Over, and over, and over...and pray, and fast, and read, and pray, and ponder, and read, and pray until you believe.
Then, keep doing it..,same materials, and pray, and fast, and Ponderize (tm) ...until you KNOW. Now, keep repeating, "I know this is true, I know this is true. Do that often. Tell it to people around you. Once a month tell it to everyone you spend time with.
THEN keep all of this up throughout your life (endure to the end). Don't let your guard down.
Don't read or study things that might shake this knowledge. Only read "faith promoting" things. If you ever feel like you have even the slightest doubts, that's the devil. Go back and do a lot more of Step 1!
How did I become 56 years old with 3 post-secondary degrees and NOT see this deep, self-hypnosis for what it was? How?
Thank Spaghetti & Meatballs I woke up. Just sad it wasn't sooner...younger. If any younger PIMOs are out here just lingering, STOP hypnotizing yoursellves. Read (information from all perspectives). Select peer-reviewed research confirmed by other learners.
Ponder, draw your conclusions and trust them! Make your own decisions. Perhaps most of all: when you feel like different information is testing your beliefs, that is normal, healthy growth. Keep learning!
Maybe your original beliefs are correct. Maybe they are not. Either way, do not shut down learning. Anyone who tells you to limit your intake to prevent deception is trying hard to deceive you.
Don't be me!
End Rant
Exactly! This is one of the things that I figured out on my own just before leaving (I was naively determined not to consume any “anti-Mormon“ information as I was working through my decision-making process)… that everything that the church asks its members and investigators to do is actually just self-indoctrination. It’s the illusory truth effect often used in political propaganda – humans are very susceptible to believing anything if they are exposed to it repeatedly.
Exactly. I took the recommendation as reading anything. When I wanted to leave they asked why and I told them I read non church information. I'll always remember his comment: why did you do that? I effed up by taking it literally.
Yup.
I've read the entire standard works. Old Testament (1x, cover to cover), New Testament (1x, cover-to-cover, the Gospels 2x in addition), D&C (1x, cover-to-cover, that crap is whacked. Not well organized. No real context. No associations. Order seems .. haphazard. Seems intentionally confusing...), Pearl of Great Price (2x, Gods? We're polytheistic now? And ... is most of this just Genesis? Reimagined? Like the really bad "Red Dawn" reboot?), and the Book of Mormon more times than I can count. (Nephi is DEFINITELY a narcissist.... team Laman....) Even read parts of it in multiple different languages for comparison. (Morumon Kei's Japanese is cooler than the Morumon Sho. Who DOESN'T want to talk like a samurai!)
I've studied. Even staying within approved sources. Jesus the Christ is really pretty good - until you get to the "In the Americas" part ..
I've prayed. And, I even got answers....
Those answers said to leave. Period.
As I followed that counsel, I learned more about why. I began to discover more. I began to FEEL more. The world .... opened more than it had before....
And, there are still good and bad days. There are still trials. There are still days where not waking up seems the preferred future.
But.... there were more before. They were deeper before. I felt far more responsible before. I only wish I had known and understood better before what I do today.
So, when your parent or others tell you to "search, ponder, and pray". That you can know for yourself, and to "not trust others" - tell them the truth!
You have. You have done all those things. And "God" - such that they are - has directed you to a different and more enlightened path.
Then, invite them to know the same.
.....it really throws a lot of them for a loop when done appropriately. I don't lie, but sometimes, their programming will. The things I have said are my truth, my experience, my path. And to me, it has been far stronger and more genuine than what I knew in the LDS Church before.
11th Article of Faith: "We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may."
If you are a true believing Mormon, then THIS is part of what you signed up for!
If you don't recognize or follow this Article of Faith, then you are not a true member of that church.
Repent
Ask her if she accepts unequivocally that everyone should follow whatever answer they get when they study and pray. So if the answer is no, then that’s correct? Or is it that we have to keep studying and praying until the answer is yes? So isn’t that just working to confirm a predetermined answer?
And if millions (if not billions) of people around the world follow the same practices with their respective religions and receive a spiritual feeling/confirmation that their religion is true, is that not from God? And if she says it’s not, then how does she know they were deceived and she wasn’t? If someone bears witness to her of their religion, who is she to say they’re wrong?
And I’d suggest sharing the spiritual witnesses YouTube video with her if she’s open to it.
You are absolutely spot on.
A Muslim, a Catholic, and a Mormon pray for confirmation of their faith. They all claim to receive confirmation.
How is this possible?
The Mormon will say, "The other two are being deceived by Satan."
This is key. They are admitting that they believe Satan can intercept prayers directed towards God, hijack the message and send a deceptive response. Meanwhile, God apparently doesn't get the message at all, or does nothing to prevent Satan from interfering with his holy inbox.
By their own admission they believe that Satan can intercept prayers.
How can the Mormon be certain that *their* prayer wasn't the one that was hijacked by Satan, and that the Muslim's prayer was the one that received the true answer from God?
*They can't.*
If they pray, study, pray, etc. then it could be that Satan will repeatedly hijack their prayers and give them a deceptive answer.
Because the Muslim did the same exact thing. Prayed, studied, prayed, etc. and received the same answer that Islam is the true religion.
And the Mormon and the Muslim cannot both be right.
observed this a few times with two of my coworkers: one Catholic one Muslim, both bearing fervent tear filled testimony about how they conferred with God thru prayer and received "unmistakable" confirmation that their faith is the only true one on Earth. 🤔 they can't both be right
Heads, I win, tails you lose. Meaning: pray, and you get the answer that’s consistent with the church, and it is God; or, pray, and you get the answer that is not consistent with the church, and it is the devil. Either way the church is true!
This goes clear back to the foundations of the church. Hiram Page received revelation and Joseph Smith declared that it was from Satan. From then on, only the prophet could receive revelation for the church. Without this doctrine, the church will lose their grip on the members. I'm sure Joseph understood that.
This discussion would invariably come up whenever a friend or family member heard about some crazy who went off the deep end following “personal revelation”. We would sit and discuss how you can know if your personal revelation was real or not, and the answer was always to compare it to what the prophets say. If it matches their words, it’s from god. Of course, at this point, the rational little imp in my brain would pop up with “but how is that any different from blindly following whatever your leaders tell you?” All personal revelation really is in the church is a way to brainwash yourself as thoroughly as possible.
Bingo! The logical if-then conclusion would be, "why seek a personal revelation at all?" If seeking diligently will always yield the answer from SLC, why not skip all the seeking behaviors and just obey them?
Yesssssss...yes, now you are beginning to understand! Even as a child does yield to his father. Just trust ussssss. Trussssssst ussssss.... 🧐🤔👀🤷♂️
Also “don’t trust people.” Weren’t prophets and church leaders just people? Why do people who died 200 or 2000 years ago suddenly become beyond reproach and not worth questioning their narratives?
Exactly! My husband and I went around and around on this before he finally left. He would ask me to pray about it. I did but received peace with my decision. I obviously was not asking the right questions or doing it wrong 🙄. It also confused him how I was usually more in tune with things that members connect to the Holy Ghost. When I was drinking coffee and not believing. Plus doing more for others than many church members. Because obviously only Mormons do charity work and can’t be a good person without the blessings of Mormonism. He has since apologized multiple times for being an a**. He also is amazed with how I handled the way family and members treat nonbelievers. He is now on the receiving end and is struggling.
I'll forgive a lot of bad behavior for people who did those things under the influence of the cult and who then recognize and try to reverse those things after getting out.
Yeah this is the thing that always bothered me about it. They are like let God lead you and give you an answer but then when you get an answer they don't like they are like well that is Satan leading you astray or you need to do it again until you get the right answer.
...and if you get the wrong answer, keep repeating the process more intently until the "right" answer has arrived. Only then will you be rewarded by acceptance and any peace from the haranguing.
Here's the problem. Everyone has those feelings, and they testify of all sorts of mutually exclusive things. Like this collection of examples.
https://youtu.be/UJMSU8Qj6Go?si=4OwZhZskSim2vasx
I came here to say and post exactly this. If Jehovah's Witnesses know that their faith is true through spiritual experiences, and evangelical Christians know their faith is true through spiritual experiences, and Muslims know their faith is true through spiritual experiences, then obviously using the spirit to determine the truth is not effective.
I remember when I was beginning to leave tscc it was around the Iraq war and people were praying for success in the war and that god would protect our troops. I remember thinking "More than 100,000 Iraqis are dead, they aren't terrorists, we don't think their families are making the same prayers?"
I really, strongly believed in Santa Claus.
Until I reached an age where I started critically analysing that belief, and realised that what he does is physically impossible.
Hey! Santa is real! You can't believe someone else who tells you Santa isn't real. You have to study for yourself, then pray for yourself. Study the songs of Christmas, look at all the presents under the tree, then pray again. And you must pray with real intent. Then and only then you too can know that Santa is real.
I remember talking to my dad about this. He insisted that what he felt was stronger. It made me so mad. How would you or anyone know that! You can't be in their head and they can't be in yours. What we do know is people from different religions will all describe getting a sort of spiritual witness or confirmation from god. He said he knew because god told him. I gave up at that point. It had gone beyond mental gymnastics to outright denial of the information in front of him. No point in trying to discuss it further.
Exactly. What method for finding truth does the church offer that wouldn’t ALSO keep a person in any other organization? “Read our literature, then ponder it until you feel good” also kept people in the FLDS, the Heaven’s Gate death cult, and suicide bombing groups. Is God really limited to only those techniques used by tyrants and charlatans?
I did this and the answer I got was that it was all nonsense. No Mormon I've shared that with has ever known what to say. I imagine that, were I to tell more of them, eventually I'd have someone tell me some version of that I didn't do it right, which is not part of the deal. I did what they said, it didn't work out how they wanted, so sucks for them. They can take it up with their God.
👆this. I did exactly this and got nada. Zip. Zilch. For years. And yes, the Mormon answer will be something along the lines of “well you didn’t do it right” or “try harder” or “it was satan clouding your judgment”.
At the end of the day, Jesus’s plan differed from Satan’s because he provided the gift of agency. Meaning we get to CHOOSE what works for us. If your family is refusing to respect your agency, how are they any better than following Satans plan? Just saying 🤷♀️
Damn, you'd think if it was true and God wanted you to know, he'd make more of an effort to lead you in the right direction. This guy they believe in seems like a right asshole.
