Does anyone know of a web link for the unexcusable words Michael Ash wrote on that poor bishop's blog? It really ticks me off about the hell the guy is going through.

If a link isn't available, could someone possibly summarize what happened? By the time I heard about this, the blog entry was removed.

He said:

"From what I have seen through years of reading exit stories is that the main factor which causes a person to leave is indeed “hurt feelings” and feeling “offended”– not offended by someone in the Church, but offended at the thought that they’ve been conned. And the primary reason that such people feel they were conned is because they never really engaged “study and faith” in their gospel lives."

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/27/2011 09:31AM by Strykary.

Michael Ash, you are an absolute delusional asshole.

GAWD what an asshat. I'm sure Ash feels like he's doing God's work, but he really just comes off like an arrogant douche lying for God. I feel dirty having read his post. Bleh.

Actually I have to say that this piece of Ash's response makes sense:

"Like most people who fail to put their minds to full use as God intends, they often take a black-and-white approach to religious issues. It’s either true or false. There either were horses in the New World, or the Book of Mormon is fictional. The Book of Abraham was either written by Abraham himself, or Joseph Smith created the text. Such a fundamentalist attitude is anathema to a healthy paradigm of how God works through fallible humans."

He's only wrong about his first statement (which is an assumption). If there were no horses in the New World, then the BOM IS in fact fictional if carried to the proper conclusion. However, if there were horses (which there weren't) then that does NOT prove the BOM either. His second statement is dis-ingenuous at best since he obviously hasn't studied the subject. Neither Abraham nor JS created (wrote) the text. Ancient Egyptians "made" the text and JS egregiously mis-translated the text. If he can't get plain Egyptian correct, how can he get the made-up reformed Egyptian correct? Oh yeah, it's made-up so he can make it say whatever he wants unless he needs to change it or it gets lost.

Isn't it interesting how the Mormon apologists' strategy has evolved.

It used to be that the disbelieving member was offended, was hiding a sin, wanted to sin, was taking the easy way, was under the control of Satan.

Now it's Joseph Smith and the early church members who are full of sin, flawed human beings just like us and doesn't that give us hope that even though we are pieces of sh*t, we can have hope that we will some day measure up because Joseph Smith himself was a bigger piece of sh*t.

They've lost all credibility since Gordon Hinckley was on the Larry King show. They've lost their moral authority to answer anything but a question about the time of day. And I'd check the clock.

Here's the wild and wonderful part of all this. They pushed the answering tiresome and boring tithpayers' questions to their local bishops, and the bishops are investigating so they can answer the questions accurately, AND THE BISHOPS ARE RESIGNING!

How sweet is that?

Anagrammy

When I was a kid I believed Joeph Fielding Smith when he said Joseph Smith did not use seerstones. When I was 46 I stilled believed as I was taught that the story of seerstones was an evil antimormon lie. Why? Because that's what I was taught, and that's what the church said.

Now that seerstones are common knowledge, my shock and dismay are the products of an immature and faithless mind. Why didn't I know? Because I was taught from my mothers knee, in Primary and in My adult years to only read what the church gave me to read. And why should I doubt the church? Why should I go looking at the claims of antimormons and see what's up with their lies about seerstones or a million other claims?

It isn't because of an unstudied faith that I did not know, but it was the product of the childlike trust that was demanded of me by the people who kept this knowledge from me.

At the end of the day though, who cares what Mike Ash would say about those who discover the lie? After all, he thinks that Lamanites ate and dragged horses, and he's selling a book. Anything he writes in the church ragsheet is a thinly veiled advertisement for his paperback toilet paper.

Ash, for every person that has the slightest critical thinking skills, is the biggest anti-mormon on planet earth. I'm thinking he is so into himself (did I mention he is a dick) he'll never get it.

In case your reading this Mike "dick" is what the Lam's and Neph's called the little morsels of horsemeat that fell out of their packs as they ran through the jungle from one battle to the next. "don't eat that, it ain't worth dick". So according to the "text" Mike, "dick" is not what you thought as what most people think when they hear "dick" think a worldly and less than scholarly conclusion. You can see that implied in between the lines in the text Mike. See it's right there Mike. If you just look at the text the way you taught us Mike you can see it. Right there Mike. See it? See? Twist to the side a little and hold your foot just so then..........

Thanks for this. It made my day.

