[DevilsAdvocate]

SilentDawning wrote:

I have regular conversations with my daughter who is in Utah and BYU-P right now. I am amazed at how strong the “get married” culture is…it wouldn’t surprise me if the average age of Mormons getting married is younger than the population at large. This is due to this strong marriage culture.

Where does this come from? The fact that premarital sex is not allowed, so people tend to tie the knot early to they can get on with our North American mating rituals? BY’s statement “the unmarried man is a menace to society”? The eternal marriage concept? Talks from GA’s I’m not familiar with?

There’s no doubt that there is a noticeable difference in the average ages that active LDS Church members get married compared to the outside world, for example in the leaked video about young single adults (2008) they said the average marriage ages for members that were married in the temple were 24 for men and 23 for women compared to 27 for LDS men and 25 for LDS women married outside the temple. And the average marriage ages in the US were reportedly 29 for men and 27 for women by 2014. I think the focus on getting married as soon as possible in the LDS culture is largely due to the Church currently depending so much on members getting married to another active member as a way to effectively retain followers whereas those that are single for very long or are married to a non-Mormon or inactive member are much more likely to fall away permanently.

So some of this is deliberately pushed by Church leaders like Ballard, Hales, mission presidents, etc. but it looks like some of it is just a by-product of Church members seeing other active Church members getting engaged and married relatively quickly after missions (or graduating from high school for young women) and picking up the idea that this is just the acceptable way to do things if you are LDS. And the effect is compounded even more in environments like BYU, student wards, etc. In fact, I think this is one of the main reasons Church leaders are happy to spend so much money on funding BYU because it is basically a place where LDS students can go as young adults and typically come out already married or engaged to another active member and well on their way to a lifetime of commitment to the Church barring some major derailment.

[DevilsAdvocate]

Heber13 wrote:

My question: Is it bad to marry young? What is the downside if they find someone they are in love with and are willing to figure things out as they go along? By waiting longer…isn’t someone just adding new variables to a situation, not really getting a more sure answer on who is going to be right to be married to in a lifetime full of changes?

Personally I’m glad I waited until I graduated from college and was working full-time before getting married and I would definitely do the same thing again if I could go back in time. If others feel like they are ready to get married and know for sure who they want to marry sooner than that then good for them and maybe there isn’t much of a reason to wait in that case. But when I got back from my mission I didn’t feel ready to get married at all to the point that I didn’t even like going on dates with active LDS women, attending singles wards, etc. because I thought there wasn’t much of a point if I wasn’t going to get married very soon anyway and I mostly wanted to focus on my education and career goals first at that point. To be honest, I don’t think there is anything magical about getting married after a certain age, it depends on individual circumstances, but what bothers me the most about the Church’s general influence on marriage trends is the whole mindset of some members thinking they should get married as soon as possible mostly just to get married period as if it is just another expected duty to check off the list like full-time missions.

There have been quite a few horror stories on various ex-Mormon and disaffected member websites where people followed this general approach because they thought that’s what they were supposed to do at the time only to regret it later when they ended up getting divorced or toughing it out year-after-year mostly for the sake of their children, etc. So that’s the main potential downside I see of rushing into marriage and hoping for the best as if real life is some kind of Disney movie where it is supposed to be love at first sight and then you will live happily ever after; it basically involves intentionally depending much more than necessary on pure luck to avoid a relatively unhappy marriage, divorce, etc. whereas some of the most common problems and incompatibilities would typically be much easier to avoid for people that aren’t quite so anxious to get married as soon as possible, that are more mature and have a better idea what they want, etc.

[DevilsAdvocate]

To be honest I think experiences like yours are a lot more common in the Church than most members including the leaders want to admit, it’s just that the Church likes to maintain this image of strict conformity and being separate and protected from “the world.” So those that are completely honest about some of this will typically be punished and those that tell them what they want to hear will basically be rewarded in the Church (if having a temple recommend, callings, etc. can be considered a reward).

Even in the case of abuse where it seems like the Church should have sympathy for victims the impression I get is that many would rather just not talk about it and pretend it doesn’t exist most of the time. To me it looks like porn would be a relative non-issue at this stage in your life if it wasn’t for the influence of the Church making a big deal about it. I wouldn’t be too hard on yourself about that; for example 10 years from now what difference will it make whether you watched some porn or you didn’t?