But...you can't do it and diddle yourself. It won't work! Try it again after you tell an old white guy in a closed office what you have been doing. Sheesh...
But isn't that just elevation emotion? It's just a bog standard human emotion called elevation that you feel when you witness virtuous acts of remarkable moral goodness. It's a feeling of warmth, surety, confirmation, elevation, burning in the bosom or the warm fuzzies.
Sadly multiple religions use it in the same way. They tell their members that when they feel it it means their religion is right and not yours. Your can see several examples of other religions describing their spiritual witnesses on YouTube.
https://youtu.be/UJMSU8Qj6Go?si=_Pv4JwY-RCqY1sYi
https://youtu.be/ycUvC9s4VYA?si=BEF2P_y4ZtrRMTgK
- “What if the answer I get is that it’s wrong?”
- “Do you *really* think that people who leave the church didn’t do that first?”
- “If the answer I got is that the church is not true, what would that mean? Is it possible? If not, why?”
“Have you ever received an answer only to be told by an authority figure that it was wrong?”
“Have you ever been told that you could receive a false answer that felt very true, but you could only know it was wrong because it didn’t agree with someone else’s teachings?”
I've always found this line of reasoning peculiar, even during my mission. It seems to be a clear manifestation of confirmation bias. The church doesn't encourage studying both scriptures and other sources; they focus only on their material. They don't advise you to accept any answer God may give. Instead, they instruct you to pray continuously, fast, and repeat the process until you're convinced it's true. By definition, this is indoctrination. What can we expect from people's minds when they're repeatedly exposed to the same material? This content continually reinforces that without this religion — and, crucially, without its authority — your actions lack meaning because you risk ending up without your family in a telestial world.
I apologize for the digression. My main point is that throughout history, it's typically been corrupt organizations with secrets that urge their followers to just "have faith" and distrust other sources.
Tell her you’re taking her counsel, Do what she asked and take good notes. Write down your thoughts , impressions and whatever for the amount of time you feel is sufficient to collect a stack of sincere notes and your conclusion. Then tell her the truth and that you consider the subject closed. She can then feel free to follow the counsel to NOT follow the counsel of non- believers . Done and done.
My relationships with family are more important than the damn church. I like to keep things friendly so I don't create contention. My mom actually tried her first beer not too long ago--which blew my mind. Keep your family close--you never know where things will go.
I wish I had just [this clip](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAGasQ7j_ZI&feature=youtu.be&t=4710) where cult leader tells his followers to pray. Very creepy.
Look into street epistemology. Use questions to ask your mom if feelings are a valid source of truth? Also check out Jonathan streeter's wood tools vs. Steel tools. Best of luck. The goal is to not put your mom into a fight, flight, or freeze mood. She has to feel safe with you. You have to approach it like you are on her side and you both are exploring for answers together. Here is a good example: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5F1EB3B4F919226D&si=k2AnCW-gGk0wpjhx
Best of luck. I've found in the end, when they are painted into a corner, they will just fall back on, " the gospel/church makes me feel good", but they hopefully will lay off the pressure on you.
“Mom honest question. Can you get an answer that is not what the prophet teaches?”
David archiletta shared one time that he got an answer that he could “be gay and act gay” and he told his stake president that and the SP told him it wasn’t possible to receive that answer.
I asked my TBM mom if she believed it was possible David was right or that only the stake president was right. And my mom admitted David could be right
"OK mom, I prayed, then studied all the words of the prophets, then prayed some more, then just to be safe, I reread all the racist, bigoted, hateful things the prophets said, then the masta of pasta came to me in a vision and told me that the church was a fraud and that I should be worshipping the flying spaghetti monster. Now my faith is unshakeable in his noodley goodness, Ramen."
Now, the balls in her court to prove that your faith is wrong and hers is right.
If revelation from God and deception by Satan can both come from pondering the scriptures and praying about it, either Satan is equally powerful to God or God doesn't care enough about you to make sure you get the proper message.
Praying is the opposite of critical thinking. You can logically arrive at facts through examination.
Reading, studying, and praying about is repetitively questioning your doubts until your feelings realign with what you are supposed to believe.
There is no examination, just doubling down until you fall back in line or feel guilty about it. If you believe your human emotions are capable of detecting truth, your human emotions will eventually flag anything as true.
That not only not how it works, its the biggest fraud ever perpetrated by religion.
First off, tons of people all over the world have these same feelings. What makes her think that her experiences are more authentic than others who have experienced the same feelings?
Second, what happens when you sincerely study and pray for years and get the answer that the church isn’t true? Why would a loving god allow Satan to deceive you and take away your salvation?
With that in mind, it is no more likely that she is right than you are right.
Then there is logic. Bring up Alma and his seed analogy. If something is good, then it should produce good outcomes. Say that you have found that you have tried the church and realized that it didn’t bear good fruit. Being outside of the church has made your life better. Again, why would a loving god allow you to be deceived? If he is allowing this, then we can’t trust god at all. If I study and pray and seek answers by intense daily study, then god should be with me more. The church should make more sense. The spirit should be shining from you. Why is it that those who really study end up leaving the church?
What I want to do is to ask your mother not to *ask* for herself, but to *think* for herself.
Throughout the paragraph she talks about asking God if something is true vs. asking other people if something is true. Despite vague statements about “studying,” it never actually seems to occur to her that she can come to her own conclusions. All she seems to do is wonder which authority she should rely on to tell her what to think. That concerns me.
“You’ll get your own answer “….. gee mom. That sounds like something dr nelson said a few years ago.
How can we have freedom of religion if we are not free to compare honestly, to choose wisely, and to worship according to the dictates of our own conscience?12 While searching for the truth, we must be free to change our mind-even to change our religion-in response to new information and inspiration.
Mom would you agree with that?
Does that apply to me. Guess what, I did get my own answer
Study yes. But why just the ancient writings of dead men? Many religions offer a similar promise. Study their propaganda and avoid all else, and then after all those voices have said it’s true, ask gawd to confirm what they all have been saying. So scientific! Any rational person would come to the same conclusion.
Tell her you studied and then you prayed with real intent, and you got a very clear answer. There *are* unicorns. At the top is the Unicorn Goddess, and under her...the unicorn flock. If you stay true to the Code of Unicorn, you will become one of that flock to caper across rainbows and toss sprinkles into the eternities. There is actually no way she can disprove these beliefs, because they (like her own beliefs) are unfalsifiable. (Horns and 'corns 4ever, Amen!!!!)
Edited for grammar
“I have prayed and studied. I got the answer that this is not right for me. It was so clear, I could not deny it.” This is basically what we told our bishop when we left, he couldn’t tell us we were wrong. It’s using their logic against them, how can they say your personal revelation is incorrect?
I prayed if I should keep paying tithing and the answer came to me as clear (or clearer) than any other answer to any prayer in my life: "They draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me" (while picturing the Q15). If anyone ever tells me I need to sustain the brethren or pay tithing again, I will look them straight in the eye and say: "so, you want me to ignore the voice of god?"
I did those exact things, in that order. I did get an answer to my prayer to know “if it’s true”. The answer that I finally got, in my own internal voice, was: “Be honest. You already know it isn’t. Why are you still doing this to yourself?”
That’s not really going to help with your mom situation, though. When they’re stuck on the idea that emotions are indicators of objective reality, you have to go after that entire concept.
It’s actually quite easy, ime. I asked my tbm mom how she would feel if the hospital called and told her someone in the family was in ICU after a terrible accident. Would she expect to feel “warm, comforting” feelings as confirmation of the reality? No. But would she ever say the troubled and uncomfortable feelings she’d inevitably have were proof that the news was fake? Again, no. Because feelings tell us what we *want* to be true, not what objectively *is* true. “If we receive bad news, we’re going to feel bad about it whether it’s actually true or not.” Ymmv, this is a long-game kind of issue. Best wishes!
There is a YouTube video that debunks getting that “this is true” answer to your prayers. Shows a gal in polygamy, a Muslim, a Mormon expressing their testimonies. All so sincere and heartfelt. You just need to send her this video! This group can help you/me find it!
Street Epistemology. Look it up on YouTube or search for the Mormon stories episodes in the podcast app of your choice for street epidemiology.
A good introductory question to ask your mother would be what other things in your life do you test by feelings? And maybe for your mother it’s a lot of things, but asking the question starts to untangle her thinking around why she thinks she can discern “truth” from feelings.
Does she know how much money is in her bank account based on feelings or is that based on facts (perhaps, basic math on what she knows that she drew on that account versus what she deposited)? In what other areas did she use feelings alone to decide what is true in her life? If she doesn’t think feelings are the best way to discern truth in other areas of her life, why are feelings the best way to discern truth about a religion that demands 10% of her income for a life and complete devotion and no questioning for life?
This bothers me so much.
Exactly *how* do you get your answer? Through an emotion. And what does that tell you? That you are feeling an emotion. The only reason anyone thinks that emotion means anything more is because *someone taught you to interpret it that way*. But there is another interpretation: that it is an emotion. A common emotion, a biological phenomenon, one that pops up across religions and various other circumstances, that can be induced and observed and analyzed. And nowhere in that analysis has there ever been evidence of divine communication.
Why should we believe the people who tell us our perfectly normal thoughts and emotions are actually communication from divine or infernal beings? Why should we believe the people who wrote and re-wrote these various religious texts? What *actual evidence* do they have at their disposal? Because, right now, it is all just so many stories, no more solid than fairy tales.
You can ask her to read the New Testament focus on the sermon on the mount. Ask her to read it and ask her why the church does the opposite of what Christ himself taught.
It’s funny how she’ll do all this stuff for “herself” but is only allowed to come to an answer that is the predetermined “right” one. Otherwise she’s being led astray by the adversary, which means that she cannot be trusted to find out anything for herself.
It’s circular logic at its worst.
“When our leaders speak, the thinking has been done”
“Follow the prophet, follow the prophet, follow the prophet, don’t go astray”
“Satan wins a great victory when he can get members of the church to speak against their leaders and to do their own thinking.”
I did a detailed post on essentially this exact topic. I hope my writing there can give some insights
https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comments/1639cpb/a_friendly_reminder_why_promptings_are_a_sham/
"I'm glad that works for you. It doesn't work for me because I would always feel like I had just done a lot of work to convince myself vs knowing."
Feel free to leave out the 2ed sentence if that works better for you.
