NOM

Even as an active anti-Mormon, however, Smith’s connection to the Church never fully disappeared. Smith met a friend on a debate board, a Mormon named Mike. Despite debating viciously against one another, the two became friends. “Mike kept saying, ‘You’ll be LDS someday,’” Smith remembers. Mike’s insistence seemed not only impossible, but insane. However, Mike didn’t give up on Smith. “Every week, every week since 1999, he put my name in the temple,” Smith recalls.

I hated the Church. It had deceived me. It had broken up my family. It had cost me so much.

“Okay Mr. Attorney, if you are so smart, who would you choose to be a prophet? You who doesn’t believe anything? A doctor who needs proof? I happened to choose a young boy who could accept the impossible, who could dream the unimaginable. That’s the kind of person who was needed to be able to accept and to believe the visions he was seeing and act on the voices he was hearing. Would you have? You have been 26 years fighting it.”

I was touched by the journey of one brother who asked himself, “When the Lord calls, will I hear?” I will call this fine brother David.

David converted to the Church some 30 years ago. He served a mission and then attended law school. While he was studying and working to support a young family, he came across some information about the Church that confused him. The more he read these negative materials, the more unsettled he became. Eventually he asked to have his name removed from the records of the Church.

Corsair wrote: ↑Wed Oct 04, 2017 10:48 am Here is the crux of the problem expressed as the Lord talking to this gentleman who has serious questions about Joseph Smith's character

“Okay Mr. Attorney, if you are so smart, who would you choose to be a prophet? You who doesn’t believe anything? A doctor who needs proof? I happened to choose a young boy who could accept the impossible, who could dream the unimaginable. That’s the kind of person who was needed to be able to accept and to believe the visions he was seeing and act on the voices he was hearing. Would you have? You have been 26 years fighting it.”

Who would I have? That's a good question. May I recommend Benedict of Nursia or Irenaeus of Lyon. There is also Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau who are contemporaries of Joseph Smith. Closer to now would be Carl Sagan or Neil deGrasse Tyson or Sam Harris. I would be willing to give Christopher Hitchens a try.

I could come up with lots more and I am annoyed that "Joseph Smith" is somehow the answer. By "accept the impossible" and "dream the unimaginable" does that somehow make the human wreckage of polygamy OK? Does this justify Mountain Meadows Massacre? Does this explain away the worst offenses of the BYU Honor code and the LGBT suicides? Does this make the Mark Hoffmann forgeries and murders somehow explainable? Do we have to accept that a story telling hillbilly is the final instantiation of Christianity and mortal salvation?

Corsair wrote: ↑Wed Oct 04, 2017 10:48 am Do we have to accept that a story telling hillbilly is the final instantiation of Christianity and mortal salvation?

oliver_denom wrote: ↑Wed Oct 04, 2017 9:02 am Regardless, his multiple conversions seem to have less to do with any evidences and more about how he interpreted random events in his life as a sign from God. Absent that base framework of belief that the universe is constantly trying to speak to him through life events, we wouldn't have the same sort of story. The little girl he saw die was a sign that God was evil. The random discovery of the Book of Mormon on his mom's shelf was a sign that God wanted him back, and a dream from when he was a kid was associated with Peter, James, and John, so this was a sign that Mormonism was true. A feeling moved him to leave his family and fiance to go on a mission. The one time when he wasn't moved by a feeling or an interpreted sign was when he studied it like an academic, and then he decided it wasn't true.

oliver_denom wrote: ↑Wed Oct 04, 2017 9:02 am Becoming an "anti-mormon" is the twist in this story, but it could just as easily been about a man who was Catholic, became a Mormon, converted to Evangelical Christianity, and then went back to Mormonism. How would describe someone like this? A religious seeker maybe?

RubinHighlander wrote: ↑Wed Oct 04, 2017 2:26 pm

oliver_denom wrote: ↑Wed Oct 04, 2017 9:02 am Becoming an "anti-mormon" is the twist in this story, but it could just as easily been about a man who was Catholic, became a Mormon, converted to Evangelical Christianity, and then went back to Mormonism. How would describe someone like this? A religious seeker maybe?

I'm adding +1 to this. What also came to mind is how rare these coming back stories are vs. folks leaving.

This guy really needs a tribe, whether it was anti-mos, Catholics or back to be a TBM; it looks obvious to me that he had to fill the gap and just could not live with being in that place of total independence from religion or a group of some kind. If he had gone beyond the BOM truth claims and dug into religion itself, back to the bible and all other faiths that claim a one true path, then he would have discovered all the BS and maybe he could have moved beyond it.

It would be good to fact check the healing story. If doctors would not treat him, how could two missionaries just march into the room and put themselves at risk like that, let alone the take up your bed and walk claim. Those types of stories fall into the same category as the Julie Rowe last days visions and many other pseudo-science fill the gaps types of things. It also contradicts the church's pulpit policy on sharing miracles like that because they are too sacred, but there it is in B&W on LDSliving.

The last article I read from that mag was so ridiculous it lost all credibility with me. It was about how the BoA explains how the universe works and tells us everything we need to know about astrophysics! That is exactly the type of ignorance and BS that religion perpetuates and the world would be much better off without it, IMHO.

oliver_denom wrote: ↑Wed Oct 04, 2017 9:02 am When I read stories like this I go back to Fowler's faith stages. It sounds like he was on the cusp of a stage 4 type crisis with Mormonism, but settled back into a stage 3 while traveling to other churches and talking to the "anti-mormons" at the Palmyra pageant. If anyone has been to that pageant, then you know who he's talking about. These are the fire and brimstone evangelicals holding up signs and preaching hell. At stage 3, the important elements of faith are that they are immovable and un-examined.

Discovering inconsistencies with the Book of Mormon is not sufficient for entering a stage 4 - 5 transition, there has to be a point of reflection on the nature of symbol and religion itself. Becoming an "anti-mormon" is the twist in this story, but it could just as easily been about a man who was Catholic, became a Mormon, converted to Evangelical Christianity, and then went back to Mormonism. How would describe someone like this? A religious seeker maybe?

And another thing, Mormons can be over-broad in their use of the term "Anti-Mormon".

It could mean anything ranging from "asking the wrong questions in Church (and shaking someone else's faith)" to full-on "working actively to destroy the Church economically, socially, politically, spiritually", etc.

Mormorrisey wrote: ↑Wed Oct 04, 2017 5:23 am “One of my issues was why is there no archeological evidence of the Book of Mormon. [But one night] God said to me, ‘Does the fact you can walk the streets of Jerusalem make the Bible true?’ And I said, ‘No.’ He said, ‘But what if somebody uncovered a sign tomorrow that said ‘Welcome to Zarehemla, population 420.’ What would that do to the Book of Mormon?’ And I said, ‘Then it would make it true.’ But He said, ‘Then where would be your faith?’”

This, right here, is the problem I had when I read this article yesterday. The same problem when Sis. M. tells me to repent of my bad attitude to the brethren and come to my senses. Once you see what's going on, you can't unsee; it's great this guy can forget all the problems he has studied and to embrace "faith," but it's ridiculous to expect others to do so. It's like asking me to forget what I've read about the law of gravity, and ask me to have "faith" to walk over a cliff. Just can't do it.