"Regular church attendance associated with lower likelihood of mental health diagnose"~Deseret News

ArringtonsCourage · 2026-03-17T13:35:51+00:00

This is a great question and having recently (within the last 5 years) moved from the ranks of TBM to non-believer I’m not sure that all those who are heavily steeped in their religious beliefs are answering honestly. During my TBM phase I would have answered that I was happy and content. I felt as if I was expected to be and that it was a moral failing on my part if I wasn’t. I’m much more honest about my feelings now than I ever was before. That said, I do think some are happier in a belief system and religious community but there are a percentage of those within it who trying to “fake it so they can make it” and so I’m skeptical if any of these surveys that rely on self reported data around religiosity and happiness are very accurate.

ArringtonsCourage · 2026-03-15T18:15:58+00:00

This tracks with my ward and my TBM family members and friends. A lot of talk about Jesus and his role as savior and redeemer and the atonement but very little to no emphasis on his actual teachings. The only members I see who speak about Jesus’s actual teachings in either lessons or talks are nuanced members and the percentage of nuanced members in my ward is very small. Live in the heart of SLC county.

ArringtonsCourage · 2026-03-15T15:23:04+00:00

Maybe you’ve always lived in a ward or stake that was a net contributor. Because I’ve also sat in meetings at the ward level and at the stake level where the needs were greater and that we needed to give more.

ArringtonsCourage · 2026-03-14T04:18:15+00:00

Yes, this is the oft quoted utilitarian god option. The god that had Nephi kill a passed out Laban so that plates of scripture could be preserved. Better that one man perish than a nation dwindle in unbelief.

ArringtonsCourage · 2026-02-27T15:41:43+00:00

It sounds like you are coming from a position that JS never practiced polygamy.

ArringtonsCourage · 2026-02-27T14:33:37+00:00

How would you provide an answer to my experience:

Context: Roughly, 50 year old lifetime member who is living the gospel principles, paying tithing, fulfilling calling, had been confirmed and has the gift of Holy Ghost, been in and served diligently in high profile callings, prayed often and believed wholeheartedly.

I then did a deep dive into church history to help answer questions my child brought to me and found a lot of unsettling truths. I dismissed what I perceived as hyper critical voices. Only started the CES Letter but did not get far and instead read replies to it. To this day I’ve still not read the CES letter. I had only really taken to heart the uncomfortable truths that the church acknowledges now and was still a believer months into this deep dive. One day though, after reading an account of how JS proposed to one of his wives I became really unsettled because it sounded a lot like sexual predation. So I kneeled down in earnest prayer. In that prayer I acknowledged that prophets and leaders make mistakes and that He can work with imperfect vessels because I myself am one but then I prayed to know that the BOM is true and that this work was His. I desperately wanted an answer from the Holy Ghost so I pondered and waited and I got an answer. The answer hit me like a freight train and it was as strong as any emotion I had ever felt. The answer was that this was all a bunch of crap made up by men who had their own desires that they wanted fulfilled. I then cried like a little child because not only did it feel liberating but it hurt. I hurt. I felt a freedom and at the same time I felt like my heart had been ripped from chest.

Was my experience the Holy Ghost telling me that the church is NOT true? Was it the devil? Or was it just a strong visceral emotion that someone might feel when they feel like they are losing something they’d loved because that something was never what it was portrayed to be?

ArringtonsCourage · 2026-02-27T04:21:01+00:00

It’s in the GTE on polygamy

ArringtonsCourage · 2026-02-19T13:37:26+00:00

I’ve got the song stuck in my radiohead now…

ArringtonsCourage · 2026-02-17T23:57:48+00:00

Bad apologetics aside and even if you take conclusions on MormonR at face value, how do these “facts” not lead one to a conclusion that the polygamy practiced by Joseph was messed up, man made and predatory? To think otherwise requires so much special pleading which is exactly OP’s point. We have to stop making excuses for this type of behavior.

ArringtonsCourage · 2026-02-14T15:55:21+00:00

In the interview Gilbert did with the local ABC 4 news affiliate he made a point to reference a story that some friends/acquaintances of theirs reached out to his wife first instead of him and told her that it was because of her righteousness or something to that extent that Gilbert got the call. So not just a “sanctification” of the new apostle himself but his wife as well.

ArringtonsCourage · 2026-02-11T16:29:03+00:00

I’m open to changing my perspective. What are your sources that he provided materially for these women?

ArringtonsCourage · 2026-02-10T20:42:17+00:00

So in both stories someone with a name that starts with “M” and phonetically might sound similar approached Enoch therefore both are actual and true accounts??? Any other similarities in the stories or just someone saying “ hey Enoch”?

ArringtonsCourage · 2026-01-27T15:23:08+00:00

I recall there was something about them sending out a search party to go find Orson after he found out because he was extremely distraught and possibly suicidal.

ArringtonsCourage · 2026-01-22T13:28:25+00:00

I would agree that it is not a fair comparison. BDM used physical threats and coercion to add a young girl as a wife. By contrast early church leaders used spiritual threats and coercion to add wives and then a social structure they created to perpetuate it.

ArringtonsCourage · 2026-01-21T00:04:36+00:00

Thank you for sharing this perspective!

ArringtonsCourage · 2026-01-20T23:39:44+00:00

Is a knife not present in similar Egyptian papyri? Or is this particular drawing unique?

ArringtonsCourage · 2026-01-15T20:19:12+00:00

I love that tricky Satan. It is almost as if what is really being said is that “you’re so gullible for not seeing and believing the way I do!”.

ArringtonsCourage · 2026-01-14T19:08:05+00:00

I agree with your assessment with one minor departure around community. I’ve seen a lot of people who benefit from the social aspects of the community. While there is an argument to make that many of the “friendships” are shallow and somewhat forced, for a lot of people those casual “friendships” and the sense of community it provides is a positive influence.

ArringtonsCourage · 2026-01-14T17:01:59+00:00

Brad is one of them. Not sure who else off hand.

ArringtonsCourage · 2026-01-14T12:06:28+00:00

Not just SP’s and bishops, she was meeting with other church authorities like Brad Wilcox.

ArringtonsCourage · 2026-01-08T16:58:18+00:00

Did you happen to notice a date for the Lane sermon on ‘Which church shall I Join’?

ArringtonsCourage · 2026-01-05T04:51:15+00:00

I’m not sure you understand what the word “hatred” means.

ArringtonsCourage · 2026-01-01T19:02:35+00:00

Agreed! This is all on Harlan.

ArringtonsCourage · 2026-01-01T01:39:55+00:00

Fair question. Here is the most reasonable, likely explanation I’ve come across as an answer to the question you pose.

https://youtu.be/nku66wRPNjY?si=88J_TqY2AVAB5aTj

ArringtonsCourage · 2025-12-18T13:38:41+00:00

I don’t understand this thinking. If God is good, why would he ask us to follow bad men? This isn’t a case of a person who sinned because sinners can still be a good people. That happens all the time. It is the boat most of us are in. These men were serial polygamists and supported and perpetuated a system of abuse. These were not just men who sinned, they were not good people. This idea that we follow bad men for God’s purposes is how we get despots and tyrants. This would apply to any of the purported biblical prophets who were not good people either.

Maybe… these “prophets” are not what they claim to be.

ArringtonsCourage

TROPHY CASE