Pints With Aquinas - From Mormon to Catholic w/ Stephen Johnson

Episode Date: July 26, 2023

Matt interviews Stephen Johnson about his growing up Mormon, becoming an atheist, and eventually making his way the Catholic Church --- St. Michael's Lent w/ Exodus 90: https://exodus90.com/matt-home/ --- Banned Cartoon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3BqLZ8UoZk Rough Stone Rolling: https://deseretbook.com/p/joseph-smith-rough-stone-rolling-richard-l-bushman-5351?variant_id=104298-paperback Craig v Hitchens: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tYm41hb48o Craig v Harris: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqaHXKLRKzg Great Apostasy: https://mi.byu.edu/book/ancient-christians/ Studies of the Mormon: B.H Roberts: https://www.amazon.com/Studies-Book-Mormon-B-Roberts/dp/1560850272 South Park Mormons: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idya6ixdo0I  

I know I'm going to screw this up. Oh, that's the first thing you said. G'day and welcome to Pines with Aquinas. We've got a lovely interview today with Steven Johnson about going from LDS to eventually Catholicism. So it's going to be terrific and I'm glad you're here. But I want to tell you about something coming up called St. Michael's Lent. I hadn't heard of it.

You probably hadn't heard of it either, but it's an old, lost, relatively lost tradition in the church. Back in the day, St. Francis of Assisi and his followers would go through this period of fasting and it goes from the Assumption of the Blessed Mother, so the 15th of August to the feast day of St. Michael. And Exodus 90 wants you to know about it. So I want you to, if you're interested, if you're a fella and you want to take your spiritual life to the next level, and for 40 days you want to fast intentionally with other brothers, please check this out.

I think a lot of us get sloppy in the summer. Our lives, you know, don't have the same kind of routine sometimes. So this could be a way to get your life back on track. So go to exodus90.com slash Matt by just clicking the link in the description below to learn more about it. You could find a couple of fellows to do it with. What's cool about this fast is it's not the full on fast of Exodus 90 where you have to take cold showers every day, you can't have any alcohol. It's still very rigorous.

Like you're not allowed to have excessive, or you're not allowed to use the internet except for work. You have to fast on Wednesdays and Fridays, you have to do an hour of adoration weekly, you have to do an hour of prayer every day. So go check it out, Exodus90.com slash Matt. If you're a fella, it's just for men, check it out. Exodus90.com slash Matt will allow you to download the app,

which is really, really, really sophisticated app. And it's actually just this, yeah, it's beautifully done. They've found their website. It looks like they may have used the same firm as I know it's that good Yeah, it looks I don't know It looks very much like hollow but with so far they have check this out 12,000 men have already signed up and they sent me that July 11th. So way more than 12,000 men have already started Signed up and it starts always 15th. So you have time so go to it now excess night.com slash Matt. Yeah

Yeah, hey Stephen. Hello. How are you? I'm really good, man. It's nice. Thank you so much for agreeing to come on the show Yeah, my pleasure. I know I asked you this last time The reason we got to meet is a friend of ours put us in touch and you just moved to student bill or recently one year One year this week. So been here for not an... This is not an advert for Stubanville. I know people get touchy about that, but... It should be. Is it? How has it been? It's been great.

Everything that we were looking for when we decided to make the move here, we found in magnitude. I mean, it's just a it's the community, the faith life here. It's it's really nice. Where did you come from and how did you hear about Steubenville? So we came from rural Utah. I owned a piece of land out there and we were working towards developing it for a homestead and COVID struck. Everything really slowed down and we felt, my wife and I, that we were just becoming

real stagnant. And this is about the time that I was coming into the church. And there in Utah, the Catholic population has got to be less than 5%, I would assume. And our commute to our local parish was about an hour each way. So it became a real burden just to make it to even Sunday mass, but the opportunities for daily mass or just deeper investment into the faith life would have been impossible. And so as my daughter's coming of age, she's almost 10 years old. We're just looking for where can we go? What can we do to build up a community around her with like-minded people and

same for us. I mean, we were, my wife and I were both feeling really depleted when it came to, to friendship and community. Um, we heard about Steubenville through this podcast and it was it was Franciscan University that helped us actually pull the trigger. Yeah so I had some some additional veteran benefits left over from my time in the service that I was able to apply, excuse me, to the to the graduate program.

And so applied for Franciscan. All the doors were swinging open. So we packed up and made the move. You know, there's a fellow here who's from Hawaii. And him and his family are from Hawaii. And everyone's like, really? Why would you do that? You know, and I know that Utah's not Hawaii,

but it's gorgeous. And I would think that during a lockdown, when people are aware of, OK, like we need to be more self-sufficient, was that hard to leave a beautiful place where you were trying to be self-sufficient in the middle of a pandemic and decide to move to a Rust Belt? Yeah, yeah. Yes. Yes. And no. On one hand, it was attainable.

I mean, it was right there in our grasp. We had a really nice piece of land that was settled up in the foothills and we're looking down on this on this valley And it was a beautiful piece of land um Agriculturally, it probably would have been difficult to do much Much growing. I think there's I think it's stone fruit, which is like apples peaches That that sort of variety they'll grow but everything else struggles

Is up at 6, feet. So we're way up there. And the frost season, the season of the frost, it's really long. I think we could have managed in time. The problem was it just, it became, everything came to a screeching halt when COVID struck. The government buildings that we were dealing with were shut down and the people that we needed to speak to in order to get the development process underway and permits pulled and all of that, we lost communication with all of it.

And then it went even further than that, that there was a bit of a dispute over this bit of land that I had to traverse to get to my property between who actually owned it, whether it was the Department of Transportation or it was the county, and that stalled us out. So it just, the more we thought about it and reflected on it and prayed about it, it became pretty apparent to us that doors were closing and we just, it seemed like we weren't supposed to be there. So as we began discerning and praying about where we should go and what we should do,

that's when we started to become more aware of Steubenville and the community here and what was happening and Franciscan being what it is. We were discerning a moving and kind of doing homesteading in Texas before moving here. I don't know if you know that or not, but it was a big community that was being built down there in Tyler, Texas, where Strickland is. And it was just ideal. We went there, we visited it.

It was glorious. And something in me while I was there, I was like, we're not meant to move here. And it didn't make sense. And then it certainly didn't make sense to say to my wife two days later, what if we moved to Steubenville? You know, but I'm so glad we did. Do you still desire to homestead or is that out of your system? Yeah, I think down the road, and I'm not sure when it's going to, when it will come. I think part of the problem was that it felt really pushed and forced on my side.

Rather than just allowing it to happen and watching the movement of God to let these things come to fruition. I was more forcing my hand. That's what it began to feel like, definitely. So down the road, I am really drawn towards that idea, being more self-sustained, raising animals, growing a garden, Something low scale, but something that we can rely on.

I don't know if I'm just old or incompetent, but I no longer have a desire to do that. It feels like that's almost like heresy to say among Catholic people. You know, I just want to live in the city. I like living here in my little town where, yeah, the food dries up and we're all going to die. And when the zombie apocalypse comes, you'll be fine. But I don't know. I like living here in my little town where, yeah, the food dries up and we're all going to die. And when the zombie apocalypse comes, you'll be fine. But I don't know. I like living here. And but there's in town, but there is a lot of land around here, which is exciting for a lot of folks to Yeah. A lot of people who are homestead. My sister's moving here and her husband, he's American. She's obviously not.

And yeah, they're going to be moving here May. So, it's neat to see. Yeah. All right, so I am really excited to hear about your story. And I intentionally, when we met the other day, I know I learned a little bit about it, but I was excited to learn more about it live, so it wouldn't feel like a canned interview. Sure.

So, you were raised Mormon? I was, yeah. I was born and raised Mormon. My family isn't a, you have multi-generational Mormon families, families that can tie their lineage back to the pioneers that move across the frontier. So my family was brought into it by my grandfather.

He was adopted by a Mormon family. So we don't have the pedigree, but that's all I knew my entire life, my upbringing. So this is gonna sound like, I don't know, maybe this is a weird question to answer because it's all you knew, but for those of us who are watching, a lot of us are Catholics. And although I have had a few people in the live chat say they were Mormon who converted to Catholicism, but what's it like being raised as a Mormon? Yeah, it was great. It was definitely great.

