Blogger on "The Alarming Truth Behind Anti-Mormonism"

[cacheman]

1 minute ago, tietjens said:

Well I don't know, but I'm not sure the "vastly different population sizes" is the answer either. There are 15 million LDS, but only 5 million who are churchgoing, and of that 5 million, how many have temple recommends? My point is, you have a potential population of at least 10 million lapsed or unbelieving LDS from which to draw "experts", but the best the ex-Mormons and anti-Mormons can come up with are Dan Vogel, Grant Palmer, Jeremy Runnels, and others like them, and the assorted guiding lights on Mormon Discussions, ex-Mormon reddit, and other such sites.

But there may be people i.e. experts (practicing historians, geneticists, linguists, archaeologists, etc.) who are writing and I just don't know about them.

 

Are you really throwing all of the inactive LDS and unbelieving LDS  into the pool from which to draw critical 'experts'? lol..  I guess I don't really understand the overall point you're trying to make.  Do you want more critical experts? I have some friends that are exmormon academics.  They don't actively pursue scholarship specifically critical to mormonism..... do you believe that demonstrates a weakness in their positions?  I also know mormon academics that don't pursue LDS focused scholarship.  What does that mean? I'm still trying to figure out why I should be troubled....if I'm honest.

cacheman

 

[tietjens]

10 minutes ago, cacheman said:

Are you really throwing all of the inactive LDS and unbelieving LDS  into the pool from which to draw critical 'experts'? lol..  I guess I don't really understand the overall point you're trying to make.  Do you want more critical experts? I have some friends that are exmormon academics.  They don't actively pursue scholarship specifically critical to mormonism..... do you believe that demonstrates a weakness in their positions?  I also know mormon academics that don't pursue LDS focused scholarship.  What does that mean? I'm still trying to figure out why I should be troubled....if I'm honest.

cacheman

 

It's just an observation. Take it for what's it worth.

[Robert F. Smith]

2 hours ago, Tacenda said:

Oh, you did not just ask me this Robert.

 https://si.lds.org/bc/seminary/content/library/talks/ces-symposium-addresses/the-mantle-is-far-far-greater-than-the-intellect_eng.pdf  Quote: "Second Caution There is a temptation for the writer or the teacher of Church history to want to tell everything, whether it is worthy or faith promoting or not. Some things that are true are not very useful." 

Me: I gave the link to make sure his statement is quoted in context. I quoted this in fun, hope you understand that.

Yes, and milk before meat.  However, you still haven't given me any concrete examples of what any of that means in practice.  You have suggested that the Gospel Topics Essays are too truthful.  Is that right?  Well, then, what does that mean in practice.  Which Essay tells too much truth?  Do you really want to live in a society in which a failing grade cannot be given to a student because it will make them feel bad?  Are you saying that Methodists and Mormons should not be told the truth about the history of their respective religions because it might be too hard to take?  Or are you just having fun?  

[rockpond]

8 hours ago, Jeanne said:

Thanks so much for this.  I should think before I speak..I just feel like people are slamming me and good people without understanding.

My apologies to Robert Smith.

I don't think you need to apologize.  While I was trying to explain where I think Robert is coming from I don't think that makes his condescending attitude any less offensive nor any less wrong.  

[rockpond]

4 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

What seems so odd here is that, not only did I not ever say these things, but that I have frequently argued that quoting people is the most honest and responsible way to evaluate them.  Yet you reject that approach out of hand.  It is so much easier to attribute a straw-man position to someone and then beat it down.  Which is a successful approach if your objective is simply winning instead of understanding.

Neither I nor Mike Ash used the absolute terms you falsely attribute to me.  I did not say that "no fact" could "ever" be damaging to a testimony (any religious testimony of any faith) as long as those facts are properly understood.  Indeed, I said the exact opposite several times.  I never said or suggested that "anyone" who leaves the faith (regardless of which faith) for intellectual reasons must be wrong or failed to understand it properly.

No it doesn't, because it is a false and illogical statement from the outset.

It is so easy to arrogantly dismiss someone's statements as long as those statements have been effectively falsified and misstated.  At age 75, I suppose that I should accept such misstatements with some equanimity because they are so typical of the dishonest anti-Mormon approach to any discussion.  A thief will typically yell "thief" at someone else in order to take the attention off of him while he makes his getaway.  Is that what you are doing here, rockpond?

