Sometimes I almost feel "tempted" to go back to Church.

[_why me]

I don't think you are able to judge how exmormons feel about their Mormon experience. I can appreciate Mormonism without accepting its truth claims.

I don't think that it has much to do with accepting the truth claims. But for many exmormons it does have something to do with the lingering feeling that it may be true. They seem to gird up their loins with much negative information about the LDS church as possible to kill that lingering feeling that just keeps on lingering.

And that was my point. And it doesn't have much to do with their Mormon experience but with their spiritual experiences when they were members.

[_Buffalo]

I don't think you are able to judge how exmormons feel about their Mormon experience. I can appreciate Mormonism without accepting its truth claims.

I don't think that it has much to do with accepting the truth claims. But for many exmormons it does have something to do with the lingering feeling that it may be true. They seem to gird up their loins with much negative information about the LDS church as possible to kill that lingering feeling that just keeps on lingering.

And that was my point. And it doesn't have much to do with their Mormon experience but with their spiritual experiences when they were members.

Pure projection.

[_BartBurk]

You are different now than you were a couple of years ago on the catholic apologetic site. I think that if one can find god in catholicism and feels that that is their place, I believe that god knows that this is a good place for that person to be.

But the feeling of truth when it comes to Mormonism, is very strong for exmembers and for members.

Actually, I do think a lot of ex-Mormons long for the community they experienced as Mormons. It certainly is not anything I've experienced in the Catholic Church.

[Rosebud]

I never have any "lingering doubts" about the LDS church. Solid scholarship has and continues to show that the Book of Mormon and the Book of Abraham are not historical. Joseph Smith's story continues to be contradicted by the evidence regarding the revival, timing of the Smith's joining the Presbyterian church. I maintain an interest in these things as I do in many other things. SDAs are nice christian people but this does not mean there are not challneges to some of the views of their prophetess, Ellen G White (see the bio by Ronald Numbers).

[_RayAgostini]

The emphasis on Jesus as compared to how incidental by comparison Jesus is in Mormon meetings was astounding. I got why Catholics might not consider Mormonism to be a Christian sect--just due to the difference in emphasis.

Both in the emphasis on Jesus and the emotional comfort feeling I experienced, I score Catholics 2, Mormons 0.

Funny, I found the direct opposite. This is only incidental to my joining the Church, but in 1974 I was "looking for something". Unsatisfied with the way my life was going, I had very briefly returned to Catholicism. One Mass attendance (after a lapse of some five years, which included attending Catholic schools since six years old) persuaded me that Catholicism didn't have what I was "looking for". I went to the phone book, for a start, and only found one Church with the full name of Jesus Christ (maybe there are more now, and maybe I missed any that may have existed then), The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Good start, I thought, but I didn't realise their missionaries had already left a Book of Mormon with my father in Sydney. I was out running at the time, and when I got back I saw this blue covered book and asked my father what it was. He said some "American guys" knocked on the door, and after a brief conversation, gave him a copy.

He wasn't interested. I picked it up and began reading and immediately realised that it "sounded like the Bible", but I could see the content was somewhat different. After reading a few verses, I decided that this was going to be a "keeper" for future reading. Not long after, I left Sydney and moved to another area, and when packing (somewhat in a hurry), I made sure that "the blue book" got into my suitcase. When I settled in the new area I still hadn't started reading it, but a couple of missionaries knocked on my door. When they showed me the "blue book", I replied, "I have a copy of your book". They then asked me the "who am I?" questions, and my answers startled them (I could see from their faces). I later realised that I was considered a "golden contact". I didn't join immediately, but some months later.

So my view was different. I never intended to give up Catholicism, but after the discussions the missionaries "invited" me to be baptised, a thought which never occurred to me. I thought we were just "exchanging ideas". When I first read through the whole Book of Mormon, I think I must have gone through a whole box of "tear-tissues", so powerful was the impact on me at the time. I guess in the eyes of many that just makes me "gullible", but Catholicism never had that affect on me, or any other religion for that matter, and I had investigated quite a few up to that time.

