One of the things I’ve enjoyed most about living here in Virginia is that my religious past is not of any interest to my coworkers, with the exception of one guy, a Lebanese Christian engineer who has on occasion asked me about Mormonism. Apparently, he didn’t know anything about the LDS church, other than the big temple in Maryland, until the Romney campaign last year. I have tried very hard to be fair about the church when he’s asked, but it’s clear he thinks the church is a little odd.
This morning, he asked me if I had seen the New York Times article about doubting Mormons, and I said I had. He said that 3 or 4 families in his neighborhood are Mormon, and his wife gets together to do “woman things” with them (English is not his native language).
His wife asked her Mormon friends if they had seen the article, and they had. They apparently told his wife that they had been dealing with some of these issues in their marriages, with at least one spouse expressing serious doubts. They also said they had gone to their church leaders, but “no one wants to talk about these things.” These women all expressed frustration and disappointment with the church.
He ended up saying (as best as I can recollect), “John, they hide things, they keep things secret, and they threaten people to shut up. What kind of religion does these things? They can’t do this forever. People find out the truth always.”
As I said earlier, the church will survive the more visible doubt, but it’s fascinating to me that what we’ve seen among members for several years now is becoming well-known, even among people who don’t have any connection to the church.
Runtu's Rincón 
Mark Twain said, ““It’s easier to fool people than to convince them they have been fooled.”
There will always be people in every religion who want (or perhaps ‘need’) to swallow the blue pill instead of the red one. The Mormon church is rife with these kinds of people. For one thing, a lot of Utah Mormons with a long line of pioneer ancestry will defend Mormonism regardless of anything that should shake a logically thinking person’s faith. However, “My country (religion), right or wrong; like my mother, drunk or sober.”
Also, the Mormon church is monolithic and won’t ever ‘fall’, as some might expect; it’s not going to disappear from the face of the earth anytime soon. It will, though, continue to re-invent itself in order to stay afloat, and who knows what the future holds — maybe it will even start flourishing again. But to be sure, the Mormon church’s long established rhetoric such as, “In the end times even the very elect will be deceived,” and things like that will be enough to keep a lot of believing LDS members from abandoning ship, especially if the ship is a great place to currently cruise around on with all of your other like-minded shipmates. And if they think their after-life Port of Call is going to be this wonderful ‘Celestial Kingdom,’ then all the more reason, if not to revel in the cruise, then at least ‘hang in their’ (endure to the end).
“… then at least hang in *there*’…”
As more of the public becomes aware, and the general church membership learns of these issues, I wonder if a whisper campaign will start, or members will be too afraid to openly discuss the issues.
I was curious if the LDS ladies spoke collectively with their neighbor, or did each have a separate conversation? If it was a group discussion, these ladies may have found allies with whom they can have open and honest discussions. Many LDS members feel lonely and isolated upon learning of historical and other issues regarding their faith.
It’s frustrated reading this, I have been known the Lds for long and I know so well their malicious acts on hiding truth. I know that all of them are audacious on lying on the name of God to mislead people even the educated one. It’s terrible and horrible relating this but I am so excited to live the time when all the stuff they keep hiding will be known and will become naked before the eyes of all. only the truth will resist. The Mormons or lds are creepy….they’re not even ashamed of themselves…maybe they think or know that God doesn’t see them….lol.
I have to say I don’t agree that Mormons are consciously lying. Most Mormons I know do not have the faintest idea of the truth behind what they’ve been taught. The church’s history and origins have been so well-packaged for so long that I don’t think even the people who write church publications (and I was one of them) are consciously distorting anything. They are just repeating what they were told; there is no incentive in the church for (and plenty of warning against) doing outside, unapproved research into the church’s origins. In my case, I trusted the leadership and what I was taught because, well, why wouldn’t I? I’m kind of a history and knowledge junkie, and I did my own homework over several years. Does that mean I’m “smarter” or more honest than other Mormons? No, it just means I learned things that weren’t readily available from the church. The problem the church has now is that those materials are readily available to anyone who knows how to Google.
I do appreciate your apologize that they just release what the leaders teach them, they are like innocents being concentrated on the promoting on the good faith of others….