It's always the term "disgruntled" that is used when attempting to discount the experiences related by people who left an organization. What exactly does "disgruntled" mean to you? Take me, for example. I've spent decades of my life as a true believing member of the organization, willingly giving an incredibly significant amount of income, time, and work toward it. And then I discover on my own decades later that I had been indoctrinated to believe in a lot of false stories. This discovery was a very slow process that involved a lot of time, energy, and research. The psychological toll of reframing your entire worldview is large. I benefited a lot from online communities where a lot of people were going through the same journey. I'll always be a person shaped by my previous decades of experience as an active believing Mormon. Did any church members personally treat me badly? No. I've always fit all the right demographics, had the right behavior, and am the correct sexual orientation. Outside of being quizzed and shamed for masturbation as a child, I generally had it pretty good in the church, and I loved it. Did any church members treat me badly after leaving the church? No. They've been respectful enough about it, and I've had some good conversations with some of them.
And yet people like you constantly come along and want to categorize me as simply a "disgruntled exmember" with no opinion worth listening to, for the mere fact that I still participate in conversations about it online and in person with people who have had similar experiences as mine. This is a perfect characterization and example of what people who leave the church have to deal with. Even I, who never had it badly in the church, and was able to leave without too much drama from the local ward, will be labeled as an untrustworthy disgruntled apostate the moment I try to give a different perspective on this organization I was heavily invested in for decades. Online communities like /r/exmormon have a very large portion of people like me who have not had bad experiences in the church or leaving the church, but yet still have plenty to talk about for what should be obvious reasons.
And who are the people whose opinions we should trust about the Mormon church? Why obviously the believing Mormons of course. Trust the people who have been taught and trained consistently their entire lives to be "member missionaries" and put the best possible spin on their church to outsiders. They're not disgruntled, so therefore their opinion matters more. Trust the used car dealer to make the most honest assessment of the car they're selling.
This comment crosses into flamewar territory, especially the personal part ("people like you constantly come along and want to categorize me"). Please move in the opposite direction when commenting here. I know it's hard on topics like this where emotions are understandably high, but that's why the site guidelines include:
"Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive."
I disagree with this categorization. Rephrasing to "people constantly come along..." could make that sentence less personal, sure, but is there anything else about the comment that you would say is not substantive or thoughtful?
Yes—the last paragraph, for example, which talks about an entire class of people in a belittling and ultimately ("used car dealer") pejorative way.
I'm sure that wasn't your intent, but these effects are always much less obvious to the person making the comment than they are to many outside readers.
I don't see how the metaphor was pejorative, and I don't see how that could be worse than "a distillation of disgruntled exmembers", which has been the constant categorization of people who have left the church. That being said, I don't think either the comment I responded to or my own comment was out of bounds, insulting, or crossed into "flamewar territory". Rather, the impression I'm getting is that any disagreement over a topic such as religion will be categorized as a flamewar here simply due to the topic. I have not insulted anyone nor do I ever intend to insult, and I do not take offense either, especially since the growth I've experienced as a result of leaving religion has taught me that taking offense to criticism is an instinct that stunts learning.
You are the moderator here, and so ultimately what you say is the law on this forum. I can respect that, and I like that you're active here. Moderation in a discussion community is invaluable. I'm disappointed that you have read into my comment antagonism and anger, and I cannot agree with the assessment.
"Used car dealer" is a pejorative metaphor; it connotes self-interested deception of others.
I didn't mean to read anger into your comment. What I'm concerned about is how such comments land with other people who happen to be reading the thread. When there are well-known patterns of provocation in a comment which are likely to trigger others and lead to a predictable flamewar, that's flamebait, and it needs to be avoided for fire safety reasons.
There are ways to express your views and to disagree without being gratuitously provocative, so it's not the case that any disagreement would get moderated in this way. But to reach that requires being willing to hear where the gratuitous provocations are, learn from that information and adapt.
Using a metaphor of "used care dealer" is gratuitously provocative according to you? Does that standard apply consistently? It's not a flattering comparison, but it is not even remotely gratuitous. Used car dealers are real people earning perfectly acceptable livings. It's also a perfectly apt metaphor. I understand that used car dealers have a job to do and that it involves convincing me to buy a used car. I also understand that they may not see it important or relevant to their situation to tell me the bad along with the good, and that it is in my best interest to have the car inspected by someone with no skin in the game. It's an obvious case of making sure incentives do not align against you.
It applies perfectly well to Mormonism. If you had only trusted me to tell you about my religion when I was a missionary for 2 years in South America convincing people to become Mormon, you would have gotten a very whitewashed and carefully selected story. This is not because I intentionally deceived people. It was not out of self-interested deception. It was because I felt it important to my God-sent mission that people learn to love the church so that they can be baptized. There were so many facts that hadn't been taught to me, and in addition there were plenty of facts that I didn't see necessary to teach people.
You think I'm demonizing my own people and myself when I use the used car dealer metaphor? That is simply an incorrect and strangely motivated interpretation of what I said.
> Online communities like /r/exmormon have a very large portion of people like me who have not had bad experiences in the church or leaving the church, but yet still have plenty to talk about for what should be obvious reasons.
Well, the problem is that reasonable people like you get drowned out and dominated by the people on there that just want to vent or otherwise have an axe to grind. Sometimes I'll pop by just so see what's on the front page and I'll be disappointed to see memes dancing on the graves of dead people (anytime a general authority dies).
It would be like a moderate liberal claiming that there are a "large portion" of other moderate liberals on /r/politics. Probably true, yet, /r/politics is dominated by the hard left, and you'll rarely see balanced viewpoints there; it's an anti-right echo chamber with zero nuance.
I see the problem of /r/exmormon differently. Since I'm no longer at a point where I feel personally attacked when Mormonism is criticized, I can appreciate some of the more harsh stories that people have to tell, and can understand the anger that results, even though I did not experience nearly as much of the abuse as others have. I think the ultimate problem with /r/exmormon now is that a lot of the good content (personal stories, community support/advice, discussions and debates) is drowned out and dominated by people that just want to lolvote at memes all day. It's the natural result of all undermoderated large Reddit communities that the content eventually serves the lowest common denominator and so the front page is largely a bunch of lazy memes lazily upvoted and zero discussion.
And yet people like you constantly come along and want to categorize me as simply a "disgruntled exmember" with no opinion worth listening to, for the mere fact that I still participate in conversations about it online and in person with people who have had similar experiences as mine. This is a perfect characterization and example of what people who leave the church have to deal with. Even I, who never had it badly in the church, and was able to leave without too much drama from the local ward, will be labeled as an untrustworthy disgruntled apostate the moment I try to give a different perspective on this organization I was heavily invested in for decades. Online communities like /r/exmormon have a very large portion of people like me who have not had bad experiences in the church or leaving the church, but yet still have plenty to talk about for what should be obvious reasons.
And who are the people whose opinions we should trust about the Mormon church? Why obviously the believing Mormons of course. Trust the people who have been taught and trained consistently their entire lives to be "member missionaries" and put the best possible spin on their church to outsiders. They're not disgruntled, so therefore their opinion matters more. Trust the used car dealer to make the most honest assessment of the car they're selling.