DiscussMormonism.com

The title question is not merely asking about the size measured in the number of members, but the in the thinking as well.

Rev. Kishkumen recently observed--

Here is my wishlist for these polemicists, which is unapologetically one-sided. I just don't give a crap about the appearance of "fairness" when the thing I am critiquing is an obvious evil:

1. The Maxwell Institute needs to stop publishing so-called "reviews" that defame members of the LDS Church in good standing.

There it is. My wishlist.

The Reverend was ruing the fact that a formal apologetic arm of the 'Lord's University' (NAMIRS, specifically, supported by tithes) takes aim and snipes at 'members of the LDS Church in good standing' in a published periodical.

The LDS Church does seem to have 'grown' to a point where a sanctioned, funded appendage of "the Church" does this. NAMIRS is certainly not something that exemplifies the image of good neighbors, good society that the PR dept. has sought to cultivate. It was one thing for the Brethren to suffer the machinations of the separately funded, scurrying behind the scenes goings-on of Welch and Co. for a few decades. It is quite another for the Brethren to have gotten in bed, under the sheets with the sneering, condescending attitudes of NAMIRS and funded it, making possible the broad dissemination of hit pieces on critics and even fellow members.

By the title I thought you were suggesting that Bain Capital do a leveraged buyout of the Corporation of the First Presidency. Glad that was not the case. Bain would just loot the coffers then let the Church sink or swim without funds.

However, presiding over this looting would give invaluable experience if you wished to run as the Republican candidate for President.

I think Kish will be the first to admit that he hasn't been the most diplomatic here, either, along with many others. The raging hypocrisy of MDB is that it's probably a more defamatory, libelous, slanderous, abusive, killer-of-freethought (ironically) than the MDDB itself board in the world of Mormon-related boards. While it's not "official policy" to restrain free speech here - it's totally done by the bully and mob-bashing factor. You will gang up on anyone who holds a contrary opinion to the "secular atheist orthodoxy".

I joined, but resigned from the NSW Rationalist Association not long after (late '80s). Why? Because a dissenting member warned me that I wasn't going to find any objectivity there, because they had their own "Trinity" doctrines, with Freud, Marx and Darwin representing their "Godhead".

I doubt I'd ever again look for serious or objective criticisms of Mormonism on boards like this. Ex-Mormons tend to be too biased the other way.

"Tone". LOL. This board wins hands down for the "up yours" and bugger Mormon apologists slander. There are more "orthodoxies" here than you can shake a stick at.

To find the cause of our ills in something outside ourselves, something specific that can be spotted and eliminated, is a diagnosis that cannot fail to appeal. To say that the cause of our troubles is not in us but in the Jews, and pass immediately to the extermination of the Jews, is a prescription likely to find a wide acceptance.

Eric Hoffer, The Passionate State of Mind, aph. 126 (1955)

While it's not "official policy" to restrain free speech here - it's totally done by the bully and mob-bashing factor. You will gang up on anyone who holds a contrary opinion to the "secular atheist orthodoxy".

The Mormon in you is lashing out Ray. You make no sense, and everything you say is contradicted by all the available evidence. No free thought in the only 100% free speech forum? Your free thinking is robbed of you through bullying? And you actually believe this stuff?

What I find ironic is that you are constantly complaining about "tone" on this forum in various threads, and in those very same threads, only your posts have curse words bleeped out.

If you want to go back to Mormonism Ray, then just do it. I support your decision 100% if that is what makes you happy. There is no reason to keep hanging around here while bitching and moaning about so-called abuse you think comes at the hands of LDS critics.

Kevin Graham wrote:What I find ironic is that you are constantly complaining about "tone" on this forum in various threads, and in those very same threads, only your posts have curse words bleeped out.

I heartily endorse Dan Peterson's assessment of you, Kevin, as an aggressive and fouled-mouth anti-Mormon (you're pointing the finger at me for swearing? LOL. How hypocritical do you get?). If you had even a smidgen of humanity towards DCP, you might actually be able to engage him in conversation. But you're a contentious person, always looking for a fight with anyone who disagrees with you, whether as a Mormon or ex-Mormon, but I actually think you were more tolerant as a Mormon.

