The tone-deafness is staggering

[1smartdodog]

It was my last hope they would say something inspiring , something to let the world know it was not the end. People need some positive inspiration right now.

Not sure why i expected anything better than what I got. I am somewhat disgusted with these men. To claim to be prophets and act like mediocre run of the mill middle managers is dishonest. They owed us more than this.




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[alas]

May personal disaffection did not follow the usual route of discovering disturbing things about church history. It really started from a recognition that church leaders are nothing special and that the Living Prophet was indistinguishable from any aged chief administrator of any large earthly organization.

If ever there was an occasion to rise to, to show the real value of the claimed living prophet, this was it. Oh how you failed, Elders and Presidents. Underwhelmed us as you always do, putting the final nails in the coffin of your relevance.

I am reminded of a favorite reddit post found in its complete form here https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comme ... he_mormon/.

Its what's happening TODAY that's killing you.
Its your absolute lack of meaningful spirituality, Elders and Presidents, that's wiping you out. Real spiritual growth- real depth of wisdom- real kindness love and compassion. If the q15 had these things in any real measure, the historical issues just wouldn't matter. We'd queue up for general conference. There would be no need to shame people into attendance. There'd be no reason to clamp down on obedience. We'd all still be in the boat, bailing for all we're worth, patching up the holes, fixing the navigational hardware, remodeling the cabins, swabbing the decks, sailing the old ship Zion with you.

I am like you in that my disaffection didn’t follow the usual course. I didn’t leave because I knew enough history to make me decide Joseph Smith was a con artist. I stayed 30 years after I was 99.9% sure Joseph Smith made up the BoM. I stayed because I loved the church and saw enough good, in the church organization and the church people. I finally left because the church has become abusive. It blames us for its problems. It blames members when they are actually kinder and more Christlike than the leaders. Like the parent, who beats their child when the child points out a mistake the parent made.

So, yeah, I stayed in the boat because the historical issues didn’t really matter. So, I know this quote is the truth. If they could set an example of love, of honesty, of kindness.

After the last session of conference the same channel aired the movie The Other Side of Heaven, part II. This is John Groberg’s story of when he was mission president. Now, I know some of you doubt the stories and that is OK, because let’s just call this an ideal of how the church should be. Honest, loving, kind, accepting of differences, humble. I am going to toss in something the movie doesn’t show, because it is needed in today’s world, that the leaders be willing to look at the science behind being gay or transgender and consider what the science means when you consider real people.

I had already had quite enough church when the movie came on, but hey this is Uncle John and Aunt Jean. They are relatives yes, but more importantly John is someone I know personally to be humble, honest, and kind. When you hear the stories from John, in first person, with him sitting on a picnic table, he doesn’t take credit for the faith in those stories, but it was always about the faith of the people. It isn’t about how great he was, but how loving God is.

Anyway, my husband and I talked the next day when conference was still bothering both of us. I said I miss being able to worship the God John Groberg worships. I don’t even like the God Russel Nelson worships. My husband agreed, that conference was not worshipping God as much as it is worshipping itself. It was glorifying the brethren, from Joseph to Rusty. I summed up what was bothering me most as the contrast between what conference was and that ideal of humble faith from the movie.

So, yes, it isn’t the history that is killing them, it is what is happening today. It s a world where people don’t have clean water to drink, and a church with 100 billion in the bank. It is worrying about a new logo, when thousands are dying every day from a pandemic, and hospitals don’t have enough equipment and supplies to treat them. It is being unwilling to put themselves in the shoes of others and really look at the world from the perspective of a woman, or a gay man, or a transgender woman, or the poor. It is not appreciating the sacrifices of the poor who struggle to pay tithing but telling them to pay the church before feeding their children. It is having a regressive taxation system as their ideal model of donating, instead of asking members to give according to surplus. It is putting the PR of the church ahead of the welfare sexual abuse victims, and totally failing to hold abusers accountable, as in Joseph Bishop. It is the very idea of a second anointing.

[Jeffret]

So, yes, it isn’t the history that is killing them, it is what is happening today.

This is very true.

Sociologists have lots of good data that shows church association is overwhelmingly driven by social benefits. People join and leave churches primarily for social reasons. They join when there are social benefits. They leave when the social costs outweigh the benefits. It's the same as with so many other decisions in life. We like to think we do things for rational reasons, but humans are terrible at making rational choices. Commonly rational explanations are ex post facto justifications we use to prop up our belief in the appropriateness of our choice.

People like to point to historical facts as the explanations for their change in belief. However, we have a constantly increasing multitude of examples that people are not only willing but eager to believe plenty of things that simply aren't true. These false beliefs benefit people in some way. As fundamentally social creatures, the benefit is often social in some fashion. The benefit from church participation is primarily social, unless you happen to receive other rewards such as financial compensation. Commonly people allow themselves to consider the validity of historical facts only after the (social) benefits have waned.

