My TBM GF's latest gem

[_Some Schmo]

I've stopped interpreting people who say, "I know _____ is true" to mean they actually know anything of the sort in the conventional sense. I now interpret it to mean, "It's really really really really really important for me to believe _____ is true for whatever reason and so I'm saying this to help reinforce it and convince myself."

There no other sensible way to interpret that, other than to claim they're simply lying.

[_LifeOnaPlate]

First, I agree that inter-faith marriages often encounter trouble based on the differences, and second, it is a bit condescending to assert all Mormon children are raised to embrace a "lack of critical thinking skills."

You think? Mormons are supposed to accept that a guy went into the forest and saw god. They're supposed to believe everything they're leaders tell them, and they're not supposed to question them. They're supposed to avoid information that is contrary to church claims.

If that, alone, doesn't spell a lack of critical thinking, I don't know what does.

If you were raised Mormon it seems you overcame the forbidding of critical thinking skills, so us Mormons are just doing a poor job of it, I guess. ;)

[_LifeOnaPlate]

Well, I would encourage you to go talk to the three headed space monkey that appeared to me in a vision last night and ask him if he exists. If you pray hard enough with pure intentions and have faith that he exists, there is no doubt he'll talk to you and confirm the truth or what I'm telling you. I know the three headed space monkey is true.

That depends: are you mocking the possibility of seeing God, or of one praying and receiving an answer from God, or do you really believe you saw this monkey? I gather you didn't see the monkey at all, but are simply seeking to make a point.

[_Some Schmo]

That depends: are you mocking the possibility of seeing God, or of one praying and receiving an answer from God, or do you really believe you saw this monkey? I gather you didn't see the monkey at all, but are simply seeking to make a point.

Yes, yes, no, and correct.

[_Sethbag]

First, I agree that inter-faith marriages often encounter trouble based on the differences, and second, it is a bit condescending to assert all Mormon children are raised to embrace a "lack of critical thinking skills."

You think? Mormons are supposed to accept that a guy went into the forest and saw god. They're supposed to believe everything they're leaders tell them, and they're not supposed to question them. They're supposed to avoid information that is contrary to church claims.

If that, alone, doesn't spell a lack of critical thinking, I don't know what does.

If you were raised Mormon it seems you overcame the forbidding of critical thinking skills, so us Mormons are just doing a poor job of it, I guess. ;)

In a manner of speaking, yes, you are doing a poor job of it. But the deck was stacked against you from the word "go!", so don't take it personally. You were undoubtedly indoctrinated, conditioned, and had your faithful thoughts reinforced by all sorts of mechanisms in place to make sure you stay in the believing fold, and only see things the LDS church way. So should we be surprised to know that these usually-successful techniques have worked in your case?

Hell, they worked in my case too, at least mostly, and it was the little crack where it didn't that eventually allowed me to see my way out of it. You can do this too, but you will have to stop the way you think about the church. If you are to see what's going on around you, and see yourself out of the mental state where you cannot properly process the information you are seeing about the church, you must stop assuming that the church is certainly true. Only if you take seriously the real possibility that the church might not actually be true can you see your way out of the mental chains. If you cannot do that, then you won't get out of the chains. You have to not only take seriously the real possibility that the church might not actually be true, and you have to also be willing to accept the fact, should it become clear to you, that it really isn't. If you're unwilling to accept that possibility, then you can't see your way out of the mental shackles.

If you mock, and shake your head and think how arrogant of that Sethbag to think that I, of all people, have my mind chained to the church with mental shackles, just remember, and take seriously, that there are plenty of other people out there in the world who are likewise chained, with shackles of a similar nature, to other false churches out there. As I keep bringing up, look no further than the believing Jehovah's Witnesses for examples demonstrating that such mental shacklery is not only possible in theory, but is widespread in practice. Look further, and ask yourself how the young kids in the Madrassah in Pakistan are having their minds shackled to their own particular brand of false religion. Look at the Hare Krishnas, and how hard it is for some of them to see themselves out of their belief system, or the Moonies, or the FLDS, or the believing Evangelicals, or whoever else.

It is obviously, patently, manifestly true that a great number of people in this world have their minds shackled, to where they cannot see that their minds are even shackled at all, to a false belief system.

Why is it so impossible to you that you might be just another one of them?

Do you think that it's any less likely to a believing Jehovah's Witness that he's mentally shackled by a false belief system than it seems to you impossible for you to be mentally shackled by a false Mormonism?

[_Some Schmo]

First, I agree that inter-faith marriages often encounter trouble based on the differences, and second, it is a bit condescending to assert all Mormon children are raised to embrace a "lack of critical thinking skills."

You think? Mormons are supposed to accept that a guy went into the forest and saw god. They're supposed to believe everything they're leaders tell them, and they're not supposed to question them. They're supposed to avoid information that is contrary to church claims.