"even though we are pieces of sh*t, we can have hope that we will some day measure up because Joseph Smith himself was a bigger piece of sh*t."

to full use as God intends, they often take a black-and-white approach to religious issues. It’s either true or false. There either were horses in the New World, or the Book of Mormon is fictional. The Book of Abraham was either written by Abraham himself, or Joseph Smith created the text. Such a fundamentalist attitude is anathema to a healthy paradigm of how God works through fallible humans". Mike Ash

Mike, if this is the church's new, "healthy paradigm" then I especially want nothing to do with it. How sad is it that in the name of religion, you would ask for reason and fact to turn on its face. I don't know what's worse - that there were no horses in the New Word, or that, at the risk of God's displeasure, you would have one believe so anyway. How pathetic - it simply makes reason stare!

Michael Ash's mind reminds me of the tower of babel...

A comment I made to Steve Bloor's resignation posting (Ash fits in)

Thank you Steve,

I have really been impressed by the sincerity of the stories I have heard from people who have left the church. I was in my twenties when I discovered a lot of the uncomfortable truths about church history. I was in a religious studies class when the professor started saying things about Joseph Smith that I had never heard, so I told him that he needed to check his facts. In the end, it was I that needed to check my facts. What bothered me the most about the incident was that I had just spent two years trying to convince people to join the church and the message we shared was at best sanitized and at worst, deceiving. Even with the sweet story about a perfect young man, people were hesitant to consider our message. We naturally attributed that hesitation to their own "pride, vanity, worldly learning, desire to sin, etc." In reality, the reason people were rejecting our message was because they did not believe it to be true.......and that was the sanitized message! I believe that people should be encouraged to investigate the foundational aspect of Mormonism from all sources and be given plenty of time to make their decisions based on all of the information available. We were trained to invite people to be baptised in the second discussion (frequently just days after meeting them). Ridiculous!!! Luckily, very few emotionally stable adults fell for it. Mostly, we baptised 9 year olds whose grandparents were pressuring their less active parents to get on with it. I'm sure I baptised at least three dozen 9 year olds into inactivity, but hey, a convert is a convert and the 9 year olds were our bread and butter in Utah. Of the dozen or so adult baptisms, only one person I am aware of still goes to church and it is only a matter of time before she leaves. My wife and I left the church with our two children last year after years of endless soul searching, pondering, and prayer. We still call ourselves Christian and find a lot of meaning in life through our faith in Christ. I must admit that there truly are a lot of good things about present day Mormonism. I have the utmost respect for the Mormons I live around and work with. There is a lot about the church that we really appreciated, but we could no longer reconcile our beliefs and understanding with the church's claims. For your own profit and learning, I will liken the good things about Mormonism unto a marshmallow that is stuck in the middle of a large cow pie. No matter how badly I wished to eat that marshmallow and no matter how tasty Mike Ash and other defenders tried to make the cow pie look, I was not willing to eat the whole turd just to get the marshmallow. Outside of the church, I have found that I can still have the marshmallow and I no longer have to eat manure. Although our decisions have caused grief for some members of our families, there have been many people who have confided in us that they feel the same way. Of these people, one is a current Bishop, and another was recently released as a stake president. Both of these men love the people they serve and try to do their best, despite their unbelief. People who leave the church, either formally or psychologically, come in all different shapes and sizes but most leave for the same reasons; they are following their hearts and trying to be true to themselves. The last thing my Bishop said after I told him I was leaving the church was that I had let my pride rob me of my salvation. I responded by asking him which one of us was unwilling to admit that they might be wrong. I then told him that he was prideful. He denied the accusation 3 times as I walked away, getting louder each time. Some people maintain that it is pride and weakness that causes people to leave the church, but I believe that admitting that you were wrong after telling people for decades that you knew you were right takes a lot of humility and strength. Maybe it is pride that is keeping people like Mike Ash in the church. The impartial observer can decide for themselves.

I want to second the opinion that unacknowledged pride can frequently be seen as a motivator in the mormon hierarchy and culture.

So it is quite funny, actually, when mormons attempt to identify "pride" as the instigator of member departure, rather than recognizing it as the fundamental binding agent of mormon culture.

+1

Well put!

Is Michael Ash the authority on scientific method, critical thinking, logic, giver of comforting words, or his own faith system (TSCC) for that matter, that it seems he aspire to appear to be for other people - or is he just a conman? The use of modifiers to his tatements, like 'in my opinion', 'as I understand it', 'I feel', 'I think', etc., seem to be sort of left out for some reason or other...

