They Can Leave the Church But They Can't Leave It Alone

[The Nehor]

2 hours ago, TheSkepticChristian said:

and perhaps they lost an important scholarship for going to a mission. Perhaps they lost important opportunities in their life for putting the church first. It is hard to forget about the church under such circumstances. 

Most people call that owning your own decisions or blaming others for your decisions depending on whether you are a good or a bad person.

[The Nehor]

1 hour ago, Johnnie Cake said:

I'm no longer a member of the church and have set what I would consider amenable boundaries that both the church and I can live within and yet even this past week was asked yet again when I'm going to get rebaptised.

So when are you getting rebaptized?

[JAHS]

There's all kinds of reasons for not leaving it alone.
Some are afraid that they might have been wrong to leave it so they criticize to reinforce and validate their reasons for leaving. 
Others feel that it is their duty to warn others of the evils of Mormonism.
Some my have been badly hurt or betrayed by some aspect of it or some church leader or family member and are lashing out in anger.
Some because it is still an influence in their lives because of friends or family and find themselves having to often explain their reasons.
Some find themselves actually feeling a need to defend some of the goods aspects of it.
Some still have an interest in the subject and just like to discuss and debate it with others.
Some are bored and have nothing else to talk about.

There's a few of the reasons; some stereotypical perceived (and perhaps wrong) reasons; some are real reasons.
Have I missed any?
Are any of these never the reason?

[jkwilliams]

1 minute ago, JAHS said:

Some still have an interest in the subject and just like to discuss and debate it with others.
Some are bored and have nothing else to talk about.

I like to tell people it's the former, but it's probably the latter. 

[Johnnie Cake]

2 hours ago, Tacenda said:

You could always ask them why they think you left and if they want to know.  That'll keep them from asking when you want to get rebaptised.  But that is assuming that the reasons you left were over things in church history.  Still, people may need to understand more of your story.

You've hit the nail on the head. Why haven't I thought of this. Of course you are correct. They don't understand and I need to give them more info. Instead I've been bitting my tongue instead, I need to explain why I no longer believe. Thank you for your post

Edited June 9, 2016 by Johnnie Cake

[jkwilliams]

7 minutes ago, Johnnie Cake said:

You've hit the nail on the head. Why haven't I thought of this. Of course you are correct. They don't understand and I need to give them more info. Instead I've been hitting my tongue instead I need to explain why I no longer believe. Thank you for your post

Bad choice. There's a reason you keep quiet: speaking up tends to make things worse. A few years ago I had a home teacher who kept trying to get me to explain to him why I didn't believe anymore. We became pretty good friends, and after probably 2 years of him pushing, I finally took him to lunch and we discussed where I was coming from over about 2 hours. It was a really pleasant conversation, and I thought it went well. What followed was a barrage of hostile emails from him that really took me by surprise. I tried to be polite, but he kept on the attack until I called him on the phone and told him I didn't think the conversation was very productive and we ought to let it go. Then he said he must have offended me. We're still friends, but that was not a good experience.

Edited June 9, 2016 by jkwilliams

[Thinking]

2 hours ago, Johnnie Cake said:

I'm no longer a member of the church and have set what I would consider amenable boundaries that both the church and I can live within and yet even this past week was asked yet again when I'm going to get rebaptised.

I don't hide my disaffection. Neither do I proclaim it from the rooftops. When I meet an old friend the first words out of my mouth are not "I don't believe the LDS truth claims anymore."

A few years ago I saw an old LDS friend at a BYU function. He asked me if I had been called to be a bishop yet. I laughed and told him that the day I am called to be bishop is the day he knows the LDS Church is false.

[bdouglas]

"They can leave the church but they can't leave it alone."

A cliche, yes. But there is a reason why it's a cliche: it's true. I see it over and over again. I'm seeing it right now with a 2nd cousin.

Some things I hear from him over and over again in not only emails but personal visits:

"I'm 110% certain Joseph Smith was a fraud." (In plain English: "Even though I'm an engineer and have never had the slightest interest in church history until recently (or in any history, for that matter), and even though I have never even read one book since leaving college 20 years ago, and indeed I don't read any books now either, my info comes RFM, Ex-Mormon Reddit, and at best Grant Palmer — despite all of this I am still eminently qualified to evaluate church history and Joseph Smith and what this evaluation has taught me is that he was a psychopath and fraud. Plain and simple."

"I really admire you, knowing the history of the church as you do . . . I really admire that, knowing all the crap Joseph Smith did, you can still believe." (In plain English: "Nobody who really knows the real history of the church could still possibly believe it.")

