Church and control

[SeekingUnderstanding]

5 hours ago, Calm said:

According to this it’s been almost ten years since he last visited.

https://www.mormondialogue.org/profile/2137-mormonstories/

Wasn’t he banned?

[Calm]

24 minutes ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

Wasn’t he banned?

He might have been given what he tried using the board for (his propaganda about his attempt at censorship when his shtick was all about transparency and letting the chips fall where they may…except when it made him look bad imo).  He is not in the Banned group, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t.

Plus my memory is besides the one or two threads where he was using the board to attack apologists, he started threads advertising his podcasts….but I may be mixing him up with Bill Reel once Reel went that direction.  I can’t remember when Nemesis blocked his website, seems like it was much longer that ten years….but I have no sense of time, so who knows.

Edited November 24, 2024 by Calm

[Calm]

6 hours ago, Tacenda said:

He started out trying to help those that came across information that hurt their testimony to stay in the church.

At least that is what he claimed.

[Calm]

6 hours ago, Tacenda said:

Also, if you were to go to John Dehlin's very first podcast you will see that. And some of his guests were actually LDS scholars and apologists, not often but a few.

But he picked and chose who he had on.  Iirc, if it was someone who wouldn’t attract a lot of views, they needn’t bother to offer to go on.  I can think of two he ignored or told them “no thanks” (too long ago to remember which).

[Peacefully]

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

Ah.  I apologize.  I don't recall why I wrote that, as I did not have current posters on this board in mind.  The ones I did have in mind I listed previously.

Thanks,

-Smac

Just a misunderstanding. It seemed out of character for you to use a word like “obnoxious” to insult current contributors to the board just because they might be labeled progressive. Thank you for the clarification. 

[Calm]

7 hours ago, Tacenda said:

Here's a thought, maybe Dehlin would have been able to stay if he'd not been ex'd and come to change his mind.

Not likely given what he was doing.  The guy was promising to have private conversations with his SP and yet recording them.  He took advantage of volunteers that made him big (the moderators of his message boards got no discounts or rewards or gifts for all of their hard work, they had to pay full price to go to any of the activities while he was making a living off of them both through ticket sales and free work).  From my POV, he likes the public attention of being a gadfly to the Church and an expert the media appeals to (though less now) and the money, I don’t think his ego will let him consider he’s made a mistake….though I suppose he might pick up a big sponsor or two for a time if he came back and turned his show that direction….but he would have to take down a massive amount of content that is making him money (I believe that was one reason stated for the excommunication, his refusal to take down his stuff…but again could be mixing him out with someone else).

Which is unfortunate for his friends and family that have to live with the consequences of his choices.

Quote

So maybe Dehlin should have been ex'd and then if he could find his way back.

It is interesting to speculate on what might have been if he had been exed before he had gotten big, which would have cut his public appeal imo quite a bit as exmembers trashing the faith are hardly a novelty.

Edited November 24, 2024 by Calm

[Calm]

7 hours ago, Tacenda said:

there is a poster named Don Bradley that had a crisis of faith and became somewhat anti, until he found a way back to belief or faith

But Don always put the work in and always wanted to learn more while Dehlin is lazy in research and surprisingly uninformed given how long he has been doing this…or he was last time I listened to him.  I don’t see Dehlin as a real seeker of truth because of that.

I am typing with just my left hand, too impatient to read a whole post before responding tonight, and too lazy to edit, thus the flood of posts.  I will try and stop now and respond one to one, now it registered what I was doing, lol.

Edited November 24, 2024 by Calm

[Dario_M]

8 hours ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

Back in the day Dehlin started staylds dot com (Stay Latter-day Saint) as a website and forum for members to find ways to stay in the church after loosing a more traditional faith:

https://staylds.com/docs/HowToStay.html

Yeah i don't really believe in that if i may be honest. If John wanted to stay in the church he would have stayed in the LDS community and behaved himself a bit. I mean...look at me. I also break some rules here and there. But i'm still not excommunicated from the LDS community. God lord. 

[Dario_M]

7 hours ago, Tacenda said:

I might just have to delete all the confusion of a post with all my edits. This one is better with Don Bradley. It's a Fair presentation. 

https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/conference/august-2013/the-loss-and-rekindling-of-faith

How interesting. More ex mormons i see. Or at least Saints who are struggle a lot with the church. Thank you for you link anyway dear Tacenda. 

