Why People Leave
A reader sent me a link to this video. It is NOT anti-mormon. The man who put it together has callings in the church and is a fully active member. However, the video does bring up facts about the church that you may not know. If you think your testimony can be compromised by hearing things that are hard to accept, I would advise you not to watch it. However, this guy does an amazing job at outlining how I feel and the issues I struggle with. He assures you that none of these things mean that the church is not true.
4 comments:
Good video. Very eye opening. What were your thoughts about it?
I had heard much of this before. I was exposed to it fairly recently, but the podcast wasn't a shock to me. I guess I was glad to hear some reassurance that these things do not have to mean that the church isn't true. I don't necessarily need answers for everything presented, but I at least want to hear acknowledgment that they happened and what that means. The days of my naive vision of a perfect church and prophet are gone... so now what? I feel like I need to separate truth from fact... but I'm not quite sure how to do it.
Knowing that the church and its leaders are not perfect makes it very difficult for me to know what to accept. Do I seek for truth through the spirit? What if what I think is the spirit is really me believing what I wish was true? I'm obviously not in a place in my life where I would be able to distinguish the two. At the same time, who can I go to for truth? Bishop A will give answer A, while Bishop B will give answer B. The answer today might be different from the answer I'd receive in ten years. It is all very confusing.
"If you think your testimony can be compromised by hearing things that are hard to accept, I would advise you not to watch it."
That sentence bothers me. I feel like an adherent to any religion should know everything about it, especially if that religion claims to be the One True Church. I can't respect a member who intentionally deludes themselves and ignores facts that they know will make them question their faith. What does this really say about their faith?
One of the reasons I left the church is that they are deceitful about their past, and they discourage looking into it. They tell you that everything presented outside of official church records is definitely 100% anti-mormon.
Shouldn't a member of a faith have access to their church's history? And shouldn't they not have to be afraid of losing their testimony by seeing it?
I always wished the church would just officially own up to a lot of the messed up things in their past. I wish they would say, "Yeah, some of our prophets WERE inappropriately racist, and that was wrong, and we're sorry, now let's move on."
I haven't watched the video yet (since it's quite lengthy), but even though I've probably heard about a lot of it, I'm curious to.
hey this actually made me feel better about life! :) Thanks for including this. It doesn't hurt my testimony, but rather puts the gospel/religion into better perspective for me! thanks again!
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