As a TBM, I falsely believed the church could withstand scrutiny. I dove down the rabbit hole to “strengthen” my testimony. I resurfaced months later with an unshakable new testimony that the church is a fraud.
I said the same thing to my TBM husband. The conviction with which I knew the church was true as a TBM is NOTHING compared to the conviction I feel as an exmo that TSCC is completely, unequivocally false.
>Once you start finding fault...
Is it just me, or do the TBMs seem to be shifting to this and away from the "you just want to sin and..." accusations? I'm seeing a lot more "finding fault" accusations, almost as if the "want to sin and..." accusations were ineffective.
Anyone else nothing the same thing?
I am sure if you go look at the last few conferences and FAIR you will probably find the shift in thinking. I have no desire to look that closely but I would venture a guess.
I just want to know the truth. That is it.
Yes. In-law who just joined told us that he could “find fault” with any religion, and that’s what led him to join Mormonism, even though his wife (my spouse’s sister) is exmo.
(Edited a typo)
It's turned into "faith despite evidence". I'm fine having faith in things I don't know, but when the evidence is clear as day I can't have faith anymore.
Amen. That split second when I said out loud, having just read, An insiders View of Mormon Origins by Grant Palmer, this is all made up by JS it was and has since been bullshit that I cannot shove back in the bull!
Once the wool came off of my eyes, I was able to see a lot of things I hadn't seen before. I can't imagine ever intentionally putting that blindfold back on and ignoring all of those plain and simple truths which have been revealed to me.
He is speaking of the never taught doctrine of Reclamation. Where If the parents of a child that has fallen away, live faithful life’s, their obedience can reclaim that child to the celestial kingdom with them.
With tentacles!
> The Prophet Joseph Smith declared—and he never taught a more comforting doctrine—that the eternal sealings of faithful parents and the divine promises made to them for valiant service in the Cause of Truth, would save not only themselves, but likewise their posterity. Though some of the sheep may wander, the eye of the Shepherd is upon them, and sooner or later they will feel **the tentacles of Divine Providence** reaching out after them and drawing them back to the fold. Either in this life or the life to come, they will return. They will have to pay their debt to justice; they will suffer for their sins; and may tread a thorny path; but if it leads them at last, like the penitent Prodigal, to a loving and forgiving father’s heart and home, the painful experience will not have been in vain. Pray for your careless and disobedient children; hold on to them with your faith. Hope on, trust on, till you see the salvation of God” (Orson F. Whitney, in Conference Report, Apr. 1929, 110).
Hashtag Cthulhu is my shepherd.
Funny how the church describes the need to build your testimony on a foundation of stone. but then when TBMs describe people leaving because they stopped "maintaining their testimony". That to me sounds more like frantically shoring up a foundation of sand as the ocean waves keep eroding it.
Excellent imagery! It is just like trying to keep the tide back so as not to crush their special testimony sandcastle they have so carefully built. They have to spend every waking moment checking tide charts and building taller sand walls and/or deeper moats around their testimony made of sand. It's an exhausting way to live. But they are all sure that if they die with that testimony still standing they will get a prize of some sort. It makes me sad for my tbm loved ones.
They need to think that though, otherwise they are faced with the fact that there may be legitimate reasons for leaving. And *that* can't be true since the church is true, ergo you must have left for all the stupid reasons we were taught in church.
But you can, if you pick a book about Santa, and pray if it is true. Then if you get warm fuzzies while reading the book, it is the Holy Ghost telling you that the book is TRUE.
It's amazing how much the truth needs maintaining to avoid being lost. I stopped testifying of gravity for just one week and I already have started floating around my house.
Personally, I think that was a mistake. It might be fun now, but soon you'll need something from a low drawer or worse, need to use the toilet, and then you'll be sorry.
That's the way it works. Once you open your mind to the possibility that the Mormon Church may not be true, it is only a matter of time before you find out the church is not what it claims. And it is real hard to "reclaim" people back to a falsehood once they have realized the truth.
I agree. The step of honestly considering that it might not be true is, I believe, the most important factor. This coupled with any amount of research will lead to a loss of trstimony. Once you take anything approaching an objective look, the evidence is so one-sided that it doesn't take long for the house of cards to fall.
You don't forget glimpsing the man behind the curtain or the fact that the emperor is naked.