[DevilsAdvocate]

Reuben wrote:

Probably the worst sign is that the doctrines themselves help propagate abuse. They contribute to the warped value system that leads to abuse, and they also help justify abusive behavior. Examples:…Satan exists. This provides the most ready, isolating, divisive and wrong explanation for when members lose faith. Can a church with doctrines like this not be abusive? I don’t know.

I’m not sure the idea that Satan exists inherently leads to abuse by itself any more than belief in God or life-after-death. If parents tell their children Santa Claus exists and he knows who’s been bad or good and will reward them accordingly then is that abuse? To me it looks like it’s mostly about tradition and trying to get people to behave the way they have been told that they should. The Church reminds me of the movie “The Village” but in the Church the majority of adults actually believe the monsters are real themselves. To me it seems like the Church (institution and doctrines) almost has a mind of its own and its primary goal is simply its own survival (I.E. perpetuating LDS Mormonism itself).

If you think about it the survival of LDS Mormonism largely involves effectively controlling members’ behavior (WoW, chastity, tithing, full-time missions, garments, temple marriage, etc.) and beliefs (prophets, one true Church, priesthood authority, etc.) because most of the ones that don’t go along with this abandon the Church completely leaving behind a majority that still think all of this is very important and the Church doesn’t even need conscious decisions to specifically aim for this in order for this selection process to play out repeatedly. As long as Church leaders and rank-and-file members believe all this is as important as they currently do then to some extent they don’t really know any better (whether they should or not) because they are largely acting as just another interchangeable cog in the machine. Of course, if some members already feel at home in this environment then they won’t necessarily experience this as abusive at all, to many of them this seems like it is normal and the way things should be.

[DevilsAdvocate]

Good points; I would summarize the general attitude displayed by Church leaders, published lessons, etc. as, “We know what’s best for you.” Many in the Church will deny how abusive some of this is and don’t really feel like victims of abuse because they have already bought into the premise that this came from God and the stakes are supposedly so high. Sometimes you have to step away from it and look at it as a relative outsider in order to recognize how one-sided and unfair some of the Church’s demands and expectations really are in terms of upholding tradition and serving the Church’s interests at the expense of rank-and-file members’ time, effort, inconvenience, freedom, money, etc. that really add up over a lifetime.

[DevilsAdvocate]

Roy wrote:

I think that the church currently has a model where members must sacrifice for their own good in order to fit the church program. Members do not expect their church to bend to changing consumer trends and can be quite proud of this fact. Yes, this model appears to be similar to the model for Muslims. It also appears to be quite effective, especially in areas where your religion is the majority and there can be costs for members who do not conform…

I think the LDS Church is similar to Islam in that there is a certain element of being surrounded by other Mormons that expect you to go along with all these traditional teachings and if not then it’s not alright that makes it harder to go openly “apostate” than it seems like it is for the typical Catholic, Baptist, Methodist, Lutheran, Presbyterian, etc. to just not go back to church if they don’t really care for it. But it seems like the Church should be more different from Islam than it actually is in practice because with Islam it seems like the general idea is that everyone should just submit to the will of God (as they see it) and if Sharia law is strictly enforced then so be it whereas the LDS Church has traditionally taught that it is important for people to have the freedom to choose for themselves (at least in theory). Sure this kind of social pressure and outright fear in some cases is fairly effective in getting people to go along with the group as long as it can be maintained in sufficient levels but I’m not sure it is a sustainable approach to rely on so much anymore now that the internet makes it so easy for members to discredit the Church’s truth claims and see that they aren’t the only ones that doubt or don’t believe this, often before they ever get very invested in the Church to begin with.

