LDS Indoctrination and Retentive Socialization

LDS Indoc­tri­na­tion and Reten­tive Social­iza­tion Intro­duc­tion In A Mes­sage To The Most Ardent Crit­ic Of The Mor­mon Church, Ben Arkell quotes a name­less mem­ber of the church who had recent­ly dropped off their daugh­ter and son at the Mis­sion­ary Train­ing Cen­ter (MTC) of the Church of Jesus Christ of Lat­ter-day Saints (empha­sis added): “I wish I…

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TRUTH RESTORED

For­mer LDS Church his­to­ri­an D Michael Quinn has quot­ed the fol­low­ing remarks giv­en to him dur­ing the course of an inter­view with Elder Boyd K Pack­er, then an Apos­tle of the LDS Church; “I have a hard time with his­to­ri­ans… because they idol­ize the truth. The truth is not uplift­ing; it destroys. His­to­ri­ans should tell…

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Book of Mormon parallels to 1800s thought

Book of Mor­mon par­al­lels to 1800s thought Richard Bush­man, well-known Mor­mon his­to­ri­an, recent­ly stat­ed: … there is phras­ing everywhere–long phras­es that if you google them you will find them in 19th cen­tu­ry writ­ings. The the­ol­o­gy of the Book of Mor­mon is very much 19th cen­tu­ry the­ol­o­gy, and it reads like a 19th cen­tu­ry under­stand­ing of…

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Questions to Ask

Intro­duc­tion These ques­tions are designed to probe var­i­ous aspects of the LDS Church’s his­to­ry and truth-claims.1 The list was made for 1) inves­ti­ga­tors to ask the mis­sion­ar­ies, 2) active mem­bers to ask them­selves, or 3) those expe­ri­enc­ing a faith tran­si­tion to ask their par­ents or eccle­si­as­ti­cal lead­ers. The major­i­ty of links pro­vid­ed are to LDS…

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Swords and Spears

Swords and Spears For over a decade I’ve been hung up on the dearth of phys­i­cal evi­dence, par­tic­u­lar­ly Iron Age arti­facts, sup­port­ing the Book of Mor­mon. Recent­ly I had a mini-enlight­en­­ment in this regard: swords and spears do not grow on trees; they do nor fall as man­na from Heav­en. They are made, by men. With­out pretending…

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Issues and Questions Regarding LDS Doctrine and History

Four­teen years down the road, the ques­tions and issues raised in this let­ter remain sub­stan­tial­ly unan­swered, to my knowl­edge unad­dressed, by The Church of Jesus Christ of Lat­ter Day Saints. August 30, 2003 153 Canemah Way Ore­gon City, OR 97045 Pres­i­dent Gor­don B. Hinck­ley The Church of Jesus Christ of Lat­ter Day Saints 50 East North Temple…

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Too Big to Fail

I con­sid­ered titling this “Too Big to Fail?” But no, with bil­lions in assets, mil­lions of Saints tithing ten per­cent, and cat­a­stroph­ic cul­tur­al impli­ca­tions, like Chase Man­hat­tan and Gold­man Sacks, The Church of Jesus Christ of Lat­ter Day Saints is too big to fail. While fis­cal fail­ure of the Mor­mon church por­tends eco­nom­ic shock­waves beyond reck­on­ing, such…

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Before the facts, it didn’t make sense

I’m new to this site and hap­py to share my expe­ri­ence. Five years ago my wife and I were very active, both hold­ing call­ings and try­ing to get out to activ­i­ties often. Even share the gospel a lit­tle. But one day just sud­den­ly at the same time we both felt like we real­ly did­n’t want…

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It’s all about trust

There are hun­dreds of rea­sons to believe or not believe that the Church of Jesus Christ of Lat­ter-day Saints is true. For me I no longer believe it is true in the way it teach­es it is true. How did I come to this con­clu­sion? I could give a list of issues and con­cerns just like the…

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The Shunning Key

The Shun­ning Key: Whom Mor­mons shun and why Intro­duc­tion The lead­ers and man­u­als of The Church of Jesus Christ of Lat­ter-day Saints fre­quent­ly empha­size broth­er­ly love and char­i­ty to all. Con­sid­er this state­ment by Elder M. Rus­sell Bal­lard: Let us reach out in friend­ship and love to our neigh­bors, includ­ing those of oth­er faiths, thus…

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