u/sevenplaces

Dr. Randy Bell has one of the largest collections of Houdini items and other magic trick material. He and Landon and Rebecca went to several shows in Vegas and discussed them. Magic shows and a hypnosis show.

These shows are entertaining in how they just amaze you. One of the magicians Randy knows had to tell his audience that it wasn’t paranormal because people started to say he had real paranormal powers.

The relate this to Joseph Smith. Yes it is very possible for him to fool people into believing his stories. Just like we can’t explain stage magicians tricks.

See the full episode here:

https://youtu.be/doFBJg4657I

Dr. Benjamin Park posted a video recently that was interesting. He’s discussing fertility rates in the LDS.

Back in the early 1900s the ruling class liked the large family sizes of the LDS.

Now cultural trends such as economics and education have caused LDS women to more and more be at odds with the LDS leaders push for children.

I’ve edited together a couple of clips.

See his full episode here:

https://youtu.be/tMsKl176QcE

Dr. MIchael Ferguson is a professor of neurospirituality at Harvard. He is well known for his research and TedX talk about studying Mormons and feeling the spirit.

The talk was 10 years ago in 2016.

He observed fMRI images of the brains of people while feeling the spirit. He also studied Mormons and their spiritual feelings in various ways.

This clip describes a bit from his research.

I like his conclusion. Humans are going to do religion. Maybe by study and examination we can find ways to do religion in the safest way possible.

Here is the full talk:

https://youtu.be/ocuqguH1OIw

This family of devout, believing LDS with 15 children live in California. They felt mistreated by the local leaders and all the gossip about them.

They were so upset by their treatment they made an over 20 episode web series about their lives and their interactions with the LDS church. They published these in early October 2024.

In late October 2024 they had a no trespass letter delivered by armed security at their home. They didn’t believe it was legit and went to church anyway. It was a disaster as you would expect.

They just released chapter 27. It shows the SLC police calling them saying to stop calling Kirton McConkie. At the end they discuss a case of suspected child s3x abuse in their ward that the mother had reported to the bishop and CPS. The bishop did nothing. The abuser was caught years later and convicted.

They end saying that they discovered a woman who said she had an affair with one of their stake presidency.

The series is called the Crazy Train. They are angry and think the top church leaders will restore them to attend the church as soon as they are made aware the local leaders are liars and deceitful.

The full episode on YouTube:

https://youtu.be/AJ01d-RYmFY

Coy Johnston was on Mormon Stories today. I’ve summarized clips about his faith journey into about 10 minutes from the 4 hour interview.

He was ward mission leader in Wisconsin and passing out copies of the Book of Mormon everywhere. He started an interfaith choir. He was in it to win it.

Then he started looking into questions and discovered the church was not telling the truth about many things. He told his bishop who said it was garbage. His bishop called a friend in the church history department and found out what Coy had said was all true. His bishop apologized to him.

He moved to Arizona. He eventually started a meetup group to support people in a faith journey. His stake presidency wrote him an email saying to stop his deceit or his membership would be in jeopardy. So he stopped. He told the Stake President that it’s the leadership’s job to help the flock and he was sad they weren’t doing their job.

He was told his tithing wasn’t commensurate with a doctor’s salary and unless he paid more he could not get a temple recommend. So he paid more and saw his daughter sealed last Saturday.

The LDS church is not a healthy place. It is manipulative. The leaders are awful at many times.

Go watch the full episode here:

https://youtu.be/Yuyi26RHQ\_c

All of these clips come from the last half which is where you find the faith journey part. The first half is his growing up history.

Nemo the Mormon published a video on why Mormon apologists give bad defenses.

The ideas of Anglican philosopher Austin Farrer has been followed. Farrer wrote a book called Saving Belief. He explored the intellectual grounds for Christian faith, examining whether reasonable minds can still hold traditional theology without dodging complex or painful topics.

