There are many more ways to undermine Mormonism now than there ever were, and these ways are more accessible to the public.

If I were a believer, and I knew about RFM, Mormonthink, John Dehlin's Mormon Stories, the Grant Palmer Youtube videos, New Carabu ("Sir David the Bard") videos, Will Bagley's videos, Sandra Tanner's videos, etc. I would be very nervous. I would be defensive of my church. I would suspect my Mormon friends of being silent doubters. I would try to protect young missionaries. It would be hard realizing that many people thought that because of my religion I was a clueless fool. It would be hard knowing that adult membership in the U.S. is decreasing. I would try to shield youth, and I'd feel guilty about doing so at the same time. I would be reluctant to tell nonmembers about Mormonism because of all the devastating information they could find on the internet. Strange as it may seem, there are people who know all about this stuff and still remain active Mormons.

Just think about how things were 30+ years ago. You went to church and things were fairly peaceful. You felt secure. You didn't feel like your church was being attacked from all sides. Digging up damaging information was hard to do. Mormonism enjoyed a lot of respect, especially in certain areas.

I can feel for those who are active Mormons in this day and age.

Well, the Mormon church does not have a leg to stand on anymore.

What is there left to defend?

And they are backed into a corner with the Book of Mormon, which is a proven fraud.

The End.

I was in it for 53 years. Was pretty fun in the 70’s but it just kept getting worse as time when on until it sucked all the joy out of life.

kingherodcosell Wrote:
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> I was in it for 53 years. Was pretty fun in the
> 70’s but it just kept getting worse as time when
> on until it sucked all the joy out of life.


SUcking all the joy out of life is the VERY purpose of MORmONISM.

just one very official indication of how purposely making MORmON members miserable is an institutional enterprise and amusement of MORmON leaders

https://youtu.be/u-iFptpZ7nI

My last three years as a Mormon really sucked! TSCC was sucking the joy out of my life. I was so releived when I discovered it was a fraud.

I think your sympathy is misplaced and I don’t think most members think about those things you credit them with worrying about. Their minds are closed. Any doubts or negative information is dismissed as anti lies. They don’t want to hear it and they don’t.

If I were to think that its hard to be in the [very long name] organization (i.e. I don't use the "M" word because the Holy Nelson says its a victory for Satan) then I would be having a Doubt. Thanks to the beloved Correlation program, which has groomed me into being the clueful non-delusion person I am today by being fully assimilated into this wondrous organization from the time I was in Nursery and gained a powerful testimony that the Cheerios were true, I've learned that Doubts are terrible sins. So I stay away from anything that will cause a doubt to form or grow. Instead I just focus on being more obedient and more self-blaming on everything. My mind is fully closed to any such thoughts that something is hard. I suppose I could investigate whether any doubts or negative information is actually just an anti lie or not. But that would require thinking and since I'm focused on obedience then I guess I won't be hearing such things and just avoid it as I focus on obeying the Holy Nelson and the beloved middlemen whose job it is to micromanage my life.

30 years ago I was trying to drink kool aid, but I kept choking on some of it. You had to keep your doubts and thoughts to yourself. You could not openly criticize church leaders without some kind of consequence or repercussion. There was lots of pressure to conform. Just check out the church talks from that time period. Nearly every one addressed wars, destruction and pestilence that would sweep across the world.

Mormonism is a pestilence, but it’s not sweeping the world.

babyloncansuckit Wrote:
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> Mormonism is a pestilence, but it’s not sweeping the world.

Correctomundo, Babs. If there is any sweeping being done it is being done by members, along with the vacuuming. :)

I had "thought" my way out by the time I knew about places like RfM. I thought I was pretty much alone. I knew there were others who had left, but my journey was pretty much ALONE. But my feelings all my life about beliefs, etc., have always been different than others feel and I've always known that. I didn't see mormonism like others did.

I did eventually ask my therapist what he believed and that is when it came out that he was out of the church. He hasn't resigned still to this day. I asked him over 20 years ago. When I couldn't come to terms with not wearing garments (and even my niece and my daughter asked me why), he sent me here to RfM.

