Jump to content
Seriously No Politics ×

"Why some people leave the Church"


Recommended Posts

On 1/29/2019 at 11:29 PM, Joe said:

Hi guys - I'm mostly a lurker on here, but I feel I need to chime in.

People leave the church for many reasons. My older brother left the church because he didn't like it. He liked to to party and have fun and do whatever he wanted, so he left the church the moment he left the house. I know lots of people in this camp.

I also know lots of people that have left because they didn't fit the mold after trying for many years; either because they were gay or because they had a word of wisdom issue, or just something that made them feel like they didn't feel welcome.

Lately I have seen MANY solid members I know leave the church because they felt they were lied to by the church. They have learned that many of the faith promoting stories they grew up with in sunday school and seminary were embellished or inaccurate.  They have learned that Joseph Smith was not the person they thought he was. They have learned that the official version of the first vision we have in our scriptures is not quite what Joseph said happened in 1832. They learn that Joseph used a seer stone to lead people on bogus treasure hunts for profit, then used that same stone to dictate the Book of Mormon without even looking at the plates. They learn that the Book of Abraham was a fraudulent translation of the Egyptian papyri. They learn Joseph married many young brides; many behind Emma's back.

They once thought this kind of information was anti-mormon lies, but now it's all on lds.org, presented as truth. This info starts them down the rabbit hole, and many good people lose their literal belief in the church. 

My younger brother left the Church (stopped attending) because his bishop disrespected him once in Ward Council meeting -- this was complicated by the fact that he was the bishop's supervisor at work.  He came back later, after moving to a different part of the country, because his sweet, atheist wife told him that he needed to.  Of all my children who no longer attend church, absolutely none of them are inactive because of seer stones or disagreements with doctrine and the like.  Mostly it's because they prefer the standards of the world, and like drinking, smoking, and doing their own thing.  Oddly enough, when it comes to it, they mostly like to speak of the church in positive tones.  In fact, I don't know anyone "in real life" who is a former or non-attending member who felt they were lied to by the church, or because of multiple First Vision versions, or Book of Abraham issues, or something Joseph Smith did or didn't do.  

The rest of you who know lots of people like this are just more privileged than I, apparently.

Link to comment
On 1/28/2019 at 7:02 PM, Duncan said:

http://www.truthwillprevail.xyz/2019/01/why-some-people-leave-church.html

I don't know if, and this man hasn't supplied any evidence that people do, but what do you think of his reasons why people leave the Church? I personally think people leave for other reasons but may stay away for some of these reasons. What gets me though is this comment from him.

"Now, lest anyone become indignant and accuse me of judging another, I would simply say, yes, I am standing as a watchman on the tower to point out loudly and publicly proclaimed error and murmuring and criticism. I have no power or authority of myself to condemn her or anyone else, in this life or the next, but I do have the capability to show others where the rattlesnakes lie in the tall grass."

To me that's arrogance, I hope this guy doesn't teeter off the edge like others have

I think it's tiresome to say the least to continuously go against the grain and buck every conversation your college / high school freinds have and many of your coworkers. They've all been taught relativism is the onl acceptable norm, and even that is inherently binary (evil) and patriarchal (also evil becuase history is evil).

Easier to simply leave the one place you're told that standing for unpopular truths is the integrity move.

Link to comment
18 hours ago, california boy said:

There is a scripture for every side of every argument.  There are scriptures people use prophesizing church growth and church shrinkage.  Scriptures that say you should get married and scriptures that say marriage is for only the weak.  Scriptures saying that murder is sometimes righteous and sometimes the worst sin a person could commit.  Need I go on?  

Honestly, I can't see how anyone can use scriptures as some kind of test for truthfulness when there is so much contradiction found in them.  Hence, thousands of churches using the same exact scripture with completely different beliefs and doctrine.

I agree.  Scripture alone cannot lead us to the whole truth.

Link to comment
1 hour ago, bluebell said:

I agree.  Scripture alone cannot lead us to the whole truth.

It comes down to following your conscience. 

 

My conscience tells me there are truths within all religious groups, the no single group is better than any other, and in the end we will not be judged based on what church we did or didn't go to - but by our actions.  Were we kind?  Did we serve others?  Did we listen to others?  Bear one another's burdens?  Were we honest?  Hard working?  That is all anyone really needs to worry about.

Link to comment
2 minutes ago, changed said:

It comes down to following your conscience. 

 

My conscience tells me there are truths within all religious groups, the no single group is better than any other, and in the end we will not be judged based on what church we did or didn't go to - but by our actions.  Were we kind?  Did we serve others?  Did we listen to others?  Bear one another's burdens?  Were we honest?  Hard working?  That is all anyone really needs to worry about.

