LDS FAITHFUL STATEMENT…

“The real problem I have here is not any message that someone could try to convey to me, but the (forgive me for the lack of a better word) spirit behind it. In my experience when someone has been a member of the church and has fallen away as you have, they are completely against it (and grow to hate it because of their own feelings) because of some personal apostasy.”

RESPONSE…

“Since when does the spirit of the message trump the message itself? It’s only when a person decides the other party has chosen the wrong path. This seems to require no knowledge of the joys and/or pains that the other party has gone through in making their choice; just that it is wrong and therefore invalid. Not everyone who has fallen away from the church is completely against it. On the contrary, I find that many people who have decided to stop going to church will defend it when approached by someone who has learned the real truth about Mormonism; leaving with reason. I have not grown to hate it because of my own feelings. I have grown to hate it because they have intentionally changed the facts; beginning with Joseph Smith’s own written history. I have grown to hate it because it does not treat everyone equal. I have grown to hate it because the members are increasingly choosing obedience over agency (In Mormon theology this was Lucifer’s plan from the beginning, and now they embrace it). I have grown to hate it because the average member isn’t given real facts about the early days of the religion. I have grown to hate it because of the church’s involvement and ultimate cover-up of the Mountain Meadows Massacre. I have grown to hate it because it claims to be The Only True Church while dismissing the proven facts which lead one to an easy understanding that it is not possible God would have ever approved of it. I have grown to hate it because it spends far more money on the dead than the living. I have grown to hate it because there is not a single official LDS Church study guide/manual explaining Joseph Smith had 34+ wives. I have grown to hate it because Joseph Smith married these women, had sex with them, and then moved on to the next one; sometimes within a week. I have grown to hate it because they have changed the original, gruesome intent of the temple ceremony so that it is more digestible while not informing the current batch of temple attendees about the murderous intent of the original version(s). I have grown to hate it because it doesn’t exude humility in its financial dealings; happy to keep this information away from the populous. Above all, I hate it because it fails every test of what God’s true religion should be.”

^{Dan Wees, Encyclopedia of Anti-Mormonism (West Valley City, UT: Self-Published, July 2011), 52-53.}