While teaching people the first discussion on my mission in Chile, I would often ask them “After we finish teaching you the lessons, and you come to know these things are true, would you get baptized?” While the normal answer was “Of course I would”, not a small number of people replied that no, they could not/would not get baptized in the Mormon Church (as we were known back then). The reasons given varied slightly, but all centered on the fact they were Catholic, they were born Catholic, and they would die Catholic. A variation to this was that it would kill their mother if they left the Catholic Church. We would try to reason with them, telling them if the sprit told them that what we were saying was true, then they needed to leave their church to be baptized on ours.
At the time I thought this was crazy. Even if they knew the truth, they would not get baptized. I blamed the Catholic Church, and its permeation in every part of their lives in Latin America. The Church even influenced the countries laws by prohibiting divorce, so that on more than one occasion we would be teaching a family, and they would tell us they were not married because one or both were previously married.
Just this last week these memories came back to me as I was listening to a person who had left the Mormon Church tell about talking to his very TBM mother, and asking her if the Church was not true, would she want to know. She answered no, she would not want to know. It then came to me that the Mormon Church is no different that the Catholic Church when it comes to defining a person’s life. Just like Catholics, there would be a number of Mormons that even if they knew the Church was not the true church, would not leave it, or as in the case above, even want to know.
How do you think people come to be so deep into something they they don’t even want to know the truth? Since we are living in 2025, I ask ChatGTP the same question and got the below
- Cognitive Dissonance: When beliefs are challenged, it can create discomfort or dissonance in the mind. People tend to avoid information that conflicts with their deeply held beliefs to maintain psychological peace. Questioning their religion could make them feel like they’re undermining their sense of self or stability.
- Social and Cultural Pressure: Religion often provides a sense of community. People are socialized into their faith through family, culture, and traditions, so questioning it might feel like rejecting their community or heritage. There could be a fear of social ostracism or alienation.
- Fear of the Unknown: Some people fear what might lie beyond their faith, such as existential questions about life, death, or the meaning of existence. The idea of religion being false could be terrifying because it might strip away the structure and answers that religion provides.
- Emotional Fulfillment: Religion can offer comfort, hope, and a sense of meaning in life, especially in times of hardship. For some, the emotional benefits of faith outweigh the desire to question it. The idea of a higher power or divine purpose can provide peace of mind, and challenging that belief might disrupt their emotional well-being.
- In-group Bias: People often trust what is taught within their religious community and might have a strong in-group bias, which makes them more likely to reject external ideas or critiques. This can create a closed loop where only certain perspectives are allowed, leading to an avoidance of anything that challenges those views.
- Religious Leaders and Authority: Many religious communities place a high degree of trust in religious leaders and authorities, whose teachings may be taken as absolute truth. Some followers might believe that questioning the faith is disrespectful or even dangerous, as it can undermine the authority of those leaders or the community’s teachings.
I think items 2, 3 and 4 above could especially apply to a TBM Mormon who would not want to know if the Church is not true. If a member has spent a lifetime in the Church, lives around other members, and has family and friends that are members, the social and culture pressure to stay LDS would be unbearable, especial when it is working for them and provides emotional fulfillment. There is no need to rock the boat.
Have you encountered somebody that would not want to know if the Church is not true? How have you handled the situation? What other reasons are there for this phenomenon that you have found?
In closing, I’d like to apologize to the people I taught in Chile and though they were so crazy as to not even want to know the truth. I now have a better understand of why they did this.
Wheat & Tares 
I can think of a couple of things that are specific to LDS members. One reason a person might not want to know the truth is that they then come to the realization that they wasted decades on something that wasn’t true. Thousands of hours at church meetings that left them bored out of their minds with no benefit. Thousands of hours of service and meetings, away from their families, unnecessarily. For some, the positive benefits they experience through their membership no longer outweigh the costs. To realize you were fooled and were wrong can be a bitter pill to swallow, which can also be embarrassing to admit. Pride might not allow that to happen.
A second reason is guilt, which is evidenced by BB’s apology to the people of Chile. If we realize we were wrong, then whether deliberately or subconsciously, we’ve probably been judging others for rejecting what we “knew” was the Truth. We are so “blessed” to have the fullness, aren’t we lucky, aren’t we special! It’s just been drilled in too deep not to feel superior to others. We’ve been told that others are just “playing church”. Add the familial guilt that may be strong and you have another bitter pill to swallow. There is a reason those shirts exist that say “Sorry for what I said/did when I was Mormon”.
I think this goes back to the conversation that Rick Bennett had with Dr. Cragun. Simply put—the church works for some people so why complicate the issue.