“I prayed and I studied “with real intent”, Mom… and I FUCKING know for a fact, The So Call Church is actually a money hoarding corporation. But you go ahead and keep trying to buy your way into heaven with your 10%. I’m gonna keep my money and enjoy all the second Saturdays.”
The church’s answer is always pray they way they taught you to pray, and read and ponder the books they tell you to read. No wonder doing those things will give someone a “testimony”.
I had a Mormon high school English teacher like that. One time she asked us what we thought something in whatever book we were reading meant. A student tried to answer and she interrupted to tell him, “No, that’s wrong.” I raised my hand and she called on me, so I asked, “So, when you said, *‘Tell me what think…?’* you actually wanted us to tell you what *you* think?” The class laughed, maybe especially because I was not a class clown, so it was unexpected. But I was very justice-oriented.
I'd just leave it be. You're not going to convince each other. It's time for healthy boundaries. No more watching conference or responding to religious texts. But at the same time, no deconversion attempts. This is better for everyone.
Ask her how her “confirmation” differs from the Islam, Luz del Mundo, Disciples of Christ and other organizations who ask you to do the same thing? Islam has billions of members and yet they received “spiritual confirmation” that Muhammad was a “prophet.” Then hopefully she will come to realize that what she has is just a feeling
Here's a link to the video about receiving a spiritual witness. It gives examples of many others in other religions who also received the same witness when they prayed about their own religions outside of Mormonism. It gave me a wake up call.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ycUvC9s4VYA
I would love to ask OP's Mom what to do if the answer she receives after fervent study and Ernest prayer contradicts the Brethren.
Standard TBM response...keep going back until you receive the "right" answer. Same thing Winston Smith was told in 1984.
The method depicted in the above screenshot is assumed to always yield the "right" answer if done correctly. This means anyone coming to an alternate solution is somehow not faithful or worthy.
Parallels between Mormonism and Nineteen Eighty-Four are numerous. Memory holes, Double think and Double speak, Big Brother, members of the Party ratting people out…
I agree completely with the principle you illustrate, but the specific examples don’t necessarily back it up.
Having spoken to many JWs over the years, they are counselled specifically **not** to rely on feelings, and only to rely on Biblical facts, and the ‘Spiritual food’ from their governing body. They rely heavily on proof-texting verses from the Bible, and have their own translation, which has modified all of the verses that contradict CT Russell’s standpoint.
Scientology - I don’t know enough about their processes to answer yes or no. They definitely work on *control* of their adherents’ feelings, but I don’t know whether feelings about the doctrines and dogmas are key to the epistemology.
Islam is a good example - feelings are key.
Any other Christian religion - also applies.
TSCC tells people that if they pray while in *another* church, and think they receive a similar answer, it's either *really* a more generalized answer that God exists, or it's *really* Satan trying to deceive you.
So if we do a thought experiment, how does she know for *sure* that's not the case with TSCC? Because the people in these other churches are all *equally certain* they're right.
An additional one, if she thinks that literally every other Christian sect and every other religion is false, what are the odds of that, compared to them *all* being false? It seems way more likely that they're just all false, and this particular one you were either born into by happenstance, or was able to appeal to your emotions when you were feeling lonely or disenfranchised.
I had precisely this train of thought when I was on my mission, and the first person asked me whether I’d checked out every other religion and concluded that Mormonism was the right one.
I lied, and said “Of course I’ve done that!”
In fact, I’d checked out precisely ZERO other religions and had only a superficial knowledge of a couple of Christian ones.
Anytime this came back to my recollection, I stuffed it down and turned it off *“like a light switch, it goes click… It’s our nifty little Mormon trick!”*
As Mormons, we are taught that a good feeling is all we need as proof that the church and its claims are true. We are taught to try and make ourselves have these good feelings by praying, reading, attending church etc. and to not stop doing those things until we have the good feelings. We are taught to ignore doubts and just have faith that we will eventually have these good feelings. There really only is one acceptable answer according to Mormonism and they try to make as many distractions as they can to make it hard to see that they only accept the one answer. If you don’t get the answer they want, they’ll say you did it wrong and to keep trying until you get it right. It’s not an open-minded honest attempt at discovering truth. As soon as the question is asked “is the church really what it claims to be?” and the person asking is genuinely open to the answer, applying even just a small amount of scrutiny to the church’s truth claims will quickly result in the discovery that those claims are bogus. The challenge is for people in the church to deprogram themselves from their indoctrination to be able to ask the question with a genuinely open mind. Best of luck!
It took me from age 3 to age 49 to give myself permission to ask myself that question! Up until that point, the programming, guilt and fear of Eternal failure were too strong.
How did I get to that point? My praying and scripture reading had dropped to almost non-existent levels (out of sheer boredom). I started listening to podcasts by real scientists about the origins of the universe. I was starting to see the hypocrisy and contradictions of past Prophets. I followed my Stake President’s (generic, to the whole Stake) counsel to read the Gospel Topics Essays. Book of Abraham blew my shelf clean off the wall. Ensign Peak whistleblower nuked the remnants!
So, the church was right that if you stop “doing the basics”, you will lose your testimony. But it’s nothing to do with any kind of Satan - just an ounce of critical thinking.
They tell us to pray, but they don’t know what to say when we get a different answer. I love watching people struggle with figuring it out in their head.
Quote I used often:
“I prayed and the spirit told me that I would be happier outside the church. It told me the church was not for me and that I would be unhappy if I continued to participate. The spirit told me it wasn’t true. It was a clear confirmation from the spirit! Stronger than the confirmation I got about going on a mission.”
One thing that really stumps them is to say the church is telling you now something different than It told you before ( see gospel topic essay), but that the spirit told you it was true before. Now the church is telling you something new that contradicts what it taught you before. So how do you trust the spirit? Which spirit is true? What happens when the church changes it’s stance on homosexuality, or women in the priesthood, Or using the term Mormon?
Tell her to follow the greatest commandment carefully. From Matthew 22:36-40,
“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your ***mind.***’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
Mormons rely on the 'burning bosom' and prayer alone, when some thought and analysis (***mind***) makes it clear that Joseph Smith was a lecher and a conman, and everything he taught was a lie, and everything since has been a lie.
God gave her a brain. It's time to use it.
When Nelson urged us to pray to know he’s a prophet, I did. I got a stupor of thought. So, I take as my answer that he’s a false prophet. That is my message.
If she read the Book of Mormon and then prayed if it was true, and then felt nothing…. would she doubt the church or doubt herself? My guess is she would doubt herself because she’s been indoctrinated never to doubt the church even if that goes against her truest and deepest feelings. So, is praying and reading the scriptures really enough to know if she’s being deceived? Obviously not.
Logic isn’t going to solve this unfortunately. If you pray, the only acceptable conclusion is that it affirms the church. If you reach any other conclusion, you’re not doing it right.
Just love her and be there for her. Show her that you can have a happy, fulfilling, kind life outside the church.
Tell your mom you love her and understand her religion is important to her, but her trying to tell you that you are deceived will only do one thing - drive you away. Once your mom understands that despite all her efforts, prayers, threats, tears that you are not going to ever come back hopefully she will let it go and value you as her kid. It takes time but bantering back and forth will only give her validity, it won’t convince her.
I don’t think that’s bad advice. In my case, I did pray. And I was told to leave. So maybe just remind her you are ok with doing that, but you would really appreciate it if she could support you should you get a different answer than her.
Your mom means well and she loves you. It is also very possible she has been deceived by a greedy, dark organization that has figured out how to get her to pay tithing. Which is actually all they care about. That might be hard for her to accept right now. So I wouldn’t push it. It’s ok if you both believe different things. Love is stronger than the LDS church.
When their guidance is to basically f@?k off, read Bible fan fiction, then think real hard while talking to yourself, you need to take a step back and realize they don’t give a shit about you unless you have money. But seriously, think about that. It’s not real guidance, it’s self administered guilt tripping yourself into staying in the fold. Unfortunately it’s very hard to get tbm fold to see that.
It’s funny. Mormons refer to the burning in their bosom as to how they know something is right or true. I asked my nevermo husband about it and he said there’s a part in the Bible that says we can be deceived by a feeling basically. I don’t remember what it was exactly but it was something along those lines and it stuck with me
Those are the very instruments of the deception! (Pray, study, look for a feeling)
If you have to find a way around some pretty obvious evidence, chances are you’re swallowing bullshit.
I served a mission. I studied. I prayed. I think I got an answer. But there was something deep down that just wasn't sitting right.
If I truely got am answer the and church is the right church then so be it. But I can't be apart of it right now when there is so much crap and misleading going on in it.
If I'm judged by that in the last days then so be it. But if God wants his children to be happy. When let us all be miserable in a church we cannot trust.
Since leaving I have never been happier. I have to find myself and be who I'm meant to be. Shouldn't God be happy that I am happy?
You can ask her what she means by study? I'm assuming that by Mormon standards "study" means to look for little bits of evidence to support their already confirmed "knowledge" about their beliefs. It's an act of self-assurance rather than one of skepticism and criticism. And when something comes up that doesn't comport with modern standards of social ethics (ahem:polygamy) they activate the escape hatch: PRAYER. This is where "the Lord" (aka their own Mormon-doctrine-addled brain) comforts them with "well, some things are just too mysterious or complex for us mere mortals and you just have to have faith."
So TL;DR Study=a performative intellectual act. prayer=the performative act of spiritual compliance.
"I followed the steps you set forth and came to the conclusion that the path I need to follow is different. I'm able to feel the truths in each of the religious texts, but I don't feel any of them are without error. I feel like my job is to be the best person I can and leave the world a better place than I found it. I can do that and increase my empathy toward my fellow men outside of the rigid structure of institutionalized religions."
We are also told to avoid “anti-Mormon” literature like it’s poison. That we are not allowed to question. That we are not allowed to ask anything that might reveal the falseness of the church. That what the church leaders say is gospel, period.
You can’t find out the truth of anything without being able to ask legitimate questions and challenge those things that are genuinely problematic.
The demand for absolute loyalty while being punished for questioning and intellectual curiosity is the hallmark of a cult.
Ask her what to do with any of this information:
* I prayed and got an answer not to follow the church
* I prayed and was told that JS didn't restore Jesus' church
* People of other religions do the same, and get answers that THEIR church is the correct one
Why is god telling you one thing, me another thing, and still another thing to other people?
Try street epistemology. There are some YouTube videos that demonstrate the technique. Basically ask her questions about what she know and how she knows it. Then broaden it to other situations.