I loved my upbringing. We were deeply invested in the church. I mean, it was one of those hallmarks of my upbringing. We were deeply invested in the church. I mean, it was one of those hallmarks of my identity. It's who I was. All my friends group, they were Mormon, my brothers and sisters, all Mormon, stayed in the faith, rooted in the faith. My parents had a strong testimony and held callings. So we're always very involved with the church. And the history of the church, it's something that you can tap into because it's not so far back and so removed

that it feels alien to you. It's since it's more modern history, it felt more approximate to who we were and our own story. So it felt like we were living this thing out. And because it is quintessentially American, I mean, it just, it's so easy to identify with. And I think that that's part of its appeal is how close it is to people in our way of thinking in our American culture. And it really helps you settle into it and accept it and believe it and live it out.

I know like as Catholics, we go to Rome and it feels like, okay, now we're connected with our church. But so for Mormons, what did you do? What places did you go to? Yeah. So when I was a young teenager, I guess I was probably 13 or 14 years old, my family and I, I guess you could call it pilgrimage. We took a pilgrimage to Navu, Illinois, Jackson County, Missouri.

And so this is, it's not the genesis of Mormonism, but it is where it really started to take root and grow in the United States. So it, it started in upstate New York and that's where Joseph Smith claimed to have found the golden plates and did the translating and officially founded the church. And then it moved around from there in the northeast, eventually making its way down to Illinois. And they settled in this small town, I guess it was a swamp for quite some time. And they settled there, drained the swamp, and established this community called Nauvoo.

And so we took a trip there when I was a teenager and we went and saw the historical sites. There's a place there called Carthage Jail, which is a place that Joseph Smith was arrested and taken to and eventually murdered him and his brother Hiram. And it was a very impactful trip going to see these sites. We went and saw the house that he lived in and where some of the more prominent figures of Mormonism, where they live, their houses, the church buildings, the Nauvoo temple is there and it's featured real up high up in the hills and it's got this prominent position there. And so being there invested in that, it just, yeah, I guess it would have felt like visiting Rome seeing the holy sites. Yeah, I

I have a lot of friends who are LDS because I did a lot of work in the anti pornography kind of space and so the fellas that fight the new drug and it I said to people if you encounter a group doing Incredible work in defense of the family or fighting Perversion, they're probably Mormon. That was just my experience. I'd meet someone who blew me away with how much they knew and the effect they were having in culture. I'm like, are you LDS? And they're like, well, yes. I say that because obviously we're going to be criticizing LDS theology, and I guess I just want to say upfront, this is really not meant to be offensive to Mormons individually, who I have a great deal of respect for.

And yet I feel like whenever you criticize somebody or a group, no matter how charitable you are in doing it, it always feels way more intense to the one being criticized. I remember meeting a fellow at one of these anti-porn conferences and he knew I was Catholic, I knew he was LDS and we were getting along and then he noticed I wrote an article like against Mormonism and he was very offended. He wrote to me and said, you know, you're pretending to be like open, but you're clearly attacking us. And I think the way he recognized that he should be okay with that is I said, no, like, you disagree with me. And so presumably you have reasons for disagreeing with me. And that's OK. And I have reasons to disagree with you. And is that OK? And he kind of backed down a lot and was very humble and said, no, you're right. I shouldn't have. I don't know.

So I'm sure you probably want to make some caveats like that, that this is not an attack. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that it's certainly not. I mean, growing up LDS, I have tons of cherished memories of what it was like. And my family life was healthy and happy. And my parents always set a good example. And they're clean and tidy and their marriage was strong and the family unit was strong. And so no, on a personal level, I don't think that anything that we say should be held as an attack. If we, if we acknowledge those things and don't make it personal because it's, it's, it's truly not. Yeah. All right. Um, I, there's so many places I want to go.

I want to talk about like the history of LDS, and I'm sure you're not sitting here like you're an expert on LDS. No, definitely not. Yeah. But, okay. So what's it like? I imagine like most people brought up in a faith or a particular worldview that they do so unquestioningly. I know for me as a Catholic, I didn't really question it, but I found it boring, maybe, you know? And then as I kind of was more influenced and impacted by the culture, I began to be more critical of like Catholic teaching, especially as it pertained to human sexuality and things

like that. And then I started asking questions like, do we really know God exists? Or is this just some fairy tale? Someone invented to make everybody feel better about death? Did you have a progression like that? When did you, when did you ever begin maybe even questioning with other LDS friends the reliability of what you'd been told? There were a few instances where that that happened. It was later in my life, I guess, when I was a teenager. But as a kid, one of the things that the LDS Church is very good at

doing is immersing you in the story, you know, the God story, as it were. And so the participation from the young people is encouraged at a really early age. And so once a month, the LDS Church will do what's called Fast and Testimony meeting, where it's a separate service. Well, not separate, but it is a unique service that's done once a month where rather than receiving talks or sermons from the pulpit, it's open mic, essentially. And so the congregation is asked to come up and bear their testimony.

And having young children go up there and do it is sort of, you know, it's the icing, you know, hearing the young, innocent voices of the babes go up there and say and affirm what everybody believes. And so from a really early age, I was doing that myself from the time I was four or five years old. I would go up and stand in front of the congregation. And it was almost always the same as I believe that the church is true. I believe that Joseph Smith is the prophet. I believe that the Book of Mormon is the word of God. And you would

say these things and you'd close in the name of Jesus Christ and then you'd go and sit back down and join your family and then your younger brother would go up and do the same thing. And so this was part of life. It was a continual coming in contact with the belief, with the profession and professing it. Professing it in front of everybody and being affirmed. And that was, that was a big part. So as a young person, you would go, you know, with your nerves and, you know, the butterflies, but then you'd go and sit back down and you'd have somebody tap you on the shoulder and say, good job, you know, and, and really build up the community like that. And beyond that, it was something that you can see lived out. So we have the LDS Church is really strict

on its geographical boundaries. So if you're living in a particular spot, if your address is such and such, you have to go to this building, and you have to go to this building at this time. And then that way you're always coming in contact with the same people. My family is friends with this family,

and we meet a couple times a week at church, and then we'll get together and play, or we drive together to school. So we're just knitted together, and we're saying the same things. So if he tried to go to a different church in a different location, would they be like, hey, thanks for being here, but you're actually supposed to be? Yeah, they'll send you back.

So even if there's, and this happens all the time, a bit of contention, which exists in every community, gossiping or backbiting, that's still not grounds. So they'll send you back and encourage you, like, look, work with your priesthood leadership, work it out with this other family and this other person, but you need to stay where you are. There's real wisdom in that, I think. I think so too, yeah. I mean, it's hard to argue with. Because the proof is in the pudding,

you see how well these communities function. And so that was a big part of it, just living out the story, knowing what the story was. And the catechesis that happens, they wanna call it that, but the catechesis that happens in the formation, it's rock solid. It's very simple to understand. Where I think that in the formation, it's rock solid. It's very simple to understand,

where I think that in Catholicism, it begins to look like a jungle, and you don't really know exactly how to approach it and how to step into it. Yeah, maybe give us a juxtaposition. Sure, yeah, so there are these diagrams that were just ingrained into our mind, and these diagrams would detail the story, the salvation history, and they called it the plan of salvation.

So in the beginning, right, so before this life, you have the pre-existence. And so in these diagrams, you'd have a bubble, and it would be the pre-existence. And this is where we were before we came to earth and had these these physical bodies And we were there with God the Father Jesus Lucifer and the whole spiritual family of God It was in the pre-existence and there is where What was going to happen on earth the plan of salvation was? Was formulated and is laid out with Christ giving one plan, Lucifer giving another plan, and then a division happening between them, a

rebellion by Lucifer, God the Father sides with Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ his plan, and that becomes the movement forward. So from the pre-existence we're born, and so on this diagram again, pre-existence, arrow down to earthly life, and it's another bubble. And so this is what we're doing here. We're living out our earthly life, which is, it's a test. The whole thing is a test based, you know, our choices, how we treat one another, how we love, and whether or not we follow the teachings and ordinances of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. After our earthly life ends, there's two bubbles, one up, which leads to Spirit Paradise,

and Spirit Paradise is where those who have been faithful to the Church go. And so if you've received Mormon baptism, if you're male and you've been ordained to the priesthood, and you've done your temple work, you'll go to spirit paradise. And there you do more evangelizing. Your job is to continue the work of evangelizing and building up the kingdom after. In paradise?

