Some Mormons Search The Web And Find Doubt

[omni]

+1 on the CFR on this.

The CFR won't come because it's simply not true. Erin may have been speaking on a personal level of what she's seen in her stake, but worldwide since the 80's the number of converts per missionary has dropped significantly and the number of members per unit has risen. This can be proven quite easily from statistics provided by the church.

[ALarson]

I don't have statistics for the Church, but I know that the various wards I have been in have had close to 50% activity rate. My current ward stands at 44%. More than half of our members are either disaffected in some degree, unable to attend for health or work reasons, or just don't care. In a recent Ward Council, our high councilman asked if we had heard of "Real Growth," and said that we would hear more of it in the near future. At least at the Stake level, the brethren are concerned that our "amazing" growth numbers don't reflect actual activity and growth. We tend to baptize people, they proceed to leave the church in some form, and we still count them as Growth. We've had only a couple of families request name removal over the past year or so; most people leave and are still counted. So, I don't know if there is a general crisis, but from where I stand, it appears that there is.

Like I wrote above, our ward has not had a baptism for over a year and numbers are way down stake wide. Also, the baptisms that are happening are not entire families like we used to have years ago, but are widows or other single younger people and are many who seem to need help and assistance. The internet is killing baptisms for the group out there that the church wants to convert.

Also, in reading the article in the NYT's about this former 70, I realized he only found the truth and if he'd had more support or answers, he might have stayed active. I do believe the church is working on this problem and I hope it's not too little too late. Many of my close family members have gone inactive this year.

[cinepro]

I believe he is, yes. And I have no qualms about saying it.

Well, it's Google that's doing the search results. And I've seen what kind of search engine the Church can put together, so in this particular case, I prefer Satan's.

[canard78]

Well, it's Google that's doing the search results. And I've seen what kind of search engine the Church can put together, so in this particular case, I prefer Satan's.

Haven't you heard. LDS.org now use google for their search results to provide a 'safe search' for looking up church info. It filters out the "blogs and anti-church" websites like fairmormon, NAMI and Wikipedia.

http://www.lds.org/church/news/new-ldsorg-search-harnesses-power-of-google?cid=HPL2P06W01029〈=eng

[Bill “Papa” Lee]

New York Times article...

http://www.nytimes.c...?pagewanted=all

Oh joy...

Edited to add: with all these new missionaries and temples, Satan is putting on his a-game...

Too answer the implication of the tread, I think it is people have doubt and instead of turning to the source of all true knowledge, they turn to the net...which any nut can find a forum.

[canard78]

Too answer the implication of the tread, I think it is people have doubt and instead of turning to the source of all true knowledge, they turn to the net...which any nut can find a forum.

Papa. Please listen to his interview with John Dehlin. Mattsson hasn't simply 'read some nut' on the Internet.

He studied from a wide range of sources including the scriptures, he prayed and pondered extensively, he took it to his priesthood leaders, he took it to a member of the 12 and other GAs. What else could he have done?

The whole point about Mattsson's experience is that he is not some half-wit heretic. He's a third generation member who has had extensive interaction with church leaders and still feels his prayers are being answered.

[ALarson]

Papa. Please listen to his interview with John Dehlin. Mattsson hasn't simply 'read some nut' on the Internet.

He studied from a wide range of sources including the scriptures, he prayed and pondered extensively, he took it to his priesthood leaders, he took it to a member of the 12 and other GAs. What else could he have done?

The whole point about Mattsson's experience is that he is not some half-wit heretic. He's a third generation member who has had extensive interaction with church leaders and still feels his prayers are being answered.

I agree.

Also, another point is that he did not find "anti-Mormon lies" (from what's listed as his issues), he found the truth regarding polygamy and other issues. What he's saying is that either there are no good answers to the questions being asked by members such as himself or the leaders were not helpful with their responses. It appears to be one or the other and this needs to be rectified.

For as many members who are speaking up and asking questions, there are many, many more who are afraid to speak up.

[canard78]

I agree.

Also, another point is that he did not find "anti-Mormon lies" (from what's listed as his issues), he found the truth regarding polygamy and other issues. What he's saying is that either there are no good answers to the questions being asked by members such as himself or the leaders were not helpful with their responses. It appears to be one or the other and this needs to be rectified.

For as many members who are speaking up and asking questions, there are many, many more who are afraid to speak up.

I hold my tongue and only use this and a couple of other forums to discuss this. I resist speaking openly to other friends and family because I want to respect them and not cause harm. I would like to, but I hold back. I can't imagine how much more challenging the consideration must have been for him, considering his higher profile.