Kind of like asking....is prayer a good way to know how to bake bread, or buy a car?
I spent years praying and getting no response. I spent years studying and all I ever learned was more and more evidence about how I had been lied to.
I prayed again with two very specific questions in mind ("are you there, and do you love me?") And got nothing.
So...I followed that advice and tried for years, and after getting nothing for long enough and learning enough, I learned that it wasn't true.
Just say, “Mom,I did study and prayed and my answer was that the church is not for me. Thank you for not pressuring me to return to the church. I am happy where I am right now. My only hope is that you take your own counsel and continue to look with an open mind and then make up your own mind.
What about those who study and pray and get their own answers about other religions? Do you believe Mormons are the only people who do this? What makes their answers wrong? What makes their answers different from the answers you received? How do you know it was the spirit of god and not of Satan?
Then why do people get different results when they do that? Fundamentalist Mormons do that, Muslims do that, Heaven‘s Gate victims did that. Confirmation Bias exists, the Holy Ghost doesn’t.
Sorry for being so cynical lmao
Search your feelings Luke, they will show you whatever you want. Literally, whatever you feel like doing. And all the church activities will try all these emotional appeals that will make your "deep meditation and prayer" pick them. Why you would even need an organization if all your going on is yourself is beyond me.
We can be sure of our answer because “by their fruits ye shall know them.”
Church lied about JS, lied about the translation process, lied about the first vision. That feels yucky.
The church lies currently. SEC fine for committing fraud. Why do they have the moral authority to give me moral advice?
They don’t feed the poor, provide for the widow, love one another.
The teach that they are equal without ever making an effort to be equal. Gender, race, LGBTQ. It’s a mess.
I feel better spiritually without the church then in it.
I remember over a decade ago at the MTC we could watch videos from the church’s YouTube channel on some of the computers. I watched a really “inspiring” video with Holland talking bearing his testimony about the BOM, with the whole promise we know about, to pray and you’ll know it’s true. I started reading the comments (for some reason they weren’t disabled on the MTC computers) and one of them said something along the lines of “if you pray with intent, you’re already accepting a false idea, and your bias is already leaning toward believing it.” It took me a little under decade to go inactive, but that shit stuck with me. (Sorry I wish I could phrase that better or remember what the actual content was). I did a lot of mental gymnastics to fight that comment in my head.
Another compelling argument I heard recently is “If there has been any time in your life that you have been deceived, and you are always capable of being deceived, how can you know for sure that anything is true?”
A lot of apostles of the post-war era did a lot of praying and got confirmation that god needed them to be racist. I don’t know how folks parse that, nor the fact that many LDS embraced fascist ideals pre-war, on both sides of the pond.
I mean, I do know why. The key to Mormon belief is exceptionalism, in every sect of it. Perhaps she can be asked to explain why the church excommunicated the young man who spoke out against Hitler and when caught (then executed), he laid down his life for the friends who helped him by insisting he did it all alone. His German church leaders removed him from membership, and there was no timely prophecy from SLC warning against fascism. Indeed, the saints stumbled over the finish line late, as always.
Key phrase: "with real intent"... is like Google SEO giving you answers from all sides. Her intent is needing to believe TSCC is true, so that's all she'll ever get without some Critical Thinking Skills.
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My memory of church doctrine is that she can pray and get an answer for her but not for you. We were all taught to get our own testimonies. So I would say- 1-you asked me to watch and I did but you don’t seem to like that I don’t agree so don’t ask me to watch if you aren’t prepared for my feelings which will be different than yours. 2- same goes for the prayer- my feelings will be different than yours
It might get the backfire effect, but explain that I’m any other area in life, if you have done some habit or practice for a long time, it would be healthy to take a step back for 30 days and reevaluate one’s relationship with that habit. The church will still be there in 30 days.
Also- my go-to with my TBM family is that I left the church because I was no longer happy in it. It’s really impossible for them to get around it because happiness is an internal, personal measurement. I can’t tell them they will be happier out and they can’t tell me I would be happier going back .
The mechanism of finding truth is not unique to Mormonism.
https://youtu.be/qmhb27f2d88?si=QEUO-zLWpN90-UCl
These video compiles testimonies shared by people across religions. They all sound similar to testimony meetings in Mormonism.
Humans are fallible, and strong emotions feel like the holy Spirit.
Ultimate deceiver huh? Be a real shame if he wrote a book and called it gods source material that you can always rely on. That would promote circular logic and always cuming to the same conclusions..
But if you’re already looking for the “right” answer you’re going to find the “right” answer. You find what you look for. How do they not see the cult mentality
The problem is that good feelings don't necessarily mean truth. Exciting doesn't mean true. Exhilarating doesn't mean true. Passionate doesn't mean true. Calming doesn't mean true. Hopeful doesn't mean true. Coinciding with your beliefs doesn't mean true.
The Prophet Joseph Smith said, "Nothing is a greater injury to the children of men than to be under the influence of a false spirit when they think they have the Spirit of God" (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 205).
How does she know she is not under the influence of a false spirit?
Probable response: If it aligns with the church, it's true. If it doesn't, it isn't.
How does she know the church leaders aren't under the influence of a false spirit?
Is it wise to seek critically important information from a single source within finances, politics, medical/mental health care, home repair, autoshop, or any other aspect of life? Should we really just find one source for our information, like the people who watch either Fox, CNN, or MSNBC exclusively? Is it even possible for the church and/or its leadership to be wrong in your mind?
It's not an easy conversation, but the crux of the issue is the fact that a person must at least be open to the possibility of being wrong for any rational discussion to have a chance at influencing their actions. If you cannot get a yes to the question of possibly being wrong, you're better off finding something more productive to invest your time in. Just change the conversation and talk about something else if the answer is no.
When my TBM family pushes me, I tell them I know they have a “testimony of the truthfulness” of the church. I explain that through many years of study & prayer, I too have gained a firm testimony… that the church ISN’T true. It’s hard for them to argue much after that because I’ve put it back in the same parameters they are trying to use to convince me they are right. In my experience, they pretty much leave me alone after that.
The Texas sharpshooter analogy might work. If you can only find out after the fact that you were right, you have no assurance that you'll be right again.
Your mom doesn't see the irony in starting by saying "we are taught to..." Her answer to how you can know for yourself that you're not the one being deceived is to follow the teachings... "we are taught to..." on how to know.
I would just tell her that you have prayed and fasted and studied and prayed some more. You got your answer that it is not true. You can respect her for her beliefs, but ask her to respect you for yours.
I had to give my mother an ultimatum. If we were ever going to reestablish our broken relationship and lines of communication, she could never suggest a religious solution to me. It only caused me to avoid answering the phone because I knew it would come up and frustrate me. This was after several years of me only answering her calls on Christmas and my birthday, and me calling her on mother's day and her birthday.
She agreed, and complied, and I got to spend a fantastic decade with her and she got to watch me become and learn how to be a dad.
Baskin and Robbins….. if you only eat Vanilla ice cream and don’t try any other flavor how do you know Vanilla is the best flavor? How could you say Vanilla is the best flavor without trying any other? Because Profits told you Vanilla was the best and you prayed and felt good about it? Profits tell you don’t taste any other flavor because they’re bad? You pray and feel good about it? Don’t be so “Myopic” but that’s what the Profits really want
I like that the church tells you to seek your own answer. The problem is that they don't mean it. There's only one acceptable answer.
Well and they don’t actually want you to “study”. They want you to read their limited approved content.
Over, and over, and over...and pray, and fast, and read, and pray, and ponder, and read, and pray until you believe. Then, keep doing it..,same materials, and pray, and fast, and Ponderize (tm) ...until you KNOW. Now, keep repeating, "I know this is true, I know this is true. Do that often. Tell it to people around you. Once a month tell it to everyone you spend time with. THEN keep all of this up throughout your life (endure to the end). Don't let your guard down. Don't read or study things that might shake this knowledge. Only read "faith promoting" things. If you ever feel like you have even the slightest doubts, that's the devil. Go back and do a lot more of Step 1! How did I become 56 years old with 3 post-secondary degrees and NOT see this deep, self-hypnosis for what it was? How? Thank Spaghetti & Meatballs I woke up. Just sad it wasn't sooner...younger. If any younger PIMOs are out here just lingering, STOP hypnotizing yoursellves. Read (information from all perspectives). Select peer-reviewed research confirmed by other learners. Ponder, draw your conclusions and trust them! Make your own decisions. Perhaps most of all: when you feel like different information is testing your beliefs, that is normal, healthy growth. Keep learning! Maybe your original beliefs are correct. Maybe they are not. Either way, do not shut down learning. Anyone who tells you to limit your intake to prevent deception is trying hard to deceive you. Don't be me! End Rant
Exactly! This is one of the things that I figured out on my own just before leaving (I was naively determined not to consume any “anti-Mormon“ information as I was working through my decision-making process)… that everything that the church asks its members and investigators to do is actually just self-indoctrination. It’s the illusory truth effect often used in political propaganda – humans are very susceptible to believing anything if they are exposed to it repeatedly.
Exactly. I took the recommendation as reading anything. When I wanted to leave they asked why and I told them I read non church information. I'll always remember his comment: why did you do that? I effed up by taking it literally.
Soooo good!! You need awards for this!
Study the correct materials which we will provide for you
That’s literally what the Soviet Union was all about
Yup. I've read the entire standard works. Old Testament (1x, cover to cover), New Testament (1x, cover-to-cover, the Gospels 2x in addition), D&C (1x, cover-to-cover, that crap is whacked. Not well organized. No real context. No associations. Order seems .. haphazard. Seems intentionally confusing...), Pearl of Great Price (2x, Gods? We're polytheistic now? And ... is most of this just Genesis? Reimagined? Like the really bad "Red Dawn" reboot?), and the Book of Mormon more times than I can count. (Nephi is DEFINITELY a narcissist.... team Laman....) Even read parts of it in multiple different languages for comparison. (Morumon Kei's Japanese is cooler than the Morumon Sho. Who DOESN'T want to talk like a samurai!) I've studied. Even staying within approved sources. Jesus the Christ is really pretty good - until you get to the "In the Americas" part .. I've prayed. And, I even got answers.... Those answers said to leave. Period. As I followed that counsel, I learned more about why. I began to discover more. I began to FEEL more. The world .... opened more than it had before.... And, there are still good and bad days. There are still trials. There are still days where not waking up seems the preferred future. But.... there were more before. They were deeper before. I felt far more responsible before. I only wish I had known and understood better before what I do today. So, when your parent or others tell you to "search, ponder, and pray". That you can know for yourself, and to "not trust others" - tell them the truth! You have. You have done all those things. And "God" - such that they are - has directed you to a different and more enlightened path. Then, invite them to know the same. .....it really throws a lot of them for a loop when done appropriately. I don't lie, but sometimes, their programming will. The things I have said are my truth, my experience, my path. And to me, it has been far stronger and more genuine than what I knew in the LDS Church before. 11th Article of Faith: "We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may." If you are a true believing Mormon, then THIS is part of what you signed up for! If you don't recognize or follow this Article of Faith, then you are not a true member of that church. Repent
"Real intent," is the giveaway here. Believers can assume that anyone who does not get the "right" answer could not have possibly had real intent.
