"Fear runs through many Mormons in OW ranks...."

[_Gadianton]

You can see how an outsider after having the photo explained would correctly assume the Church is a mind-control cult.

A cult is nothing if it doesn't have a short list of silly taboos that are accessible to the average person. The fate of eternity is then decided by absurd levels of leverage accessed by either obedience or disobedience to the taboos.

[_Tim the Enchanter]

You know much that is hidden.

Quite.

[_Sethbag]

Fear only works if you allow someone to control your emotions by making you think you are doing something wrong. If you don't think you are doing anything wrong then you have nothing to fear.

You have nothing to fear if the people watching for you to do wrong aren't dropping the hammer on people who don't really deserve it. If they are, then you absolutely have something to fear.

[_ludwigm]

...
Not that it has anything to do with your point but the Nazis weren't able to take over because good people did nothing; the Nazis took over because their ideology matched the majority view in Germany at the time. Even the political opposition to the Nazis in the 1930s was anti-semitic. Those "good people" were the same ones that voluntarily participated in and even made the holocaust possible.

Like the priesthood banning of blacks...
Because of it has fitted to the majority view of the membership (especially of the leadership) - god didn't hasten to get out of that status.


-----------------------------
by the way
There is a movie of Mikhail Ilych Romm, the Ordinary Fascism. It describes that phenomenon.

The movie exists under different titles;
"Common Fascism"
"Triumph Over Violence" and "Trumps Over Violence" in US
"Echo of the Jackboot" in UK
--- I don't know why should hide the intention of the authors with this title distortion ---

You can watch or download it (two parts) here and here

[_canpakes]

Further to the point of ingrained fear is this story regarding my own family. When the Joseph Smith Papers Project first hit the internet I excitedly sent out links to it to my entire extended family (a very large number of people), and I got one response, from my father. Even though I had explained in my email that this was a Church sponsered site that only contain original documents by Joseph Smith or directly connected to him, my father's first and only question was "Is this an Anti-site"?

Without looking at material, many LDS are conditioned to react in this manner.

Your father's reaction, asking if the Church sponsored site that has the JSJr Papers is an "anti-site" is astonishing. Doesn't that imply that he likes his Mormon history Correlated and white-washed, and realizes that the primary source, historical documents might reveal quite a different JSJr?

This, exactly.

My current opinion about the Church's truth claims, Joseph Smith issues or the historicity of the Book of Mormon/viability of the Book of Abraham come entirely from reading only what would be regarded as material from 'safe' sources - LDS.com, JoD, Maxwell Institute, FAIR, apologists respected within the LDS community, general authorities and others high up in the leadership heirarchy, or the texts themselves (Book of Mormon, D&C, PoGP). I have also had occasional access to a good-sized pile of older LDS publications going back better than a century (some with material that might surprise more than a few present-day members).

But discussing any issue that I'd have a question about, from any of these sources, would be difficult at best with virtually any member of my SO's family, as well as even still a little sticky with my SO, who is not aligned with the Church on many correlated history accounts or truth claims.

Below are links to two examples that I would not want to try to show anyone in my SO's family, even though they are presumably 'safe' sources, because mere discussion of the subject matter itself is the problem -

http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publica ... Wives.html

http://shields-research.org/General/Masonry.html

I haven't even gone near sources that would more closely fit some members perception of 'anti' material, such as Rough Stone Rolling.

As regards source vs. subject, I am beginning to believe that it doesn't matter so much what the source is, the real issue is that the subject - if a 'sensitive' one, like Smith's multiple wives - should not be broached at all. The distress expressed by members over the source is, I believe, more of a cover to legitimize their avoidance of the subject regardless of information source... not that this is intentional as much as it being a learned defensive behavior. In wondering why this reaction is so widespread amongst members, it is difficult to consider that this syndrome could be completely separate from a source of authority that is, amongst other things, promoting and leveraging the fear that discussing these subjects could threaten one's salvation.