“The Bishop called me last night and asked me to talk about truth. I will begin my talk with the definition of truth. According to Webster’s dictionary, truth is the body of real things, events, and facts.” The discussion leads to the philosophical debates that has gone on for Centuries. The divisions of the factions of Substantive (divided down to 5 sublevels), Minimalist, or Pluralist theories and many, many other ideas. In the end, it is more complicated and argumentative to the simpler statement of: The earth’s sky is blue. However, when you break down the truth of the sky’s color, it is more than a simple fact. The sky is blue only because our eyes perceive it as such. Outside of sunsets/sunrises and monochromacy, everyone with the natural eye sees the midday sky as blue. Should the physics of the planet change, then so could the color. For now, it is blue.
Truths in science and truth in non-sciences are different. Religion is a non-science. What I am addressing is mostly non-science. Truth is what we have been taught and experienced, to present. However, that truth can be different for different people. With LDS teachings, there is only 1 truth, that of the chief decision maker. There are few “truths” of the LDS teachings that have not changed or been modified in the past 195 years, with each leader change.
Just this week alone, with the release of the Gospel topic Questions on Race. There are many obvious points and problems, but the one that affects me most (My wife was not born in USA) was them stating, “The church does not teach that mixed-race marriages are wrong and does not discourage interracial marriage”. But I was in many meetings/firesides where they repeated BKP line of “We’ve always counseled in the Church for our Mexican members to marry Mexicans, our Japanese members to marry Japanese, our Caucasians to marry Caucasians, our Polynesian members to marry Polynesians.”
Additionally, Renlund’s fireside this week in SoCal recognizing ” We haven’t done as good a job as I think we can” to address the existing imbalances “within the bounds that God has set.” “So, we’re going to do better.” But in 1993 Ballard stated “Brethren, please be sure you are seeking the vital input of the sisters in your council meetings” By 2014 the church had done little to address the imbalances and Excommunicated and disdained Ordain Women for bringing it to their attention for their point of view, known as a truth of their life experiences.
Now they are stating, “If racial prejudice arises in our congregations, we can look for ways to kindly and courageously speak up for the dignity and rights of those who are harmed or marginalized. … It’s important that we stand up for each other and defend what is right. … We can talk to local leaders for counsel on how to help stop racism within our congregations.
Where were the prophets when we experienced racism in my prior wards over the past 50 years? Apologize for your predecessors past truths. Can you imagine if this week a member approaches a Bishop or Stake President and admonishes him for a prejudice comment? Who will be sustained the Leader who made the inappropriate remark, or the member who called out the harm? Who is going to remind Renlund/Q15 when they still are not addressing the imbalances? Who is going to teach them to take off their shades experience a blue sky. I tried to talk to my SP/Bishop about many similar issues and was told to follow those with the Priesthood keys, not the truth. The church needs to admit its’ own truths change, and that’s OK.
In 2013 Uchtdorf gave a BYU Devotional on truth. Stating: Truth Is Different from Belief, The Adversary Tries to Keep Us from Truth, Heavenly Father Is the Source of Truth, We Must Seek After Truth, The Spirit Witnesses of Truth. This contrasts with “Some things that are true are not very useful”, searching only LDS authorized sources, “Never take counsel from those who do not believe”, and LDS media fasts coordinated with Nelson’s daughter scandal. The truth is the LDS church does not want its members to learn more than the correlated narrative and platitudes. The only unchanging truths that exists in the LDS church is: 1st follow the President of the Church and if he ever tells you to do anything, and it is wrong, and you do it, the Lord will bless you for it’ and 2nd pay your tithing before feeding your kids.
The church asks what is this truth? Their answer: It is His gospel. It is the gospel of Jesus Christ. The next question, what is the gospel? Why does the LDS church think it has more truths of Jesus Christ than others, when the truth is they do not. 195 years of history shows the LDS church is an expert of obfuscating the truth. It is unclear to me when members state, “I am so grateful for the gospel in my life”, when reality most Christian church members say the same phrase. Where and what is the truth?
I just found out yesterday that an active family member and a prior Bishop and Stake Presidency member, occasionally drinks coffee in Asian business meetings, as his wife at that moment is drinking coffee for a headache. Then shockingly my other active BIL states, it is no big deal to have a little here and there. This contradicts Beck’s talk of keeping members out of the temple for their own children’s wedding and going to the Celestial Kingdom, along with all the talks we heard growing up about not even 1 drop in a social/business setting. So much for the truth we learned of the word of wisdom for the current active members.