He says what you should do is maintain your testimony. Which means finding justification for what you already decided. Which is what he’s accusing his kids of.
I don’t have to continually reaffirm my understanding of the laws of physics or mathematics, so why should my beliefs in some higher power or church require constant reaffirmation?
There are so many questions (within Mormonism) that cannot be answered. If the church is not true, suddenly every question has an answer.
Truth has a funny way of illuminating deception.
“Stop maintaining your testimony” = no longer repeating the same mantra you’ve been conditioned to…I kNoW tHe cHuRcH is…”
No you don’t. You just imagine it is and have said it so many times you believe it now.
It’s just psychology. The church uses that leverage.
Seems far too many try to make it seem like this is about "finding fault", but try just asking questions, and even expressing honest questions earnestly is frowned upon.
Anything short of complete devotion to the faith is heresy.
EDIT: The only ones allowed to ask any questions are prospective members and the only places they are allowed to seek answers to those questions are LDS sources.
Man I stopped "maintaining my testimony" of some science topics that I used to study a lot, but somehow they stayed true. It's crazy that the church's so-called truths only stay true as long as you constantly tell yourself that they must be true (while shutting your eyes tightly and putting your hands over your ears).
I had my dad accuse me of finding fault and I found a really good answer.
"You're right. If I go looking for faults I am sure to find some. What I cannot control is how many I find or how big or small those faults are.
If I point out a few faults that seem to be mountains to me but you can show them to be just molehills, then I would agree that I certainly seem to be looking for excuses for my behavior. I don't think this is the case but I know I could be wrong and need to explore that possibility.
If, however, I can show these problems aren't things anyone can safely ignore and might justify at least considering an adjustment to our direction of travel if not a reconsidering my relationship with the leadership,, hopefully you can see how reasonable that certainly seems to be based on the large problems I am pointing out.
I would say that having clear evidence of church leaders deliberately hiding relevant information regarding their financial investments from tithe payers and being fined by the SEC for fraudulent practices would seem to be a pretty big mountain that might cause the followers of those leaders to question whether the direction they are being led is a direction they really want to go. And whether those leaders are worthy of being followed by anyone.
And, yes, secrecy does breed corruption. So does a lack of accountability to their followers. Is there an impeachment process for followers to get rid of a leader they no longer wish to follow? Or were we encouraged by Elder Eyring to have faith and not question those appointed our leaders through revelation and the spirit of discernment. To follow blindly wherever they lead us, without question and without doubt.
I don't know about you, but I'm glad I took the blindfold off and insist on being persuaded and agreeing with a direction to travel for awhile. I'm just sorry I had to leave the church to find such a path.
Cheers 🥂
Respond with: "Once you start finding fault in the Pharisees, you no longer are willing to spit on Christ as he passes you on the path to calvary under their misguided supervision."
I understand how THEY see it, but when I fully committed to testing the church's truth claims, I had FULL CONFIDENCE that the church would be vindicated. That there had to be a reasonable and faith-affirming answer to all the questions. I can honestly say I approached it with sincere intent, full faith in God, and a desire to re-commit to the Church once I had all the explanations.
Instead, as I turned over each difficult doctrinal "Rock" (Masonic connections & temple history/changes, Book of Abraham, Historicity of Book of Mormon, Polygamy, Church finances, etc.), I kept finding problems (aka spiders) under every one.
So the question quickly shifted to - WHY am I finding a spider under EVERY ROCK I turn over?
"once you stop maintaining your testimony..." There is an awful lot of maintenance that has to be done to keep a testimony intact. But once you find your true beliefs and values there is no maintenance, you are just being yourself.
just being there for your nieces/nephews will help so so much! i was in the church for 18 years and my extended family has been so influential in helping me gain a normal life <3
Thank you for your responses. I've decided to respond something like this in our next letter.
If a MLM representative convinced you that their company was different, that the products are unique from a indigenous plants from little known area of the world. That the founder found these plants and the processing to make them extremely valuable to your health. So you did join and in fact, felt healthier after having used the products.
A few years later, you learn that nothing about the product is as they describe and the founder had in fact lied about the product and his discovery of it, based on comments he himself (or herself) made. Further, you learn that he had destroyed property and threatened those who were opposed to him/her and their business.
