What possesses someone to be taken in by the mormon dogma?

Question

I grew up mormon, but most of that is behind me now.

I am currently reading Michael Baigent's "The Jesus Papers" and I am alarmed by all the deceptions, cover-ups, corruption and destroyed records and documents of the early Christian era. I don't accept all of Baigent's theses, yet some of them fit the secular history.

I couldn't help but feel a deep sense of loss of these things, for there are some pieces of history may never know. I already possessed this feeling, but it gave me somewhere specific to direct that feeling. I suspect that many others feel this loss of history, subconsciously or otherwise; and I say this from an archeological/historical point of view.

So here is my specific question to mormons, especially converts: Does mormon dogma fill this 'void' or loss for you, and if so, how? There is no factual evidence whatsoever that supports the claims of the book of mormon or most if not all of the 'prophesies' of Joseph Smith.

cont...

Is it just a warm fuzzy feeling derived from ignorance and being surrounded by people who feel the same? Is it the fact that the church does charitable works (some are highly questionable as charitable) around the world, that gives that feeling?

Live and let live I guess, but I don't see how anyone can ignore all evidence against it and follow it just because they get all tingly inside.

I can get tingly inside by finding out the truth or gaining knowledge. Is this not valid feeling under your beliefs? Or is it just as long as that 'knowledge' resonates and hence is limited by, your 'knowledge'?

Oh yeah, the focus on the family thing. Stems from polygamist and inbreeding roots. I know a lot of politicians who give lip service all day long about the family. In these cases, and I don't have any reason to believe otherwise, usually the exact opposite is true when some entity promotes the family: politicians and corporations want both parents working and no one to take care of their kids. Religions want more tithing and control over hearts and minds, and quite frequently like to 'buy' souls, and the best leverage to get this done is to use your family against you "you can't go against your family, you are a traitor!"

Answer 1

Because "magic underwear" feels so good and every man would love a bunch of subservient wives.

Answer 2

The church runs on it's own inertia now, and most missionary successes are outside the US in lesser educated regions. If someone today came up with the same story of 'gold plates', angels, and claimed translation of an implausible language, plus claimed the Indians to be Semitic, he's be laughed at all the back to the funny farm. He'd have to package it differently, like JZ Knight - she 'channels' an Atlantean Spirit, not a dead Nephite, but both are imaginary.

Smith was in the right place at the right time, and had considerable 'dumb luck' promoting his new age religion in the 1820's. Converts came mostly for the free land offers not because the 'spirit was prompting them'.

Anyway, mormonism has become a culture based on Smith and Young's core teachings, and the isolation for many decades in Utah. The mormons ran everything with their religious beliefs attached, and made no distinction between church and state. It operated as a complete Theocracy, and in many ways, still does. However, access to the internet exposes all the cracks and holes in mormonism to greater scrutiny, and Romney's candidacy can only expose the church's ludicrous teachings even more.

Answer 3

James in the New Testament gave some great advice that I will pass on to you.
"If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed."
Pray and ask God. Every person a missionary teaches is told that and they are also told that if you ask with a sincere heart having faith in Christ, he will give you an answer. There are over 300,000 people a year who do that and receive an answer. If God would answer the prayers of all of those people then why do you think that he wouldn't answer yours?

Answer 4

Just as you wonder how anyone can believe in Mormonism I wonder how anyone cannot...it makes perfect sense to me. I have prayed, I have asked what is true and I have received real answers. That is how I know. I will take the Lord's confirming answers over any "physical" evidence or lack thereof anyday of the week. The Book of Mormon is physical evidence, the Prophet who guides the church under the direction of our Lord and Savior is evidence, my own testimony is evidence...
Thanks for asking.

Answer 5

It's time to know the truth that the Mormon Church is the restoration of the Lords church. Deal with it.

Answer 6

Dear Headliner,

I've been an enthusiastic Mormon since just after my sophomore year at college, and am continually comforted by the scientific evidence that supports my belief in the restored gospel. Naturally, my conviction that the Book of Mormon is scripture rests on answer to prayer, not scientific research. However, such research is comforting and reassuring. It’s great to belong to a religion where one need not shift an inquiring mind into neutral at the chapel door.