My truths are what my inner self tells me what and when I learn is confirmed or contradicted, by life experience. I am willing to accept and change my truths and even apologize for mistakes I make, unlike the LDS institution.
Chrisdrobinson, the thing I see wrong with that idea of “If the church works for some people, why complicate things,” is that the idea hurts everyone. The ones it works for think it works for everyone, or the person it doesn’t work for is doing things wrong. People get judging each other, then the ones it works for get mad at their family members when it doesn’t work for them. So family members are placed into a system that doesn’t really work for them or hurts them and then they stop trusting the ones who insist it works for everyone. See, it hurts everybody unless it works for everybody.
We need to be precise when we define truth. Even if this is not the “only true church” there is much truth within the Church. It would be a shame if that all went out with the bathwater. I will never consider my mission to have been “wasted time.” I may have irritated a lot of people for about 10 seconds each, but there were also people I led into the Church whose lives were unambiguously better as a result and they passed that forward while embracing the new truths they found. No apologies for that.
I had the rare opportunity recently to be the organist for a stake leadership meeting. Regardless of what the topic was, I played the following for prelude, because it’s the Truth we were taught despite a recent attempt to be more Christian (see new hymns), and I believe in transparency/accountability.
Israel God is Calling
Press Forward Saints
If You Could Hie to Kolob
I Am A Child of God
Adam-ondi-Ahman
Truth Eternal
Beautiful Zion, Built Above
We ever pray for thee our prophet dear
Them: “Soy Apostolico, Romano, y Catolico” pounding chest
Us: “Es Romano?” (You’re Roman?)
Yes, I want to know the truth. It’s a large motivator for why I actively attend LDS worship services.
Dealing with the truth can be painful but, in the end, it’s always the easier and the smoother path.
Choosing delusion or fallacy might start out an easier or more attractive route but truth is inevitable and relentless so there’s no avoiding it. When it catches up to you it can be disastrous to the extent that you’ve strayed from it.
My choice then is to do my best to pursue the truth and align myself with it. Even when it means owning up to my previous errors and failings.
Anna, I think that is a bit reductive. It demonstrably does not hurt everyone. A lot of people have found and continue to find much value in the church. A fair number are harmed, but many are not. I don’t want to diminish the harm the church caused, but I also don’t want to diminish the good it has done either. One is not more important than the other. I think the church has a bad habit of sweeping the bad under the rug and hoping everyone just forgets it—while those who are angry at the church tend to over elevate all the bad thinking that because it is there, all the good must never have been there or ever done because it really was just bad. Both approaches to this are the same black and white thinking that created this mess in the first place.
My growing up years in the church were great. I cannot deny that fact. A lot of life long relationships and wonderful memories of people were built during that time. I would never trade those. It just doesn’t make sense to cast a pall on those times because of new things I’ve learned now and try to reframe them into some other negative light because it just wouldn’t line up with the good that came as a result of my interaction with those people. But then again, I lucked out when it came to youth leaders and adult interactions. All of them were solid, good people. In that sense, the church was true to me. I could count on it. They could count on me.
Lastlemming beat me to this question—we do need to ask ourselves what our definition of “true” is. I’ll give an example here. I was listening to a science podcast hosted by two scientists a couple weeks ago on alcohol. It gave a broad overview of all the research that has been done and the findings on human health. TLDR; alcohol is a neurotoxin and we should never be consuming. But, one of hosts, after knowing all of this stuff, said that she still chooses to consume alcohol in social settings. The reason for that is that she has some severe social anxiety and the effects of alcohol in those settings chemically reduces her anxiety and produces a desired social outcome. You have two “truths” here. One is alcohol is bad for you and you should really never drink it. The other is that alcohol can chemically lower social barriers to produce positive social outcomes for some people. One truth would seem to be a bit contradictory to the other, yet they are both true in their respective contexts.
In that context, it seems perfectly acceptable to me for the church to be both true and not true at the same time depending on the people and the context.
I’ve spent the last week kind of down. At 70 I’ve been looking back on my life. There were two constants in my youth that took a long time to overcome. 1. My parents joined the church when I was four, so I didn’t really have a say in anything but I accepted it because they were my parents and it was “true.” 2. My parents were also John Birchers so my view on the political world was an us against them with us being true and them being wrong or worse.
When I was younger at home, I read a lot of books in the LDS/JBS vain that always supported their views of truth but as I got older and because to wonder how if God were God of us all or the Constitution was for “We the People..” or all of us and how that didn’t square with LDS/JBS practice, I started to read more mainstream books. This started a long questioning period in my life where eventually I rejected first the JBS way of thinking about things. Eventually, after considering many social factors, I loosed my relationship to the church as well.
