Do people actually give others the power to destroy their faith? Or is this just another silly false accusation by LDS folks that don't want to hear anything that does not fit their subjective religious faith based truth?

Either way, they must feel that their faith is very brittle.

...so the foundation of their belief crumbles. It has happened to many people here.

"How firm a foundation, ye Saints of the Lord....
Is laid for your faith in his excellent word...."

Hmm. Not quite the truth, methinks. Let's convince ourselves that it's true with music!

I believe that a faith destroyed by another person is a faith that didn't really exist.
I cannot destroy someone else's faith, but I can share information with them that the person can use to strengthen or weaken their own faith.
I agree with Stray Mutt

People can share facts but it is up to the individual to decide what to do with them.

God I hate the mental closure maintenance manipulations of Mormons.

Can a person destroy someone else's faith? Yeah, I'm thinking Screwtape Letters here. It can be a subtle business.

I think anyone with a good psychology degree, who observed Mormon religious practices and teaching would recognize strongly accented elements of indoctrination, mind control, and definitely coercion. The whole investigator commitment dance is classic high pressure sales, which itself can be considered unethical.

And yes, Mormon missionaries are fine with breaking up families and with tearing people away from the faith they were raised in. There is an effort there on the part of the Mormon missionaries to destroy someone's faith, and sometimes they succeed using an earnest, sincere young sales force.

So then turnabout is fair play: With my sincerity and earnest, if not youthful, charm I can try to destroy someone's faith by sharing my True Story of How Reality Is.

If the TBM buys it, how am I anymore to blame than the Mormon who proselytizes someone else out of his or her faith? In my eyes I have set the person free. It's as in Morrissey's song, "All The Lazy Dykes":

"Free yourself, Be yourself,
Come to the Palms and see yourself
And at last your life begins,
At last your life begins...."

Faith by definition is believing in something without any supporting evidence. That definition is both faith's greatest strength (many deeds have been accomplished by faith in oneself or the deed) and greatest weakness (when the faith is shattered by factual evidence). To answer your question, then, no, it isn't other people who shatter faith but the conflicting facts and evidence learned by the faithful from many sources that ends faith. And the faithful have to make the decision to investigate their faith in the first place.

Perhaps..This is a possibility for myself..I did not do it out of malice..but the fact remains a faith is damaged if not completely destroyed..If I am guilty of wrongdoing..I will gladly receive what Abba has instore for me..Will take accountability..been stumped for a while..wanting to restore this important person that's in my life..

Yes, it is possible to destroy someone's faith. If they are weak and beaten down already, especially by those who claim to be in the church. For instance, those religious leaders who sexually abuse children and vulnerable adults. It is quite common for faith to be destroyed that way, for the victims to numb off from anything to do with God because of what was done to them. This numbing off is beyond their control. God does not hold it against them, but much like doubting Thomas, they may not ever believe again until they feel the direct touch of God or Jesus...see the nail wounds, etc.

I'll let you look up the Scriptures for yourselves...

Those who destroy the faith of these vulnerable "little ones" will prefer that a millstone be put around their necks rather than what is coming for them...

This being said I am not a Mormon nor was considering to become one..I did allow some elders into my home.to give them the time of day and listen to their message.

Is our faith destroyed when we learn the truth, or is it just our commitment pattern?

I thought a lot about this over the years, even while very active. So many people didn't seem as if they really believed, but instead that they were committed to the church. I wondered about people like myself who stopped believing some things but were deathly afraid to disobey or to refuse to comply,. or to appear weak. Yet I firmly and always held to my faith in God. Well, that isn't exactly true- I was rapidly becoming Agnostic because of the clear contradition between my true faith and the teachings and culture of the One True Church in which I was turning into a perfect Pharisee.

One man who I used to admire told me that he had made a commitment to be faithful no matter what.

A Bishop told me that it doesn't matter what the old prophets said, but that I held firm and committed to the church.

And back when I was in the Bishopric, I got in trouble with the High Council Rep for saying that if there was no Priesthood around that I would be willing to let a Priest from the hospital clergy pray over me. I mean, they ARE men of faith, are they not? Doesn't God hear the prayers of the faithful?

The point I'm trying to make is that I did see the BS at church and I did recognize that Jesus was condemning me and those I served with for valuing The Law above the Spirit of the Law, and I did recognize the disconnect, but was terrified of being seen as unfaithful, or of breaking my temple covenants.

When I saw the facts and had to determine that the church was false, I scared the living daylights out of me.

But the funny thing of it all is that when I was able to see that the church was false, it actually restored my faith.

+10000

What your eyes have seen cannot be unseen. :)

(Not even with your spiritual eyes.)

It's an interesting question. There are your true believers whom no amount of evidence will ever convince. My mom read Tippetts and Avery's excellent biography of Emma Smith and found it all very spiritual and touching. My sister read it and is an ex-Mormon as a result. I rather think that my Mom could read Brodie and come away still convinced in Joseph Smith's prophetic vocation.

to a subjective truth (in a deity/savior) in the case of Mormonism.

Something -- or a bunch of somethings can and does erode that faith based belief in the subjective truth.
Some of it is external - and some of it is internal.

As a convert, well aware of dozens of religious faith based subjective truths throughout the history of humanity, and now they are predominately family, and cultural based, I'm not surprised at how they continue on and on and on with little to no actual factual based, imperial evidence.

When we say the LDS Church is false, what is really meant by that? To me, that means that the evidence doesn't support the claims. Sure, it's a "true" church", but the power in it's longevity rests mostly in the established faith-based cultural traditions.

