NOM

I posted this on reddit too so apologies for the double if you see both. Just looking for some help. Here's what I posted:

"Hey all, the time has come for me to open up to friends and family about my disaffection. I don't want to go into details about the evidence against the church in the letter I'm writing, but I don't want them to think I am not coming from a well reasoned perspective.

I'm hoping to point them to the essays and MormonThink for further details, but I wanted to briefly (and not antagonistically) explain the major problems against Mormonism. Off the top of my head I would say the top 5 "smoking guns" if you will are:

Everything about the Book of Abraham
Masonry and the temple endowment
First Vision and other visitation inconsistencies
Book of Mormon translation and anachronisms
Prophet errors (polygamy, priesthood ban, etc.)

Is this pretty solid or am I missing something obvious?"

It's all abstract art.

Here's my list.

Character of Joseph Smith
BOM translation/errors/Late War/etc.
Prophet having sex with congregation.
Pattern of institutional dishonesty from the beginning through today.
Financial transparency/nepotism/corporate church.

Specifics don't really matter in coming out. They will all think you're deceived by satan anyway.

Prayer doesn't work (e.g. everyone who has prayed about the their religion thinks God told them they are right)
Deutero Isaiah in BoM
Disparate versions of the "First" Vision
Polygamy and how it was practiced (e.g. Joseph marrying every young woman who ever lived in his house)
Constantly moving prophetic goal posts

Runners-up:

The Late War
Plates never used for translation

Polyandry and the Book of Abraham.

Really, it's whatever you feel are you top 5. What is important to you, what your experiences are, and what you are educated on. These are mine:

1. Book of Abraham
2. Leadership abuse of power and using power to silence enemies, critics, and to protect leadership members from legal and social consequences of misconduct.
3. Lack of being Christlike as Christ was in the NT. (November '15 policy, more focused on growing institutional wealth than helping the poor, repetitious prayers, etc.)
4. Not following the rules of the church as described in the D&C.
5. Complete and total lack of any credible historical evidence of the BOM.

Runners up:
Institutionalized sexism.
Abuse of people for race, sexual preferance, etc.
Prayer not reliable. It's easy to manipulate.
Taking advantage of members, including missionaries.

I would add 19th century theological arguments and sermons in the Book of Mormon. Bushman has mentioned this in several interviews and that can carry weight with believers.

In my experience they are not going to care about your smoking guns. They are told that those should actually be testimony builders, so they are darn it!

My biggies are prophetic error, Joseph's character and the book of Abraham.

In these conversations, it is key to make the point upfront that after much study and consideration, you have found the evidences in favor of the claims of Mormonism to be lacking, and the evidence against the claims of Mormonism to be well supported. A general statement like this may help prevent them from writing off your individual concerns immediately.

My list includes -
1. Translation and historicity of the BOM - no evidence anywhere that we would expect to be there, and lots of evidence contradicting the claims in the book. The contradicting evidence is an important point that they don't want to consider. So much 19th century in the book. Contradicting testimonies of witnesses.
2. The Book of Abraham - Completely wrong. JS believed without a doubt that he was directly translating, and it was wrong. There is no way out of this one. One of the worst parts is the section of facsimile 2 that was directly lifted off of the scroll of Joseph that we have today. If that doesn't scream deception I don't know what does.
3. Polygamy - It was practiced contrary to section 132 and contrary to now removed section 101 that explicitly said marriage should be between one man and one woman only. Everyone constantly lied about it including JS. Emma was sealed to JS only after 23+ other women. Polygamy was practiced before the revelation on polygamy was received and before the sealing power was restored in 1836. There are countless stories of gross manipulation as part of the practice. No way a moral God condoned this.
4. No modern revelation - Has there been any modern revelation? No. Prophets, seers, and revelators do none of those things. They are behind the times on all major social issues while we would expect prophets to be ahead (women's rights, racial discrimination etc.). There are no special healings or answered prayers, just plenty of confirmation bias.
5. Cover up - the fact that the church has intentionally obfuscated its own history is a huge red flag. Why would a group that claims all truth be so afraid of the facts? Examples - 1832 first vision account hid away in a vault for decades, seer stone story only told publicly after 190 years, ellipses in manuals obscuring rejected doctrines, denying ever teaching Adam God, hiding from all things polygamy, misleading essays, etc.

If you want details on a specific issue I would be happy to help pull together some material. Return and report after it all goes down.

