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Old-Timer wrote:
Again, I’m NOT condemning the site, saying it shouldnt’ exist or calling it evil – or anything “like unto it”. I’m just saying I think you are objecting too strenuously to being called on an obvious anti-LDS Church bias. I really do appreciate your referrals to our site, but I also conclude you aren’t referring everyone here – but rather only those who want to stay actively involved in the LDS Church despite any issues they encounter. Those who don’t want to stay, you welcome with open arms and then actually arm them with ammunition (justifications) to leave. Iow, it appears that one of your central missions is to help people leave the LDS Church and stop others from joining – and labeling that effort “anti-Mormon” is totally fair and accurate, imo – again, mostly because I don’t see an effort to present reasons to stay involved.
In conclusion, I see our two sites as kind of polar opposites when it comes to struggling members. We try to help them stay; you try to help them leave – and perhaps land as softly as possible when they leave. When it comes to investigators or other non-members, we try to provide both a place to interact with those who are struggling (to know they’re not unique if they do join) AND a place to affirm their ability to join with open eyes and their own faith-orientation – to be members on their own terms; you try to convince them not to join – pretty much with no exceptions, as far as I can tell.
Well, since MT doesn’t have a chat area like StayLDS, there isn’t really any ongoing effort by me or anyone else from MT to convince people to leave or to stay in the church. The site is relatively static. They read, then they usually go to the links and see other viewpoints and go to some of the message boards. I list them all including FAIR’s board. I also state a couple times that people should go to the ‘ask the apologist’ feature of FAIR to get their viewpoint. Can you imagine FAIR doing an ‘Ask the critic’ recommendation to get another viewpoint?
We do get a fair amount of emails and many people are crying for help. I often refer them to John Dehlin as we talk often about how to help people struggling. I suggest going to the various mesage boards listed on the MT links page. I have also told people that there is no hurry and to take their time making a decision. I have recommending to some people that they should stay in the church – like people that risk losing their family – not worth it in my opinion. But I can’t and won’t attempt to force people to believe anything. They will believe what they want to believe. I do realize that MT’s site is very damaging to the traditional LDS belief but I think it’s becasue the critic’s arguments (some of them anyway) are very strong.
I might add that I have had maybe 2 dozen people email me and say that they are staying in the church because of MormonThink. They found out damaging stuff from other critics sites but have been inspired enough by finding out other people on MT that know this stuff and have elected to stay in. Yeah that’s a pretty small % I know but just to let you know it happens and I certainly don’t try to persuade them to leave the church if they are happy with it.
Old-Timer wrote:Quote:The primary audience is members of the church that simply are not aware of these issues. I think they have a right to know about them.
Old-Timer wrote:
We disagree totally on that. People have a right to know what they want to know.I will agree to totally disagree on that issue.
Quote:“If the church wasn’t true, would you want to know?”
Old-Timer wrote:The very asking of that question in that way, with the site you founded, presupposes that it isn’t true. Surely, you understand that – and that
you are trying to convince people who aren’t looking to be convinced. Your approach is offensive (as opposed to defensive), not neutral and impartial. I understand that but I don’t know of a better way to ‘feel someone out’ to see if they want to know about these things. It really isn’t much different than a missionary trying to get a non-member to abandon their belief system, that they may be totally happy with, and join the LDS church.
Old-Timer wrote:
I will end with the following links. Please read them, since I hope they will help you see why I disagree so strongly with the purpose you described in your last comment:http://thingsofmysoul.blogspot.com/2010/12/charity-endureth-all-things-even-others.html http://thingsofmysoul.blogspot.com/2008/08/pursuing-joy.html Thanks for the links – I read them – I understand your viewpoint and respect it.
GBSmith wrote:We’ve had an even exchange of posts on this so I’ll finish what I have to say and grant you the last word.
Fair enough – thanks
GBSmith wrote:
People become aware of these things for various reasons, interest in church history, surfing the net, concerns about what they’ve been told or heard. It’s all pretty much there in print or online and some of the most informative has been by Bushman, Arrington, Leonard, Bitton, Poll and others in an outside the church that do research and publish. I almost get the sense you want this as an appendix in Preach My Gospel so that the elders or so the primary teacher for the 7-8 year olds can be sure a person can have all the facts. I do think the LDS church would be better off if it didn’t rush baptism. It takes a year of instruction for conversion to Catholicism and two years to become a JW. I don’t see what the hurry is.I do really like that about Catholicism. I have had some people say that it’s almost like they were trying to talk you out of it – they really want you to understand what you are getting in to. Bushman especially is a great resource and he tells it like it is but in a nice, non-faith destroying way. Of course I know some TBMs that think his books are ‘anti-Mormon’. Yeah, I don’t think there should be a rush to baptism either. Obviously an 8 year-old pretty much believes what his parents tell him to believe. The Appendix – ha, not a bad idea.