If that, alone, doesn't spell a lack of critical thinking, I don't know what does.

If you were raised Mormon it seems you overcame the forbidding of critical thinking skills, so us Mormons are just doing a poor job of it, I guess. ;)

In a manner of speaking, yes, you are doing a poor job of it. But the deck was stacked against you from the word "go!", so don't take it personally. You were undoubtedly indoctrinated, conditioned, and had your faithful thoughts reinforced by all sorts of mechanisms in place to make sure you stay in the believing fold, and only see things the LDS church way. So should we be surprised to know that these usually-successful techniques have worked in your case?

Hell, they worked in my case too, at least mostly, and it was the little crack where it didn't that eventually allowed me to see my way out of it. You can do this too, but you will have to stop the way you think about the church. If you are to see what's going on around you, and see yourself out of the mental state where you cannot properly process the information you are seeing about the church, you must stop assuming that the church is certainly true. Only if you take seriously the real possibility that the church might not actually be true can you see your way out of the mental chains. If you cannot do that, then you won't get out of the chains. You have to not only take seriously the real possibility that the church might not actually be true, and you have to also be willing to accept the fact, should it become clear to you, that it really isn't. If you're unwilling to accept that possibility, then you can't see your way out of the mental shackles.

If you mock, and shake your head and think how arrogant of that Sethbag to think that I, of all people, have my mind chained to the church with mental shackles, just remember, and take seriously, that there are plenty of other people out there in the world who are likewise chained, with shackles of a similar nature, to other false churches out there. As I keep bringing up, look no further than the believing Jehovah's Witnesses for examples demonstrating that such mental shacklery is not only possible in theory, but is widespread in practice. Look further, and ask yourself how the young kids in the Madrassah in Pakistan are having their minds shackled to their own particular brand of false religion. Look at the Hare Krishnas, and how hard it is for some of them to see themselves out of their belief system, or the Moonies, or the FLDS, or the believing Evangelicals, or whoever else.

It is obviously, patently, manifestly true that a great number of people in this world have their minds shackled, to where they cannot see that their minds are even shackled at all, to a false belief system.

Why is it so impossible to you that you might be just another one of them?

Do you think that it's any less likely to a believing Jehovah's Witness that he's mentally shackled by a false belief system than it seems to you impossible for you to be mentally shackled by a false Mormonism?

This is a good answer, Sethbag.

You know, LifeOnaPlate's question was a good one, and I wanted to think about it before I came back to it.

I don't know what it was about me that made me so different from the rest of my family with respect to seeing the church for the fraud it is. For as long as I can remember, I questioned it, and it never made any sense to me. I could never get past the first vision story, and I was always bothered by the fact that there were so many conflicting religions in the world. It also didn't help that my father would claim revelation and inspiration and make some of the dumbest decisions possible because of them.

But I mean, people are different, you know? What makes one person get cancer from pepper and not another? What makes one person a gifted pianist and not their brother? Who frickin’ knows?

One thing is certain: it is rarer that a person is a critical thinker and makes it out of Mormonism at a young age than not, and the church is most definitely designed this way. I am truly blessed to be one of the lucky ones.

hehe

[_Sethbag]

In a bit of really crazy irony, part of the problem with really smart people continuing to believe, is not that the church convinces them so powerfully. It's that the church gets them to convince themselves so powerfully. When that happens, the smarter they are, the more clever, or at least the more involved their justifications become.

This is why your average dumb Mormon believer will just shrug his or her shoulders and say I don't know, and I don't care, but Hugh Nibley will write entire collections of books convincing himself, and others, that the church really is true. DCP isn't stupid. He's not unintelligent, and it shows in the mental gymnastics he's able to pull off justifying belief in the church over, say, what my mom manages.

I'm going to guess that it's probably true in the JWs too. The smarter the believer, the harder they work at, and the smarter their justifications and explanations become.

Who hasn't met reasonably intelligent Mormon believers who have actually spun practically their own personal, entirely unique version of LDS doctrine to believe in? Are we really that surprised that the Internet Mormons believe so differently than the Chapel Mormons do? Most of the really mind-bending justifications come from reasonably smart people. They're so smart they're able to invent self-proof justifications and supports for their beliefs that even they can't get out of.

Maybe those of us who have seen through it all have done so because we're really not as smart as we think? :-) Actually, I found ways to continue supporting my belief for years and years, but in the end, out of my gut came the realization, as I read the Book of Abraham stuff and the Joseph Polygamy stuff, that something was wrong and that rather than paper over it, I would need to confront it head on, without my previous assumptions, and let the chips fall where they may. I can only describe it as a willingness to accept that I might have been wrong about the church. If someone isn't willing to put their own personal conviction on the line and accept that they might be as wrong as apparently several billion other believers in untrue churches out there, it isn't going to happen.