"I know you still have a testimony!"

[_harmony]

The Lord's children will fail to notice it, as usual.

That's because the Lord's children don't read their Ensign anyway. They just want to have it handy so it can be on the coffee table when the home teachers visit.

[_asbestosman]

Pretty much all of my most direct, bluntest posts on MAD in recent months had been related to the gay marriage thing. I've seen TBMs in real life and online get really angry when you challenge them on gay marriage. I might as well say "I know that you know you're wrong, because your getting angry like this shows me that you still have a conscience that's bothering you."

On a similar note, I seem to recall you and others telling me that I know the church isn't true (but not in so many words). I'm just not sure how serious they are. In any case such people are wrong. As to who else knows the church is true, I wouldn't know (well, I'm pretty sure the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles do) and I don't see why I should bother worrying about it.

[_ludwigm]

The Lord's children will fail to notice it, as usual.

That's because the Lord's children don't read their Ensign anyway. They just want to have it handy so it can be on the coffee table when the home teachers visit.

"coffee table" ???
Hasn't that piece of furniture any other name promoted by D&C 89 ?



.

[_Sethbag]

Pretty much all of my most direct, bluntest posts on MAD in recent months had been related to the gay marriage thing. I've seen TBMs in real life and online get really angry when you challenge them on gay marriage. I might as well say "I know that you know you're wrong, because your getting angry like this shows me that you still have a conscience that's bothering you."

On a similar note, I seem to recall you and others telling me that I know the church isn't true (but not in so many words). I'm just not sure how serious they are. In any case such people are wrong. As to who else knows the church is true, I wouldn't know (well, I'm pretty sure the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles do) and I don't see why I should bother worrying about it.

You're an interesting case. You already see some of the absurdity, and you already disbelieve some of the things that aren't actually true. I think that you really do know that the church is on the wrong side of at least some of the argument, and I think that, since you're a fairly logical and rational, and open-minded person, you're going to find yourself in this position more and more as time goes on. In your case, it's like your balloon has a hole in it, and you know this so you're blowing air in one end trying to keep it inflated, but someone in that position has to know that, ultimately, it's a lost cause.

So I don't know that you know it's not true, but I do know that you know enough that you ought to know that it's not true, and I feel fairly confident that, as time goes on, you'll allow yourself more and more to connect the dots and accept the rest of the non-truth of the church.

And it's the same with LOAP too, though he hasn't yet progressed as far in his willingness to admit to some of the asburdities in the church. I think he's at least caught a glimpse, and I don't think that can end well for him. I firmly believe that the only way either of you will retain your testimonies long-term is to basically walk away from Mormon apologetics and find a way never to think about these kinds of things again.

The truth is like acid, and it will eat away at the shell that years of attendance and practice in the LDS system built up around your testimony to protect it. I think the only way you can avoid this is to avoid the truth.

Kinda like my mother-in-law does. Tonight I was over at the house where she was baby-sitting some of my nieces and nephews, and I had along my copy of "Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew" by Bart Ehrman. When I explained what was in that book she told me, directly, "stop right there, I'm not discussing any of this with you". She simply will not have a conversation with me about anything to do with the church. She doesn't want to know anything at all from the anti or critical side. Not one thing. She'll be able to keep that shell up until the day she dies this way. You're not like this.

[_Sethbag]

The Lord's children will fail to notice it, as usual.

That's because the Lord's children don't read their Ensign anyway. They just want to have it handy so it can be on the coffee table when the home teachers visit.

"coffee table" ???
Hasn't that piece of furniture any other name promoted by D&C 89 ?

Yeah, it's the hot drinks table in Mormonism. ;-)

[_TrashcanMan79]

Tonight I was over at the house where she was baby-sitting some of my nieces and nephews, and I had along my copy of "Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew" by Bart Ehrman. When I explained what was in that book she told me, directly, "stop right there, I'm not discussing any of this with you".

How bizarre. It's been a while since I've read it, but I remember thinking at the time that Ehrman's book complemented rather nicely certain LDS ideas of the Great Apostasy.

But maybe I was just seeing in it what I wanted....

Good book, at any rate.

[Anonymous]

Tonight I was over at the house where she was baby-sitting some of my nieces and nephews, and I had along my copy of "Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew" by Bart Ehrman. When I explained what was in that book she told me, directly, "stop right there, I'm not discussing any of this with you".

How bizarre. It's been a while since I've read it, but I remember thinking at the time that Ehrman's book complemented rather nicely certain LDS ideas of the Great Apostasy.

But maybe I was just seeing in it what I wanted....

Good book, at any rate.

Actually I think it's just the opposite of good news for the church. So long as there's no evidence for other versions of the faith than what became the traditional Christian orthodox version, the LDS can just say it's because the "real truth" was distorted and suppressed by what turned into the Catholic church. However, as more and more evidence of the competing versions of Christianity comes to light, and the competition between them which lead eventually to the consolidation into the single Christian orthodoxy (at least single for a while), the following fact becomes ever clearer and more poignant: Mormonism wasn't one of them.

The LDS position is that the original Christian church, as founded by Jesus and his apostles, was Mormonism 1.0. This was picked apart and distorted and compromised as people apostatized from the truth, eventually leading to traditional Christian orthodoxy, the various creeds, etc. The huge, 800 pound gorilla in the room problem here is that nowhere, in all of the evidence of what the earliest versions of Christianity were like as they competed with various gospels, letters, apocalypses, doctrines, etc., is there any evidence that anything like Mormonism was being competed against and suppressed.

Where are the letters from Tertullian and others decrying Mormonism 1.0 being taught somewhere by some hold-outs? Where are the banned "Gospel of Jimbo" and "Apocalypse of Fred" that contain Mormonism 1.0?

[_mbeesley]

What mildly offends me about the whole issue is that my Mormon family seems to associate any goodness in me, or my apostate family, with a remaining testimony of Mormonism, as if that were the only thing that would cause us to be decent human beings.

Surely, I'm not the only ex-Mormon who deals with such comments. I need a good comeback to the line, "I know you still have a testimony!" I don't want to be rude or hurt anyone's feelings, because I care about these folks, but I'd sure like to say something effective, unlike the mumblings I usually utter.

Maybe I should just say, tearfully and with that testimony voice, "No, I do not still have a testimony. I say this in the name of myself. Amen."

KA

Not so many years ago I felt the same way. Today? . . . oh well. Maybe your best response would be to just smile, say "Perhaps," and be a friendly neighbor.

[_skippy the dead]

Not so many years ago I felt the same way. Today? . . . oh well. Maybe your best response would be to just smile, say "Perhaps," and be a friendly neighbor.

Curious - if somebody had told you "You don't really believe in the church anymore, I am certain of it!", would you reply "Perhaps"?

[_mbeesley]

Not so many years ago I felt the same way. Today? . . . oh well. Maybe your best response would be to just smile, say "Perhaps," and be a friendly neighbor.

Curious - if somebody had told you "You don't really believe in the church anymore, I am certain of it!", would you reply "Perhaps"?

I think you perhaps missed my point. I was apostate. I spoke openly against the Church. I have since had to retrace my steps and repair some of the damge I did. I now wish I would have simply said perhaps . . . not literally, but figuratively.