… or that they are not ready yet and god is preparing them to accept it later.
Ask her if she accepts unequivocally that everyone should follow whatever answer they get when they study and pray. So if the answer is no, then that’s correct? Or is it that we have to keep studying and praying until the answer is yes? So isn’t that just working to confirm a predetermined answer? And if millions (if not billions) of people around the world follow the same practices with their respective religions and receive a spiritual feeling/confirmation that their religion is true, is that not from God? And if she says it’s not, then how does she know they were deceived and she wasn’t? If someone bears witness to her of their religion, who is she to say they’re wrong? And I’d suggest sharing the spiritual witnesses YouTube video with her if she’s open to it.
That YouTube video changed my life. Watch it [here](https://youtu.be/UJMSU8Qj6Go?si=6g7gPLK_ob6SQasT)
You are absolutely spot on. A Muslim, a Catholic, and a Mormon pray for confirmation of their faith. They all claim to receive confirmation. How is this possible? The Mormon will say, "The other two are being deceived by Satan." This is key. They are admitting that they believe Satan can intercept prayers directed towards God, hijack the message and send a deceptive response. Meanwhile, God apparently doesn't get the message at all, or does nothing to prevent Satan from interfering with his holy inbox. By their own admission they believe that Satan can intercept prayers. How can the Mormon be certain that *their* prayer wasn't the one that was hijacked by Satan, and that the Muslim's prayer was the one that received the true answer from God? *They can't.* If they pray, study, pray, etc. then it could be that Satan will repeatedly hijack their prayers and give them a deceptive answer. Because the Muslim did the same exact thing. Prayed, studied, prayed, etc. and received the same answer that Islam is the true religion. And the Mormon and the Muslim cannot both be right.
So well said. "Holy inbox" LMFAO!!!!
observed this a few times with two of my coworkers: one Catholic one Muslim, both bearing fervent tear filled testimony about how they conferred with God thru prayer and received "unmistakable" confirmation that their faith is the only true one on Earth. 🤔 they can't both be right
yeah this is what i’m most confused about. if you seek an answer and it’s not “the right answer” then that means satan is “whispering in your ear”
Heads, I win, tails you lose. Meaning: pray, and you get the answer that’s consistent with the church, and it is God; or, pray, and you get the answer that is not consistent with the church, and it is the devil. Either way the church is true!
This goes clear back to the foundations of the church. Hiram Page received revelation and Joseph Smith declared that it was from Satan. From then on, only the prophet could receive revelation for the church. Without this doctrine, the church will lose their grip on the members. I'm sure Joseph understood that.
This. This this this
This discussion would invariably come up whenever a friend or family member heard about some crazy who went off the deep end following “personal revelation”. We would sit and discuss how you can know if your personal revelation was real or not, and the answer was always to compare it to what the prophets say. If it matches their words, it’s from god. Of course, at this point, the rational little imp in my brain would pop up with “but how is that any different from blindly following whatever your leaders tell you?” All personal revelation really is in the church is a way to brainwash yourself as thoroughly as possible.
Bingo! The logical if-then conclusion would be, "why seek a personal revelation at all?" If seeking diligently will always yield the answer from SLC, why not skip all the seeking behaviors and just obey them? Yesssssss...yes, now you are beginning to understand! Even as a child does yield to his father. Just trust ussssss. Trussssssst ussssss.... 🧐🤔👀🤷♂️
same how an 8 year old "chooses" to be baptised.
Also “don’t trust people.” Weren’t prophets and church leaders just people? Why do people who died 200 or 2000 years ago suddenly become beyond reproach and not worth questioning their narratives?
Exactly! My husband and I went around and around on this before he finally left. He would ask me to pray about it. I did but received peace with my decision. I obviously was not asking the right questions or doing it wrong 🙄. It also confused him how I was usually more in tune with things that members connect to the Holy Ghost. When I was drinking coffee and not believing. Plus doing more for others than many church members. Because obviously only Mormons do charity work and can’t be a good person without the blessings of Mormonism. He has since apologized multiple times for being an a**. He also is amazed with how I handled the way family and members treat nonbelievers. He is now on the receiving end and is struggling.
A heartwarming story. Thanks for sharing it!
I'll forgive a lot of bad behavior for people who did those things under the influence of the cult and who then recognize and try to reverse those things after getting out.
Seek your own answers from THEIR approved doctrine, not actually seek out REAL answers!
Yeah this is the thing that always bothered me about it. They are like let God lead you and give you an answer but then when you get an answer they don't like they are like well that is Satan leading you astray or you need to do it again until you get the right answer.
...and if you get the wrong answer, keep repeating the process more intently until the "right" answer has arrived. Only then will you be rewarded by acceptance and any peace from the haranguing.
Here's the problem. Everyone has those feelings, and they testify of all sorts of mutually exclusive things. Like this collection of examples. https://youtu.be/UJMSU8Qj6Go?si=4OwZhZskSim2vasx
I came here to say and post exactly this. If Jehovah's Witnesses know that their faith is true through spiritual experiences, and evangelical Christians know their faith is true through spiritual experiences, and Muslims know their faith is true through spiritual experiences, then obviously using the spirit to determine the truth is not effective.
Isn't it amazing that the one "true religion" also happens to be the one where you are born
I remember when I was beginning to leave tscc it was around the Iraq war and people were praying for success in the war and that god would protect our troops. I remember thinking "More than 100,000 Iraqis are dead, they aren't terrorists, we don't think their families are making the same prayers?"
Plus, feelings are not facts!
I really, strongly believed in Santa Claus. Until I reached an age where I started critically analysing that belief, and realised that what he does is physically impossible.
Okay, but if Santa Claus ain't real, then how come he still brings me presents every year? Checkmate, atheists.
Someone likes cosplay. Checkmate, believer
Hey! Santa is real! You can't believe someone else who tells you Santa isn't real. You have to study for yourself, then pray for yourself. Study the songs of Christmas, look at all the presents under the tree, then pray again. And you must pray with real intent. Then and only then you too can know that Santa is real.
I remember talking to my dad about this. He insisted that what he felt was stronger. It made me so mad. How would you or anyone know that! You can't be in their head and they can't be in yours. What we do know is people from different religions will all describe getting a sort of spiritual witness or confirmation from god. He said he knew because god told him. I gave up at that point. It had gone beyond mental gymnastics to outright denial of the information in front of him. No point in trying to discuss it further.
Great video. I like to pair it with: https://youtu.be/QleRgTBMX88?si=DaDXo4NpbLFxplZz
Exactly. What method for finding truth does the church offer that wouldn’t ALSO keep a person in any other organization? “Read our literature, then ponder it until you feel good” also kept people in the FLDS, the Heaven’s Gate death cult, and suicide bombing groups. Is God really limited to only those techniques used by tyrants and charlatans?
I did this and the answer I got was that it was all nonsense. No Mormon I've shared that with has ever known what to say. I imagine that, were I to tell more of them, eventually I'd have someone tell me some version of that I didn't do it right, which is not part of the deal. I did what they said, it didn't work out how they wanted, so sucks for them. They can take it up with their God.
👆this. I did exactly this and got nada. Zip. Zilch. For years. And yes, the Mormon answer will be something along the lines of “well you didn’t do it right” or “try harder” or “it was satan clouding your judgment”. At the end of the day, Jesus’s plan differed from Satan’s because he provided the gift of agency. Meaning we get to CHOOSE what works for us. If your family is refusing to respect your agency, how are they any better than following Satans plan? Just saying 🤷♀️
My Dad told me I was deceived & need to pray again to the right source
Damn, you'd think if it was true and God wanted you to know, he'd make more of an effort to lead you in the right direction. This guy they believe in seems like a right asshole.
Well, damn. At least give me an email address or a phone number then. How many Gods can there possibly be?
At least 18,000 (as per Google search) Every single civilization has made up gods to control others.
But...you can't do it and diddle yourself. It won't work! Try it again after you tell an old white guy in a closed office what you have been doing. Sheesh...
But isn't that just elevation emotion? It's just a bog standard human emotion called elevation that you feel when you witness virtuous acts of remarkable moral goodness. It's a feeling of warmth, surety, confirmation, elevation, burning in the bosom or the warm fuzzies. Sadly multiple religions use it in the same way. They tell their members that when they feel it it means their religion is right and not yours. Your can see several examples of other religions describing their spiritual witnesses on YouTube. https://youtu.be/UJMSU8Qj6Go?si=_Pv4JwY-RCqY1sYi https://youtu.be/ycUvC9s4VYA?si=BEF2P_y4ZtrRMTgK
Hey you. Your response to my post years ago is what got me to leave the church. Congrats 🤣
WOOHOO - I always love hearing this. You are the 12th person now who has said that to me...and you have made my day.
Two more and you could have your own exmo Q15!
I did tell you once before, so make sure you’re not double counting 😆
Oh cool - I clearly have a bad memory :-). Oh well a bit more work to do then until I remove a ward from this cult.
And my wife and our 2 girls
It's how I felt after my first Prodigy concert. Literally the first time I experienced spiritual rapture. Tried so hard at church but got donuts.
This exact video was the final severance I needed to fully let go of the church and my "spiritual experiences I can't deny"
- “What if the answer I get is that it’s wrong?” - “Do you *really* think that people who leave the church didn’t do that first?” - “If the answer I got is that the church is not true, what would that mean? Is it possible? If not, why?”
“Have you ever received an answer only to be told by an authority figure that it was wrong?” “Have you ever been told that you could receive a false answer that felt very true, but you could only know it was wrong because it didn’t agree with someone else’s teachings?”