[DevilsAdvocate]

Roy wrote:

However, as Ray has often pointed out, the LDS church often fares better at retaining its youth than many churches. This may be precisely because we have rejected the consumer driven model of church. When you are trying to attract parishioners based on how your church programs add value to their lives – it can be easy to drift from current consumer tastes and generational gaps. The LDS church does not seem to be trying to attract people so much as present a program that, if true, is vital to your salvation…Perhaps the LDS church can implement some of these suggestions without seeming to pander to the whims of changing generational expectations. After all, church does not have to be painful to be true.

ydeve wrote:

I identify with this excerpt so much. To be honest, I see the lds church’s rejection of the consumer driven model, or emphasis of “truth” and downplay of “contributing to wellbeing” as greatly increasing the harm it causes.

I agree with ydeve, personally I think they should follow more of a consumer driven model. If the Church is still retaining youth/young adults better than some other churches then my guess is that this is mostly in spite of not doing more to reflect a consumer driven model, not because of it. It looks like the Church currently relies heavily on things like full-time missions, members getting married to another active member relatively young, a relatively high level of social/family pressure, and a sense of obligation based on the belief that these teachings are “true”, right, from God, etc. in order to retain followers. I don’t see how any of that directly precludes at least trying to provide a better and more attractive product that would be easier to sell than LDS Mormonism currently is for practical purposes. Also I’m not sure that sheer numbers should be considered the best possible measure of “success” in the first place. For example, probably the best religious group at retaining young adults world-wide right now would be the Muslims but is that really the sort of group the LDS Church would want to emulate more closely even if they could?

In any case, it looks like business as usual is just not going to deliver the results they were used to seeing in 70s, 80s, and 90s anymore. In a leaked document Church leaders estimated that in January 2004 only 35% of young single adults (18-30) were active in the US and Canada. As far as I can tell their proposed solution was to try to keep track of these members better and try to establish more “accountability” to local leaders. Well only a few years later (2008) in the leaked video about young single adults they said that only about 30% were active in North America and 20% worldwide. After that they lowered the mission age limits but personally I doubt that has done much to reverse these trends and now even full-time missions and temple marriage look like they are not as much of a factor in helping assure life-long activity in the Church as they used to be because we see many returned missionaries and temple-married members falling away now too largely because of the internet discrediting the Church’s truth claims and providing social proof/validation that there are many others that don’t believe in the Church, that it is alright or even preferable to leave the Church, etc.

[DevilsAdvocate]

If I had to pick one category I would say contradictions between scientific and historical evidence and what the scriptures (especially LDS) say. For example, passages about “no death before the fall”, a global flood, and the tower of Babel in LDS scriptures. I guess you could call it current doctrine that I disagree with (especially the claimed reliability of revelation and prophets) but I think this could be a specific category by itself. With the Bible I could separate the New Testament and Old Testament and shrug off some of the older stories as myths and legends similar to the Trojan horse or that kind of thing but the way the Church claims scriptures like the BoM, BoA, Moses, and D&C were delivered through revelation to prophets it didn’t seem like there was that much wiggle room to work with. Once I started to pay close attention to several of these contradictions at the same time that’s when I really started to think what is more likely that God was revealing what he wanted us to know through these supposed prophets or that JS or whoever else around 1830-1844 would feel safe repeating and building on stories like this from the Bible only to have them increasingly discredited as people’s overall knowledge of science and history progressed?

[DevilsAdvocate]

DoubtingTom wrote:

Just a thought, and I haven’t flushed this out yet. But what if God isn’t all powerful? What if there are certain laws he must abide by in his sphere and that includes that for some reason he can’t just forgive everyone or make up a system by which somehow everyone gets to return to him. But by following laws he must abide by, the Savior and the atonement become a means by which he can accomplish his purposes without violating inviolatable laws that he doesn’t have the power to violate?…Personally I don’t connect to this idea nor think it the most likely. But the idea gave me pause as an interesting theological thought.

This is sort of how the Church tries to explain the supposed need for the atonement, even though they don’t word it as God having limitations as far as what he can and can’t do there is the whole explanation in the Book of Mormon to the effect that, “God would cease to be God” (Alma 42:13) without some kind of law demanding punishment for sins because without this mercy would “rob justice.” I understand the idea that it doesn’t really seem fair for God to just forgive everyone like some kind of get out of jail free card but at the same time I just don’t see how having someone that didn’t have anything to do with whatever “sins” people have committed suffer and die is any kind of justice whatsoever, to me it sounds like quite the opposite namely one of the worst possible examples of injustice imaginable if we step back and really look at it without buying into some of the hand-waving explanations and claims that God said so.

