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[Anonymous]

westfield1825 wrote:

I have a friend that I mentioned that I was having doubts, and I could see his mind just close off. I really just want to discuss this with others, so I can have a rational discussion.

Many people find expressions of doubt highly threatening. It’s as if when you express doubt about something they have faith in, even just in reference to yourself, you are challenging their faith. Hackles quickly rise. It’s a little hard to explain, but you’ve already experienced it. So yeah, save your hard questions for groups like this.

[Anonymous]

westfield1825 wrote:

Thanks for your kind words; I think you are correct in giving it some time, and not doing anything rash. I have a friend that I mentioned that I was having doubts, and I could see his mind just close off. I really just want to discuss this with others, so I can have a rational discussion. For instance the Pearl of Great Price, there is no support for it. I was looking to see if I could find something that at least showed that perhaps there was a difference in interpretation, or that there was a grey area, but what I found was there is no support. I would like to find something that shows that there is some support.

I appreciate the references to the other sites and I have been checking them out also. However I like Mormon Think, because they go back to the source documents. For instance they go back to Joseph Smiths original hand written account of the first vision, which is completely different from what is in Joseph Smith History. Also the account was changed multiple times and was not even mentioned until 20 years after the event. I would think that God the Father and Jesus Christ appearing to you would be the first thing you talked about.

Sorry I am blathering on, but I just feel like a flood gate of new information has come to my attention. I think I am going to continue my research for the next year, and make sure that I leave no stone unturned. But until then I will just be quiet in public and not rock the boat. I must say that I do not feel like I am going down a wrong road, to be honest I feel focused, I feel a sense of relief, that this thoughts I have had are not without merit.

If you want to discuss different historical topics it’s probably worth having a look in the Doctrine/History forum. If you use the search function you’ll be able to catch up on what’s been said before. Reply to the thread and I’ll happily discuss both further with you.

Re. Fist vision accounts. I agree that if we presume that Joseph gave a full account every time then there’s a strange change in the accounts. But, if, on the other hand we appreciate that Joseph may have shared his accounts in parts and gradually, then they can still fit.

For BOA, did you have a look at the link to Jeff’s site for an alternative view?

In the doctrine forum Johnh recently started a BOA thread too which you could join.

Re. MT, I get where you’re coming from. It is all just ‘there’ and very compelling. I can remember reading it feeling utterly consumed by it. Another option is to look up the topic on wikipedia. While not perfect either, it gives both ‘sides’ the right to reply and you can follow all the links to the original references.

[Anonymous]

alltruth wrote:

Quote:

I think I am going to continue my research for the next year, and make sure that I leave no stone unturned. But until then I will just be quiet in public and not rock the boat. I must say that I do not feel like I am going down a wrong road, to be honest I feel focused, I feel a sense of relief, that this thoughts I have had are not without merit.

Welcome. As a new member myself, I can say that this is a wonderful place to express your thoughts without fear of being judged. I think your idea of researching for the next year or so is a great one. One thing I might recommend is spending equal time trying to find evidence that the church is what it claims to be. For me, that means every hour I spend looking at troubling things, I spend an hour reading things that try to show that “the church is true”. After all, if you spend a whole year looking at nothing but the warts, you may think that there’s nothing else.

Good luck as you walk this difficult path.

+1 – I made myself have a balanced approach. One FARMs article for one MT etc

[Anonymous]

Hi and welcome. I hope you find some comfort from the people on this forum.

MormonThink is an interesting topic. I’ve read quite a lot of it over the last few weeks, and I’ve been trying to balance it out by reading FAIRLds rebuttals. From my experience they both take the opposite side of an argument and constructive reasoning tends to place me somewhere in the middle. There are lots of issues that MT raises that it does very well, and others not so. Equally some Fair rebuttals are very good and others are awful!

[Anonymous]

kristmace wrote:

Hi and welcome. I hope you find some comfort from the people on this forum.

MormonThink is an interesting topic. I’ve read quite a lot of it over the last few weeks, and I’ve been trying to balance it out by reading FAIRLds rebuttals. From my experience they both take the opposite side of an argument and constructive reasoning tends to place me somewhere in the middle. There are lots of issues that MT raises that it does very well, and others not so. Equally some Fair rebuttals are very good and others are awful!

I think that’s a pretty perfect summary of both websites. They both use lots of primary sources, they just have their own spin around them.