"I think that Oliver Cowdery and Sidney Rigdon wrote the Book Of Mormon." (In plain English: "I've never really had any interest in the Book Of Mormon. Truth be told, I read it when I was a missionary, and a little bit when I was in a stake presidency. But it has never really spoken to me in any deep way — nor have any of the scriptures supposedly produced by Joseph Smith.")

In regards to this last bit, that Sidney and Oliver "wrote the Book Of Mormon," I will reply to him:

"If someone is going to say the Book Of Mormon is a fraud, then they'd better come up with a better theory to account for its existence than that Sidney and Oliver wrote it. I feel the same about this issue as Elder Holland, who said in conference: 'If Joseph Smith did not produce the Book Of Mormon as he said he did, then I would crawl on my hands and knees, over mountains and across deserts, to find the man who did.'" 

And he will just shrug. I was once sitting with him (he is a distant cousin) at a family gathering. I had my triple combination handy, and I started to read from Chapt 1 of the Book Of Moses. I noticed his eyes glazed over and he kind of threw his head back, and so I stopped. I said to him: "I don't know how you can think Joseph Smith made those words up. Chapter 1 of the Book Of Moses is incredible. There's nothing like it, not even in the Bible. And that's just one chapter out of all the scripture Joseph Smith produced."

But none of this matters to him in the least. I think part of it is, although he is educated, he is handicapped by his narrow specialization.

So then why, if he is "110% certain Joseph Smith was a fraud," does he burn up hours every day on the internet looking for new dirt on him? (His most recent find was some bit showing parallels between the BOM and "A View Of the Hebrews".) It is my opinion he does this because he has a sneaking suspicion he is wrong and he is unconsciously seeking to assuage his doubts.

But still, I have to admit I don't know. His new wife (he left his first wife) is worried. She says, "He spends hours every night on the internet on the ex-Mormon sites." (She's Mormon but has never been active.)

Edited June 9, 2016 by bdouglas

[Gray]

36 minutes ago, bdouglas said:

"If someone is going to say the Book Of Mormon is a fraud, then they'd better come up with a better theory to account for its existence than that Sidney and Oliver wrote it. I feel the same about this issue as Elder Holland, who said in conference: 'If Joseph Smith did not produce the Book Of Mormon as he said he did, then I would crawl on my hands and knees, over mountains and across deserts, to find the man who did.'" 

And he will just shrug. I was once sitting with him (he is a distant cousin) at a family gathering. I had my triple combination handy, and I started to read from Chapt 1 of the Book Of Moses. I noticed his eyes glazed over and he kind of threw his head back, and so I stopped. I said to him: "I don't know how you can think Joseph Smith made those words up. Chapter 1 of the Book Of Moses is incredible. There's nothing like it, not even in the Bible. And that's just one chapter out of all the scripture Joseph Smith produced."

But none of this matters to him in the least. I think part of it is, although he is educated, he is handicapped by his narrow specialization.

So then why, if he is "110% certain Joseph Smith was a fraud," does he burn up hours every day on the internet looking for new dirt on him? (His most recent find was some bit showing parallels between the BOM and "A View Of the Hebrews".) It is my opinion he does this because he has a sneaking suspicion he is wrong and he is unconsciously seeking to assuage his doubts.

But still, I have to admit I don't know. His new wife (he left his first wife) is worried. She says, "He spends hours every night on the internet on the ex-Mormon sites." (She's Mormon but has never been active.)

It's a bit like the argument from personal incredulity. All you're really saying is how you personally have reacted to something. You may be impressed by the BOA and wonder how any earthly hand could have composed it (even though the claimed authors are just as human as Joseph Smith). Someone else can read the same thing and walk away unimpressed. How we react to literature is quite subjective. That doesn't work well in formulating an argument for the "truthfulness" of something. 

I find it's best to avoid the temptation that people who disagree with you secretly think you may be right. I see it all the time from both believers and unbelievers. The unbelievers think the believers (especially church leaders) secretly feel deep down that it's not true. The believers think the unbelievers secretly know it's true and are trying to justify "sin". That kind of projection might satisfy the ego, but it doesn't advance the dialog at all. 

Edited June 9, 2016 by Gray

[bdouglas]

13 minutes ago, Gray said:

It's a bit like the argument from personal incredulity. All you're really saying is how you personally have reacted to something. You may be impressed by the BOA and wonder how any earthly hand could have composed it. Someone else can read the same thing and walk away unimpressed. How we react to literature is quite subjective. That doesn't work well in formulating an argument for the "truthfulness" of something. 

