[Arrakeen]

Roy wrote:

Quote:

“The Chorley boot camp also teaches missionaries how to use social media to find people for conversion by creating targeted Instagram Reel videos and Facebook posts. And they’re expected to send at least 50 social media messages per day to potential converts, based on who has engaged or interacted with their posts.”

That explains a lot. I interact with the Facebook posts of the missionaries sometimes as a purely supportive gesture. Then the missionaries get really chatty and contact me on messenger and try to have a conversation. It feels really unnatural and forced. Maybe they are trying to meet a social media engagement quota.

50 messages per day? I thought knocking hundreds of doors was bad, but I think this would be even worse. Sitting around messaging strangers all day would be hell. Maybe the church should make an AI chatbot for that instead :think:

[Arrakeen]

Roy wrote:

Quote:

And yet. To an atheist especially, which I am, there is something so unsettling about the ranks of shining faces beaming atop crisp white shirts and black ties or modest dresses awaiting instruction on how to persuade people to their way of thinking. Or, to put it more strongly, convince them of a falsehood. Or, to put it more strongly still, fill people’s emotional voids with their lies. Which description you feel most apt will depend on your own upbringing, temperament and voids of course

Fill people’s emotional voids with their lies? I guess she does declare her own bias as an atheist, still I wonder if she would feel that free to describe the Catholic or Presbyterian church in that way.

I wish more people understood that missionaries are young and naive, and are not some sinister army intentionally trying to spread lies or harmful beliefs. They are just teenagers and young adults trying to do good in the world by doing what they’ve been taught to do. Even if you believe the church is a fraudulent and malicious organization, I think it’s a stretch to describe missionaries this way.

[Arrakeen]

nibbler wrote:

The funds that they’ve amassed go well beyond preparing for the future. Whatever happened to Jesus’, “For all these things do the nations of the world seek after: and your Father knoweth that ye have need of these things. But rather seek ye the kingdom of God; and all these things shall be added unto you.” and Nephi’s, “he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them.”

At some point it’s time to put those fears of the future aside and trust. Do we hoard another billion or ten to compensate for all the what-if scenarios that are swimming in our heads or do we try to trust the Lord a little?

Contrast the church’s behavior with the teachings surrounding tithing. “Pay tithing first. Don’t worry about if you can afford food or rent. Pay your tithing and the Lord will bless you”.

The church’s rainy day fund is built at the expense of the individual rainy day funds of the members. And just think of how much 10% of someone’s income over their lifetime adds up to when put in a 401k.

[Arrakeen]

kotm wrote:

“Axiom”. It appears I have learned a new word today. haha

I am trying to be social within my peers in the church. But for some reason there is a mental block preventing me from doing so. I try to attend Home Evening with my YSA ward. However often times the activitiy is uninteresting causing me to go off and hang out in the lobby, waiting for the clock to run out. I am incredibly shy. However that does not prevent me from having a conversation with someone. But I think a lot of it may be related to shielding myself from being hurt like I have been in the past. My two goals seemingly are to make some friends and potentially meet someone.

And yes absolutely being single in the church is terrible. A lot of my desire for a female companion is rooted in having someone close to you. Right now this is sort of my parents and my sister. And while that’s great, they have their own things going on. And I don’t live closeby my parents anymore. I do live close to my sister. She is inactive, but she’s a pretty cool person. We often go to sporting events, and do other things together. But that is family, and and has it’s limiations. They are friends, who have to be your friends due to circumstances. There’s just something about having someone at your side who loves and cares for you that is not family.

I have in fact somewhat tried dating non-lds women. In fact I was well known for chasing non-lds girls back when I was a teenager. And was often critisized for it by my youth counterparts. But I often run into a couple of problems with non-lds. The first probably is I am not very open about my religious beliefs. And often times I worry that may become a cog later down the road. The second is socializing with someone who is not lds involves drinking. I obviously don’t drink. And while part of it has to do with the WoW – I just don’t really like it. I think it’s kinda gross. (lol). I have tried alchohol before, back when I was working on my undergrad in college. Of course not everyone who is not lds drinks socially, that would be an unfair assumption. But it’s a 50/50 in many cases.

And just to be clear I have never ocne been in an intimate relationship my entire life. That’s what makes it more furstrating is I am coming up on 30 years on this earth and have never been in a relationship with anyone. So naturally it gets very frustrating.