GBSmith wrote:
This one I have a problem with since Enron was run by a bunch of liars and thieves and I don’t believe the Church is.I don’t believe the church is either. I think the big 15 are good men. I do not think most know very much about the disturbing issues of church history but they do know that historians have issues and I imagine that has to trouble them somewhat. It’s a difficult position to be in – topic for another thread perhaps.
GBSmith wrote:
I suppose I’d do what any Baptist parent would do if one of my kids wanted to join the LDS Church. I’d give them all the negative information I could find and hope they’d come to their senses. And if they went ahead anyway and were happy I’d call it good.HA! Yeah, that’s what happened to my girlfriend of long ago. Her parents brought up all this stuff to the girl I was engaged to marry. But truly their arguments were stupid. They had us listen to a tape made by their church about Mormonism. It had very weak arguments like Joseph wasn’t martyred, he shot back with a gun and killed 1-2 people – well so what, I’d shoot back too. They brought up the word ‘adieu’ in the BofM – not a big deal. Jesus and Satan were brothers – so what. Basics of polygamy – big deal, every member knows they practiced polygamy. That’s one reason I don’t use any of those arguments on MT (polygamy details yes, but not merely stating they practiced it). The only one that disturbed me a bit was the Adam God theory but my TBM sister explained it away as Brigham never said that – good enough for me at the time. Anyway, in case you’re wondering, her parents and pastor eventually won and convinced her it was some kind of cult. And by the way that did not make me bitter against the church. I fought that much harder then and became an apologist for the LDS church after that, wanting to dismiss those anti-Mormon lies and try to prove the church true. In the end I found out so much damaging stuff that I eventually stopped believing it myself.
GBSmith wrote:
As I said that’s all I have to say. The arguments are starting to get recycled so time to stop and with that I grant you the last word.Agreed. Thank you for the courtesy.
Roy wrote:
So if I understand you correctly – your site takes more of a middle approach being neither pro-Mormon nor anti-Mormon. You present the opposing arguments and inconsistencies. You recognize that within this middle there is a range of belief and non-belief and maybe your group leans toward the non-belief end of the spectrum but is at least trying to keep the door open for the possibility of the divine. You provide references to other sites when you believe that an individual’s needs will be better served by a different niche provider. Am I representing you fairly?I couldn’t have said it better myself. I realize we still have a lot of work to do but we’re still plugging away and making it better and more objective as we are able with our limited resources.
Roy wrote:
But my real question is: What do you do with a friend that has already “invested years into the church and given thousands of $$$” and seems relatively content to do so? Do you rain on his parade and let the chips and collateral damage fall where they may?To put it another way – what is the ideal audience for MormonThink? Is it primarily for investigators? or for members wanting more forthright answers to history questions? for members having a crisis of faith? or for anyone and everyone? What would be your ideal audience?
As I said earlier, I have refrained from informing my TBM sister and also my best friend (that I converted) because I think they really do need the church too much and may be suicidal if they started to think it wasn’t true. The church was of great benefit to my friend who was living a wild and reckless life and I got him into the church, he married a nice, very TBM girl and they are doing well.
The primary audience is members of the church that simply are not aware of these issues. I think they have a right to know about them. And I really don’t care if they stay in the church or if they leave it. To me it is really the same thing as the church missionary program – when you know something is true, you want to share it – but instead of sharing the LDS gospel, we’re sharing details of the church that they don’t know about – and could very well be disturbed by it.
Given that it could have negative consequences (my own wife has said she wished she’d never found out about this stuff), I recommend that we use a philosphy I first heard from Tal Bachman – ask the person, “if the church wasn’t true, would you want to know?” Some people like my sister would say no and then the conversation is over. Most probably say yes and then the discussions can begin on how some of the things we have been taught in church weren’t really the way it likely happened.
Thanks Cwald and Wayfarer. You guys seem to get what we’re trying to accomplish. GBSmith wrote:
The information that I’ve reviewed is no different that on Post mormon, Recovery from Mormonism, etc. so I’m not sure where the claim to fairness and the need to provide it comes from.
