Windy Sydney

During my daily visit to PostMormon.org, one of my favorite websites that help people with advice and support when they leave the Mormon Church, I saw a post by DennisK that spoke to me. I identified with everything he said, and asked permission to post it here on my blog. Thanks again, DennisK!

Here are my Top 10 Lies or Misleading Statements That Most Mormons will say... These include things I used to repeat as a TBM and I did so only thinking I was defending the faith... These are things people say to make Mormonism APPEAR more palatable and to convince themselves that believing the Latter-day Saint story is a rational path:

1. "Mormons stopped believing in polygamy in 1890 and haven't practiced it since. It's in the PAST"

I see this statement in newspaper Letters to the Editor and Blogs all the time. First of all, as long as D&C 132 is canonized scripture, polygamy is still an LDS belief. Honesty would be to say it is no longer actively PRACTICED. When a widower can get sealed to another woman for "time and eternity," that is in effect polygamy in the hereafter. Even though it's not talked about a lot, even though the prophet & members pretend it doesn't exist it IS a part of LDS doctrine until those elements of scripture and practice are changed. The belief in still very much in the PRESENT.

2. "We don't talk badly about other religions in our church"

I'm very clear that Mormons really believe this and they'll never really get it when I tell them this but the doctrine of the Apostasy and the Restoration are in and of themselves insulting and offensive to most Catholics and Protestants. Even when you try to couch your statement in term of things like "they have elements of truth, just not a fulness" and "Let us just ADD to the truths you already believe in" it is arrogant and condescending...and inherently speaking "badly" of another religion.

3. "I know the Church is True."

Join any discussion in Elder's Quorum or RS on "Sons of Perdition" and you'll hear how rare it is for anyone to actually be at the point that they really"know" enough to be damned for denying it. They pretend like almost nobody has a sure knowledge like that and so very few will be damned. Come Fast & Testimony Meeting, however, and the whole congregation "knows." Would it really kill the church to teach members to be honest and say they "believe" the church is true?

4. "The Church has never hidden anything about its history or doctrine."

Potential members of a church shouldn't have to go to outside sources or wait until after a few years of membership until the "meat" of the doctrine is available to them. When church approved lesson plans leave out potentially uncomfortable information on topics such as polygamy, the First Vision, The BOA and such, then it IS hiding something.

5. "The fastest growing religion" or "13 Million Members"

Let's face it, if the church wants to use the "13 million" number, they have every right to do so, but they should then also admit that the average Mormon in that case is someone who never goes to church, doesn't consider themselves Mormon and most likely doesn't behave like a polished "Mitt-like" mannequin of a Mormon. If they whittle it down to an honest 4-6 million, then I say go ahead and present your white-bread, sparkly teeth, Osmond-like PR version. But you can't have it both ways....13 Millions members and I'm your poster boy....4-6 Million and you can gloat about Steve Young all you want...

6. "I've read all that 'anti' trash and it's so bitter, angry and dishonest"

I honestly don't believe these people have read what they claim to have read. Nobody ever expects you to read "anti" material. But let's be clear about what "anti" material really is. As a former missionary to Brazil, I can pretty easily detail weaknesses and errors in Catholicism. Does that make me anti-Catholic? Just because a writer or an organization disagrees with Mormonism, it does not automatically qualify it as "anti." In fact, many many books that have nothing whatsoever to do with Mormonsim at all will help you realize that the strongest evidence against Mormonism come from people who probably know nothing about it. Try, "Guns, Germs and Steel" by Jared Diamond, "A History of God" by Karen Armstong, "The Age of Reason", by Thomas Paine to start off...

7. "Sacred not Secret"

The scriptures and Joseph Smith's entire life pretty easily show that the Mormon God expects those who have experienced Him to some degree to share their experiences. There absolutely no precedence for keeping things hush-hush. And what good is a modern day "witness" who won't relate their experiences? A "witness" witnesses. Keeping things secret under the guise of being sacred only means there's deception involved or the supposed experiences never happened in the first place. Be honest, it's SECRET because to the unitiated it would all just seem way too kooky! Whenver I hear a Mormon say "It's sacred", my mind trasnslates that as "It's embarrassing to admit out loud."

8. "It's all about families"

This makes me want to throw up more than any of the others... What they really mean is "It's all about one kind of family - OUR kind." From my experience as a father, the more actively I participated in the LDS church, the higher the calling I accepted, the less time I spent with my family and the crappier husband and father I became. I even spent a while as a TBM studying biographies of the modern prophets and came to the conclusion that most of them were crappy fathers - devoting most of their time to the church and expecting their wives to do almost all of the child-rearing. Come to think of it, the Mormons God is a pretty horrible father in my opinion. I'd never father my children like that..all the faith testing, the conditional love, the innane busy work....

9 "Thou Shalt Not Lie"

How many times have you been in an LDS meeting only to hear the speaker talk about an experience which glorified lying for the greater good of spreading the gospel? Missionaries doing "surveys" to contact people rather than admitting they are proselyting... Missionaries who took their tags off as they passed through customs... Members making friends with some unsuspecting neighbor as they work their courage up to inviting them to church or to accept a Book of Mormon. I remember a Hartman Rector talk about how he got the Temple Film into East Germany by lying about what it was to customs officials. A Mormon will always say, "We don't believe X,Y,Z" if they know XYZ is embarrassing OR if they think admitting XYZ will prevent the other person from joining the church.

10 "Follow the Prophet"

It's funny to watch Mormons themselves tear apart a dead prophet. And they'll do it without blinking an eye. Just point out to them something that Brigham Young, Spencer W Kimball, Ezra Taft Benson or Bruce R McKonkie (Apostle are sustained as prophets too) said. If a statement is ever posthumously found to be blatantly false, then said prophet was only giving his opinion or speaking "as a man." If a prophets words can be so blatantly incorrect, then what's the point in ever following one? EVER? If a prophet can be wrong and if he's only human at times, then why do we never hear one correcting himself? Why doesn't a prophet set a perfect example of repentance?