This is why the Church attempts to keep everyone so actively socially engaged. The value of having a calling is keeping each person very socially connected. They need to ensure there is constant social interaction. Mormonism is successful largely to the degree it has kept its members' social connections predominantly defined within the community. A big problem is that the leaders have, as always, gotten too greedy. They've insisted that members devote social value to the organization and its leaders, but over the last decades they've reduced the social benefits to the members. They've cut so many things that benefit the members socially and added things that benefit the organization.

They've also lost significant ground in their ability to control their members' social lives. In the early days, the Church was isolated and the social cost for not participating and demonstrating loyalty was high. Since the (real) abandonment of polygamy the Church has maintained the best social pressure by being different from the surrounding society but not too different. The wide spread of communication and travel have constantly reduced how big that gap can be without the pressure fraying. On the other hand, the Church has become increasingly lethargic and geriatric. On major social concerns, the Church is becoming more and more disconnected with the society it finds itself increasingly embedded in. The leaders' tone-deafness becomes larger and larger as their concerns become less and less connected to the average person's.

Certainly all of this I write is generic and aggregate and may not apply to to any specific individual. Maybe for you (the generic you) the historical facts are truly paramount. Maybe you are truly rational in your decisions. I suggest that what Feynman said ("If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don't understand quantum mechanics.") can be repurposed here, "If you think you're entirely rational, you're not very rational." Only if you seek to understand the limits of your rationality can you become more rational.

[Not Buying It]

For the record, while I understand that my reasons for disbelieving in the Church aren’t everyone’s reasons, and mine aren’t necessarily any more legit than anyone else’s, the foundational, doctrinal, and historical issues are a deal breaker for me. If the organization isn’t what it claims to be, I don’t need it. I don’t need a social group masquerading as a religion. If I want a social group, I’ll find a social group. It wouldn’t matter what the Church changed at this point, I’m not going back, because I don’t need a Church as a place to find friendship and camaraderie. But that’s exactly what some people want from it, and there is nothing wrong with that. That just isn’t what I see the function of a church as, but if someone else does, that’s OK.

[Reuben]

Not sure why i expected anything better than what I got. I am somewhat disgusted with these men. To claim to be prophets and act like mediocre run of the mill middle managers is dishonest. They owed us more than this.

They never could provide what they promised.

If it helps, I've declared spiritual bankruptcy on their behalf. They owe us nothing, and we owe them nothing.

[Palerider]

Double-post

[Palerider]

For the record, while I understand that my reasons for disbelieving in the Church aren’t everyone’s reasons, and mine aren’t necessarily any more legit than anyone else’s, the foundational, doctrinal, and historical issues are a deal breaker for me. If the organization isn’t what it claims to be, I don’t need it. I don’t need a social group masquerading as a religion. If I want a social group, I’ll find a social group. It wouldn’t matter what the Church changed at this point, I’m not going back, because I don’t need a Church as a place to find friendship and camaraderie. But that’s exactly what some people want from it, and there is nothing wrong with that. That just isn’t what I see the function of a church as, but if someone else does, that’s OK.

I'm pretty much right there with you.

Although, if the church came out publicly IN CONFERENCE and said that leadership had failed miserably to properly assess the historical problems; had come to the conclusion that Joseph Smith and all those after him were not prophets and that there was no true, authoritative priesthood in the church; admitted fully that any "scripture" produced by Joseph Smith was fake and that leadership were going to convene a conference to re-establish the basis of the church on Christ and Biblical principles.......I might go back.

Additionally all changes in church policy and principle would have to be approved by the general membership with a real voting capability. Not some rubber stamp "sustaining" crap. That would include voting on any individual asked (not called) to serve in a leadership position.

The leadership of the LDS church really needs to repent. That old saying about the Pope being infallible and no Catholics believing it and LDS church leadership being fallible but no Mormons believing it......... that's got to change.

Leadership have no more access to God than anyone else in the church. Nothing special about them whatsoever.

And for heaven's sake get rid of the stinking nepotism in church leadership!! You guys are no different than the looney fundamentalist families that run Mormon offshoots except you don't kill each other off. You use the "suck-up" method instead.

[wtfluff]

They never could provide what they promised.

This is one of the thing that I will always come back to: "The Church" cannot live up to anything it promises.

Many a believer cannot fathom that statement in the slightest. Their confirmation bias won't allow it. During one of the very few discussions I have actually had with a believer, one of their statements was: "The gospel brings me so much joy!" To which I replied: "Well for me, it is the opposite."

My realization that the church couldn't provide what they promised probably happened ~10 years before I threw in the towel related to all things Elohim-Inc., though I didn't want to admit it to myself. Learning of the myriad historical issues was simply the icing on the cake confirming that I needed to step away.