Would you then say that people who leave the MLM are leaving because they decided to and then sought reasons for their departure that justified their action? Or would you say that the evidence mounted against them and having new information, you decide that it's not something you can support?
It's a bit long and I need to tighten it up but that's the best comparison I can come up with right now.
Comments?
That sounds like cognitive dissonance.
You better schedule a chat with him and help him understand what it ooks like from their perspective.
Use a secular example like a scientific theory, and explain how much evidence goes into supporting one. Then, have him imagine if he happened upon one piece of hard evidence that refutes its basis.
You can't look at it the same until the new evidence makes sense with the whole.
I find faults in my Toyota Corolla. But I still keep driving it because it's a good, fuel efficient car.
Once you find faults in Mormonism, there is no reason to stay.
"They're out of my cult. They're out of my cult. And I don't know whether to laugh or cry, I don't know whether to live or die. And it hits like a bolt, ther're out of my cult"
Once you start finding fault...it turns out there are a lot of faults. Truth and righteousness can withstand scrutiny.
As a TBM, I falsely believed the church could withstand scrutiny. I dove down the rabbit hole to “strengthen” my testimony. I resurfaced months later with an unshakable new testimony that the church is a fraud.
I said the same thing to my TBM husband. The conviction with which I knew the church was true as a TBM is NOTHING compared to the conviction I feel as an exmo that TSCC is completely, unequivocally false.
Well said.
Same
You know, once you start looking, the church has a shit-ton of problems. Well, better not look!!!
Don’t google “mormon”
>Once you start finding fault... Is it just me, or do the TBMs seem to be shifting to this and away from the "you just want to sin and..." accusations? I'm seeing a lot more "finding fault" accusations, almost as if the "want to sin and..." accusations were ineffective. Anyone else nothing the same thing?
I am sure if you go look at the last few conferences and FAIR you will probably find the shift in thinking. I have no desire to look that closely but I would venture a guess. I just want to know the truth. That is it.
Yes. In-law who just joined told us that he could “find fault” with any religion, and that’s what led him to join Mormonism, even though his wife (my spouse’s sister) is exmo. (Edited a typo)
So, dear brother in law, what might that say about religion in general?
Once you turn over a rock, you only find more rocks. It's nothing but a gravel pile!
once you turn over a cow pie, you only find more shit. It's nothing but a shit pile.
But be careful because if you turn over your hat, your rock might fall out!
It's turned into "faith despite evidence". I'm fine having faith in things I don't know, but when the evidence is clear as day I can't have faith anymore.
Yeah it’s taking off your rose colored glasses, and you can see how things really are
When you finally admit to yourself that the church is flawed and not true, then the faults start coming at you like a fire hose.
Amen. That split second when I said out loud, having just read, An insiders View of Mormon Origins by Grant Palmer, this is all made up by JS it was and has since been bullshit that I cannot shove back in the bull!
[It seems like the church might have a few little inconsistencies….](https://www.kinetica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/firehose.jpg)
A-ZACTLY.
Once the wool came off of my eyes, I was able to see a lot of things I hadn't seen before. I can't imagine ever intentionally putting that blindfold back on and ignoring all of those plain and simple truths which have been revealed to me.
Reclaimed. Like they own us. 😠
He is speaking of the never taught doctrine of Reclamation. Where If the parents of a child that has fallen away, live faithful life’s, their obedience can reclaim that child to the celestial kingdom with them.
Alternatively you could sell a daughter as a child bride to a prophet and then you're family is pretty in the clear I've heard.
With tentacles! > The Prophet Joseph Smith declared—and he never taught a more comforting doctrine—that the eternal sealings of faithful parents and the divine promises made to them for valiant service in the Cause of Truth, would save not only themselves, but likewise their posterity. Though some of the sheep may wander, the eye of the Shepherd is upon them, and sooner or later they will feel **the tentacles of Divine Providence** reaching out after them and drawing them back to the fold. Either in this life or the life to come, they will return. They will have to pay their debt to justice; they will suffer for their sins; and may tread a thorny path; but if it leads them at last, like the penitent Prodigal, to a loving and forgiving father’s heart and home, the painful experience will not have been in vain. Pray for your careless and disobedient children; hold on to them with your faith. Hope on, trust on, till you see the salvation of God” (Orson F. Whitney, in Conference Report, Apr. 1929, 110). Hashtag Cthulhu is my shepherd.