One thing fair does which is useful is a page where it re-quotes every primary source from a mormonthink page but without the commentary from MT or FAIR. It also provides the full quote in context. For example there’s an oft used quote by MT about Joseph’s imagination and telling stories about the original inhabitants of the land. That quote when ‘snipped’ is an evidence against translation and suggests Joseph was making it up from an early age.

When the full quote is shared in context we discover that this ‘story-telling’ was after Joseph had claimed to have been visited by Angel Moroni. Joseph has stated on several occasions that before he started translating he was given visions by Moroni of the Nephites and Lamanites.

That of course still leaves the option open that Joseph made up both the angelic visit AND the stories, but at least gives the full context to the quote.

And finally, the quote in question is from his mother writing several decades after the claimed story-telling. We’re relying entirely on her memory of dates and locations for the accuracy of the fireside yarns.

[Anonymous]

Quote:

To be honest I just want to get away, but I still have a 14 year old daughter that lives with me and she has had things unstable for too long already.

Welcome to the isle of misfit toys. I feel that your thoughts about your daughter are worth serious consideration. I have no idea what would be best for you in the long run (I believe some people in some circumstances actually are happier after leaving the church), but I would suggest doing whatever it takes to provide stability for your child until she is grown and no longer dependent upon you for her emotional well-being.

Despite what you may conclude about some of the historical issues of the church, I think you would agree with me that the church is generally good at providing support and stability. Not all wards are very good at this but if yours is even halfway decent, I would look at it as a help and be careful not to throw it away prematurely.

What you are feeling is real and hard. You are not alone!

[Anonymous]

First finding out is a lot like jumping into an icy cold swimming pool – very uncomfortable. Fortunately it does get better with time – usually fairly quickly.

In regards to MormonThink – it does an excellent job of introducing a breadth of issues. However it doesn’t go very deep on either side the for or the against – I also agree that it is slanted towards the against although I feel it is very factual – it just doesn’t spend much effort on why the church could still be OK despite the facts and doesn’t create a context of the 1820s worldview. If you feel the need to really research and know what the real story is, IMO, it does require you to research both sides on your own beyond just Mormon think.

Also, just my opinion but FAIR is one of the weaker apologetic sites. They tend to resort to ad hominem attacks very quickly.

This forum is also primarily an apologetic forum. Although the claim is that anything an be discussed on here the heaviest contributors are the admins, especially one particular admin who feels the need to shape most threads to go the direction he wants them to go.

It tends to narrow things quite a bit that the admins so heavily control the dialogue, primarily by providing such a high percentage of the posts. If that works for you and fits your needs great, if not there are several other support forums that I find to be quite a bit more open about discussing the pros and cons not just the pros of Mormonism with a little lip service to the cons.

I guess my point is any website is going to have a bias to some degree. Just be aware of the bias, don’t avoid them because there is a bias. Sorry Ray, I’ll get out of your hair and let you get back to running your little empire.

[Anonymous]

[I edited my original response, since it was not appropriate for this site. Ray]

To put on my admin hat:

bc_pg, please don’t comment here if the last few comments are indicative of what you want to say.

It’s easy to blame me for the fact that you’ve never fit in here, but it’s harder to admit you’ve never participated according to the rules of the site. It’s not that you don’t agree with me; it’s that you don’t fit here and that your “mission” is opposed to ours – that you have a totally different motivation than everyone else here. Despite that, you’ve never been banned or insulted by anyone here.

Try to understand that:

You’ve been asked to tone it down more than once, but you’ve never been insulted personally – not once. In the context of this site, we aren’t the problem; you are. It’s like me walking into an evangelical congregation and complaining that the congregants don’t teach what I want to hear. It wouldn’t be their fault; it would be mine.

In summary:

Your latest input is neither constructive nor desired. Yes, if this site has to be categorized as “anti-Mormon” or “apologetic”, then it is apologetic – but it’s not that black and white. We try to be neither. If you aren’t OK with that approach, leave and don’t come back. Accept how we operate here in one of two ways: Stop commenting as you have since you returned (and often prior to that) or leave. If you refuse and continue this, you will be banned; if you abide by the rules of the site, you won’t be banned.

It’s that simple.

[Anonymous]

westfield1825, I apologize for feeling the need to respond in that manner in a thread about you and your situation. At the risk of being accused of shaping a thread , I hope this thread doesn’t spiral away from a discussion relevant to you and your post – and providing the type of support you want.