You say "There is no factual evidence whatsoever that supports the claims of the Book of Mormon...." Like most absolute statements, that's just not so. Let me give you a few examples. In the interest of space, we’ll restrict ourselves to the first few pages of the Book of Mormon.

1. Nephi begins by saying his family were faithful Hebrews, but wrote in an Egyptian dialect. That was derided as silliness for over 100 years, because everyone "knew" a good Hebrew would never write scripture in a heathen language – that is, until Hebrew scriptures written in demotic Egyptian were discovered while excavating a settlement from a place near Nephi’s home in Jerusalem and at about his time, too. To top it off, it’s recently been discovered that Nephi is probably an Egyptian name – perfectly proper if his father Lehi was involved in commerce with Egypt, where the common language of trade and commerce was Egyptian, and the common form of writing in commerce was demotic Egyptian – a method of Egyptian that used much less space that the usual hieroglyphics.
2. When one of the members of Nephi’s group died, they carried him to Nahum for burial. Recently, a site on Nephi’s probable route named Nahum was discovered. During Nephi’s time, it was a burial site for travelers who died on the trail.
3. After burying their friend, the party continued to the seacoast near modern Yemen, where Nephi found a place with iron deposits to make tools, a good supply of water, a place where they could grow food, and trees enough to hew the timbers for a ship. Of course, no such place exists or could exist in the desert of the Saudi peninsula, so the Book of Mormon had it wrong – until the 1990s, when two such sites were discovered – both with cliffs nearby, when Nephi’s brothers could threaten to throw Nephi to his death when it was revealed that this was not just a journey out into the desert like other colonies leaving the corruption of Jerusalem, but desert-dwelling Nephi proposed to build a ship and sail away.
4. Nephi built a temple after his people arrived in the new world. Of course, everyone knows no good Hebrew would do that, since there could only be one temple – the one at Jerusalem. That criticism fell by the wayside when another Hebrew temple was discovered in Elephantine, in Egypt. It was built by a group of colonists from Jerusalem, at about the time of Nephi, with the permission of the leaders in Jerusalem. More detailed research has revealed that groups could offer sacrifices in Nephi’s time if they were about 250 miles from Jerusalem, because it was too far to easily make the pilgrimage back for Passover and other ceremonies. BTW, a very few females were influential enough to be listed in the colony’s records. One of the main ones was Sariah, a woman with the same name as Nephi’s mother.
Well, I could go on and on, but I think you get the point. I don’t think we’ve gone much beyond the first ten pages of the Book of Mormon, and have discussed only a few research studies recalled off the top of my head.

Contrary to the popular belief that Mormons are ignorant and uninformed, several studies have show they are better educated and more informed than most churchgoers. Indeed, more detailed studies reveal that the more education a Mormon has, the more likely he or she is to be an active, practicing church member.

I urge you to take another unbiased look at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. That’s what I did, and having some research skills while being on a university campus with a good library helped me immeasurably. Affiliating myself with the church was by far the best thing I’ve ever done!

Answer 7

I seek the truth and standards that is taught in the LDS church.

You may not live up to it, but many can, and many continue to try.

As for why believe:

8 ....... Have ye inquired of the Lord?
10 ..... How is it that ye do not keep the commandments of the Lord? How is it that ye will perish, because of the hardness of your hearts?
11 .........the Lord hath said?—If ye will not harden your hearts, and ask me in faith, believing that ye shall receive, with diligence in keeping my commandments, surely these things shall be made known unto you.

(Book of Mormon | 1 Nephi 15:8 - 11)

Answer 8

i dabbled in the Mormon church at one time in my life. the practices were what drew me to it, I grew up catholic, and the way mormons did things were were similar to the catholics only better. i liked the way thing centered around the family. the book of mormon was a hard pill to swallow for me, which is why I eventually stopped going.

Answer 9

I believe that I am where GOD wants me. I believe that, despite all evidence to the contrary, the Bible and the Book of Mormon are the words of God, because there is too much evidence that they ARE the word of God.

Answer 10

Well, since you were raised Mormon, you know a lot about our church. Do you remember ever hearing lessons in church about "False Doctrine"??........