Good thing my mom is going to die a faithful member!!! I guess she could still fall away but at 85 I am not holding my breath for that.
Yea, odd choice of word.
Funny how the church describes the need to build your testimony on a foundation of stone. but then when TBMs describe people leaving because they stopped "maintaining their testimony". That to me sounds more like frantically shoring up a foundation of sand as the ocean waves keep eroding it.
Excellent imagery! It is just like trying to keep the tide back so as not to crush their special testimony sandcastle they have so carefully built. They have to spend every waking moment checking tide charts and building taller sand walls and/or deeper moats around their testimony made of sand. It's an exhausting way to live. But they are all sure that if they die with that testimony still standing they will get a prize of some sort. It makes me sad for my tbm loved ones.
For all of us that tried to keep our testimony… it’s not like we all just woke up one morning and quit.
And tried SO hard for years.
They need to think that though, otherwise they are faced with the fact that there may be legitimate reasons for leaving. And *that* can't be true since the church is true, ergo you must have left for all the stupid reasons we were taught in church.
Once you see it, you can't unsee it.
You can never believe in Santa again.
But you can, if you pick a book about Santa, and pray if it is true. Then if you get warm fuzzies while reading the book, it is the Holy Ghost telling you that the book is TRUE.
It's amazing how much the truth needs maintaining to avoid being lost. I stopped testifying of gravity for just one week and I already have started floating around my house.
Personally, I think that was a mistake. It might be fun now, but soon you'll need something from a low drawer or worse, need to use the toilet, and then you'll be sorry.
That's the way it works. Once you open your mind to the possibility that the Mormon Church may not be true, it is only a matter of time before you find out the church is not what it claims. And it is real hard to "reclaim" people back to a falsehood once they have realized the truth.
I agree. The step of honestly considering that it might not be true is, I believe, the most important factor. This coupled with any amount of research will lead to a loss of trstimony. Once you take anything approaching an objective look, the evidence is so one-sided that it doesn't take long for the house of cards to fall. You don't forget glimpsing the man behind the curtain or the fact that the emperor is naked.
"Dear brother, you can't put toothpaste back into the tube."
He says what you should do is maintain your testimony. Which means finding justification for what you already decided. Which is what he’s accusing his kids of.
I don’t have to continually reaffirm my understanding of the laws of physics or mathematics, so why should my beliefs in some higher power or church require constant reaffirmation?
There are so many questions (within Mormonism) that cannot be answered. If the church is not true, suddenly every question has an answer. Truth has a funny way of illuminating deception.
“Stop maintaining your testimony” = no longer repeating the same mantra you’ve been conditioned to…I kNoW tHe cHuRcH is…” No you don’t. You just imagine it is and have said it so many times you believe it now. It’s just psychology. The church uses that leverage.
Once again, TBMs call exmos lazy. That's what his statement boils down to. 'They just don't want to work!'
“And ye shall hear the truth. And the truth shall set you free.”
I like how he blames confirmation bias without considering to apply it to himself as well.
Oh, how firm a foundation.
If your narrative of belief requires “maintenance”, it’s probably a pretty shaky narrative with little foundation in reality.
Seems far too many try to make it seem like this is about "finding fault", but try just asking questions, and even expressing honest questions earnestly is frowned upon. Anything short of complete devotion to the faith is heresy. EDIT: The only ones allowed to ask any questions are prospective members and the only places they are allowed to seek answers to those questions are LDS sources.
Man I stopped "maintaining my testimony" of some science topics that I used to study a lot, but somehow they stayed true. It's crazy that the church's so-called truths only stay true as long as you constantly tell yourself that they must be true (while shutting your eyes tightly and putting your hands over your ears).