That's right. Who are you evangelizing? Those in spirit prison, which is the other bubble. So those who have not followed the teachings of Jesus Christ, those who have not been brought into the church and receive their ordinances, they go to spirit prison, which I guess could be equated to purgatory. Like it's a place of waiting, a place of learning, growing, being purified. But those necessary ordinances like baptism, those are done back in the earth bubble. And that's what you see, that's what's

taking place in the temples. So those who are in spirit prison and are awaiting movement from prison to paradise, they're waiting on what's taking place here on earth and what Mormons are doing inside their temples, which is baptism for the dead and proxy ordinances. I just want to point... I know you're trying to make the point about the simplicity of it, so I don't mean to keep interrupting you, but I do think it's important to point out to Catholics who might be feeling rather smug at this point, because I think it's very easy to take any belief system and mock it. And I just want to kind of remind Catholics that like what you believe also seems super

weird to people who haven't heard of it before. So just maybe be a little more charitable than you might be being knowing my audience as I do. Here's one example, right? I had these wonderful Mormons who lived across the road from me who would wear and we can get into this. Are they referred to as Mormon undergarments? Garments, garments. Okay. It's very easy to mock that, but I'd like to remind Catholics like, okay, the scapula that you might be wearing, that looks like a teabag. That's weird too, dude. So, and I'm not saying it's illegitimate, and I'm not saying there's not more merit behind one than the other, but I think it is really important that if we want to interact with the position, we have to be charitable towards it so that we can really understand why it is people believe what they

believe so that we can have a really kind of goodwill discussion. So, all right, continue. Okay, so back to the diagram. So you have the two, Spirit prison, Spirit paradise. Once the work is completed at the end of time, we will be judged, and then you go to one of three kingdoms. And the highest kingdom is the celestial kingdom, which is reserved for those who have lived faithfully to the teachings, who have received baptism and the other ordinances of the temple. Good, honest, Mormon people, whether they became Mormon in this life or in the afterlife,

doesn't matter. Below that, you have the terrestrial kingdom, which are your faithful Christians, you know, so people who did their best to live a godly life, but didn't have the fullness of the teachings of the Mormon church. And then below that you have the telestial kingdom, and the telestial kingdom is reserved for the reprobates, you know, so the sinners, the adulterers, those practicing witchcraft and sorcery. And then there's a fourth place, which is not one of the kingdoms, but it's outer darkness. And this is the place for apostates. So apostates are sent there. That would be you, I guess, would it?

I suppose so, yeah. Cain, Cain is there. I think Judas is there. So it's a very small, limited number of people who actually would. So maybe you wouldn't be in that category. Sorry, I didn't mean to just throw that on you. No, it's tough to say.

I've heard both. Yeah, and I think that generally it's described as being reserved for people who have a sure knowledge. A sure knowledge. Like you have to have seen Christ's ministry in action. You have to have received revelation and know for certain. Like Cain, for example, like he was in the garden. He knew God, he spoke with God.

Or Judas. So this is hell. This fourth place, not one of the three kingdoms. But they wouldn't refer to it as hell. So the doctrine of hell generally is rejected. Okay. I found the diagram. Oh yeah? Throw it out. Kind of weird looking. So I mean it's just like a, it looks like word art from 95. So

I'm going to apologize in advance to the audience for how bad. Is it, so three kingdoms. So what's the difference between outer darkness and hell if they reject hell? I don't know. I don't know. So I think that the notion of there being endless torment is rejected. So Joseph Smith was during his, while he was forming the doctrine and creating the theology was influenced greatly by universalists. And so I think it was one of his parents, his mother or his father was a universalist. And so that think it was one of his parents, his mother or his father, was a universalist.

And so that definitely led to and influenced his rejection of hell. Yeah. Yeah, I guess I don't want to pause again here and say if there are any LDS watching who take issue with some of the things that we're saying, I'd be more than happy to host a debate, not asking you to participate in it, but I'd be happy to find a Catholic who could interact with you. So just to kind of extend that charity so that we can hear it from the horse's mouth if you don't think we're doing a good enough job representing this.

Okay, so what happens in the, yeah, all right, what happens in the baptisms in the temple? Because it sounds like you're saying that you can baptize people who have died and that they can move from the, forgive me, what was it called? The prison? Yeah, prison to paradise. So how do you baptize, just one sec, how do you baptize people that you don't know the name of? Well, they do know the name. And that's one of the things that the LDS Church, they spend a lot of time, energy and effort doing genealogical research. And so some of the largest databases of genealogy is done and owned by the LDS Church.

I've heard that. So in regarding to this like ancestry.org. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. And I don't know their affiliation with ancestry.org. They could own it. They may not. All right. So very technical questions. I don't necessarily expect you to know the answer to, but how do they know that someone on this ancestry list isn't being baptized twice? Or does that not even matter? Well, the LDS Church is really, really meticulous and they keep really good records. Yeah, so they own these tremendous vaults where all of this stuff is, I mean, it's not

all just digital, but it's printed out and it's kept in a way that, you know, is meant to endure and last forever. So that's not to say that it doesn't happen and that deceased people haven't received two baptisms. It's fascinating. It's interesting. It actually kind of bespeaks to like, you know, a love as they would understand it for mankind. Yeah, it's genuine.

It's genuine for sure. And so what they see happening in the temple is, you know, it's a tremendous good. So how are they baptizing people who have died? What does that look like, the ceremony? After they've done their research and they have the names and that's, that's generally all they need. Okay. And so any other details that are associated with the person, it could be fascinating to somebody, but for the interest of the LDS person who's doing the ordinances, it doesn't, doesn't matter. So they have, it's about once a month or so,

and this is how frequently I was doing it as a kid. It would be a temple, a ward temple night. And so all of the youth of the ward would be, an ward is like a parish, so just a smaller community, would be invited to the temple. And at the temple, they house these records and they would, we would go as a ward and say, you know, we have 30 young people here to do baptisms for the dead. And depending on the availability of the names, they would be given a list of

both boys and girls, men and women to receive proxy baptism. So we would go into the changing rooms and we would get in all white garments or clothing. And there's these baptismal fonts, these really big fonts that rest on top of oxen. And it's really neat looking. It looks great. And is the temple like the cathedral? So you have wards and is there like one big building that's sort of overseas a particular area? No, no. So the equivalent to the cathedral would be the steak center. So the steak center is like the central hub for a whole, and there's probably, I guess steak.

The steak might have five or six different wards in it, all in one steak. And the center is the place where we meet once a year or so to do what's called the stake conference. And there more news is put out. You get to hear from the stake president. So then what's the difference between like a normal church and a temple? So a temple, it's something, it's totally different. So the temple, it's not meant for just normal meeting. The only things that happen there are ordinances. So baptism for the dead, the endowment, the initiatory, and ceilings. So marriage ceilings where husband and wife are sealed together for eternity. Yeah. So that's all that takes place there.

Yeah, I don't think there's anything else worth mentioning. Mason- That's really helpful. So then these proxy baptism, so are they taking someone in their place and baptizing them again? Yeah, so the way it's done is the baptizer, it'll be an elder, or maybe not elderly, but a man priesthood holder. He'll be down in the font and when it's your turn, you walk down into the font and then there's generally a screen right in front of him that has a, it'll display a name, and so he'll say your name, Stephen Johnson, I baptize you for and behalf of such and such who is dead in the name of

the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and then they baptize you full immersion. And so then once that's done, they change the name that's on the display and they do the next one. And then somebody else comes in and this did? No, so you'll do it, you'll do it like 30 times. So how many times have you been like dunked? I mean, it has to have been hundreds. Really? Yeah. Wow. From the time you're 12, once you're 12, you're old enough to go and do these proxy baptisms. And you'd normally do that up until you're 16, 17 years old. Crikey. And did you take a real sense of participation?

Like, yeah, I'm doing, I'm entering into this. Bringing people out of prison and doing this, that kind of thought. When did you, did you ever as a child, like what, I guess, what was your view of other Christian churches? And did you ever have doubts that maybe this isn't totally true as a child and as a teenager? No, not, not really. I guess my earliest doubts came when I was a young adult. As a, as a kid, so I grew up until I was about seven years old in Utah. And so I was just, you know, I was, that's everything I knew.