I NEVER would have visited a place like this as a believing mormon. I didn't read anti stuff. I stayed far away from it. But then I didn't really know for sure where it was at. I still don't read books about it. My brain tends to slam shut when I start reading any books about mormonism.

So, for me, I never thought of it. I wanted to save my gay husband, but there isn't much info out there on this subject and especially back in 1983 when I found out he is gay. Carol Lynn Pearson's book, "Good-Bye, I Love You" was a BIG DEAL to me. But it isn't anti.

My daughter is very aware that I read here. She knows I have some books. She asked if she should read "No Man Knows My History," as she found it in my bookshelf and I told her it would probably bother her. Same with "In Sacred Loneliness" even if it is written by an active mormon. I was honest with her. She said she wanted an accurate history of JS and she didn't think the church had one!!!!!!!!!!!!! I love that one. My daughter knows the anti stuff as she used to be anti herself. She thinks that she can avoid problems if she is a good mormon. Well, so did I. We know how well that worked for me. I left over LIFE EXPERIENCE. The history is just icing on the cake.

And about 30 years ago I accidentally discover the Bible Answerman broadcast & Walter Martin tapes. I thought they were devastating enough to the church at the time.

Aren't they correlated?

Because I was not caught in the Mormon-mindset of avoiding the "evil world", I have a hard time even wrapping around the fact that there are plenty members who do. I was lucky as I was not indoctrinated as a child and on up.

But, I did attend church enough with friends to hear about the promise of happiness and eternal life if I married in the temple, etc. Then came the bomb shell of what the temple was really all about when I sat through that long, unbelievable, weird and frightening ceremony. No, this is not what I signed up for!

And, I was not about to let the church, or the cult which I came to know it was, tell me what to read, to listen to, to do, how to dress, and even what to think. I was attending the university a the time and learning too many things that actually made sense of reality; things were on facts, and things that were plain amazing!.....evolution, astronomy, physics, anthropology, geography, philosophy..... the Mormonism myth did not compare. I left it knowing it was a fraud that took advantage of people, a fraud that lied and hid its history, a fraud that Sleazy Joe enjoyed using on good, hard-working people. I was done, and happy to be done.

I realize I was fortunate to attend and graduate university and that not all people have this opportunity. However, I don't know how any adult Mormon, even a TBM one, who lives and breathes on this here planet can fail to hear about the world's happenings and not wonder and even, OMG, question some of their church teachings. I'm convinced it would be HARD not to. So....I tend to think some members just decide to ignore their questions and carry on.... because, after all, it will all be wonderful and make sense in the next life. However, I do think that they would have a HARD time not returning now and then to their doubts.

And, this is how I believe it worked in the past with some of the Mormons. Just like it works now! They choose to fool themselves.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/14/2019 11:20PM by presleynfactsrock.

There's a filtering process at work. That doesn't mean that everyone who chooses to put on blinders is a bad person. But it means that they're not willing to question their own assumptions. They're willing to play the game of "my team is the best because it's my team" at the expense of expanding their ability to learn and increase their awareness of reality.

Before I went on my mission, I didn't have access to any "anti-Mormon literature" (i.e. compilations of inconvenient historical facts). I had doubts based on my personal observations about how illogical many things were, how many important questions always had to be "put on a shelf" and how reality never lived up to the hype. But I didn't have any hard historical facts at my fingertips and lived in an area where none of the libraries cared about Mormonism enough to have an extensive collection. I had no idea that there were any fundamental problems with the Book of Abraham source papyri. I had never heard that Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon by gazing at a rock in his hat...and so on and so on.

When I got back from my mission I was full of more doubts than ever. Fortunately, at YBU, I had access to a library that contained the most extensive collection of Mormonism-related books anywhere. So, perhaps somewhat ironically, going to YBU was the best move I could ever have made at that time to learn about the true history of Mormonism. Later, when the Internet came along, I found that any additional information and analysis that I could find always went in the direction of corroborating my conclusion that Mormonism was entirely a man-made religion, based on fraud and deception.