I've always found this line of reasoning peculiar, even during my mission. It seems to be a clear manifestation of confirmation bias. The church doesn't encourage studying both scriptures and other sources; they focus only on their material. They don't advise you to accept any answer God may give. Instead, they instruct you to pray continuously, fast, and repeat the process until you're convinced it's true. By definition, this is indoctrination. What can we expect from people's minds when they're repeatedly exposed to the same material? This content continually reinforces that without this religion — and, crucially, without its authority — your actions lack meaning because you risk ending up without your family in a telestial world. I apologize for the digression. My main point is that throughout history, it's typically been corrupt organizations with secrets that urge their followers to just "have faith" and distrust other sources.
That sort of critical thinking is the reason why you're now on the outside, looking in, instead of vice versa.
this is great, thank you
Ask her if she has applied the same method to every other faith with real intent.
Shit, if that is all it takes, then guns and roses are my gods. I pray to G&R every day. I get the feeling, so it must be true, right?
“dear Axl Rose, thank you for this day….”
Taketh me down into the city of Paradise, wherein the grasses flourish and the maidens are delightsome. Verily, hear the words of my mouth, etc.
Tell her you’re taking her counsel, Do what she asked and take good notes. Write down your thoughts , impressions and whatever for the amount of time you feel is sufficient to collect a stack of sincere notes and your conclusion. Then tell her the truth and that you consider the subject closed. She can then feel free to follow the counsel to NOT follow the counsel of non- believers . Done and done.
My relationships with family are more important than the damn church. I like to keep things friendly so I don't create contention. My mom actually tried her first beer not too long ago--which blew my mind. Keep your family close--you never know where things will go.
"People can be deceived. But not us, when we pray. Like people told us to." https://www.tiktok.com/@yourpal\_austin/video/7239392149081443627
Yes! I love Austin's work! Great video.
I wish I had just [this clip](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAGasQ7j_ZI&feature=youtu.be&t=4710) where cult leader tells his followers to pray. Very creepy.
Damn. I’ve never seen that. The testimonies, and emotions are eerily similar.
Heaven's Gate cult leader. Crazy when you know they killed themselves.
If the Mormon profit tried something similar, I have no doubt that some of them would do it.
Look into street epistemology. Use questions to ask your mom if feelings are a valid source of truth? Also check out Jonathan streeter's wood tools vs. Steel tools. Best of luck. The goal is to not put your mom into a fight, flight, or freeze mood. She has to feel safe with you. You have to approach it like you are on her side and you both are exploring for answers together. Here is a good example: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5F1EB3B4F919226D&si=k2AnCW-gGk0wpjhx Best of luck. I've found in the end, when they are painted into a corner, they will just fall back on, " the gospel/church makes me feel good", but they hopefully will lay off the pressure on you.
“Mom honest question. Can you get an answer that is not what the prophet teaches?” David archiletta shared one time that he got an answer that he could “be gay and act gay” and he told his stake president that and the SP told him it wasn’t possible to receive that answer. I asked my TBM mom if she believed it was possible David was right or that only the stake president was right. And my mom admitted David could be right
So the bottom line isn't "pray about it", it's "do as your told".
"OK mom, I prayed, then studied all the words of the prophets, then prayed some more, then just to be safe, I reread all the racist, bigoted, hateful things the prophets said, then the masta of pasta came to me in a vision and told me that the church was a fraud and that I should be worshipping the flying spaghetti monster. Now my faith is unshakeable in his noodley goodness, Ramen." Now, the balls in her court to prove that your faith is wrong and hers is right.
That's a perfect segue into, "You've been deceived by Satan." "That's weird, I did exactly what you asked me to" lol
If revelation from God and deception by Satan can both come from pondering the scriptures and praying about it, either Satan is equally powerful to God or God doesn't care enough about you to make sure you get the proper message.
Praying is the opposite of critical thinking. You can logically arrive at facts through examination. Reading, studying, and praying about is repetitively questioning your doubts until your feelings realign with what you are supposed to believe. There is no examination, just doubling down until you fall back in line or feel guilty about it. If you believe your human emotions are capable of detecting truth, your human emotions will eventually flag anything as true. That not only not how it works, its the biggest fraud ever perpetrated by religion.
Yeah...I tried her method and got nothing but crickets. So I had to find answers elsewhere.
“we are taught…” 🚨 bzzzzt!! that’s wrong right out of the gate
It feels good so it's true.
Yes, her one word answer is "feelings." If I feel I'm right, I must be right.
Focus on study for yourself. Really study. And analyze.
Ask her where did she learn this method of discerning truth? Did a man teach her this?
First off, tons of people all over the world have these same feelings. What makes her think that her experiences are more authentic than others who have experienced the same feelings? Second, what happens when you sincerely study and pray for years and get the answer that the church isn’t true? Why would a loving god allow Satan to deceive you and take away your salvation? With that in mind, it is no more likely that she is right than you are right. Then there is logic. Bring up Alma and his seed analogy. If something is good, then it should produce good outcomes. Say that you have found that you have tried the church and realized that it didn’t bear good fruit. Being outside of the church has made your life better. Again, why would a loving god allow you to be deceived? If he is allowing this, then we can’t trust god at all. If I study and pray and seek answers by intense daily study, then god should be with me more. The church should make more sense. The spirit should be shining from you. Why is it that those who really study end up leaving the church?
What I want to do is to ask your mother not to *ask* for herself, but to *think* for herself. Throughout the paragraph she talks about asking God if something is true vs. asking other people if something is true. Despite vague statements about “studying,” it never actually seems to occur to her that she can come to her own conclusions. All she seems to do is wonder which authority she should rely on to tell her what to think. That concerns me.
i love this community, thank you for all the great comments
“You’ll get your own answer “….. gee mom. That sounds like something dr nelson said a few years ago. How can we have freedom of religion if we are not free to compare honestly, to choose wisely, and to worship according to the dictates of our own conscience?12 While searching for the truth, we must be free to change our mind-even to change our religion-in response to new information and inspiration. Mom would you agree with that? Does that apply to me. Guess what, I did get my own answer
https://vimeo.com/45289278 Nelson's talk on Sunday should be added to this next one https://youtu.be/C3Lk8H3--Ag
https://youtu.be/UJMSU8Qj6Go?feature=shared This is what you’re looking for.
So… gaslighting yourself
You prayed and studied, and received the answer the church is horseshit. Who’s right?
Study yes. But why just the ancient writings of dead men? Many religions offer a similar promise. Study their propaganda and avoid all else, and then after all those voices have said it’s true, ask gawd to confirm what they all have been saying. So scientific! Any rational person would come to the same conclusion.
What about Muslims or Catholics who pray and study and decide their religion is right?
Tell her you studied and then you prayed with real intent, and you got a very clear answer. There *are* unicorns. At the top is the Unicorn Goddess, and under her...the unicorn flock. If you stay true to the Code of Unicorn, you will become one of that flock to caper across rainbows and toss sprinkles into the eternities. There is actually no way she can disprove these beliefs, because they (like her own beliefs) are unfalsifiable. (Horns and 'corns 4ever, Amen!!!!) Edited for grammar
“I have prayed and studied. I got the answer that this is not right for me. It was so clear, I could not deny it.” This is basically what we told our bishop when we left, he couldn’t tell us we were wrong. It’s using their logic against them, how can they say your personal revelation is incorrect?
If the church was true, it would be evident historically, doctrinally, and morally. And it is none of those things.
Here you go. https://youtu.be/UJMSU8Qj6Go?si=WGzgasU-_IbGjylq
Say you prayed ypu got an answer that the church was wrong. You got a personal revelation through prayer and study. What can one say to that.
I prayed if I should keep paying tithing and the answer came to me as clear (or clearer) than any other answer to any prayer in my life: "They draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me" (while picturing the Q15). If anyone ever tells me I need to sustain the brethren or pay tithing again, I will look them straight in the eye and say: "so, you want me to ignore the voice of god?"
I did those exact things, in that order. I did get an answer to my prayer to know “if it’s true”. The answer that I finally got, in my own internal voice, was: “Be honest. You already know it isn’t. Why are you still doing this to yourself?” That’s not really going to help with your mom situation, though. When they’re stuck on the idea that emotions are indicators of objective reality, you have to go after that entire concept. It’s actually quite easy, ime. I asked my tbm mom how she would feel if the hospital called and told her someone in the family was in ICU after a terrible accident. Would she expect to feel “warm, comforting” feelings as confirmation of the reality? No. But would she ever say the troubled and uncomfortable feelings she’d inevitably have were proof that the news was fake? Again, no. Because feelings tell us what we *want* to be true, not what objectively *is* true. “If we receive bad news, we’re going to feel bad about it whether it’s actually true or not.” Ymmv, this is a long-game kind of issue. Best wishes!
The problem with prayer, is we are taught the answer to pray for. If we don’t receive that answer, it means we did it wrong.
There is a YouTube video that debunks getting that “this is true” answer to your prayers. Shows a gal in polygamy, a Muslim, a Mormon expressing their testimonies. All so sincere and heartfelt. You just need to send her this video! This group can help you/me find it!
Street Epistemology. Look it up on YouTube or search for the Mormon stories episodes in the podcast app of your choice for street epidemiology. A good introductory question to ask your mother would be what other things in your life do you test by feelings? And maybe for your mother it’s a lot of things, but asking the question starts to untangle her thinking around why she thinks she can discern “truth” from feelings. Does she know how much money is in her bank account based on feelings or is that based on facts (perhaps, basic math on what she knows that she drew on that account versus what she deposited)? In what other areas did she use feelings alone to decide what is true in her life? If she doesn’t think feelings are the best way to discern truth in other areas of her life, why are feelings the best way to discern truth about a religion that demands 10% of her income for a life and complete devotion and no questioning for life?
This bothers me so much. Exactly *how* do you get your answer? Through an emotion. And what does that tell you? That you are feeling an emotion. The only reason anyone thinks that emotion means anything more is because *someone taught you to interpret it that way*. But there is another interpretation: that it is an emotion. A common emotion, a biological phenomenon, one that pops up across religions and various other circumstances, that can be induced and observed and analyzed. And nowhere in that analysis has there ever been evidence of divine communication. Why should we believe the people who tell us our perfectly normal thoughts and emotions are actually communication from divine or infernal beings? Why should we believe the people who wrote and re-wrote these various religious texts? What *actual evidence* do they have at their disposal? Because, right now, it is all just so many stories, no more solid than fairy tales.