I don't dislike you, as DCP does, yet, but you're tempting me. Given how you have harassed the man since you became estranged from the faith, I don't blame him one bit for the way he feels about you. You've incessantly criticised him over the most trivial things, and made him an "offender for a word" at every opportunity.

Kevin Graham wrote:If you want to go back to Mormonism Ray, then just do it. I support your decision 100% if that is what makes you happy. There is no reason to keep hanging around here while bitching and moaning about so-called abuse you think comes at the hands of LDS critics.

Good Lord. Let me weep. "Go back to Mormonism"?

Okay, I'm going to swear here, so watch for the bleeps.

Some ex-Mormons are totally screwed up in their thinking. Why does everything have to come back to being, or not being a Mormon?

You're screwed.

RayAgostini wrote:While it's not "official policy" to restrain free speech here - it's totally done by the bully and mob-bashing factor.

So, people's reactions to your speech equal a curtailment of your speech?

Please elaborate, because I'm not seeing a connection.

Dr. Shades wrote:So, people's reactions to your speech equal a curtailment of your speech?

Please elaborate, because I'm not seeing a connection.

You have an entrenched atheist/critic (and narrow-minded) domination here, which probably suits you.

Go Here, and post your atheist views, and see how long you last, even if you're not banned. Seriously, would you keep posting there? What, on earth, would be the point?

Go on, you tell me.

I heartily endorse Dan Peterson's assessment of you, Kevin, as an aggressive and fouled-mouth anti-Mormon (you're pointing the finger at me for swearing? LOL. How hypocritical do you get?).

The only hypocrisy here is your own, Ray. The fact is you swear more than most people on this forum, and you're constantly whining about tone. You don't see me whining about tone from other folks, even when their tone is really out of control. And yes, you curse more than I do. Or I should say, you curse at people, which is more to the point of your hypocrisy about tone. I rarely curse, and whenever I do, I'm usually cursing at something, not someone.

There was a time when I went through the "you're an idiot" phase, but that had more to do with my obsessive addiction to the sitcom "House." It is just something doctor House said a lot and I found myself saying it out loud on a daily basis, usually sarcastically. Some might remember the moniker I used at the time was a photo of House. Anyway, some things aren't conveyed through the web as intended humor so people thought I was being intentionally abusive with the word, when that wasn't my intention at all.

If you had even a smidgen of humanity towards DCP, you might actually be able to engage him in conversation.

Ray, this guy attacks me more than I attack him, this is a fact. He is the one who started two threads attacking me at MADD. When is the last time I started a thread attacking Dan's opinions? He is mean and ruthless the way he goes after people, and yet you think he is a vicitim of sorts. Attacking apostates = defending the Church, and that is what he has been doing as long as I've known him. Even as an apologist I saw it, and because I was a like-minded apologist, I looked forward to the next installment of the FARMS smack down of whatever critic they chose to place in their cross-hairs. Every other apologist I knew looked forward to it as well. We used to relish in this feeling that we made all critics of Mormonism look foolish and deceptive. Dan doesn't know how to get out of that mode, apparently. Even when a GA steps in and turns on the light for him.

So you have no friggin clue what you're talking about. The first time I ever butted heads with Dan, it was when he stomped off and started attacking me on the FAIR boards, calling me a bigot or what not, just because I made him look stupid, when in fact, I had no idea at the time that the moniker he was using at ZLMB, "Freethinker," was him! From then on out it has been downhill for us, even though it was interrupted with pleasant moments of civility when I, without any nudging from Dan, decided to step away from our spat and defend him online in a forum where he was attacked by some ex-Mormons who accused him of lying about some thing or another. I went there on my own to defend him, and he emailed me an appreciation note. A few months later he's back to slamming me on the boards. This guy is a super senstive nutjob at times. Just look at the way he freaked out at MsJack for no reason. You see Ray, it is Dan who creates divisions, not I. The way you constantly fall to his feet and pretend he is an eternal victim, is really getting creepy.

