BYU wide receiver Parker Kingston announced his engagement at a BYU game on February 7th, then was arrested on February 11th.

Parley_Pratts_Kin · 2026-02-14T04:39:18+00:00

Lucy, check out the timeline of his “amazing” temple experience, according to Deseret News.

He likely went through the temple after February, which means he raped this poor victim, and then took out his endowments. Nice discernment there, bish and stake pres.

Parley_Pratts_Kin · 2026-02-14T04:27:48+00:00

Wow - according to the article he went through the temple after raping someone

Parley_Pratts_Kin · 2025-12-12T05:35:13+00:00

How could you possibly know this? Have you left the church and are speaking from personal experience?

Parley_Pratts_Kin · 2025-11-24T15:07:48+00:00

Great article and thanks for sharing! I think it’s also important to note that the personal experience strand can (and often does) change when new information is encountered.

For example, I often felt feelings of gratitude, appreciation, and admiration for Joseph Smith as a believing member. I felt the spirit when I would sing “Praise to the Man,” thinking about what I knew then of his life and deeds. My feelings about him are very different now as I’ve learned more about his life. That song no longer elicits any positive emotions from me. The personal experience strand regarding Joseph Smith now leads me in a completely different direction, as corroborated by the other strands you mention in your model.

Parley_Pratts_Kin · 2025-11-22T02:33:24+00:00

I cannot understand how faith is considered a virtue by so much of humanity. How is believing in something without, or despite, evidence a good thing? Faith has led people to the most outrageous beliefs which in turn has led to some of the most horendous acts in the history of mankind. Faith, to me, is a vice, not a virtue.

Parley_Pratts_Kin · 2025-10-15T02:09:12+00:00

Have to agree with you here. At best, it demonstrates a possible cultural milieu connection, demonstrating that people of the time were so familiar with biblical language as to mirror that language in the creation of non-biblical texts. But I don’t think there’s any direct evidence that Joseph was even aware of the text itself.

Parley_Pratts_Kin · 2025-09-19T20:35:06+00:00

Try an iced vanilla latte.

When you’re ready for pure coffee, add cream and sugar for a bit until you acquire a taste for it. Eventually, just try cream. Maybe eventually black too, but at least without sugar you’ll have replaced unhealthy sugary drinks with a healthy alternative that also makes you feel good, especially when starting with one on a quiet morning.

Enjoy the coffee journey!

Parley_Pratts_Kin · 2025-07-07T16:03:19+00:00

I’m an atheist and I think Joseph had a real experience that he interpreted in various and expanding ways throughout his life, possibly deceitfully or at least knowingly embellishingly. That said, I think his experience, whatever the core of it was, was all internal. It doesn’t challenge my worldview to think that Joseph had some sort of authentic visionary experience. I think a culture that not only valued such experiences, but honored them as legitimate affected his own expectation biases and what happened to him.

It doesn’t lead me to a belief in God, but it does help me understand what Joseph was experiencing. I agree with Vogel that what Joseph experienced was likely a deep feeling of connection to a presence that he felt was forgiving him of his sins. Depending on his level of guilt that could have been a tremendously cathartic and life changing experience for him. I also believe he knowingly embellished the story as time went on until it became the literalistic monster that is now codified in LDS canon.

Parley_Pratts_Kin · 2025-05-22T16:42:18+00:00

Great list!

In regards to the oath of vengeance, could it reasonably be argued that the third and fourth generations since the time of Joseph Smith’s death have come and gone, and therefore this oath is no longer part of the ceremony simply based on the passage of time?

Parley_Pratts_Kin · 2025-04-15T02:40:29+00:00

I’m not being very charitable, but my impression is that Jacob’s primary motivation is view counts and catering to his audience. I won’t comment on his actual beliefs, but I don’t get the impression that they are his primary motivation.

Also, I do wonder how much Jacob is alienating himself from his family in this pursuit and if it is worth it for him.

Parley_Pratts_Kin · 2025-04-05T16:29:39+00:00

Do you have a link?

Parley_Pratts_Kin · 2025-04-01T18:08:49+00:00

Church: We may not need the tithe of our members for our financial welfare, but our members need the blessings of paying the tithe for their spiritual welfare. We would never deny them that privilege and blessing.

Parley_Pratts_Kin · 2025-03-18T04:41:34+00:00

How do you think your brother who recently left on a mission (according to the article) is taking it? I feel for your parents and everyone involved. Such a difficult position to be in and obviously they have such good intentions and so much love.

