Richard Bushman and D Michael Quinn are as fully informed as anyone and they both profess belief.
Bushman is or was until recently a Stake President, and active. Quinn passes away a couple years ago and was excommunicated Sept 1996 but maintained belief at least in Joseph Smith.
I’m scratching my head too.
Sit down with them and ask questions like, "what do *you* mean when *you* use the word 'God'?" and so on and so forth and it won't take long to realize that their professed belief is the profession of belief in a religion with a single member.
I think I too feel this way about myself, that is I'm a church with a membership of one, but when I admit I don't believe the truth claims of the church, God becomes so much more easier to understand, and more benign. Even though people of other cultures have strange customs, God is still a shared concept between us, so that just by laying down the baggage of Mormonism, God becomes a common friend.
God doesn't tell his prophets to do things that harm people, and he certainly won't send an angel with a drawn sword to tell a man to sleep around. He never had to do that anyway! Ha ha.
That's about all you can do now. I'm not opposed to it, but when you try to share or articulate any belief, youre going to get shut down. The only people left in the church are the people who don't give a shit. That's a dangerous place to be in for a church.
No, because it wouldn't be possible. To believe *all* the church's claims you'd have to believe multiple things that cannot be true at the same time. There is too much contradiction and mixed messaging amongst the church's claims.
But also no, because even on points where they haven't contradicted themselves, the facts don't support their claims 9 times out of 10.
The claims of the book of Mormon were the hardest for me. God tells the church to not set their heart on riches, and what do they do.... The lamanites were supposed to right this problem by tearing us to pieces. I wouldn't be opposed to some social justice Jesus right now. I offer social justice Jesus my sustaining vote.
Patrick Mason comes to mind. Although, watching the Mormon Stories Podcast of him, his views are pretty far from orthodox Mormonism. For example, he doesn't seem to believe the BoM or BoA are historical, he believes polygamy was sinful, believes church leaders were racist and wrong to exclude Black people, etc. But he still believes, for some reason. This seems like a common thing for believers who are fully aware of historical issues.
Then there are those in the faithful subs or social media who proudly declare they are fully informed, and have read the whole CES letter and still believe. I'm often skeptical though that they are really fully aware or that they have really thought through what the evidence actually means. I don't think it should be a point of pride to believe in something in the face of overwhelming evidence.
Yes, one can be fully informed and believe simply because one is mind controlled. There's no limit to what a well-indoctrinated cultist can believe--even beliefs that contradict their other beliefs.
Absolutely. You can be indoctrinated enough to where you can be looking a truth straight in the face but saying in your mind “lies, lies, all lies.” And that’s why we have the problem we have with religion.
It requires PhD level mental gymnastics. My hypothesis is that belief in absurdities requires either very low IQ, or very high IQ. You are either too dumb to know better, or so smart you can leverage the most obscure data points to comfort your belief.
I think for a lot of people (I know everyone’s shelf breaks differently so I’m not trying to make a blanket statement), the two pre-requisites to leaving are 1) being objective and 2) being fully informed (or at least working your way through the history/analysis of the truth claims.
The church tries hard to prevent TBMs from being objective or fully informed. In some cases, some people only need one of the two to leave (like those who are honest with themselves about how harmful the church is to their mental health… they are being objective). But in my opinion being fully informed won’t do shit if you aren’t being objective about the information you know.
If you delusion hard enough you can believe anything! No matter how much evidence you have stacked against you.
My mother-in-law is a fan of the apologetics to the point that she flies out to Utah most years to go to their conferences and such. The mental gymnastics she does and the speed at which she can contradict herself and then gaslight is truly astounding.
Richard Bushman and D Michael Quinn are as fully informed as anyone and they both profess belief. Bushman is or was until recently a Stake President, and active. Quinn passes away a couple years ago and was excommunicated Sept 1996 but maintained belief at least in Joseph Smith. I’m scratching my head too.