The point is that he did try to get answers from official sources. He was repeatedly brushed off and made to feel like a trouble maker so had to go in search of the answers himself.

None of the issues in the article or the interview are 'lies.' While some on here might disagree with the conclusion, no one can accuse him of peddling mistrusts.

[ALarson]

Well, I guess this article is #1 right now for the "most viewed" on the NYT's front page.

[thesometimesaint]

Even the Devil can quote Scripture in order to deceive.

Here is the truth about polygamy.

The Book of Mormon allows for it under Gods' command.

The Doctrine and Covenants 132 allows for its earthly practice.

OD 1 disallows its earthly practice at this time.

We, as individual members, must study, ponder , and pray for the answers and not become overly reliant on our Leaders to spoon feed us the answers.

There is no excuse to not speak up, after we have done all we can to get the answer. However we do need to be receptive to the answers.

[canard78]

Even the Devil can quote Scripture in order to deceive.

Here is the truth about polygamy.

The Book of Mormon allows for it under Gods' command.

The Doctrine and Covenants 132 allows for its earthly practice.

OD 1 disallows its earthly practice at this time.

We, as individual members, must study, ponder , and pray for the answers and not become overly reliant on our Leaders to spoon feed us the answers.

There is no excuse to not speak up, after we have done all we can to get the answer. However we do need to be receptive to the answers.

And polyandry...?

[thesometimesaint]

There is no evidence, but much speculation, that the polyandry of JS included marriage rights.

[CV75]

What in the world do you think this document was that the unnamed apostle was allegedly supposed to show the members in Sweden and why didn't he (according to Mattson) end up showing them?

I read on the Internet that it was the 116 lost pages... (ha-ha)...

I suppose it was, as Elder Perry is quoted as recalling, “a letter written by the church’s history department,” that he used as a reference, and which, as "a manuscript" hasn't been publsihed.

[daz2]

I am glad my Church is moving in a direction of greater transparency and openness on historical and other matters. I like the movements in the Church history department under Elders Jensen and Snow toward greater candor and less defensiven...ess, and the fact that some of this is filtering into more (or at least quasi-) "correlated" materials: history.lds.org. See also http://www.lifeongoldplates.com/2008/08/bushmans-introduction-to-joseph-smith.html In my judgment, the core of Mormonism (and of religion generally) is truth and goodness. There is nothing to fear from truth.

[Bill “Papa” Lee]

Papa. Please listen to his interview with John Dehlin. Mattsson hasn't simply 'read some nut' on the Internet.

He studied from a wide range of sources including the scriptures, he prayed and pondered extensively, he took it to his priesthood leaders, he took it to a member of the 12 and other GAs. What else could he have done?

The whole point about Mattsson's experience is that he is not some half-wit heretic. He's a third generation member who has had extensive interaction with church leaders and still feels his prayers are being answered.

I was making no indictment, just speaking to the thread title only and general nature of things. I understand doubt and have listened to 100's of stories...my search has always led me home to my faith, I do not pass judgement on those who take a different path. I am very even and fair minded of others struggles. I have just had too many spiritual experiences to disbelieve, and I mean everything, from the Bible on...even though the OT is filled with some of the worst horrors committed by the most favored of God. Be it from the beginning or our Church History, there is so much we don't know, does would not excuse us from what we think we know without a doubt...because doubt and belief is the same river that runs both ways. Edited July 23, 2013 by Bill “Papa” Lee

[Sky]

So, should I just stop going to church, stop paying my tithing, stop going to the temple, stop wearing garments, stop taking the sacrament, stop going home teaching, and stop doing my calling?

Does it make any logical sense that Jesus would bleed from every pore to atone for the sins of every person who would ever live on this world? Is there a God?

Is there no room for belief? Is it possible that God could still be overseeing this work, even if the people are imperfect and sometimes even made terrible mistakes? Why should the Church have any value in my life or in anybody's if the foundation is essentially false?

Just some questions that I'm asking myself....

I'm sticking with Elder Holland's approach for now:

http://www.lds.org/g...elieve?lang=eng

[canard78]

So, should I just stop going to church, stop paying my tithing, stop going to the temple, stop wearing garments, stop taking the sacrament, stop going home teaching, and stop doing my calling?

Does it make any logical sense that Jesus would bleed from every pore to atone for the sins of every person who would ever live on this world? Is there a God?

Is there no room for belief? Is it possible that God could still be overseeing this work, even if the people are imperfect and sometimes even made terrible mistakes? Why should the Church have any value in my life or in anybody's if the foundation is essentially false?