Neal Maxwell quoted him several times. The quote was from an essay about C.S. Lewis.

“Though argument does not create conviction, the lack of it destroys belief. What seems to be proved may not be embraced; but what no one shows the ability to defend is quickly abandoned. Rational argument does not create belief, but it maintains a climate in which belief may flourish”.

His essay was chapter one of the book “Light on C.S. Lewis”

Nemo says that the LDS church still tries to keep members out of the fight but mounts a weak defense to have any defense at all for those who want to think there is one.

Full episode here:

https://youtu.be/qIalYOct3rU

When other Christians push back on the claims of the LDS being the true Church of Jesus Christ they point to different theological concepts.

I see over and over here in this subreddit and in the attached clip that the LDS Church is so very Christian because the Book of Mormon has so much content about Jesus.

No that doesn’t make it an authoritative Christian document nor does it justify the founding of an authoritative Christian church.

It copies so much from the Bible and Joseph Smith included Christian content from his time. Doesn’t make it q true Christian church.

Here is a link to the full Hello Saints episode:

https://youtu.be/5VGBfswNzf4

Kolby Reddish and Steven Murphy had a 1 hour 40 minute discussion about faith and spiritual experiences on Mormonism with the Murph channel. This was published yesterday.

I’ve clipped together about 5 minutes.

Steven keeps saying he only has faith because of his spiritual experiences. He names different types of experiences. Seeing a miracle. Praying for something and getting an “answer”. A feeling.

He admits there is not proof these are from God. But he has developed trust in God because his belief is they are from God.

Kolby explains that Kolby can’t rely on non-falsifiable methods generally as evidence of something. So he rejects faith or “spiritual experiences” as an epistemological method to find truth.

He discusses his definition of truth. Something that accurately comports with reality.

One thing they didn’t dive into as much as I would like is what is a spiritual experience that qualifies as evidence for believers. In my experience it’s anything they care to describe as such. That’s not rigorous at all. It’s a problem to me to speak of spiritual experiences as driving faith as if we all know what that means.

Although Steven admits spiritual experiences don’t give him certainty, so many say that it does give them certainty. I had to explore this as I recognized my LDS beliefs didn’t comport with reality and were false. What about my spiritual experiences? It’s a common question. And it is something people who start to doubt fall back on first.

Here is the full episode:

https://youtu.be/EKrY4mSehtQ

Corbin Allred is a professional actor and has starred in various Hollywood and LDS related films. One role was as Lucifer in the LDS Temple endowment film from 2013 to 2023.

Then he left the church and was quite vocal about it on social media.

He discusses leaving and how he feels now about his experience leaving. He talks about epistemology and how he is an agnostic atheist now.

He says he and his wife are scheduled to do a Mormon Stories episode.

See the full episode here on Latter Day Bridge Builders channel.

https://youtu.be/0lAfGPtH4i8

I've clipped together about 10 minutes of discussion about the role of faith in finding truth and how apologists and counter-apologists deal with it.

Most of the clips are from Kolby Reddish's channel where he discussed "The purpose of apologetics". Kolby made a comment on my recent post that he liked the discussion on faith quite a lot...so I decided to clip together parts from the last half of the episode where they had a discussion on faith.

Steven Murphy is an apologist. He defends his belief by trying to say his beliefs have evidence and are plausible...but he acknowledges he can't be certain and he fills the gaps with faith. He doesn't believe his religious beliefs are absurd like believing in the Easter Bunny but are far from certainties.

Kolby, a counter-apologist says one of his goals is to fight against "brittle faith". He describes brittle faith as basing beliefs and faith on incorrect facts. So from my observation of his interactions he tries to discuss facts behind beliefs to explore what evidence is solid and what isn't as solid.

Kolby makes the comment that he isn't trying to lead people out of the church. Kolby also rails on ex-mormons who don't understand that there is ambiguity and difficulty in struggling with how we ground our beliefs.