However, such misstatements are a good indicator of why it is so important for anyone who wants to make an intellectual evaluation of some POV to at least make the necessary preparation and get the appropriate training.  Here we have a prime example of what happens when someone neglects such serious and honest preparation.  An honest scholar always states the position of his opponent accurately.

I don't believe that I have misrepresented your position.  But you are welcome to answer some of the questions I've repeatedly asked you if you really cared to  correct what you claim is my misunderstanding. 

Also, your quotes are here for all to read.  I don't think it is worth my time to copy/paste them.  It's too tiresome trying to dialogue with you when you keep dodging questions. 

Edited January 9, 2017 by rockpond

[Tacenda]

24 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Yes, and milk before meat.  However, you still haven't given me any concrete examples of what any of that means in practice.  You have suggested that the Gospel Topics Essays are too truthful.  Is that right?  Well, then, what does that mean in practice.  Which Essay tells too much truth?  Do you really want to live in a society in which a failing grade cannot be given to a student because it will make them feel bad?  Are you saying that Methodists and Mormons should not be told the truth about the history of their respective religions because it might be too hard to take?  Or are you just having fun?  

I don't think there is space or time enough to show you how many members (or their full stories) have lost their testimonies after reading the Gospel Essays. 

[Robert F. Smith]

1 hour ago, california boy said:

I have remembered this talk by Elder Holland way back in 1994.  It has stuck with me for all of these years.  I was teaching seminary at the time and while I was not able to attend the CES symposium at BYU, I did get a tape of the talks from that symposium.  I still remember driving in my car, shoving this tape into my cassette player and listening to it.  While there were other talks from this symposium, this is the one that I never forgot.  Here is an excerpt of that talk

....................................  

Why do people stay in the church?  Because they believe that what the prophet Joseph Smith claimed and taught came from God himself.  Every word in the Book of Mormon is true, translated by the power of God Himself.  

Why do people leave the church? Because they no longer believe the Book of Mormon narrative to be credible for them.  They have found the story of Joseph Smith and what he taught to no longer be credible.  

Most Mormons who leave the LDS faith do so based on their social comfort level, and any judgment made about the BofM is merely ancillary to that social feeling.  On very rare occasions, someone will actually read several books and articles on the Book of Mormon and use some of that as a basis for staying or leaving -- usually depending on the bias of the materials read, be they propaganda or good scholarship.  Your reason for leaving, for example, was a straightforward desire to be free from any religious restrictions on your active homosexual lifestyle.  Your other comments are merely an attempt to justify that initial decision.

1 hour ago, california boy said:

In the end, it all comes down to this.  Are you devoting your life to a prophet of God and what he taught   Or are you devoting your life to a fraud and one of the greatest deceptions ever put upon mankind.  According to Elder Holland, it is that simple.  I frankly agree with him.  All  this talk about postmodernism, intellectual understanding and historics etc is completely irrelevant to the fundamental statement that Elder Holland asserts.

You claim that Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon is "a fraud and one of the greatest deceptions ever put upon mankind"?   And using Jeff Holland as cover.  Seems a bit extreme to me. That together with your utter rejection of real scholarship in evaluating Mormon history, etc., tells us what you really stand for.

[Robert F. Smith]

15 minutes ago, rockpond said:

I don't believe that I have misrepresented your position.  But you are welcome to answer some of the questions I've repeatedly asked you if you really cared to  correct what you claim is my misunderstanding. 

Also, your quotes are here for all to read.  I don't think it is worth my time to copy/paste them.  It's too tiresome trying to dialogue with you when you keep dodging questions. 

I have dodged no questions.  That is merely another dishonest attempt at distraction.  Moreover, you merely say that to accompany your continued misstatements of what I have in fact said, something a scholar simply does not do.  Of course it is tiresome to do real scholarship, which is why lazy people don't do it.  So much easier just to make it up as you go along.  How convenient to invent your opponent's claims, because a straw man is so much easier to knock down.  You could instead have taken the high road, and have dealt with the substantive issues.  But that would have required coming to grips with reality and scholarship -- which is too much of a bother for a good anti-Mormon.