Just some questions that I'm asking myself....

I'm sticking with Elder Holland's approach for now:

http://www.lds.org/g...elieve?lang=eng

To your first paragraph, no, don't stop.

To your third... Yes there is room for belief even if some of what we used to think about the church is not correct.

[Duncan]

it's times like this you further realize why you can't rely on other's testimonies' or may so for only so long, we need to get our own witness

[canard78]

it's times like this you further realize why you can't rely on other's testimonies' or may so for only so long, we need to get our own witness

I agree. I know you weren't suggesting as much, but Elder* Mattsson shows no signs on relied on someone else's. His faith transition was very much a personal/spiritual experience.

However, I'm sure that a big part of what held him back from 'coming out' was an awareness that as an Area authority many would have "believed on his words." That must be a dreadful sense of responsibility.

I've considered being more open about my adapted faith but am aware of the impact it could have on a few families. One in particular that I helped to reactivate I would especially worry for, due to my friendship with him.

It's a serious factor to consider and I'd imagine something Elder Mattsson had to weigh up before going ahead.

*Are Emeritus 70s still Elder or, having been released, do they revert to being Brother?

[Kevin Christensen]

I'm rather astonished that he claims that he didn't know that Joseph Smith was a polygamist. Last time I checked, the D&C included D&C 132, and for decades, its been easy to go into any LDS bookstore, or any anti-LDS bookstore, even if you don't have the energy to peek at the Journal of Mormon History, or Signature Books, BYU Studies, or Joseph F. Smith's Pamphlet on The Origins of Plural Marriage, or even the Work and the Glory. I showed the article to my wife, and she exclaimed, "I can't remember when I didn't know this stuff!"

For someone get that high up and be so utterly naive strikes me as rather unusual. It's never a good idea to generalize from atypical situations. How about a poll of general authorities,and asking them how typical is it for someone to get to be a Seventy and not know about polygamy? How about asking how many of them do know and aren't scandalized by it? How about some stories from the perspective of people who've known so long that they take it utterly for granted? Do you think it might be possible to learn from the behavior and experience of most well informed and well adjusted members? Or wouldn't that be news?

And while the tone of the article is reasonable (given that the whole point is to be as sensational as possible,

while pretending not to be), I do notice the accuracy slipping away the further along the bullet points I read. And there is a reliance on insinuation throughout, rather than any effort whatsoever to contextualize the information.

Take this one:

Why does the church always portray Joseph Smith translating the Book of Mormon from golden plates, when witnesses described him looking down into a hat at a “peep stone,” a rock that he believed helped him find buried treasure?

Is this insinuating that when Joseph Smith was looking into the hat to obscure the light, that any of those witnesses thought that Joseph Smith was doing anything other than translating the plates?

Why were black men excluded from the priesthood from the mid-1800s until 1978?

And while we're not really asking this question, obviously not looking things up in something useful like Bush and Mauss, Neither White Nor Black: Mormon Scholars Confront the Race issue in a Universal Church, let's not notice that we are also not asking why Slavery was still going on in much of America in 1847 and why the federal government gave up on reconstruction, and what Jim Crow means, and why statistics on lynching could be kept, and why 100 years after being emancipated, the Civil Rights movement had a reason to be at its peak.

Why did Smith claim that the Book of Abraham, a core scripture, was a translation of ancient writings from the Hebrew patriarch Abraham, when Egyptologists now identify the papyrus that Smith used in the translation as a common funerary scroll that has nothing to do with Abraham?

The supposed identification of "the papryus that Smith used in translation" is not at all certain, given the number of papyrus that Joseph Smith had compared to what we have, and considering that the text of the Book of Abraham predates the KEP. LDS scholars have published translation of the Hor Book of Breathings (Nibley and Rhodes). They are not scandalized by their contents. (Nibley had pointed out in Abraham in Egypt that the Egyptian scholars had pointed out ties between the Abraham Apocrypha and the Egyptian Book of the Dead.) Who kept Mattsson from reading them? He is certainly of age of have been aware of the 29 part series that Nibley ran in the Improvement Era, including the first color photographs published very quickly after the Metropolitan Museum.

A simulation of an even journalistic tone is not the same thing as informed and balanced.

Is it true that Smith took dozens of wives, some as young as 14 and some already wed to other Mormon leaders, to the great pain of his first wife, Emma?

