Good people, leaving the church

[maupayman]

On a side note, have any of you watched any of the videos? What do you think of them?

[44Foxtrot]

Assumes facts not in evidence.

I think it is a fair assumption, and believe that I could find quotes from Mormon Church officials that would support that assumption. Of course, if you have an opinion as to a reason for the drop, I would love to hear it.

I assume you meant "support" rather than "opposition".

I did indeed, and I have fixed my mistake. Thank you.

Additionally, why is it you think your anecdotal evidence is meaningful in this context?

As anedcdotal evidence, it has no particular weight. If it is important to you, I am pretty sure that I could find published statements calling for the States to come down on this kind of behavior by organizations that should know better.

Oh please...one question - have you actually read the applicable IRC section in question here? Were you to do so, I think you'd quickly recognize why this argument is a non-starter.

I have not read the IRC section in question. (Guess I had better start looking for one or more of the many public statements by State officials who called for some kind of legal action against the LDS Church over their actions related to Prop 8, and specifically legal action that would involve a review of the Churches tax exempt status. I will let you know what I can find.)

[mercyngrace]

On a side note, have any of you watched any of the videos? What do you think of them?

I watched 5, I think. I thought most of them were well done and I felt like I could empathize with most of the individuals to some degree. I think anyone who has experienced a real crisis of faith should be able to sympathize with some of the feelings disaffected members express. That my path went in one direction doesn't mean I don't understand why they took the other fork in the road and how heart-wrenching and life-altering that choice must have been.

The one video of those I watched which I distinctly didn't like was the BYU-I kid whose face and voice were masked. It overreached, IMO, at the end by trying to suggest that tons of others were sharing this student's experience (the floating words bit). It made the church seem cultish and controlling, which is not something I can relate to. If I wanted to leave the church today, I could. Easily. And with relatively few questions asked by anyone other than my own family members.

[ttribe]

I think it is a fair assumption, and believe that I could find quotes from Mormon Church officials that would support that assumption. Of course, if you have an opinion as to a reason for the drop, I would love to hear it.

Yours was a conclusion laden statement, not an expression of fact.

As anedcdotal evidence, it has no particular weight. If it is important to you, I am pretty sure that I could find published statements calling for the States to come down on this kind of behavior by organizations that should know better.

I have not read the IRC section in question. (Guess I had better start looking for one or more of the many public statements by State officials who called for some kind of legal action against the LDS Church over their actions related to Prop 8, and specifically legal action that would include a review of the Churches tax exempt status. I will let you know what I can find.)

Uhhh, rhetorical statements by state lawmakers are not evidence that THEY even understand the tax exempt rules. I will tell you, having read the IRC section, and done a little research on this, such statements are embarrassingly ignorant.

[ttribe]

I think the point of this thread is.... Can the folklore that all people who leave the church are drunken fornicators who just want to live a lifestyle of less rules and regulations, be left in the dustbin of history? Can it now be admitted that good sincere people have left for sincere reasons having to do with history and/or doctrine?

In many cases - yes.

[california boy]

No. Perhaps you could point to something in my post that would even imply that.

My comments were made to point out the faulty assumptions underlying the argument, not the conclusion thereof.

44Foxtrot, on 03 March 2011 - 12:17 PM, said:

In looking for significant events that would explain this precipitous drop, one need look no further than the 2008 Prop 8 fiasco and the associated expression of irrational homophobia of the leadership of the Church.

Assumes facts not in evidence.

Maybe you could explain what you met by "assumes facts, not in evidence" then. Were you just being argumentative and didn't want to accept his statement because he did not provide documentation? If you do agree with his statement, it seems kinda small of you to challenge his statement because he was

I thought you were saying foxtrot was making an assumption that Prop 8 has not negativatively impacted the churches image.

[ttribe]

Maybe you could explain what you met by "assumes facts, not in evidence" then. Were you just being argumentative and didn't want to accept his statement because he did not provide documentation? If you do agree with his statement, it seems kinda small of you to challenge his statement because he was

I thought you were saying foxtrot was making an assumption that Prop 8 has not negativatively impacted the churches image.

[sigh] This - "...the associated expression of irrational homophobia of the leadership of the Church" is not a fact. It is an opinion

[Scott Lloyd]

I would recommend to always be skeptical about someone's claim to being a clean-living paragon, regardless of which religion they currently or formerly belonged to. That just seems to be common sense.

It also would seem to be common sense that if someone were part of a group that told them not to eat green M&Ms and they then left that group, they might start eating green M&Ms. But it wouldn't mean that the reason they left the group was because they wanted to eat green M&Ms.