I apologize if I may be a bit off base with that conclusion, but it is hard to comprehend that membership could be reacting so similarly and consistently without elements of Church leadership quietly exerting some influence to guide that behavioral outcome.

[_Dr. Shades]

Not long after that issue came out a New Order Mormon took a marker and drew horns on the mother's head to further satirize the church's unflattering portrayal of unbelievers. He then left the magazine open to that picture so that his TBM wife would see it.

He was a member of some other site, and scanned and uploaded the doctored photo. He reported that he asked his wife what her reaction was to the photo, but even with the drawn-on horns she hadn't noticed that anything was amiss.

(In other words, she thought the horns were the church's doing, not his!)

[_ludwigm]

Below are links to two examples that I would not want to try to show anyone in my SO's family, even though they are presumably 'safe' sources, because mere discussion of the subject matter itself is the problem -

http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publica ... Wives.html

http://shields-research.org/General/Masonry.html
.

True.
My wife wouldn't read any of them - after the first paragraph.
"This is your stupid internet, full of lies" - as she says me...
Maxwell and Shields are pro-sites? She doesn't care.

Internet = lies. (... there is a lot of truth in it, by the way ...)

---------------------------------
by the way the title and heading of these pages are saying:
- the heading in the browser is "Untitled Document" for the Maxwell's one
- "WAS FREEMASONRY DERIVED FROM Mormonism?" is the title of the other --- when it is clear to everybody that the direction is the opposite

[_maklelan]

You can see how an outsider after having the photo explained would correctly assume the Church is a mind-control cult.

A mind-control cult? This is pure and utter nonsense. The notion of "cults" that practice "mind-control" was debunked by the scientific community in the late-eighties and early nineties. That's why all the cult journals and psychological backing for those idiotic ideas never date to after 1995. Go, try to find something with academic backing that supports such idiocy. Let me know what you find.

A cult is nothing if it doesn't have a short list of silly taboos that are accessible to the average person. The fate of eternity is then decided by absurd levels of leverage accessed by either obedience or disobedience to the taboos.

And I'm no longer interested in entertaining this uninformed and juvenile rhetoric.

[_maklelan]

Not long after that issue came out a New Order Mormon took a marker and drew horns on the mother's head to further satirize the church's unflattering portrayal of unbelievers. He then left the magazine open to that picture so that his TBM wife would see it.

He was a member of some other site, and scanned and uploaded the doctored photo. He reported that he asked his wife what her reaction was to the photo, but even with the drawn-on horns she hadn't noticed that anything was amiss.

(In other words, she thought the horns were the church's doing, not his!)

Yeah, I have never been a fan of many of the decisions of the Ensign's editors, and I've made that known to them in the past.

[_Bazooka]

A mind-control cult? This is pure and utter nonsense. The notion of "cults" that practice "mind-control" was debunked by the scientific community in the late-eighties and early nineties. That's why all the cult journals and psychological backing for those idiotic ideas never date to after 1995. Go, try to find something with academic backing that supports such idiocy. Let me know what you find.

Hi maklelan, like you, I'm not convinced that there is some Machiavellian agenda driving the collective to cause fear in those members drifting away from activity and belief. In fact there's evidence that Church leaders are advocating against this very thing. However, fear of shunning and ostracising does exist. It exists because ostracising, shunning, backbiting etc does occur within wards and families when one of their number goes rogue (apostate). It's a phenomena that exists in too many places and with too much frequency for it to be written off as simply a couple of bad apples making Mormon's look bad. Unfortunately it is a fact that Mormon practices and policies, maybe even doctrines, cause Mormonism to be seen as insular and secretive. Members are taught to fear the outside influences of Satan and to avoid them etc. The moment one of their number goes down the apostate route that conditioning kicks in and an unwitting and unfortunate side effect kicks in.

Plus, the fact that Church leaders see the need to advocate against this behaviour reinforces the claim that it happens frequently and that it is widespread.