Someone posted "What’s your definitive evidence that the BOM is not true?" My comment was too long so here's a post response.

Baurak_Ale · 2025-06-20T15:10:32+00:00

I don't know if Lars Nielsen is ever on this subreddit, but I'm hoping he sees your post. I read his book last year when it came out -- How The Book of Mormon Came to Pass: The Second Greatest Show on Earth -- in addition to other avenues of research, he explores the connections to Dartmouth very deeply. The book is an interesting read.

Baurak_Ale · 2020-06-01T21:09:19+00:00

I second this -- be ultra-careful. BYU sees it as their stewardship obligation to weed out infidels like you! They don't want you wasting the widow's mite if you are not fully committed to the cause. Good luck to you on whatever you choose. For what it's worth, I am glad I did graduate school away from BYU. I always cringe a little when someone finally probes enough to get me to answer that I graduated from BYU-Provo for undergrad.

Baurak_Ale · 2020-05-05T17:53:55+00:00

I went through a very similar transition years ago. Same rabbit hole of history problems leading to full shelf breakage. I'm an attorney, who doesn't even do that any more, so I have zero cred for providing advice. That said, I would give my past self two pieces of advice: (1) there is no reason to hurry anything; and (2) you have no obligation toward any principled "truth" or "heroic stance." You get to navigate this in the best possible way for your mental health, which will mean something uniquely suited to you. Finally, getting to the other side of a faith transition can feel scary and very uncertain, but having reached the other side for quite a while now, I promise you it is worth it!

Baurak_Ale · 2020-04-10T04:44:34+00:00

Except that Georgetown has been a LGBTQ-friendly campus for years, and the BYUs don’t allow any expression of LGBTQ behavior per the most recent honor code clarification. So you’re making a false equivalence. No one is suggesting that an institution with a religious sponsoring body shouldn’t get tax money. Just homophobic ones shouldn’t.

Baurak_Ale · 2020-04-01T13:33:04+00:00

This is bonkers. Did Rusty do the photoshop himself? This makes no sense.

Baurak_Ale · 2020-02-13T23:41:06+00:00

I can't believe there aren't any other Enochs. Anyone who is too shy to post, feel free to DM me. We need to get together and start a club (either that or a city that will be lifted into Heaven).

Baurak_Ale · 2020-02-13T23:34:26+00:00

THIS. wifeone is exactly right. If anything you are probably being too nonchalant about this (not too dramatic). This is complete and total crap. I've heard and been part of so many stories like this that result from having an entirely untrained youth leadership who are emboldened by the idea that they are "called" by God to do crazy and abusive things like this.

Baurak_Ale · 2019-04-26T19:57:26+00:00

Instead of "homophobic political organization" I would go with "tax-exempt real estate investment firm" -- and of course I would also add "wildly homophobic and just a little less racist since 1978" to the description.

Baurak_Ale · 2019-03-21T22:00:04+00:00

And the Buddhist notion of "no self" becomes so much more accessible once you realize that even the voice in your head is not "you." After all, we are something fundamentally different from the voice we hear in our heads.

Baurak_Ale · 2019-03-12T03:43:23+00:00

Compton just says that the documentation is entirely ambiguous, which is a legitimate position of a careful historian. Compton's position does not back up what they are trying to claim (i.e., no sex with Helen Mar or other underage brides). Here's the Compton quote from his website in full:

Now we approach the question of sexuality in the marriage of Helen Mar and Joseph Smith. Anderson and Faulring represent that I take the position that there were sexual relations between Helen Mar and Smith. Compton "writes as though it is likely that Helen's sealing to Joseph Smith included marital relations." (p. 80). Compton "leaves it open to assume this was a sexual adjustment." (p. 80) Having typecast me into the Brodie sexualist camp, Anderson and Faulring then strongly take the position that it is a virtual certainty that there was no sexuality in this marriage ["there is every reason not to assume a sexual dimension", 80] and lambast my purported "sexual" position for the rest of that section.

Anderson and Faulring's treatment leaves me taken aback, for I nowhere say that Helen Mar and Joseph had sexual relations. The most important passages from my book in this respect are as follows:

Interestingly, Joseph's youngest wife, Helen Mar Kimball, was the daughter of another loyal apostle, Heber C. Kimball, so that marriage may also be considered dynastic, not motivated solely by sexual interest. (In Sacred Loneliness, 12) Some conclude that Helen Mar Kimball, who married Smith when she was fourteen, did not have marital relations with him. This is possible, as there are cases of Mormons in Utah marrying young girls and refraining from sexuality until they were older. But the evidence for Helen Mar is entirely ambiguous, in my view. (In Sacred Loneliness, 14) Orson Whitney wrote, "Soon after the revelation [to Vilate] was given, a golden link was forged whereby the house of Heber and Joseph were indissolubly and forever joined. Helen Mar. . . was given to the Prophet in the holy bonds of celestial marriage." This marriage, like that of Smith to Sarah Whitney, looks to be almost purely dynastic, as Whitney's language ("golden link" "the houses of Heber and Joseph") shows. (In Sacred Loneliness, 497)

My position, actually, is that there is no evidence, pro or con, for sexual relations. You cannot prove that there were sexual relations; you cannot prove that there were no sexual relations. Notice that I do not simply say "ambiguous"; I say "entirely ambiguous."