But it couldn't necessarily be dismissed out of hand, especially when it is observed that when they get with their ex-member buddies, one of the things they relish is to glory in their eating of green M&Ms and how nice it is to be rid of the pressure not to do so.

I still think Pahoran has made a valid point.

[Deborah]

Can it now be admitted that good sincere people have left for sincere reasons having to do with history and/or doctrine?

Nope. In my very long time in the church I've known lots of people who've left, and not one of them left over history or doctrine. This is a fallacious argument because people were leaving the church long before we had the internet and all the anti sites so readily available. However, this makes a nice rationalization when people leave for other reasons. "Oh, look there are more than one version of the first vision. I was right in leaving the church. It must not be true. Now I can share my 'real' reason for leaving which is the history."

And as has been pointed out numerous times, many of us are familiar with the history, the real history which contains the big picture, and we have become stronger in our faith. Historical issues have little to do with the real reasons people go or stay. Furthermore anyone who claims to leave over a history they were ignorant of before just doesn't understand history or has lost the bigger picture and thrown out the proverbial baby with the bathwater. I find that very sad.

[Scott Lloyd]

Moving forward to 2010, and taking numbers from a Mormon pollster (Gary Lawrence) addressing the same question, (as reported in the Mormon Times and elsewhere) the numbers have pretty much inverted with 49% reporting an unfavorable impression of Mormons and only 37% reporting a favorable impression.

Lawrence's study wasn't undertaken in 2010. Rather, his 2010 FAIR Conference presentation was discussing research he had done earlier. It may be a case of studies done about the same time but reporting conflicting results.

Add-on: As shown in this link, Lawrence's book (which was the basis for his FAIR Conference presentation) was published in 2008. Which means his research was probably done in 2007 (or soon thereafter), about the same time as your Pew Research Foundation poll. Apparently, both were undertaken about the time of the Mitt Romney presidential campaign. Ergo, I don't think you've yet made a case for "increasingly" unfavorable view of Mormons by Americans.

[Deborah]

Anyway, I guess the reason I feel sympathy with people who leave the church regardless of the reason is that I understand what it feels like to make a huge investment and feel shortchanged after the fact. Whether I misread and misunderstood the product specs or whether there was a bait and switch matters little in the end. What matters is how I feel.

MnG, you are too nice, which is befitting your name, and I actually agree with you about trying to convince others about why the really left makes them more entrenched. I've never questioned my family or friends about the reasons they gave for leaving, if they gave any. Usually I've known the circumstances and I find that people when they first leave are pretty up front about why they left; it's only later that the try to find justification in other ways.

[44Foxtrot]

[sigh] This - "...the associated expression of irrational homophobia of the leadership of the Church" is not a fact. It is an opinion

Perhaps you should have a look at BKP's recent conference talk. That would be the one that had to be revised by the Church because of BKP's blatantly false statements regarding the etiology of homosexuality. These statements were considered by many (me included) to be irrational. And because of this, they were excised by the Church. Think Ministry of Truth.

[Scott Lloyd]

Perhaps you should have a look at BKP's recent conference talk. That would be the one that had to be revised by the Church because of BKP's blatantly false statements regarding the etiology of homosexuality. These statements were considered by many (me included) to be irrational. And because of this, they were excised by the Church. Think Ministry of Truth.

Why don't you link to the talk itself instead of somebody's hostile and jaundiced blog about it? Are you afraid it might harm your case to actually have people read President Packer's words in context?

"Ministry of Truth" indeed!

[ttribe]

Perhaps you should have a look at BKP's recent conference talk. That would be the one that had to be revised by the Church because of BKP's blatantly false statements regarding the etiology of homosexuality. These statements were considered by many (me included) to be irrational. And because of this, they were excised by the Church. Think Ministry of Truth.

In other words you, and others, had an opinion. I heard the talk when it was given. It's been badly misinterpreted.

[nicolasconnault]

In response to the CFR, consider a 2007 poll from the Pew Research Foundation that was conducted specifically to determine American attitudes towards Mormons. In this poll, 53% of those interviewed reported a favorable impression of Mormons, while only 27% reported an unfavorable impression.

An interesting indicator published in this poll was the frequency of use of specific terms in describing and discussing Mormons. The findings were that negative words such as polygamy, and cult were used much more often than were positive words such as devout and good by those polled in describing Mormons.

