Immersing yourself in criticism of the church is important — not slander or hate speech, just criticism.

It's important, because the church had control of you during your developmental years. I'm not saying parents don't have a right to raise their kids as they best see fit. I'm saying that if there are problems later in life tied directly to what you were raised to believe as a kid, or if you don't want to confess with your mouth anymore what your heart now believes is bullshit but you can't because of inhibitions that were installed in you early on before you even understood why, you need to immerse yourself in criticism of the church.

You need to be able to imagine two people sitting at a diner having a discussion about the Mormon church and understand why they say what they say. Imagine that neither of them have been brainwashed into a religious bias and they're pretty open people — like that one teacher everyone has who you can never tell what they believe personally because they put everyone else's feelings first. They're having an in depth discussion of the church. What qualifies them? you may ask. What books did they read? Where did they get their information?

There's no shortage of books about Mormonism, but you have imagined up unto yourself that they were all "anti-mormon," which means they were written using information from people who had an agenda against God's true church and wanted to hurt it. Journalists write news articles occasionally trying to explain Mormonism and its origins in laymen's terms, and you read these and laugh at their naive attempts to understand your religion. It takes prayer and scripture study and a life time of indoctrination to understand a Mormon the way a Mormon understands himself — this is true, but it doesn't mean they have your religion all wrong.

There was a time before your own religious bias set in, before your brain had de-plasticized because it was done maturing and "knew" enough to get by. You would ask your parents questions. You would ask them why God told King Samuel to slay every living thing among the Amorites and got upset when Samuel kept some things alive. You would ask them why Nephi had to cut off a man's head when he was commanded the rest of the time not to kill anybody. You would ask questions about things because your child-like curiosity would notice these inconsistencies and they were impossible to believe until you got a better explanation — not that you didn't want to believe. That's the beauty of childhood innocence. You don't know how to lie. I mean, you can fib, but only so you don't get caught. You never get so good at telling lies that you can say you "live a lie." Your parents would answer your questions, sometimes politely and sometimes angrily (depending on how serious the criticism was) and once they got you to shut up they would tell you that it's not appropriate to question the church.

As you got older and your brain came to the age of reasoning, your questions would get more serious and more dire. Again, you still wanted to believe, but because you trusted that the church is the truth, you knew there must be an answer, you just didn't know what it was yet and you couldn't think of a reason why no one would know what it is or why they wouldn't tell you if the critics are always wrong. That's when the seminary and institute classes came into your life to educate you about the gospel. And that's when your honest questions to your parents started pissing them off too.

You were told who the critics were, either one of these two things:

1) people who hated the church because they wanted to sin.
2) people who have been brainwashed by the angry hate-filled propaganda of other people who hate the church and want to sin.

But this is only a caricature, and it isn't true in view that the world is a messy, grey place to live in. In order to understand this, you have to overcome your fear of hearing the church criticized. Once criticism of the church becomes just another topic of conversation and you can recognize for yourself good information from bad information and where to find the best sources of accurate information, that's when you will be able to imagine two sane people without any bias sitting at a diner and having a well-informed conversation about the church without "feeling the spirit" or feeling some need to "find out more" from those who have "the gift of the Holy Ghost."

That's when you can go through your memories of those conversations in seminary and with your parents and understand what that feeling was that made you feel so sick to believe that when the Lord commands it you have to become a murderer, and things like that, which scars a starry-eyed child and kills his curiosity about the world.

The church was never true. You were just carefully and calculatedly raised to receive the impression that it was, but the fact that reality still managed to seep through means that they did that to you as mortals, not as mortals who had an all-powerful, all-wise being in their pocket, although they may genuinely believe that.

I actually think you're wrong for some people. For me, I still gets gut response of defense against anti Mormon stuff. Some of it is genuine, some outlandish. It sets me back ten steps every time.

Xxx

I believe Cold-Dodger to be correct. Some anti-Mormon material is incorrect or sensationalized. That particular material can elicit a defensive response even from ex-Mormons. Is that what you mean?

We seem to have an instinct, when a core belief or understanding is under attack, to be defensive. I have corrected many people who have misconceptions about Mormonism from reading some Evangelical literature or similar sources. It does not mean I support Mormonism. I just wish to have the record set straight. Mormonism is crazy enough without the need for embellishment.

What CD wrote resonated with my experience. I have had a need to keep reading genuine criticisms of the church to help drive the indoctrination out of my mind. I believed in the church 100 percent, and it takes a lot to turn that ship around. I kept telling myself "I'm deprogramming." Some times I have to read other uplifting books by great authors just to feel positivity again. I always return to criticsms of the church- deprogramming, recovering.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/30/2016 07:40AM by liesarenotuseful.

You described the emotional abuse of child. Instilling fear, making them feel sick, inhibiting reasoning abilities, instilling bigotry.

Most of us recoil at the thought that the state might claim that parents do not have the right to "raise a child as they see fit." Current lines are drawn at physical abuse. There are reams written on the damage and expense of mental and emotional abuse. It is well-defined.

Why is it allowed?

The "duty" that a person must de-program that damage is a call to self-help as a part of healing from having been mentally and emotionally abused by parents enmeshed in a cult.