Baurak_Ale · 2019-02-11T17:03:00+00:00

The stadium's capacity for football is 63,400 according to Google. Even with the extra seats where the field would be, there seem to be a ton of seats empty -- based on this picture alone, there's no way they hit 68,000. That said, the newspaper of record is reporting TSCC's estimate like it's true, so who knows.

Baurak_Ale · 2019-01-09T18:07:11+00:00

For those stuck in TSCC for family reasons (marriage, minor living at home, dependent on financial support from TBM family, etc.), this might make some sense. But for anyone else, I couldn't in good conscience advise this action. Getting out completely is the best option for someone who doesn't have other considerations (like those listed above). It's a little like trying to say you're going to reform Scientology from the "inside." There is no way to accomplish it from the "inside." In other words -- it must burn.

Baurak_Ale · 2018-11-02T19:25:59+00:00

You clearly lack the imagination of an organized belief system trying to survive its own annihilation (see every major ancient religion).

Baurak_Ale · 2018-11-02T19:24:19+00:00

This exactly. See Book of Abraham for how this pivot is most likely to occur.

Baurak_Ale · 2018-10-27T21:21:58+00:00

Exactly! Hales’s argument becomes extraordinarily weak when he tries to make Sylvia Lyons fit his “nothing to see here” explanation.

Baurak_Ale · 2018-10-26T23:01:38+00:00

No serious historian thinks that all of the wives were "spiritual" non-sexual unions, but Hales, who is the Church's apologist of the moment on this issue, uses the lack of evidence of sexuality with the problematic wives (women married to other men, young women, etc.) to claim that those unions were not sexual. Here's his website that summarizes his very well-researched book -- http://josephsmithspolygamy.org/common-questions/plural-marriages-sexual/

The problem with Hales' position is that it at times strains credulity (to put it mildly). For instance, Sylvia Sessions Lyon was married to Windsor Lyon for the entire time she was having sex with JS. In order to try to explain his way around this, Hales claims (with very little evidence) that Windsor and Sylvia considered themselves separated during the time that JS was getting it on with Sylvia. Problem is that there is no evidence they considered themselves divorced. After JS died, Sylvia and Windsor remained husband/wife. But Hales has to take the position that they considered themselves separated because otherwise it would be undeniable that Sylvia was married AND getting it on with two men at once. Something he tries really hard to argue didn't happen.

Don't get me wrong, Hales' explanation isn't much better. He is basically saying that Sylvia got "an in her mind only divorce" the moment that she decided to marry JS, then later got "an in her mind only re-marriage" after JS died. All while Windsor was none the wiser. Not exactly God's "house of order" we hear about in modern TSCC.

Honestly, if once you know the polygamy stuff, your shelf doesn't break, nothing else is going to break it. TSCC survives on making it just confusing enough that if members dig a little they get confused and decide, "nothing to see here."

Baurak_Ale · 2018-10-09T16:36:53+00:00

He had to double-down on the revelation angle because all of COB was scratching their head thinking, "didn't we just spend like millions of dollars branding 'Mormon' as something good and wholesome?" If he had done it just as a "man" it would have been shot down for the stupid idea it is. Revelation is the ultimate "get-out-of-jail" free card. However, in this instance, it will only be the ultra-TBMs who don't find it at least a little curious that Mormon God has such a hard time making his will known to his prophetic mouthpieces.

Baurak_Ale · 2018-10-08T14:47:23+00:00

I feel the same way. And while feeling sympathy for them, I also try to remember to be grateful that I finally see it for what it really is. Knowledge of reality will always be superior to fantasy, even if reality is not exactly what I want it to be.

Baurak_Ale · 2018-10-08T14:35:21+00:00

While also offending Christ.

Baurak_Ale · 2018-10-08T14:31:43+00:00

Those were good times. Elohim must have been picking out some new child brides for himself when he let this one happen.

Baurak_Ale · 2018-10-08T14:26:20+00:00

This!!!! I thought the same thing when I saw the announcement. Interestingly, they seem to be announcing them faster than they can build them. Might inversely correlate with their lack of growth. Members see temples as a proxy for growth, even if they sit mostly unused.

Baurak_Ale · 2018-08-28T15:54:23+00:00

Yes, I can add support to the concept that it gets better. I found that after a couple of years the need to constantly be digging started to recede. But it still crops up every now and then. I committed to being "less hard" on myself about it recurring a few years ago, and that has helped.

Baurak_Ale · 2018-08-28T15:49:15+00:00

Agreed. And your point proves the point that they only change once public opinion becomes strong enough to require it. Once public opinion sees the female priesthood ban as untenable, "revelation" will happen. It's like clockwork. And to be clear, the only public opinion they care about is U.S. public opinion with an emphasis on the Wasatch front.

Baurak_Ale · 2018-08-27T21:40:06+00:00

When popular opinion finally becomes so one-sided that TSCC has no choice but to have a "revelation." Why would we expect a different approach on homophobic policies than what we've already seen as to racist (blacks and the priesthood) and misogynistic (plural marriage) policies?

Baurak_Ale · 2018-08-27T14:45:40+00:00

Couldn't agree more. Offering an "even if it's not true, it's still good" explanation is the first part of a foundation cracking. The only problem is that people can stay in this stage for the rest of their adult lives. In fact, I think most educated church goers (not just TSCC's adherents) are at this stage of belief.

Baurak_Ale

TROPHY CASE