Troy who is an ex-believer, asks Kolby and Steven what the role of faith is and is it useful in finding truth. Kolby admits he doesn't see faith as helpful in finding truth.

Tyler on the panel has a channel that is known for counter-apologetics. He did a series critiquing the 35 part series "LDS Truth Claims" by apologist Brett McDonald. In this panel he states as well that his goal is not to lead people out of the church. Although he says people who do start a faith journey should explore deconstruction. He says he appreciates Steven Murphy's approach to trying to understand both sides and the strengths and weaknesses of both the believers' side and the critics' side.

Then at the end I insert video clips from John Dehlin from his recent episode. He too says that internet critics feel called to say that truth matters and are trying to have less harm, more truth and more thoughtful discussion in order to be healthier as a broad Mormon community.

John says he has no problem with faith or people being members of the church or even for the church to be healthy and thriving. His goal as a counter-apologist is not to destroy faith. He says he wants science and evidence based informed decisions about belief in the church.

What do you see the role of counter apologetics on the internet? Is it to preserve faith? Is it to change people's faith? Is it to convince people to abandon non-scientific, non-objective evidence and admit where the good evidence ends and faith begins? Will it result in people losing faith even though that's not their goal?

Here is the link to the full video from the Let's Disagree with Kolby Reddish channel.

https://youtu.be/qWvt6fqjUf4

In the Mormon News weekly episode today John and Meggan start off with a clip of the head of the apologetics group FAIR LDS giving the opening remarks at last week’s FAIR conference.

Scott said Satan wants you to leave and he doesn’t care why. He lists a bunch of reasons he thinks people leave including the classic “they were offended”.

Meggan criticizes him for being so black and white. That’s not how life works.

John gets rolling and can’t stop. He criticizes the use of folk magic idea of a Satan influencing people. He talks about why he does what he does. To help people see the truth because the church doesn’t tell the truth.

John says he doesn’t want to destroy faith. He just wants the church to do less harm. Tell the truth and if people stay they stay but if they leave he wants to help them leave.

Maybe they need to read Jeff Strong’s book Torn to find out why people leave? And I think a lot leave because FAIR’s apologetics are so bad that people say I can’t believe this stuff.

Here is the full episode on Mormon Stories YouTube Channel:

https://www.youtube.com/live/3p73ApJO73Q

Kolby Reddish released today a nearly 2 hour panel discussion about apologetics and counter-apologetics. The first hour was in summary about Jacob Hansen and how bad his approach is.

They discuss some examples of Jacob not engaging in good faith. Being mean-spirited. And manipulating the discussion to just look like the winner versus trying to arrive at truth.

The last part was largely praising Steven Murphy for how he does apologetics.

I’ve clipped together little pieces to be about 10 minutes of their discussion.

Go watch the full episode here:

https://youtu.be/qWvt6fqjUf4

Latter Day Chad is a member of the main Utah branch of Mormonism - the LDS Church. He’s been going on various podcasts in the past year to share his ideas. For example, 9 months ago he was on Mormon Book Reviews with Steven Pynakker.

Most recently Latter Day Chad has been making waves accusing the LDS church of hiring an accused child molestor to help with creative work on the Salt Lake Temple open house. These videos have been published on Zion Media’s channel.

This recent short on the Zion Media channel Latter Day Chad shared evidence that Jacob Hanson and Cardin Ellis tried to have him blocked from doing a debate with an evangelical.

Drama in the world of LDS apologetics.

I’ve included only a portion in my clip.

Watch Latter Day Chad’s full video on this here:

https://youtube.com/shorts/OKxdlrkUfVk

This content creator "dearmormonme" discusses on their channel how they were taught as a child about the power of Satan. It created significant fear in the way they lived their life. Feelings they had and things they saw in the world were all attributed to an outside invisible force called Satan.

Satan was a significant topic in their patriarchal blessing.

