Quote:
Originally Posted by Elphaba
Nonsense.
The majority of these incidents did happen, and painting everyone who is interested in them with the same brush is shallow and prejudiced. Many people, like myself, have a passion for the Church’s history, and know more about these incidents than people, like you, who only want to end the discuss because you perceive them as anti-Mormons.
Based on your post, you are not qualified to determine who has an agenda or not, just because they bring up these historical truths.
And the collective “you” do not seem to realize that many people do want to discuss these items, because they are true, but wanting to discuss them does not automatically make someone an “anti-Mormon.“
And ‘they” who approach these historical facts, and conflate them with anti-Mormons, do not seem to understand you can never know for certain what a person’s purpose is. The only way you could determine this is to start a discussion with the person, without a pre-conceived agenda to prove someone is an “anti-Mormon,“ “an agnostic/atheist who doesn’t understand the Church," or other labels that try to dismiss what a person can offer. You don’t have to be LDS to be able to bring something to the discussion.
I admit I have seen people who, usually, have just discovered some of these items, and believe they are going to come onto a LDS website with this shocking information, and everyone on the website is going to be so upset they’re going to lose their testimony. These people are unfortunate, as their shock is real, but their information, though often true, is tired and boring. But this does make him an anti-Mormon. "He" is usally stunned by just learning a historical truth and is frantic about it.
Admittedly, many of these people leave the Church; however, many of them do not, and frankly, once they've learned more about the Church's true history, their testimony is stronger than ever.
I’ve also seen Latter-day Saints pretend to be investigators, and make comments about how impressed with the Church they are, and how it must be true because of “a”, “b” or “c.” These people obviously are not anti-Mormons; however, they are as dishonest as those you are so quick to judge.
This means nothing regarding whether the Church is true or not. Unfortunately, people like the collective “you” who claim these things never happened or are out of context, do the Church a disservice, as there are many Latter-day Saint historians who write about these incidents, and know they did happen.
The history of the Church is what it is, and insisting that if we discuss it means we’re anti-Mormon is rude. While you may have personally talked with people that you describe, you have not talked to people who do not have an agenda other than the historical truths. And there are more of us than many here seem to be willing to admit.
Elphaba
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Okay, sorry if my post has upset you, but I've had many, what I consider to be 'anti-mormons' question me, in real life, as to why I'm a mormon. When this all first started happening to me, I believed they were sincere, and interested in my religion, but it just spun out of control, and now, today, they clearly have found a list of facts that 'disprove' my religion, and expect me respond everytime, and there's just so much 'darkness' in my religion that they've gone on from years, and repeated themselves very little. Now I'm considered an absolute deluded idiot for being part of a religion that seems to discriminate against everyone except white, straight men. These people clearly are 'against mormonism (or maybe against me), but they're definately 'anti'.
It never really occured to me that people can discuss these things with mormons and actually be genuinely interested rather than make a fool of them. It's just that, for me, everytime I respond to their evidence against mormonism, they just say that my replies are immature, or vague, or contradict myself, and it makes me very upset, as I have no one to help me. Now, I've just gotten to a point where I research everything in advance, using sites like FAIR and exmormon.org to be prepared (and it does quite annoy them when I am for some reason).
And I know that most of what I've posted is true. I've had a LOT of proof for each of the, seemingly hundreds of facts, thrown in my face, but some of them actually are not true. For example, Joseph Smith did not prophesy that men live on the moon. I haven't found a first-hand account of him saying it yet, and, if the church is true, he wouldn't have prophesied incorrectly, and if the church isn't true, he wouldn't be able to prophesy at all. A more reasonable accusation to make would be 'Joseph Smith and Brigham Young
said men live on the moon'.
Anyways, sorry that I clearly upset you, and sorry in advance if my attempt at justifying myself has upset you further.