[DevilsAdvocate]

Heber13 wrote:

DevilsAdvocate wrote:

I guess politicians and others felt like they needed be seen doing something so they don’t get blamed too much for “killing grandma” regardless of how effective or not these actions really were in hindsight.

Who knows their intentions? Do they act so they can be “seen” doing something, or do they act because to not act is worse in their minds?

Perhaps that is part of conspiracy theory story-telling…even if there are groups of people hiding some information from the public (which happens all the time), it usually becomes a conspiracy theory when a story-teller places intention and interpretation into it to have it be a conspiracy, even if there is a kernal of truth in it to make it believable.

That was just my off-the-cuff guess about the most common motivation for politicians in general in this case. I’m sure that many of them really did believe they were making the right choice and that not doing this would be wrong at the time. But at the same time these decisions were not made in complete isolation even to the groups that debated them. It looks like after a few dominoes fell that it just became commonly accepted and expected that the appropriate reaction to the virus threat was to cancel practically everything possible, implement strict lock-downs, etc. in large part because that’s what many others (in position to make these decisions) had already done. So whether self-serving or well-meaning there was a certain amount of bandwagon pressure that this was just the thing to do at the time.

Why was it alright to remain open and resist further lockdowns (other than California as far as I know) when the hospitalizations and deaths actually peaked in many of these same states? I think that is basically a tacit admission that shows the lock-downs were never really necessary in the first place. The media was hyping the number of deaths until those started to taper off and then they hyped the number of new cases. Then when the new cases started to taper off as well they went back to hyping the cumulative deaths again or other fear-mongering anecdotes. Why is that? What’s the motivation to try to make it sound as bad and scary as possible as long as possible? I’m just not convinced that all of it is aboveboard and I think there could easily be some thinking along the lines of, “never let a crisis go to waste” or other shenanigans going on here.

[DevilsAdvocate]

I definitely don’t believe that the virus was intentionally developed and released by China or that the governments of all these different countries would all be in on some grand conspiracy at the same time or anything like that. But what I think has been fraudulent and deserves to be called a hoax about the whole thing is the level of overreaction, overhyping, shameless fear-mongering, finger-pointing, etc. by the media, many politicians and others. The truth of the matter is that over 99% of people under 65 and that are not diabetic, long-time smokers, etc. will not be killed by this virus even if they catch it in the first place. And to put things in perspective something like an average of 8 thousand Americans were already dying per day of other causes like cancer, heart disease, car accidents, etc. before this virus. So why have we singled this one thing out and treated it like the end all be all month after month as if no price is too high to pay to try to stop it compared to everything else that can kill you just as easily if not more so? Can you imagine if car accident fatalities were reported this way with a running total of the deaths for the entire country?

I think some of it is simply because it was new and unexpected so that makes it seem scarier than it really is statistically but it’s almost like some people actually like counting up the deaths and seeing millions of Americans unemployed, etc. so they can try to blame it on Trump or whatever other reasons that have nothing to do with science and facts. And Trump himself has claimed the actions of his administration actually helped save millions of lives which I also think is ridiculous but I think it gives some insight into where some of these decisions were coming from. Basically it looks like some of these politicians and other decision makers had “expert” advisors telling them that millions of Americans would die without shutting practically everything we can down. And it looks like some of these early projections were based on taking numbers from Italy and/or other countries hit worst at first and trying to extrapolate that percentage by multiplying by the majority of the US population.

The obvious problem with models like this are that they didn’t take into account all the people that had the virus without ever getting tested (could easily be several times the number actually confirmed). And if the lock-downs were really necessary to prevent overwhelming the health care system and millions of deaths then why didn’t we see anything close to that per capita happen in Sweden and other countries that didn’t do strict government lock-downs? India did one of the most strict lock-downs of all with police actually beating people for leaving their homes and what good did that do? Based on the results so far it looks like at best it only delayed the inevitable and at worst made little to no difference. It sounds like more people will actually end up dying from starvation worldwide due to the economic impact of the lock-downs than from the virus itself. I think the whole situation is kind of sad all-around; I guess politicians and others felt like they needed be seen doing something so they don’t get blamed too much for “killing grandma” regardless of how effective or not these actions really were in hindsight.