So I didn't have any interactions with Christians, non-denominational evangelicals or Catholics otherwise. After that, I moved to Southern California and there I was first exposed to other faiths. And the story that the LDS person believes from the origin is that Joseph Smith received a revelation from Jesus Christ and God the Father telling him that all of the Christian sects had gone apostate, and even refers to him as an abomination. And so that story, you know, being etched into my mind,

was something that I carried with me, was that no matter who I'm interacting with, if they're not Mormon, they have some sort of deficient understanding of what the gospel is. They might be good people, they might mean well, but ultimately they need to be brought into the fullness of... Exactly. Yeah, so I mean, it's not too dissimilar from what you and I hold. Could you give us a sketch of Joseph Smith's life? For those who yeah as best I can I mean the dates won't be exact, but it's okay Just try to be brought before you do that Like half the chat was very confused do Mormons believe that Kane was in the garden you mentioned that and

Okay, so not in the garden, but not in the garden. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So I think it says in Genesis, right? That, I mean, God spoke to Cain asking him where his brother was. It's kind of like, uh, what do you say? Like invincible ignorance on his part to your point about why he must be in the out of darkness? Cause he saw God. Yeah. Exactly. Okay. Thanks for the clarifier. Sure. Okay, so in the early 1800s in upstate New York, the Smith family, they were farmers. And from what I understand, Joseph Smith and his family, you know, would engage in these, you know, deep storytellings. You know, I think prior to television and entertainment, I think it was probably common practice to develop stories and tell stories around the fireside and read books. And so Joseph Smith developed a knack for this, being just a really charismatic and

brilliant person. He could keep his family entertained for a long time, even as a young person with stories about Native Americans where they in that area you had these these giant mounds these um Native American burial grounds but if you've seen them they're huge and these were spread throughout the area and so there was this lore about the ancient inhabitants of the area and so these these stories would sort of develop and telling of them when it was commonplace. And so Joseph Smith, when he was, when he was a, I think, 14 years old, there was a religious revival in upstate New York. And there was these huge movements, whether it was Methodists or Presbyterians, coming into the area and evangelizing heavily and bringing in tons of converts.

And so during one of these revivals, Joseph Smith was struck by like the options available to him. And he didn't feel that the options available to him really bespoke the unity that Christ meant to instill within his body. And so he retired into the forest, into the woods to pray and ask for guidance, ask for direction on what it was that he was supposed to do. As he began this time of prayer, he felt this overwhelming, dark spiritual force attacking him. He felt like he was sinking, you know, and just being weighed down by this darkness. And then he was delivered from this darkness

by this blinding light that he says came down and until it rested upon him. And in this light, he saw two personages, God the Father and Jesus Christ. And then asking, you know, what is it that I'm supposed to do? Which one of these churches should I join? God tells them, neither. You're not supposed to join either of the, or any of these churches. Instead, what you need to do is to restore the gospel as it was truly given to the Apostles. And then,

from there, he was, I mean, that's the origin story. So from there, he, and I think I'm a little fuzzy on the timeline, but Joseph Smith also received a vision of the angel Moroni. Sure. So in his room, the angel came to visit him and told him where he was going to find this buried record of the Native Americans or the ancient, ancient Americans. And so there was a couple years between the first vision when the angel came to visit him and when he was actually able to retrieve the plates. And so one evening he went and he retrieved the plates and it was golden plates. So a stack of golden plates and on it was inscribed the historical record of this ancient civilization that had broken off from the ancient Israelites. And so this is Lehi, Lehi's family. Lehi was a prophet during the time of Jeremiah in Israel and received some sort of revelation

that there was going to be destruction and that he needed to flee. And so Lehi and his family go out into the wilderness and they receive instruction on where they're supposed to go they build a vessel and they sail across the oceans and come to the New World and here in the New World these two civilizations form two of the brothers of two of the sons of Lehi Nephi and

laymen form these civilizations and they form the Nephites and the Lamanites. And the whole story of the Book of Mormon is their conflict with one another. So you have wars and conflict, conversions and apostices happening over the span of, I think it's something like 800 years or so. Are the Native Americans in this story? So in the preface to the Book of Mormon, it says, and the language used to be much stronger, that these Israelites are the principal ancestors of the Native Americans. And so for a long time, the LDS Church held that the Native Americans, you know, so like

the Apaches and the Comanches were descendants from these Israelites. And then later from DNA testing, it just became more and more. Exactly. And so they've softened it. And I think the language now says that they are among the ancestors. And there's another portion of the book called the book of ether, which details another breakaway civilization that broke off much earlier around the time of the fall of the Tower of Babel. And they too came to America, but their way of coming here was different. They created like submersibles. And yeah, so with stones that had been illuminated by the hand of God, and they sealed themselves in these submersibles and came to America. And something similar there, just conflict over a long period of time ended up wiping

out the whole civilization. So Joseph Smith translates this record from the Golden Plates and that becomes the Book of Mormon. And so around this Book of Mormon, he starts growing this community and he founds the church. And the church bounces around from location to location. They never really stay in one place for too long. They're in upstate New York, then they go to Kirtland, then they go to far west,

and then they end up in Nauvoo, where Joseph Smith is killed. And then they eventually make their way out to Salt Lake, Salt Lake City. Is there a story of the Mormon church being persecuted from day one? And what did that look like? Yeah. Yeah. So Joseph Smith himself, there were a number of times where violent mobs broke into his home, abducted him, took him from his home and tarred and feathered him.

There were other times where he was arrested and spent long periods incarcerated. The Mormons themselves had continual conflict with the neighbouring communities. Mason- What was the main reason for the conflict? Mason- It varies depending on who you ask. I think that there was just, there was aggression, there was aggression, and there was a general distrust for one another. So the, you know, the Mormons believe that they were surrounded by apostates who were a part of the abomination.

And so there was an utter rejection of who they were. And likewise, the LDS Church or the Morm Mormons at the time, were problematic in their own right. So Joseph Smith, he was a bit of a revolutionary and he had built up armies and he started his own banking society, which was using its own currency. And so there was, yeah, they were doing some neat stuff. And so there was even a lot of members of the Mormon Church who had defected and become disillusioned

with Joseph Smith. They became aggressive towards the LDS Church. And so there was a lot of back and forth. There was a lot of back and forth conflict and neither side was innocent. Did Joseph Smith practice polygamy? Yeah, he did. So the official record is that he received the revelation, which is still within the Doctrine and Covenants, which is one of the canons of LDS Scripture. Section 132 details how the practice is supposed to be done. And a lot of it is addressed to his first wife, Emma. And a lot of it speaks to her in really harsh tones, you know, saying that, if my servant

Emma – and this is a revelation from God, if my servant Emma doesn't accept this, she'll be destroyed. Oh dear. Yeah. So there was definitely some pressure, not just on Emma, but on the broader community of women within the LDF. So if she pushes back against him, shackled up with other Sheilas? That's right.

Yeah. Dear me. Did they all live together? No, no, they didn't okay. No, so But the the official story and what yeah what truly happened was slightly different So Joseph Smith had been practicing plural marriage for quite some time. So the same thing as polygamy it is yeah, so different terminology So his his first polygamous wife or his first plural encounter was with a young girl named Fanny Alger. And Fanny Alger was a handmaid of his wife Emma.

And so she worked in the house, she helped tend to the duties of the home and Joseph Smith formed a relationship with her. And this was years before ever receiving the official revelation that became polygamy. Oh, okay. Okay. And so it just, it was something sort of lurking in the back for a number of years. There's affidavits sworn where Joseph Smith outright denied it. And while it was-

Denied. Polygamy, being a polygamist. But this was while polygamy was ongoing. So it was being practiced. It was still done in secret. while polygamy was ongoing, so it was being practiced. It was still done in secret. And it continued to remain secret for most of its history. It wasn't something accessible to your average LDS man. It was something that you were brought into by the upper powers of hierarchy of the church.

So it extended to you. So it probably wasn't even common knowledge among other Protestant Christians during the time, or? That's a good question. I don't know. Maybe don't know for sure. Maybe eventually it was. Yeah, I'm sure that there was probably leaks coming out throughout. Yeah.

But it really came to a head while they were in Nauvoo. There was a man there who, he ran a newspaper house, a printing house, called the Morning Star, something like that. the Morning Star, something like that. And he printed an expose and he exposed Joseph Smith, the practice of polygamy. And this is what ultimately led to his arrest and his murder is, so he prints this expose, Joseph Smith sends his forces to this printing house and they destroy it.