When I was 55, I had a discussion with my father about some issue and he got really upset because I didn’t agree with him. He said he was going to “smash” my opinion. I looked him square in the eye and said I had two masters degrees, had a successful career, and had studied these topics we were talking about for many years and had a different opinion, it wasn’t going to change. He huffed and looked at me and said okay. It’s been very different with my mother.
She loves the church but she doesn’t know it at all. I was surprised about this because you always think your parents know more. But, she didn’t know anything about church history or doctrine and she made it very plain, she didn’t want to know. I guess for her it was a good place to sing music, be with friends, quilt, and do humanitarian service and all the other stuff didn’t matter.
After my dad passed, she never wanted to talk about politics but she also didn’t realize that what I was saying was 180 degrees opposite from what my father would say. I finally said to her the JBS was wrong and I didn’t believe any of it. When I said that, she started listening and even voted for Clinton and Biden and is now very much against Trump. With the church, she still won’t listen but then I don’t really push it either because she’s happy. I think we defined things one day after she knew I drank coffee when I didn’t have one during breakfast and she asked me why I didn’t, thinking that it was something I had to do every morning and I said I drink it when I want to, I don’t let it control me.
Looking back, I think my mother would have been much happier if she would not have joined the church but would have stayed a methodist like her parents. She could have been involved with the choir, performed service, and not have had to worry about any of the deep theology or history. She also would have been accepted by her parents. They loved her but they always distrusted her relationship with the church and it distanced them from her.
Finally since this is about “truth,” I want to mention Trump 2.0 and what’s happened both in the country and the church these past 45 days. It seems through executive order we are reorganizing our views of truth in our nation. It doesn’t matter if it’s DOGE doing away with thousands of jobs, or taking DEI off of websites, or dismantling entire departments like Education, Trump wants to look at truth as his truth and his party is happily going along, something they’d never do if it were a Democrat doing the same thing. The church seems to be going right along with it issuing statements about how to dismiss immigrants so Bishops don’t break the law (executive order) instead of helping them stand up for social justice, truth.
It seems like we are living in a time when we can actually see the truth we once agreed upon replaced with a new truth because of political power and a lack of pushback by other institutions like the church that have power of their own just so they can fit into the new order.
jader3rd: “Yes, I want to know the truth. It’s a large motivator for why I actively attend LDS worship services.”
Well jader, I left the LDS Church after 50+ years of full activity because the truth that I discovered revealed to me that the LDS Church was not what it claimed to be. Funny how that works.
You and I can disagree about all of this but I have the numbers on my side: even if every LDS member was attending LDS worship services that would only constitute .2% of the world’s population. Maybe you should join the 99.8% of us on the other side.
I think the reality is that most people are not intellectually curious. They don’t want the religion of their childhood dissected, they don’t want to understand the reality behind how science works, and they don’t have time to understand the difference between what DOGE claims and what the actual receipts show. They just want to Netflix and chill.
I would be interested in the truths jader3rd is learning at church.
I am also curious about claims that a missionary knows his converts are better off. The reality is I don’t have a clue. Post baptism we were instructed they were now the wards problem and to move on. Then I would get transferred. I served a mission pre social media. So I cannot conclude whether or not they are better off.
I think that for most people it’s not a willful closing their eyes and plugging their ears. I think the ways that cognitive biases work, people’s brains just filter out inconvenient truths without them even realizing it’s happening. They aren’t willfully saying, “If I learn that it’s not true then that means I’ve wasted decades” or “If it’s not true then I’ve acted poorly towards others” therefore I’m going to shut out the truth. The brain doesn’t even get that far. The mind just filters out the information or distorts it before it even reaches our conscious attention.
My wife had a faith transition long before I did. She read the Gospel Topics Essays before I did and she brough up many of the issues to me, and she was pretty upset by them. At that time I was SUPER TMB, and they didn’t even phase me. I had a satisfactory response for each issue and carried on my merry way. Years later, I had a faith transition, and I brought up all the issues in the Gospel Topics Essays to my wife as if it was new information that she and I had never heard or been exposed to before. Over and over she has told me, “We had this conversation 8 years ago, when I shared all this with you! You were completely unphased by it. Do you remember that?” My honest response is “No. I don’t remember that at all.” It’s very strange. I’ve never had amnesia before, but it’s honestly like I have amnesia about all of these controversial topics- like my mind didn’t even register the information at the time.
aporetic1, thanks for sharing that. What a fascinating case study of how you didn’t really process or remember the earlier conversations!