I don’t think our conscience is foolproof either. 

But I do agree that we will be judged on our works and not so much on our beliefs. 

Link to comment
4 hours ago, MustardSeed said:

Just saw that part- I agree, there is no scheme.  But it is an unhealthy thing to be such a closed system that common sense cannot prevail. 

At the very least , that is the case in the TCD that has Tacenda and frankly lots of other people pretty upset and examining church mentality right now. 

Tacenda, these are opportunities to call for change. 

TCD?

Are you aware of the changes already made?

Link to comment
24 minutes ago, changed said:

It comes down to following your conscience. 

 

My conscience tells me there are truths within all religious groups, the no single group is better than any other, and in the end we will not be judged based on what church we did or didn't go to - but by our actions.  Were we kind?  Did we serve others?  Did we listen to others?  Bear one another's burdens?  Were we honest?  Hard working?  That is all anyone really needs to worry about.

I can think of one so called religion that no one should go near. The Children of God church but they now go under a different name. They are pure evil, watched a documentary and couldn't finish, it was so awful.

Link to comment

For those concerned the Hotline is a part of a "closed system", it may be helpful to learn more of how the hotline works.  The info on annotations is, imo, very useful as well.

 From a trusted source of a fellow FM member:

Quote

"A few months ago I attended a presentation by the attorney who handles sex abuse issues for the church. I was surprised how candid he was (lawyers are not allowed to disclose any information concerning or acquired in the representation of a client that the client does not want disclosed). He did start by saying that he would not comment on ongoing or recent cases.

He talked a lot about the helpline and how the line has three priorities for all calls, in descending order: 1. Follow the law; 2.Don't create evidentiary issues (like stepping over a prosecutor's case); and 3. Encourage bishops to report even where the law does not require it. The hotline staffers will tell bishops to say things like "now you don't have any objection if I report this" rather than "you don't want me to report this, do you?" to encourage reporting.

He said that the church's policy is to always believe the victim and take what they say at face value, unless they have actual evidence (not just a hunch) that something the victim is saying is not correct. And he added that in his experience, the victims are almost always telling the truth. Though, he hinted that that may not hold so much where people are suing the church (I suspect his experience litigating against some of these people may have jaded him a bit). He also said that the church requires that offenders must face legal system as part of the repentance process.

He talked about how fallible background checks are and said of all the cases of a church leader abusing someone that he was aware of, only one would have been caught by a background check. And he is only aware one LDS scout leader applicant who ever failed their background check for abuse (indicating that that number is way too low).

He argued that the church's record annotation system is an important safeguard to try to make up for this. He said that when he was fairly new to representing the church, he had his secretary pull 50 random sex offenders from the Utah registry, he cross-checked those names with membership records and found that 39 were members (as he expected, the proportion of LDS members in Utah at the time). He then checked how many of those 39 had annotations on their records and it was only 13. So he instituted a process where they comb sex offender registries in all states and automatically annotate all member records they find. He said that there are actually way more annotations than people on registries because the church has low standards of evidence and will annotate records in cases where there was not enough evidence for prosecutors to get a conviction.

The church computer system will not let you input someone with an annotated record into a calling where they work with children (since bishops don't always check before extending callings). It takes very very high church approval to get an annotation removed and you are in essence going to have to prove complete innocence/mistaken identity to get the annotation removed (i.e. I've repented and won't do this again is insufficient to allow the person to again work with children).

He also expressed the opinion that the sustaining process in sacrament meeting is another important safeguard because it leverages the knowledge of the community and allows anyone who might know something to come forward.

 

Link to comment
3 hours ago, Teancum said:

Sure he said that.  Gives him and the other "oracles of God" a lot of power to impose their will on the church that they lead.  Pretty sweet position to be in.

He said that under Joseph and to contradict Hyrum's discourse.  It would have been more an expression of loyalty than a power grab.

Link to comment

The link I posted above for abuse info was sent out in a Church wide (as  far as the US goes, perhaps our nonAmerican posters can remember if a similar email for their country was sent out) email awhile back, so every member on that list should be aware that church leadership is not promoting a closed system approach, but is telling everyone to seek out professionals and encouraging victims and those aware of abuse to report incidents to the law or other professionals.

Edited by Calm
Link to comment
9 minutes ago, Calm said:

For those concerned the Hotline is a part of a "closed system", it may be helpful to learn more of how the hotline works.  The info on annotations is, imo, very useful as well.

 From a trusted source of a fellow FM member:

 

Good to know, these sound like newer rules, but could be wrong. I wonder if they allow sexual abusers to get a TR.