Post Mormon & Recovery from Mormonism are primarily message boards so they are a little different. But we are different than most critic’s sites as we list the critic’s arguments and then the church’s view if available and always provide many links to the pro-side of the arguments so people can make up their own minds to the interpretations. We have well over 300 links to favorable viewpoints of the church so people can read them in their own words. Not many sites link so freely to all sides.
GBSmith wrote:I’m not sure why the church should be expected to be “honest and upfront” about “facts” or interpretations it doesn’t agree with. The archives are open and there’s never been more access to the historical department than now under Elder Jensen. I’m not sure what more is needed. (this is getting a little weird. I’m starting to sound like one of the flacks at Fair)
Joseph married 11 women that were already married – that’s a fact but why don’t members know this? It might make a difference to them? No one is denying that the church should be allowed to give their interpretation of the facts – in fact, most members turn to the Internet to get some interpretations as they can’t get anything at all from the church.
Your philosphy sounds like ‘buyer beware’ and you should know all these things because the church has supposedly opened access to their historical department. How many investigators are going to fly to SLC and start looking up issues that they don’t even know exist? You have to be a church historian to research these things unless someone outside of the church tells you about them. At a minimum, you’d have to go to FAIR to get an inkling that there even were any issues. Did you ever think that the access is reportedly becoming more available because of the work done by John Dehlin, MormonThink and critics like the Tanners? If it wasn’t for them, very few of these issue would have even come to light.
Your statement “I’m not sure why the church should be expected to be “honest and upfront” about “facts” or interpretations it doesn’t agree with” is like blaming people that bought Enron stock based on what Enron’s annual reports said instead of what their financial situation really was. Enron was to blame for not being “honest and upfront” about their accounting practices and financial transaction history. Likewise, the LDS church has the responsibility to not mislead it’s members or investigators about the actual plasuibility of their history and explain their practices with the “milk before meat” philosophy which is basically omit what you can to get people to believe until you are caught, and even then only tell the minmum to keep people believing. But the church continues to teach faith-promoting events that make it seem more believable than it is. For example, like the Anthon affair which was taught in my ward not long ago without ever mentioning the inherent problems (the fact that Anthon was not an Egypologist and that he wouldn’t have been able to decipher ‘reformed egyptian’ and that he gave a completely different account of the event, denying publicly in print what the Church claimed, etc.
:A question for you: If you had a friend that was going to join Scientology and wanted your advice, would you just tell him to listen to the Scientologists that tell him to not read ‘anti-scientology’ information and to only listen to them? On the surface Scientology is friendly enough but at the core, it revolves around a belief that aliens blew themselves up on earth 50 million years ago with H-bombs and that their essence is all around us and we need to tap into it. Should your friend know this up front? Should the church of Scientology inform it’s members of this or let them find out on their own from some anti-Scientology site after they’ve invested years into the church and given thousands of $$$ to them? Should the church of Scientology be expected to be “honest and upfront” about “facts” or interpretations it doesn’t agree with or want it’s members informed of too soon? Are the ‘anti-Scientology’ sites evil or doing a good service by exposing all of Scientology’s lesser-known beliefs?
GBSmith wrote:Quote:That is a lot to ask of people and we simply feel that the people have a right to know everything about the organization before they make such life-long commitments. If people knew that the church really wasn’t what it claimed to be then maybe they would not make those kinds of sacrifices.
I’ve been trying to figure out why you have your site and why you put up all this information. The answer for me seems to be in the second sentence of the quote above. It doesn’t say “if the church might not be what it claimed to be” it says “if people knew that the church really wasn’t what it claimed to be…”. You, collectively, have decided that it’s truth claims are false and want to be sure everyone else knows that it’s false. It may be out of anger or embarrassment that you were fooled or whatever but it’s not to present in a fair and balanced (thank you Fox News) picture of the LDS Church. As I’ve said before, I’m as disaffected as the next person but I think Katzpuhr was right when she said that you’re being disingenuous if claiming you’re doing this just for the sake of Truth. It kind of reminds me of when one of my kids would tell on the other to get him or her in trouble. Just a thought.
I appreciate your comments. Just to let you know, I just updated that line in the conclusions page of MT and inserted the word ‘perhaps’ so it reads ‘perhaps the church isn’t what it claims to be’. I don’t expect that to change your mind at all but when those at MT recognize that some things were stated as an absolute when it is subjective, then we try to change it out of fairness.