If justice is so essential then why not just punish everyone individually in proportion to what they themselves have actually done wrong and be done with it rather than punishing someone that doesn’t really deserve it at all? And on top of that, it seems like many average people nowadays aren’t really doing anything all that bad to begin with that looks like it should require some magical intercession to pay for but at best it looks like all that should be required to “pay” for some of this would simply be some kind of slap on the wrist that they could easily bear themselves. It’s almost like the supposed problem and the cure both came from the same source (traditional religious teachings) and both of them could easily be mostly if not entirely imaginary for all we really know. But I have stopped trying to make sense of this idea anymore, at this point I see it as just another traditional teaching we have inherited from previous generations because of whatever scriptures in the BoM, Bible, etc. similar to “no death before the fall”, a global flood, the tower of Babel, God cursing people with a dark skin, etc. that could turn out to be entirely human in origin rather than something inspired or revealed directly by God.

[DevilsAdvocate]

SilentDawning wrote:

I was wondering how others feel about this….do you believe in the Christ who is the literal son of god, who suffered for the sins of all mankind, and paid their debt? That he was divine, and was resurrected? Whether he has a body or not, I care not at this point — only whether you believe in Christ as the literal person he is generally believed to be at church, or do you see him as a symbolic figure, or perhaps even a good man who modeled a good life? Where do you stand on the issue of belief in Christ?

I definitely don’t take the Bible literally, and I still believe in God and life after death independently from what the Bible says so it’s not like I’m a hardcore skeptic or anything. Basically to me some stories and ideas in the Bible sound plausible enough that I don’t see much of a reason to doubt them (I. E. Jesus was an influential religous leader that was crucified) but other cases don’t make much sense at all to me and in some cases I’m not really sure what to think either way (the resurrection, final judgment, etc). I definitely believe that the Apostle Paul was sincere about being converted by some kind of profound experience and I like to think that there was more to this than merely some figment of his imagination or misinterpretation of some natural process.

So that’s how I like to interpret Paul’s overall message, basically that Jesus was still alive after he was supposed to be dead which already sounds like “good news” enough for me regardless of some of the other details. Beyond that to be honest I think it is more likely that there were some embellishments to the traditional story of Jesus than that everything happened exactly as described. Not that that really proves anything because no matter how unlikely something is based on our observations of typical everyday life if God decides to directly intervene for whatever reasons then whatever he wants to happen suddenly becomes 100% likely to happen even if it has only ever happened once in the entire history of the world.

What I have a harder time believing than mircales in general is simply some of the things like hellfire and damnation over things like not being baptized and having the wrong beliefs (Mark 16:16) and the strait and narrow path that supposedly few will find (Matthew 7:13-14). In theory I don’t have a problem with truly bad people like murderers, rapists, etc. being punished somehow but when I look at neighbors that are not very religious, Muslims, etc. that are decent people I just don’t believe that they really deserve to be condemned especially when many of them don’t really have much of a choice regarding what they believe in the first place because it would be hard if not impossible for them to believe anything else under the circumstances. Even harder for me to believe is the idea of the atonement at least as taught by the Church or the general idea that Jesus supposedly needed to suffer as some kind of sacrifice to satisfy the demands of justice for everyone’s “sins.”

It just sounds like yet another guilt-trip to basically say Jesus supposedly suffered and died for your sins so you better do what we say or else this all important sacrifice was supposedly in vain in your case. I don’t understand why God couldn’t just forgive whomever he wants to without needing some kind of sacrifice or “debt payment” like this or how this would really make any difference as far as fixing anything by itself. Most of all I think some of the teachings of Jesus like forgiveness, loving your neighbor, not being judgmental and self-righteous like the Pharisees, are the kind of thing that people can do their best to practice and that would generally make the world a better place without even needing to believe that Jesus was literally the only begotten son of God, resurrected, had magical powers, etc. That’s what I would like to see more of out of the Church instead of so much obsession with everyone supposedly needing to believe the same exact things down to some of the smallest details.