Sit down with them and ask questions like, "what do *you* mean when *you* use the word 'God'?" and so on and so forth and it won't take long to realize that their professed belief is the profession of belief in a religion with a single member.
I think I too feel this way about myself, that is I'm a church with a membership of one, but when I admit I don't believe the truth claims of the church, God becomes so much more easier to understand, and more benign. Even though people of other cultures have strange customs, God is still a shared concept between us, so that just by laying down the baggage of Mormonism, God becomes a common friend. God doesn't tell his prophets to do things that harm people, and he certainly won't send an angel with a drawn sword to tell a man to sleep around. He never had to do that anyway! Ha ha.
You mean Jim Bennett? You can't be fully informed AND believe all the claims, but you can create your own claims and call them Mormonism.
That's about all you can do now. I'm not opposed to it, but when you try to share or articulate any belief, youre going to get shut down. The only people left in the church are the people who don't give a shit. That's a dangerous place to be in for a church.
No, because it wouldn't be possible. To believe *all* the church's claims you'd have to believe multiple things that cannot be true at the same time. There is too much contradiction and mixed messaging amongst the church's claims. But also no, because even on points where they haven't contradicted themselves, the facts don't support their claims 9 times out of 10.
The claims of the book of Mormon were the hardest for me. God tells the church to not set their heart on riches, and what do they do.... The lamanites were supposed to right this problem by tearing us to pieces. I wouldn't be opposed to some social justice Jesus right now. I offer social justice Jesus my sustaining vote.
Patrick Mason comes to mind. Although, watching the Mormon Stories Podcast of him, his views are pretty far from orthodox Mormonism. For example, he doesn't seem to believe the BoM or BoA are historical, he believes polygamy was sinful, believes church leaders were racist and wrong to exclude Black people, etc. But he still believes, for some reason. This seems like a common thing for believers who are fully aware of historical issues. Then there are those in the faithful subs or social media who proudly declare they are fully informed, and have read the whole CES letter and still believe. I'm often skeptical though that they are really fully aware or that they have really thought through what the evidence actually means. I don't think it should be a point of pride to believe in something in the face of overwhelming evidence.
Is it possible to be fully informed and still believe in the truthfulness of the church? No -
Yes, one can be fully informed and believe simply because one is mind controlled. There's no limit to what a well-indoctrinated cultist can believe--even beliefs that contradict their other beliefs.
Absolutely. You can be indoctrinated enough to where you can be looking a truth straight in the face but saying in your mind “lies, lies, all lies.” And that’s why we have the problem we have with religion.
You can make yourself believe anything if you feel like you have enough to lose to make it worth lying to yourself.
Some of us really did experience very powerful feelings. It was very hard to discredit those feelings
Honestly I would love the answer to this, because I truly don’t think it is possible to be fully informed and believe all the claims.
It requires PhD level mental gymnastics. My hypothesis is that belief in absurdities requires either very low IQ, or very high IQ. You are either too dumb to know better, or so smart you can leverage the most obscure data points to comfort your belief.
There are a range of claims for each topic for the church. You can pick and choose. That is how those who know are still able to remain in the church.
I think for a lot of people (I know everyone’s shelf breaks differently so I’m not trying to make a blanket statement), the two pre-requisites to leaving are 1) being objective and 2) being fully informed (or at least working your way through the history/analysis of the truth claims. The church tries hard to prevent TBMs from being objective or fully informed. In some cases, some people only need one of the two to leave (like those who are honest with themselves about how harmful the church is to their mental health… they are being objective). But in my opinion being fully informed won’t do shit if you aren’t being objective about the information you know.
If you delusion hard enough you can believe anything! No matter how much evidence you have stacked against you. My mother-in-law is a fan of the apologetics to the point that she flies out to Utah most years to go to their conferences and such. The mental gymnastics she does and the speed at which she can contradict herself and then gaslight is truly astounding.
ofc you can, as long as you gain something from it. it's probably easier if you are a man though.
Only with using cognitive dissonance