[Anonymous]

Quote:

The divorce is really not the point, but the way it was handled in the church got me thinking. I always believed that a Temple Marriage was forever and that if a person walked away from it without cause that there were consequences. Soon after she left there was a temple trip and she was allowed in the Temple.

This is difficult. I have heard stories that go both way on how divorces are handled in the church. Some say leaders give women the benefit of the doubt, assuming the man is always at fault, and some say the opposite. I guess regardless, divorce sucks and there is no way to feel like you weren’t ill used after a 20 year investment. The only real path to healing is eventually to forgive – both yourself and your wife and all others. Not an easy task. Good luck. Bear in mind that the feelings associated with divorce: feeling betrayed, misused, taken advantage of – these often accompany someone’s feelings about finding out that history differs from the white-washed version served up in church. So, bear in mind your state of mind at this time. Proceed with caution.

Quote:

This got my mind whirring, and other things that had always troubled me came to the surface. The two main things were polygamy and blacks not getting the priesthood until 1978. I had heard the unofficial reasons, but never anything concrete.

IMO, there is no satisfactory explanation for either of these two things other than the fallibility of human leaders who operated with limited understanding. That’s just my opinion. But that view also frees me from following blindly. Ultimately we are each responsible for our own choices and our treatment of others, even if leaders have behaved badly at times.

Quote:

So I went out and starting digging, I of course found the haters and nuts, but I soon found Mormon Think, and there it all was, nicely researched and cited with the original documents. Well after reading these things carefully I found that there were serious problems.

MT is not exactly balanced either. Bear in mind that EVERYONE is biased. Jonathan Haidt describes this very well – we have a viewpoint, and then we (usually unconsciously) selectively sample the information that conforms to our view. It is not possible for human beings to be purely objective. We always lean in one direction or the other, and then things in that direction seem more reasonable. Source documents are one validation, but bear in mind that even sources can be impacted by the viewpoint of the source, the context in which the statement was made, and the number of years after the incidents that the statements were made. The church has taken statements and used them for whatever their own dogmatic purposes are, just as all people do. For example, the First Vision wasn’t used as a missionary tool until much later than JS. The church added importance and meaning to it that it didn’t originally have. Bushman theorizes that it was augmented later to bolster certain theological teachings, which may be the case. Who knows? Also, the earliest accounts sound more like a dream than a vision to me, and dream details work that way – we emphasize them differently depending on our internal mental state. All I’m saying is that it’s foolhardy to think we can get to accurate history. We always see through a glass darkly. Ultimately, we can get at information, but it may be misleading.

Quote:

Don’t get me wrong I think the church is a good organization and I value the standards and morals that it teaches, but the facts are not matching the stories that are officially told.

I suspect most here would agree with this statement. I also question what the church can do about it now. Most of the church leaders inherited the manuals that we have and the way things are taught. How do they go about remedying it now? I think they are trying, but not sure how to fully reconcile it. The Joseph Smith Papers project is supposed to address this.

Quote:

I want to go to my Bishop and show him these things, but I worry that he will just brush them aside and tell me to pray. I believe in prayer, but some of the facts have to line up.

Bishops are a mixed bag. I wouldn’t go to one with this kind of thing, but that’s me.

Quote:

So disappointing, I really don’t know what to do. To be honest I just want to get away, but I still have a 14 year old daughter that lives with me and she has had things unstable for too long already.

Don’t underestimate your own need for stability in the process. One of the main reasons divorced men lose more years of their lives than do divorced women (7 yrs for men, 2 for women) is that men lose their social network which mostly comes from their wives. That support is vital to health over time.

Quote:

I also teach the Elders Quorum lessons, and I now just find it mind numbing. I really just want to teach all the new things I have learned and have a discussion on those things. I guess I feel trapped, I’m just not the kind of person that likes to do things that I don’t believe in.

