First encounter with critical information

[_huckelberry]

but I do remember a study of development of corn which for me knocked the last leg out from my teetering belief.

Would you mind elaborating on how domesticated teosinte destroyed your testimony?

Nothing complicated, it demonstrates humans ;long long settled in the area that the Book of Mormon describes as uninhabited. Yes I have heard the theory of whole civilizations invisible in the book. Another way of saying the same thing is to say the Book of Mormon suffers from a lack of Indians. I find the idea of settlers from the old world writing their history forgetting in entirety their relations to the inhabitants of their adopted land absurd in the extreme. Brant's proposals that thinking this reflects a lack of awareness of ancient texts is, I think, noxious.

Of course a variety of other things would have been encouraging doubt as well. I do not know a smoking gun ,there is a buildup of indicators reaching a personal breaking point.

[_KevinSim]

I think you're understating the matter. I don't think in thirty years anything you've ever read about the Church has bothered you in the least. I don't think a yellow flag has every been raised in your mind. I don't think you've ever read anything that you didn't immediately have an answer to. I don't think you believe that you've ever been wrong about any belief you've ever held in your life, church-related or not.

Gadianton, Bcspace isn't the only poster to this forum that still maintains his faith in God's inspiration of the leaders of the LDS Church. For example, several yellow and red flags have been raised in my mind over the years. There are a lot of questions I don't have answers to. Also I'm perfectly aware that I might be wrong about a great number of beliefs I've held in my life.

Still, I know why I believe a good God is in control of the universe, and even though my reasoning might be wrong, it makes no sense to conclude that that reasoning is wrong until I understand the reasons why people think it's wrong. And I know how I go from the existence of a good God to the conclusion that that God has inspired the LDS leaders. So in spite of all the yellow and red flags, in spite of all the unanswered questions, I maintain my belief that God speaks to us today via Thomas Monson and the other people who lead the LDS Church.

[_Cylon]

I was perusing the comments to some article about Romney earlier this year, and someone brought up "lying for the Lord." It was the third or fourth time I had heard the phrase, but I didn't know what they were talking about, because I obviously had never been taught to do any such thing. So I decided to google it, and found much more than I was looking for. By the time I learned that both critics and apologists agreed that the Book of Abraham was not actually translated directly from the papyri as Joseph Smith said it was, my testimony was gone.

[_luc]

"Under the Banner of Heaven" to the Internet, including Fair. After 3-4 years of shelving I was then onto a list of books to dig deep and figure out what to do with all of the new information.

[_Bob Loblaw]

I read all kinds of information critical to the Church as evidenced by my presence here. Have done so for 30 or so years now. Am still active TBM and never had any downtime.

I know young-earth creationists who have read all kind of science but are still believers with no downtime.

[_Bob Loblaw]

Gadianton, Bcspace isn't the only poster to this forum that still maintains his faith in God's inspiration of the leaders of the LDS Church. For example, several yellow and red flags have been raised in my mind over the years. There are a lot of questions I don't have answers to. Also I'm perfectly aware that I might be wrong about a great number of beliefs I've held in my life.

Still, I know why I believe a good God is in control of the universe, and even though my reasoning might be wrong, it makes no sense to conclude that that reasoning is wrong until I understand the reasons why people think it's wrong. And I know how I go from the existence of a good God to the conclusion that that God has inspired the LDS leaders. So in spite of all the yellow and red flags, in spite of all the unanswered questions, I maintain my belief that God speaks to us today via Thomas Monson and the other people who lead the LDS Church.

Here's the difference: You acknowledge the red flags. bcspace does not.

[_sansfoy]

Gadianton, Bcspace isn't the only poster to this forum that still maintains his faith in God's inspiration of the leaders of the LDS Church. For example, several yellow and red flags have been raised in my mind over the years. There are a lot of questions I don't have answers to. Also I'm perfectly aware that I might be wrong about a great number of beliefs I've held in my life.

This is all we can do in life, is try to make our decisions based on a careful examination of the facts, with the understanding that we all face biases that we may not even be aware of. I think if we recognize that we may, in fact, be wrong, it makes it easier to accept that other people may find gratification in following other paths in life.

Carry on.

[_Sethbag]

but I do remember a study of development of corn which for me knocked the last leg out from my teetering belief.

Would you mind elaborating on how domesticated teosinte destroyed your testimony?

Before reading the thread any further I want to take a stab at this. How about this: the development of corn allowed for a population explosion of Native Americans. The Book of Mormon said these folks already had wheat and other things which would have had the same effect. That their hadn't been a wheat-fueled population explosion damns the claim that there'd been wheat here to begin with. Ie: a "Guns, Germs, and Steel" answer.

[_Sethbag]

Ok, having read Huckelberry's subsequent reply I was perhaps in the neighborhood, but not really all that close in guessing his real reason corn helped destroy his testimonkey.

by the way, my first encounters with critical information were unfortunately all just Evangelical and other religiously-founded arguments with LDS doctrine, plus some patently stupid crap like that LDS have sex on the altar in the temple, the temple garments symbolize an LDS member's pact with Satan, and so forth. All of this stuff was particularly easy for me to debunk and sideline mentally, so that it didn't trouble me overly much. If anything, my confidence that I knew the real issues with the church, and that they weren't a big deal, was vastly overestimated by me. On my mission I repeatedly ran into anti- and critical stuff about the Church that was of this nature, and my confidence that I knew the real truth and how to deal with the critics continued to grow.

At the same time, I did have some problems with the fact that I believed the science I'd learned and read in High School. I believed in evolution, old earth, and so forth. I had good reason to believe that the Flood never happened, at least not on a global scale, etc. These things did trouble me, but not conclusively. I was able to shelve it all with "not important to my salvation".

A coincidence occurred in my life where I was having some very difficult arguments in my own mind about the basis of my testimony and epistemology, following some in-depth arguments/discussions with a Catholic seminarian friend of mine and some of his seminary buddies. I've mentioned this before, and how his testimony of his calling by God to quit his job and become a Catholic priest was described to me by him in language that was, but for some jargon differences, indistinguishable from the things we Mormons did to know the truth.

The coincidence is that at this same time, when I was vulnerable to more introspection about my faith than usual, I ran into things on the web having to do with the Book of Abraham and Joseph Smith's polygamy. I read some FARMS/FAIR apologetics, some reviews of books (Compton's and Larson's books, for instance) and so forth. The arguments were transparently desparate, ad hoc excuses: "the Scribes did it", "mnemonic device theory", "Joseph Smith didn't really marry 12 men's wives, it was only 8!", etc. It was pretty obvious to me that things weren't looking good for the home team. I decided to just take a look at things as objectively as possible and let the chips fall where they may, and from that moment it was only a very short time later I was convinced that the church was almost certainly not really true.

So yeah, science stuff cracked the foundation, the Book of Abraham and Joseph Smith polygamy were the proximate cause, with FARMS/FAIR mopologetics providing the contrast between the reality of the church's problems and what I'd always believed in, that really soured me on putting stuff on the shelf or making excuses and lame arguments just to save faith.

[_Bob Loblaw]

My first encounter was just when I was reading the Book of Mormon and I realized that I couldn't account for all the quoting of the English KJV New Testament in the Book of Mormon. It started me questioning the veracity of the text and I did a lot of studying and reading and praying. The more I dug in the worse it got. Then I learned about the Book of Abraham and the rewrites of revelations. I was done.