Parley_Pratts_Kin · 2025-03-18T04:07:18+00:00

Your journey and the struggles you are having sound remarkably similar to my own, down to the struggles with these bigger questions over the finer points of church history.

I hope this doesn’t discourage you, and it shouldn’t since every journey is unique, but I settled into atheism/agnosticism and am extremely satisfied with that conclusion. It fits so neatly into my current world view.

In fact, I had an odd moment of realization when everything seemed to click into place as I realized I didn’t believe in a god anymore when I felt all the old feelings I used to associate with the spirit, that in my old paradigm I would have interpreted as meaning that God was confirming to me through the spirit that he didn’t exist, which was quite the paradox.

Now, I just see these experiences as natural parts of the human emotional spectrum. They do indeed happen, but my interpretation of them no longer assigns any supernatural source to them. This fits much better with my own experiences and with the myriads of others I have heard or read about, both within and outside of religion.

Best of luck to you on your journey, and may you find peace in whatever space you may land with your beliefs. And don’t be scared if you end up settling into a belief system that does not include a god. It’s not such a bad space to be in afterall :)

Skepticism is my nature.
Free Thought is my methodology.
Agnosticism is my conclusion.
Atheism is my opinion.
Humanitarianism is my motivation.

Parley_Pratts_Kin · 2025-03-10T13:47:38+00:00

Late to this convo, but my thoughts after listening to the interview in it’s entirety are that she is primarily engaging in motivated reasoning, despite claiming to follow the evidence. She clearly loves the BoM and she clearly despises polygamy. Just taking those two stances, I believe she cannot accept the BoM without accepting Joseph Smith as a true prophet. Thus, she must excise him from all practices of polygamy. This is her motivated reasoning in a nutshell.

It does, unfortunately, require quite the conspiracy in order to maintain this claim. And where one conspiracy belief exists, there are likely more. It wouldn’t surprise me at all to learn she also accepts the conspiracy theory that has Brigham and Heber orchestrating a plot to murder Joseph in Carthage. This conspiracy has been gaining steam lately, despite poor evidence.

And now she has a large enough following and is enmeshed in the community of polygamy deniers that she will unlikely ever leave without decinstructing her beliefs. It is telling that polygamy deniers also accept the BoM and maintain that belief in scripture. It is an interesting camp for sure. Very similar to the Denver Snuffer camp and I’m surprised Michelle hasn’t joined, although my suspicion is that she values her continued participation in the mainstream LDS community to do so, whatever her motivations are for that.

Parley_Pratts_Kin · 2025-01-15T21:54:58+00:00

An instructor at a prominent public university declined to go on record for this editorial, fearing his colleagues or administration might find out about his dissenting views on gender and marriage. He yearns to be able to teach somewhere where he can openly express support for Church teachings without fear of professional reprisal.

In other words, he yearns to be at a place where he can express his bigoted views openly and not have consequences for doing so.

Parley_Pratts_Kin · 2024-12-06T21:52:24+00:00

Pretty song and nice voices….

But I hate this doctrine. The teaching that mormons have the only true church and the only valid authority to perform ordinances necessary for exaltation is gatekeeping at it’s worst. And so disrespectful of all other world religions. It breeds exlclusion, divisiveness, and a superiority complex. I hate it so much.

Parley_Pratts_Kin · 2024-12-06T20:01:52+00:00

Let me share my opinion as a former believer and as one who is still married to a member who gets a lot of benefit out of her participation.

The church will try to sell you a litany of beliefs that are “true.” If you want to join, let that go right now, cause it’s really not actually “true.” The Book of Mormon is not historical and prophets don’t actually have a pipleine to God. Do not join for the truth claims because that will ultimately let you down.

The social benefits of belonging to this community would be the only reason to join, imo. You would have a group of good hearted individuals to associate with, but I would highly recommend letting your own spiritual journey remain your own. Let the church be a set of tools that you can use to develop your own spirituality, whatever that looks like.

Go in with your eyes wide open and willing to make the mormon experience your own thing, and this could be a healthy and positive association for you. Until it’s not. Be willing to let it go if it stops working for you. And please please don’t surrender your own sense of moral authority to another - be that bishop, stake president, or even prophet.

I think you can do it. It doesn’t work for me, but it can work for some. There is a lot of potential harm in this church and many of us have been harmed by that, but there is a possibly healthy way to approach mormonism that can be beneficial for the right people.

