Comment by freedomben
3 years ago
I'm a former Mormon (I guess you could call me an "ex-mormon"). Just some advice: be careful about getting (or propagating rather) information from ex-mormons regarding Mormonism (or rather, verify it first). There's an incredible mix of ignorance and/or antipathy that leads to extremely unreliable information. Of course there are plenty of exceptions, but it's a massively deep philosophy/corpus that not many (even active members) put in the effort to actually know it, and for some reason some people become LLMs when asked questions about it, answering very confidently with whatever sounds the most correct to them without regard to actual truth value.
That "massively deep philosophy/corpus" doesn't help things, though. With nearly 200 years of a leadership that teaches that whatever is spoken by God's servants (the highest church leadership) is to be equated as similar to the word of God (with a normal human distribution of those leaders who approach this view with a cautious humility through those who speak their musings with confidence) there's a HUGE of collection of some pretty odd beliefs. Since the church leadership almost never repudiates these past statements, preferring to have them quietly fade from the collective memory and consciousness of the membership over time, chances are that there's still some few members who are aware of these weird beliefs and can back them up with some sort of statement by a modern LDS prophet or apostle. This makes any "actual truth value" of an odd teaching or belief really difficult to gauge, and chances are there's some actual statement behind many of that unreliable information.
That's speaking of teachings and doctrine, of course. When it comes to history that's less like trying to nail Jell-o to the wall and it's much easier to find sources for more accurate history, and I agree that it's a bit sad how little accuracy in history seems to be respected by some believing and formerly-believing members.
Actually I completely agree with you. There are indeed plenty of things where it's murky and hard to piece together the truth (particularly since Joseph and the early church were so secretive about some teachings like polygamy).
The type of thing I had in mind are things that aren't ambiguous but rather are pretty clear. Things like "the actual edicts ... aren't really supposed to be published or talked about" regarding caffeine/word of wisdom. I certainly don't claim to know everything, but I have spent an insane amount of time reading/researching Mormon history and I've never heard that before. Stuff like that seems to pop up constantly for some reason when I talk about things with ex-mormons.
This is the Mormon immune response to exposure to information that causes cognitive dissonance: slander the people who left the church because the fact that they left the church means they are ignorant.
Where did freedomben slander (I think you meant libel, since it was written) anyone?
>> I'm a former Mormon (I guess you could call me an "ex-mormon").
> This is the Mormon immune response
OP literally said they don't identify as a Mormon any more, so your response feels like a knee-jerk reaction against something you've seen elsewhere, rather than an actual response to their comment. They're speaking from the outside looking at others on the outside, not trying to justify their own current beliefs.
They are justifying their current beliefs about exmormons.
lol, why would I slander myself? If avoiding cognitive dissonance is my goal, it would be far easier to just accept uncritically any dumb thing against the church than to have to defend the truth.
This is the type of black and white response that I find so common with ex-mormons. If somebody pushes back on disinformation (even easily disproved like the above thing about keeping caffeine teachings secret), the superstitious thinking kicks in and excuses fly (like "they must be a secret apologist" which I heard recently). It's every bit as ridiculous as the believers are when they dismiss inconvenient facts like Zelph the White Lamanite[1][2] because it goes against their preferred narrative. It's superstitious thinking.
Edit: Hah! I couldn't have asked for a better real-time example to demonstrate my point: https://mormonr.org/qnas/3yUz5/zelph_the_lamanite
Citing two prominent Mormon apologist foundations certainly doesn’t help your point that you’re not acting as closeted Mormon apologist. And when you use a misunderstanding of a non-Mormon about secrecy and caffeine as an example of ex-Mormon lies, you are certainly showing your bias towards those who leave the church.
The exmormon community is extremely thorough and factual when it comes to talking about the church, because it is to their benefit. More people have left the church after unsuccessfully trying to refute The CES Letter than have ever left due to smear campaigns and slander. The truth is to the rational thinker’s benefit, which is why the church spends so much time and money hiding it and whitewashing it.
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Point out the lie when you see a lie, but this sort of blanket statement is inappropriate and reflects your own biases.