beastie wrote:Let's parse this a bit and evaluate Wade's response.Conversion stories are carefully crafted by those who need admittance into Mormonism. A new convert that is aligning with Mormons can't stay with a message that they believe in the church because it makes them feel good in some fairly ambiguous way, and it is possible that other people in other faiths feel just as good. So the conversion story has to morph into what the group demands, which is that a revelatory experience occurred and that the convert “knows” the church is “true”. That is why they are so formulaic. They have to take care of several issues...the story has to explain why they were willing to abandon family and religious traditions, and turned on their family/friends who objected to their conversion and believed in the former religion. The story must always keep the former group in a “less than” light (remember...they have turned on friends, need to keep up a good reason to justify that).
Conversion stories are carefully crafted by those who need admittance into Mormonism. A new convert that is aligning with Mormons can't stay with a message that they believe in the church because it makes them feel good in some fairly ambiguous way, and it is possible that other people in other faiths feel just as good.
Translation: The original "message" that the convert held was that he/she believed in the church because it makes him/her feel good in an ambiguous way, and people who believe in other religions might also feel good in that same ambiguous way. But the convert cannot retain that message and be accepted within Mormonism.
So the conversion story has to morph into what the group demands, which is that a revelatory experience occurred and that the convert “knows” the church is “true”. That is why they are so formulaic.
Translation: So the convert has to change the story to fit the group demands. Now the message is that the convert had a notable revelatory experience in which God "told" him/her the church is true. That is why testimonies all sound the same.
They have to take care of several issues...the story has to explain why they were willing to abandon family and religious traditions, and turned on their family/friends who objected to their conversion and believed in the former religion.
They can't just admit that they abandoned their family and religious traditions based on ambiguous "feel good" feelings which other religionists also feel, and they can't just admit that they were willing to betray their family/friends on such a loose basis.
The story must always keep the former group in a “less than” light (remember...they have turned on friends, need to keep up a good reason to justify that).
The convert's story must emphasize that his/her former religion was "less than" Mormonism in various ways: it has "less than" true authority, "less than" the full gospel, etc. Remember, they betrayed family and friends and have, in some cases, been willing to totally lose those relationships, so they have to keep up a good reason to justify that.
Wade's reply:it would be irrational of me to suggests that this means that Mormon tesitmonies can't be trusted
Now, I forgot to connect every last single tiny little dot for Wade, so will do so now.
There are two steps involved in telling exmormons to shut up and sing, or, in this example, telling Mormons to shut up and sing. The above was just one part of the process.
First we need a term to label the group we have just described. To differentiate it from TBM, let's use Fanatical True Believer. FTB. FTBs are the group who "present a distorted view of the new religion and cannot be regarded as reliable informants by responsible journalists, scholars, or jurists" (see Kliever, one of the adherents of Bromley's model, above).
Now, here's the crucial part: there is another group that is not viewed with the same suspicion as this group. That is the Regular Believer group. Rosebud. RBs may actually have the exact same ideas and opinions as the FTBs, but the sole difference is:
they don't talk about it.
So, if Mormons want to NOT be classified in the "unreliable traitor" FTB group, all they have to do is:
SHUT UP.
And the recylcled smoke continues to billow.
Thanks, -Wade Englund-