Along similar lines, I’d like to imagine that I’m the kind of person who wants to know the truth. I can handle it! But in reality, I’m sure I’m prone to all the cognitive biases that are so common among people, where when I encounter information that doesn’t fit how I see the world, I ignore it, or explain it away as an exception, rather than actually considering I might be wrong about something.
”Other reasons for this phenomenon?”
For some I know and love, it’s strong connection and fierce loyalty to their pioneer ancestors.
chrisdrobison
I get that context matters, it does. But so often, it’s just flimflam.
As for harming people, I think it comes with being alive. But do we have to maximize it. I can see say a society with Iron-deficiency anemia having certain dietary requirements to improve iron absorption. But forcing them on others( a different context) like those with Hemochromatosis causes harm. That shouldn’t be a hard fix.
Back when I was young and a student at the University that shalt not be named, I was walking with a roommate along the shores of Utah Lake. There was a dying fish on the shore above the rocks. I looked at the fish struggling to breath, I resolved to throw it back. (I know carp bad, invasive species, blah blah. But I was a bit of a fish out of water and it was going back) I picked it up by the tail and gave a mighty heave. Well, the tail ripped and the fish bing bonged against the rocks and plopped belly up into the water. I was horrified, standing there holding a piece of tail. My roommate laughing.
I don’t know the point of that story. But not only is it true, it really happened. Then there’s that well known Ursula Le Guin story, “The ones who walk away from Omelas”. It’s been adapted in various forms of media including the season one episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds “Lift Us Where Suffering Cannot Reach”. Gave it some thought, But I would drag that kid down to the basement and shove em in that machine myself. I have a great community, good friends, a wonderful life. I’m keeping it.
Chrisdrobinson, so you are one of the people the church works for. Great! I would not want to take that away from you. That isn’t what I am saying. What I am saying is that y’all that it works for need to see that it honestly does not work for others and can even hurt them. Then stop pretending that if it works beautifully for you, then it works just as beautifully for everyone and those who it does not work for are purposely doing something wrong. You pretend that of course it won’t work if someone is too lazy or too evil and then punish those it doesn’t work for by cutting them out of the community or telling they are lazy learners or lack faith. Now, when I am going to say “you” here, that is collective, meaning all that it works for not Chris personally. You make YOUR failings MY fault when you do that. Look at why it doesn’t work for women, then CHANGE that. Look at why it doesn’t work for LGBT, then change the church so it works for everybody. Because if you don’t fix it, then it is nothing but a good ol’ boys club and you’re one of the ol’ boys.
And I really should not have to explain how those it works for do get hurt when their loved ones leave and the faithful husband is seen as bad because his whole family left the church. My husband currently feels a lot of pain and feels like such a failure because he thinks he did something wrong because every female in his family has left, wife, daughters, granddaughters. No, he treated us with love and respect and so we didn’t like the church treating us like second class noncitizens. He didn’t fail, the church did. But the church of course is perfect and it couldn’t be its fault.
What is Truth?
In Math, Truth is that which is proven by the rules of mathematics. In Science, Truth is that which is demonstrated by theory and observation – a key element being not just the observation of a phenomenon but the explanation of the phenomenon such that the phenomenon can reliably be predicted.
What is Truth in a Religion? A Religion encompasses not just a philosophy but also an implementation of that philosophy in a society of people. The philosophy should be both intellectually coherent and socially practical. What if it is not? How much incoherence can a religion sustain before the religion can no longer be argued as “True”? As for the implementation, what is the test to prove if the philosophy is good?
I believe Christianity has been successful as a world religion because those who take the Faith seriously have argued both an intellectual and social application of the Religion. Notwithstanding the corruptions and superficialities that have polluted Christianity over the centuries, the Western world has never been more Free and Prosperous. I think we should credit Christianity for helping produce this outcome.
But what about at the level of the Christian sect? What makes one sect more True than another? What allows the ToJCoLDS to claim to be the one and only “True and Living Church”? A thought that crosses my mind is that when this church was producing scripture and revelation it had a better argument than it does today that it was the one and only true church. But what about today?
I think it should be a fair question to ask leaders of the ToJCoLDS what makes the church “True” today. Of course the answer they will give is the claim of Authority. But authority does not make a thing true, it only lends credibility. What makes the church “True”? Alas, there is no approved conversation taking place in the ToJCoLDS about this most important question. To even ask the question now is seen as threatening. And this defensiveness greatly weakens the leadership claim of “Truth”.
