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I've been reading a few of the "eminent JD excommunication threads", and while he does work hard, why do so many credit him with the success of the entire goddamned bloggernacle? Am I the only one who thinks this way? I'm sick of all those who are crying out "run out and support him". If you want to support him, go ahead. Maybe I would be singing a different tune if Mormon Stories helped me out. I discovered MS long after my shelf crashed to the ground. Yet I feel that many put the change at the MI and the essays as his victory when it was the entire goddamned internet!!!

I will say thanks to JD real quick. One of my good friends credits you to helping him out during his faith transition. He is much happier now thanks to MS. He was very liberal and was tired of hearing how you can't be liberal and Mormon. I'm not denying that JD has made a big impact. Yet a war isn't won by one man, it is won by the countless of soldiers. As of now, there are 17,795 subscribers to the exmormon reddit alone. That is just one of the many sites on the bloggernacle. JD didn't cause the church to change, all those among the estimated 50,000/year resigning members did. So at this time, thanks to everyone who contributed to the fight.

I agree and wanted to find the quote:

"What E'er Thou Art, Act Well Thy Part" (as we have all played a part)

Appropriately this appears towards the top of the google list:

https://www.LDS.org/broadcasts/article/ ... y?lang=eng

So all of you youth on redex, get your names out there!

souldier wrote:I've been reading a few of the "eminent JD excommunication threads", and while he does work hard, why do so many credit him with the success of the entire goddamned bloggernacle? Am I the only one who thinks this way? I'm sick of all those who are crying out "run out and support him". If you want to support him, go ahead. Maybe I would be singing a different tune if Mormon Stories helped me out. I discovered MS long after my shelf crashed to the ground. Yet I feel that many put the change at the MI and the essays as his victory when it was the entire goddamned internet!!!

I will say thanks to JD real quick. One of my good friends credits you to helping him out during his faith transition. He is much happier now thanks to MS. He was very liberal and was tired of hearing how you can't be liberal and Mormon. I'm not denying that JD has made a big impact. Yet a war isn't won by one man, it is won by the countless of soldiers. As of now, there are 17,795 subscribers to the exmormon reddit alone. That is just one of the many sites on the bloggernacle. JD didn't cause the church to change, all those among the estimated 50,000/year resigning members did. So at this time, thanks to everyone who contributed to the fight.

In a sense I agree. MS played practically no part in my journey out of Mormonism. If I thought we had to give one person credit, I'd be hard pressed but I wouldn't even side with anyone on the bloggernacle. I think my shortlist would be of people who brought the information to light that has formed the fuel lit by the internet. Todd Compton for example. Fawn Brodie, Juanita Brooks, Quinn, Dr. Southerton perhaps, maybe even Sterling McMurrin who is in many ways the proto-NOM. Would they be as well known without the internet? I don't know but very likely not. And are there sources that are more deserving than the above that served to inform their work? I don't know but likely so. Are there large numbers of searching LDS or now ex-LDS who may be familiar with information this IMO-deserving shortlist brought to light that have never read In Sacred Loneliness or heard of Michael Quinn? Probably.

In the end, I think each person is entitled to feel real, deep affection for whomever helped them along their way...wherever that journey is taking them. Even a Dr. Peterson for some I guess. In fact, he probably did more for me than anyone, just not in the way he probably intended.

So, the king is dead, long live the king.

I agree. Lou Midgley probably had the biggest single impact of any publisher or author. Next for me would be Nanna P and the old guard of moderators at NOM and the friends I made there. I still feel that many of the people I met there are my best friends. Real friends. Friends that care as much about me as I care about them.

Without all these people I would not have read the works of George Smith and the authors he has published.

What about Mike Norton??

His website, josephlied.com, was one of the first sites that I came across!

(NOTE: He no longer owns or operates josephlied.com)

To help his efforts back then, for a while I sent him a portion of the money I perviously gave to LDS Inc in the form of tithing.