When I was TBM, a friend asked me about LDS theories about something. That rubbed me the wrong way because in Mormonism there are no theories. Everything just is what it is. It's been decided and it's simply not up for discussion. It doesn't matter that the doctrine doesn't make sense or that it teaches things that suck or have dubious historical origins. All that matters is belief.

The persecution complex planted into you since Primary causes all information conflicting with belief to be seen as anti-Mormon. You were lucky enough to be born with a natural immunity. They bit you but you didn't turn into a zombie.

I think Cold-Dodger raises a good point here. It's important to realize why you have all those "default settings." By default settings, I mean all the ideas that we have just assumed to be true, because that's what was taught in the environment that we grew up in--in this case Mormonism.

Mormonism can color our views about authority, sexuality, health, the meaning of life, etc.

As master Yoda says: "you must unlearn what you have learned."

I frankly find offence with the term "anti-Mormon" since, in most cases, the falsely labeled material is really "pro-truth".

I personally knew Jerald and Sandra Tanner when they first started out as "Modern Microfilm" and were considered "anti-Mormons". What Jerald mainly did in the beginning was to print cheap photographic images of then rare and very expensive former officially published Mormon Documents. One of the very first publications was the reprinting of the Book of Commandments which was nothing more than Josephs early revelations as he claimed to have originally received them.

The church was very upset with the Tanners and labeled them anti-Mormon since any member could now clearly see that the church has lied about the extensive changes made to them for over a hundred years. To this day, the church still presents the D&C to be the original revelations although many have been improperly changed and edited without notation or comment. Yes, to the lying brethren, the truth is anti-Mormon. What a strange belief system.

I'm still not clear, exactly, on why ANY recovering person has a DUTY to read antimormon work.

Why is it a duty?

Can you just not believe? Why do you have to read all the things backing that up?

I'm out because it was clear to me that the church does not and will not ever deliver on its promises. I had several traumatic experiences that demonstrated to me that all of the promises that had been made to me in Sunday School, YW, and SM were obvious lies. I don't see why I have a duty to go read a bunch of drivel picking apart obviously made-up doctrine. The teachings of the church are pure garbage. Why, again because it's not clear from reading the OP, do I have a DUTY to read more? Isn't walking away and setting about recovery enough?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/30/2016 02:56PM by dogzilla.

My favorite quote from your post:

"Once criticism of the church becomes just another topic of conversation and you can recognize for yourself good information from bad information and where to find the best sources of accurate information, that's when you will be able to imagine two sane people without any bias sitting at a diner and having a well-informed conversation about the church without "feeling the spirit" or feeling some need to "find out more" from those who have "the gift of the Holy Ghost."

That's the thing, isn't it? With believer, you CANT have a reasonable discussion about their beliefs. They are so friggin' scared to consider anything that doesn't reinforce their beliefs that they get upset and defensive. The sad thing is that they keep themselves shut in their box of belief, simply because they are afraid to peek their heads up and look around.

It seems to me that many Mormons will confuse 'non' with 'anti, as in anything that is non-Mormon, they presume to be anti-Mormon. Has anyone else noticed this?

Well, the church has always held to the position that "if you are not for us, you are against us". This exclusionary belief is one of the main reasons for the well deserved animosity the church has experienced throughout its long history.

I would say that what you read depends on what you want to know.

I converted to the Church in 1979. I read anything about the Church - Ensign, anti, apologists, apostates, the whole thing. Even in the later 1980s when the Internet was just dawning, most writing against the Church was religious. "You Mormons are a CULT that worship the wrong JESUS! Our pastor told us all about that CULT last week." There that told those Mormons.

Most writings were opinion - not factual. Opinion can be refuted or disregarded as just another opinion. Facts are not so easily ignored. It is important that a reader know what is fact and what is opinion - even when reading science because scientists have opinions, too.

Over time I was building a shelf of "unresolved questions." Meanwhile, the amount of the LDS Church (or LDS culture) that I was willing to accept as "truth" diminishes.

Back to my opening statement: what is it you want to know?

Even when attending the LDS Church I felt it important to know what critics were saying about the Church. What concerns those people? What is there to watch when watching the Church? I came to realize that the Church (and many members) does not consider itself accountable to society.

If you want to leave the Church and disappear, then we have no duty to read anything about the Church. That could be so easy in Canada (maybe not in Utah).

But if you want to engage in discussions about the Church, then we must be informed - and factually informed. We must know what these people have read when they express their thoughts about issues. What is the source of that opinion? What are they read to read next? What question would lead them to that point?

The more varied your resources the more likely you are to have what another person needs at that time in their lives.

My partner's son and wife were fellowshipped by a LDS doctor and family in their community. How did I approach the issue? Very factually. Her daughter-in-law wondered if their daughter had any clothes that would be appropriate for my granddaughter before they donate them to charity? Since my TBM ex-wife has custody of our granddaughter I let my ex-wife reject every summer top without sleeves. She rejected all but 2 of ~30 tops offered. My partner's son and family has yet to join the LDS Church.

If we want to be a resource to others, we must have information that they can use.