I'd go (in no orser)
Evolution of priesthood authority and keys with what was leadership was accused of
Book of Abraham, kinderhook plates and the js. Bible
BOM--the changes, the acraomisms, the lack of evidence to it being ancient, the evidence of it being a 19th century creation
Fundamental shifts in doctrine ie adamgod, polygamy, eternal nature of race,
How 21st century Mormonism is basically what Satan offered up in 19th century Mormonism

It's really a very personal thing as to what makes a difference in someone's faith. Each person's top 5 is going to be different. Or top 400.

After years of my slow separation from the church and many hours and hours of discussion on all sorts of topics I found troubling or concerning, my wife finally had her own change of faith on a single issue. I thought it was a trivial issue, but it was significant for her.

1. BoA
2. Polygamy/Polyandry contradictions and deceit
3. BOM Isaiah, and the goalpost moving of who the lamanites were and are
4. Hoffman
5. White man nepotism and cronyism
6. (cheeky, I know) Church's finances - lack of transparency, and real estate vs lack of outreach

1. The fact that this document says "may" and not "will"

https://www.lds.org/topics/abuse?lang

2. The fact that that document lists offensive behavior as abuse, yet we do so much shaming of people who've been offended and do nothing about the people doing the offending.

3. The fact that that document states that the Lord absolutely condemns abuse, but the Lord's great commandment is one of our least important. It's less important than the Word of Wisdom.

4. The entire temple ceremony and how it denigrates women.

5. The institutional aggressiveness.

Red Ryder wrote: ↑Mon Oct 09, 2017 1:19 pm Pattern of institutional dishonesty from the beginning through today.

This ^ is rapidly becoming my "favorite" of all the "smoking guns".

If it was based on lies from the beginning, then NOTHING that the movement produced really matters.

Once you open your eyes to reality, it's easy to see the dishonesty. And it's surprising how easy it is to prove that they continue the dishonesty to this day.

These are all really good lists. I am pretty certain that this is how the CES Letter and MormonThink first arose. Some enterprising soul started their own list of smoking guns then expanded it as much as possible.

I have doubts that this approach ever really works. Faithful Mormons hold their beliefs very closely and emotionally. By bringing up smoking guns about the church, I fear that we come across as attacking our friends and family. If there was a consistent and easy way to express a faith transition then the LDS church would have turned into the Community of Christ long ago.

But with that said, here is my list:

• Plural marriage
• Spiritual epistemology does not work
• Book of Mormon historicity
• Book of Abraham translation issues
• The modern church is just as annoyingly Pharisaical as Pharisees in the time of Jesus

Corsair wrote: ↑Tue Oct 10, 2017 8:59 am These are all really good lists. I am pretty certain that this is how the CES Letter and MormonThink first arose. Some enterprising soul started their own list of smoking guns then expanded it as much as possible.

I have doubts that this approach ever really works. Faithful Mormons hold their beliefs very closely and emotionally. By bringing up smoking guns about the church, I fear that we come across as attacking our friends and family. If there was a consistent and easy way to express a faith transition then the LDS church would have turned into the Community of Christ long ago.

But with that said, here is my list:

• Plural marriage
• Spiritual epistemology does not work
• Book of Mormon historicity
• Book of Abraham translation issues
• The modern church is just as annoyingly Pharisaical as Pharisees in the time of Jesus

I agree with the doubts that this approach ever works. Oh, it has an effect on friends and loved ones. But it won't be the understanding and acceptance you want. What it will be is giving them a way to try to fix your testimony or something to be offended and defensive about. They won't accept that you have legit reasons because in their mind, there are no legit reasons. They won't accept that you have spent lots of time and prayer and soul searching because if you had, then you would have concluded that the church is true.

But, having said that, my own list

1. Joseph Smith was a smuck. There is just no way that this lying, cheating, wife beating, con man, was any kind of prophet. Well, maybe prophet of Satan, but since I don't believe in SAtan, that leaves Joseph as a smuck. The church says to overlook his few faults. But it is the big major unkindness, sexual predation, dishonest.....I could give examples, but that would take all day.

2. The church has followed in his pattern of lying, cheating, and manipulating people.

3. It treats people badly, using members for its enrichment, discriminating against first blacks, which they reluctantly fixed, but still treats women as second class, treats LGBT very badly and calls it love.

4. They have a view of God that I find repulsive.

5. The church is abusive. This is another that would take all day just to give you the examples from my own life.

I like to take a much simpler approach.

"I just don't believe in it anymore," or "I don't believe in angels with gold plates."

They usually get a very sad or frightened look on their face, like they're about to get something dumped on that they don't want to know about. Or they insist that they've felt my spirit and they know that I really do know it's true, and then they bear their testimony.

My next lines of response would be one of the following, except that no one has ever asked for more detail.