[DevilsAdvocate]

LookingHard wrote:

After reading the book, I bought the audiobook so I could listen again – maybe a few times. I think I need to really understand what this book is saying about how people work. I think it will give me more understanding and sympathy for others.

I definitely sympathize with some of the religious followers like the Muslims or Amish where it would honestly be a very difficult or nearly impossible choice for many of them to do anything else under the circumstances but I still have a much harder time feeling much empathy for people that seemingly just uncritically accept and parrot the party line of various political groups without putting much thought into it in a relatively free and democratic society. However, this and other books like “Influence” by Robert Cialdini have definitely helped me feel less frustrated by other people that I think are clearly misguided and doing more harm than good because that’s just the way people are to some extent (easily emotionally manipulated) so there’s no point in losing sleep over it when I can’t do much of anything to change it either way. I see it as being similar to the famous quote, “It’s easier to fool people than convince them that they’ve been fooled.”

And it looks like one of the easiest ways of all for people to be tricked is simply “social proof” where they see many others doing or saying the same things and lazily assume that it is right or appropriate for them to follow suit as well. If you see how seriously some sports fans take the results of their favorite teams and hated rivals it is clear that the emotions are very real even when deep down, logically, many of them would have to admit that it’s just a game that doesn’t really matter that much in terms of real life. Now if you take the same instincts for group loyalty and identification and convince people that the group’s agenda is the answer in reality (quite often not even remotely close based on the actual facts and results in hindsight) then we end up with people acting like various half-baked ideas are practically more important than life or death. But sometimes it takes real effort, courage, etc. to resist some of this influence especially if it is coming from your own groups. Haidt uses the phrase, “Morality binds and blinds” to describe some of these instincts like group loyalty as not always producing the best possible results.

[DevilsAdvocate]

I actually read through this entire book again a second time. A big part of the book that I didn’t talk about before was the question of, “Why are we so groupish?” Haidt explained this as a product of evolution where he thought it made sense that groups that were more cohesive and able to work together as a team better would have had a distinct competitive advantage over groups full of people that were more individualistic, selfish, etc. and would tend to do a better job of converting available resources into offspring meaning that more of their DNA would survive over time. He describes it by saying, “We are 90% chimp and 10% bee” which I thought sounded kind of silly and hard to buy into at first but I guess it was just his way to make it easy to understand and remember the general idea that people have instincts for teamwork and sincere group loyalty that look more like what we see in bees than chimps even though we are physically something like 98% the same as chimps in terms of DNA.

I think the book does a good job of explaining the actual human behavior we see in real life because it seems like regardless of the reasons why people can be easily emotionally influenced to basically go along with the crowd quite often against what they would normally think and/or do if it was entirely their own decision. And the influence can be good or bad depending on the situation, your perspective, which group you identify with or not, etc. For example, look at things like groupthink, witch hunts, and mass movements like fascism and communist revolutions. It reminds me of the explanation for witch hunts by C.S. Lewis to the effect that it was basically an error of fact rather than faulty moral intentions because the average person’s natural moral instincts haven’t changed and the main difference is simply that most people nowadays don’t really believe that there are witches in league with Satan that have magical powers to do real harm. I think there is something to this but I think there was also some heavy group dynamics influence behind it as well.

Basically being surrounded by others that think and act a certain way makes it easier for others to go along with as well and harder for isolated individuals to question the group. I also think this does a good job of explaining some of our experiences in the Church. For example, some critics have accused the Church of being a “cult” due to characteristics like heavy emphasis on the idea of us-versus-them, that the outside world is evil, scary, etc. and we are the only ones that know the full truth, along with other supposed warning signs many of which are related to group identification and loyalty. But looking at other religious groups like the Muslims, Amish, Orthodox Jews, and JWs some of this doesn’t seem nearly as unusual, sinister, or by design as some critics try to make it sound but rather only human to some extent if you are raised in a culture like this.