[Robert F. Smith]

15 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

I don't think there is space or time enough to show you how many members (or their full stories) have lost their testimonies after reading the Gospel Essays. 

As I have already said, yes, there are Mormons and evangelicals and others raised in rigid, narrow families in which a false Gospel was taught.  Those people cannot abide an open society, in which free will and choice are granted.  And they are the most likely to apostatize from their home religion for the flimsiest of reasons. Of course, I understand that, but that has always been true, and it will be true in the future.  Does that mean that we should not have the Gospel Topics Essays?  That's like shooting the messenger just because you don't like the message.

Like a rigid reed which breaks instead of bending with the wind, so a rigid and narrow version of Christianity carries with it the seeds of its own destruction.  No surprise there.

[rockpond]

2 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

As I have already said, yes, there are Mormons and evangelicals and others raised in rigid, narrow families in which a false Gospel was taught.  Those people cannot abide an open society, in which free will and choice are granted.  And they are the most likely to apostatize from their home religion for the flimsiest of reasons. Of course, I understand that, but that has always been true, and it will be true in the future.  Does that mean that we should not have the Gospel Topics Essays?  That's like shooting the messenger just because you don't like the message.

Like a rigid reed which breaks instead of bending with the wind, so a rigid and narrow version of Christianity carries with it the seeds of its own destruction.  No surprise there.

Textbook confirmation bias. 

[rockpond]

11 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

I have dodged no questions.  That is merely another dishonest attempt at distraction.  Moreover, you merely say that to accompany your continued misstatements of what I have in fact said, something a scholar simply does not do.  Of course it is tiresome to do real scholarship, which is why lazy people don't do it.  So much easier just to make it up as you go along.  How convenient to invent your opponent's claims, because a straw man is so much easier to knock down.  You could instead have taken the high road, and have dealt with the substantive issues.  But that would have required coming to grips with reality and scholarship -- which is too much of a bother for a good anti-Mormon.

It's neither dishonest nor a distraction. 

I tried dealing with substantive issues but you wouldn't.  Instead you still insist on making biased generalizations about church members.  I won't continue to provide a platform for your offensive and incorrect comments  

The other readers here are free to review and judge. 

[cdowis]

On 1/6/2017 at 6:28 PM, rockpond said:

 Suppose a church member who was active and faithful for decades learns that prophets had denied saving ordinance to generations of church members solely on their race/skin color.  They realize that the policy was a matter of racism and not revelation.  They decide that they cannot be involved in a church led by prophets that went that far astray.  What context have they failed to understand?

Let us suppose that we have a God that knows all thing, that is perfection in justice AND mercy, and holds us accountable for OUR OWN sins and not the mistakes and sins of others.  Let us assume that He would furnished these wronged individuals a means eventually receive these ordinances and knowledge an be judged based on how they lived the Gospel based on the knowledge they possessed.

That the organization they are leaving is the ONLY hope these poor individuals have of eventually receiving these ordinances.  No one else can do that for them.  Instead of leaving the church, they should devote their lives in doing that ordinance work in the temple in their behalf.

Perhaps that is the context they are missing.  That these poor individuals have lost NOTHING in their salvation and exaltation based on those mistakes.

 

Edited January 9, 2017 by cdowis

[Kulamash]

I agree with many of the points the author makes in this article, however I disagree with the conclusions. Atheism is not the only alternative to being a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. The LDS church is a religious organization, but it does not own Mormonism. You can still live the Restored Gospel, Hearken to the teachings of Joseph Smith, have a testimony of the Book of Mormon, and abide in Jesus Christ, and not be part of the LDS church. We shouldn’t clump everyone who has the left the church as “Anti-Mormon”. There are many devoted followers of Jesus Christ and Mormonism who are leaving the church in droves in order to keep the commandments of God.

The real reason most people who leave the LDS church and become atheists is because they have been trained to believe that the false traditions and true doctrine are inseparable. When they discover the false traditions, they conclude the true doctrine must also be false without having experimented with it independently. The reason why so many former members become Atheist is because the LDS Chruch is one of the only churches to proclaim that they are the ONLY true church and that their leaders and God are inseparable. When members realize that the brethren are in fact fallible, that they are just men who can indeed lead you astray, these unfortunate souls reject the church outright, and in the process, throw-out the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith, the Restoration, and Jesus Christ. They take the bitterness and anger they have for the church and direct it towards God, thus becoming Athiest. It is the biggest tragedy in the world. This is poison the “precepts of men” has had on religion.

