In every defense of mormonism (or religion in general) it comes down to feelings.
When investigating you are told to read, pray, and FEEL the answer.
As a child you are told to listen to the HG, even given the 'gift' of the HG to supposedly make those feeling easier to come by.(never understood how that worked, but that's a whole other post by itself.)
Even with all the blatant information that unequivocally proves the church a fraud, every TBM (even some not so TB) will ultimately fall back on that feeling when met with faith disrupting facts.
So I have begun putting out the query:
How do you know that that feeling is the spirit/HG?

The answers given are usually something along the lines of, 'Because the scriptures/prophet say so'.

Q: Well, how do you know the scriptures/prophet are true?

A: Because the spirit told me so.

And so goes the circular logic.

It gets really interesting when you point out that their logic is circular and ask where specifically, and by whome they were first told/taught that the feeling they were feeling was the spirit.

For BIC's it usually starts in Sunday school or with parents/family, etc. With converts it is often (but not exclusively) taught with the missionaries.

My point is that without a name to put on that feeling, it is just a feeling and (as with me) if one can sit back and really look at the source of that feeling they will find they had to, at one time or another, been told what that feeling is and where it came from.

I also realized that those providing the explanation for the feeling most often have something they want from you, be it obedience, membership, money, etc.

It is also interestng to point out that that feeling isn't always right and can be felt even when one is stimulated by non gospel (even counter gospel) stimuli (such as heavy metal as in my case).
Put even a seed of doubt in someones mind about that feeling, and its just a matter of time before the rest comes tumbling down.
At least thats how it worked in mine & my dh's case.

Thoughts?

The Spirit did tell you it was true and you knew it was the Spirit telling you because the Spirit told you!!!

Notice how the Spirit though changes from people to people? I was always told that heavy metal was Satan, but I felt the Spirit so super duper strong at metal concerts from bands that I loved.

Yet other people felt the Spirit when watching their favorite sports team overcome adversidy, and I didn't care.

The most frustrating thing about trying to explain my reasons for leaving is when I do, TBMs (if they even let me finish) say (paraphrasing here) "I don't care what information and facts you think you've found, I know that BoM is true because I prayed about it."
or in other words "I reject your 'reality' and substitue my own".


Most mormons don't realize that nearly every religion on earth uses "the spirit" to prove that they are right.

Do you think Islamic extremists would do what they do if they didn't feel "the spirit" telling them that what they were doing was gods will?