Kinderhook, JS's 33 wives, polyandry...the whole list.

Again, quiet on the phone.
"Look," I said, "I have no desire to make you miserable. I know lots of people who know the claims of the church are false, but stay in for various reasons, for the 'good' the church does. But there's just no way to soft-pedal it -- the claims of the church are false, they know it, and they lie about it."

"I know," he said.
"I just don't know what to do about it."

First time any mormon's asked me. I've told a fair number, but he was the first to ask.

He's not going on a mission, by the way. He may be lurking here :)

"What I'm unsure about is, if she is genuinely happy with being LDS, is it wrong for me to try to broaden her views?"

Let's say you had a friend who as an habitual alcoholic. Typically, alcoholics self-report as being very happy with their lives. Yet any rational, honest person knows the facts -- that this is a destructive thing to be, that will shorten your life, ultimately bring you misery and pain, and will cause harm to others even if you don't intend it to. That *while* you're drunk you're happy is only really a matter of the behavior itself numbing you against reality.

Would you not try to be honest and help this friend, even though they claim to be (and possibly even are) "happy" with what they're doing?

It's no different with LDS belief. They claim to be happy, but any rational person knows that this is an ultimately destructive activity that will bring this person pain and sorrow, and the only reason they say they're happy is because the activity numbs them against reality.

You don't have to be obnoxious, though, and rant every time you see them about the cult. That works about as well as telling an alocholic they're drunk every time you see them -- meaning not at all.
You can, hopefully, find ways to gently but firmly lead them out of the destructive situation they're in. Very slowly, if the individual warrants it. One thing (possibly the only thing) I'll agree with the morg on -- "seeds" you gently plant now may bear fruit later on. But you have to plant them :)

Many, many years ago, when I was a young girl, my "Dad" (maternal grandfather who helped raise me) taught me something important: "Susie, if you want to keep a friend, don't discuss religion or politics."

Religion and politics, as we know are generally emotionally driven subjects. People hold on tight to their beliefs and are not likely to be influenced by others. They are the only ones to make a change, if and when they see a need or have a desire.

Also, it helps to understand that there are many different kinds of truth: objective truth, subjective truth, personal truth, truth that holds up in a court of law, and so on.
So that also means what is a "lie" to one person, might not be a "lie" to someone else.

But the fist principle that I have decided to live by is to respect and honor everyone's 1st amendment rights and that includes all of their rights to their beliefs and choices.
Everyone has a right to believe anything they want.

I do not have any right to interfere in their personal choices.
I leave people alone. IF...they ask, then I explain my choices and reasons.

This is a delicate area. Anytime we are dealing with an emotional attachment / bond, we need to tread lightly. Or not say anything at all.

It also boils down to treating others as you want to be treated.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/20/2014 01:20PM by SusieQ#1.

You have to be either fucking stupid or willingly delusional to "know the church is true". If someone is my friend, I give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they're in the second of the two, and let them merrily swim along in their mormon fantasy. It's not nice to treat someone like they're stupid, and it's not nice to forcefully pull someone out of a fantasy they want to stay in, so I figure the best thing is to just let them be and when they want to come to, they're capable of coming to terms on their own terms.

Mormons usually say they are happy in the church and don't care for those things of history (not important to our salvation) or that they are not suspicious that there are no accounts for tithing expenditure (if they have even thought about it). Usual reply would be that they trust the Lords Anointed or whatever. Or that facts don't even matter because feelings say otherwise (despite how ridiculous that really is).

They remind me of people I know who have joined 'get rich and quick' scams. It doesn't matter how much logical or how much evidence is presented that they are involved with a time and money wasting scam conceived by obvious conmen, they too respond in defiance? lol

At least with scams they unfold after a shortish period of time though the recruits do tend to jump on to the next get rich and quick scam and seemingly having not learned from the prior ones.

I've noticed with JW's, that if you bring something up that shows their lying 'cult' is exactly that and not much else, they too are at first in denial and even upset, saying it's an apostate lie (Satan etc), and then when the lie turns out to be true they rationalise it instead with excuses.

Scary how easily people can be fleeced with religious cults/leaders and more scary for an entire lifetime despite even having had many opportunities to see through it all.

. . . followed by a countering list of Mormon historical events, discourses, writings.

Keep it short.

Use quotes when possible.

Source the info.

Emphasize actions and words involving the highest Mormon Church leaders, with special emphasis on the Church president and First Presidency.

Give them time.

Ask for feedback.

Give them more countering lists after the feedback.

Give them more time.

Ask for more feedback.

Repeat as necessary.

Play it cool.



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 10/20/2014 06:06PM by steve benson.

That's a great game plan. Gets to the point. Concise and elegant.

If you really want them to listen, you have to engage their feelings first. Here's the all-time favorite approach that will have many TBMs, in a matter of minutes, not only willing but eager to listen:

"I quit trying to please the church because they're too hard on the members. They make too many demands that don't make any sense."

That's not original with me; I adapted it from another thread.

Until then keep a low profile.

Likewise don't hand out red pills until someone starts asking for them.