I find it's best to avoid the temptation that people who disagree with you secretly think you may be right. I see it all the time from both believers and unbelievers. The unbelievers think the believers (especially church leaders) secretly feel deep down that it's not true. The believers think the unbelievers secretly know it's true and are trying to justify "sin". That kind of projection might satisfy the ego, but it doesn't advance the dialog at all. 

Recently some guy who used to work for church PR left the church and said in a Facebook post, "I'm one hundred percent sure the church is a fraud." (Not a verbatim quote.) I found this interesting, in the same I do my cousin's "I'm 110% certain Joseph Smith was psychopath and a fraud."

Do I know for a certain fact the BOM is true? No, I don't. I read it, and apart from the spiritual confirmation I receive, I am convinced no man made this book up. I am a writer. I write for TV and film. I make up stories for a living. I know what the marks of fiction are. And I'm pretty good at what I do. But if I were to attempt to write even one page of a BOM, or a Book Of Moses, or the smallest and least significant of the revelations in the D & C, I would fail spectacularly.

But still, I would never be caught dead saying, "I am 110%, or 100%, certain the founding narrative of the church is true." I just don't know. I'd stake my life on it's being true, that Joseph Smith was telling the truth, but still I don't know. Even after his vision on the road to Damascus Paul said, "We see through a glass darkly."

[Gray]

1 minute ago, bdouglas said:

Recently some guy who used to work for church PR left the church and said in a Facebook post, "I'm one hundred percent sure the church is a fraud." (Not a verbatim quote.) I found this interesting, in the same I do my cousin's "I'm 110% certain Joseph Smith was psychopath and a fraud."

I find the way they've formulated that position to be rather naive.

1 minute ago, bdouglas said:

Do I know for a certain fact the BOM is true? No, I don't. I read it, and apart from the spiritual confirmation I receive, I am convinced no man made this book up.

 

That is much more mature than "110% certaintly", IMO

1 minute ago, bdouglas said:

I am a writer. I write for TV and film. I make up stories for a living. I know what the marks of fiction are. And I'm pretty good at what I do. But if I were to attempt to write even one page of a BOM, or a Book Of Moses, or the smallest and least significant of the revelations in the D & C, I would fail spectacularly.

Right, but if I were to attempt to compose something comparable to Beethoven's work, I would fail just as spectacularly. Most of us are not creative geniuses. 

1 minute ago, bdouglas said:

But still, I would never be caught dead saying, "I am 110%, or 100%, certain the founding narrative of the church is true." I just don't know. I'd stake my life on it's being true, that Joseph Smith was telling the truth, but still I don't know. Even after his vision on the road to Damascus Paul said, "We see through a glass darkly."

A wise approach!

[bdouglas]

For one thing, there are (if I'm not mistaken) 600 verses in the BOM that refer to geography and setting. How would someone who is inventing a story, writing fiction . . . how would someone incorporate into this story a setting, and include 600 references to this setting, a setting that is entirely made up, and have these 600 references be entirely consistent from beginning to end?

When I was in college I wrote a novel (it is the only novel I have ever written, after it I focused on what I was really good it, film and television), and for a college student, it was a damn good novel. Part of writing this novel was the question of setting. I had to place it somewhere. I tried to make something up, but I really couldn't do it. So in the end I used a setting I was familiar with and changed the names of places.

Edited June 9, 2016 by bdouglas

[bdouglas]

This is why, when some who really hasn't read the Book Of Mormon and not only read it but really read it, says to me, "The Book Of Mormon is fiction. Oliver Cowdery and Sidney Rigdon wrote it. Or Joseph Smith wrote it after reading A View Of the Hebrews." This is why I just roll my eyes, and either say out loud, or to myself, "You don't know what you're talking about."

Edited June 9, 2016 by bdouglas

[Gray]

2 minutes ago, bdouglas said:

For one thing, there are (if I'm not mistaken) 600 verses in the BOM that refer to geography and setting. How would someone who is inventing a story, writing fiction . . . how would someone incorporate into this story a setting, and include 600 references to this setting, a setting that is entirely made up, and have these 600 references be entirely consistent from beginning to end?

When I was in college I wrote a novel (it is the only novel I have ever written, after it I focused on what I was really good it, film and television), and for a college student, it was a damn good novel. Part of writing this novel was the question of setting. I had to place it somewhere. I tried to make something up, but I really couldn't do it. So in the end I used a setting I was familiar with and changed the names of places.