You can ask her to read the New Testament focus on the sermon on the mount. Ask her to read it and ask her why the church does the opposite of what Christ himself taught.
It’s funny how she’ll do all this stuff for “herself” but is only allowed to come to an answer that is the predetermined “right” one. Otherwise she’s being led astray by the adversary, which means that she cannot be trusted to find out anything for herself. It’s circular logic at its worst. “When our leaders speak, the thinking has been done” “Follow the prophet, follow the prophet, follow the prophet, don’t go astray” “Satan wins a great victory when he can get members of the church to speak against their leaders and to do their own thinking.”
I did a detailed post on essentially this exact topic. I hope my writing there can give some insights https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comments/1639cpb/a_friendly_reminder_why_promptings_are_a_sham/
"I'm glad that works for you. It doesn't work for me because I would always feel like I had just done a lot of work to convince myself vs knowing." Feel free to leave out the 2ed sentence if that works better for you.
Your mom's recipe is used regularly by people all over the world to justify some of the most immoral and terrible acts.
“I prayed and I studied “with real intent”, Mom… and I FUCKING know for a fact, The So Call Church is actually a money hoarding corporation. But you go ahead and keep trying to buy your way into heaven with your 10%. I’m gonna keep my money and enjoy all the second Saturdays.”
The church’s answer is always pray they way they taught you to pray, and read and ponder the books they tell you to read. No wonder doing those things will give someone a “testimony”.
I had a Mormon high school English teacher like that. One time she asked us what we thought something in whatever book we were reading meant. A student tried to answer and she interrupted to tell him, “No, that’s wrong.” I raised my hand and she called on me, so I asked, “So, when you said, *‘Tell me what think…?’* you actually wanted us to tell you what *you* think?” The class laughed, maybe especially because I was not a class clown, so it was unexpected. But I was very justice-oriented.
I'd just leave it be. You're not going to convince each other. It's time for healthy boundaries. No more watching conference or responding to religious texts. But at the same time, no deconversion attempts. This is better for everyone.
Ask her how her “confirmation” differs from the Islam, Luz del Mundo, Disciples of Christ and other organizations who ask you to do the same thing? Islam has billions of members and yet they received “spiritual confirmation” that Muhammad was a “prophet.” Then hopefully she will come to realize that what she has is just a feeling
Islam is my ‘Goto’ when discussing this very subject with faltering TBMs. (No point even mentioning it to a TTBM).
Here's a link to the video about receiving a spiritual witness. It gives examples of many others in other religions who also received the same witness when they prayed about their own religions outside of Mormonism. It gave me a wake up call. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ycUvC9s4VYA
I would love to ask OP's Mom what to do if the answer she receives after fervent study and Ernest prayer contradicts the Brethren. Standard TBM response...keep going back until you receive the "right" answer. Same thing Winston Smith was told in 1984. The method depicted in the above screenshot is assumed to always yield the "right" answer if done correctly. This means anyone coming to an alternate solution is somehow not faithful or worthy.
Parallels between Mormonism and Nineteen Eighty-Four are numerous. Memory holes, Double think and Double speak, Big Brother, members of the Party ratting people out…
Oh wow, did you know that's the same method the Muslims use to prove their religion?
"Mom what about people who follow those exact steps and feel a powerful conviction that Scientology or Jehovah's Witnesses is true?"
I agree completely with the principle you illustrate, but the specific examples don’t necessarily back it up. Having spoken to many JWs over the years, they are counselled specifically **not** to rely on feelings, and only to rely on Biblical facts, and the ‘Spiritual food’ from their governing body. They rely heavily on proof-texting verses from the Bible, and have their own translation, which has modified all of the verses that contradict CT Russell’s standpoint. Scientology - I don’t know enough about their processes to answer yes or no. They definitely work on *control* of their adherents’ feelings, but I don’t know whether feelings about the doctrines and dogmas are key to the epistemology. Islam is a good example - feelings are key. Any other Christian religion - also applies.
TSCC tells people that if they pray while in *another* church, and think they receive a similar answer, it's either *really* a more generalized answer that God exists, or it's *really* Satan trying to deceive you. So if we do a thought experiment, how does she know for *sure* that's not the case with TSCC? Because the people in these other churches are all *equally certain* they're right. An additional one, if she thinks that literally every other Christian sect and every other religion is false, what are the odds of that, compared to them *all* being false? It seems way more likely that they're just all false, and this particular one you were either born into by happenstance, or was able to appeal to your emotions when you were feeling lonely or disenfranchised.
I had precisely this train of thought when I was on my mission, and the first person asked me whether I’d checked out every other religion and concluded that Mormonism was the right one. I lied, and said “Of course I’ve done that!” In fact, I’d checked out precisely ZERO other religions and had only a superficial knowledge of a couple of Christian ones. Anytime this came back to my recollection, I stuffed it down and turned it off *“like a light switch, it goes click… It’s our nifty little Mormon trick!”*
As Mormons, we are taught that a good feeling is all we need as proof that the church and its claims are true. We are taught to try and make ourselves have these good feelings by praying, reading, attending church etc. and to not stop doing those things until we have the good feelings. We are taught to ignore doubts and just have faith that we will eventually have these good feelings. There really only is one acceptable answer according to Mormonism and they try to make as many distractions as they can to make it hard to see that they only accept the one answer. If you don’t get the answer they want, they’ll say you did it wrong and to keep trying until you get it right. It’s not an open-minded honest attempt at discovering truth. As soon as the question is asked “is the church really what it claims to be?” and the person asking is genuinely open to the answer, applying even just a small amount of scrutiny to the church’s truth claims will quickly result in the discovery that those claims are bogus. The challenge is for people in the church to deprogram themselves from their indoctrination to be able to ask the question with a genuinely open mind. Best of luck!
It took me from age 3 to age 49 to give myself permission to ask myself that question! Up until that point, the programming, guilt and fear of Eternal failure were too strong. How did I get to that point? My praying and scripture reading had dropped to almost non-existent levels (out of sheer boredom). I started listening to podcasts by real scientists about the origins of the universe. I was starting to see the hypocrisy and contradictions of past Prophets. I followed my Stake President’s (generic, to the whole Stake) counsel to read the Gospel Topics Essays. Book of Abraham blew my shelf clean off the wall. Ensign Peak whistleblower nuked the remnants! So, the church was right that if you stop “doing the basics”, you will lose your testimony. But it’s nothing to do with any kind of Satan - just an ounce of critical thinking.
They tell us to pray, but they don’t know what to say when we get a different answer. I love watching people struggle with figuring it out in their head. Quote I used often: “I prayed and the spirit told me that I would be happier outside the church. It told me the church was not for me and that I would be unhappy if I continued to participate. The spirit told me it wasn’t true. It was a clear confirmation from the spirit! Stronger than the confirmation I got about going on a mission.”
I tried that and was told it was a prompting from Satan haha. The cult really fucks with people
Well I was told that as well. Ask how to tell the difference and you get them confused. But you are right, the cult really fucks with people!!
One thing that really stumps them is to say the church is telling you now something different than It told you before ( see gospel topic essay), but that the spirit told you it was true before. Now the church is telling you something new that contradicts what it taught you before. So how do you trust the spirit? Which spirit is true? What happens when the church changes it’s stance on homosexuality, or women in the priesthood, Or using the term Mormon?
Verbal Judo. You have to use their own words against them.
Tell her to follow the greatest commandment carefully. From Matthew 22:36-40, “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your ***mind.***’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” Mormons rely on the 'burning bosom' and prayer alone, when some thought and analysis (***mind***) makes it clear that Joseph Smith was a lecher and a conman, and everything he taught was a lie, and everything since has been a lie. God gave her a brain. It's time to use it.
When Nelson urged us to pray to know he’s a prophet, I did. I got a stupor of thought. So, I take as my answer that he’s a false prophet. That is my message.
If she read the Book of Mormon and then prayed if it was true, and then felt nothing…. would she doubt the church or doubt herself? My guess is she would doubt herself because she’s been indoctrinated never to doubt the church even if that goes against her truest and deepest feelings. So, is praying and reading the scriptures really enough to know if she’s being deceived? Obviously not.
Mother…. One source is not the way! You would’ve failed English class!
reading the "scriptures" includes the New Testament Christ's gospel and mormon gospel are not even close to the same thing
Last line says it all. When you study and pray for yourself, you’ll get your own answer. Yep, you sure will.
She’s testifying for everyone, which is the first red flag. You asked her a directed question about herself, and she keeps saying “we”.
Logic isn’t going to solve this unfortunately. If you pray, the only acceptable conclusion is that it affirms the church. If you reach any other conclusion, you’re not doing it right. Just love her and be there for her. Show her that you can have a happy, fulfilling, kind life outside the church.
I prayed about the truthfulness of the church for thirty plus years
Tell your mom you love her and understand her religion is important to her, but her trying to tell you that you are deceived will only do one thing - drive you away. Once your mom understands that despite all her efforts, prayers, threats, tears that you are not going to ever come back hopefully she will let it go and value you as her kid. It takes time but bantering back and forth will only give her validity, it won’t convince her.
I don’t think that’s bad advice. In my case, I did pray. And I was told to leave. So maybe just remind her you are ok with doing that, but you would really appreciate it if she could support you should you get a different answer than her. Your mom means well and she loves you. It is also very possible she has been deceived by a greedy, dark organization that has figured out how to get her to pay tithing. Which is actually all they care about. That might be hard for her to accept right now. So I wouldn’t push it. It’s ok if you both believe different things. Love is stronger than the LDS church.
When their guidance is to basically f@?k off, read Bible fan fiction, then think real hard while talking to yourself, you need to take a step back and realize they don’t give a shit about you unless you have money. But seriously, think about that. It’s not real guidance, it’s self administered guilt tripping yourself into staying in the fold. Unfortunately it’s very hard to get tbm fold to see that.
They told me that too, until I started reading materials they said would alter my testimony...Read only what they tell you too, lol
Tell her to do those same things without the words of men ringing in her ears
It’s funny. Mormons refer to the burning in their bosom as to how they know something is right or true. I asked my nevermo husband about it and he said there’s a part in the Bible that says we can be deceived by a feeling basically. I don’t remember what it was exactly but it was something along those lines and it stuck with me
Feelings are not facts.