[DevilsAdvocate]

Old Timer wrote:

I still am bothered enough by the claim of the size of the Church’s investment assets that I am continuing to consider paying tithing on what I calculate as my “increase” (defining that as my “extra” income after I have paid my essential bills and living costs), but I am nowhere near dismayed anymore…The claim is that the Church receives about $7 billion per year in tithing. The claim is that $6 billion of that is used to run the church and all of its operational costs. The claim is that the remaining $1 billion per year is used to invest and create the investment asset total – which is claimed to be $100 billion currently.

Personally it wouldn’t surprise me at all if this report is accurate and they really do have over 100 billion in savings/investments. To me the fact that they spent billions on City Creek Mall and however much on a temple in Rome, etc. was already more than enough for me to feel confident that they already have way more money than they know what to do with. If anything surprised me about this report it’s the claim that they actually spend as much of the tithing as they do according to this. I would have guessed that they were saving/investing most of it mostly because of having unpaid clergy at the local level. But, on closer inspection, it makes sense that things like the BYUs and other Church shools, the CES, building and maintaining chapels, stake centers, temples, etc., paying mission presidents, GAs, and for many missions, subsidizing worldwide operations outside the US and Canada where the tithing received is much less, etc. could really start to add up in terms of the overall costs.

However, I don’t really see the savings/investments as something malicious, motivated by pure greed, etc. The way I look at it is simply that the Church started emphasizing tithing more as an expected requirement to be a faithful member and interpreting it as based on income in 1899 and again in the 1960s-1970s at times when they really were hurting for money, but once the tradition was established it sort of took on a life of its own. So the leaders continue to preach tithing mostly the same way they always have largely thinking it is for members’ own good and that they will be blessed for faithfully obeying this commandment. Meanwhile now that average salaries have continually increased (even if not necessarily enough to make up for inflation) the net result of this is a significant amount of left over money that the Church leaders don’t really know what to do with, so it looks like they don’t really do anything with it other than saving it and investing it for a rainy day so to speak. There’s nothing all that unusual about that by itself.

As far as not disclosing how much they receive and how it is spent I suspect this is mostly because they think it wouldn’t be faith promoting and it is easier for many members to faithfully pay tithing year-after-year if they feel like it is going to a good cause than it would be if they knew so much of it was actually just ending up as more stocks, real estate, business investments, etc. for a church that already has so much compared to other churches. My main complaint about this besides them continuing to teach tithing as a percentage of income in the first place which I don’t really expect to change anytime soon is that they refused to continue to use some of this available money to pay janitors and are asking members to spend their limited free time scrubbing toilets and such mostly because they know some members will do this if asked to. Just because you can get away with something that doesn’t mean you should.

[DevilsAdvocate]

Katzpur wrote:

Maybe it’s just me, and maybe it’s not even an LDS thing, though I suspect it is. My husband and I have two grown children (ages 39 and 37). Both are divorced and living with significant others. Neither of them has any children. I actually didn’t want a large family myself, although I would have been happy for another child had it worked out that way. It seems to me that LDS people are almost fixated on having a huge progeny. It’s as if they measure their self-worth by how many children, grand-children and great-grand-children they have…

It’s definitely not just you; there is no question that there is something to this especially here in Utah. I have had multiple LDS neighbors with 7-8 children and multiple LDS co-workers with 5 or more. It seems like it is a fairly strong part of the traditional LDS culture that one more thing in the list of expectations of what you are supposed to do in order to be a truly good Mormon is to start having children as soon as possible after marriage and not stop as long as possible, or at least until you have more than double the national average. Of course not every active member buys into this but there are still many that do including some of my younger cousins still in their early twenties.

