Most personally convincing reasons you don't believe.

[emjay]

Trying to get back into the thread now, I agree with that but you come from a very different perspective... well almost very different. I'm like you are for every other religion other than Christianity... can just dismiss it out of hand as a bunch of silly, made-up characters... but since I have a background in Christianity I can't do that here so much, though I wish I could, believe me. If I hadn't grown up with it I'm pretty sure I'd see it just as you do, and just as I do about other religions, but as it stands it's too deeply entrenched to be able to treat it like that, and needs something more. Tbh I think it probably needs a psychological intervention - somehow - to defeat rather than reason alone. The question of how to unlearn something... the brain moves forward so (imo) when you forget something, you only forget how to trigger it, not the actual thing... so it's still laying there dormant even if you no longer think about it.

I totally understand that. I was lucky to not get programmed into a religion, but I did get programmed in other ways that still affect me today. Even though I know those thoughts I have are irrational and unfounded, I can't simply dismiss them. It takes regular challenging of those thoughts. I find writing it down helps a lot, and then writing what the evidence is for and against that thought. It's when it's bouncing around in my head unchallenged that it gains the most momentum.

Maybe some sort of cognitive behaviour therapy would help with thoughts that are still troubling you, it did wonders for me.

Cool, thanks for the advice Rob   Do you find it sticks... emotionally I mean... when you do the pros and cons? Cos I think you've gotta fight emotion with emotion in this sort of thing. I found out relatively recently, just by accident really, that it was possible to turn a intellectual argument into an emotional one because on their own they don't have much emotional pull. What I did was, for want of a better word, meditated on different aspects of these ideas by just keeping them in my mind and imagining them repeatedly but very loosely... just essentially glancing at these small ideas every now and then seemed to build them up into strong emotional beliefs.

[robvalue]

You're welcome

For me, it works very well. It feels like I've been fighting a monster in my head, and by writing it all down I'm able to walk round the side of it and I see it's actually a flap of paper with no substance. So I'd say it's worth a try, but it may well be that it will take something different for you.

That's a very interesting technique you're using! Maybe a combination of both will slay the beast.

[vorlon13]

And a corollary (that I feel is applicable universally);

I've pretty much always known Mormonism is a big heaping steaming pile of total shit, but until I encountered the Tanner's book, "The Changing World of Mormonism", I had no idea how absolutely thoroughly and completely Mormonism had been debunked by the Mormons themselves, especially in regards to their bizarre  compulsion to record and PUBLISH all their contrivances and machinations as they've hammered, tweaked, rewritten, re-revelated, revised, and changed ALL their dogma.

All religions follow the same play book (since they are all administered by human beings) and having the relatively recent LDS cluster fuck so copiously documented, it provides a wonderful insight as to how the sausage is and was made in all the faiths.

Contradictions in the Bible, (and whatever version of the bible each faith ascribes to) are just more of the same inveigling we have literally unendingly documented in the Mormon sphere.


As for the early resistance Mormonism felt from (mostly) other Christian faiths, I'm thinking those other faiths should have tried harder to rid the world of Mormonism since ultimately, Mormonism indicted them all by spilling the beans on how they've all played the religion game.

I didn't know anything about Mormonism until I came here and met you, but it gets more and more interesting with every post you make   I guess it provides them with a sense of legitimacy and tradition to record every change they make... kind of like the Civil Service who - according to Yes Minister - love their red tape and find it gives them meaning   I'd love to read about that though... the Mormon handbook to how to make up a religion as you go along   I guess Catholicism is kind of similar in that regard, but perhaps to a lesser extent?

How many records do the catholics have from 1500 to 2000 years ago ??

They might have been even worse than the Mormons for changing shit, although, just being similar is all I'm claiming. Realizing at least in the early phases, all the religions make it up as they go along.  Another example; even the Lutherans don't have a problem backing off on stuff Luther himself imposed upon them, and the current day Lutherans feel no compulsion to put an asterisk on their signage and some small print at the bottom regardless of what they change.