Good Lord. Let me weep. "Go back to Mormonism"?

Then why the hell are you here Ray? Or is your only mission here to jump in front of bullets for DCP? You said it yourself, when I was coming up with reasons for people to stay LDS, you felt inspired. Since then, you haven't been inspired by anything I've said because it encourages people to get out of Mormonism. So, I figured you were looking to get back in. After all, Dan was able to get you back right? Apparently, it doesn't really take much to nudge you one way or the other.

But you're a contentious person, always looking for a fight with anyone who disagrees with you, whether as a Mormon or ex-Mormon, but I actually think you were more tolerant as a Mormon.

That's a hilarious comment. I've heard precisely the opposite, especially from other LDS apologists. You and I rarely every talked really, so I have to get a kick out of it when people like you pretend to know me so well over the years. PaPa is on the MAD board pretending he knows me in real life. He's made this comment several times now.

I don't dislike you, as DCP does, yet, but you're tempting me

Go ahead. I assure you I'll still sleep at night. I don;t know why you and Dan feel it is so important to keep pointing out how much you dislike me. Who cares? What matters is the facts and the evidence, both of which prove the two of you are extreme hypocrites. Seriously, if we took you, Droopy, and a few other apologist types and booted them from the forum, the civility in overall tone would rise 200%. So it is funny that you are precisely teh same people who keep whining about tone. It is as self-fulfilled prophecy. As if you come here just to antagonize, and then when things get heated, you go "Ah ha, see I told you this forum was toxic!" Most others probably realize by now that I'm not nearly as tempted to reciprocate in such negative back and forth as I was an apologist.

Given how you have harassed the man since you became estranged from the faith

False. I guess you mean my inquiry to Robert Ritner, who informed me that Dan Peterson was spreading lies about him for years regarding the Gee-dissertation affair. This was Dan's first piece of evidence that I was "harrassing" him! How dare I go to the horse's mouth when Dan Peterson spreads hearsay evidence I'm just supposed to take his word for it right? I know you did. Dan puts himself in teh spotlight and presents himself as an authority on a number of apologetic claims I know to be false. If he doesn't want to be corrected, then he needs to stop taking up untenable positions. Whining about harrassment just makes him look childish.

I don't blame him one bit for the way he feels about you.

I don't either. I can't imagine how I'd feel if I were an authority and was constantly being proved wrong by some know-nothing apostate. I'd probably hate me too.

You've incessantly criticised him over the most trivial things, and made him an "offender for a word" at every opportunity.

Yes of course. Dan didn't do any of this himself. I am the one who made him lie about a number of issues. It was all part of my master plan. You got me Ray. And what you call trivial, happens to be an important truth to others. If a critic were wrong on these same points he'd gleefully use it against them in an upcoming "review" claiming deception and "by their fruits you shall know them." The point is Dan has attacked critics and published authors who criticize apostates for some of the dumbest stuff, and almost always implying dishonesty on their part. So Dan deserves a little taste of his own medicine, even if that isn't the reason why I sometimes give it to him.

To the OP, the LDS church has not outgrown itself, but rather the world has outgrown the ability of the LDS to keep its dirty secrets hidden. The internet has changed the source for so-called "anti-Mormon" information. While Mormons (LDS) are instructed to reject this truth as false, the truth is available via sources like FairMormon. The layers of distortion on how to interpret this turth are still there, but the facts are indeed fact and reveal to any faithful LDS they are being lied to. Once word gets out that the true translation method Joseph Smith used was head in hat using occult seer stones (not the fictitious "Urim and Thummim"), the faithful will realize that key information is being held from them. The younger generation can access this information with their cell phones, and since it is the truth it can't be swept under the carpet forever.

In summation, Mormonism isn't outgrowing itself, but rather the capability to successfully change fast enough to align with the truth. Once that truth is acknowledged, the house of cards will fall.

As in too big for it's britches?