NOM

I agree with Reuben - it really depends on both what your friendship can take and what you're looking to do with a conversation. Right now if I had a conversation with an apologist or if say my TBM in-laws were to ask why I dislike the church, I would immediately go to the Book of Abraham, Deutero-I...

The point is that she told me JS never had sex with the 14 year olds so it's pure. Does she acknowledge though that even if Joseph didn't have sex with these young girls, it was definitely not "pure"? He was married to Emma and approached young teens and asked them to become another one of his plur...

What about the church's history of covering up the activities of sexual predators in leadership positions? Maybe discuss with item 22 but I think the current event situation goes beyond history. The church has been paying off victims and covering up crimes of local and general leadership for a long...

There's a good Mormon Discussions podcast on faith promoting stories that covers this one - if anyone wants to listen to it, you can find it at https://mormondiscussionpodcast.org/2017/11/premium-heritage-fabricated-faith-promoting-stories/ It goes over a lot of the more common faith promoting stori...

They literally ignore it... you have to. I was walking the dog with my wife last night and we were talking about the differences in age between people in relationships. I was telling her about a neighbor growing up who was 18 and was dating a 14 year old and she told me how disgusting it was. I ment...

I joined the church as a teen and I can't put into words my shock when they told me during the temple prep classes about garments. No one bothered to tell me we had to wear them. I can't possibly state how much I hated wearing them. They were uncomfortable, hot, and downright ugly. I stopped wearing...

So sorry to hear this and that your nephew has to wonder what could've been had someone listened to him. Just a horrible situation and I can't even imagine what the family of the child is going through.

I haven’t had the chance yet to visit the site or read them through. I saw on Reddit though that you’re still planning on having it hosted somewhere else. I have an unlimited hosting plan with name.com already, I’d be happy to host it there if you’re interested. That might work - I'll let you know ...

I'm so sorry - that is one of the most damaging parts of the church. I think all of us on here w/ kids think about this a lot, and I'm sorry for you it is coming up now. I think I'd resign, too, although I know that is easier said than done. I hope that if you do it, it helps to bring some closure f...

One thing I've heard mentioned before that I think is great is to sit kids down once they're old enough (esp when they're closer to missionary age) and just let them know you've had some doubts yourself and let them know that if they want to, you could go over those issues with them because you'd ra...

but you're absolutely right that the podcast isn't a comparison that is going to be very usable in a discussion with any type of TBM/apologist. "If Noah could build the ark with God's help, then Nephi certainly could have built a much smaller ship. 'Cause God." Well yeah... and "we don't know what ...

I guess I was less impressed by this episode that most people. The whole concept was based on what it takes to build a large European style keel ship. Many of the points were dead-on, especially concerning logistics, but I wish they had at least tipped a hat to other types of boat building, like th...

For me, the Book of Abraham was the killer issue. It is so obvious if you look into it. Now, I think most people aren't going to be interested enough in Egyptology to do the reading and thinking about it. But I tell you, it's bad. And if, after you've looked into it, you watch Kerry Muhlstein--wow....

Is it possible the church will drift from the historical "real people" narrative to an allegory "metaphorical" narrative? It would be easy to do. The funny this is that this is exactly why they've been so boxed in that it would be so difficult to shift away from the historical narrative. I don't th...

I'm interested to see how this goes... and of course even more interested to see how much info they end up turning over. Keep up the good fight!

This reminds me of the Mormon Expressions podcast on building a transoceanic vessel. What the Book of Mormon says about how this was accomplished is so incredibly impossible and just ignorant that is impossible to take the book seriously as some sort of historical document. If you've never heard tha...

I beg to differ. At this point we may never get the "smoking gun" that will smack TBMs so hard that they can't resist. But even if we did have an authentic letter from Joseph saying, "Yeah, I Joseph Smith do solemnly swear that I screwed everyone and was a total fraud", you know there would be a go...

I also like the idea of putting this in later in the whole discussion. Once you have all these facts in front of you, it should be a good time to realize that your “knowledge” is based purely in emotion. If they have read that far, something has already hooked them, so it would be a good time to ge...

This may not belong on your list, as you want to stick with "facts", but: I have major issues with the entire epistemology of mormonsim. Using feelings and or emotions to determine "truth" is completely unreliable, and has to be one of the worst ways to actually find truth. I'm going to try and fin...

But maybe the best reason to explicate the whys isn't to better convince Mormons of their errors in thought. Maybe the best reason is to get some more peace of mind. As Mormons, we were trained to believe that the church is "true" based on how good we felt about faith-building evidence. I think wit...