They destroy the printing house, they burn down the home. And this at the time led to him being arrested where he was brought to Carthage jail. And at Carthage jail while he was held up there, a mob broke in with their faces painted black with guns and they started shooting at him. Like they broke in through the door, Joseph and his brother restrained them at the door. Joseph had a pistol that was smuggled in, fires through the door, kills

maybe one or two of the members of the mob. His brother Hiram is shot through the door and he gets hit in the face and he dies there. And Joseph Smith bolts it to one of the windows in the prison and he's shot in the back and falls out the window and that's where he dies. Okay. Yeah, so if that's, see, I always knew that he was, uh, you know, in a shootout kind of thing, but it sounds like he was murdered. Murdered. That's a fair, that's a correct term. I suppose. Yeah, I think so. Because you have a mob breaking in overruling.

Yeah. It is vigilante justice. Yeah. I found that paper. What's it called? Navu Expositor. Um, the president of the at the time was William Law. Carly. Yeah, I'm just thinking about what would happen if I said to my wife that. There's going to be some other women that I'm interacting with. And God told me that if you have a problem with it, you know, this is a side note, but as our as our society in America becomes increasingly just abominable and perverted,

I wonder when there will come a day where you have like mainline politicians apologizing to Mormons for condemning polygamy and even one day apologizing for Catholics for condemning pedophilia. Hot take. Pretty aggressive. But I. It's like when pedophilia. Hmm. Hot take. Yeah, pretty aggressive. But I. It's like when pedophilia is like when the when the Democrat party is fully pushing, we should be. You don't have to.

We should. Your phrasing there made it sound like that's something that we ever endorsed. No, yes, you're right. Sorry. Thank you. Thank you. The Mormon Church did endorse polygamy. We have never endorsed.

Very good. Very good. But obviously we never endorsed. Very good. Clarify. Very good. Clarify. But obviously we never endorsed pedophilia. But, but I suppose like, if you have a Mormon, if you have one church, Mormonism being persecuted in part for polygamy, then at one point, will, will the government apologize or will you have mainline figures apologizing and pedophilia, which is more evil, clearly, um, which is never endorsed by the church.

But but but at least the church was you might from the from the vantage point of maybe pedophilia is OK. You would then retrospectively look back and say, well, we persecuted these poor priests, you know, but really, it's it's disgusting to think about. Sorry, that was clearly a tangent. OK, so Joseph Smith dies and wow, and then it carries on. How does it carry on? So there's a, there was a break when this happened. Cause there, there wasn't a clear

line of succession, you know, who was going to take over following his death. And so there were a number who remained behind thinking that his son should take up the mantle as the prophet. And they remained there in that area of the United States and they became what is called the RLDS Church. They've changed their name since then to the Community of Christ. And so they accept the Book of Mormon, they follow the teachings of Joseph Smith, they just hold to a different line of succession. Do you know how many group different, if you want to use denominations of Mormons? Dozens. Yeah, there's dozens of them.

Yeah, most of them are really small and they just kind of form these outpost communities, you know, in southern Colorado and Utah. And it would be unfair to criticize the LDS Church based on some small offshoot, practicing wacky stuff in the same way that it would be unfair to criticize mainline Catholicism for offshoots of people still claiming to be Catholic. Yeah, I think the difference would be an acknowledgement that DNC Section 132 is still there. And so these, it's still canonized, even in the mainline-

Polygamy. Yeah. Wow. And so they're, uh, during the time that Utah was, or those who settled in Utah were seeking statehood within the union of the United States. That was one of the roadblocks was that the LDS church who were settled there were still practicing polygamy and the constitutional United States was like this, you, we can't allow it.

And so I think they had bigamy laws, anti-bigamy laws, which is just more than one spouse. And so Utah had to conform in order to be brought into the United States. And in all likelihood, it would have led to war between those who had settled in Utah and the US government over that territory. So the LDS church moved away from the practice of polygamy and practically,

but doctrinally it's still there. So do you have like trad Mormons who are like pointing to doctrine and covenants saying like we actually still hold to what? I mean, this happens all the time. I mean, it's continually happening where, you know, somebody will receive this, you know, more of a fundamentalist spark and say like, the Utah Mormon Church is doing this wrong. The Mormon sect, the Salt Lake sect is doing this wrong. They've apostatized and they'll form their own community.

Wow. I wonder how many Mormons are currently watching like red-pilled videos of man saying it's okay to have a dozen Sheilas and say like, we were right all along and we were wrong to ever abandon it? Yeah, it happens. I went to a friend's house. She brought in the speaker who was going to speak about what happened with COVID and the craziness of the US government and the corruption.

But the underlying message of his talk was we need to really consider bringing back polygamy. So the political message was sort of his door in. But what he was driving at was we need to get out. We need to move into rural Utah. We need to get back to Jackson County, Missouri. And we need to start practicing our faith the way that it's. Honestly, if it was between like polygamy in the Utah desert and whatever the woke culture is pushing on us, like that sounds way more wholesome. Are there, um,

are there women who are claiming that they also would like to go back to this lifestyle? Yeah, definitely. Why? Because I mean, they believe in the doctrines and the tenets of the church. They believe wholeheartedly that Joseph Smith was a prophet and he received this revelation, which you know, I imagine a woman willingly saying, I want to share my man with other women. Yeah. Well, I mean, I knew them. I knew one woman in particular. Yeah. She was, she was recruiting,

she was recruiting women and various families to come back into, into what she called the new and everlasting covenant. Yeah, I mean, we were out of the church by this point when we came into contact with her. But is it fair to say then that mainstream LDS condemns this full-throatedly? Yes and no. Right? So there's a way that this is still practiced in the LDS church, and it's done through temple ceilings. And so there's caveats in place. And one of them is that, so if you're a man married to a woman,

you've been sealed to her in the temple, and she dies, and you become a widower, and you remarry, you can also become sealed to that second woman and that sealing carries on through the next life. So in the next life, you will have two wives. Is the sealing different to marriage? So it's what makes a marriage extend beyond this life. So the sealing is for time and eternity. So a wedding can take place in a Mormon church, but the sealing has to take place in the temple?

Or no, both have to take place in a Mormon church, but the ceiling has to take place in the temple? Or no, both have to take place in the temple? So if both husband and wife are practicing developed Mormons, the entire marriage will take place in the temple. So they'll be married for time and eternity. Okay. So both take place kind of at the same time then, marriage and ceiling. Yeah. And so the way that when my wife and I got married- Were you Mormons? What's that?

Were you, did you Mormons? What's that? Were you, did you get married in the temple? Yeah. Yeah. So not initially. So my wife was, uh, she was a convert. She was born into a Catholic home, but it was Catholic by name, you know, so she attended wedding masses and that, that was the extent of it.

And so when we were dating and got engaged, because I was so active in my faith and her faith meant very little to her. She followed and we became united in our home front by becoming Mormon. So she was baptized Mormon and we lived and practiced Mormonism. But there's a bit of a time requirement in order for you to go straight into temple sealing. So I think she had to wait one full year from the time she was baptized. So once we received our civil ceremony, we were married civilly. And then six months later when we were eligible to go into the temple, we did our sealing then. And so it was taken from time to eternity.

So we'll get to this. I don't want to talk about this right now, but just real quick, did you convert a Catholic to Mormonism and marry her as a Mormon? Yeah, yeah. All right. Yeah. So she was Catholic, but never, never practiced. You're that good looking.

All right. Interesting stuff. So I would like to ask you about how the LDS has officially changed different positions when they became, you might say, sort of culturally unacceptable. So one of them seems to be polygamy. Right. Is another one that blacks can't be priests? Yeah. Tell me about that.

Can you, before you, sorry, before you get into like what they changed, can you get into how they changed and like the actual, so people can understand what those, what that means? It's like, I know that you can change anything, but can you get into how that works so people aren't totally lost? Oh, sure. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good point. Okay. So the LDS church, one of its, um, one of its main central tenants is ongoing revelation is that we still have a prophet today who is in continual communion with God and receives revelation the same way we would talk about public revelation. You know, the distinction between public and private revelation.

