My wife has renewed her efforts to persuade me to join the church; not directly, but with her prayers. She has started throwing in things like "and help Greg to have an understanding of the truth (about the church, of course)."

We visited our recently paralyzed nephew to celebrate his return home from the hospital. The father said the prayer before dinner, and he added the phrase about gaining an understanding of the truth.

I figure the reference was directed at my nephew, who came out as gay shortly before his paralysis; but I couldn't help but ponder the cause and effect of recent prayers and what may soon befall me.

Mind you, this is the same family that had prayed that their son be "not gay", and saw their son's paralysis as God's answer to their prayers.

How would God answer my wife's prayer that I gain an "understanding of the truth?" A lobotomy? A traumatic brain injury? A complete mental breakdown? Early onset dementia?

As long as I have the ability to reason, there is no friggin' way I'm going convert. So either my wife's prayer is going to go unanswered, or I'm about to lose something that I value very much...my mind.

The TBMs in my family did this all the time. They consider prayer a safe place to do their "dirty work." For me, saying someone's name and then asking God to make them understand the truth" is a rude slap in the face. The action assumes the person saying it, in their arrogant/ignorant Mormon fashion, has the truth . They may be sincere as your wife is, and, my parents were, but it is still the Mormon version of an "intervention."

They feel that since it is in a prayer you are not allowed to say anything back or push for a rational discussion or an explanation.

You can call it passive aggressive, or cowardly, or judgmental, or just inappropriate, or whatever---but I for sure call it offensive. Ask for understanding for all, including oneself, or shut up.

I would use it to jump start a real conversation with anyone who did it to me. However, I wouldn't tell them they were wrong to do it. Any rational human being knows that starting a conversation by telling the other person they are wrong is shutting down communication immediately and is nothing more than a reprimand. Just time for each to express themselves openly.


Or, "Father forgive them for they know not what they do?"

My wife has been inactive since before Christmas, maybe even Thanksgiving, except for her visiting teaching...she's very sociable. She's been wanting to get back in the swing of things, but we've simply gotten out of the habit of attending church.

The sister missionaries have put on a full-court press to reactivate her, and we had a visit from my wife's home teacher and bishop last week. My wife has promised that she will be back in church this Sunday.

We had the sisters over last Saturday. Since one of the sisters had just transferred in, my wife went through the whole spiel about how she thought I was going join within a year of marrying her, but that I stumbled upon some "anti-mormon crap" that I believe more than her and the church. One of the sisters trotted out the old trope of "Who would you trust to tell you about a new Chevy, the Ford dealer or the Chevy dealer?" Neither, I told them; I'd do my own research and trust my own judgment on whether the Chevy was right for me.

After the sisters left, I gently explained, and not for the first time, that I wasn't even aware of most of the issues with Joseph Smith and Mormon history until I read "Rough Stone Rolling" at the advice of a member of the bishopric in the ward we attended after we were married. (The 1st counselor said that he understood my doubts after reading the BoM because he had them as well. But after reading "Rough Stone Rolling", he said that his doubts were put into their proper context, and they were no longer doubts.)

I continued to explain to my wife that much of Bushman's efforts to explain and excuse JS and church history did not ring true. Being a professional writer with an interest in logical fallacies and how word choice can influence how content is received, I recognized Bushman was trying to gloss over something that he couldn't outright deny if he wanted to be credible as a historian...whether he was actually successful in that regard is open to debate.

Anyway, it was Bushman's spin efforts that prompted me to check his sources for the (previously unknown) issues, and to learn more about the issues themselves on my own. And that is when I stumbled upon the "anti-mormon" sites and you fine people here recovering from mormonism. She said that she didn't know enough about the issues to discuss them with me, but would ask the sisters when they come over for dinner on Wednesday. So, in addition to letting her prayers do her "dirty work" for her, she is calling in the sisters for reinforcement.

Oh, and last night my wife once again prayed for me to have an understanding of the truth.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/04/2017 11:37AM by GregS.

The Ford vs Chevy dealers argument is a false dichotomy, like you said. It's not a Ford dealer at all. It's a Chevy dealer vs a previous owner of a Chevy who can tell you all the bad things about it, and a person who doesn't even think cars are necessary. Between them and the Chevy dealer who is trying to sell you something, which would you choose?

Maybe you should pray for her to come to an understanding of the truth. The truth about the BoA, the BoM, Joseph's and Brigham's handling of sex and power, and the psychology of cults.

Have you told your wife that basically she is telling you that you are stupid? She's the smart one? I'd tell her if she wants to pray for it in her own personal prayers, oh well. You can't stop her, but not to pray in front of you about YOU finding the truth. You've found YOUR TRUTH.

I have reminded some people about the 11th article of faith when they do this. It has worked a few times.

"Have you told your wife that basically she is telling you that you are stupid?"

I did, actually, a couple years ago. I don't remember her exact response, but the implication was that I had fallen sway to "The Adversary" because of my intellectual pride and dependence on reason.

First of all, yes, I am proud of my intellect; I put a lot of work into it, and it has yielded satisfactory results.