[DevilsAdvocate]

DoubtingTom wrote:

I’m a very new member of staylds. Some of you have read my story and have told me you can relate. There’s something that I’ve been wondering as I’ve been perusing older threads on this forum. I’ve noticed that in a lot of older threads, there were members of this forum who seemed to be very active, but don’t post anymore. This got me thinking and I’m genuinely interested in your thoughts – does this forum serve as a gateway to completely separating away from the church for those who can’t or don’t want to rip the band-aid off in one motion?…So back to my question. Those who used to be active in the forum – have they left the church completely now? Did this forum help with that transition or just make the whole process drawn out and more painful? Is it better sometimes to just rip the band-aid off when you sincerely think getting rid of the band-aid once and for all may help you to be your best self?

I know some people that used to post here have left the Church and even resigned in some cases. Also there are some cases where people stopped posting here but continue to attend church. Personally I wouldn’t put too much blame on this site either way for causing people to leave or causing them to stay “too long” if maybe they would have been happier leaving sooner. If anything I think it has generally made people more comfortable with whatever decisions they end up making so that if they leave or stay it can be on their terms more than feeling too much pressure that they need to leave or stay if they don’t really want to at the time. I see this as the main idea of this site, that you don’t have to leave the Church just because you don’t believe in some of the teachings, don’t like some things about it, etc. the way some ex-Mormons like to push as if it is some kind of obligation if you don’t believe in the Church anymore.

[DevilsAdvocate]

Roy wrote:

This is a statement that I have heard many times in regards to polygamy. It has always bothered me. To me it is similar to God telling Adam and Eve to “multiply and replenish” but failing to mention anything about marriage and just left them to figure it out on their own. How much collateral damage is God willing to tolerate before he gives them guidance on this point?…What do you think? What would be the strengths or weaknesses of such a theory?

In theory I’m all for the idea of God letting people figure some things out on their own instead of trying to micromanage people’s lives down to the smallest details, prophet or not. However, in the case of the way JS practiced plural “marriage” this just sounds more like a rather weak excuse and classic example of mental gymnastics than a very good explanation for what we actually see. One problem with this is that God supposedly already did give the following relatively specific details regarding polygamy in D&C 132 (which JS apparently didn’t follow very well according to historical accounts).

D&C 132 wrote:

61 And again, as pertaining to the law of the priesthood—if any man espouse a virgin, and desire to espouse another, and the first give her consent, and if he espouse the second, and they are virgins, and have vowed to no other man, then is he justified; he cannot commit adultery for they are given unto him; for he cannot commit adultery with that that belongeth unto him and to no one else.

62 And if he have ten virgins given unto him by this law, he cannot commit adultery, for they belong to him, and they are given unto him; therefore is he justified.

63 But if one or either of the ten virgins, after she is espoused, shall be with another man, she has committed adultery, and shall be destroyed; for they are given unto him to multiply and replenish the earth, according to my commandment, and to fulfill the promise which was given by my Father before the foundation of the world, and for their exaltation in the eternal worlds, that they may bear the souls of men; for herein is the work of my Father continued, that he may be glorified.

Sure according the Church this was originally recorded in 1843 but if God supposedly thought it was important enough to provide details like this then and send an angel multiple times to get JS to take more wives then why wouldn’t he have provided sufficiently detailed instructions in any previous revelations? As far as the question of to what extent the Church is just a product of JS and other leaders acting as men that would be great if the Church would recognize this possibility but it seems like it is currently all about strict obedience (“with exactness”) not allowing people very much leeway to figure things out on their own.

[DevilsAdvocate]

hawkgrrrl wrote:

Old Timer wrote:

As a first step, I would like to see it removed from the requirements for baptism (and, ideally, Priesthood ordination) and kept only as a temple requirement.

That would solve so many problems, particularly with missionary work.

That’s a sensible solution. It’ll never fly, Orville! There have been studies that show that the more you require of people in a religion, the better your retention. The problem is that maybe that’s not going to be true forever. This current generation really challenges things in a new way. I’m not sure they will keep getting the same results from that strategy. Plus, there’s something to be said for the fact that WoW was always supposed to be a guideline.