1) "can you tell me what Thomas Monson has done or said that would lead me to believe he's an actual prophet of God?

2) "would you like to sit down with me sometime and talk about the Book of Abraham?"

But I do think we have something as close to a smoking gun as possible, and that's the Book of Abraham. If anyone really wants to talk to me about my faith crisis (and no one does) I will ask them to read the Book of Abraham and Nauvoo Polygamy essays, then do some research on the actual translations of the BoA facsimiles, and then come talk to me. I think these two essays illustrate the two-faced nature of the church's teachings and the problems with apologetics better than any other sources.

My list is a little different, but I see some of mine talked about.

1: The inability to "know the truth of all things." The BoM makes a promise. Already there are internal problems with the promise. In Alma 32, we find that negative feelings can come either because something is not true or because we have hard hearts. Still, if we feel good, we should know it's true, right? Well, no. The church has had problems with people feeling good about things the church does not want us to believe like Snufferites, FLDS, and Paul H. Dunn. So, Elder Packer taught that good feelings can come from Satan. Therefore, Moroni's promise is worthless. A good or bad feeling can mean anything.

2. Personal revelation that I have had that turned out to be so wrong. I can't distinguish between those spiritual feelings that told me the church was true and those that told me to do things that turned out disastrously. "Wrong roads" can't be backtracked a lot of the time.

3. Lack of financial transparency of the church. This seems so obviously problematic that i can't imagine what the leaders are thinking when they don't open up the books.

4. Joseph Smith's changing story about the restoration of the priesthood. He started by saying that he was authorized to do whatever God told him to do. Then, he has some angelic ministers. Then he gets more specific and changes revelations to make it look like he recorded the visits earlier. Then he goes back to voices from heaven. It's a mess.

5. Joseph Smith's abuse, mostly of women. Polygamy seems to have been a game to JS. It makes me sick to read about the manipulations he used to get women. I am sorry it took me so long to see it for what it was.

1 There is a conflict between historical reality and LDS reality. The reluctance to disavow (or at least question) the historical views of people like Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, Joseph Fielding Smith, Cleon Skousen, Mark E. Peterson etc.
2. The Book of Abraham and its origin is totally discredited, yet it is still scripture.
3. Joseph Smith was a witness of all aspects of the supposed restoration, yet he was also a confirmed liar. A God of truth cannot operate in such a manner.
4. The Book of Mormon describes a civilization of millions over the course of thousands of years, and yet it has only vague and minute historical correlation.
5. The emphasis of current church leaders, and most members on faith in the organization, rather than belief in truth and reality, is not inspiring to me.

I think this thread does a pretty good job of illustrating something I've said a bit lately -- different people place differing levels of importance on different things. Some things are significant to some people and not to others. And, if I'm not misgendering too many people too badly, I think we can start to see that often men and women have different types of answers.

Personally, I'm of the type that can't whittle a list down to the top 5, prioritizing and eliminating some.

One thing we haven't seen on this thread, which I've seen way too often, is people claiming that their set of important issues is the only valid set. Or that because someone else has different types of things that they're doing it completely wrong.

1. Faith is merely priming people to be susceptible to confirmation bias, so using faith to find truth is faulty.
2. People believe a lot of things outside of religion that aren't true that can be easily proven, so why would I trust these same people's religious testimony?
3. The church uses a lot of manipulative tactics I find repulsive and refuse to believe a good god would sanction for his church; us vs them, sales tactics taught to missionaries, heartsell, hide behind authority, many others I can't think of right now.
4. Running my beliefs through Occam's Razor shredded my belief in an interfering god.
5. Lack of real miracles

Those were what killed my testimony in an interfering god and religion generally. My worldview was changing to fit what I saw. Then I found the disaffected community and learned more about the history and a few of the things I learned helped me feel better about my decision.

A. The BoM witnesses weren't very credible. Oliver Cowdery wrote the 8 witnesses statement and signed for all of them. None of them actually physically saw the plates. Many also witnessed for the Strang book, but mormons don't take that witness seriously.
B. The belief in second sight or spiritual eyes removes all credibility for any visions or revelations claimed in the early church. If an active imagination combined with conviction is where the church's revelations came from, they can keep them. Combined with the seer stone and the incorrect papyrus translation this also further discredits the Book of Mormon and book of Abraham.
C. The history of any policy through church history makes it clear that changes came for logical reasons and as a result of culture at the time, personalities within the leadership of the church, or outside pressure forcing a change, not from some master plan of god's. See polygamy, blacks and the priesthood, word of wisdom, tithing, missionary age change, etc.

OP, good luck with your write up!