Fighting Between Denominations is Stupid Part IV - Think of the aftermath

 You know what the real idiocy is about starting fights over religion?

When somebody says to you:  "Hey you need to leave your religion because you're going to go to hell yadda yadda yadda" have you ever noticed that they say this with the assumption that if you do change your beliefs, that you'll come running to their side?  

But... why assume that?  When somebody's attacking your beliefs, they aren't exactly selling you on theirs.  Know how many Protestants have gotten in my face to try and talk me out of being LDS?  No?  Neither do I because I've lost count.  And every single one of them really thought that if I lost faith in the LDS Church I'd become a Protestant like them.  Same thing with a few Catholics.

There's precisely zero basis to make that assumption.  I left the Catholic Church for reasons that I consider to be pretty good ones and those reasons wouldn't change if I were to lose my belief in the LDS Church.  I've also had Protestants trying to convert me my whole life.  There are reasons why I never have.  Those reasons also wouldn't just disappear in the event I left the LDS Church.

Can you imagine arguing religion with someone and breaking their faith?  I bet that would feel pretty triumphant right up until they become an atheist as a result.  Am I saying I'd go atheist if I ever left the LDS?  Maybe.  Maybe I would.  I don't know, because anything catastrophic enough to destroy my faith in the Restored Gospel isn't going to leave much intact for anything else.

And that's the biggest reason I don't engage when somebody comes at me and gets in my face about being LDS.  I'm not a young man.  I've been around for long enough to have seen things in other denominations that I find very difficult to reconcile to the point where I can't imagine myself believing in them.  As I said previously, there are very specific reasons I'm neither a Protestant nor a Catholic despite so many people trying to influence me to be one of those in my life.  The worst thing that could happen would be for me to win a debate against such a person and have that r result in them abandoning their belief in Jesus Christ altogether.  I would have played an instrumental role in someone losing their faith and that is something I absolutely do NOT want to do.

And that's the most troubling aspect of dealing with people who want to come at me and tell me all about how phony Joseph Smith was or how the Book of Mormon is all just made-up fiction, or how the history of the LDS Church is this or that bad thing... We're talking about people who would willingly and gladly take away from me something that has been a wonderful influence on me in my life, has helped me, has guided me and informed my spirituality and morality to be something so much better than it was before.  I am much more comfortable with who I am and confident in the Lord than I was before.  Only a pretty vicious person would take that from me, knowing they were doing it. 

So every person that tries to do that instantly loses massive amounts of respect from me and they don't even know it.  Just by trying the confrontation they've wrecked their credibility in my eyes so completely that they couldn't convince me the sky was blue if I were sitting next to an open window.  I just wouldn't believe that person.

And you know the worst part about it?  They always justify it by saying "Well I'm just concerned for your soul."  To that I say, B.S.  No they aren't.  Not one little bit.  Honest concern would mean they'd be talking to me with love, not the casual rudeness that makes them feel like they can just spout whatever malicious garbage they want and not be held to account for it.  I can't imagine ever speaking to someone the way I've been spoken to by some of these self-described soul savers, let alone expecting to be warmly received if I did.   I know what honest concern looks like,  thanks very much... and I sure don't see it in anonymous Internet critics who think they're going to boost their own credibility by talking a Mormon out of their faith.

Next part... an example.