Ok, I read something on the forum here that inspired me to e-mail my tbm bros to see the truth. However, I got met with the most amazing stubberness. The brother that responded to me has an MBA and is working for a major Petrolium company and is over 9000 employees. The other is a 6 figure making successful construction engineer, but he hasn't responded yet. Read this and tell me what you think about their thinking or mental issues.

thanks, ontheDownLow


My E-mail:

Subject: Ensign Article by Elder Russell M. Nelson straight from LDS archives

" Read carefully the part where Elder Nelson quotes David Whitmer on how he describes Joseph Smith Jr translating the Book of Mormon from the Golden Plates. Remember, the LDS church teaches from the Book of Mormon preliminary pages that Joseph used the URIM and THUMMIM.
https://www.lds.org/ensign/1993/07/a-treasured-testament?lang=eng&query=joseph+smith+seer+stone+hat "


My Brother's response:

"________, enough! I'm not interested in wasting time on this stuff. I feel very sorry for you. I never want to walk in the shoes that you have chosen to walk in. I worry for the jusgements you have set yourself up for. Please keep you views to yourself. Thanks."


By the way, here is my response I sent tonight:

"Its church approved reading material, in fact, its published by the LDS church and quoted by an Apostle of the LDS church. I am not showing you anti mormon material.

This is the kind of material that should be conducive to inviting the spirit as you read.

Why is truth so offensive? I just don't understand how truth is offensive? Rather, in the Holy Bible, King James Version, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ said: "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me". John 14:6

SO and SO, I am not asking you guys anymore to read, I am begging you guys to please consider what I am showing you. Please, put your pride, your emotions, and your fears behind you and just read. I promise you both that I am not trying to hurt you, I am trying to help you."

Actually confronting the fact that one has given up/ given over so, so much
To a false premise is incredibly painful & difficult to face.
One will not "face"
facts until life becomes....
Uncomfortable...... Or unbearable.........

I wanted to shout it from the rooftops and "save" my family.
The truth is too painful for them to face...
The years wasted.
The missed opportunities.
The millions of dollars given up to buy " eternity".
The integrity shoved under the surface in order to submit.....

Only pain/loss/realization of these things will ever bring it to a head.
Unfortunately, no one can make someone else see behind the facade....

Sad that you were trying to do the brave thing by opening their eyes and they see you as dangerous to their testimonies. Good for you though for trying. Maybe their shelves will collapse someday.

Reply:

"I'm not interested in wasting time on this stuff." Really? I sent you a link to an official Church magazine - printed and published by the Church. And you think reading articles by an apostle of the Lord is 'wasting time'? We are all advised to subscribe to - and read - the Ensign. Are you not following this advice? If you don't have a subscription, let me know and I'll order one for you. By the way, what other Church publications do you consider 'wasting time'? How about the Doctrine and Covenants? The Pearl of Great Price? The Journal of Discourses? Or maybe even The Book of Mormon? Does your bishop know about your position (that reading Church materials is a waste of time)? I'd never want to walk in the shoes that you have chosen to walk in by refusing to read, ponder, and accept the scriptures and the advice and revelations of the Church's prophets and other annointed leaders.

+1

I helped a friend out of the church. She is was a single convert like me. She become more and more unhappy in the church. She paid her tithing but struggled financially. When she went to her bishop for help, she was told the church has no money. So, I asked her why she was giving the church money that she needed. I also let her know the men at the top get paid (she didn't know this), and told her the church has lots of money.

She is an animal lover, so I told her about the church's hunting reserves. When people at church treated her badly, I told her she didn't need that kind of abuse. Basically when she complained about the church, I asked why she stayed or passed along some fact to help her see the lds church is not what it claims to be.

I wouldn't think of trying to get out members who are happy as a pig in muck. If the cracks are there, work on them. Otherwise, just show mormons there is life after the church.

The noted areas of individual doubt are where we need to focus our attention if we want to begin to open mormon minds.

Unless someone has hit readiness for change and growth, it's hurtful and useless to try to foist it on them.

I agree Cheryl. If they aren't ready, then you do more damage than good.

talking to me about "anti-Mormon" stuff, too.

I asked him if that was because he preferred to waste time sitting in an endless mindless meaningless round of church meetings 8 days a week. Which pretty much ended that conversation with a bang.

The farther away from my family I get, the more I wonder how and why I ever cared at all what happens to them.

"Please keep your views to yourself"

Yet, it's OK for his church to send out 50k missionaries to tell lies, to broadcast lies from GC. the Ensign, the Mormon PR machine etc., but he has to keep his truthful views to himself.

Exactly what is their problem with truth? Isn't the church supposed to be the one and only true church?

I get the same response from my family. Don't bother them with this "stuff" which is actually quotes from their scriptures and prophets (hardly anti-Mormon). Yet, I am supposed to rejoice at having grandsons serve missions. What hypocrisy.

But what else can be expected from a cult, founded on lies and perpetuated by lies and intimidation?

I feel for you ontheDownLow,
Tom

when I first discovered the church was false a little over a year ago, I approached this same brother with a question I had in the Book of Mormon, so I handed him the BoM and he threw it back at me and wouldn't look at it.

Of course, I should mention a little about his self righteous hypocracy. This is a guy who watches rated R movies without shame, violence, nudity, fowl language in front of his children and did so in front of my two 9 year olds recently...the movie he watched was the Bad Bosses comedy with Jennifer Aniston.