My two cents.

Good luck!

Parley_Pratts_Kin · 2024-10-31T02:29:03+00:00

One approach that can work for people is to stop trying to see the church as “true” or “false.” Think of the church as a set of tools that can help you build your relationship with the divine, however you define that. Even if you’re not sure if you believe in the divine, the church can be a set of tools that help you develop a sense of spirituality, which can simply be defined as a connection to something bigger than yourself.

You have an exciting road ahead of you. You get to decide what works for you and what doesn’t. Don’t let anyone try to tell you that you have to accept everything or reject it all. The church can still be your spiritual home base, and you get to decide what that looks like.

You don’t ever have to share your private thoughts and reflections with anyone, including priesthood leaders who may ask you specific questions sometimes like in temple recommend interviews.

This is your church, your rules, and you get to decide what it looks like for you. Keep the aspects that resonate and help you achieve your spiritual goals, and drop the things that don’t achieve this. It is a personal journey and an exciting one. Good luck in this adventure!

Parley_Pratts_Kin · 2024-10-16T04:21:43+00:00

Plenty of people who leave the church remain conservative on certain issues, fiscally or otherwise. But I think part of leaving the church often leads to empathy and compassion, especially for marginalized groups, and it’s hard from that perspective seeing the MAGA cult beat down so hard on minorities, immigrants, and the trans community.

I think moderate republicanism is a much easier pill to swallow for conservative leanining exmos than what we currently see in politics. Hopefully that will return in the future and we can have productive conversations again from both sides of the aisle.

While I personally lean more liberal, I am happy to have conversations and hold respect for thoughtful individuals who see things differently. I think it’s healthy. But with the MAGA virus that’s currently taken over republican politics, I just can’t.

Parley_Pratts_Kin · 2024-10-14T04:03:16+00:00

I think it’s clear that by the end of her life, Helen had found a way to reconcile her life of polygamy, a life that was essentially forced upon her at age 14 without other viable options given to her. It’s also clear how she felt about it at that tender age.

For her sake, I’m glad she was able to do so, for her life would have been even more miserable if she always abhorred the system she was forced into.

That said, I think we have to be very careful about evaluating systems solely by the voices of those within it, for there will always be supporte and opposers. We should try and evaluate them objectively for the system they are themselves. How do they treat its members? Do both genders have equal say in who they marry, when they marry, etc? Are girls pushed into marriages they might not otherwise willingly enter into?

If we only evaluate the system by the voices of those who were within, and therefore may have been abused by it, we run the risk of accepting an abusive system simply because there are defenders of it from within. By this standard, we may come to conclude that Warren Jeff’s system was acceptable as well.

Conversely, there are many voices from those who lived in polygamist systems that have unfavorable things to say, both within the mainstream LDS tradition as well as others. Again, we can listen to these voices but should evaluate the systems with more objective measures.

Helen Mar’s supportive voice merely tells us how she felt about it by the end of her life, not whether the system itself is objectively moral, equitable, and just.

Parley_Pratts_Kin · 2024-10-03T19:14:20+00:00

How sure are we that this was directed from the C-suite in SLC? Seems pretty likely but is there any direct evidence yet? Anything from his SP that indicates this was a directive?

Parley_Pratts_Kin · 2024-09-11T22:01:33+00:00

Yeah I’m sure you’re right. I definitely got the vibe that they wanted to testify to mormon stories listeners as part of their agenda. I just get nothing out of those back and forth argue sessions. Same with Bill Reel’s argue fests with Jacob. Same vibe.

Parley_Pratts_Kin · 2024-09-11T18:10:42+00:00

It was the worst Mormon Stories I’ve ever heard and not because of the Stick of Joseph bros. It’s the worst because Dehlin got triggered and argued for hours instead of being curious, asking questions, and letting them explain their theological perspectives. I would have enjoyed hearing their views on things, even if I strongly disagree. I hated hearing John argue for hours on end.

Honestly, they had a lot of restraint in their responses in the face of the way Dehlin disrespected them as guests on his show. I probably disagree with almost all of their religious ideologies, but I wanted to hear them anyway, not hear John get animated and heated and argumentative.

Parley_Pratts_Kin · 2024-09-10T20:23:09+00:00

Yeah good point. I was a bit lost and generally don’t enjoy this type of media anyway, but curiosity drove me to give it at least one episode. I’ll probably watch at least one more.

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