I’m sure there are some that just like the idea of having many children themselves for whatever reason such as that they grew up in a large family themselves and that appeals to them also without necessarily looking down on or judging others that don’t have many if any children. But I also have no doubt that there are some that really do see this as some sort of measuring stick directly related to the idea that they think they are better than others. I know the Church has actually made official statements that it is a personal decision for each couple to decide how many children to have and when but I’m not sure all that many got the message so far.

In the October 2011 General Conference Neil L. Andersen was still pushing the idea that not waiting to have children to finish school or have more financial stability was the way to go and that “multiplying and replenishing the earth” was a serious commandment and obligation to fulfill. Personally I think it is irresponsible of Church leaders to encourage or let members feel so much pressure about having children because of the unnecessary stress and financial burden they could suffer as a result of this. Even if they can manage to get by what if some men end up dying fairly young in a car crash or due to unexpected health issues and then you have women that have been full-time stay-at-home moms their entire adult lives with 7 children to feed? It’s like there’s no back up plan or regard for any practical concerns just take a leap of faith and hope for the best which is easy for Church leaders to say when they’re not the ones that will have to live with the results when things don’t work out quite like the Disney movie perspective on life.

[DevilsAdvocate]

As similar as these new questions sound on the surface, I think some of them are significantly different in terms of emphasis and the overall experience they will create for many active members. Here are my initial thoughts on some of these changes.

the Church before wrote:

Do you wear the garment both night and day as instructed in the endowment and in accordance with the covenant you made in the temple?

the Church now wrote:

Do you keep the covenants that you made in the temple, including wearing the temple garment as instructed in the endowment?

Good change. Maybe they saw many complaints and/or many active members not wearing garments all the time anyway similar to the way they stopped preaching so much against birth control after many active members already weren’t listening to their advice on this anyway.

the Church before wrote:

Do you live the law of chastity?

the Church now wrote:

The Lord has said that all things are to be “done in cleanliness” before Him…Do you strive for moral cleanliness in your thoughts and behavior?

Do you obey the law of chastity?

Sounds like a perfect recipe for even more guilt, shame, and discouragement than before. Many things reportedly said by the Lord in the scriptures are not explicitly emphasized in temple recommend questions so why single out this one as if it is so important to try to enforce this way?

the Church before wrote:

Do you support, affiliate with, or agree with any group or individual whose teachings or practices are contrary to or oppose those accepted by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?

the Church now wrote:

Do you support or promote any teachings, practices, or doctrine contrary to those of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?

I think removing the part about affiliating with groups or individuals that don’t agree with or live the way the Church teaches was definitely an improvement but I also thought that was mostly talking about polygamists. However, the way it is worded now is so general that it still makes it sound like you need to outwardly agree with every single thing the Church teaches and if not then you are not worthy if taken literally. It’s even worse because of social media and leadership roulette because local leaders can easily see something members said and decide they aren’t worthy and need to repent.

the Church wrote:

Do you keep understand and obey the Word of Wisdom?

Similar to garments, could this be a reaction to seeing many active members already not living this tradition anymore at this point? It sounds like they are basically doubling down on this and insisting that members should interpret this the same exact way they do as strictly prohibiting alcohol, tobacco, coffee, and tea.

the Church wrote:

Do you strive to keep the Sabbath day holy, both at home and at church; attend your meetings; prepare for and worthily partake of the sacrament…

This heavy emphasis on keeping the Sabbath day holy is entirely new (as an explicit recommend question). My family always used to eat at restaurants and watch TV including sports, etc.on Sunday, and my parents and brother have always paid tithing, fulfilled callings, etc. I think this could easily weed out quite a few people that would have remained faithful otherwise especially if some parents are extremely strict about this with children that end up associating the Church with this and leave often before ever serving a mission or getting married in the temple.

the Church before wrote:

Have there been any sins or misdeeds in your life that should have been resolved with priesthood authorities but have not been?

the Church now wrote:

Are there serious sins in your life that need to be resolved with priesthood authorities as part of your repentance?

