There may be those that attack a 14yr old boy prophet, the Book of Mormon prophets, living prophets, and a living Christ. There were those that accused, and today accuse, Jesus Christ of not being Christian, of having, and being the devil. There are those that deny the existence of Heavenly Father, angels, and miracles. Do not…
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Why not investigate? From the perspective of a believing member, there are many valid reasons to avoid critically1 investigating the truth-claims of the Church.2 Lack the time, energy, interest, or capability To investigate requires time and effort. Most members are busy raising a family and have many demands on their time and focus. Maybe now…
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This is a very short summary of what I view as the 5 most important facts in understanding alternative models for LDS truth claims. To the best of my knowledge, every point made in this document is accepted as factual by both LDS and non-LDS scholars (please correct me if I am mistaken and I…
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The 1832 First Vision account was suppressed between 11 and ~30 years The evidence LaMar Petersen, an amateur Mormon historian, met with Levi Young (senior President of the First Council of the Seventy) on February 3, 1953, and took these notes: His curiosity was excited when reading in Roberts’ Doc. History reference to “documents from which these…
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The three-fold nature of the church: corporate, totalistic, and individual-growth bwv549 last updated 2016-06-06 Teachings and actions of the Church, its leaders, and its members may be categorized into three prominent mindsets: corporate, totalistic, and individual-growth (aka “growth-mindset”): There is certainly overlap and interplay between these mindsets, but many of the Church’s teachings and actions…
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1 Introduction 2 Do spiritual impressions teach truth? 3 What’s behind a spiritual experience? 4 Testimony, bias, and propaganda 5 Circularities: pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps? 6 Conclusions 7 Additional reading (note: This article is an updated version of my original Rational Faiths article) 1 Introduction 1.1 Know the truth of all things The Church…
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The Shins will change your life. Spoken by a young Natalie Portman in the cult indie classic Garden State, The Shins really have changed my life, providing a therapeutic soundtrack to my transition out of the church. They have always been a favorite band of mine (credit the impeccable music taste of my wife) but it wasn’t until…
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I live in Eastern Washington. The Bundy’s misguided and atrocious take-over of a Federal visitor’s center in Eastern Oregon has got me thinking on one of the most fundamental issues of the Book of Mormon, that Native Americans are somehow supposed to be connected to the awful God of the Old Testament through Israelite bloodlines, were…
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Over the last two weeks, the LDS church has had their new policy on LGBT and LGBT children leaked, provided an explanation by Christofferson, then finally “clarified” through a statement from the first presidency and commentary from Church Public Affairs. The church stated that the “questions” regarding the policy change was caused by “incomplete news reports, tweets…
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The LDS Church released changes to its Handbook on November 5, 2015 in relation to same-sex couples and children raised by same-sex couples. Specifically, the Church now prohibits children of same-sex couples from being baptized until they are 18 – and only if they move out of their parents’ homes, disavow all same-sex relationships, and receive…
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