There is a girl who is non-lds who in a lot of ways has sort of stolen my heart. I have known her since I met her back in my community college days a decade ago. However it turned into a friend zone, and she just doesn’t have an interest in me. I have tried making moves in the past, but she is usually dating another guy or in between guys. In some ways knowing her dating history I may have dodged a bullet with her. But doesn’t change the fact I have feelings for her still. But I am starting to get over her, so that may be a good thing. I don’t think long-term friendzoned relationships are healthy. But you never know I guess. Honestly though if she’s happy I am happy. Even if that means she’s in a relationship with another guy that is not me. We haven’t hung out much though mostly due to my shyness, and cutting myself off from the world.

As for correlating pornography use to stress eating I agree 100%. I live alone, no friends and not many interesting hobbies outside of photography and video games and watching baseball. I have had a pornography issue since I was about 13 and I’m almost 30. So 17 years. It’s amazing how it works a lot like a drug addiction. Starts small, and I kept seeking a higher payload.Now it’s sued as as coping mechanism of being lonely, boredom and forgetting about my life stressors. I find it incredibly boring, but it’s almost like an automatic instinct. I can go days without it though, so it’s not like it’s destroying my life or putting me in danger. But I would draw the line to similairites of someone who smokes or drinks when they come home from a stressful day at work.

I totally get what your saying with how that is pretty normal baggage among church members, partically the younger ones. However there is still the stigma around it, and once someone finds that out there’s a 50/50 shot they will be understanding and accepting, or will not want anything to do with you at all. I have started to listen to Sara Brewers podcast relating to pornography addiction. it has helped me understand how it is not something that still carries the stigma is used to, or at least we are heading that way.

I’m in a somewhat similar stage of life. I’m in my mid-20s, have no social life whatsoever, and have never dated anyone. I tried going back to church last year in a last-ditch attempt to meet some people, but it didn’t work out and I ended up leaving again.

Being Single: It’s rough to be a YSA in the church. The church attitude towards marriage definitely stigmatizes being a single adult more than the outside world. But a relationship is not some magical thing that will always make you happier, and you are still young. 30 may be the cutoff age for YSA wards but it really isn’t very old.

Personally I think the most important relationship a person can have is with themself. First make sure you are comfortable with yourself and are becoming the kind of person you want to be, and then find other people who like you as well. And don’t miss out on doing fun things just because you are alone. If there’s something you always wanted to do but you have no one to do it with, just do it yourself. It may be more fun than you expect, and you might run into other people who like doing the same thing.

Meeting People: I’ll admit I don’t have too much advice to give, as I’m still struggling to figure this one out. I have at least had some limited but positive social interactions going to events on the Meetup app. I’m also trying to get involved in some hobby clubs and the like. It can be hard to find social activities that don’t revolve around drinking. But a lot of this seems to be location-dependent and I’ve sometimes considered moving to a different city just to have a better shot at making friends.

I will say if you find all of the YSA activities are uninteresting, maybe they are not the right crowd for you. Or maybe they also find it uninteresting and would welcome a suggestion to try something else. But if you really don’t like it then it’s probably worth spending your energy looking for other activities that you find more interesting, where you are more likely to meet people with similar interests.

Take everything I have said with a grain of salt. I am in many ways struggling down the same path as you and have by no means figured things out yet, but I wish you the best in your journey.

[Arrakeen]

Recently BYU announced a new “EFYSA” program for young single adults ages 18-30, modeled after EFY.

https://efysa.byu.edu/” class=”bbcode_url”>https://efysa.byu.edu/

Quote:

Come join the first ever Especially For Young Single Adults (EFYSA). Deepen your testimony of the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ as you meet others and make lasting friendships. Discover new insights through group discussions and devotionals, all while enjoying the historic and beautiful setting of Nauvoo. And of course, we’ll have a dance and variety show!

At EFYSA, you will also visit the Nauvoo Temple, ponder the significance of Carthage Jail, and imagine yourself in the pioneers’ circumstances, all while strengthening your own personal relationship with the Savior.

August 16–19, 2023. Mark your calendar and register now! Spaces for this first-ever event will fill quickly.