And the hysterically funny thing about the Mormons publishing all their changes has been their insistence all along nothing has changed at all.  A Mormon can look at the word 'up' originally revealed by Joe Smith and published contemporaneously, and is now in 2016 published Mormon revered dogma as 'down' and all the good Mormons will comment on how amazingly accurate the current version is.

It's the same play book for all of them.  And God bless the Mormons for leaving the play book out where we could find it.

[emjay]

You're welcome

For me, it works very well. It feels like I've been fighting a monster in my head, and by writing it all down I'm able to walk round the side of it and I see it's actually a flap of paper with no substance. So I'd say it's worth a try, but it may well be that it will take something different for you.

That's a very interesting technique you're using! Maybe a combination of both will slay the beast.

I love the metaphor you're using of fighting a monster and walking around it. I'm starting to wonder if that itself might also be another way to attack the beast. Metaphor is after all emotional and to give something an identity like that, not to mention the power of imagination, might really help. For instance I read a thread the other day with a conversation between God, JC, and Casper... and that was powerful not only in terms of the arguments it put forward in their dialogue but also in terms of the imagery. So perhaps where there's this monster to slay for you, my monster as it were, could be the imagination of these three characters in that form... try and associate that, as a metaphor, with the belief system I'm trying to fight. So I think that's three methods of attack we've got between us now 

[emjay]

I didn't know anything about Mormonism until I came here and met you, but it gets more and more interesting with every post you make   I guess it provides them with a sense of legitimacy and tradition to record every change they make... kind of like the Civil Service who - according to Yes Minister - love their red tape and find it gives them meaning   I'd love to read about that though... the Mormon handbook to how to make up a religion as you go along   I guess Catholicism is kind of similar in that regard, but perhaps to a lesser extent?

How many records do the catholics have from 1500 to 2000 years ago ??

They might have been even worse than the Mormons for changing shit, although, just being similar is all I'm claiming. Realizing at least in the early phases, all the religions make it up as they go along.  Another example; even the Lutherans don't have a problem backing off on stuff Luther himself imposed upon them, and the current day Lutherans feel no compulsion to put an asterisk on their signage and some small print at the bottom regardless of what they change.

And the hysterically funny thing about the Mormons publishing all their changes has been their insistence all along nothing has changed at all.  A Mormon can look at the word 'up' originally revealed by Joe Smith and published contemporaneously, and is now in 2016 published Mormon revered dogma as 'down' and all the good Mormons will comment on how amazingly accurate the current version is.

It's the same play book for all of them.  And God bless the Mormons for leaving the play book out where we could find it.

To be honest it really scares me when people do stuff like that... argue the truth of one thing when its contradiction is right there in front of them essentially on the same page. It doesn't even seem like ignorance but rather a wilful act of stubborn defiance... like saying 'I know it's there but I will never admit it'. It just freaks me out.

[robvalue]

That sounds great!

Yes you're right, metaphor can be a very powerful technique. It sounds like you're onto something there!

[emjay]

That sounds great!

Yes you're right, metaphor can be a very powerful technique. It sounds like you're onto something there!

No no... we're onto something   You've been doing it all along remember 

[Gemini]

To be honest it really scares me when people do stuff like that... argue the truth of one thing when its contradiction is right there in front of them essentially on the same page. It doesn't even seem like ignorance but rather a wilful act of stubborn defiance... like saying 'I know it's there but I will never admit it'. It just freaks me out.

It is frightening. It's watching someone turn their own intelligence against itself.

[emjay]

To be honest it really scares me when people do stuff like that... argue the truth of one thing when its contradiction is right there in front of them essentially on the same page. It doesn't even seem like ignorance but rather a wilful act of stubborn defiance... like saying 'I know it's there but I will never admit it'. It just freaks me out.

It is frightening. It's watching someone turn their own intelligence against itself.

Yeah, it just seems like there's no way it could be ignorance because no-one could be that blind. It has to be wilful, so it's scary as fuck.

[Gemini]

Yeah, it just seems like there's no way it could be ignorance because no-one could be that blind. It has to be wilful, so it's scary as fuck.

I think it's similar to the way people can willfully de-humanize other humans, based on their race, sex, beliefs, etc. If you can deny the undeniable humanity of another person, you can deny any number of inconvenient contradictions in your creed.