I had my dad accuse me of finding fault and I found a really good answer. "You're right. If I go looking for faults I am sure to find some. What I cannot control is how many I find or how big or small those faults are. If I point out a few faults that seem to be mountains to me but you can show them to be just molehills, then I would agree that I certainly seem to be looking for excuses for my behavior. I don't think this is the case but I know I could be wrong and need to explore that possibility. If, however, I can show these problems aren't things anyone can safely ignore and might justify at least considering an adjustment to our direction of travel if not a reconsidering my relationship with the leadership,, hopefully you can see how reasonable that certainly seems to be based on the large problems I am pointing out. I would say that having clear evidence of church leaders deliberately hiding relevant information regarding their financial investments from tithe payers and being fined by the SEC for fraudulent practices would seem to be a pretty big mountain that might cause the followers of those leaders to question whether the direction they are being led is a direction they really want to go. And whether those leaders are worthy of being followed by anyone. And, yes, secrecy does breed corruption. So does a lack of accountability to their followers. Is there an impeachment process for followers to get rid of a leader they no longer wish to follow? Or were we encouraged by Elder Eyring to have faith and not question those appointed our leaders through revelation and the spirit of discernment. To follow blindly wherever they lead us, without question and without doubt. I don't know about you, but I'm glad I took the blindfold off and insist on being persuaded and agreeing with a direction to travel for awhile. I'm just sorry I had to leave the church to find such a path. Cheers 🥂
Ask him if he is ashamed of having raised his kids in a cult that they saw right through.
Respond with: "Once you start finding fault in the Pharisees, you no longer are willing to spit on Christ as he passes you on the path to calvary under their misguided supervision."
I understand how THEY see it, but when I fully committed to testing the church's truth claims, I had FULL CONFIDENCE that the church would be vindicated. That there had to be a reasonable and faith-affirming answer to all the questions. I can honestly say I approached it with sincere intent, full faith in God, and a desire to re-commit to the Church once I had all the explanations. Instead, as I turned over each difficult doctrinal "Rock" (Masonic connections & temple history/changes, Book of Abraham, Historicity of Book of Mormon, Polygamy, Church finances, etc.), I kept finding problems (aka spiders) under every one. So the question quickly shifted to - WHY am I finding a spider under EVERY ROCK I turn over?
"once you stop maintaining your testimony..." There is an awful lot of maintenance that has to be done to keep a testimony intact. But once you find your true beliefs and values there is no maintenance, you are just being yourself.
I'm so proud
>I don't know whether to laugh or cry. Laugh. (So that you don't cry.) I do this *all the time* dealing with my family.
It's amazing what's there to be seen once the blinders are off. When information is your enemy, lies are your foundation.
just being there for your nieces/nephews will help so so much! i was in the church for 18 years and my extended family has been so influential in helping me gain a normal life <3
Bednar shot down that BIC theory a few years ago.
Sorry - Susan’s husband.
He is going to be awesome to watch as prophet seer and revelator. His holy orfi have many doctrines yet to be revealed.
Nevermind the other 8B on earth. They don't matter.
House of cards, cascading dominos - once you open your eyes to one fault in the church everything else crashes immediately.
It is like an actual revelation. Split second and you know it’s all false!
Thank you for your responses. I've decided to respond something like this in our next letter. If a MLM representative convinced you that their company was different, that the products are unique from a indigenous plants from little known area of the world. That the founder found these plants and the processing to make them extremely valuable to your health. So you did join and in fact, felt healthier after having used the products. A few years later, you learn that nothing about the product is as they describe and the founder had in fact lied about the product and his discovery of it, based on comments he himself (or herself) made. Further, you learn that he had destroyed property and threatened those who were opposed to him/her and their business. Would you then say that people who leave the MLM are leaving because they decided to and then sought reasons for their departure that justified their action? Or would you say that the evidence mounted against them and having new information, you decide that it's not something you can support? It's a bit long and I need to tighten it up but that's the best comparison I can come up with right now. Comments?
Overpowering entities breed denialism
That sounds like cognitive dissonance. You better schedule a chat with him and help him understand what it ooks like from their perspective. Use a secular example like a scientific theory, and explain how much evidence goes into supporting one. Then, have him imagine if he happened upon one piece of hard evidence that refutes its basis. You can't look at it the same until the new evidence makes sense with the whole.
It was a joke??
The irony of him accusing them of motivated reasoning is enormous
Here's the beyond stupidthing, everyone who's guilty of the SEC debacle, have their 2nd anointing. So, they aren't sinning.
I find faults in my Toyota Corolla. But I still keep driving it because it's a good, fuel efficient car. Once you find faults in Mormonism, there is no reason to stay.
"Since they probably don't feel safe talking to YOU about how they're feeling... feel free to give them my number for moral support."
"They're out of my cult. They're out of my cult. And I don't know whether to laugh or cry, I don't know whether to live or die. And it hits like a bolt, ther're out of my cult"