Can Mormonism learn to embrace ex-Mormons and atheists?

[drumdude]

DCP posted this a few days ago. He’s always very good at reminding Christians and Mormons that Islam is an Abrahamic religion. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are brothers from the same mother tradition.

https://journal.interpreterfoundation.o ... -patience/

Abstract: Believers in the God of Abraham — who include not only Jews and Christians but also Muslims — are exhorted to call upon him every day, as well as in times of need. We are promised that he will respond to petitionary prayers. Moreover, we are assured that, in the end, believers will prosper, that their faith or trust in him will prove justified. But we are not promised that rewards, compensation, or justice will come to us on our mortal timetable — and this raises sometimes burningly acute questions about Providence and even, for more than a few, about either God’s benevolence, his care, or his sheer existence. So we are also exhorted to be patient. And that sets us up for many of mortality’s greatest tests. In the meantime, while faithfully waiting for God’s promises to be fulfilled, we ourselves are to work toward their fulfillment “with all [our] heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters” (Colossians 3:23, NIV).

Which got me thinking. Why can’t Dan embrace ex-Mormons and atheists in a similar way? Are only the religious to be celebrated and commiserated with?

It’s projected by 2070, less than half of the US population will believe in God. I think it’s time for apologists like DCP to start extending some olive branches to the future majority.

[malkie]

Also worth noting is that apparently many ex-Mormons remain Christians.

[Everybody Wang Chung]

Mormons have precious few friends left. It's largely their own doing.

[Rivendale]

Mormons have precious few friends left. It's largely their own doing.

It has been said everybody wants a Mormon neighbor but nobody wants a Mormon friend.

[drumdude]

Also worth noting is that apparently many ex-Mormons remain Christians.

Indeed. The way Mormonism has treated ex-Mormon Christians like the Tanners and Grant Palmer is pretty shameful.

[sock puppet]

DCP posted this a few days ago. He’s always very good at reminding Christians and Mormons that Islam is an Abrahamic religion. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are brothers from the same mother tradition.

https://journal.interpreterfoundation.o ... -patience/

Abstract: Believers in the God of Abraham — who include not only Jews and Christians but also Muslims — are exhorted to call upon him every day, as well as in times of need. We are promised that he will respond to petitionary prayers. Moreover, we are assured that, in the end, believers will prosper, that their faith or trust in him will prove justified. But we are not promised that rewards, compensation, or justice will come to us on our mortal timetable — and this raises sometimes burningly acute questions about Providence and even, for more than a few, about either God’s benevolence, his care, or his sheer existence. So we are also exhorted to be patient. And that sets us up for many of mortality’s greatest tests. In the meantime, while faithfully waiting for God’s promises to be fulfilled, we ourselves are to work toward their fulfillment “with all [our] heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters” (Colossians 3:23, NIV).

Which got me thinking. Why can’t Dan embrace ex-Mormons and atheists in a similar way? Are only the religious to be celebrated and commiserated with?

In my mission (eons ago), we were told to politely excuse ourselves and depart if we encountered a non-believer. We were told by the mission president it is too hard to build from nothing, faith and then Mormon-specific faith. Instead, we should focus on theists, and just re-tool them from whatever flavor of believer they might be to Mormon believer.

[malkie]

DCP posted this a few days ago. He’s always very good at reminding Christians and Mormons that Islam is an Abrahamic religion. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are brothers from the same mother tradition.

https://journal.interpreterfoundation.o ... -patience/



Which got me thinking. Why can’t Dan embrace ex-Mormons and atheists in a similar way? Are only the religious to be celebrated and commiserated with?

In my mission (eons ago), we were told to politely excuse ourselves and depart if we encountered a non-believer. We were told by the mission president it is too hard to build from nothing, faith and then Mormon-specific faith. Instead, we should focus on theists, and just re-tool them from whatever flavor of believer they might be to Mormon believer.

Specifically Christians? (since Moroni's promise requires "... having faith in Christ, ...")

[Kishkumen]

I hope we can all strive to be decent to each other as human beings with a shared lot in this fragile world. I don’t need shared religious sympathies to see someone as my sibling in the human family.

[Philo Sofee]

DCP
we are assured that, in the end, believers will prosper, that their faith or trust in him will prove justified.

This appears to me as wishful thinking.

[Philo Sofee]

I hope we can all strive to be decent to each other as human beings with a shared lot in this fragile world. I don’t need shared religious sympathies to see someone as my sibling in the human family.

I can get behind this 100%