Key Excerpts From The LDS Gospel Topics Essays

https://www.pickpik.com/forest-sunlight-trees-sun-piercing-photography-44115#google_vignette Introduction This post is primarily composed of excerpts from the LDS Gospel Topics Essays, approved for publication by the LDS First Presidency and LDS Quorum of the Twelve Apostles starting in 2013. These essays have helped bring to light to the general LDS membership many doctrinal, historical, racial and sexist issues that have plagued …

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My Experiences In LDS (Mormon) Temples

Washington DC Temple, where Shandra and I were married in 1998 I was Taught about the Temple from Childhood As a boy, one of my favorite songs was "I love to see the Temple." I sang and hummed it regularly to help fall asleep, internalizing its soothing melody (and what I later recognized as an …

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Sexism, Misogyny and Mormonism

https://freesvg.org/hungry-demon I've been meaning to write about the sexism and misogyny of Mormonism for a while. I've put it off due to shame and embarrassment thinking about this. Sexism and misogyny in my opinion is the most damaging aspect of Mormonism. Deep sexism and misogyny, explicit and implicit, permeate literally every aspect of LDS theology …

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Top Evidence Supporting and Challenging Literal LDS (Mormon) Truth Claims

Image labeled for resuse at flicker.com The Power of Specificity and Sensitivity The specificity and sensitivity of tests or evidence is the bedrock of ruling in and/or ruling out diagnoses or truth claims in the medical field. A highly specific positive test or evidence is required to rule in a diagnosis or a truth claim. …

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Squaring the Mormon Circle

https://pixabay.com/photos/walnut-nut-shell-nutshell-open-3072652/ On April 5, 2021, Dr. Julie Hanks, a Mormon mental health professional posted about President Russell M. Nelson's April 2021 conference address. Specifically she addressed this quote: Stop increasing your doubts by rehearsing them with other doubters.President Russell M. Nelson I commented on her post: Regardless of how one puts it, at the end …

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Dream of Compassion, 1 July 2020

Image from kingdomhigh.com, labeled for reuse. Just woke up from a dream of a man (me) tearfully trying to share his perspective to his siblings and parents (who weren’t really listening) about the Book of Abraham: How the facsimiles are mistranslated per LDS and non-LDS Egyptologists. How the Egyptian figures correlating with the text of …

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The 200th Anniversary of Joseph Smith’s First Vision (That Never Happened)

Image from http://www.mormonthink.com/essays-first-vision.htm This year is the 200th year anniversary of Joseph Smith's First Vision. By the title of this post, it is clear where my opinion resides regarding this story. The story goes at the age of 14, in 1820, Joseph Smith was struggling to know which church was true. He went to a …

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To Mourn With Those That Mourn

Image by Mark Filter from Pixabay I have seen tremendous outpourings of love and compassion in predominantly post-Mormon groups supporting those going through a faith transition. True "mourning with those that mourn." In these same groups, I have also seen powerful expressions of love and understanding for those choosing to stay in or return to …

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Top 10 LDS Faith Transition Resources

An LDS Faith Transition Has Three Stages: An LDS Faith Transition has three stages, comparable to faith transitions from other faiths of the World: 1. Initial World-View Construction. 2. Subsequent World-View Deconstruction followed by 3. World-View Reconstruction. My Top 10 LDS Faith Transition Resources for each stage are listed below. Reconstruction stage resources listed may …

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Minimization, Distortion, Deception and Spin in the LDS Church History Gospel Topics Essays

The LDS "Gospel Topics Essays." are official LDS responses approved by the First Presidency and LDS Quorum of the Twelve Apostles to many difficult and controversial historical, doctrinal and textual issues. Examples include troublesome issues regarding the LDS Book of Abraham, Native American DNA and the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith’s treasure seeking activities, and …

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Letter of Disbelief to Local Leadership

April 3, 2018 Dear Brothers in Christ of the XXXX Stake Presidency and XXXX Bishopric, As you know, I have not been attending church.  Given you are all in leadership positions, I feel it only fair to let you know somewhat specifically why.  First of all, I do not believe “the witness of the Spirit” as taught by …

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You Told Me You Were God

You told me you were God.  To trust you.  After all, you have God’s name.  You have the keys of my salvation.  Listen to you.  You will never lead me astray.  In loving company of friends and loved ones I covenanted with you.  Though only at that moment did I realize what would be required, I promised to give you everything, I guess as any good spouse would.  For years you assured me …

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Blog Introduction: Growth Within and Without Mormonism

The Second Half of Life. We cannot live the afternoon of life according to the program of life’s morning, for what was great in the morning will be little at evening and what in the morning was true, at evening will have become a lie.C. G. Jung When I was younger, I had life all …

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