At the death of the last apostle, public revelation came to an end. The LDS Church holds that public revelation is still ongoing. So there's this back and forth or receiving communication from God who dictates the direction of the church. And so it can be really reactive. And so you see political pressure being put on the church various times throughout its history to conform. And because of this ongoing

revelation, they do it. They can say, you know, we heard from God, God has spoken on this, They do it. They can say, you know, we heard from God, God has spoken on this, thus we're going to cease practicing polygamy. Or in the 1970s when the civil rights movement had made its strides to bring equality to the various minority racial groups, the LDS Church continued to persevere in its denial of full access to the church to black men and women. And then in 1978, they received a new revelation that now it was the time to allow blacks of African descent into the priesthood and allow them into the temple. So yeah, that happened in 1978 and that was as a result from the ongoing revelation. And so this has happened more than, you know, more than a few times. There was polygamy,

there was race in the priesthood, but then there were also a number of teachings by Brigham Young. So Brigham Young was the second prophet and president of the church. So was that Joseph Smith's son then? No, no, no, This was a high ranking, a high ranking member of the church who took up the mantle. Gotcha. So he's part of the Utah Sec that leads the Mormons to Salt Lake where they settle. And he's functioning as sort of the governor of the state. It's not a state technically, it's more of a territory, but functioning as a governor in a political role as well as the prophet and president of the LDS church. And so when he came into the prophetship, he started teaching some things that were considered much later unorthodox.

So one of the things that he taught was what's called blood atonement. And so the idea behind this is that there are some sins that are so grievous, like adultery, that require the shedding of one's blood in order to be forgiven. So the the atonement of Christ is not sufficient to cover all of these sins. And so this is, this is, it was really radical, right? And so the way that he explained it was, if I were to come into my bedroom and find my wife with another man in bed, I would be justified and indeed I should put a javelin through both

of them. For their sake. For their salvation. Right. To shed their blood, killing them in order that they- So Brigham Young said this explicitly. Yeah. So the doctrine of blood atonement was taught-

I mean, I might personally do that, but I wouldn't be proud of it at least a week after, you know, I dunno, maybe two weeks. Yeah, that was one, um, which lingered, it had a lingering effect in Utah. Um, as far as I know, and I'm maybe even staking about this, but I'm pretty sure that this is the case that, that Utah out of all the States in the union held on to capital punishment by firing squad the longest. And I think until pretty recently, like maybe in the last 20 or 30 years, Utah was the only state in the union where death by firing squad

was permissible for those on death row. And they gave them an option. So they would ask like we have the electric chair or lethal injection or the firing squad. And so the understanding there was that if you've done something terrible, firing squad is, you know, you'll shed your blood. The way that Brigham Young taught. And then this is your act of repentance. Right. Even if it's not voluntary. Exactly. Well, I guess it would be voluntary because you would select it. You would select to be killed by a firing squad. Yeah. But so if you were killed in a different way, that wouldn't count as the shedding of blood for

redemption? Interesting. Yeah. So another one of these doctrines that was taught by Brigham Young that was later rejected was this, it's called the Adam God doctrine. And so Brigham Young doing, he's speculating deeply on what was happening in the garden and who these angelic beings were and the, you know, the creation and how it was ordered and structured. Because underneath this, you have this doctrine of eternal progression,

which is that God, God the father in the way distant past was a man. He was born into a family, he had parents, he grew up, he did what he was supposed to do to receive exaltation. So he was Mormon, practiced, did everything according to the law as he was supposed to, and then he received exaltation and he's now continuing this doctrine of eternal progression. Mason- There's an infinite regress of gods.

Bregman- That's right. Yeah. So Brigham Young, while he was speculating on this, wasn't entirely convinced that God the Father was actually the highest God, or the God necessarily of this world. And so he speculated that Adam, the first man, was actually the highest God, or the God necessarily of this world. And so he speculated that Adam, the first man, was actually the true God of this world, and that God the Father was some greater being. You know, somebody further up in the progressive. So then if we might be getting into the weeds here, I don't mean to press you if you're not, if you don't know all of this, but so if Adam is the God of this world, is Adam responsible for the creation of this world? Yeah. So he, he created it. There's yeah. Okay. To bring him young at one point.

And so he, he is the true father of the human race. What's that sound? Sound like a baby cooing. Is that you? Are you? Okay. Yeah. That's all my Kuhn. Is that you? Okay, yeah. Oh, my chair is squeaking. All right, I can't hear it. That's right, yeah. You got the headphones on. So, yeah, so he speculated that Adam was the true God of this world and he says somewhere, I believe it's in the Journal of Discourses, that Adam is the only God with whom we have to do and whom we worship. And so the doctrine of God the Father was sort of jettisoned for a while. But then the subsequent prophets and presidents...

Mason- And did he receive that through a revelation? Bregman- According to him, yeah. So he taught this from the pulpit. So I mean, it would have been something like a ex-cathedra sort of declaration that this is teaching. Mason- How bizarre that we just now decided that we're worshipping Adam. Holy mackerel. Bregman- Yeah, it definitely rocked some people. And so those who were higher up in the echelons of power, once Brigham Young had passed and a new prophet was selected, they got rid of it. And they said it was heretical. Wow. So it's possible, according to LDS theology or ecclesiology, that a prophet can teach

heresy. I mean, it's more than possible. It's demonstrable. It's happened. And the Adam doctrine or the Adam God doctrine would be proof of that. So then how does a Mormon fully trust new revelations? I don't know. I mean, because that was, it was one of the more troubling things for me to discover is, okay, so we, these things can change. They have changed, you know, so tenants of the faith have changed. You know, there was something taught and was required to be believed and accepted by the Mormon body and then- And was taught as a revelation of God.

Yeah. And then generations later, that's right. Yeah. And so something like this has happened even more recently, like really recently. And this was, I think it was back in the year or just after when the Supreme Court made its ruling on same sex marriage. Right. So I guess that probably would have been like 2013, 2014, 15. Yeah, it was around then. So in response to that, the LDS Church really, the Quorum of the Twelve, which is one of the highest bodies of authority in the Mormon Church, came together and they made this pronouncement, like this public declaration of that, outright rejecting that. And then they made some more of the practical the practical, um, practices of the church more explicit, like, okay,

so children of same sex marriages cannot be baptized and that those practicing same sex marriage are apostates. This was prior. Okay. This was right after the Supreme court made their, um, made their declaration or made their pronouncement. Um, and so there was a really big backlash against this because they had just really beefed up all of their language against homosexuality and same sex unions.

And so the more left leaning, more progressive LDS community just rejected it, that they did not like it. And then just a few years later, oh, so let me back up. When the criticism started coming down on the church, the official church leadership for doing this, one of the apostles of the church, I believe it was Christofferson,

came out saying that we had retired into the temple and with prayerful consideration received revelation that this was from God, that we were supposed to do this that You know just to make an example or to demonstrate their fidelity to traditional marriage They had they had made this move And then just a number of years later. They they backed it off. They totally backed it off through a supposed revelation, right? Yeah, so they backed it off. They totally backed it off. Through a supposed revelation. Right. Yeah. So the language may not have been as strong the second time around when they backed it off, but just that easing off on something which just a couple of years before was said explicitly that this was revelation, we received this. Right.

So that's another example. See, I feel like if I was a prophet and I was going to change something that I allegedly, or someone prior to me, some prophet prior to me, received, I would say, I would try to frame it as, this is for your benefit. You were in a racist culture that couldn't accept blacks holding positions in the church, and so God the Father lovingly dealt with your hard-heartedness in the way he dealt with polygamy in the Old Testament. But now you're coming into a more, you know, was there anyone trying to do that kind of stuff? I'm sure that there was. I can't think of a. That sounds like a better idea if I'm a Mormon prophet than, yeah, we were wrong.

Yeah. Yeah. That, that doesn't come out right. I mean, the, the admission that there was some mistake, that's not acknowledged. So there is some sort of justification, like this is why it's happened this way. So from the outside observer, when it came to blacks and the priesthood, there was just immense political pressure.

There were boycotts that were happening, so like collegiate sports, I think it was, some of the Ivy League schools were boycotting BYU and they wouldn't play against them in tournaments because the LDS church was continuing to, uh, to exclude. I'm sure there was a lot of, Oh, I see. Exclude. I think we're talking about the sec, the same sex stuff. Okay. Yeah. No, yeah. So this is back in 1970s. Wow. And so from the outside observer, this is what they would see. Like, okay, the LDS Church is just responding

to political and economic pressures to conform. From the inside of the church, there's another reason offered. And so one of those was that there became a difficulty in the African lineage of those people that were excluded from the priesthood. So you have blacks in Haiti and blacks in Brazil and South America. And so it became like, okay, well, like, how do we know? How can we, like, how do we distinguish this? So was it that Africans couldn't hold, but maybe people from Haiti could?