Here is more “truthful” explanation behind Post-LDS Atheism:

Post-LDS Atheism: A Truthful Explanation
 

[rockpond]

41 minutes ago, cdowis said:

Let us suppose that we have a God that knows all thing, that is perfection in justice AND mercy, and holds us accountable for OUR OWN sins and not the mistakes and sins of others.  Let us assume that He would furnished these wronged individuals a means eventually receive these ordinances and knowledge an be judged based on how they lived the Gospel based on the knowledge they possessed.

That the organization they are leaving is the ONLY hope these poor individuals have of eventually receiving these ordinances.  No one else can do that for them.  Instead of leaving the church, they should devote their lives in doing that ordinance work in the temple in their behalf.

Perhaps that is the context they are missing.  That these poor individuals have lost NOTHING in their salvation and exaltation based on those mistakes.

 

Understanding that context doesn't change the reason the person left (in the hypothetical example I posed).  They left because they felt the prophets had given me too far astray, not because they were worried that God couldn't compensate. 

[Thinking]

1 hour ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Most Mormons who leave the LDS faith do so based on their social comfort level, and any judgment made about the BofM is merely ancillary to that social feeling.

Do you have some research to back up your claim, or just some anecdotal evidence from your personal interactions?

[california boy]

1 hour ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Most Mormons who leave the LDS faith do so based on their social comfort level, and any judgment made about the BofM is merely ancillary to that social feeling.  On very rare occasions, someone will actually read several books and articles on the Book of Mormon and use some of that as a basis for staying or leaving -- usually depending on the bias of the materials read, be they propaganda or good scholarship.  Your reason for leaving, for example, was a straightforward desire to be free from any religious restrictions on your active homosexual lifestyle.  Your other comments are merely an attempt to justify that initial decision.

You claim that Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon is "a fraud and one of the greatest deceptions ever put upon mankind"?   And using Jeff Holland as cover.  Seems a bit extreme to me. That together with your utter rejection of real scholarship in evaluating Mormon history, etc., tells us what you really stand for.

Robert, you have offered absolutely NO proof that most Mormons leave the LDS faith due to based on the social comfort level and any judgement made about the BofM is merely ancillary to that social feeling.  So it is an empty statement.  Simply your opinion not based on anything.  Something I doubt you would let anyone else get away with.  

I NEVER claimed that Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon is a fraud.  CFR that I SAID THAT!!!!

I only quoted Elder Holland.  Now if you have issues with what HE said, take it up with him.  

It seems extremely odd that you would get on my case for agreeing with what an apostle of the Lord has said.  I really don't get your relentless attack against me.  Even when I agree with church leaders you attack me.  Unbelievable.

[mfbukowski]

11 hours ago, pogi said:

One last final thought.

I love the idea of truth as being relative because it suggests a familial type of communion and relationship with truth and God, and a relative relationship between one piece of truth and another piece of truth.  Our truth is relative to the limited pieces of truth we have (limited perspective).  The more pieces we receive the more our relationship with each piece of truth is clarified and revealed and the closer we get to absolute correspondence with God.  

Here is my idea that I will posit for thought: God’s truth is absolute not because it is not relative, and not because it is relative to nothing, but because it is relative to everything via the atonement which is really the at-one-ment of all truth.  

When thought of in this light, I can agree that all truth is relative, even God’s.  God’s truth just happens to be absolutely relative to all things via the atonement and light of Christ.  It is the perfect marriage between the concepts of absolute truth and relative truth. 

Lost a post Augh

Think about this- God’s intelligence goes out through the universe and organizes it in a similar way to the way we organize our own little worlds

This is something I wrote for Interpreter

http://www.mormoninterpreter.com/untangling-scripture-from-the-philosophies-of-men/

 

Quote

 

One of Kant’s central insights involves a faculty of the mind he called the synthetic a priori. Before Kant, virtually all philosophers saw truths like those of mathematics as logically necessary eternal truths that could not possibly be dependent on humans for their structure. Kant revolutionized that idea by essentially holding that such truths, instead of existing independently of the human mind, were actually in a sense “created” by the human mind and were the rules by which humans perceive the world. The world as we know it is essentially “organized” by the human mind. Perception does not “correspond” to the world outside but is framed completely by rules beyond which humans cannot know anything. Everything we know is essentially ordered and organized, that is, “synthesized” by human consciousness.

