Interesting read but I'd have to say that the ExMormon subreddit mods made the right decision to ban this guy. Using under-handed and manipulative means to 'rescue' people from a religion or cult is not good.
The Secret Facebook War for Mormon Hearts and Minds
31–40 of 59 posts
Re: The Secret Facebook War for Mormon Hearts and Minds
#32I'm an active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and I've tried to be as educated as possible about the controversial/anti-mormon stuff (for example I've read the CES letter). But this is the first time I've come across this claim: "During that time [when plural marriage was part of the doctrine] some male followers of the Latter Day Saint movement took dozens of wives each, disproportionately…
"Bountiful has come under intense scrutiny for its involvement in the polygamous sect. Warren Jeffs, who was one of the FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives, is thought to have visited a dozen or so times in 2005. The Vancouver Sun on January 28, 2006, released information stating that Utah's Attorney General is collaborating with British Columbia's Attorney General in attempting to deal with polygamy and the alleged abus…
The FLDS are not related to the LDS
Re: The Secret Facebook War for Mormon Hearts and Minds
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
No reason at all. It was generally allowed in the U.S. Age of consent was typically 10 years old until 1885 https://discover-the-truth.com/2013/09/09/age-of-consent-in-... "After 1885, age of consent laws changed around the country, reaching 16 in New York in 1889 and 18 in 1895. Prior to these changes the age of consent in most places in the United States was 10 or 12 years." There's a very strong trend to criticize…
What we would consider child marriage was normal then, but polygamy was not. Polygamy was one of the charges leveled against Mormons during their various persecutions in Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois.
Was child marriage really normal back then? The stats I've seen say 19th Century women were getting married in their early 20s and men in their mid 20s. It went down by a few years in the 1950s and 1960s before going up to what it is now.
Re: The Secret Facebook War for Mormon Hearts and Minds
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's no dearth of places to find ex-mormon/anti-mormon info. I'm looking for documentation of that specific claim. I did follow the links, but I didn't see anything promising.
> There's no dearth of places to find ex-mormon/anti-mormon info. Off-topic, but I visited Salt Lake City last year and I was surprised by a bookstore that had both a Mormon section and an Anti-Mormon section. I'd never seen an Anti-Mormon section in a bookstore before, and I certainly didn't expect to see it in SLC of all places. But in retrospect, it kind of makes sense that people would have stronger opinions abou…
I've found Salt Lake City to have a surprisingly diverse population and to be fairly politically moderate. Most smaller towns in Utah though are much closer to what many people think of when they hear Utah.
Re: The Secret Facebook War for Mormon Hearts and Minds
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's no dearth of places to find ex-mormon/anti-mormon info. I'm looking for documentation of that specific claim. I did follow the links, but I didn't see anything promising.
It's actually hard to find anti-mormon anything. There isn't as many people who have something in particular against the Mormon church as Mormons were raised to believe (including me - I'm an ex-mormon). Most of the compaining is by freethinkers who are against religions that are overly strict or exclusive (Mormons are encouraged not to date or marry outside of the Mormon church even though Mormons call themselves Ch…
It exists in some areas. I was raised in an area of the south where a large Baptist church wielded a significant amount of influence. I often saw anti-Mormon flyers passed around. I don't know if it's very common, but those messages have been out there for a long time.
Re: The Secret Facebook War for Mormon Hearts and Minds
#36> About 1,000 people who saw the Facebook ad clicked on it and were taken to a page deep within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ website that expounded on the “revelation on plural marriage,” the order from God that was used to sanction polygamy for decades.
Worth pointing out that they did not link to "anti mormon" literature, but the church's own website about polygamy.
Probably this article:
https://www.lds.org/topics/plural-marriage-in-kirtland-and-n...
Re: The Secret Facebook War for Mormon Hearts and Minds
#37“Ex-Mormons responded in droves to dump their contact lists of current Mormons. By the end of the first day his ad target list had grown from 30 to 397” So now people get doxxed by friends and family. Imagine someone pretending to do this to influence someone in one direction, but then using it for any other reason. Who can say none of their friends would be tricked?
Not saying that any of this was the right response for them to take but many of these people were recently mormon and therefor had the working that the mormon church uses still fresh in their minds.
The mormon church constantly asks its members to tell the missionaries their non-mormon friends names, phone numbers, and addresses so missionaries can visit and try to convert them. While we see things from the technology side, the mormon church has done the sneaker-net version of the same thing for a very long time.
Re: The Secret Facebook War for Mormon Hearts and Minds
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's no dearth of places to find ex-mormon/anti-mormon info. I'm looking for documentation of that specific claim. I did follow the links, but I didn't see anything promising.
It's actually hard to find anti-mormon anything. There isn't as many people who have something in particular against the Mormon church as Mormons were raised to believe (including me - I'm an ex-mormon). Most of the compaining is by freethinkers who are against religions that are overly strict or exclusive (Mormons are encouraged not to date or marry outside of the Mormon church even though Mormons call themselves Ch…
I'm not Mormon and never was but I've seen plenty of anti-Mormon statements and bias. I live on the East Coast and I head plenty of comments about Romney and Mormons during 2012.
Re: The Secret Facebook War for Mormon Hearts and Minds
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's no dearth of places to find ex-mormon/anti-mormon info. I'm looking for documentation of that specific claim. I did follow the links, but I didn't see anything promising.
It's actually hard to find anti-mormon anything. There isn't as many people who have something in particular against the Mormon church as Mormons were raised to believe (including me - I'm an ex-mormon). Most of the compaining is by freethinkers who are against religions that are overly strict or exclusive (Mormons are encouraged not to date or marry outside of the Mormon church even though Mormons call themselves Ch…
There is plenty of anti-Mormon sentiment among American Protestants who happily deny Mormon status as Christians while willfully ignoring that their own particular stream of Christian practice is only a small slice of the doctrines that have been developed over the millennia.
Re: The Secret Facebook War for Mormon Hearts and Minds
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
> There's a very strong trend to criticize historical figures for not conforming to modern standards, but it's not usually very useful in understanding their character. Smith was considered an outlier by his contemporaries. This is not simply a case of applying modern standards to a 19th-century person. People alive at the time considered his marriages abnormal.
The polygamy part. But not necessarily the age part.
The legal age of consent is the legal age of marriage, but not the normal age of marriage. How many people do you know who married at the age of consent? Most people marry later.