I like this change because it sounds like it is now talking about any current sins instead of making people feel like they need to confess things that are no longer relevant. The old question was actually one of the main reasons I never got married in the temple along with tithing because I thought I would have to confess (pre-marital sex) and go through an extended groveling repentance process and face possible Church discipline which was extremely unpleasant and almost overwhelming to consider.

the Church before wrote:

Are you honest in your dealings with your fellowmen?

the Church now wrote:

Do you strive to be honest in all that you do?

Ironically one of the few questions that sounds more lenient than before is actually one of the few questions that I think should have been taken more seriously by many members the way it was before. What I liked about the old question was that it sounded like it wasn’t just talking about everyday dishonestly that does little or no harm but rather treating people fairly such as not knowingly ripping people off in business or that kind of thing.

Overall I appreciate that President Nelson is willing to change things and at least try to make improvements in the Church but I suspect some of these intended solutions like thinking the answer is more “spirituality”, strict obedience, expecting people to think the way the Church teaches they should, etc. will end up backfiring in more ways than one.

For example, before it seems like many Church members could drink iced tea or green tea, do stuff that is fun or convenient on Sundays, read “50 Shades of Grey”, vote Democrat, etc. and still feel like they were worthy and living the spirit of the law in good conscience. But now it seems like a lot of this is no longer technically possible for many people if they really pay close attention to these questions and take them literally (e.g. the line has been drawn).

[DevilsAdvocate]

Old Timer wrote:

After a conversation behind the scenes, I am adding an Admin Note.

[Admin Note]: Devil’s Advocate intentionally misquoted the original comment he excerpted to create his post. He intentionally deleted ONLY one part of one sentence – the sentence that would have shown his conclusion was not close to what was said in the original comment. It obviously was intentional, since he used ellipses in his excerpted version to omit 10 important words. There is no doubt the deletion was deliberate. I am providing the entire quote below, so everyone can see the exact context, not the altered one in the post. I am highlighting the sentence that includes the deleted words.

Quote:

Satisfied people want change they can understand and that doesn’t shock or anger them. When that sort of change happens, satisfied people are happy. Happy people stay where they are.

It really is as simple as that. President Nelson is giving satisfied members what they want: non-threatening change at a pace that excites and energizes them.

These sort of changes (non-shocking and non-anger-producing for satisfied people) aren’t going to make satisfied people leave the Church. Those who leave the Church will be already dissatisfied people who don’t see the changes as revelatory and are disappointed they aren’t “bigger and better” – and those people were the most likely to leave in the first place.”

The deleted part (the one replaced by ellipses in the post) is:

Quote:

non-threatening change at a pace that excites and energizes them.

I was not trying to intentionally change the meaning of your comment. I left these few words out simply because they weren’t particularly interesting to me. But if you think it is essential to the meaning of the whole comment in context then I’m glad to have it added back into the discussion for everyone to see. I wasn’t deliberately trying to misrepresent anything you said; this was simply how it sounded to me the first and second time I read it. Like I said before the comment was completely baffling to me. Usually even if I disagree with something I can at least understand why people would think that and where it came from. But in this case it didn’t really make sense from the outset because there were so many counter examples and questions that came to mind that it was hard to try to articulate them all. But overall, to me it seems pretty clear to see that people change their minds all the time for many possible reasons regardless of how happy they are or not compared to others. It just doesn’t look anywhere near that simple at all to try to explain or predict when people will change their minds or not in real life based on happiness alone.