BUT I will say that certainly there are some absolutes about the church that if these things were known when people joined, perhaps they would not have joined as the Joseph Smith Story would not seem as believable as the missionaries and the church portrays it. For example take the translation of the BofM. The images shown to members and investigators with Joseph in deep concentration as he physically had the plates on the table is far more believable than what is now accepted by church historians as the actual method with Joseph using a stone in a hat without the plates present – and not the fabled Urim & Thummim from the Bible but an apparently ordinary stone found while digging a well on Mr. Chase’s property years before. I don’t think you could argue that if missionaries taught the actual method that it would not make any difference to them.
Or a second example; if the church showed what Egyptologists say the facsimiles mean compared to Joseph’s translations, that would cast serious doubt to anyone not fully indoctrinated. I have personally witnessed Gospel Doctrine classes where this was brought up and the instructor blatantly said they were very close or simply dismissed any criticism as not valid. Perhaps he got that from “The Encyclopedia of Mormonism” where it states:
“Moreover, the Prophet’s explanations of each of the facsimiles accord with present understanding of Egyptian religious practices.”
That is extremely misleading. If these things, and many, many, many more were known ahead of time, it would drastically reduce the number of converts the church gets.
One last example, if investigators were allowed to witness the temple ceremony (especially before 1990), how many do you think would rush out to join the LDS church?
Someone said something to the affect that if all religions shared all their warts to their investigators then maybe no one would join any church. There is some truth to that especially with other less mainstream and modern religions like Scientology or Jehovah’s Witnesses. But I think that Mormonism is very different than most other mainstream religions with issues as the LDS church is so new. There is much documentation and things to analyze like the papyri & facsimiles, diaries, court records, etc. The origins of say the Catholic Church are almost 2,000 years old before events could be reliably recorded, same with Christianity in general. Regarding the Catholic Church, I’m not catholic but I know about the crusades, Galileo and other problems so certainly most catholics must know about these things too – it’s not very secret like for example the LDS temple cermony that few outsiders know much about at all. Also, none of the big, mainstream religions claim to have a prophet that receives actual revelation. That also puts the LDS church in an entirely different class – not merely men running it, but reportedly Jesus at the head.
I think StayLDS is a great site and we have linked to it since it’s beginnings on the MormonThink links page as a good resource for those struggling with the faith. I know many that speak highly of it. I don’t come here very often but did the other day and saw a thread devoted to MormonThink. I thought I would chime in a clear up a few things.
My story can basically be found in a Sunstone article I did for the Borderlands here:
http://www.mormonthink.com/files/sunstone.pdf But I’d like to address some of the comments from the previous thread if you guys don’t mind. First off my disclaimer: these are mostly my views and not necessarily the views of every person that has contributed to MT but I know the others pretty well and most of us have the similar goals and motivation.
Is MT an anti-Mormon site?
I basically agree with Brian’s view of ‘anti-Mormon’. I think an anti-Mormon is someone that waves garments outside the conference center shouting ‘pay lay ale’ trying to incite the crowd. Ed Decker would probably be fair to say is anti-Mormon but not critics like Richard Packham and certainly not MT. Many sites provide information that most LDS don’t know about. That’s not being anti-Mormon in my view. I believe that apologists (and often Church members) throw that word out to immediately label someone as some sort of agent of Satan and therefore nothing they say can possible be true. That’s wrong in my opinion.
People leave the church because of MT.
No, the cause of people leaving the church after visiting MT is because of the disturbing FACTS the members learn that the church kept hidden from them. The church elected to teach members and investigators in such a way that makes the Joseph Smith story sound more believable than it really is based on how they teach it by omitting certain details and facts. We present those details and facts that they should have known before they even joined the church. Don’t blame the messenger. Blame those that white-washed the history, obscured the truth and labeled every valid critical argument an ‘anti-Mormon’ lie so no one would desire to look at anything at all even remotely critical of the church’s claims.
Does MT have bias?
Sure, as Hawkgrrrl said every site is biased. MT is no exception. Many people contributed to the site writing various sections and such from different viewpoints. As time goes by, I’ve been editing some of the more biased comments and making it more objective and we’re constantly punching up the arguments for and against to be more inclusive. As stated in the Sunstone article, we originally did not have an ‘Our Thoughts’ section. – it was mostly just issues taken from critics’ sites that had good arguments and from faithful defender sites that had good arguments as well as issues that troubled us personally.
But people kept writing and asking ‘so what do you believe’ so we just decided to include some of our common thoughts at the end of each section. We usually try to leave the door open to some different interpretations and conclusions but frankly the critics’ arguments usually made a lot more sense. Also I think it’s only fair that the reader know our bias. To not put it might be considered deceptive by some.