Ash has one great thing in common with all of the corporate board members of morgdom: he speaks as a man as they have done and as they currently do. That has to be a power trip for him. The fact that he spouts nonsense just like the board members do is not relevant to his ego or conscience.

Glad2B Out

Hey guys, stop beating on Ash.
At least he has the credentials and is qualified to talk about science and facts and...oh, wait a minute...

I pity Mr. Ash: one day his native human intelligence will recoil in disgust at the double-think and double-talk he has engaged in. When that day comes, he will recognize Michael Ash as he is: a desperate mormon nebish who ultimately couldn't rationalize the vapid LDS belief system to anyone, even to himself.

"Like most people who fail to put their minds to full use as God intends, they often take a black-and-white approach to religious issues. It’s either true or false. There either were horses in the New World, or the Book of Mormon is fictional. The Book of Abraham was either written by Abraham himself, or Joseph Smith created the text. Such a fundamentalist attitude is anathema to a healthy paradigm of how God works through fallible humans."

I'm really getting tired of his straw man bullshit. Ash acts as though people find 1 or 2 issues 'minor issues' and are out the door with no thought to what it all means. He dismisses the long hard struggle must go through to get to a point where they leave and ignores the fact that there is a fucking mountain of issues here— not just 2 or 3. He's either severely misinformed or a liar.

"A healthy paradigm of how God works through fallible humans"
Total crap. The Mormon paradigm for how God works with humans is manipulative, illogical and convoluted. Talk about a stupor of thought.

To give someone a logical brain and then ask to function like this is asinine. God obviously doesn't want to work with his children in a way that makes sense to their human minds or that is likely to succeed. Despite preaching 'a house of order' the God of Mormonism has slathered his gospel in so much controversy and error that only the ultra-elect (aka self-delusional or Mike Ash) will remain faithful.

Mormons claim they don't believe in predestination but I 'm not so sure. Certainly an all-knowing God who requires people to think like Ash suggests knew anyone who used their brain logically would fall away sooner or later.

Here is MA's Reponse to that post:

"I’m not one to publish frequently on blogs or message boards. Quite frankly, life is too short, I have too many irons in the fire, and I have precious little time to work on projects that I feel are more worthwhile than arguing with others.

Having said this, however, I feel the need to comment on a few things discussed herein.

Steve, I honestly hope that you find happiness in your own personal spiritual quest. In the end, each of us has to decide for ourselves what brings us true happiness.

I can imagine (with a touch of anecdotal recollection of my own) the emotional turmoil you must have gone through. The phrase “cognitive dissonance” [CD] is thrown about loosely in discussions about LDS issues, but true CD is very hard on the emotions and mind, and can make you physically ill. You cannot endure CD for long and your mind/body seeks a quick resolution. Some people find resolution by brushing difficult issues aside, others by embracing the new difficulties and changing their paradigm. Either way, the psychological tension is relieved. This doesn’t automatically make one direction right and the other wrong, however.

Common among those who leave the church are feelings of anger and betrayal, and those feelings can be so powerful that they can cloud any or all thoughts of accepting the claims made by the Church. This comes from feelings of mistrust and are hard to overcome– and certainly influence a bias against arguments that support the Church.

Feelings of mistrust, as you note in your post, come most often from feeling that things have been “hidden.” The simple truth, however, is that things are not nearly as “hidden” as some– who stumble upon such information [often painted in the worst possible light by critics]– would think. There isn’t enough space in this blog to do this topic justice but I can refer you to information that demonstrates a) that most of the difficult issues have been discussed in Church-related publications for years, b) most people in general are blissfully unaware of significant historical/political etc., events. In other words, it’s sad but true, that most people are simply ignorant of things they should know more about.

When a believing member “discovers” such things, the Church is immediately held up as the culprit for “hiding” the information in a “cover-up” to control the minds of members. This is simply not true.

Your post speaks of “solid, reliable, testable scientific data,” that supports your current religious views of Mormonism. At the risk of sounding rude, I seriously doubt that you could produce such data. Before you begin writing a list please keep in mind, that a large number of educated Latter-day Saints are fully aware of every single LDS-critical argument. I, myself, have studied them for many decades. There is absolutely no intellectual data that automatically compels an intelligent person to reject the Book of Mormon. Of course there is no intellectual data that automatically compels an intelligent person to accept the Book of Mormon either. In short, all the “scientific data” that is used to discredit the Church has an equally “solid, reliable,” and “testable” refutation (and, generally, vice-versa for pro-LDS claims).