For example, look at evolution. People don’t need to be relatively unhappy to adopt it as a new learned belief; it seems like they typically just hear the general idea, see evidence like pictures of fossils, etc. and it makes sense to them so it isn’t that hard to just accept at face value. I don’t see why it should be that different for other more LDS-specific beliefs as new evidence or questions come into focus. For the recent changes under Nelson some of them actually make sense to me and seem like a step in the right direction for the Church and even for the ones that didn’t make sense to me I can still admit that they won’t necessarily be that hard to accept for many typical TBMs on an individual basis. Where I think it will start to get some members thinking about what it means is simply the sheer number of changes made so quickly because it draws attention to Nelson as the common denominator. Basically it looks like the proverbial new sheriff in town shaking things up which normally would not seem so unusual but given the relative lack of changes under Hinckley and Monson as well as the Church’s heavy emphasis on revelation/prophet claims it stands out more due to the contrast between different LDS prophets.

[DevilsAdvocate]

SilentDawning wrote:

Not sure. I don’t mean this in an antagonistic way (I agree with the vast majority of the posts you write here, DA), but I guess I don’t completely understand what kind of difference you are talking about. Do you mean fundamental personality? You seem to imply that above.

If you are referring to personality, I think personality drives perspective — it tends to drive our affect, behavior and cognitions, the latter akin to perspective, along with life circumstances and our personal choices…If you are talking about a genetic difference between TBM’s and people who aren’t active, I think that MAY influence some members choices. For example, I did a lot of reading on the “How of Happiness” and I took a course in how to be happy, developed by a Stanford researcher/professor named Sonja Lyubomirsky. She said that research shows 50% of our overall happiness is genetic, 10% is due to circumstances, and the remaining 40% is up to our personal choices.

I guess it’s more of a combination of personality, circumstances, personal choices, etc. to supposedly put people in a certain frame of mind before they will seriously question the Church. The original post I was responding to was so baffling to me that it was hard to sort out all the reasons that it didn’t really make sense to me.

Did we really have to already be relatively unhappy and especially critical of the Church in order to stop believing in it?

Are most typical TBMs so happy that they are immune to seriously questioning the Church? Is this really the primary difference that led to them staying where they are unlike what happened to us?

I don’t doubt that some people have a much easier time in the Church than others and that personality can play a big part in that. What I don’t believe at all is that happiness is the primary much less only factor to determine whether people will seriously question the Church or not. I’m sure there are some TBMs that are not very happy at all that will continue to believe their entire lives and at the same time there are many former TBMs that were just as happy as most remaining TBMs that still lost faith in the Church for many different reasons such as simply seeing “anti-Mormon” information that just made more sense to them than the Church’s story.

Some of my TBM coworkers are as similar in personality to me as anyone I have ever met. As far as I can tell the main difference that matters to allow them to continue to believe in the Church is simply that they haven’t wanted to go there yet as far as seriously questioning the Church but that doesn’t mean they couldn’t start asking themselves, “What if there is no God?”, “What if Joseph Smith made it all up?”, etc. at any time. I definitely wasn’t looking to pick the Church apart from the beginning, I was actually afraid to look at any “anti-Mormon” sources because I thought they were literally evil and intentionally misleading, I just kept noticing more and more contradictions in the scriptures, conference talks, etc. that made it increasingly difficult to believe anymore so then I started reading apologetics desperately looking for a way to make sense of some of this but that only made things worse and I just couldn’t do it anymore within a few months after that.

[DevilsAdvocate]

SilentDawning wrote:

I think the trigger in not believing involves allow yourself to entertain initial thoughts that the church might not be true. Or, in my case, deciding that I no longer wanted to be as much a part of the experience as I did previously. There wasn’t any rejection of the truth claims at that point — simply a feeling of being disenfranchised to the point I wanted to spread my wings elsewhere. And with that, came a willingness to start entertaining other thoughts that put me in the unorthodox camp…It really comes down to what you allow yourself to think. And what I allowed myself to think, initially, was HEAVILY influenced by the initial emotions I felt, and then the reasoned observations I made after I let the emotions dull over time…

Am I different from the traditional believer now? Yes! Definitely! Very different! I don’t subscribe to most of the cultural values and typical motivators to which other church members respond. I’m not nearly as committed as the average active member. And I feel uncertain about what life holds after death, if anything. I wonder if it’s the way the Mormons have it, not sure. I kind of hope not, and hope it’ll be even more merciful that what the Plan of Salvation forecasts…So, I’m pretty different now, for sure!