I’ve been in this exact situation, and I feel for you. I guess I would say “tread lightly” and reduce the lessons to what you can in good conscience teach. But I wouldn’t go out of your way to raise controversial issues in church either. Ideally, our lessons should help us do a better job of living the gospel. Sites like StayLDS and the various bloggernacle sites are a great place to have the discussions you are looking for. EQ may not be, although I have successfully teed up discussions about some of this stuff. You just have to be careful. I also got released after a complaint (I was teaching RS). I’m not sure it was a result of the complaint, but it could have been. Nobody talked to me. A friend told me someone had complained that I was using non-manual materials, which was silly as all I had done was print the original copy of the Wentworth letter which wasn’t very controversial. But there are some people who self-select as the ward police. Just be ready for that possibility. Also, be sure your motives are “pure.” Mine were that I wouldn’t teach something I knew to be untrue, so there was one lesson I said I couldn’t teach with a straight face (the love letters of Joseph and Emma which was laughably bad). But some fall into the trap of trying to tee up controversy or to share their own newfound knowledge. Again, if you can focus on what will edify and help people apply the gospel that’s a good standards to keep.

With regard to bc_pg’s comment, the site is called StayLDS, not QuitLDS. Our bias is clearly stated, and we’ve also stated that we do moderate, unlike other sites we’ve all frequented (and still do sometimes) because we have a specific intent. We are here to help people find ways to make the church work for them, not to find a way out. Some will leave ultimately, but that’s not what we are trying to achieve here. We are committed to making it work for ourselves and others. Apologetics is all about explaining why specific facts may be true despite evidence to the contrary. This site’s not saying that, including folks like Ray. We’re not saying you have to ignore things or cling to mental gymnastics or the improbable. Just that we find enough good to stick with it, even if we find many of the historical claims implausible and some of the actions to contradict our own values and views. It’s like being an American (or whatever nationality). You may not agree with everything it claims to be or everything it does, but at heart you are still an American.

[Anonymous]

Thank you for all your thoughts and input. I like the Statement that this is not a quit the LDS church website, it is really just a place to discuss things among fellow travelers. I live in Lancaster PA, I wish there was someone out here that lived in the same area.

I told a good friend of mine some of my doubts and he quickly deflected the conversation, I figured that would happen. This friend is pretty open minded but apparently not in regards to discussing some of the church history.

I do agree that the church is good in many ways, in fact in most ways. However I have always been the kind of person that it’s either true or it’s not. If it is true then I need to do the things that they say, as I know that the foundation is true, this is how I have lived up to this time. I also am the kind of person that does not do guilt. I guess I feel like a person sitting in a room with people that are still trying to say the earth is flat, and pointing to things that seem to prove their point. For instance in this scenario, a person would stand up and say, just the other day they saw a ship sail off and disappear over the edge, which clearly shows it fell off the edge of the earth. This person is not lying they just don’t understand the world is round and it has curvature. I feel like the person that was on that ship and now knows the world is not flat, but also knows if he says something everyone will say I am a trouble maker.

I currently teach Elders quorum and I am really struggling with teaching the lessons. I am debating on whether I should tell the Elders Quorum president that I no longer want to be the teacher, because I do not fully support the doctrine. I know if I do this it will unleash a storm of visits. I have always been wired to be honest and forthright, I find that to not be so is lying to yourself. If it was not for my daughter I would definitely do this, but I wonder if for now I should just keep a low profile.

In regards to the various websites, I agree they are all slanted to have a certain point of view, but the facts are the facts. I read the article on the Book of Abraham by the FAIR guy and found it to be muddy in its approach. He points the fact that a few things were correct. What sprang to my mind is even a blind squirrel finds a nut sometimes. What I was looking for was clarity, showing that perhaps there was an alternate translation. I find when people need a lot of pages to try and explain something that should be simple, they are usually grasping at things.

Just on last thing I am not truly despondent, and will not be turning to drink and women. I will continue to be honest, not because the church tells me to be, but because it is part of my core beliefs. I do however find myself getting more irritated when I hear certain things that I know are just not correct.

Well I guess life is an adventure.

[Anonymous]

westfield1825 wrote:

I currently teach Elders quorum and I am really struggling with teaching the lessons. I am debating on whether I should tell the Elders Quorum president that I no longer want to be the teacher, because I do not fully support the doctrine. I know if I do this it will unleash a storm of visits.

Yep…I knew this same thing when I asked to be released from my teaching calling. And sure enough, I was called in for an interview. ..and then another. To be fair my bishop was very loving and emphatic. He commended my faith for not just throwing in the towel. I just don’t WANT to be on the focus family list. Best of luck in watever you decide.