Robert Solomon, a noted Kant scholar, puts it this way:

To use one of Kant’s examples, my perception of a house from various perspectives could not be considered a perception of a house (or of any object) if the several experiences constituting this perception were not unified or synthesized as various experiences … (of the house), but my synthesizing these experiences as experiences of a house. Because experiences alone can never give us objects, there can be no perception of objects unless there is a synthesis of the manifold of experience. Moreover, because we never perceive simply, or experience simply, but always perceive or experience something and because perceiving or experiencing something depends on synthesis, there can be no unsynthesized experiences. (We shall see this same major thesis become the central principle of Edmond Husserl’s Phenomenology, the philosophy which will give a major impetus to the methodological innovations of the twentieth century existentialists.)3

To me, this principle is the essence of the Mormon view that God does not “create” matter ex nihilo but indeed “organizes” from matter unorganized. Essentially the Mormon exalted human God is doing [Page 75]what each human him or herself does through human perception — organizing the chaos of streaming photons and vibrations in the air into a gloriously harmonious experience of a symphony orchestra.

Kant’s central idea that logical form can exist only within rational human activity influenced all the German philosophers who came after him, Phenomenology and Existentialism from Hegel to philosophers of language, and even Frege, Wittgenstein, William James, Kuhn, and much of Twentieth Century philosophy on both sides of the Atlantic — including Pragmatism. All these take as their central thesis the view, in one form or another, that reality as we know and speak about it is a product of the organizing abilities of the human mind, and there is nothing we can speak about or know outside what we are capable of organizing as humans. So it can be said that much of contemporary philosophy provides a background support for the notion that a human God, if such an entity could exist (and of course we know He does), would organize reality through the powers of his consciousness much as humans do every day of their lives.

I am further convinced that God allowed these philosophies to emerge at this time and place to provide fertile intellectual soil to allow thinking Mormons to see the Restoration in this light.

 

 

Edited January 9, 2017 by mfbukowski

[Hamba Tuhan]

12 hours ago, Teancum said:

You as a historian and believing Latter Day Saint don't find the LDS history and what it claims compelling?  Amazing!  

No, I don't. Nothing in LDS history compels a person to accept it or believe it. It is, in fact, quite easy to overlook or dismiss. In this it resembles the Saviour Himself:

Quote

Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed?

For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.

He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Thousands of people witnessed the Saviour's ministry and preaching firsthand, and yet nothing He did compelled them to accept Him. Most people simply overlooked Him or looked the other way. Most of those who got caught up in the early enthusiasm of having found a messiah turned their backs on Him. In the end, no amount of evidence is sufficiently compelling.

Even the Prophet Joseph admitted that his own history wasn't compelling: 'I don’t blame any one for not believing my history. If I had not experienced what I have, I would not have believed it myself'. I feel the exact same way. And even then, as both scripture and some of my acquaintances have demonstrated, even personal experience doesn't compel acceptance. It certainly makes acceptance a real possibility and invites belief, but always such things remain choices.

Quote

can you as a professional historian tell me why they are neither qualifying or disqualifying? 

I wrote that LDS history is neither compelling nor disqualifying. On the first point, see above. On the second point, I will simply reiterate that, from my trained perspective, anyone who claims that the details of Church history somehow 'prove' conclusively that the Church is not what it claims to be is either historiographically naive or engaged in some serious wishful thinking.

Quote

As for your colleagues I how would I have known most religiously agnostic, atheists or not from a Christian background.  Is this the typical demographic of professional historians?

I have no way to assess that, but I would think that you shouldn't be surprised to learn that most university academics -- and maybe most especially those in disciplines in the 'humanities' -- tend not to be religious people.

Edited January 9, 2017 by Hamba Tuhan

[LittleNipper]

11 hours ago, Vance said:

The Bible also says that man was created in the image of God.  So, if one is created in the image of God, how can he later be "conformed" to the image of God?