Wolf in Sheep’s clothing – MT just has the uncomfortable facts of Mormonism.
John Dehlin gets accused of this all the time. The site is made for members, and members already know about the good things of Mormonism – teachings of Jesus, feeling of community, etc. MT presents things that the vast majority of Saints don’t know about but we feel they should.
MT wants everyone to leave the church.
Absolutely untrue. We only want to get everything out on the table. We think that every member has a right to know what we know. It is only then that they can make an informed decision. I personally would love it if everyone in the church knew what we knew and decided to stay in the church. I for one would feel much more comfortable in church than I do now. I think the people in the church are great and I like to attend church with them but have a hard time biting my tongue while the gospel doctrine teacher misleads the flock by saying things that simply aren’t true. My ultimate wish is that we would discuss Church History completely open and honestly. No more pictures of Joseph translating the BofM by touching the plates and pondering it in front of Oliver Cowdery but instead show the accurate process of him putting his face in a hat with a stone he found while digging a well (and not the urim & thummim preserved in the stone box) and also show that no plates were even in the room. I personally would support a model more like the RLDS (Community of Christ) where believing in the historicity of the BofM is optional.
Honestly, we only want all the members to know what we know. They can do whatever they want with the information. I think that for some people, it’s better for them to stay in the church which is why I have never mentioned this stuff to my sister or one of my best friends. I think they need the church too much and would be devastated to find out it may not be what it claims to be. But for many others, I think they are better off without it. It’s totally up to them and I have never tried to get anyone to leave the church. I’m still a member but attend less frequently now than I use to.
In the Conclusions Page of MT, we ask people to consider staying in the church and even list StayLDS.com as a good resource to consult before leaving. We also steer people towards FAIR and FARMS if they aren’t sure what to believe. We really do want people to view all the arguments from all sides before making any life-changing decisions and MT has well over 300 links to pro-church sources. Certainly FAIR, FARMS or the Church isn’t nearly as open as MT is. Read the conclusions page and on the whole, is it pretty fair and reasonable? Do you see anything at all on FAIR’s website like that or on the church’s site?
http://www.mormonthink.com/endpage.htm Disingenuous?
Katzpur said “The thing that bugged me was that on their “Who are we?” page, they say, “About 25 Latter-day Saints have contributed substantially to the MormonThink website. The majority of those people are active, church-going members of the LDS Church. We have held positions ranging from Gospel Doctrine teachers, YW Presidents to Bishop. Some of us have written faith-promoting articles that have been published in the Ensign and other church publications. Most of us have served missions and almost all of us have been married in the temple. We’re just average everyday members that have a real interest in learning about accurate church history without all the sugarcoating that we often receive in Gospel Doctrine classes.” To me, that is off-the-charts disingenuous. The intent is to make people think that if these folks are telling you something, then it’s obviously true. The fact that they may still be showing up at Sacrament Meeting for whatever reason doesn’t prove anything. I just wish they’d be more honest and cut the crap.”
None of us expects members to believe us because of positions we’ve held and service we’ve performed in the church. Likewise we wouldn’t want members to immediately support the apologists because they have similar or better credentials. Who we are and why some of us stay in and why others have moved on is not really that relevant to the facts or deciding which interpretation of the information is most valid.
Open sites are needed to get the Church to prompt them to be more honest.
Katzpur also said “Now that’s what we need. I’m incredibly frustrated with the whitewashed version since I know it’s not entirely honest. I just want the honest version, as objectively analyzed as possible. I know that’s more easily said than done, but for those of us who are in the position I’m in — wanting to believe and needing help from time to time — it would be so great if the Church could present a little more accurate picture of our history.”
Couldn’t agree more. If the church would do that, then we could stop paying for this site and spending so much time on it and do something else but if the church won’t do it, we and others will. Perhaps it is sites like ours that is prompting the church to contemplate being more open with its history (as is rumored from time to time).
A lot of the stuff on MormonThink was stuff I’ve never even heard anti-Mormons dredge up.
True. One thing that inspired us to begin the site in the first place is that some good arguments aren’t on any critic’s sites but they were things that bothered us like Moroni appearing in Joseph’s room without waking up his brothers. Also, we wanted to be a little unique so in every section we tried to find something new for readers to consider – not necessarily negative just something relating to the topic that isn’t on other sites – not always possible but sometimes people would send us interesting tidbits from Sunday School lessons or whatever that we’ve never heard before.
Anyway, thanks for listening.
