“Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand.” — Matthew 13:13 When I married my sweetheart at the age of 19, my journey as a man begun. No more was I to think only of myself, for now I had another human…
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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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3Ne 26:11 “Behold, I was about to write them, all which were engraven upon the plates of Nephi, but the Lord forbade it, saying: I will try the faith of my people.” Lately, I have been thinking about this particular verse and scripture. I have been thinking about how we, as a people (LDS faith),…
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Carson, I am not raised in the Church but rather I am a “convert”. In deciding, through much prayer and reading, I decided to be Baptized fully aware that I might not have all of my questions answered and not expecting the fullness of the gospel until sometime in the afterlife… I, vicariously, know you as…
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Years ago when my son left the church, I chose to dig deep and find the answers to the difficult questions about church history and its doctrine. I went into this venture with full confidence that I would find the faith affirming answers that would help save my son’s eternal salvation. Because of this effort…
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Kathryn Jenkins Gordon recently read through the Book of Mormon with a distinct purpose: I wanted to determine how many evidences were found in the Book of Mormon itself supporting the fact that it was translated from an ancient document and not written by Joseph Smith in the early 19th century. She documented her findings…
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Context: This is a letter I wrote to my mother and father about my current approach to the Word of Wisdom. I recently resigned from the Church, and I have other siblings who have left and who I suspect will leave, so I wanted to establish some common ground and explain my current thinking as…
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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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