Link to comment
5 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

I don't recall mentioning TCG until just now to bluebell, hum.

Is it TCD or TCG and whichever, what is it?  I haven't asked (beyond what it is) or commented on that because I don't know what you are referring to,

I am talking about changes that have been made.  Have you studied the abuse help page for LDS.org for example?  It would seem not since you appear to continue to represent the Church as trying/preferring to keep it all in house.  You refer to a documentary about something that occurred 40 years ago and treat it as if it is relevant to current practices.

Edited by Calm
Link to comment
10 minutes ago, Calm said:

Is it TCD or TCG and whichever, what is it?  I haven't asked (beyond what it is) or commented on that because I don't know what you are referring to,

I am talking about changes that have been made.  Have you studied the abuse help page for LDS.org for example?  It would seem not since you appear to continue to represent the Church as trying/preferring to keep it all in house.  You refer to a documentary about something that occurred 40 years ago and treat it as if it is relevant to current practices.

I was talking about The Children of God religion. It was horrendous. I've been watching so many documentaries lately. And the one with Catholic priests in Spain is one I've been watching as well. Our church feels pretty safe to me, because luckily most ecclesiastical leaders have been just fine and even pretty awesome to me.

Link to comment

TCD, True Crime Documentary.

People still believe that the place to turn is to bishop when they are dealing with worldly trauma. Bishops are still grossly unprepared to deal with the types of insane issues they work with constantly.  I've been very glad to see more willingness to delegate support for members seeking help.  Its been good in the last few years to see LDS social services even be willing to refer out to independent providers but still, bishops only pay for therapy done by LDS card carrying therapists.  There is such a  fear out there that anyone outside the faith poses danger and that likewise, I CAN TRUST YOU BECAUSE YOU'RE LDS.  This mentality is what makes me crazy.  It's clannish and I don't prescribe to it.

 

Link to comment
2 hours ago, bluebell said:

But they wouldn't have any control.  They would be dead.

They would have control at the time they wrote it and their successors would have control.

See how effective it is? 2000 years later we still say well look at that faithful LDS person who somehow lost their faith and left. Even the elect can be deceived. It is a sign of the times....

Link to comment
38 minutes ago, JLHPROF said:

He said that under Joseph and to contradict Hyrum's discourse.  It would have been more an expression of loyalty than a power grab.

Ok. But Brigham was an up and comer. And very ambitious as we saw in the succession crisis. He saw a future opportunity.

Link to comment

I should add that the closed system is not necessarily prescribed by those in authority.  This is the way our system as a whole thinks.  We are a closed system by our nature, we gravitate to our own, we don't trust the outside (in fact we vilify it) and we put a LOT of trust in the inside.  

 

Link to comment
19 minutes ago, MustardSeed said:

TCD, True Crime Documentary.

People still believe that the place to turn is to bishop when they are dealing with worldly trauma. Bishops are still grossly unprepared to deal with the types of insane issues they work with constantly.  I've been very glad to see more willingness to delegate support for members seeking help.  Its been good in the last few years to see LDS social services even be willing to refer out to independent providers but still, bishops only pay for therapy done by LDS card carrying therapists.  There is such a  fear out there that anyone outside the faith poses danger and that likewise, I CAN TRUST YOU BECAUSE YOU'RE LDS.  This mentality is what makes me crazy.  It's clannish and I don't prescribe to it.

 

I'm such a dingbat!

Link to comment
10 minutes ago, MustardSeed said:

I should add that the closed system is not necessarily prescribed by those in authority.  This is the way our system as a whole thinks.  We are a closed system by our nature, we gravitate to our own, we don't trust the outside (in fact we vilify it) and we put a LOT of trust in the inside.  

 

That is humanity.

Link to comment
47 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

I wonder if they allow sexual abusers to get a TR

If there is no evidence they are reoffending do you think they should be excluded still?

Having positive rewards to look forward to can help offenders be motivated to change.  Ostracism can backfire by making offenders feel hopeless, which can increase their stress, cause them to hide their issues and therefore actually help trigger the very behaviours the ostracism is meant to prevent.

Does having a temple recommend (if truly repented or even probably repented as best anyone else can determine) put any others at risk?

Link to comment
2 hours ago, MustardSeed said:

Of course. And our religion takes it to a new level.  Not sure why the resistance?

Because I don't believe our religion takes it to a new level.  I haven't seen anything in my social and psychological research over the years that indicates Saints today are any more a "closed system" than any other similar group structure.  Do you have research supporting your claim?

Edited by Calm
Link to comment
Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...