Gees, it's still there, almost all of it! Can't see 1993 though.

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.religion.mormon/about?hl=en

Duwayne Anderson, Randy J., R. L. Measures and everybody!

I used to read it all the time and learned a lot, because of all the discussions about BoA and such. Wow. Seems like another life.

Those were some good discussions. That is where I first started posting in 94.

Shall we baptize it?

Oh, wow. As a TBM at the time, I thought that place was just evil, evil, evil. LOL

I posted there 93–96 as a TBM, and after reviewing my posts, I'm ashamed.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/16/2012 08:49AM by Jesus Smith.

Partial archive at http://www.2think.org/hii/arm.shtml with a topic list.

I am there on record defending the Church (while remaining truthful) ~70 times.

I found my uncle there once, years after the fact. He had been defending MMM. I was looking for possible exmos in the family... Fail.

I used to post there from about 94-98 or so. Seems like a lot of us who were defending the church back then have found our way out of the church.

You DID? How did it feel to get Randy or some other exmo answer your arguments? When did you feel it was as well to give up?

When I promoted the Church in newsgroups in the 1990s most arguments against the Church were religious or political. I could counter anyone debating the Church on those terms because at their core those subjects are only opinion.

I was used to being a contrarian. I was the only member (of any religion) in my family so I caught all the anti-religion swipes from them. I objected when Mormons tried promoting personal philosophy as doctrine.

I was always careful to only argue what I discovered through my own research. Gradually I found myself supporting an ever decreasing subset of Mormonism, however.

I used to think Randy was soooo evil. LOL. I learned after a short while that there was no use combatting things the "antis" said that were true. But I soldiered on as a mostly-believing Mormon until 2005. Then I decided it was time to stop rationalizing.

IIRC, I just posted under my name: John Williams, though I may have used "Johnny-cat" on occasion.

Hi, y'all. I used to post on ARM until a foreign fellow turned it into his own personal political blog, and began cursing people about things having more to do with his childhood and political views than about Mormonism.

I checked it out. The crazy guy who used to be there is gone, but another one has taken his place.

ARM is a testimony to the fact that the crazies will kill off any newsgroup that is not moderated.

...John Manning, who turned ARM into his personal political soapbox, and ruined it for discussing Mormonism. He is the main reason I stopped posting there.

Yeah, I agree with you.

He never posted anything on topic. He never described any Mormon upbringing or any connexion with Mormonism whatsoever. All he would do is rage and rant about George W. Bush -- in a worse way that the so-called "racists" are said to rant about Barack Obama.

I'll leave other details to the ash heap of history, where they belong.

"All he would do is rage and rant about George W. Bush -- in a worse way that the so-called "racists" are said to rant about Barack Obama."

Wouldn't you like to hear John Manning's opinion of Obama after six years in office? :-)

"I used to think Randy was soooo evil. LOL."

Yes, I am twirling my Snidely Whiplash moustache and snickering devilishly at this very moment. Later, I might drown a kitten or two.

Hey, Randy. I thought about you the other day when I read that the gold plates were excavated from the NE side of Cumorah.

Remember -- you told me that as a boy you went looking for the hole with the stone box in it, but couldn't find it.

"Remember -- you told me that as a boy you went looking for the hole with the stone box in it, but couldn't find it."

Yep, I was about 12 at the time, around 1967. And in 1995, I took my wife and four kids there, and my then-14-year-old son ran all over the hill looking for the box too, to no avail. I'd say that the number of Mormons who have fruitlessly looked for that box numbers over the last 185 years is in the hundreds of thousands.

Well they say there are dog people and cat people.

I'm not sure which I am since I never ate dog.

My former bishop used to post there as a low-key non-A-Hole defender of the faith.. I was a TBM lurker. After he stopped posting there, he didn't have anymore "big" callings, I saw his wife in sleeveless shirts a lot and his apostate daughter tells me he accompanied her to more than one wine tasting in support of her passion for wine. He still goes to church, but I think he may be closet apostate and it wouldn't surprise me a bit if it was thanks to that board. .

ahh yes. I found my contributions cropping up a few times.
some concise and insightful, obviously
some slightly embarrassing..........so I am not going to say what name I posted under :-)
I always posted there as an ex

Wow. It's still there? That goes a while back. I was an LDS Chatroom Host at the time. I'd tried to go there, but it was too nasty towards the Church (from my point-of-view at that time). But I couldn't resist peeking in from time-to-time.

Well, you get the last laugh. I looked at Alt.Religion.Mormon the other day, and it looks like a round table discussion in a psych ward.

Google needs to take the forum down and do away with it. It was much less embarassing with TBM's on it than the crazies who are there now. Unmoderated forums draw them like flies.

That newsgroup was one of the first places where I ever came in contact with like-minded people. I was a little wierded out because you couldn't resign back then. People said I went inactive. But I knew I was never going back.

My favorite exchange on there was a guy who was getting ready to go on his mission. He was quite the apologist and LDS cheerleader. He thought all of us apostates were just ignorant hillbillies and he knew better.

This guy was getting ready to go to the temple for the first time. A lot of people warned him about what he would see there and what he would be told to do. With great bravado, he called them all liars and then the day came that he marched faithfully to the house of the lard.

I couldn't WAIT for him to return and report. Because I knew that all the things they told him - all the things he said HAD to be lies - were the absolute truth. I kept wondering how shocked he would be to see that it all would happen just as he'd been told on that "evil" newsgroup.

As I recall, it was several days before we heard from him again and he was noticeably shaken. He said he had a lot to think about and wouldn't be posting for awhile. I don't know whatever happened to him. I often think about him and wonder.

This post must keeping coming up, because it looks like I answered it twice before, thinking it was new each time. LOL

Thanks to all of you for continued support of the wounded warriors of Mormonism.

Gawd, we're getting old. I don't recall doing much on alt.religion.mormon, but I do remember some epic clashes in AOL chat rooms with Mormons.

Anyone ever encounter an apologist online at AOL who went by the moniker, "Incognito?"

Was anybody here on Mormon-L in the 90's? It was run on BYU servers until Lou Midgley got it kicked off.

Runtu, you were Johnny Cat?! I remember you! And, of course, that idiot Randy J who just wouldn't listen to me - Lol! Now that "idiot" has this "idiot" thinking in entirely new directions. Whee! The fun of learning eh? That was my first exposure to the world of internet religious discussions. Gawd I would post 100 posts per day *easy* What an enthusiastic arse I were...... What a fun ride through the past.....realizing all those hours wasted. I coulda been a billionaire by now had I done any other thing than worry about converting folks to religion. Holy crap........

I well remember Duwayne Anderson. He and Randy J were THE nemesis's we had to tackle. It was from alt.religion.Mormon that we all bunched up and began FAIR so we would have ALL the answers catalogued. Did you guys know that? Me and Juliann Reynolds, and Darryl Barksdale......ahhhhhhhh the good ole days when we knew everything.....dammit man I am almost sorry I grew a brain - Lol!