The Sound of my shelf breaking

[Reuben]

Oh for crying out loud, this black box is the same thing as a shelf except that you cant see the stuff on it. It obscures stuff that doesn't support your world view. I posted in another thread about a Bishop named Matt Jones who did an interview on Mormon Matters, this is classic burying you head in the sand.

But...the box is different! It's a cube rather than a flat plank. It'll hold those pesky doubts inside as long as you need!

Until it... explodes? Collapses in on itself and becomes a black hole? Maybe that's what they want: your doubts won't bother you because they're over the event horizon.

Seriously, the shelf is a great metaphor. If the black box becomes a thing, we'll need a quippy way to throw it back in people's faces.

[achilles]

Until it... explodes? Collapses in on itself and becomes a black hole? Maybe that's what they want: your doubts won't bother you because they're over the event horizon.

Well, if no information can cross an event horizon, testimonies are preserved all around! Unless there is some kind of quantum entanglement involved...

Seriously, the shelf is a great metaphor. If the black box becomes a thing, we'll need a quippy way to throw it back in people's faces.

Something like: "That black box is going to be the only thing they find after you crash and burn"?

[Red Ryder]

I prefer Jenga tower.

[wtfluff]

Seriously, the shelf is a great metaphor. If the black box becomes a thing, we'll need a quippy way to throw it back in people's faces.

Well... No matter how many ways you re-define self-deception and willful-ignorance, it's still self-deception and willful-ignorance.

[foolmeonce]

Wow this all happened about 2 months before I found and started lurking here on NOM.

Slavereeno, not sure if you've seen this already but if you want some background:

Background

Wow, my brain just exploded (again). Its interesting to see this from a different perspective. At the time my head was spinning and relationship with DW was very strained, because I had come out as non-believing to her. Many of the members in my ward, whom I spoke with afterwards were saying that AZFlyer's question was inappropriate and that it was anti-mormon. While I wasn't at this time aware Joseph Smith had taken teen brides or other men's wifes, it wasn't those factoids that disturbed me. It really was the feeling I got when the apostles responded. As a crumbling TBM I felt they were insincere, full of false bravado and dismissive. I sensed NO humility, truth or courage from the apostles. Yet I was overcome by the courage of AZFlyer. Within a week after this visit I would be reading the CESLetter.

What a great thread. I've been a fan of AZFlyer since NOM 1.0 and followed this story here, but I must have missed the audio. Thanks for bringing this one back up and prompting me to listen. I agree with your analysis, and KUDOS to you to have been open minded enough to see past the curtain. I'm willing to bet that COB monitors this board so it's good for them to know that non-answers like this may pacify the rank and file who will be pacified at literally whatever is said, but it alienates critical thinkers. It's infuriating to hear the unerlying assumption that if you have questions, you must not be reading the scriptures. I read the scriputes HEAVILY when I was going through my faith crisis. They didn't help, they just made things worse. During this time, my wife could care less about my historical grievances, what broke her shelf was REALLY reading ALL of D&C 132 for the first time.

[foolmeonce]

Here it is, my shelf officially breaks for good starting at about 1:45. I was in this meeting. Listen to how the audience giggles like laugh track when Raspand is rude to someone who is clearly nervous and then again when Ballard steps up. This brings up a bunch of really raw feelings. The leader worship i witnessed during this event was one of the most rancid things I have seen and these two apostles gobbled it up. I still can't put my finger on why this bugged me so much, but it was sickening to listen to some of it again.

https://mormonleaks.io/wiki/index.php?t ... hoenix.mp3

One thing I do not miss from Mormon culture, is the way members laugh at jokes from apostles that just aren't funny. Not even close to being funny. Bits that are so not funny that if anyone else on the planet tried to use them, the audience would think that the bit was just casual conversation. But when an apostle gets up there with the bit, the Mormons are in stitches!!

Full disclosure, I hated that when I was a TBM.

[foolmeonce]

Seriously, the shelf is a great metaphor. If the black box becomes a thing, we'll need a quippy way to throw it back in people's faces.

Well... No matter how many ways you re-define self-deception and willful-ignorance, it's still self-deception and willful-ignorance.

You guys are missing the point. The black box is really cool because you can put it under the shelf. Then when the shelf breaks, everything falls into the box and we're all A ok.

Too bad the black box wasn't invented in 2015 when I needed it.

[slavereeno]

It's infuriating to hear the unerlying assumption that if you have questions, you must not be reading the scriptures. I read the scriputes HEAVILY when I was going through my faith crisis.

Yep, me too at the time of this conference I was reading the BoM daily first thing every morning.

After reading the CES Letter, I re-read the entire BoM in only 4 days, to see if I could pull myself back. Didn't work, in fact that reading of the Book of Mormon was the most enlightenment I had ever gotten from the book. Not the kind the church thinks you will get though. All the anachronisms, the numerical problems, the historical problems, the doctrinal contradictions with the D&C, the 19th century language style, stuff like "adieu" all together in such a short time hit me like a ton of bricks.

After that, I asked the question that Moroni 10:3-5 actually tells you to ask. I actually prayed and asked if the things were NOT true. Funny thing I got a feeling of peace, of release and comfort, of freedom from the cog-dis. I had prayed several times if the BoM was true, and never got anything. Does this mean I have a testimony that the BoM is NOT true?

[2bizE]

If a shelf breaks in the middle of sacrament meeting and noone is awake to hear, does it still make a sound?

[BriansThoughtMirror]

For what it's worth, you sounded sincere to me. The funny thing is, I think Ballard is sincere, too. I think he really just believes that any critical info comes from Satan and should be avoided. Blar... Human nature, I guess.

[Archimedes]

For what it's worth, you sounded sincere to me. The funny thing is, I think Ballard is sincere, too. I think he really just believes that any critical info comes from Satan and should be avoided. Blar... Human nature, I guess.

Ballard is a sincerely pompous ass, to be sure.