There are some inconsistencies here and there, but overall the complexity is impressive. The prose is sometimes jumbled and awkward, though. 

How do we know what level of complexity corresponds with divinity? If we can find a more complex book, is it more divine? Are the simpler and shorter books of scripture like Amos less inspired? 

[bdouglas]

As I said before, I would not say I absolutely know the Book Of Mormon is what Joseph Smith said it was. But if you say it is not, if you are going to dismiss it, then be prepared to offer a plausible theory for its existence.

Do any such theories exist? If they do, I don't know about them. Some say "automatic writing" and point to books like the "Urantia Book" or "A Course In Miracles". But these books are nothing like the Book Of Mormon, not even remotely close in complexity and richness. Rather they are tiresome tomes filled with a lot of pop psychology.

Edited June 9, 2016 by bdouglas

[bdouglas]

11 minutes ago, Gray said:

How do we know what level of complexity corresponds with divinity? If we can find a more complex book, is it more divine? Are the simpler and shorter books of scripture like Amos less inspired? 

I would say the BOM is comparable to the Bible in complexity and richness . . . as are the revelations in the D & C and P of GP.

P.S. - A subject for a future post I would like to make is the "voice" in the revelations in the D & C. Who does this "voice" belong to? It isn't Joseph Smith. It doesn't sound like Joseph Smith. Read sec. 1, for example. Whose voice is that? Is it the voice of God? How hard would it be for someone, Joseph Smith or anyone else, to fake such a voice?

[MiserereNobis]

14 minutes ago, bdouglas said:

For one thing, there are (if I'm not mistaken) 600 verses in the BOM that refer to geography and setting. How would someone who is inventing a story, writing fiction . . . how would someone incorporate into this story a setting, and include 600 references to this setting, a setting that is entirely made up, and have these 600 references be entirely consistent from beginning to end?

When I was in college I wrote a novel (it is the only novel I have ever written, after it I focused on what I was really good it, film and television), and for a college student, it was a damn good novel. Part of writing this novel was the question of setting. I had to place it somewhere. I tried to make something up, but I really couldn't do it. So in the end I used a setting I was familiar with and changed the names of places.

 

Have you ever read Tolkien?  Not only did he make up a consistent geography and setting, he also made up history, mythology, lore, and multiple languages.  And he did it across multiple books...

(and he was also a very dedicated Catholic!)

[JLHPROF]

10 minutes ago, Gray said:

There are some inconsistencies here and there, but overall the complexity is impressive. The prose is sometimes jumbled and awkward, though. 

Showing that it was not written by one man.
And the idea that it was written by Joseph and Oliver (and sometimes they throw Sidney in too) still doesn't hold much water.

The fact is, the Book of Mormon is too complex and too consistent to be a product of 1830 New York.
Add to that the near perfect integration with later revelation and ordinances (despite what those who misapply trinitarianism to it would say) is nothing short of astounding.

There is simply no way that a farm boy helped only by a school teacher or preacher could have put together the Book of Mormon, let alone expanded it effectively into a complex religion with rites, ordinances, hierarchies and still kept it consistent.
The consistency within the complexity is one of the things I love best about Mormonism.

[bdouglas]

7 minutes ago, MiserereNobis said:

 

Have you ever read Tolkien?  Not only did he make up a consistent geography and setting, he also made up history, mythology, lore, and multiple languages.  And he did it across multiple books...

(and he was also a very dedicated Catholic!)

Yes, I have read Tolkien . . . when I was in high school. Like every other kid in my group, I was very enthusiastic about Tolkien. But it has been so long since I read LOTR that I cannot comment on setting/geography. Maybe there are others who can.

Edited June 9, 2016 by bdouglas

[The Nehor]

4 minutes ago, MiserereNobis said:

 

Have you ever read Tolkien?  Not only did he make up a consistent geography and setting, he also made up history, mythology, lore, and multiple languages.  And he did it across multiple books...

(and he was also a very dedicated Catholic!)

Tolkien is the modern myth-maker and was utterly dedicated to his setting. He was a stickler for consistency.

Sadly, errors and contradictions still slipped in.

[bdouglas]

15 minutes ago, MiserereNobis said:

 

Have you ever read Tolkien?  Not only did he make up a consistent geography and setting, he also made up history, mythology, lore, and multiple languages.  And he did it across multiple books...

(and he was also a very dedicated Catholic!)