I don’t see the current LDS church necessarily harming people. I do see a church leadership that fails to provide its members an intellectual argument for the Religion – this was not always the case but it is the rule now. The consequence being that many members get bored and turn elsewhere for enlightenment – and in the process of looking elsewhere they discover all sorts of stray threads about the LDS church that then raise doubts about the church and its integrity.
Disciple, I have a few issues with your definition of religious truth. #1. One big part of the “truth” the church claims that you left out is the authority of priesthood. The Catholic Church makes the same claim, to be the only church with the authority of God. #2. Religion thinks it knows better than science in the area that is physical and should be science rather than religion. How the earth was created, how animals were created and historically the very shape of the earth and if the sun goes around the earth or the earth goes around the sun. So, why does religion not stay in its own lane so to speak. And why doesn’t it stick to religion and it just keeps tromping all over the psychology, dietary guidelines, and I could name dozens of areas of knowledge that religion tries to control that are beyond the philosophy and social relations you named as its area of truth.
As to the big question of what is truth, I think there is only one kind of truth and that is most certainly not my internal idea of truth. No, I believe there is some kind of absolute external “the way things really are” that is pretty much outside of ourselves and only partly knowable to us measly humans. The areas of truth are subdivisions. So, what some above are calling religious truth is a division of truth, kind of a sub category. Science, I think is the best way of getting at truth.
The subjective thing people are saying we each have our own truth, that is not truth, but just my perception of truth. Someone above used “the sky is blue” as a truth. No, it is only human perception of truth. My son for instance is color blind and perceives color different than I do. His eyes fail to register certain wavelengths of light, so to him a “red” apple is not red, but mucky brown. What he sees does not change the apple or the wavelengths of light it reflects. The wavelengths of light is the truth of the apple and whether it is red or brown is a matter of perception, not truth. We do not have individuals truth, we only have our limited perception of truth. Yes, my limited perception of truth is going to be different than someone else’s limited perception of truth. But the reality of truth is not changing over time as scientists learn more, only our perception of truth. So, humans have an agreed upon “truth” based on an agreed upon perception of truth. Enough people call the sky blue that we agree it is true, but it is still only our perception of things. Truth isn’t something one person knows, or society agrees on. Those are only human perceptions and we need to keep that in mind when we learn new things so that we can adjust our perception and understanding of truth accordingly.
I can’t handle the whole truth, because I can’t comprehend it all. I just want itsy bitsy splinters of truth that affect me in my life. So I guess I want useable truth. I want pieces of truth that make me feel better about myself. I want helpful truth, you know, truth I can use to help others. After that, I just wanna go fishing on a warm day with my grandkids. So I guess I want to know what the fish are biting, because fishing without catching fish isn’t as fun as fish and catching fish. Especially when you are with little kids. Little kids and big fish. Now that is a truth I can handle.
“You and I can disagree about all of this but I have the numbers on my side: even if every LDS member was attending LDS worship services that would only constitute .2% of the world’s population. Maybe you should join the 99.8% of us on the other side.”
So truth is determined by the percentage of people that believe it? Amusing!!
Yeah, let’s vote on what constitutes the truth! Majority wins. Lol.
I am puzzled by people who leave the church, and their reasons. I know there are hard doctrines. But even then, “to whom shall we go?” If you understand and believe ANY of the modern scriptures, this is the last dispensation. There will not be another church that replaces this church. It is not perfect, and certainly the members are not perfect. But it has priesthood keys, the ability to administer the ordinances of salvation, and its head is the Savior, Jesus Christ. To whom will you go if you leave here? Fascinating.
Josh h:
Your argument about popularity (the 2% vs the 98%, or essentially, the “wisdom of crowds”) doesn’t constitute much of an argument, and you might want to rethink it. According to that logic, anything that has mass appeal or popularity must be “true”. E.g. Britney Spears > Stevie Wonder (because she’s sold more records). Or Backstreet Boys > Bob Dylan. Etc etc.
But I digress.
Josef Pieper wrote; “Our real truth has to do with how we situate ourselves in this world”. I, like Anna, wish that religion would stay in its lane, and focus on the values at the heart of building and repairing community, relationships and meaning in life. Instead, it has largely emphasized propositional truth over existential truth. Is something true because its factual or because its valuable? Is something true because its accurate or because it inspires someone to move to a higher state of being? My point here is that “truth” comes in multiple packages, but often one form gets tangled up with another form. I don’t think religious truth was ever meant to be of the “factual” kind, but primarily the principles which contribute to a just society, and the warnings of how civilizations ignore those principles and self-destruct. Jesus himself seemed rather intent, in his teaching, to avoid factual claims as his “MO”, instead he used short mythological stories we call parables. The stories are not factually true, they are technically “fiction”. Sure, they contain historically actuate elements, characters, animals, ethnicities, identities, legalities, and exist inside a historical context, but they are intended to reveal truths, not as compliance to a set of rules, but morality as an “other seeing” construction to make the world a better place.
