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He posted this in the Rasband thread with the link. Quote:I had a lot of thoughts to share, but since many are led by my emotional reaction to how to church handles doubts, I wanted to give myself some time to compose things better. However, one of my favorite website blogs updated with their take on this, and it articulates my thoughts much better. I hope this website and linking it is allowed, feel free to correct me if not
https://www.ldsdiscussions.com/rasbands I checked out the link, including the “home” and “about” sections and some other posts and while I can’t say it’s explicitly anti, I can’t say it’s pro either. From the about section:
Quote:Our goal with the website is to provide an accurate picture of the LDS church in terms of history, authenticity, and doctrine. As a former church member, I feel that the church was dishonest in how they project the church to members and I want to put my research into these topics to use so that others with questions can get a more realistic picture of what happened.
That’s all well and good, but this stuff isn’t Bushman stuff, there is a clear bias in the posts. While Bushman simply states facts and lets the reader decide for himself or herself what the facts mean, this blogger, who doesn’t identify himself as more than a former member, does draw conclusions pointing out how the church and/or apologists lie about church history. For example, from the linked Rasband blog post:
Quote:Instead of answering Harry’s question, Elder Rasband told Harry to re-frame his question to looking at reasons to stay, followed it with a video comparing leaving the church to suicide, and then reminded him that if he leaves the church he will be ending the chain of generations that will be together in the eternities. If you were looking to purchase a new car, home, or other large commitment and the salesperson answered you in this manner, you would run out the door and never look back. Why should the church be any different?
IMO, while this bog site purports to present facts to inform questioning members (and does so) it’s real aim is to convince people to leave the church. But that’s only my impression and I think we need to consider this together. I have not locked the post or moved it to the parking lot, I just thought it was worth discussing. I do think Grobert pushes the envelope a bit sometimes and that contributes to my impression of the link.
I haven’t looked at the linked site, work is killer right now, but of the two quoted paragraphs I had more of an issue with the first than the second. In the first quote they advertise that they’ve resigned and that they want to set the record straight. That alone may tip the scale towards not linking to that site.
What’s the policy, people can’t link to ‘anti’ sites, but they can discuss ideas brought up at the external site? Maybe grobert can quote sections that he feels are pertinent as opposed to linking.
I can’t say much about that second quote because I kind of agree with it. Some parts of the face to face were very manipulative. I’m sure the intent is never to be manipulative, but I do believe that it’s a natural fruit/byproduct of when someone knows their beliefs are correct and that their beliefs apply universally to everyone.
Edit: Actually I think there are cases where the manipulation is intentional. The church produced videos for instance. They’re carefully crafted to produce specific emotions. In that arena I’d say the church videos are no more or less manipulative than most movies out there. I try to look at motivation. The church’s motivation appears to be – get people to join the church or keep people in the church because we know being in the church is a required step in everyone’s eternal progression.
But, as they say, the road to hell is paved with something something.
We don’t allow links to sites that are anti-Mormon in nature. This one obviously is. The link needs to be deleted. Quoting things to discuss is fine, with some content exceptions.
I agree with the decision. I assume that the mormon discussion blog post is related to Bill Reels Mormon Discussion Podcast.
Given that Mormon Discussion started as a more church friendly version of Mormon Stories but has gotten progressively more hostile to the church, would links to Mormon Stories also be prohibited.
Maybe? Maybe not? Does it matter what the subject matter of the particular podcast being linked or is it more a reflection of the overall tone of the website? (I don’t follow either Mormon Stories or Mormon Discussion enough to know which is more hostile towards the church at the moment)
Just asking hypotheticals for clarification.
I agree also, but that’s why I asked the question here Roy. Fortunately it doesn’t come up often, but where is the line? For example, not everything on Mormon Stories is “anti” and there are some really good interviews. I suppose we could take it on a case by case basis like we have been doing so far. It’s not like anyone has time to maintain a list of banned websites that we can’t link to anyway.
Roy wrote:
I suppose we could take it on a case by case basis like we have been doing so far.It’s not like anyone has time to maintain a list of banned websites that we can’t link to anyway.
:thumbup: Our rule is as clear as it can be, given how subjective “anti-Mormon” can be. The rule is no links to anti-Mormon sites. Even if there are some more benign articles on some of those sites, we have to make the decisions based on the intent of the sites.
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