I am sure that those in the church are just saying that these are the last days and that everyone knows that evilness and apostacy were predicted to increase in the last days and that people falling away from the church en'mass was foreseen by past prophets. Those remaining in the church see themselves as the last few loyal people to Jesus. The logic all adds-up. That's because it is all circular logic that is self-generated and self-validating. It'll take some kind of intervention or life-altering event to shake them loose from their cult. Then they'll show up on this board, looking for a way to heal what is left of their life and their psyche.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/15/2019 08:48AM by azsteve.

For my TBM-to-the-Max family the emphasis has shifted from knowledge to faith. They have accepted the implied challenge of their leaders to keep faith--NO. Matter. What. And they do. Faith! Heavenly Father wants them to have faith and they are not going to let Him down!

I don't ask but have managed to surmise through what my mom talks about that she has a little group that have tried to come to terms with the BoM having no merit. They are clinging to any apologist explanation like it were a life raft in the middle of the sea. They keep discussing the "others" that were here in America at the same time. They avoid reaching a conclusion because as long as they are still searching for an answer then they can feel like the "fat lady has not sung" and the curtain has not come down.

When I was young, there had still been horses and chariots in America and the ruins in Central America were still all Nephite/Lamanite and the world was going to realize that any day now and all see the glory of the One True Church.

We thought we had fact on our side and it went hand in hand with faith. Now Mormons must choose because now faith and fact are mutually exclusive. What a difference a few decades make!

The LDS have been attacked from the year dot. The difference is that the attacks used to be physical as well as in print. Whatever you think of the LDS, it's pretty indisputable that there were murders and violence back in the day which LDS doesn't experience now.

What?

The Mormons gave as good as they got. Check out MMM. Check out the Danites. Check out burning the newspaper press. Checkout the glass they put in the flour for the Timpanogos Indians. Checkout Bishop Snow hanging the balls of the guy he castrated above the chapel door in order to take his fiance. Look at the whole history.

I would have been very afraid of the Mormons back in the day. What they received was retaliation not persecution. They were bullies claiming the victim card. They behaved atrociously in every town they took over claiming God gave it to them. Governor Boggs extermination order may have been wrong, but the reasons for bringing it were substantial.

Yep, well aware of all that stuff. Thank you for making my point for me, that there was a level of violence which is not experienced today.

"What they received was retaliation not persecution."

Sometimes, but not always, and not always in proportion. And what excuse was there for attacking children in either case?

The OP may be right generally, but I'm another one that was pretty much out before I discovered info on the internet or about history or doctrine problems.

Day to day life in the church offers plenty of evidence it is a fraud if you are willing to see it.

The problems kept adding up for me.

The whole family's are priority line, but seeing my folks avoid us, in favor of doing church work.

Seeing blessings promising to recover and live long, but then they die that night.

As a leader, me issuing supposedly inspired callings, then told the recipient was leaving the ward in a week.

Seeing leaders proclaim the church was true, while selling MLM scams during the week (all started looking the same).

Being unable to get elders to home teach, eventually seeing why they didn't like the useless busy work. And me as EQP getting chewed out by SP.

As missionary, questioning the whole numbers game - is that how Jesus would do it? Getting chewed out for baptism goal being too low - lack of faith.

Wondering why god would allow children to suffer terrible abuse or pain - I wouldn't as a parent.

Seeing members cherry-picking the times prayers worked as evidence, while ignoring the times they clearly failed.

Seeing much depression when the gospel was supposed to make you happy - and the depressed made to feel guilty, when should be told to relax.

And on and on.

About 25 years ago my brother said he and my dad prayed and felt inspired to promise a fellow that he would recover from cancer and live long. He died that night. My brother asked the Stake President what happened, and was told to just lock that experience in a black box and throw away the key.

My brother is now a bishop - wired different than I am. Some people are able to ignore certain things, especially if social pressure, or whatever. Don't think that changes with the times.

I believe Mark Twain said long ago that faith is believing what you know ain't true. Many still want to believe regardless.