Richard Rohr wrote the following insight which seems fitting, “There are ways of living and relating that are honest, sustainable, and fair, and there are utterly dishonest ways of living and relating to life. This is our real, de facto, and operative “truth”, no matter whose theories or theologies we believe. Our life situation and our style of relating to others is “the truth” that we actually take with us to the grave”. I would content that what is meant by spiritual “truth” does not pertain to history, but to the concept of “justice”, which biblically means “justified”, as we would a word document, to line up, align, or as Isaiah 40:4 says “”Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low”, suggesting things are made equal, none being higher or lower than the other. “True”, in this sense implies straightness, level, like a piece of wood is true. In the Sermon on the mount, Jesus finishes the beatitudes in Matthew 5:6 by saying, “”Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled”. “Righteousness” here has the same root as “justice”, which imposes a seeking after relational equalness as opposed to personal observance of the law. Righteousness carries a seeking after social harmony, an attempt to level the playing field between the oppressed and oppressor, between those who fit neatly inside the societal norms and those who exist on the edge of the inside.
@Len: “I am puzzled by people who leave the church, and their reasons.”
To be clear, this inability to understand people who leave the church and their reasons is your failing. Listening to other people is hard work; but it’s worth it.
Totally agree, Chadwick. I cannot relate, but I am here seeking to understand. Appreciate the sharing that takes place.
@Len,
Returning to the question posed in the OP, it sounds like you perhaps might be one who would not want to know if the Church is not true.
There are a number of resources for understanding why people leave the Church. For example, the book “Bridges: Ministering to Those Who Question” (https://www.amazon.com/Bridges-Ministering-Those-Who-Question/dp/158958726X) by David Ostler was written from a faithful LDS perspective. It contains some good information from some studies that provide insight into why people leave. It also provides some good advice on how to talk with people who have left or who are experiencing a faith transition. Hint: speaking to people who have or who are transitioning in the manner that you did in your comment above is counterproductive (I know you weren’t necessarily trying to do that in your comment, but there are many Church members do try to speak to questioning members in that way).
To very briefly address some of the thoughts in your comment:
1. “To whom shall we go?” The Church is *supposed* to help facilitate a relationship with Christ/spirituality, but for some, the Church experience is negative enough that they feel like is hurting their spirituality more than helping it. They may seek out another Church, or what seems more common with Mormons, is that may choose to follow Christ/find spiritual meaning outside of organized religion.
2. “If you understand and believe ANY of the modern scriptures…” There are a number of reasons to have questions about modern scripture. This is a big topic, but the Book of Abraham is not a translation as Joseph said it was which quite frankly creates a lot of questions about the other scriptures Joseph produced (and he produced pretty much all of modern LDS scripture). The Book of Mormon almost certainly is not historical (i.e., the people and events described are fictional) as Joseph/the Church claims it is. I won’t go into details about D&C, but I will say that D&C 132 is terribly, terribly disturbing. I appreciate Elder Oak’s candor when he directly said that neither he nor the apostles/prophets of the Church have had any profound supernatural experiences to confirm the teachings of the Church (https://missedinsunday.com/memes/prophet/never-had-that-experience/). He–and he suggests the rest of the members and Church leaders–gained their faith like dust accumulating on a windowsill. The thing is, this sounds a lot like the process that members of the other religions of the world gain their testimonies that theirs the one “true” religion.
3. “This is the last dispensation”. The early apostles, including Paul and Peter, believed that Christ’s return was imminent. Ever since that time, many Christian churches have claimed that the 2nd coming was happening any time now. The arguments that have been made in the past are very similar to those that the Church now makes about why this really is the time that Christ will return.
4. “There will not be another church that replaces this church.” Catholics say the same thing, Muslims say the same thing. They can quote you scripture to back up their claims, too.
5. “It is not perfect, and certainly the members are not perfect.” You can say that again. In fact, if you read Ostler’s book I linked above you will find that 5 of the top reasons people leave are:
a. The Church’s racism.
b. The Church’s treatment of women.
c. The Church’s treatment of LGBTQ people.
d. The Church’s lack of transparency (hiding sensitive history from members, lack of financial transparency, etc.)
e. In the US, the Church is dominated by political conservatives, Republicans, Trumpians, MAGA supporters, etc. Sure, the Church makes statements that it is politically neutral, but statements from Church leaders often reflect conservative ideals of the day with the political speech removed, and local Church communities are so dominated by conservatives that liberals can feel very uncomfortable.
