I walked up behind my dad today and saw him on the FAIR website trying to explain the book of Abraham. I have a feeling lame apologetic answers will be coming my way! It never ends...
95% of TBMs will not go near the site. The truth is that most Mormons are completely unaware and oblivious to the legitimate criticisms of Mormonism.
The more apologetic sites the more exposure they will have.
This is wonderful news.
My advice-let him try to explain it to you. Hopefully, he will hear himself talk and realize how ridiculous it sounds.
I can testify that it was Mormon apologetic websites like FAIR that made me realize Mormonism was not true.
Nobody can walk away after taking a real look at the criticisms and see the church the same way. If anything, people realize no matter how good they perceive it, no matter how good the intentions they think the leaders have, they will realize that the "church" is not what it claims.
If someone has a dichotomous view, where they believe either the church is 100% true or the "biggest fraud in history" as GBH said hin his talk, then it makes the choice a rather easy one.
Thanks Peter. I guesse it could be good news because he is at least looking into all the shit thats wrong. He is so TBM, but hopefully it might open his eyes.
My dh is on Fair and Farms quite a bit. He is also reading "Rough Stone Rolling" But he seems to be getting more tbm every day. He is so passionate about the JS story and thinks of him as a god.
and shore up my belief. Then a day came I just gave up and admitted to myself it wasn't true, I had doubted for a long time, and I was going to believe what I really found. I hope your husband is reaching that point.
Either he will ask a question about a commonly held Mormon teaching that is now ignored and get vefbally thrashed by the people on the board, or he will read some out there explanation of some old teaching, or he will find out about even more problems than he ever knew existed. Personally I think this is a good thing. It shows he is willi g to look outside of church manuals and church approved sources for answers.
Yeah, a person can lose confidence really fast when they read out of control smokescreens. Fair spins smoke like there was no tomorrow, and many people just throw their hands in the air and say "fine, I'll believe, just stop with the nonsese already".
The smokescreens used to send up red flags and warning flares all the time when I was a TBM, and yet I somehow understood that it was important for people to have an acceptable church answer.
Looking back, it seems pretty silly that people would go to such lengths to provide an "acceptable church answer" when if it was true, a simple statement should suffice.
But that's how we dig ourselves out of a lie, isn't it? By whipping up all manner of explanatory excuses, no matter how far-fetched.
JoD3:360 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > > >it seems pretty silly that people > would go to such lengths to provide an "acceptable > church answer" when if it was true, a simple > statement should suffice.
QFT. If it were true, it would simply be true. Seems simple enough, doesn't it?
> That's how we dig ourselves out of a lie, > isn't it? By whipping up all manner of explanatory > excuses, no matter how far-fetched.
Absolutely. I remember reading FAIR article after FAIR article, convincing myself, telling myself all kinds of stories to myself about how it was still plausible. However, I started realizing that if I was truly going to be honest with myself, there really was no answer. The explanations usually contradicted other explanations, and in many cases, completely contradicted teachings of prophets, and official positions by church leaders, as well as long standing and well established doctrine.
There comes a point when you have to just be honest with yourself and come to terms that the LDS church is (GASP!) not true.
When you accept that, everything starts to make much more sense.
In fact, one of the things I wish I had done while still a member was to start giving people copies of FAIR DVDs.
I went to these sites to try to find answers (Why did JS marry 11 women that were already married? why did the 1st vision story keep changing?, etc.). I found that I would read the answers Fair and Farms were giving and I felt confused (aka a stupor of thought). I am a pretty intelligent person, but I honestly could not follow their logic. I soon realized that they were trying to confuse me. They don't have the answers, so they give long explanations with obscure words. They have no reasonable explanations and they know it.
Tauna Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- I am a pretty intelligent > person, but I honestly could not follow their > logic. I soon realized that they were trying to > confuse me. They don't have the answers, so they > give long explanations with obscure words. They > have no reasonable explanations and they know it.
This was my experience as well. This is why I say that there is no better place for a Mormon to lose their testimony than an apologetic website. There is a saying that goes something like "nobody discredits Mormon prophets like Mormon apologists". You get the point.
This is why I say the best thing one can do is get Mormons to go to Mormon apologetic sites. They go there with complete sincerity looking for answers, and they realize that there are no answers. Many times, you read 10 page articles on a simple question and realize about halfway through that they don't even intent to answer the question. Many times, the article does not refute the criticisms, but attacks the critic personally and contains pages after pages of how unqualified the critic is and how much more qualified the author of the apologetic article is, so nobody should worry about it.
You realize that this does not answer anything at all.
This was my experience, it was Mormon apologetics that helped me see the truth about Mormonism. I can say that honestly with all sincerity.
I started reading with the expectation that they were going to answer the crticisms and prove all the so called anti's wrong, instead they were confirming what I had discovered and then trying to make excuses for them.
Some answers were so stupid that I couldn't believe they would suggest such things, but then what else can they say when faced with reality.
I think Tapirs for Horses was ridiculous and Lamoni's summoning of preparing the Horses and Chariots being referred to basically as prepare packed lunch Horseburgers and back pack! lol
Seriously, the annual FARMS dinner/banquet with the token GA showing up and being served hors d'oeu·vres of ass-kissing is truly ludicrous.
Remember, FARMS renamed itself to the Neal A Maxwell Institute because nincompoop Neal filled their gullible gullets full of glib globs of gobbledygook.
Nibley as their celestially sealed saint of circular reasoning reigns supreme.
to thank for introducing me to a multitude of problems I never knew existed. I never would have visited anti-sites, but thanks to those boys, I didn't have to. They did a great job explicating the problems and a very poor job answering them.
The good news is that if you know where your dad is getting his talking points from, you can read up and be ready to ask him probing questions.
regurgitate that chaos they find it challenging to put into normal, conversational english.
There is a reason for that....
Let me attempt an example,
"TBM: The BOA papyrri were used to translate the writings of Abaraham into what we now have as the BOA. YOU: Who did the translating? TBM: We're not sure... YOU: Didn't JS say he did the translating? TBM: Maybe, but that doesn't matter. What matters is we have Abraham's words...don't you get it? YOU: Didn't the papyrii disappear, then get re-discovered? TBM: Well maybe not all of them... YOU: You mean there's more? TBM: Maybe...we're not sure...but we have Abraham's words...and.. YOU: Don't both LDS and non-LDS scholars agree that these pieces of papyrus scroll we have today were those possessed by Joseph Smith and used by him to produce the Book of Abraham? And isn't a positive identification possible because one of the rediscovered scroll pieces, now called Papyrus Joseph Smith 1 (PJS 1), matches the picture in the BOA called Facsimile No. 1? [According to the Book of Abraham chapter 1, verses 12-14, this picture or "representation" came at the beginning of the "record" [papyrus scroll]]. TBM: Maybe, but there are other scrolls...we think... YOU: And you proof of that is????? TBM: Can you hang on just a sec, I need to hit a website real quick....there was something about diffreent color inks... YOU: Disappearing papyrii? Did God take them back or are they just lost?" Aren't these just common Egyptian funerary texts?"