It was blacks of African descent that were excluded from the... What was the specific reason for that? So there was... At the time. Yeah, so there's two that I'm aware of. One is that in the pre-existence, right, which I was describing earlier, you had this war in heaven take place, where those angels or those- I don't like where this is going. Very nervous. There were those that sided with Lucifer and fought against the sight of Jesus Christ. And so you have those who sided with Jesus Christ

or those who were born into normal, fair skinned families, homes, you know, or bodies. And then Satan and his angels or his demons were excluded. They could not be born period. They were cast out. But then there was this middle ground of people that were like fence sitters. They couldn't really decide.

And those were the Africans? Yes. Oh my gosh, this is so bad. They're the less valiant fighters in the pre-existence. And so they have a reason for why they were black. I'm so afraid to ask. So was there like a, in the Book of Mormon? Yeah. The Book of Mormon has got this, it again, they've softened the language. So if you go back to earlier editions of the Book of Mormon,

its attitude towards those with dark skin was, it was pretty rough, you know, call them like ugly and loathsome. This is in your scriptures? Yeah, this is in the Book of Mormon. So I don't know which iteration they went back to where they- They translate that again? Did they retranslate that? They just softened it.

And so, you know- Not ugly, just something different. It might say loathsome still, you know, ugly, just I think it might say lonesome still dark and lonesome. Ah, yeah. But then maybe you can reinterpret dark to mean character. Please somebody. Wow. OK, so OK, fair enough. So the Africans were the fence hitters. And this is not my opinion if you're just joining us. But then the Haitians and other blacks, maybe. just joining us. But then the Haitians and other blacks, maybe. Yeah, so it seemed right, by the way that this principle was laid out, that

South Africans, like Brazilians, I think Brazil was sort of like that was the catalyst. Like we have a huge population of, you know, of blacks who are Brazilian and we don't really know, we can't tell like what their actual lineage is. And so do we how far back do we go to prove that they're still African, or do we just make this concession and open up the doors for everybody to come in? So I think that there was, there was a bit of, you know, doctrinal resolution that needed to take place, along with the outside secular political pressure

that was also taking place. Yeah. Wow. And so the other doctrinal reason for the dark skin has to do with the curse of Cain and Ham. So in the book of Genesis, there were two curses that were given. And so one of the curses on Cain or Ham was dark skin. And so those of African descent are the lineage of ham.

So, okay. So is it like dark skin, bad light skin, good? What about like the middle? Yeah, there's nothing. Because I figure like if the Native Americans are supposed to be the descendants of biblical figures. And yeah, so the dark skin of the Native Americans is also traced back to a curse, a curse on the Lamanites. So the Lamanites were the antagonists, the civilization that was very aggressive towards the Nephites who were the godly people. The Nephites retained their fair, delightsome skin. The Lamanites, I don't know if it was gradual

or just over like an instant that they became dark and loads on themselves. When these reverse, like reversal of decisions or revelations, apparent revelations happened, I imagine there's splits within the church. Like for the, I'm sure there was a lot of conservative LDS that were grateful that there was this alleged revelation about the sinful practice of sodomy, right? And, but then when that was softened, do you find splinterings within the community? Yeah, yeah, it still happens. So when these other groups around the LDS that are much more small, do they have a prophet

that they think is the true prophet? Some of them have elected prophets to lead the church. The notable one is the F LDS church or the fundamental Latter-day Saint. And so this sect, it was led by, his name was Warren Jeffs. And so the Jeffs family was a, I mean, they claimed to be prophets

and the leadership of this particular sect, which was in comparison, much smaller than the mainstream LDS church in Salt Lake. Interesting. But Warren Jeffs, so far as I know, is he's serving a life sentence in prison for aggressive rape and sodomy of children because it's almost an inescapable thing that sexual predation just becomes an aspect of these more fundamentalist groups that are practicing polygamy. Why do you think that is? Is it just like a loosening of sexual morality

that leads to more debauchery? Yeah, I think, I think. Give an inch, take a mile kind of thing. Oh, I think it's, it's rested in lust. And I think that that's, that's what motivated the entire thing, especially for Joseph Smith. I mean, Joseph Smith's first union

with that young lady, Fanny Alger, was certainly lust. And some of Joseph Smith's closest friends, like Oliver Cowdery, commented on it, saying that this was a dirty affair. And so there were people in his inner circle that saw this going on and said like, this is- Ben Wattenberg What happened to those people who criticized Joseph Smith? Jared O'Reilly

Most of Joseph Smith's inner circle, the original inner circle, they all apostatized. Like even those that had claimed to have seen the golden plates and received revelation and took part in the translation of the Book of Mormon. I don't think, I don't think, no, none of them recounted, which is an amazing thing. Re-canted, I should say. Yeah, none of them recanted. They all, as far as I know, stuck to their story that they had witnessed these things and had seen the golden plates. That's a mark in favor of, I'm sure as a Mormon, I'd, stuck to their story that they had witnessed these things and had seen the golden plates.

That's a mark in favor of, I'm sure as a Mormon, I'd really want to... Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. It's definitely something that they rest their testimony on. So within the Book of Mormon, you have these, the account of the three witnesses and account of the eight witnesses. And so these are some of Joseph's closest acolytes that claim to have seen the golden plates. When you tease it out a little bit more, they, I don't know if all of them mention it, but a handful of them say that, well, it was, I didn't physically see them. It was through the eyes of faith. You know, so they saw it

in almost like a visionary experience where they, they saw the plates, but whether they touched them and handled them, most of them- And were the plates said to be taken back up to heaven? That's right, yeah. They were taken by an angel. I know that there are elements within the Book of Mormon that talk about things that existed in America that we're pretty sure didn't exist in America. Right, yeah. The anachronisms.

And so within the Book of Mormon, right? So the Book of Mormon being written in the 19th century had access to what, you know, common folk knew about the world at the time. You know, so I think that there were assumptions made that a lot of the things that they saw and encountered on a daily basis, like horses existed in ancient America hundreds of years before. Also metals, certain like steel. Yeah. Yeah. So different alloys. So I think, I think steel is one of them that they, they're, they're written about through, throughout the book of Mormon. Horses is a big one. Like horses didn't exist in the

continental United States or South South America Until they were brought here from the old world by Christopher Columbus and some of the other reason just as if they did Oh, yeah, a lot of the the the characters of the Book of Mormon just they I mean they were carrying steel Swords and they had breastplates and they're riding horses and then you know, so that became a difficult thing was why are these errors here? Like, and then do you have to say, well, they came over on the boat? So, no, as far as I know, that justification has been made. Yeah, there have been some more horses. I don't mean to be funny, but I mean, you've got to come up with a reason for this. And if they're not coming over on the boat then we've got to have... Yeah, so there's a there was it may have been a joke but there there are these um

these new world animals I think they're called like a type tapir type it's like some sort of a okay large rodent kind of like one of the capybaras something like that and they said well maybe this is what he was talking about was one. One of these these larger tape hairs. And so cartoons have been made with guys riding around. Oh, my gosh. On these creatures. Wow. Yeah. All right. Well, unless you have more to say on that and feel free to if you've got more, because I want to ask when you started questioning it, then.

OK, anything else you want to add to that? No, I think we can move on. OK. All right. So at what age want to add to that? No, I think we can move on. Okay. All right. So at what age and how was it that you said, I don't know, there's something that we might not be right here. So one of the first instance of something like that, I was every Sunday meeting with the exception of the fast and testimony meetings and the stake meetings and whatnot,

the normal meeting pattern goes as such. There are talks given, two youth talks generally, and two adult speakers will give talks. And the talk topic is assigned generally by either the bishop or somebody who presides over the congregation. And this is especially true of the youth speakers. The youth speakers will be given a topic.