Here you go again, misrepresenting, hoping we won't go look at the sources... From the source:

Number of times the words were part of the description of Mormonism:

1. Polygamy/Bigamy: 75

2. Family: 74

3. Cult: 57

Moving forward to 2010, and taking numbers from a Mormon pollster (Gary Lawrence) addressing the same question, (as reported in the Mormon Times

Argh, again you hope we wouldn't check the sources!! This poll was conducted in 2008, not 2010. That's only 1 year after the original poll, and it surveyed only 1,000 people in only one area. You can't possibly compare that with the Pew survey of 35,000 people across the entire country.

and elsewhere) the numbers have pretty much inverted with 49% reporting an unfavorable impression of Mormons and only 37% reporting a favorable impression.

This reference contains no polling information, why did you include it?

There are also other indications including the increasingly unfavorable reporting related to Mormons and their activities in the media and especially those related to doctrine and expressed attitudes towards gays such as here or very recently, here from BKP.

These two links contain no information about an increase in unfavourable opinions. They just contain unfavourable opinions.

It seems pretty clear from these polls, one of them taken by a Mormon pollster specifically for the Church, that a large segment of the population has an unfavorable impression of Mormons and that this trend has worsened since 2007.

Nope, not clear at all.

In looking for significant events that would explain this precipitous drop, [...]

Oh WOW! Now it's a "precipitous drop"!!! You're the King of rhetoric, Foxtrot

[Pahoran]

It seems pretty clear from these polls, one of them taken by a Mormon pollster specifically for the Church, that a large segment of the population has an unfavorable impression of Mormons and that this trend has worsened since 2007.

In looking for significant events that would explain this precipitous drop, one need look no further than the 2008 Prop 8 fiasco and the associated expression of irrational homophobia by the leadership of the Church.

Please note that, just like the reputation of an individual, so the "impression" a population may have of a large and diverse group of people rests, not upon what that group does, but upon what others say about them.

I rather expect that, had such polls been taken in Germany in the 1930's, they would have shown "that a large segment of the population had an unfavorable impression of" Jews "and that this trend had worsened since" the beginning of the decade.

And while the very nastiest of anti-Semites might have insisted that the Jews were to blame for their own bad PR, more thoughtful people might have looked at what was being said about Jews by others in that period.

And I think the same caveat should apply here.

We have recently discussed Mike Hucksterbee's disgraceful appeal to EV prejudice in the past presidential campaign; but I can point you towards an utterly cynical attempt at opinion-tampering that took place in this very forum.

A while back there was a poster who made a sustained effort to argue that a clinically depressed mother who murdered her children was carrying out the logical course of action for anyone who really believed the Church's teachings; an argument that was as false, as brazen, as hateful and as demagogical as the "Holy Child of La Guardia."

What's interesting about this revolting bit of demagoguery is that the cheap demagogue who perpetrated it claimed to have a Ph.D. in some scientific discipline or other; proving, if proof were needed, that higher education is no guarantee against the very lowest kind of bigotry.

So, given that public opinion can be manipulated by that kind of dedicated, unscrupulous malice, it is at best fallacious to appeal to that same public opinion as if it proved that there was any validity to the hateful attitudes in view.

Many of my colleagues believe that the Church acted illegally in their suport of Prop 8

That's interesting, but not very relevant. The legality of the Church's actions is something that can be tested in the courts; it is not established by taking opinion polls of scientists, especially informal opinion polls of the colleagues of known anti-Mormons.

and would like to see legal action taken so as to send a message to other religious corporations that might be tempted to engage in political activities that should lead to the recission of their tax exempt status.

And, of course, you've done absolutely nothing to try to influence their opinion.

Regards,

Pahoran

[ttribe]

Without a doubt, hence asking to see if others are also seeing this trend. I'm not trying to make the claim that this is a trend, i'm asking if others are noticing what I have.

Just making sure we're clear.

[44Foxtrot]

MnG, you are too nice, which is befitting your name, and I actually agree with you about trying to convince others about why the really left makes them more entrenched. I've never questioned my family or friends about the reasons they gave for leaving, if they gave any. Usually I've known the circumstances and I find that people when they first leave are pretty up front about why they left; it's only later that the try to find justification in other ways.

Deborah,

From what you know about The Church of Scientology, could you ever imagine why people might want to leave that Church?

Have you ever thought about the many similarities between Mormonism and Scientology?

[Deborah]

From what you know about The Church of Scientology, could you ever imagine why people might want to leave that Church?

Have you ever thought about the many similarities between Mormonism and Scientology?

Nope, never thought about it and don't care. And I assure you if you think there are similarities you really don't know Mormonism or Scientology. I would like to know what those similarities are.

[nicolasconnault]

Have you ever thought about the many similarities between Mormonism and Scientology?