This is the same guy who hasn't been to the temple in years and does not like to go. He even tells his wife to go there for him. He claims he is too busy. He also coerced his kids to go to BYU where 2 got kicked out. The boy who got kicked from BYU, ID did it on purpose cuz he don't like it and he wanted to go to a school elsewhere. The other, well lets just say she had some run ins with the law and the honor code. But you know, they can't do no wrong, NOT!

I remember when I told one of his kids (he is 25 years old) that the facsimiles in the PoGP are translated incorrectly, my brother's wife sends all kinds of hateful messages to my wife via text. My wife had no idea what was going on. I told my wife that our sister in law is full of the spirit. LOL Needless to say, my brother forbade me to talk to his 25 year old son anymore.

I was just thinking, maybe he doesn't believe anymore and is faced with making a hard decision. And doesn't want anyone hurrying him.

He seems to have stopped following a lot of the BS the church teaches and is functionally inactive - maybe that's something to indicate he is losing his testimony? Maybe he has lost it, already and is afraid reading MORmON material will confuse the issue?

Maybe he's just staying in it for his family? Wife, children, mother, father, siblings?

It never ceases to amaze me how educated people can believe anything put out by the morg... I have a good friend who is a physician, a great physician, (he has to be, I let him wander around inside my abdominal cavity), and a morg. We have a silent agreement not to talk about religion. I don't get it...

(He CAN'T be a bad guy, he has a golden retriever. I have goldens. No one who has goldens can be all that bad... LOL)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/08/2012 11:59AM by John_Lyle.

What do you want to achieve here? From his reaction, it is doubtful that your brother will ever be willing to consider that TSCC is not what it claims to be.

So you have a decision. If you want to maintain a positive relationship (or any relationship at all), then you will probably have to zip your lip about all things Mormon.

Let's turn the tables. It is a pretty consistent refrain that we resent Mormon tactics to return us "to the fold". We ask politely (sometimes not so politely) that they refrain from sending us faith promoting messages, inviting us to attend church functions, demanding that we read the BoM and pray about it AGAIN, issuing calls to repentance, etc.

Shouldn't we be willing to reciprocate?

Is it frustrating to watch people we care about exploited and deceived by a fraudulent organization? YES!! Sometimes, we can only be glad that we ourselves are free.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/08/2012 11:12AM by caedmon.

True caedmon, however a couple of things to consider. I myself wished someone would have spelled it out for me a very long time ago so spare me of the B.S.

Additionally, as a kid growing up, my older brothers used to redicule me for not putting in my mission papers when I was confused about going or not. Not only that, they always talked down to me as if I never had a brain of my own or like I was criminal. I never had problems with the law, I served a mish valiantly and with great success, and I have a Masters in Business. At the age of 41, they still talk down to me as if I am criminal or stupid.

Nah, Its my turn to speak!

ontheDownLow Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> True caedmon, however a couple of things to
> consider. I myself wished someone would have
> spelled it out for me a very long time ago so
> spare me of the B.S.
>
> Additionally, as a kid growing up, my older
> brothers used to redicule me for not putting in my
> mission papers when I was confused about going or
> not. Not only that, they always talked down to me
> as if I never had a brain of my own or like I was
> criminal. I never had problems with the law, I
> served a mish valiantly and with great success,
> and I have a Masters in Business. At the age of
> 41, they still talk down to me as if I am criminal
> or stupid.
>
> Nah, Its my turn to speak!

You know your brothers better than I could. But read what americangirl406 wrote on another post:


http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,629899

While listening to Tom Phillips, I realized that one of the most disappointing things is that we assume that everyone else is as logical and caring about integrity as we are. Like Tom, I thought that as soon as I shared with my family what I learned, they would have the same reaction as I did. It seems so obvious that the church is false when presented with the information. Instead Tom lost his family and I have alienated mine :(



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/08/2012 03:03PM by caedmon.

I actually totally understand your point and I know I am defiant in restraining my speech with them, but I find it a psychological phenom to witness such reactions with ppl so close to me in my life.

I almost feel like ppl really are robotic and predictable in nature. Contrary to what I used to think. I hope I am wrong tho.

I am a psych grad from BYU.

When I first comprehended the depth and breadth of the deception, I would feel overcome with the desire to shake random TBMs and yell "It's a fraud! Wake up! You've been lied to!"

I never actually did it, and eventually the feeling passed.

We have all spent time looking for the silver bullet to convince people we care about. We long for them to come out of Plato's cave and join us in the sunshine.

While I understand you being upset at having them try to shush you your entire life. I think it's disrespectful not to listen when they ask you to stop. You will do much more damage than good.

I know the feeling. I have older sibs who have done the same to me my entire life, as well (talked down to me). Meanwhile, they go blindly into the future, acting very self righteously without taking the time to consider the many glaring contradictions and discrepancies in Mormonism.

I wanted to tell them what I discovered, too--and started to but was met with such resistance, I stopped trying.

I drafted a letter with lots of details, but then never sent it. I sometimes think I should have sent it - because I know if 20 years ago someone had taken the tie to show me the details, I wouldn't have wasted so much of my life on Mormonism.

I guess I could still send it, but I don't think they would care to look at it, or maybe they would, but then would rip it up. I suppose it's possible one of them might hold onto it, try to refute it and send me a letter back. I guess that's something to still consider.... but I've been preoccupied with other things...

I sure wish someone had tried to tell me before I wasted 30 odd years in it.

There is a tiny chance someone might be open to the discussion. However after they show no interest or it starts to harm your relationship I would not try any more.

His motto is this: "My mind is already made up, so don't confuse me with facts, even if they are in a Church publication."