[Dario_M]

8 hours ago, Tacenda said:

Sleep well! 

Thank you so much. Yesterday i was so tired you know. But i'm awake now. It's early in the morning. 

[Dario_M]

7 hours ago, Calm said:

He has posted in the past.  Trying to remember his alias (silly me, “Mormonstories” of course). It was mostly (all maybe, except for that one thread trying to make Dan Peterson and others look bad and making himself look virtuous when he tried to censor a review without having read it and only ending up looking like a jerk himself iirc for going after Dan right when his brother had died***) advertising for his website iirc though.
 

***https://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/57768-greg-smith-dan-peterson-john-dehlin-lou/

 

 

Woow. This guy. Horible. He must have been banned i guesse. 

[Dario_M]

7 hours ago, Calm said:

Yes, but that doesn’t mean they are overly aggressive or obnoxious. That type doesn’t last too long on this board, thank goodness. Even the critics call them out for being disrespectful.

Some have been rude to me though. But i won't call any names offcourse.

[Dario_M]

7 hours ago, Calm said:

 No, he was not a believer when he posted on the board.  My opinion is he was way past doubt and into disbelief by then, but was playing the game of honest questioner to make himself more palatable to the active LDS market, which was much, much bigger than the exmormon market back then.  I think once he figured out he could make enough money being more critical, he stopped trying so hard.  But given his interactions with FAIR and others things I heard about eons ago, I don’t trust any of his claims about still being open to the Church being what he said it was at least by the time I heard about him, which was before he joined the board (and no, I did not have such a strong bias against him back then, it takes a lot and usually a significant period of time of my observing behavior to get me to a “he’s a full out jerk” view).

⬆️ i'm so agree with you on this one 100%. This John Dehlin is so full of potatoes. 

Edited November 24, 2024 by Dario_M

[Calm]

3 hours ago, Dario_M said:

Some have been rude to me though. But i won't call any names offcourse.

Everyone is occasionally rude, but also at times we think people are rude but they aren’t. 
 

Online communication is highly misunderstood according to studies. 

[Calm]

3 hours ago, Dario_M said:

How interesting. More ex mormons i see. Or at least Saints who are struggle a lot with the church. Thank you for you link anyway dear Tacenda. 

FAIR is most definitely not exmormons and while we have had a few nonmembers speak at our conferences, I don’t remember any exmembers…though I haven’t gone to all the conferences or listen to all the presentations.  Our mission is to defend the faith and help people resolve their faith crisis in a faithful way.  We also help those who are having difficulties with critics in and out of their families.
 

You probably should go back and read the descriptions if you didn’t catch all the details from the video.  I always read transcripts as easier to understand than speech. 

Edited November 24, 2024 by Calm

[Dario_M]

15 minutes ago, Calm said:

Everyone is occasionally rude, but also at times we think people are rude but they aren’t. 
 

Online communication is highly misunderstood according to studies. 

Yeah that's true. Btw i'm in church right now. 🕍

[Dario_M]

45 minutes ago, Calm said:

FAIR is most definitely not exmormons and while we have had a few nonmembers speak at our conferences, I don’t remember any exmembers…though I haven’t gone to all the conferences or listen to all the presentations.  Our mission is to defend the faith and help people resolve their faith crisis in a faithful way.  We also help those who are having difficulties with critics in and out of their families.
 

You probably should go back and read the descriptions if you didn’t catch all the details from the video.  I always read transcripts as easier to understand than speech. 

Oh how interesting yeah. I will def go back and read that speech. 

Oh dear!! It's time for the lesson. Gotta go. 

[Calm]

50 minutes ago, Dario_M said:

Oh how interesting yeah. I will def go back and read that speech. 

Oh dear!! It's time for the lesson. Gotta go. 

Enjoy!

[Dario_M]

1 hour ago, Calm said:

Enjoy!

I'm just back from church. That was a beautiful church service. It just made me cry a little. Especially when i sang along with those beautiful hymns. Good God. Why did you made me feel so  vulnerable? But on the same time so valuable. Oh Lord our God. 🙏

[smac97]

10 hours ago, Calm said:

Online communication is highly misunderstood according to studies. 

Yep.

[Tacenda]

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

Yep.

It doesn't help when someone writes crazy posts that are edited over and over. 🤭 (me)

Edited November 24, 2024 by Tacenda