NOM

Has anyone read Patrick Mason's book Planted: Belief and Belonging in an Age of Doubt.

I'm listening to this book with a loved one who thinks it would benefit me. We've chosen to listen to the audible version and have made it through the intro and first chapter. Mason so far identifies the main issues of why people leave when they find church history disturbing and the duplicity by the church in addressing it.

So far it hits a few points that are better spoken by Mason than I would do in an open conversation. In the first chapter he identifies those who leave into two categories.

1. Switched off: members who learn some of the real history, feel betrayed, become unsure what else the church might be hiding, and become switched off.

2. Pushed out: members who no longer fit the standard mold either due to testimony issues or policy issues, who become vocal and are ultimately pushed out as a result of no longer fitting in.

These two categories oversimplify but you get the point. I believe I fit the first category. My need for religious benefits has been switched off in my head. I simply just don't see the point in believing in the supernatural nor do I have a real desire to drop Mormonism and pick up some other form of organized religion.

Not having read/listened to the whole book yet, I don't believe it will benefit me but I plan to continue with it as a form of spring board to open real honest conversation about the issues or in other words stress test a shelf or two.

Just wondering if anyone else has read the book? What did you like and benefit from this book? What do you think was missed?

Were you switched off or pushed out?

I don't fit in either group. I left because the scriptures aren't scriptural. The Bible broke first, then seeing the literal requirements made on the Bible by revealed scripture finished me off.

or is that a testimony issue? I mean it's not about spiritual witness or the lack thereof. It's not Church history per se. It's divine Revelation contradicting what's in the ground. And the dirt is more convincing.

Too bad there isn't a 3rd category for people who see that healings don't work. I would call that reality dissonance.

Switched off for me.

I was switched off first, then pushed out (although I still attend for the wife). The true history left me with nothing to have a testimony in, and now going to church feels like getting kicked in the brain. I relate to almost nothing that is said at church and so I am pushed out.

The members have no authority to cause change in the organization, so I feel no obligation to stay in to try to change it.

I guess I'm not sure that everyone who "switches off" does so because of the church's issues. For me that was a far later consideration. To me, God failed before the church did. He stopped fitting in a world that made more sense without him in it.

Perhaps I'm missing the meaning of the term though. Maybe he only means that these are two of many types of disaffected members.

How 'bout both?

I "Switched Off", hough not necessarily because of historical issues to begin with, for me it was more like:

FiveFingerMnemonic wrote: ↑Mon Mar 12, 2018 4:50 pmI would call that reality dissonance.

My "reality dissonance" was that mormonism: Just. Didn't. Work. No matter how hard I tried to mormon, the mormon church/god just couldn't live up to their promises. Years after realizing it didn't work, finding out about all the historical and other issues simply allowed me to realize why it didn't work. And then the switch flipped.

As far as being pushed out: I don't feel that I've really fit the standard mold since my mission. Eventually, after "Switching Off", I actually just pushed myself out, and my mental health has improved immensely because of that.

dogbite wrote: ↑Mon Mar 12, 2018 4:40 pm ... I left because the scriptures aren't scriptural. The Bible broke first, then seeing the literal requirements made on the Bible by revealed scripture finished me off.

That's exactly the way it was for me. The Bible fell first, then I finally dared to search the internet for what I could find about the Mormon scriptures because of their dependence on the Bible. I pretty much became agnostic at that point. I'd say I'm pretty much switched off regarding the church and religion in general now.

I was pushed out by crappy policy, then really studied Mormonism and Christianity and was switched off (probably permanently). The combo is pretty frickin' effective.

Another category here is people that are unhappy trying to live they way the COB tells you to live to be happy.

I have two different friends who had no issues with the history or the doctrine, but over time they just became more and more annoyed with the BS and started seeing through it. The way the church treated people like children and the BS of blessings and tests dictating every move; it just didn't feel right to them. Typically it's when they were put into a leadership position at Bishopric or HC that it really sealed the deal for them and they just couldn't do it anymore.