To me this seems well-meaning but misguided. I went to EFY as a teenager and enjoyed it, but I can’t imagine wanting to do it again as an adult. Yes, the YSA need more opportunities to meet each other and more activities geared toward their demographic. But I feel like the church really doesn’t understand our needs. We don’t need devotionals in Nauvoo and youth programs repackaged for adults. I sure hope they remember YSA members are real adults and allow them more independence for this event than at EFY, where we had to have chaperones escort us to the bathroom. The activities they have listed are session director messages, gospel study, variety show, dances, and “reflect and review”. It seems about as fun as the MTC. I feel like at the very least they could have arranged a concert, a networking event, and a trip to some place more interesting than Nauvoo. Do they expect a lot of YSA are going to take time off work and pay hundreds of dollars in “tuition” for this program? I feel like this event mainly caters to the same kind of people whose needs are already met by existing programs like institute, singles wards, and BYU. Meanwhile there are a lot of other YSA members who aren’t the “devotional in Nauvoo” type but who could really benefit from a less stale and churchy version of this.

[Arrakeen]

nibbler wrote:

Quote:

“With frightening speed, a testimony that is not nourished daily ‘by the good word of God’ [Moroni 6:4] can crumble. Thus, the antidote to Satan’s scheme is clear: we need daily experiences worshipping the Lord and studying His gospel.”

— President Russell M. Nelson, “The Power of Spiritual Momentum.”

Leading off stoking fears. Always cool. I digress.

As to why leaders believe testimonies to be fragile, I think it is part of a larger pattern of ascribing too much influence to Satan. In LDS culture Satan is always there trying to sabotage us and has quite a lot of power compared to the Holy Ghost, who can be banished by a single impure thought. The way people talk at church makes it seem like the odds are strongly in Satan’s favor. All he needs to do is plant a single doubt in someone’s mind, and decades-long testimonies crumble while the Holy Ghost sits helplessly on the sidelines because the person wasn’t “worthy” of assistance.

[Arrakeen]

SilentDawning wrote:

It’s really really hard to get people to lie for you. So, to get these 11 people to give their testimony they saw the plates at the hand of an angel (the three witnesses) and that they actually held the plates upon being shown by Joseph Smith (the eight witnesses) lends credence to the authenticity of the plates from which JS purportedly translated the Book of Mormon.

One issue I have with the witness accounts is that they were all people close to Joseph Smith. Random people may not lie for you, but people with close relationships or common interests often do (family members, business associates, political allies, etc).

Even assuming they were not lying, is their testimony reliable? There are many “witnesses” of Bigfoot and UFOs. Not to mention many visions confirming the beliefs of many different religious traditions. People tend to see and interpret things in a way that fits with their expectations and beliefs. I personally don’t think the testimonies of the three and eight witnesses carry that much weight without more concrete evidence to support them.

[Arrakeen]

SilentDawning wrote:

Some time ago, a well-known and influential poster here on StayLDS made the comment that “all men look at pornography” (referring to LDS men). Based on this 2019 data, that doesn’t seem to be the case. I also think the cross-generational differences are due a lot to the changing biology of age. When I was young, I was TORMENTED by the tension men feel that is only relieved with sexual activity. Now, as a near 60-year-old man, I have no such tension or temptation to torment me. I give thanks for that regularly. As a celebrity once said, it’s “nature’s anesthetic”. Young men, on the other hand, have the biological urge to get rid of the tension which probably explains why the rate is so much higher in the younger generation.

This is only the number who used porn in the last 6 months. I think if you looked at how many have ever used porn it would be much higher, and likely be a large majority at least for men.

I had a YSA bishop (who was also a professional counselor) tell our elders quorum that if we didn’t struggle with pornography, chances were the person next to us did.

Porn is very frowned upon in the church, so I would expect a lot of men use it, feel bad about it, and repent. Some may stop for good, and others may return to it when overcome by temptation at a later time.

[Arrakeen]

SilentDawning wrote:

In the book I’ve been reading, The Next Mormons: How Millennials Are Changing the LDS Church there was a finding that the more education people have the more likely they are to believe in the orthodox LDS religion. The book doesn’t indicate what KIND of education (no disciplines mentioned) but I found that an interesting statistic. People with less education tended to be more lax in their standards and less believing overall.

I heard this mentioned a lot while I was at BYU. But I would suspect the type of education makes a big difference. I have known many doctors, lawyers, dentists, and engineers in the church, but very few historians, psychologists, or physicists (and those few have tended to be some of the more unorthodox members).

[Arrakeen]

PazamaManX wrote:

Arrakeen wrote:

What about the agency of the victims? Would it not have been better to allow the innocent to live, having a full and rich mortal experience, exercising their own agency along the way? Isn’t God’s nonintervention in the end still depriving people of agency, just indirectly by allowing others to take it from them?