[Questing Beast]

A friend of mine recently started a website devoted to the stories of those who have left Mormonism:

http://www.iamanexmormon.com/

I watched a few of these videos, the other night, and was impressed by the sincerity and the quality of people that appear to be leaving the church over historical issues. I do admit, however, that some of them are cheesy, like the guy who got booted for making the missionary calendars. I and others are often accused of leaving the church for reasons of weakness or sin. The usual, "you wanted to drink and have sex" accusations. I also know that many people do leave the church for these reasons, though I was not one of them. I left over historical reasons and evidence that the church is not what it claims to be. It appears, from this site, that I am in good company. Would you agree with this? Is this a concern for believers?

Thanks all in advance.

I too, and my brother, are not among the "eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die", crowd. I have not "left" the Church per se. I no longer believe any of the exclusivity claims of the Church - including some perceived/asserted exclusive "priesthood authority". And yes, for me as well, the departing from belief is caused by the historical evidence, nothing to do with wanting to "get away" with anything by no longer being a Mormon. I still live as a Mormon ought to live, because I believe the lifestyle is one inspired by good, common sense. The dogmatic observances, like wearing garmies "night and day", or attending the temple, doing family history, etc. and etc., I do not bother myself to think about. But the real stuff: the healthy living standards, the balance of a Sabbath day in every seven days, the fasting, prayer, tithes and offerings, the church worship on Sunday with neighbors, etc and etc., THAT I do take seriously....

[Scott Lloyd]

The dogmatic observances, like wearing garmies "night and day", or attending the temple, doing family history, etc. and etc., I do not bother myself to think about.

I find this expression offensive and disrespectful.

Just thought you should know.

[Mortal Man]

Anyway, I guess the reason I feel sympathy with people who leave the church regardless of the reason is that I understand what it feels like to make a huge investment and feel shortchanged after the fact. Whether I misread and misunderstood the product specs or whether there was a bait and switch matters little in the end. What matters is how I feel. And the best response, IMO, any of us can have to someone so disillusioned, is to listen with Christ like love and patience. Most of the time, people just need to be heard. And in my experience, the harder we try to convince people that they were at fault, the more entrenched and defensive they become. In which case, we've done more harm than good.

Ahhh, some fresh air.

FWIW mercy, I always feel better after reading your posts.

[44Foxtrot]

Here you go again, misrepresenting, hoping we won't go look at the sources... From the source:

Number of times the words were part of the description of Mormonism:

1. Polygamy/Bigamy: 75

2. Family: 74

3. Cult: 57

If you read the conclusion of the pollsters that were stated alongside the table from which you cherry-picked, you will see that my statement regarding greater use of negative words to describe Mormons came directly from the text of the report.

Argh, again you hope we wouldn't check the sources!! This poll was conducted in 2008, not 2010. That's only 1 year after the original poll, and it surveyed only 1,000 people in only one area. You can't possibly compare that with the Pew survey of 35,000 people across the entire country.

So what you are saying is that even though the latter and lower number polls were generated by a Mormon pollster and have been quoted by the Church as justification for a major media blitz, they are not okay with you? I would be the first to agree that the second poll does not have the statistical strength of the first poll. However, the Church has "owned" it. And when it comes to perception, that is what counts. Would you not agree?

Oh WOW! Now it's a "precipitous drop"!!! You're the King of rhetoric, Foxtrot

53% favorable to 37% favorable in a year or so is not precipitous? It is more than enough to change the outcome of an election. It shifts the "favorable" rating from a majority to a minority view. I would call that precipitous. (In fact, I did).

[Scott Lloyd]

So, given that public opinion can be manipulated by that kind of dedicated, unscrupulous malice, it is at best fallacious to appeal to that same public opinion as if it proved that there was any validity to the hateful attitudes in view.

Something that Lawrence said in his FAIR Conference presentation supports this:

Lawrence identified the cause (of unfavorable public opinion about Mormons) as an "approach-avoidance" situation in which many people are "cross-pressured."

"It's a love-hate relationship," he said. "They'd like to believe certain things about us, but they hear other things about us."

I saw such manipulation in action in the week following President Packer's general conference address. One pressure group in particular was leading the campaign. Every day for a week, I, among many, was e-mailed a "news release" vilifying President Packer for his talk. This culminated in a staged news event in Salt Lake City in which a petition was delivered to the Church Office Building. It was apparent through all of this that a lot of people were getting their information from out-of-context media reports rather than going directly to the source.

I do finding it telling that 44foxtrot links to a blog instead of the conference talk itself.