What I’m getting at is that the only thing that really changed is your perspective. Sure it is a fairly big change affecting many related beliefs and values but my point is you were still essentially the same person physically with the same basic personality before the change in beliefs as you were afterward and my experience was very similar to yours and thousands if not millions of others so far. That’s why I don’t believe that there is any fundamental difference to prevent many current TBMs from ending up where we are. Like you said, it basically comes down to what they allow themselves to think or not.

It doesn’t necessarily even have to take anything particularly shocking or angering to get people to start to seriously question and doubt. For example, some have pointed to Hinckley’s interviews as a major catalyst in their loss of belief in the Church and I think one of the main reasons why is simply because it made him look like an ordinary man to them, not someone with all the answers or any special insight the way they were taught to expect. In fact I think many disaffected members and ex-Mormons were the actually some of the most TBM of all and it is precisely because they took everything so seriously and paid close attention to it that they ended up losing faith in the Church whereas some that are more apathetic or casual about it actually have a much easier time continuing to believe.

[DevilsAdvocate]

DarkJedi wrote:

We’re just going to have to agree to disagree on this one DA. I seriously doubt any mass exodus or increase in faith crises over these things. People who have shelves are gonna have shelves and people whose shelves are gonna fall will fall.

I never said or intentionally implied that there would be a mass exodus anytime soon. What I am suggesting is simply an up-tick or increase in the rate of questioning and cognitive dissonance experienced by many members as a direct result of some of these changes under Nelson as Church President. It is a matter of degrees. Suppose for the sake of argument that member retention decreases from 35% to 32% with Nelson as Church President (purely hypothetical); that would still be a difference of something like 480 thousand members overall. In that case, we could both end up being right at the same time because it could be that some of the changes actually did influence even more members to leave but that doesn’t necessarily mean you will see a noticeable difference simply by looking at your own LDS family members and associates.

Basically I see what is happening now as similar to my own experience only amplified because for me the real challenges to my testimony were few and far between and easier to ignore or shrug off than what we are seeing now. Now maybe you still disagree with even that much, which is fine, but I wanted to be clear that I do not expect to see a mass exodus anytime soon; I expect a fairly slow decline at this rate. And sure you could argue that many of the same people will probably end up losing faith in the Church eventually regardless of what any one Church President does (I.E. some are just more prone to question than others) but even if that is true I would still argue that it could make a huge difference for the Church if these same members leave or become less committed earlier than they would have otherwise because if they go on a mission and convert some people that stay and/or if they marry another active member and raise their children in the Church then it can still be a net positive for the Church to keep them around longer whereas if if they leave at 18-30 then it can easily have much more of a compounded effect for the Church.

[DevilsAdvocate]

Old Timer wrote:

“If I was a TBM, I wouldn’t think or react like a TBM.”

DId I get it right this time? 😆 :thumbup: 😈

No, and to be honest I don’t see what is so funny about it; I think this comes across as flippant. I get that I am obviously not a TBM now but that doesn’t mean that I don’t remember what it was like to believe in the Church. Also, I get that there are many TBMs that will never lose their testimony and that will say how great all this is but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t also many current TBMs that will in fact start to seriously question the Church and end up losing their testimony in a way that is similar to what I experienced. When I was a TBM, I specifically remember wondering why God would allow the racial priesthood ban to continue as long as it did instead of stepping in and correcting this sooner. I had a hard time with polygamy and Bruce R. McConkie’s comments in Mormon Doctrine as well. But that, by itself wasn’t enough to destroy my testimony and I still went on a mission and paid tithing after that honesty believing that’s what I should do.