Also, it seems that most of God’s interventions in the scriptures violated someone’s agency. So why would God intervene in those cases, but not this one?

What about their agency? Everyone dies, whether by natural causes, or at the hands of another. With the exception of things like suicide, the time and manner of our death is one of those things that our agency doesn’t get too much of a say in. Sadly, genocide happened to be the way those people died. It’s really not that different from individual murders that happen everyday. Yes, someone (in the case of the Nazis and Soviets, millions) lost their chance to live a full life, but the crime of that goes on the head of the one who took that from them. Is God supposed to never allow murder to happen? That would be nice, but that isn’t the world we were put in unfortunately.

I like to think that He knows better than we do, and whatever comes next will more than make up for whatever we experience during or at the end of our time here. And for those who do commit those atrocities, I’m sure His judgment will also be fair.

Can you point out something specific from the scriptures? Just saying “the scriptures” is very broad.

Why didn’t God let Pharaoh kill Moses, instead sending plagues and pestilence to free the Israelites? Why didn’t God let Laman and Lemuel kill Nephi, but sent an angel to stop them? What about Alma the younger, whose chosen life of sin was interrupted by a supernatural experience that was very difficult for him to reject? Do prophets get special treatment just because of their place in a larger plan? To me that seems more like a chess master with his pawns than a loving father with his children.

Personally, I can accept the idea of a God with a policy of nonintervention across the board more than I can accept one who selectively intervenes only when convenient for his own goals.

[Arrakeen]

PazamaManX wrote:

In my mind, it comes down to agency. If He is a God that allows people to have the agency to do as they will, then it would make sense that He’d allow evil to be done on a large scale as well as small. Intervening Himself would take away the agency of every man in the SS. Letting the Allies fight the Nazis allowed it to eventually end while keeping everyone’s agency intact.

What about the agency of the victims? Would it not have been better to allow the innocent to live, having a full and rich mortal experience, exercising their own agency along the way? Isn’t God’s nonintervention in the end still depriving people of agency, just indirectly by allowing others to take it from them?

Also, it seems that most of God’s interventions in the scriptures violated someone’s agency. So why would God intervene in those cases, but not this one?

[Arrakeen]

SilentDawning wrote:

I think they need to know the implications of sexual sin in accepting high-profile positions before they do so.

I think it would be good if the church was more transparent about church discipline as a whole. Discipline doesn’t work so well if nobody knows what the consequences are.

[Arrakeen]

Roy wrote:

they are not in a relationship where their sexual needs are being met.

This could be said of some marriages as well. But it is a good point. In some ways the church’s standards are unrealistic for many YSAs. It’s one thing if you get married young, but those who stay single are expected to remain celibate potentially indefinitely (including refraining from pornography and masturbation). And “waiting for marriage” may be especially difficult for those who believe they will never be married, which statistically is becoming more and more likely.

[Arrakeen]

Roy wrote:

I am conflicted about the direction to not have adult leadership.

A little nitpicky here, but in the case of YSA the YSA being called as leaders are “adult leadership”. It’s common for older members to group YSA members in with the youth instead of with the adults, and it can be quite frustrating as a YSA.

In YSA wards it has often felt like having chaperones for single people. Why do young single adults, but not young married adults, need to be watched over by older leaders? The church often seems to treat a married 18 year old as more of an adult than someone 10 years older, but single.

In my experience a lot of YSA activities feel infantilizing. Playing children’s games, having the weekly lecture on the law of chastity, and being reminded that our true purpose in life is to get married and have kids.

I agree there is a risk of YSA wards not having enough engaged members to run things, but perhaps that is merely another indication that what the church has been doing for YSAs up to this point hasn’t worked.

[Arrakeen]

Roy wrote:

Quote:

The erosion of Mormon attachment, he said, indicates “the breakdown of religious subcultures,” which has been especially profound in places such as Utah and southern Idaho where, in decades past, a person’s entire social and religious life could be spent around members of the LDS church.

I think in the case of the LDS church, part of the breakdown of its subculture might be its own doing. Even though I’m young, I remember there being a lot more church activities solely for fun when I was a kid. More and more over the last few years I’ve been seeing a push to try to make every little thing spiritual. Hiking trips, ward campouts, Scouts, etc seem to be getting replaced by devotionals, family history days, missionary preparation seminars, and the like.

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