Notice the wide-eyed innocent wonder with which we juxtopose "dozens of wives" with the not actually accurate "some as young as 14" we might as well mention that one, Helen Mar Kimball by name, and consider what she personally reported about the situation. The personal accounts by wives, as well as the lack of DNA evidence of descendants outside of Emma, does raise some interesting questions about what it really meant to be a plural wife of Joseph Smith. But that kind of journalism takes more work than the hint and run approach.

Annoying.

FWIW

Kevin Christensen

Bethel Park, PA

Edited July 22, 2013 by Kevin Christensen

[halconero]

I agree. I know you weren't suggesting as much, but Elder* Mattsson shows no signs on relied on someone else's. His faith transition was very much a personal/spiritual experience.

However, I'm sure that a big part of what held him back from 'coming out' was an awareness that as an Area authority many would have "believed on his words." That must be a dreadful sense of responsibility.

I've considered being more open about my adapted faith but am aware of the impact it could have on a few families. One in particular that I helped to reactivate I would especially worry for, due to my friendship with him.

It's a serious factor to consider and I'd imagine something Elder Mattsson had to weigh up before going ahead.

*Are Emeritus 70s still Elder or, having been released, do they revert to being Brother?

Still Elder I believe. Emeritus Seventy who speak at the MTC are referred to as Elder when announced.

[Stroopwafel]

I agree and think the mentality that it's wrong to speak of unsavory church history is what seeds an anti-mormon.

It depends on how you define an "anti-mormon". If you apply the term to anyone that holds any form of criticism towards the Church, then I guess it doesn't take much to become one...

Although some "antis" may have been faithful members in the past, I don't believe they constitute the most part of the whole. Some disaffected members may have strong feelings against the Church, but it is not enough to make them "antis" (at least in the way I see it). And seriously, who, once they've known what the Church can bring to one's life and the kind of people in it, can in all honesty and sincerity of heart be against (anti) "the mormons".

Also, there is a world of difference between members going through a faith-crisis while being sincere in their quest for a satisfactory answer over their genuine concerns, and the antis' "loving" tactics which are completely dishonest and, really, make me laugh, cry, angry, and feel pity for them. Seriously, even though I am aware of the "harder" stuff that's often presented in these websites, everything in these usually brings in me a strange and strong feeling of disgust.

[CV75]

New York Times article...

http://www.nytimes.c...?pagewanted=all

Oh joy...

Edited to add: with all these new missionaries and temples, Satan is putting on his a-game...

“Everything I’d been taught, everything I’d been proud to preach about and witness about just crumbled under my feet. It was such a terrible psychological and nearly physical disturbance.”

Bold: hyperbole

Underlined: more to the point

Much of trouble with faith begins with excessive reliance on the psychological and physical "arms of the flesh" when the Spirit is the real solution. Maybe this por brother simply forgot what he was talking about.

[omni]

I'm rather astonished that he claims that he didn't know that Joseph Smith was a polygamist. Last time I checked, the D&C included D&C 132, and for decades, its been easy to go into any LDS bookstore, or any anti-LDS bookstore, even if you don't have the energy to peek at the Journal of Mormon History, or Signature Books, BYU Studies, or Joseph F. Smith's Pamphlet on The Origins of Plural Marriage, or even the Work and the Glory. I showed the article to my wife, and exclaimed, "I can't remember when I didn't know this stuff!"

For someone get that high up and be so utterly naive strikes me as rather unusual. It's never a good idea to generalize from atypical situations. How about a poll of general authorities,and asking them how typical is it for someone to get to be a Seventy and not know about polygamy?

Kevin, I understood it as him not knowing about the more controversial aspects of polygamy such as the number of wives, polyandry, and the age of some of JS's wives.

I agree that a member of the seventy not knowing about polygamy would certainly be odd, but the other stuff is a little more understanding. Ironically I just watched an old episode of Sister Wives about a polygamous Utah family. In the episode they visited Nauvoo and during a tour, their LDS tour guide told them about the number of wives and the polyandry and the family was shocked...and they're polygamists!

[mfbukowski]

So sad to see another victim of literalism bite the dust so publicly.

You look at any church literally and they are all absurd. People don't rise from the dead. Martin Luther was a proud sinner. Islam? Well you can't even mention that without getting threatened. Hinduism? I have never seen anyone walking around with an elephant head. Buddhism is great if you want to sit and a corner and meditate but some of us have to work for a living.

You have to see religion for what it is- a path to God, and Mormonism is the best I have found after years and years of searching. That makes it the "truest religion on earth" for my money.

Edited July 21, 2013 by mfbukowski