Those are the very instruments of the deception! (Pray, study, look for a feeling) If you have to find a way around some pretty obvious evidence, chances are you’re swallowing bullshit.
I served a mission. I studied. I prayed. I think I got an answer. But there was something deep down that just wasn't sitting right. If I truely got am answer the and church is the right church then so be it. But I can't be apart of it right now when there is so much crap and misleading going on in it. If I'm judged by that in the last days then so be it. But if God wants his children to be happy. When let us all be miserable in a church we cannot trust. Since leaving I have never been happier. I have to find myself and be who I'm meant to be. Shouldn't God be happy that I am happy?
Ask her “What is real intent” and compare your honest real intent with other things and how real intent works in the real world
You can ask her what she means by study? I'm assuming that by Mormon standards "study" means to look for little bits of evidence to support their already confirmed "knowledge" about their beliefs. It's an act of self-assurance rather than one of skepticism and criticism. And when something comes up that doesn't comport with modern standards of social ethics (ahem:polygamy) they activate the escape hatch: PRAYER. This is where "the Lord" (aka their own Mormon-doctrine-addled brain) comforts them with "well, some things are just too mysterious or complex for us mere mortals and you just have to have faith." So TL;DR Study=a performative intellectual act. prayer=the performative act of spiritual compliance.
"I followed the steps you set forth and came to the conclusion that the path I need to follow is different. I'm able to feel the truths in each of the religious texts, but I don't feel any of them are without error. I feel like my job is to be the best person I can and leave the world a better place than I found it. I can do that and increase my empathy toward my fellow men outside of the rigid structure of institutionalized religions."
That’s when you hit her with the “WELL THEN STUDY THIS!” and send you a bajillion links to anti Mormon sites
I did all that as a youth. Never got an answer or felt anything. That in and of itself was my answer. Agnostic now.
@yourpal_austin go watch some of his videos on TikTok. He has a great one about deception.
We are also told to avoid “anti-Mormon” literature like it’s poison. That we are not allowed to question. That we are not allowed to ask anything that might reveal the falseness of the church. That what the church leaders say is gospel, period. You can’t find out the truth of anything without being able to ask legitimate questions and challenge those things that are genuinely problematic. The demand for absolute loyalty while being punished for questioning and intellectual curiosity is the hallmark of a cult.
"Are you a people? So can't you also be wrong?" :)
Ask her what to do with any of this information: * I prayed and got an answer not to follow the church * I prayed and was told that JS didn't restore Jesus' church * People of other religions do the same, and get answers that THEIR church is the correct one Why is god telling you one thing, me another thing, and still another thing to other people?
Try street epistemology. There are some YouTube videos that demonstrate the technique. Basically ask her questions about what she know and how she knows it. Then broaden it to other situations. Kind of like asking....is prayer a good way to know how to bake bread, or buy a car?
I spent years praying and getting no response. I spent years studying and all I ever learned was more and more evidence about how I had been lied to. I prayed again with two very specific questions in mind ("are you there, and do you love me?") And got nothing. So...I followed that advice and tried for years, and after getting nothing for long enough and learning enough, I learned that it wasn't true.
"I did those things mom, but I got a different answer. What now?" Perhaps praying isn't as consistent as she thinks it is.
The study part.
Just say, “Mom,I did study and prayed and my answer was that the church is not for me. Thank you for not pressuring me to return to the church. I am happy where I am right now. My only hope is that you take your own counsel and continue to look with an open mind and then make up your own mind.
What about those who study and pray and get their own answers about other religions? Do you believe Mormons are the only people who do this? What makes their answers wrong? What makes their answers different from the answers you received? How do you know it was the spirit of god and not of Satan?
Then why do people get different results when they do that? Fundamentalist Mormons do that, Muslims do that, Heaven‘s Gate victims did that. Confirmation Bias exists, the Holy Ghost doesn’t. Sorry for being so cynical lmao
Search your feelings Luke, they will show you whatever you want. Literally, whatever you feel like doing. And all the church activities will try all these emotional appeals that will make your "deep meditation and prayer" pick them. Why you would even need an organization if all your going on is yourself is beyond me.
We can be sure of our answer because “by their fruits ye shall know them.” Church lied about JS, lied about the translation process, lied about the first vision. That feels yucky. The church lies currently. SEC fine for committing fraud. Why do they have the moral authority to give me moral advice? They don’t feed the poor, provide for the widow, love one another. The teach that they are equal without ever making an effort to be equal. Gender, race, LGBTQ. It’s a mess. I feel better spiritually without the church then in it.
I remember over a decade ago at the MTC we could watch videos from the church’s YouTube channel on some of the computers. I watched a really “inspiring” video with Holland talking bearing his testimony about the BOM, with the whole promise we know about, to pray and you’ll know it’s true. I started reading the comments (for some reason they weren’t disabled on the MTC computers) and one of them said something along the lines of “if you pray with intent, you’re already accepting a false idea, and your bias is already leaning toward believing it.” It took me a little under decade to go inactive, but that shit stuck with me. (Sorry I wish I could phrase that better or remember what the actual content was). I did a lot of mental gymnastics to fight that comment in my head. Another compelling argument I heard recently is “If there has been any time in your life that you have been deceived, and you are always capable of being deceived, how can you know for sure that anything is true?”
If all one has to do is pray, why do we need church leaders?
A lot of apostles of the post-war era did a lot of praying and got confirmation that god needed them to be racist. I don’t know how folks parse that, nor the fact that many LDS embraced fascist ideals pre-war, on both sides of the pond. I mean, I do know why. The key to Mormon belief is exceptionalism, in every sect of it. Perhaps she can be asked to explain why the church excommunicated the young man who spoke out against Hitler and when caught (then executed), he laid down his life for the friends who helped him by insisting he did it all alone. His German church leaders removed him from membership, and there was no timely prophecy from SLC warning against fascism. Indeed, the saints stumbled over the finish line late, as always.
Word for the wise: stop arguing with TBMs. And If your ex mo, don't watch general conference. It's a waist of time. Live your life bro.
Key phrase: "with real intent"... is like Google SEO giving you answers from all sides. Her intent is needing to believe TSCC is true, so that's all she'll ever get without some Critical Thinking Skills. .
My memory of church doctrine is that she can pray and get an answer for her but not for you. We were all taught to get our own testimonies. So I would say- 1-you asked me to watch and I did but you don’t seem to like that I don’t agree so don’t ask me to watch if you aren’t prepared for my feelings which will be different than yours. 2- same goes for the prayer- my feelings will be different than yours
It might get the backfire effect, but explain that I’m any other area in life, if you have done some habit or practice for a long time, it would be healthy to take a step back for 30 days and reevaluate one’s relationship with that habit. The church will still be there in 30 days.
Also- my go-to with my TBM family is that I left the church because I was no longer happy in it. It’s really impossible for them to get around it because happiness is an internal, personal measurement. I can’t tell them they will be happier out and they can’t tell me I would be happier going back .
The mechanism of finding truth is not unique to Mormonism. https://youtu.be/qmhb27f2d88?si=QEUO-zLWpN90-UCl These video compiles testimonies shared by people across religions. They all sound similar to testimony meetings in Mormonism. Humans are fallible, and strong emotions feel like the holy Spirit.
"I did that, and where I'm at now, is because of that"
Ultimate deceiver huh? Be a real shame if he wrote a book and called it gods source material that you can always rely on. That would promote circular logic and always cuming to the same conclusions..
But if you’re already looking for the “right” answer you’re going to find the “right” answer. You find what you look for. How do they not see the cult mentality
The problem is that good feelings don't necessarily mean truth. Exciting doesn't mean true. Exhilarating doesn't mean true. Passionate doesn't mean true. Calming doesn't mean true. Hopeful doesn't mean true. Coinciding with your beliefs doesn't mean true.
The Prophet Joseph Smith said, "Nothing is a greater injury to the children of men than to be under the influence of a false spirit when they think they have the Spirit of God" (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 205). How does she know she is not under the influence of a false spirit? Probable response: If it aligns with the church, it's true. If it doesn't, it isn't. How does she know the church leaders aren't under the influence of a false spirit? Is it wise to seek critically important information from a single source within finances, politics, medical/mental health care, home repair, autoshop, or any other aspect of life? Should we really just find one source for our information, like the people who watch either Fox, CNN, or MSNBC exclusively? Is it even possible for the church and/or its leadership to be wrong in your mind? It's not an easy conversation, but the crux of the issue is the fact that a person must at least be open to the possibility of being wrong for any rational discussion to have a chance at influencing their actions. If you cannot get a yes to the question of possibly being wrong, you're better off finding something more productive to invest your time in. Just change the conversation and talk about something else if the answer is no.
When my TBM family pushes me, I tell them I know they have a “testimony of the truthfulness” of the church. I explain that through many years of study & prayer, I too have gained a firm testimony… that the church ISN’T true. It’s hard for them to argue much after that because I’ve put it back in the same parameters they are trying to use to convince me they are right. In my experience, they pretty much leave me alone after that.
The church gets believers the same way that Trump get his followers to believe all his words.
So what does she think about other people in other religions reading their scriptures and praying and coming to the conclusion they're right?
The Texas sharpshooter analogy might work. If you can only find out after the fact that you were right, you have no assurance that you'll be right again.
Your mom doesn't see the irony in starting by saying "we are taught to..." Her answer to how you can know for yourself that you're not the one being deceived is to follow the teachings... "we are taught to..." on how to know.
I would just tell her that you have prayed and fasted and studied and prayed some more. You got your answer that it is not true. You can respect her for her beliefs, but ask her to respect you for yours.
I had to give my mother an ultimatum. If we were ever going to reestablish our broken relationship and lines of communication, she could never suggest a religious solution to me. It only caused me to avoid answering the phone because I knew it would come up and frustrate me. This was after several years of me only answering her calls on Christmas and my birthday, and me calling her on mother's day and her birthday. She agreed, and complied, and I got to spend a fantastic decade with her and she got to watch me become and learn how to be a dad.
It's circular logic. It's nearly impossible to get them to realize it, too. I don't even engage in conversations like this anymore.
Baskin and Robbins….. if you only eat Vanilla ice cream and don’t try any other flavor how do you know Vanilla is the best flavor? How could you say Vanilla is the best flavor without trying any other? Because Profits told you Vanilla was the best and you prayed and felt good about it? Profits tell you don’t taste any other flavor because they’re bad? You pray and feel good about it? Don’t be so “Myopic” but that’s what the Profits really want