I do know, however (having recently read a bio of C. S. Lewis), that Tolkien spent a good part of his adult life laboring over LOTR. He was also highly educated (he was in fact an Oxford don). The geography of LOTR, Middle Earth, is also central to his story. BOM geography, when it is mentioned at all, is in passing. It is incidental — a huge feat for someone who is making it all up.

And who made the BOM up? Joseph Smith? Is that a reasonable theory? Sidney Rigdon? Oliver C.? Again, are these reasonable theories? If Sidney or Oliver wrote the BOM, what else did they write? Like Elder Holland (who has a Ph.D from Yale in American Literature), I would crawl on my hands and knees, over mountains and across deserts, to find what else these geniuses Sidney Rigdon and Oliver C. wrote.

Edited June 9, 2016 by bdouglas

[Gray]

12 minutes ago, JLHPROF said:

Showing that it was not written by one man.
And the idea that it was written by Joseph and Oliver (and sometimes they throw Sidney in too) still doesn't hold much water.

The fact is, the Book of Mormon is too complex and too consistent to be a product of 1830 New York.
Add to that the near perfect integration with later revelation and ordinances (despite what those who misapply trinitarianism to it would say) is nothing short of astounding.

There is simply no way that a farm boy helped only by a school teacher or preacher could have put together the Book of Mormon, let alone expanded it effectively into a complex religion with rites, ordinances, hierarchies and still kept it consistent.
The consistency within the complexity is one of the things I love best about Mormonism.

I believe Joseph Smith is the author, in the same way that whoever composed the exodus story (not Moses) was also a human author. I find it plausible that Joseph composed the Book of Mormon, as a prophetic work. My opinion isn't that meaningful to anyone other than me. That's just the way I personally react to the text. I believe Joseph Smith was a (admittedly unpolished) genius. 

[jkwilliams]

11 minutes ago, bdouglas said:

I do know, however (having recently read a bio of C. S. Lewis), that Tolkien spent a good part of his adult life laboring over LOTR. He was also highly educated (he was in fact an Oxford don). The geography of LOTR, Middle Earth, is also central to his story. BOM geography, when it is mentioned at all, is in passing. It is incidental — a huge feat for someone who is making it all up.

And who made the BOM up? Joseph Smith? Is that a reasonable theory? Sidney Rigdon? Oliver C.? Again, are these reasonable theories? If Sidney or Oliver wrote the BOM, what else did they write? Like Elder Holland (who has a Ph.D from Yale in American Literature), I would crawl on my hands and knees, over mountains and across deserts, to find what else these geniuses Sidney Rigdon and Oliver C. wrote.

I appreciate that the Book of Mormon is more complex than some of its detractors admit, but I don't think it's as complex as some people seem to believe. Its value is in its impact on the spiritual and moral lives of believers, not in its literary qualities. If it weren't for its spiritual importance, it would not be counted among the great works of 19th-century literature.

Edited June 9, 2016 by jkwilliams

[Gray]

29 minutes ago, bdouglas said:

As I said before, I would not say I absolutely know the Book Of Mormon is what Joseph Smith said it was. But if you say it is not, if you are going to dismiss it, then be prepared to offer a plausible theory for its existence.

Do any such theories exist? If they do, I don't know about them. Some say "automatic writing" and point to books like the "Urantia Book" or "A Course In Miracles". But these books are nothing like the Book Of Mormon, not even remotely close in complexity and richness. Rather they are tiresome tomes filled with a lot of pop psychology.

I don't personally feel that a complex theory is needed. Joseph as rough religious genius (aka prophet) is a sufficient explanation for me. Although I have to say that although there is richness in the BOM, it waxes and wanes. 

[bdouglas]

A challenge to the most educated, smartest ex-Mormon or NeverMo on this site . . . .

You have, not 90 days, but a whole year. Write something comparable, not to entire BOM, but to just one chapter,  1 Nephi 1. Or even the first four verses of the first chapter of 1 Nephi. Or take the smallest least significant of any of the revelations in the D & C, and write one like it. You must not only get the language right but you have to get the "voice" right. (That voice! Who is it? Read what Bushman says about this voice is RSR.) Or write me a B of A, or even a few verses of the B of A.

Ok, you say you can't do it. You are not smart enough. Is there anyone alive today who is smart enough? Or is there anyone in the past, at the time of JS, who was not only smart enough, he would also have had to be the greatest literary genius of all time.

P.S. - It is probably evident to anybody reading my posts that I am at loose ends for a few days with not much to do. Sorry.

Edited June 9, 2016 by bdouglas