Posted from my Note 2 using Tapatalk 2

[Anonymous]

First of all, congrats on not turning to drink and women! :thumbup:

westfield1825 wrote:

I do agree that the church is good in many ways, in fact in most ways. However I have always been the kind of person that it’s either true or it’s not. If it is true then I need to do the things that they say, as I know that the foundation is true, this is how I have lived up to this time. I also am the kind of person that does not do guilt.

You know, my TBM wife and I were just talking about this difference between us. She has never been an “it’s either true or it’s not” Mormon, because as a child she saw and experienced great contradiction in the church that revealed such a dichotomy to be impossible to maintain. She had both great and terrible experiences; she saw both truth and falsehood. She seems to have entered adulthood at a different place in Fowler’s stages of faith schema (Google it) than I did.

I personally think (as do many others; again, see Fowler) that one of the main things that determines whether one stays or leaves after a faith transition is whether they can first get over the “it’s either true or it’s not” hump. Whether one is able to come to see the church in complex terms; that is, see the church not as “either/or,” but as “both/and.” I think you are even now doing that, given your statement here (it’s good “in most ways”), and are immediately facing another hump. Namely, one has to reject the church’s own claim that “it’s either true or it’s not” as a false dichotomy, which admittedly it vigorously advocates (for practical reasons), yet do this without rejecting the church itself. This may be behind some of your immediate concerns.

What are the practical reasons for insisting on either/or? I think another thread is discussing this right now, but one is simply boundary maintenance. If the church is both true and not in turns, right and wrong in turns, just like other churches, it weakens the us vs. them boundaries that literally define the “us.” If there is no us, there is no church. This drives much of our rhetoric re. religious truth. E.g., I can say there is much truth “in” another religion, and I just look enlightened and generous. But if I say of another religion that “much of it is true,” many Mormons would fidget or even give me a stinky eye. And if I say “much of it is true, just like Mormonism,” I get to talk with the bishop after church.

Is there really that much substantive difference between these three constructions? But it seems like a subtle and slippery slope. What church would want to argue it is merely as true, or even just more true, than other churches? No church does. That claim can be debated in ways a strict either/or claim cannot. Or at least, that’s how it appears to most people (not to me).

westfield1825 wrote:

I guess I feel like a person sitting in a room with people that are still trying to say the earth is flat, and pointing to things that seem to prove their point. . . . I feel like the person that was on that ship and now knows the world is not flat, but also knows if he says something everyone will say I am a trouble maker.

Remember, everyone in that room but you may very well see the church in strictly either/or terms. And frankly, even you may be doing the same thing. Even though you are considering more possibilities, you may still be assuming only one of them can be correct. The earth is of course both flat and curved, depending on your method and standards of assessment. In other words, it’s complicated. And so is the church.

[Anonymous]

Wow I found Fowler’s stages to be just awesome; they really describe where I am right now and where I have been. I guess right now I have moved from stage 3 to stage 4, I am in the beginning of the struggle, and there is some anger with it. I keep having to tell myself to calm down and take it one day at a time, and to not go off the deep end. I think it is good council to try and be reflective on this whole matter. To be honest stage 4 is kind of scary because I am leaving the security of stage 3. I guess what is unsettling for me at this time is that many of the things I have done in regards to living my life was because the church told me to do it. Now I am finding that, I am having to set my boundaries not because I am told to do so but because I believe it to be correct for me. I also think that it is important that I need to be respectful of others beliefs that are still in stage 3, rather than club them over the head with how I feel. I realize that if I now can respect others beliefs that are of other faiths I need to respect those that are in my faith, finding that balance is the tricky part. I guess right now I kind of feel like stirring up the ant hill, I need to resist that urge.

I think I will keep a copy of Fowlers Stages handy and review it often, so I can kind of check myself as to where I am. I am enjoying the discussion greatly.

[Anonymous]

I’m essentially in the same position as you. I’m trying to figure out what to do now. My whole life up to this point was just following the plan. I realize how much of my life thus far was doing what I was supposed to, instead of what I wanted to. I’m coming to the same realization, that I will probably be happiest inside the church. It helps me be happy, except when it doesn’t. I can draw boundaries and keep the things that make me happy and ignore the things that make me unhappy.

I read some research today that summarized lots of research that showed that religious people were happier than those who weren’t. However, they could statistically contribute all of the difference to community. How the church helps you have friends and something meaningful to be involved in.

[Author]

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