It would have been much easier for me to stop believing in the Church when I was 18 than after I was married to another Mormon. When I heard about Gordon B. Hinckley acting like it was so important for women to only wear one pair of earrings I definitely didn’t think, “wow what an inspired prophet we have”, I honestly thought it sounded more like something my grandpa would say than anything I would ever expect to come from Jesus and it was yet another crack in my shelf. What I see happening now is similar to what I experienced except that it seems like some of the things that are hard to reconcile are coming up much more often and becoming increasingly difficult to ignore anymore. For one person it could be the Church trying to stop the medical marijuana bill that passed and for another it could be the excommunication of Sam Young. Even my wife that never cared about Church history has heard all kinds of stuff to make her question the Church recently simply through the local news, Facebook, etc.

[DevilsAdvocate]

DarkJedi wrote:

Idon’t know DA. My TBM friends and associates (as well as those I try to avoid) seem to mostly be on board with everything that’s happening, maybe if only because of “follow the prophet.”

Sure, it seems like there will always be some TBMs like that that will typically follow the prophet no matter what. I’m not saying that all or even most TBMs will lose their testimony over all the changes Nelson is making, only that I have no doubt that some of these changes have added weight to the shelf for many TBMs and I suspect it will be the final straw for at least some of them that probably would have been able to continue believing under another Church President more like Monson or Hinckley.

[DevilsAdvocate]

Old Timer wrote:

“If I were still a TBM” you would be rejoicing at the outpouring of revelatory change. That kind of is the definition of term.

Maybe for one or two changes if I happened to like those changes, but not one after another like this including some that seem rather petty and/or pointless. For example, I could rationalize the Church abandoning polygamy (in this life) and the racial priesthood ban (both changes that were clearly for the better in my opinion) without too much effort with excuses like maybe too many of the early saints simply weren’t ready to accept blacks as Church leaders and God understood this so that’s why he didn’t ask them to until enough of them were ready to accept this change. But I definitely wondered why God would allow these to continue for so long only to end up changing anyway later and then when I found or heard about more and more contradictions or things like Gordon B. Hinckley acting like it was so important for women to only wear one pair of “modest” earrings eventually my breaking point was reached.

That’s why I like the shelf metaphor, basically it seems like most believing members can shrug off or rationalize a few things that don’t really make sense (e.g. it is added to the shelf) but for many of them after more and more things add weight to their shelf eventually it can’t hold up anymore unless they are a super hardcore apologist. To me the definition of TBM is simply Church members that actually believe in the restoration and prophet/revelation claims to the point that they feel an obligation to go along with what they are told to by the Church or at least feel somewhat guilty if they don’t; it doesn’t mean they have to really like all of it that much. My point is that all these changes, good or bad, could be viewed as a contradiction between what the Church teaches about revelation and prophets and what we actually see happening over and over again in real life and thereby add more weight to or even break the “shelf” for many current faithful members.

[DevilsAdvocate]

Personally I’m glad to see that President Nelson is apparently not afraid to change things around left and right. But it does beg the question that if some of these changes were such a great idea then why did it take so long for them to be made especially when the Church literally claims to be led by living prophets, seers, and revelators? I mean why is it that I had to wait until I was exactly 12 years old to receive the priesthood if it would have been alright for 11 year olds to receive the priesthood all along?

If I was still a TBM, then seeing all of these changes after no significant changes other than the missionary age change as long as I can remember just as soon as Nelson became Church President would definitely have obliterated my shelf fairly quickly and I doubt I’m the only one that thinks this way. Sure there are plenty of faithful members that will say how great some of these changes are but I suspect that there are also many quietly thinking, “This doesn’t really make sense” regardless of whether the individual changes are perceived as good or bad simply due to the overall implications for the fundamental LDS teachings about how prophets and revelation are supposed to work in theory. It will be interesting to see how all this plays out over the long run.

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