6. “It has priesthood keys, the ability to administer the ordinances of salvation.” It says it does, yet the evidence/documentation for the visit of Peter, James, and John to Joseph is really, really shaky. Other churches claim to have priesthood authority as well. I don’t know your background, but you likely accept the idea that the Church alone has this authority because it is the religion that you grew up with. If you grew up Catholic, you’d think the pope had the real authority of God, and that the Mormons were wrong.
7. “Its head is the Savior, Jesus Christ.” Maybe, but a lot of the Church’s actions seem to be the exact opposite of what Christ would do (see above). By their fruits ye shall know them, and all that.
8. “To whom will you go if you leave here?” My understanding is most Church members who leave find meaning by pursuing spirituality on their own terms. They choose to find meaning without an institution acting as middle man. Many find life more fulfilling and happy after leaving.
You are also one of the people who mocked josh h’s comment about Mormonism only followed by 0.2% of the world’s population (and, as josh h noted, the percentage is much lower if you only count active members). I agree that the popularity of a religion is not necessarily a good indicator of its truthfulness, so we agree on that. However, I think there is a good point to be considered that relates to your comment. The reality is that 99+% of the world’s population has no idea what the Church is about. Most haven’t even heard of the Church, and for those that have, only a very small number have any understanding of the Church beliefs.
If the LDS Church is the “one true Church”, the only Church that can perform saving ordinances, the only Church that Christ accepts as His, well, why hasn’t God provided some mechanism so that at least a much larger portion of the world at least kind of understands some of the key teachings of “His One True Church” and why they are important? Further, why did God allow nearly 2 millenia to pass without priesthood authority (the “Great Apostacy”, as the Church frames it) on the earth at all. Further still, why did God not have priesthood authority anywhere but a small part of the Middle East (and later, the Americas) prior to the arrival of Christ? If it’s so important that people understand the teachings encompassed by Mormonism and that they receive saving ordinances by people with priesthood authority, why has God only made it possible for a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of mankind that has ever lived on this planet to receive these teachings and ordinances? Sure, maybe many people would reject them–I’m not throwing out Mormonism’s embrace of free agency here–but the vast majority of mankind since the beginning never knew about these things at all.
I do think that these are valid questions to ask, and I do think it brings into question the validity of the Church’s idea of it being the “One True Church” and that people can only be saved by receiving its sacred rites. Are 99.9999+% of the men and women who have walked the early really only going to be exalted by learning about Mormonism in the spirit world and then have to wait until some mortal Mormon is baptized and endowed for them by proxy in a Mormon temple? “Puzzling” and “fascinating”, indeed.
Anna, the church did work at one point work very well and it very much does not work nearly as well as it used to now. I was just trying to push back on the false diachotomy narratives we push. I see a lot of exmormons, who have been hurt that then project that hurt onto everyone else saying that church is harmful to everyone. That’s just silly. And don’t get me wrong, the narrative the church pushes about people that leave–horrible. I’m with you on all this and the hurt caused by all of it–the church absolutely doesn’t work for everyone and it fails many people who do not fit the mold. I’m sorry your husband hurts. When your definition of success in life is solely defined by the church’s doctrine of eternal families in the celestial kingdom who’ve all gone through the temple and endured to the end, I can see how it hurts when the regular happenings of life don’t conform to some brittle human socio-religious ideal. When things collapsed for me, there was a tremendous amount of pain as I felt like I was losing who I was. I think we just have to careful we aren’t going to some opposite extreme to compensate for the hurt or trying to mirror back the same behaviors we despise, such as “I discovered the church is false and you are clueless if you don’t agree with me.”
Possibly relevant:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cge1lr7225yo
A Japanese court dissolved the Unification Church (aka the Moonies) for pressuring people to make big donations. (A victim of this assassinated Prime Minister Abe over his cozy political arrangement with the church.) Maybe the courts should go after you guys next?
Chrisdrobinson, I totally agree with your last comment. I also get frustrated with the black or white thinking that the church is all good or totally evil. I stayed with it long after I doubted the “truth” of it all because I saw a lot of good. Not all that good has disappeared. It has been good for my husband and son. I think in general it is pretty good for men. I just wish believers didn’t think that they have 100% *the* truth and if you don’t love it you are totally evil.
It goes back to seeing the world in nothing but *my truth* as the only possible truth. No, your (general your, not you,Chris) truth is no better than my own truth, and the fact that I know “my truth” is very different from absolute truth tells me yours is too.
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty,”—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.
~John Keats