[_RayAgostini]

I still enjoy the Book of Mormon. But I do not view it as an real history and struggle to get my head around how I may be able to consider it inspired from God. If it did not come to us as Joseph Smith claimed how did it? If it came via some of the theories espoused what does that tell us? This is my struggle now in regards to the Book of Mormon. Ray or Consig, as two who are not TBMs but who still value the Book of Mormon what are your thoughts on this?

Consig basically reflected my own position. Ostler's "expansion theory" (first published in 1987), opened a can of worms. I see evidence for antiquity, and evidence against antiquity, so it's a mixed bag. I don't accept the Spalding Theory, and I think I'm in fairly respectable company there.

DAN VOGEL DISCUSSES THE SPALDING/RIGDON THEORY.

Other than that, the book remains an enigma to me.

[_RayAgostini]

You do not seem to have found another home Ray.

I think this is true, but as long as I'm on earth, I'll probably always be "a stranger and a pilgrim".

[_sock puppet]

The emphasis on Jesus as compared to how incidental by comparison Jesus is in Mormon meetings was astounding. I got why Catholics might not consider Mormonism to be a Christian sect--just due to the difference in emphasis.

Both in the emphasis on Jesus and the emotional comfort feeling I experienced, I score Catholics 2, Mormons 0.

Funny, I found the direct opposite. This is only incidental to my joining the Church, but in 1974 I was "looking for something". Unsatisfied with the way my life was going, I had very briefly returned to Catholicism. One Mass attendance (after a lapse of some five years, which included attending Catholic schools since six years old) persuaded me that Catholicism didn't have what I was "looking for". I went to the phone book, for a start, and only found one Church with the full name of Jesus Christ (maybe there are more now, and maybe I missed any that may have existed then), The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Good start, I thought, but I didn't realise their missionaries had already left a Book of Mormon with my father in Sydney. I was out running at the time, and when I got back I saw this blue covered book and asked my father what it was. He said some "American guys" knocked on the door, and after a brief conversation, gave him a copy.

He wasn't interested. I picked it up and began reading and immediately realised that it "sounded like the Bible", but I could see the content was somewhat different. After reading a few verses, I decided that this was going to be a "keeper" for future reading. Not long after, I left Sydney and moved to another area, and when packing (somewhat in a hurry), I made sure that "the blue book" got into my suitcase. When I settled in the new area I still hadn't started reading it, but a couple of missionaries knocked on my door. When they showed me the "blue book", I replied, "I have a copy of your book". They then asked me the "who am I?" questions, and my answers startled them (I could see from their faces). I later realised that I was considered a "golden contact". I didn't join immediately, but some months later.

So my view was different. I never intended to give up Catholicism, but after the discussions the missionaries "invited" me to be baptised, a thought which never occurred to me. I thought we were just "exchanging ideas". When I first read through the whole Book of Mormon, I think I must have gone through a whole box of "tear-tissues", so powerful was the impact on me at the time. I guess in the eyes of many that just makes me "gullible", but Catholicism never had that affect on me, or any other religion for that matter, and I had investigated quite a few up to that time.

Interesting that you were looking, and came to your observation.

I wasn't looking, but came to the opposite one incidentally. by the way, the funeral mass, while more comforting for me than recent visits to Mormon chapels, services, I have not wanted to join or prepare to join the Catholic Church.

[_why me]

Actually, I do think a lot of ex-Mormons long for the community they experienced as Mormons. It certainly is not anything I've experienced in the Catholic Church.

It depends. In the catholic church, I have found some good friends. We meet and play dominos in a café. I also found the missionaries of charity and the people who used to hang out with them. So, there are communities that one can get involved with. In america, there are also various catholic societies that one can join. But a person is not going to find the intensity that one can find in the LDS church because the LDS church is not just a religion but a cultural formation too where people gather often and share the religious commonality.