The journey is yours, and yours alone. No one can ride on the shirt tail of anyone else when it comes to matters of faith, so I have no dog in the race as to the outcome of your own decision on religious issues. I merely wish to emphasize that you are not the only one to “discover” difficult issues. Lots of intelligent people have examined them. A number of these intelligent people are not only still believing members but recognize that there are rational and logical explanations that account for every criticism out there.

From what I have seen through years of reading exit stories is that the main factor which causes a person to leave is indeed “hurt feelings” and feeling “offended”– not offended by someone in the Church, but offended at the thought that they’ve been conned. And the primary reason that such people feel they were conned is because they never really engaged “study and faith” in their gospel lives.

Like most people who fail to put their minds to full use as God intends, they often take a black-and-white approach to religious issues. It’s either true or false. There either were horses in the New World, or the Book of Mormon is fictional. The Book of Abraham was either written by Abraham himself, or Joseph Smith created the text. Such a fundamentalist attitude is anathema to a healthy paradigm of how God works through fallible humans.

Good luck, and if you are ever open again to searching for answers, let me know."

This IS just priceless---

"Like most people who fail to put their minds to full use as God intends, they often take a black-and-white approach to religious issues. It’s either true or false. There either were horses in the New World, or the Book of Mormon is fictional. The Book of Abraham was either written by Abraham himself, or Joseph Smith created the text. Such a fundamentalist attitude is anathema to a healthy paradigm of how God works through fallible humans."
---------------------------

How about the BOA hieroglyphs were translated at the request of the church by leading experts and the BOA was found to be a standard funeral text. The pictures labeled by Joe Smith are standard depictions of the Egyptian pantheon and of the preparation of the mummified body. This was an example of Joe Smith the conman at his finest.

Either the Book of Mormon is completely true or the whole church is false. Either the official story of the First Vision is completely true or we are engaged in a great fraud.

Those who wrote contrary articles over the years (Grant Palmer and others) were punished for telling the truth. We were called to repentance for believing them.

The church tells us by way of the leaders that we sustain that we must believe it with all our hearts and that they can never lie or lead us astray, that it is Black or White/Alltrue or Allfalse. They tell us that Satan seeks to destroy our test monkeys with publications that deviate from the official word.

Then the church tells us by way of its apologetics arm that the real truth was there all along, that if we had any real faith we'd know about and accept these contrary opinions and studies and our faith would be built on honest study.

It's a complete mind slap.

You are unfaithfiul if you yeild to the temptation to look behind the curtain, and you are unfaithful if you are shocked and discouraged by what you see.

Yeah, Joe Smith wasn't just fallible. He was a downright con-man. One who could be dangerous at that.

I'm not seeing the gray here Mr. ASh..

Ash quote:
"Like most people who fail to put their minds to full use as God intends, they often take a black-and-white approach to religious issues. It’s either true or false."

Wasn't this the precise words of Gordon B Hinkley Mr. Ash?


Hinckley Quote:
"Well, it's either true or false. If it's false, we're engaged in a great fraud. If it's true, it's the most important thing in the world. Now, that's the whole picture. It is either right or wrong, true or false, fraudulent or true. And that's exactly where we stand"
- Prophet Gordon B. Hinckley, Interview "The Mormons"; PBS Documentary, April 2007

Well said mo larkey.

I have on occasions tried to read Ash's response to the truth, but I always get tangled up in knots. What sort of a mind does he have. Does he know he contradicts what leaders have said.

I know the morg says that the living prophet is more important than the ones that are gone, but does Mr Ash look on himself as being more important than the living prophet?

He must be so full of himself, and responds according to which way the wind is blowing on any given day. Confused - you will be if you listen to Michael Ash.

Mike Ash probably will claim that Gordo was speaking as a man and not a prophet...

TSCC just chases it's tail when cornered. Their own claims set it up as a black/white only house of cards. There is no way to use reasoning with them or the apologists.

LOL. Yes, but Hinckley was speaking as a man when he said that, not as the profit. *rolls-eyes*

Thanks for the imput everyone. :-)

Am I the only person that didn't think Mike Ash was an asshole? No, really. I read Ash's reply and felt that he expressed empathy, that he didn't badmouth Bloor or anyone who has left, that he wished Bloor happiness, etc. Sure, Ash comes to a different conclusion than most RFMers here, but I for one did not think he was anything but someone with a sincere and opposite perspective and . I wish my own interactions with true believers were so polite.