NOM

I got my wife to listen to the anabaptist podcast with Dan carlin. We split it up over a few nights. The first night which was more about the history setting it up was interesting to her. The second night which was all about the rise of the two prophets was really good. You could cut the cognitive dissonance with a knife. She sat there for a while and said, "wow, that's a lot of stuff to think about." She then began to defend Mormon polygamy and we had a discussion about that. We had a discussion about what our prophets would have to say before a majority would rise up in protest. She mentioned that people like me are already rising up in protest. Then she told me that she felt like maybe it got crazy because all the moderate people had left the city or had been forcibly expelled and that left only the crazies to go along with it, and maybe I should stick around more to affect change. I mentioned that the forcible expelling of people who protest has already begun. More than anything that made her stop and think.
We talked about a lot of things, but I could tell that maybe this might allow her the reason and space to step back just a little and try to be objective. So thanks for posting that!

Sounds like an excellent discussion! As far as Mormons go, they have been self-selecting and kicking out dissenters since the beginning. When Brigham Young held political as well as ecclesiastical power, I'd say things were pretty tyrannical. But your wife is right - if the moderates leave, then by nature it makes whomever is left more radical. However, the current SLC church is trying to play the middle road and is losing people on the fundamentalist side, too (Denver Snuffer-ites, etc). Without numbers it's kind of hard to say whether the net effect is more radical or more moderate; just from my more liberal point of view, it sure seems more radical .

fh451

I can't remember how far on in my journey it was that I listened to that (pretty far, I think), but I remember being amazed at the disturbing parallels. Very insightful listening!