It's a fascinating study, collecting the reasons why members leave the LDS Church. They are as varied as the people. Which, goes right along with my observation that there are as many different kinds of Mormons as there are Mormons. Many similarities, many general categories, but when it comes down to exactly how it's lived, there are large differences, especially over the history of the LDS Church.

I have often said that I didn't lose any faith, leaving the LDS Church, I just changed where I place it.
Nobody destroyed my faith, I didn't lose faith, I gained faith in other areas - predominately, that which stands up to scrutiny and is reliable and resistant.

So, yes, I think faith can be destroyed, but it's really more about changing where we place it, in my view.

Suzie,

I can so relate to what you shared here on this faith talking point.

Mormonism can't take from us what it doesn't own to begin with.

Likewise, leaving the false religion did not take from me my joy either, anymore than it did my faith.

My faith, like joy, has been enhanced and even grown to something more than what I'd experienced as a Mormon that there is no comparison between then and now to where I've grown as a person.

So thanks for sharing this talking point. It mirrors my own I made on this thread 2 days ago, and yours was made nearly 6 years ago. I'm glad someone had the foresight to resurrect this thread, for whatever reason!

:) :) :) :)

I don't think I had faith as much as a set of beliefs forced on me when I was 10 years old which I had to believe or god would destroy me. Those beliefs were later "destroyed" by facts which was a bit traumatic at first.

I don't think anyone has faith, I think they have illusions like elfling just posted.

I still find it funny that someones granite hard testimony can so easily be "lost." Whats that say about it. It's all made up wishful thinking.

The book of mormon has story after story of what happens to those who destroy the faith of others. We just read about Korihor (reading b of m for the umpteenth time), and I had a hard time sleeping that night. He was TRAMPLED to death! And no one was brought to justice.

"And thus we see the end of him who perverteth the ways of the Lord; and thus we see that the devil will not support his children at the last day, but doth speedily drag them down to hell."

All he did was preach atheism. I am not atheist, but can you imagine the outcry now a days if someone were trampled to death for preaching atheism?

This is why mormons are terrified of people who defect. It is taught over and over again in their scriptures. It's like they have no real faith, no mind of their own, are easily swayed by anyone who doesn't believe the way they do.

Great question. Definitely silly and false, but also manipulative.

Only Mormons would present this idea of "the faith destroyer" in such a way as to shift the responsibility for showing evidence to those who say there is no evidence.

If they don't frame it that way, they would have to admit that the person presenting the facts actually has a point. Can 't have that, now, can we?

IMO, TBMs who constantly testify that the "church is true" is an indicator that their faith can be destroyed; that, along with their leaders' repeated command to "study the scriptures" means that they have to prop themselves up all the time rather than be strong and confident in the church.

In other words, if you have a strong house, you don't need to be out there every damn day checking the roof for leaks and constantly repainting while telling everyone how your house is the best house ever built.

"Love your strong house comparison. Going in my "file."

Chicken N. Backpacks Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> In other words, if you have a strong house, you
> don't need to be out there every damn day checking
> the roof for leaks and constantly repainting
> while telling everyone how your house is the best
> house ever built.



This raised an image of a glass house, filled with a glass people.

We can see through it all.

My faith was destroyed in a false hope as in false religion.

I take full responsibility for my renunciation of that false belief system.

That being said, it is possible to find that there's a faith that survives, post-Mormonism. That's something my rejection of Mormonism cannot take from me or anyone else, because I own it. It's a part of me.

My faith is open to the mystery, without needing simplistic answers to the big questions. It's enough for me to wonder and marvel at our very existence and this thing we call life, while accepting there is something more than what we can see, touch or feel in this earthly existence.

Although the falsities and hypocrisy rife in Mormonism has driven many a believing soul away from there, and understandably so.

Judicious doubt is a true virtue, while faith is in fact a counterfeit virtue, a bad way to approach the world. A healthy skepticism is a strong defense against hucksters and quacks. Faith bypasses reason as surely as an intravenous line into an artery can deliver poison. If facts can destroy faith, then the destruction is deserved.

Mormons seem to assume no one can control what they think or believe and that everyone is at the mercy of whatever example they happen to look at or whatever voice is talking to them at any one time.

My older TBM brother asked my younger exmo brother if I was responsible for his disbelief in the Mormon church. Younger brother laughed uproariously at that silly idea and told big brother he credited me with powers that no one had over him. Big brother still went away blaming me because the four youngest siblings seem to avoid anything Mormon.

Of course the main thing that creeps them out about Mormonism is this big creepy formerly polygamous brother who drones on forever about how spiritual and righteous he is and how everyone should emulate him.

Perhaps those who make this false accusation about undermining faith are actually undermining faith with their silly suppositions and arrogant pronouncements.

Yep . Look a what false rumors can do to a marriage, what bad experiences can do to a politican, what a bad boss can do to employees.

Since "faith" is belief based on NOTHING...
it's always fragile, and whimsical, and flirty, and changing, and arbitrary, and (in my opinion) rather silly.

Faith has no anchor. No evidence to ground it. No facts to back it. No valid argument to justify it.

So if you have it, it was likely indoctrinated into you, or was born out of desperation or fear or fantasy.

Such things aren't substantial or defensible or even useful. They're excuses to not learn about reality, walls to block out reality when it's inconvenient or scary. As such, they're malleable, adaptable to any circumstance, and readily changeable.

I can't destroy anyone's faith. I can get them thinking, though...which has the same effect :)

Yes! thinking is bad, leads to bad things.

Best riff on faith ever. Bravo hie.