Of course not.  That is because you believe in the false dichotomy of Creator vs creature.  Those of us who reject that false notion have no problem with believing the scriptures that clearly indicate that it is possible.

God is (among other things) omniscient. That means He knows all things. He knows who will come to Him, and all about them. Those who do not come to Him He claims not to know (cast him out into utter darkness I never knew him). There being an intimacy between God and the believer which doesn't exist between God and the unbeliever.

God was speaking of Adam who was created in the image of God, and like Jesus had a body. The Father and Spirit  are the invisible God. Whereas the Messiah/Christ could assume a form and walk with Adam in the Garden, visit and name Abraham, wrestle with Jacob, and speak to Moses, and be born all man and yet very God. Christ is the visible of the invisible. They are GOD. This is what the Trinity reveals and what Mormons and Jehovah Witnesses reject ---- and why they accept false notions with regards to GOD.

Adam fell and man is now sinful. Christ assumes the payment for those who accept Him as their Savior and then the believer is made whole and conformed to sinlessness upon death of this mortality.

Edited January 9, 2017 by LittleNipper

[LittleNipper]

10 hours ago, california boy said:

I have remembered this talk by Elder Holland way back in 1994.  It has stuck with me for all of these years.  I was teaching seminary at the time and while I was not able to attend the CES symposium at BYU, I did get a tape of the talks from that symposium.  I still remember driving in my car, shoving this tape into my cassette player and listening to it.  While there were other talks from this symposium, this is the one that I never forgot.  Here is an excerpt of that talk

 

 

Why do people stay in the church?  Because they believe that what the prophet Joseph Smith claimed and taught came from God himself.  Every word in the Book of Mormon is true, translated by the power of God Himself.  

Why do people leave the church? Because they no longer believe the Book of Mormon narrative to be credible for them.  They have found the story of Joseph Smith and what he taught to no longer be credible.  

In the end, it all comes down to this.  Are you devoting your life to a prophet of God and what he taught   Or are you devoting your life to a fraud and one of the greatest deceptions ever put upon mankind.  According to Elder Holland, it is that simple.  I frankly agree with him.  All  this talk about postmodernism, intellectual understanding and historics etc is completely irrelevant to the fundamental statement that Elder Holland asserts.

 

But do Christians devote their life to a prophet or to the Lord Jesus Christ? The greater deception would be (according to the Bible) if Jesus was not whom He claimed to be. The book of Mormon and the Mormon prophet Joseph Smith legacy contain no more eternal ramifications for the Believer, than Peter not being the 1st Pope. The key of salvation is the Messiah/Christ of the Bible, and not Popes or Prophets.or the book of Thomas for that matter. 

Edited January 9, 2017 by LittleNipper

[Robert F. Smith]

8 hours ago, rockpond said:

Textbook confirmation bias. 

You desperately need training in logic, rockpond.  This another in your long chain of category mistakes.  My statement was descriptive and based on actual observation -- which, by the way, served no one's bias, but is true universally.

Once again, you are yelling "thief" at an honest man in order to divert attention from your own flimflaming.

[Robert F. Smith]

8 hours ago, rockpond said:

It's neither dishonest nor a distraction. 

I tried dealing with substantive issues but you wouldn't.  Instead you still insist on making biased generalizations about church members.  I won't continue to provide a platform for your offensive and incorrect comments  

The other readers here are free to review and judge. 

The truth is always an offense to the flimflam man.  And at no time have you engaged in substantive discussion on this matter, and you will not -- because there is no desire within you to suss out the truth.  Indeed, any accurate and well-supported statement about religious people in general (and LDS people in particular) is auomatically rejected by you only because it does not jibe with your apriori biases.  How convenient.

I can just see you at a Little League game yelling at the umpire because he didn't call one in favor of your team.  For you it is just another game in which anything goes.  For others of us, it is all about good sportsmanship and how you play the game.  Cheating just doesn't cut it.

[Robert F. Smith]

7 hours ago, Thinking said:

Do you have some research to back up your claim, or just some anecdotal evidence from your personal interactions?