I've been switched off for years and might actually enjoy the experience of being pushed out.

What does Mason think are the ongoing reasons why any of us should pay attention to the LDS church? Is it that we are led by a prophet that talks to God? Is it priesthood authority? Is it a new book of scripture? Is it the power of the priesthood to give blessings of healing? The expectations were set high from almost 200 years of expecting big things out of prophets and priesthood. Now they are trying to carefully roll that back. Certainly Patrick Mason is trying to roll that back. Is he willing to let us roll back our commitment to following the commandments?

The other usual problem arises is simply that this is just some LDS scholar that has no name recognition outside of FairMormon and the apostates that have this thrust upon them. I am confident that my dear wife has never heard of this guy. Brother Mason will never speak in General Conference. His ideas might slowly come to influence LDS culture over several decades, but it does not help the average NOM sitting bored in church deciding yet again to not point out the silliness spoken in Gospel Doctrine class.

I'm switched off, but if I bothered to push back a little I might get pushed out.

FWIW....

https://www.exmormon.org/phorum/read.ph ... sg-1862755

https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comme ... mormonism/

http://mormondiscussions.com/phpBB3/vie ... d#p1056761

...

I'm switched off and pushed out. I don't fit the social mold and problems with history and doctrine.

When I first read about the Book of Abraham I felt like there was a switch that flipped in my head. I immediately had the thought: "Joseph Smith just made it all up". The belief switch was turned off and it has remained that way since.

I don't fit his two categories. It is like he has talked to five people and then wrote his book.

Well, you could say I was pushed out because when I was 6-7, the girls in my primary class all lived on the same block and I was way further out towards the edge of town, so being snooty kids, they were too good to associate with me. As I got older, it was known that my parents were inactive and my mother had (gasp) gone back to college, and in the late 60's the only reason for that was that she was having an affair with a BYU professor. So gossip went around. It was so bad that when I got engaged to the RSP's son, he actually asked me if it was true, and when I couldn't stop laughing, he assumed it must not be. But the girls in my ward were even snootier by then. Then as an adult I was a feminist and didn't fit in, so really I think I got pushed out over that.

Or you might say that between me seeing the narcissism in Joseph Smith when I was 8, and disliking his as a rotten human being, perhaps it was the historical issues that switched me off, and I never could like or respect the "prophet".

But then, he takes no thought that someone might just see the truth of how fake the church is right from the start. He works from an assumption that the church is true and something happens (other than seeing the truth) to ruin a person's testimony. So, working from a delusion that the church is what it claims and that all Mormons are kind to each other, he has no possibility of reaching logical conclusions.

I'd put myself in group 1, but I'd call it, "Turned on the light and saw the crappy writing on the wall."

I think my parents would put themselves in the same group. My brother (who left as a teen) would probably not say he really fit either one.

That is the only book I have read in the "rescue the doubter" genre of books. I thought it started out all right with explanations on why people struggle, but proved quite frustrating to me for most of the second half. What can I say, apologists have kind of a bad hand to begin with in that they always have to end any defense of the Mormonism with the mantra that "oh well, the Church is still true and you should keep going".

I put myself in both of those categories, though, like glass shelf, I think they merit renaming. Definitely not "turned off" because finding out the truth WAS enlightening. And in my case yeah, I was sort of pushed out, because I did not want to think that groups of others (i.e. LGBTQ) are less than me or anyone else. The "pushed out" really has proven to be "loving and accepting of others without judgement".

That sounds like an interesting book - I should check it out.

I was switched off. I used to think it was almost instantaneous, but I found some old emails where I confided to a friend i knew had left & I mentioned there were many things that bothered me about the church and / or the culture. Those things were annoying and nagged at me, and had caused me to want to look into things further. A few months after that, I read the essay on plural marriage in Nauvoo and Kirtland, and my shelf crashed violently. Nothing had prepared me to learn that the church had blatantly LIED to me and millions of others, for more than 100 years.

Why should we believe an untruthful organization is a "true church," in any way, shape, form, or behavior?