Mike's stories of his escapades into the temple under a disguise were genius. The best story was when LDS Inc handed him a restraining order not allowing him near church properties.

And how about the slamtoons at salamandersociety.com??? Those little healing gems helped tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands learn to laugh out loud at the leaders of LDS Inc.

I unapologetically list John Dehlin as an influence on me leaving the church. Top ten. Like was said earlier. ... he is the biggest apostates anf threat to church in 100 years. Good on you John. Thanks.

I began to lose whatever faith I had in Mormonism long before the advent of the internet, let alone JD and his MS website. What broke my shelf was the realization that people of other faiths seemed just as convinced that their faith was divinely confirmed in answer to prayer as any Mormon I had ever known, and also the extreme absurdity of anti-scientific doctrines like the supposed literal truth of Noah's flood and the Tower of Babel. Also, I found it no longer possible to escape the realization that when one doesn't require evidence for what one believes, it becomes possible to justify belief in virtually any nonsense imaginable.

Like many others here, anti-Mormon literature had little or nothing to do with my initial loss of faith in Mormonism. In fact, the obvious bigotry of some anti-Mormon authors and their eagerness to accept anything derogatory about Mormons and Mormonism, however exaggerated or fabricated, actually had the opposite effect initially. Nothing has done more to raise and strengthen my doubts about the truthfulness of Mormon scripture and Doctrine than increasing familiarity with Mormon scripture and doctrine and the inherent irrationality of the whole thing and the attempts of Mormon apologists to defend it and explain away the absurdities.

The efforts of people like John Dehlin only amplified conclusions I had already come to.

cwald wrote:I unapologetically list John Dehlin as an influence on me leaving the church. Top ten. Like was said earlier. ... he is the biggest apostates anf threat to church in 100 years. Good on you John. Thanks.

So true!



Go, Johnny, Go! Go, Johnny, Go! Johnny be BAD! At least to LDS Inc and their bottom line!

cwald wrote:I unapologetically list John Dehlin as an influence on me leaving the church. Top ten. Like was said earlier. ... he is the biggest apostates anf threat to church in 100 years. Good on you John. Thanks.

He may be the biggest influence on you. But your lack of gag reflex is a bigger influence on him.

Poe's law makes the point that the absurdity mocks itself and is indistinguishable from the mockery of the absurd. We clearly have that going on here.

Re: the essays -- In my public statements (like here: http://mormonstories.org/mormon-stories ... ar-update/) I am very careful to list MS as only one of many influences on the church over time, and I mention the following by name specifically as examples: B. H. Roberts, Dialogue, Sunstone, Mormon History Association, John Whitmer, the entire Bloggernacle, and courageous church employees.

That said, I know for a fact that the "Why Mormons Question" study (http://www.whymormonsquestion.org/2012/ ... -analysis/) had an influence on the essays (in some way, shape, or form) because we:

1) Presented the results directly to Marlin Jensen in New York City with Hans Mattsson something like 2 years before the essays came out.
2) Marlin Jensen was so affected by the survey results that he personally asked us to come to CHQ and present our results directly to the managing directors of the church's main departments (PR, Missionary, Curriculum, etc.). When I say us, I don't mean to imply that I attended this meeting, but a member of our team certainly did attend and present our findings.
3) We have been told by people at the church that this study was influential as a PART of helping to get internal approval for the essays, or to shape the topics/content of the essays.

And when I say "We" -- there was a pretty big team of people that worked on the WMQ study, some of which were way more influential than I was.

Anyway, I believe that our work with MS and WMQ was most certainly only part of the overall influence, but that it certainly was part of the influence. I could be wrong of course. And I don't mention this so much to try to take credit, but to encourage others to believe/feel like they can make a difference if they try. I believe that individuals can make a difference (e.g., John Larsen, John Hamer, Kate Kelly, Lindsay Hansen Park, Quinn, Compton, Bushman, Metcalfe, Polygamy Porter, etc.) -- and I hope that our readers and listeners know/believe this, and become motivated to try to be part of the solution.