Second, "dependence on reason"; and your point is?

Third, The Adversary? Really? Am I one step away from being evil? When I called her on that, she apologized profusely and said she didn't mean to imply any such thing.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/04/2017 12:35PM by GregS.

You can't handle the truth! Sorry couldn't resist but I'm feeling the pressure myself as I run into mormons I haven't seen in a while and they just say "I just hope you find happiness" oh thanks for sabotaging my thoughts now

That actually sounds pretty good to me, because they're wishing you the best without telling you WHAT the best has to be.

Once again, the conflation of "knowledege" and "truth": an "understanding" implies that you will come to learn and accept something--which also implies that that something is a fact...."understanding" that JS saw God and JC in the grove, and all the follow-on revelations and crap like that.

But it's not knowledge, it's not understanding, it's "Who are you going to believe: me, or your lying eyes?" It's feelings. It's not knowing the church lied because they won't admit that JS made it all up and got away with convincing others. It's calling the actual truth, which you understand, "anti-mormon crap."

Your last line really made me laugh. Glad you have some sense of humor about it.

Your wife needs to be told that she is praying for you to accept her version of the truth;also see "alternative facts", not an understanding of the truth. Once again, the Mormon "semantic game" comes in as handy tool to justify lack of truth based on fact and evidence.

By recruiting the sister missionaries, while admitting she herself does not have the knowledge, is an admission that she herself does not know the truth and is only operating on 'wishin' and hopin' and prayin'" rather than gaining the knowledge herself. She has nothing on her own in the way of fact or evidence. She is relying on a second and third party.

Your wife is afraid of the truth. She doesn't want to know what it is really. It's like people who won't go to the doctor because they fear the doctor is going to find something wrong and somehow they believe staying away from the doctor will keep them healthy.

Try praying with her:

"Heavenly father, thank you for guiding me to find the truth. I rejoice that you brought me to an understanding of logic and reason, rather than belief in lies and distortions. Please guide (wife's name) to understand that neither feelings nor beliefs determine truth, and that anyone who tells her that they do is simply lying to her.

Amen."

"How would God answer my wife's prayer that I gain an "understanding of the truth?"

By showing her the essays and all the other evidences that the church is demonstrably not what it claims. And its all from church sources.

She is praying for god to give you "understanding of the truth" correct? The fact that you are not a member and don't believe it could be considered "evidence" that her prayers are answered, especially if you provide source material for her.

Or evidence that god won't answer her prayer because she needs to repent for something :)

I like this. The wife needs to be informed that, indeed, her prayers have already been answered. It just wasn't the answer she was indoctrinated to expect.

"It just wasn't the answer she was indoctrinated to expect."

Exactly! That's why she became physically ill when she heard it....as mentioned in the post below. That's why people jump off buildings when they find out the "investment" they trusted was a scam and they lost everything.

God answers in his way, and his way is not necessarily what the supplicant wants. (I dont believe this and I don't believe in god but this may start to get through to her.)

It's been over a year ago, but I have given her links to the essays. She said she started to read a couple of them, but had to stop because they made her physically ill.

Yes, I know. That should have been a big red flag for her, right there.

She's not stupid, though she is very worried that I may see her as such, or as a dupe. She believes that joining the church 30+ years literally saved her life and, as a result, she owes the church more than she could ever repay.

I've tried to show her that it was the impulse, her impulse, to turn her life around that saved her life. The church was simply the closest lifeline thrown her way in the form of the missionaries who found her because of her mother, herself a recent convert.

Now that she has turned her life around, had a disastrous first marriage with a returned missionary, got divorced, turned her life around again, and married me (who she frequently refers to as "God's blessing"), I'm trying to help her see that she really doesn't need the church telling her how to run her life. She's just afraid to let go of the lifeline after she's already learned how to swim.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/04/2017 01:57PM by GregS.

"Now that she has turned her life around, had a disastrous first marriage with a returned missionary, got divorced, turned her life around again, and married me (who she frequently refers to as "God's blessing"), I'm trying to help her see that she really doesn't need the church telling her how to run her life."

> That sounds like her own personal discovery of the truth....messed up life, turned around and married RM, divorced RM....and married you who she describes as "gods blessing". She needs to realize that she has found more truth with you out of the church than she did with anyone else in it.

She's just afraid to let go of the lifeline after she's already learned how to swim."

> She isn't swimming yet, not if she clings to the lifeline (or anchor) of the church. If she can let go, she'll find more happiness swimming with you than she will in the church.

Church will say "stay at the shallow end and never leave the pool"......You can say " lets swim wherever we feel like...and lets skinny dip while we're at it!"

Let them know you'll be happy to consider their claims about "truth" when they can present some verifiable evidence that it IS "truth."
When they can't, and tell you that you just have to have faith, remind them that simply believing without evidence has, historically, been a horrible way of determining "truth." And that you want no part of it :)

The biggest enemy of truth is not falsehood or error--it's certitude.

Mormonism is not about truth. It's about belief.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/05/2017 03:24AM by baura.