When they finally realized that there was really not evidence to support the reality of these powers of an invisible Satan they realized that they were able to navigate a life based more in reality and relationship with what was going on around them.

I too was taught that Satan had great power to harm and influence me. My patriarchal blessing also talks about "the adversary".

Satan in the past had a significant role in the temple ceremony.

What stories do you have about what you were taught to believe in Mormonism about Satan and his angels?

On the YouTube channel “The Way” with Brian Davila he hosted a debate between a Protestant and a Mormon.

Ryan Hemelaar of NeedGod.net debates Jacob Hanson.

The main topic is about salvation. Ryan shovels the Bible at Jacob for 2 hours telling Jacob that he is taking things out of context and he is adding to the Bible.

Jacob keeps trying to use Calvinistic predestination against Ryan. Ryan says that God choses whose heart to change but once changed it’s impossible for them to turn away. Jacob says he doesn’t know if he will continue faithful and the scriptures promise different rewards based on our works.

I’ve put just a random clip here so you can get a feel for what it entails. Here is a link to the full debate on YouTube.

https://youtu.be/J0jcyUCfzPc

Jacob Hansen posted this on his YouTube channel under the “Posts” section. Apparently a Protestant who came to his debate to support Avery of the GodLogic channel was convinced by Jacob.

Since then he was baptized a member of the church.

Here is a link to the post

http://youtube.com/post/UgkxdllZRTo\_Fn0\_r77mxbDsRQGG2aG1Uyqq

John Dehlin and Meggan Hayes were discussing the Arizona Supreme Court’s decision in the Bisbee Arizona case brought by two girls who were abused by a member of the church after he confessed to his bishop. This was on the Mormon Stories channel.

Two bishops and the hotline and the membership council that excommunicated him all knew and never told the police or child protective services. They argued that they preferred to protect the abuser and his confidentiality over reporting him.

This is the church’s official policy that they push state laws to protect.

They discuss how the church will excommunicate people for many other things but child abuse is not on the list of mandatory church discipline - unless the person has been convicted of abuse. But how would someone be convicted if the church’s policy is to keep it secret? Hmmmm

The full episode is here if you want to hear more than just my edits.

https://www.youtube.com/live/x3QxhLHoXHc

Atheist church auditor Jared from the Heliocentric channel came to Utah in April and made a one hour episode about his experiences.

I’ve clipped together about 5 minutes.

He has some strong criticisms of the church.

Here is the full episode. https://youtu.be/vzwc1NQuH7A

Meggan Hayes and John Dehlin discussed in their recent news episode the claims that women in the church have priesthood power.

Meggan explains that women can always be overridden by a man. They have no authority.

She tells the story of being asked one Christmas as Relief Society President to assess the needs of all the women in the ward. She identified one woman who was in need of a food order. She suggested a $100 food order. It was the Stake President who had told the Stake Relief Society president to have this assessment done.

She went to her branch president who said no to the food order. She as Relief Society president has no ability to actually give help to people from the church.

She appealed to the Stake President who said the Branch President got revelation that the woman in need should be left high and dry.

Another story of the LDS church not helping a needy member. I’m so sick of members who say any member in need will be helped. Its false.

And women have no power in the LDS church.

Full episode here:

https://www.youtube.com/live/x3QxhLHoXHc

John Dehlin and Meggan Hayes discussed the larger “Stand Forever” series with Larry Corbridge, emeritus GA with the LDS Church. They discuss how manipulative it is.

John asks why the church needs a slick rich lawyer to defend it.

They play a clip showing the level of blame reversal where Larry puts all the blame of someone who thinks parts of the church experience could be improved. They aren’t there to listen to members or be concerned about members experience, that’s clear.

Here is a link to the Stand Forever video they discussed. Episode 26

https://youtu.be/uCo2iUjX6PI

Here is a link to the Mormon Stories News episode:

https://www.youtube.com/live/x3QxhLHoXHc