I remember reading something along these lines a while ago but I thought they were mostly talking about new and relatively small fringe groups, not large mainstream religious groups with millions of followers. Basically they were trying to determine what the differences were between these small groups that didn’t survive very long at all and those that did and found that the ones that survived longer generally demanded costly sacrifices which apparently had the effect of amping up the level of commitment to the group enough to prevent too many of them from abandoning it. Well if we look at a group like the Amish it certainly makes sense why they would need followers that are very committed to this lifestyle because otherwise the group probably wouldn’t have lasted as well as it has for as long as it has so far but would instead likely be quickly assimilated into the mainstream culture. But that doesn’t mean that this level of commitment and differences from the outside world will ever appeal to nearly as many people that weren’t raised in this environment as more popular religious groups.

And if the WoW was really that much of a magical secret of success the Church has stumbled onto then I would have expected them to gain more ground compared to the Baptists, Methodists, Lutherans, Presbyterians, etc. by now than they have so far due to LDS families having more children than average and so many full-time missionaries actively trying to recruit new followers for so long. In reality the Church doesn’t retain members all that well in the first place, and especially not in the case of new converts and for all we really know the WoW could easily be preventing just as many if not more people from joining and/or staying as it helps attract and retain. Also I doubt Church leaders are even aware of some of the possible mind tricks like the sunk cost fallacy and if they were my guess is that they would feel embarrassed about this and try to rationalize that Muslims don’t drink or eat pork, Jews traditionally don’t eat pork, etc. to try to tell themselves this isn’t that unusual rather than thinking this is a very good reason to justify the WoW by itself. In theory the Church believes in free will (moral agency) and that life is a test; well it’s not really much of a test or choice worth celebrating if people are being tricked into strict compliance somehow.

[DevilsAdvocate]

dande48 wrote:

Devil’sAdvocate, I wasn’t able to find the study you mentioned. Would you mind sending me the link? I’d find it interesting. And I fully agree that the majority members of the LDS church drink. I was referring to the active members of the Church, which I understand is unfair sampling. But they are also the most prominent members to the Church leadership. An “apostate” who drinks and doesn’t believe in the Word of Wisdom, isn’t going to change any policy. “You’ve lost your testimony of it, because you haven’t been keeping it.” That’s what they’d say.

I was just talking about the article in the Salt Lake Tribune that I linked to in the first post of this thread and one part of that was that they mentioned poll results from Jana Riess about what looks like changing attitudes about the WoW for different generations. I’m not sure if these results are published somewhere else as well.

[DevilsAdvocate]

dande48 wrote:

All-in-all, I think the WoW is wonderful. We would all be better off living it, than not. And this is coming from a mild-agnositic, who takes very little from the LDS church literally. Sure, you’ll probably be just fine with the occasional cup of wine. But judging by my junk food habbits, I would have a hard time limiting myself. Better not to try…I also remember it was viewed as the #1 most important commandment by seminary student survey, several years back. Several ticks above the law of chastity. It’s something most members are proud of. The church isn’t going to change policy, because a few among us “don’t like it”. If anything, they will add more to the section of recommendations, like the part about “eating meat sparingly”, rather than modifying their list of “don’t”s.

Actually one of the points in this newspaper article was that it looks like younger generations of Mormons are already becoming more tolerant of the idea of not conforming to current LDS teachings in this case. For example, in a poll done by Jana Riess she found that only 40% of millennials thought that not drinking alcohol was essential to being a “good Mormon” compared to 51% for Generation X and more than 75% for baby boomers and the silent generation. I do think that one of the main reasons that the WoW will probably not be changed anytime soon is simply because most of the active members including the top leaders have already accepted it and gotten used to it the way it is.

However, I disagree with the idea that it is only a few people that don’t like the WoW; in reality I suspect there are literally millions of Church members that already drink and/or smoke, it’s just that most of them are inactive and many of them have almost no chance of returning to Church activity as long as they don’t feel ready to give up these habits and feel like not drinking or smoking is a big part of what being LDS is all about. On my mission trying to get people to give up drinking, smoking and/or coffee so they could be baptized was a real hassle and many of them quickly returned to their old habits anyway even after they were baptized.

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