So I often hear in the exmo community that you don't need to read the CES letter to be out, even reading the church essays is enough.

I'm already out (thanks to you lovely people) but I decided to read an essay anyway. I was reading the "Becoming like God" essay.
Bear in mind, I was a convert, and got baptised...and left three and a half weeks later.
I am not a good reader. My eyes tire after a few lines. My screen reader was not very helpful so I read patches here and there. It seems like it is giving evidence from the Bible and BoM that we can become like God. I think I also heard a little bit of that in one my church classes before I left.
What about the other essays? I know they cover a range of issues/topics.
Is there an exmo vs TBM summary of these essays somewhere?

What do the essays seek to do from an LDS perspective? Are they to improve faith?
How do people lose their testimony reading them?

Please clue me in, as I feel so stupid for not being able to spot it or read/comprehend them in their entirety. Thank you.


edited for a typo and to add a few more words.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/16/2017 11:50AM by pickleweed.

pickleweed,

The essays are an attempt to cover several of the more troubling aspects of Mormonism, as viewed from the outside. It is widely believed that the church published the essays as a response to legal trouble in the UK, where the church was taken to court over "bait-and-switch" techniques, of missionaries teaching one thing, and leadership requiring something else. The essays give the church a legal way out of that trouble by saying to the public, "See? There are no secrets. The info is right on our web site."

The essays published by the church, however, do try to polish the turd, often by using odd turns of the English language. For instance, people accuse Joseph Smith of marrying a 14 year-old. The church insists that his bride was "just shy of her 15th birthday," or some such bullshit. Naturally, they try to turn everything from polygamy and polyandry to the Mountain Meadows Massacre into a an inspirational story.

Also, it is hard to even find the essays, at least if you're going to the LDS site and trying to find them. Last year the church openly verified that they don't want church members to have easy access to them, so they cloud their locations on the site. They are meant to inform people, just not the members. The essays, however, have caused some damage. Several of us have encountered Mormons who believe the essays to be evidence that the church's website was hacked by unbelievers.

Some of the essays, such as "Becoming Like God" or whether Mormons are Christians, are an attempt to make doctrinal issues a little more palatable to anybody who finds them a little weird. The doctrines still come across a little weird in these essays, but they aren't necessarily "gotchas" if you are looking for lies told by the church.

Other essays, such as the ones regarding polygamy, BOM translation, the Book of Abraham, try to gloss over, or even deny, troublesome historical facts. It's these where the spin and deceit is most obvious to those who have studied Mormon history, and suspicious to those who are already starting to question the truth of what they have been taught by the church.

Heber C Kimball was baptised in April 1832, his daughter Helen Mar Kimball was still a toddler of a mere 3 years when joey boy the acclaimed prophet met her - he obviously watched her grow from being a mere babe into a young woman.

11 years later, in early summer 1843, when she was still just 14 years old, joey boy the much older (dirty old?) man of 37 who, together with her paedo enabler parents, married her (obviously consumated) and kept it secret from the world.

To put that into some perspective for you: that's almost as bad as another prophet, 1200 years earlier becoming betrothed to a 6 year old and consumating that marriage at age 9, except he did not hide his actions from his followers. He was more truthful than joey boy was. Both so-called prophets have followers today copying these examples/"teachings" they believe to be 'god's will'; the (illegal in the west) act of taking child brides.

This is just one single fact from one of those 'gospel topics' that has been extrapolated out for your benefit - the fact of the age of his youngest wife/conquest.

The church does not teach it's members to read between the lines of factual information and see what the words do not say but demonstrate to the avid reader, ie critical thinking. The so called essays might say a lot, but they don't say a whole lot more. That is why they are so dangerous to the church as they are losing all the critical thinkers from the membership.

pickleweed Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> It seems like it is
> giving evidence from the Bible and BoM that we can
> become like God.

Just FYI, quoting made-up stories isn't "giving evidence." It's trying to convince you of something *without* evidence, using other things *without* evidence as part of the convincing.

Which, of course, shouldn't be convincing at all. :)

I have reviewed some of the essays here:

http://www.mormonism101.com/search/label/Essays

You can just read the official text and click on the inline notes to see what half-truth or whole lie is told. Strictly factual, I have tried very hard to refrain from editorializing. Like a Mormon boy trying not to masturbate, I succeeded most of the time...

Thanks everyone! You're all really helpful.

Like a needle in a haystack, they are extremely hard to find and not announced in G.C., local congregations or church magazines, however, they are easy to find at http://www.mormonessays.com

They have many purposes: inform (in an ambiguous, yet dishonest, practically meaningless way), confuse, bullshit, save ass-face, etc., but necessarily in that order.

If you are curious as to what they are about, glance for yourself.