 

7 hours ago, california boy said:

Robert, you have offered absolutely NO proof that most Mormons leave the LDS faith due to based on the social comfort level and any judgement made about the BofM is merely ancillary to that social feeling.  So it is an empty statement.  Simply your opinion not based on anything.  Something I doubt you would let anyone else get away with.  ......................................

......................................................

You guys really ought to try actually reading the thread.  I already provided the standard sociological research for those interested.  The reasons for religious switching are well-understood, and do not surprise anyone, except those with overt bias and apriori notions.

Emma Green, “How Will Young People Choose Their Religion?” Atlantic, Mar 20, 2016, online at http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/03/how-will-young-people-choose-their-religion/474366/ .

Frank Newport, "The Religious Switcher in the United States," American Sociological Review, 44 (1979), 528-552.

J. T. Richardson, ed., special issue on "Conversion and Commitment in Contemporary Religion," American Behavioral Scientist, 20/6 (July-Aug 1977).

Lewis R. Rambo, Understanding Religious Conversion (1995).

Lavina Fielding Anderson, "What Are Nonmembers Interested In?" Ensign, 7/10 (Oct 1977), 72-76, based on research on July 1975 LDS converts by Gordon C. Whiting and M. Richard Maxfield.

S. L. Albrecht & H. M. Bahr, "Patterns of Religious Disaffiliation: A Study of Lifelong Mormons, Mormon Converts, and Former Mormons," Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 22 (1983), 366-379.

“Why People Leave the LDS Church,” Sunstone Review, 4/3 (Mar 1984), 10.

Sociologist Gary Tobin says that 2 of every 5 “Americans switch religion at least once” (Moment, 27/4  [Aug 2002], 58).

David G. Bromley, “Unraveling Religious Disaffiliation: The Meaning and Significance of Falling From the Faith in Contemporary Society,” Counseling & Values, 35/3 (April 1991):164-185, online at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/j.2161-007X.1991.tb00989.x/abstract .

Thomas Wirthlin McConkie, Navigating Mormon Faith Crisis: A Simple Developmental Map (Mormonstages.com, 2015).
 
Michael R. Ash, "Shaken Faith Syndrome" (2008 FairMormon Conference) said:

Quote

"When critical information destroys conclusions based on straw men or false assumptions, some members will lose their entire testimonies. The most common misconceptions that seem to factor into personal apostasy include: (A) Unrealistic Expectations of Prophets (B) Confusing Tradition With Doctrine (C) Imposing Our View on Others (D) Unrealistic Expectations of Science and Scholarship." http://www.fairblog.org/2011/05/18/best-of-fair-episode-4-shaken-faith-syndrome/ .  His book of the same title is in its second edition.

Ex-Mormons complain, among other things, about:

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18. Scrupulosity (rigid, obsessive adherence to church rules and "God's commandments", as defined by Mormonism)
19. Perfectionism, rigidity, fear of losing control   http://mormoncurtain.com/topic_opinion7.html

Indeed, our own Bill Reel has rightly commented:

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Many members learned a very rigid Mormonism that had answers for every question when in reality they are incorrect. Many of these “Folk Doctrines” are still alive today and unfortunately create barriers to faith when new truth is discovered. https://wheatandtares.org/2014/09/13/15-steps-to-fixing-the-faith-crises-crisis/ .

 

[canard78]

I've wondered why I've not got more worked up by this blog. I've seen others, in other forums, feeling deeply upset, with a range of good reasons.

Perhaps I'm now approaching the age where I don't care what random strangers assume about me, based on me being a member of a very broad collective.

I thought his blog-post was terribly written with lots of false assumptions and silly "click-bait" style sub-headings... I just couldn't bring myself to be emotionally engaged with what he said.

[rockpond]

2 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

The truth is always an offense to the flimflam man.  And at no time have you engaged in substantive discussion on this matter, and you will not -- because there is no desire within you to suss out the truth.  Indeed, any accurate and well-supported statement about religious people in general (and LDS people in particular) is auomatically rejected by you only because it does not jibe with your apriori biases.  How convenient.

I can just see you at a Little League game yelling at the umpire because he didn't call one in favor of your team.  For you it is just another game in which anything goes.  For others of us, it is all about good sportsmanship and how you play the game.  Cheating just doesn't cut it.

Not even close to an accurate description of how I have engaged in discussion with you.  Have a good day, Robert.