Reply #58: You both need to sit down together and read (or listen to) Jon Krakauer. [View All]

[politicat]

The book is called "Under The Banner of Heaven." It's the history of both the Mormon Church from an outsider's perspective (which he is most assuredly not getting in Seminary) and the story of a set of murders that grew out of some of the more extreme elements of the faith. However, those extremes are not that far from the surface of the mainstream church, and there's a lot more tolerance for the supposed banned practices in the mainstream church than most people are aware of. (Like polygamy. If you're quiet about it and don't advertise it, you're not likely to get excommunicated. And racism. The organization is still horribly racist.)

You need to talk about logical inconsistencies and hoaxes and frauds, and the fact that the most successful of hoaxers are the ones who believe what they're selling. The BoM is hugely internally inconsistent, (more so even than the Bible) and, if it was the actual word of god, then either god's a liar (because the evidence does not support the claims the books make) or god plays freakish practical jokes (removing/altering the evidence.)

I grew up in Mormon communities and was as close to the community as one can get without actually being baptized - I was Catholic and losing my faith in the whole thing, not just in Catholicism, but searching for something. My best friends were Mormons from the time I was ten or so. I was his age and going through about the same stage - he's looking for some psycho-social need to be filled, either for structure or discipline or positive male role models or acceptance. But those needs cannot be filled by an organization; they have to come from within and through inner peace.

Feel free to PM me.