And this one time I was asked to speak and I don't know if I was assigned a topic, but I began doing research into what's called the Book of Abraham. And so this makes up a small part of what is the Pearl of Great Price, which is another part of the canon of LDS scripture. And so in the Pearl of Great Price, the Book of Abraham, this is where a lot of the more esoteric doctrines of Mormonism are detailed. And so you have the idea of eternal progression

detailed there, that God is not the only God, he's the God of this world and that there's a movement of exaltation. And one of the things that's detailed in there is that God the Father exists somewhere within our cosmos near the star Kolob. And so this is, who knows where it is, perhaps at the center of a galaxy or at the center of the universe There's a star colob and that's the closest residing Star to where God dwells, right? I don't think we've said this up until now

But according to LDS theology God has a body. So he's actually existing somewhere which might surprise some Catholics. Yep Yeah, so physical body existing in time and space So he's actually existing somewhere, which might surprise some Catholics. Yep. Yeah. So physical body existing in time and space. So he is somewhere in the cosmos and wherever he is, he's near this dark colom. And so as a 15, 16 years old, I was diving into this and I was incredibly fascinated by it, like getting into the more esoteric teachings of the church. And so I was I was diving into this preparing a talk and the thought that I had come to my mind was, OK, so. Our God is our God and he has his own God and he has his own God.

And I went to my older brother's four years older than me. So, you know, granted he's not, he's not an expert in this or anything. And I asked him, so if our God has a God and he has a God, like, who's the first God? And he looks at me and he says, you shouldn't ask those questions. And that was it. You know, like it, it stopped the conversation and stopped my research into it. I felt like I was doing something wrong by, by looking into it and asking those questions. And so from that time forward, I was, it just wasn't something I really peered into. It was interesting and I wanted to know about it because it was in our scriptures and as part of our official teachings. But I don't think it rose to the level of a doubt. It was just a curiosity that ran into the brick wall of don't ask those questions. Yeah. I mean, we have something similar, right? In all faith systems, there are things that we maybe can't reason through. So I remember as a kid saying to my mom, you know, like, if God exists, what about things happen to good people or something? And she would she would say, like, it's a mystery.

And that's something similar. It's like you shouldn't be asking that some things you just have to accept was it. Yeah, I think so. I think it was I mean, I think that that's the spirit that was intended is that like we just we don't know we can't know and because we can't know we should just accept it on faith. And so I don't think that there is anything malicious or sort of deceptive about it. But it was the difference. I will say is this right. Whereas Aquinas says, let's say that the Trinity is something that we,

we would never know by our own reason. He also says, but it's once known it's not unreasonable. So like, whereas this is different, this is something where you might say, fair enough, we can't, we couldn't have known this by our own reason. And yet I think there's a case that could be made that it's unreasonable if an endless chain of torrents. Yeah, the infinite refreshments. So it wasn't something that I revisited until I was in my early 20s. I mean, do you want to go into the conversion story now? I do, but I also want to say, were you ever a missionary?

No, I didn't serve my mission. OK. Yeah, so I got engaged and got married instead. OK. What age do men usually go on mission? It was 19 for the longest time, and it was just reduced a year to 18. So now 18-year-olds are serving missions. So you would have if you hadn't have gotten engaged, perhaps?

So when I was a junior in high school, my wife and I, um, we were dating and our relationship was, was growing in a direction that we thought, okay, we want to be married to one another. And so with, uh, the mission sort of looming there in the distance, I had a pretty good, a pretty good reason to believe that if I were to serve a mission, she wouldn't have waited for me, you know? so I mean this happens all the time. It's a it's happened to my brothers and it's happened to a number of my friends that they they serve a

mission a few weeks into it they get a Dear John letter. Yeah. And you know that's it. And so I was a I was you know trying to be a realist about it that if I were to serve my mission I wouldn't marry this girl. Is that a mark of shame at all? Is it? Yeah, yeah, so the serving a mission, it's definitely, I mean, it's a rite of passage, and it's an honor-based thing as well. And it's also something that, from a really early age,

boys are formed and prepared to serve. So like in primary meetings, which is the children's gathering, we had hymns that we would sing about serving a mission. And, um, you know, the, the missionaries that would serve at our ward were these, these were amazing young men who were out there doing the Lord's work. And we never met a Mormon missionary that I didn't think it seems like a really cool guy, you know, like well rounded and yep. And so we, we had them over to our house often and we would feed them dinner and we would just, we would get to know them and form relationships with the LDS missionaries.

And we always loved them and I always loved them and I always idolized them and wanted to be like them. But you know, it became a little bit different when I, now I had something on the table and that was losing a little bit different when now I had something on the table and that was losing my girlfriend. So there's sort of an exception made, right? So if you're a young man, you're called to serve a mission. Every young man is called to serve a mission. If for whatever reason you can't, then you should consider military service.

Oh wow. And so it's not necessarily like a one for one, like one or the other. It's service is what you should be doing at this age. If you can't serve a mission, serve the country. And so I saw that as sort of my way of retaining my honor and getting the girl. And so that was the path I took.

And so we got married two weeks after I turned 19 years old. And by this point, I'd already signed my contract to be enlisted. And I left for the military just two months after getting married. Before we get into your marriage, I had a quick question. What do you do when you commit a serious sin as a Mormon? How do you find, how do you repent? So there's a process of repentance and depending on the severity of the sin normally requires you going to a priesthood authority. So if it's adultery or

you're struggling with lust and pornography, you can go sit down with the bishop and there's typically a period and it varies, I guess. And you confess to him? Not in any sort of like formal matter, you know, so there is no absolution. Nothing like that is given. It's just I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm expressing this to you as a priesthood leader and you're going to help me through this. You're going to help me get through this. But is it, I mean, as a Mormon is the sense of like one saved always saved, like so long as I'm still not apostatizing, I'm fine. I just want to get this out of my life. Or is it, no, if I don't get this out of my life,

I won't be in paradise. That's a good question. How did you experience it? I suppose if you don't know the official answer. I experienced it in this way that everybody struggles with sin and nobody's going to be perfect. But if we're remaining on the straight and narrow path the best we can, and that's a big image that exists within the LDS Church is the narrow path.

And again, this goes back to the Book of Mormon where one of the visions that is described is this straight and narrow path with this iron rod and this movement where you have precipices on both sides. And what we're supposed to do, this life is a journey down the straight narrow path, and we're called to hold to the rod, the iron rod, and move through the darkness towards the tree of life. And at the tree of life, if you've made it there and you haven't stumbled down either side, then you're brought into eternal life. Are there clear teachings about what is not allowed?

Like in the church, we have a catechism that talks about pornography or it talks about contraception. Are they very sp- No, no. So this is the fluidity of modern day revelation, I think makes that impossible because things have changed. And I don't think that this is done by ignorance from the leadership. I think it's if we were to concretize what it is that we teach in a really formalized catechism sort of way that we would box ourselves in.

And so, no, I don't think, I mean, there have been different manuals put out by the church, which expresses the teachings of the church, but it's, it's very adaptive to what's going on. And, you know, there's strategically, strategically, that makes a lot of sense, you know. But let's say I become a Mormon tomorrow, because a couple come to my door and I'm very moved by them. And I think this is the true church. And then I say, can we, can we, can we use contraception? Like what's the answer? They would say that that's, that's a decision you and your spouse will have to make. Yeah.

So they'll defer it to. So there are certain things that are relative, but like adult, I can't be like, can I commit adultery? That would be, and why do they say it? Like, do they do that by pointing to the scripture or is there just, there's been a kind of a steady line of teaching on against this? Yeah, I think they would refer back to the Ten Commandments. Like it's about pornography. Like there are certain things where pornography isn't exactly the same as adultery. It's adultery in the heart, say, and that isn't explicitly condemned.

I mean, last is, I suppose. But, you know, like, what about the more gray areas like in vitro fertilization and in vitro fertilization is good to go Yeah, they don't condemn that Utah I mean you see it if you drive up and down the i-15 in Utah you see billboards and advertisements for in vitro Fertilization up and down so it's it's there. It's in the culture I mean a number of my friends and family have that masturbation so Masturbation pornography those those are condemned. You are condemned. These are sins of lust. You should avoid them.

You should be trying to overcome them. And you do that through prayer. You do that through scripture study. You do that through talking with your priest of leadership. And so, yeah, there is a general condemnation of those sorts of sins and a desire to move and grow past that to become more Christ-like. So when you go to your bishop to ask for help in these areas, you're not going in

order to be forgiven. No. Yeah, you just accept that you are forgiven, you keep repenting. Yeah, yeah. So forgiveness, I mean that comes through one-on-one prayer between you and God. Okay. Yeah, so there is no authority to extend forgiveness towards anybody or to offer absolution. So one of the things that will happen and commonly does happen is you'll be barred from what they call sacrament, which is the reception of bread and water. By your own choosing. Yeah. So, you know, as the bread and water being distributed, you just forego it.

You just let it go past. That's the other thing. Water. I remember one of my dear friends who's a Mormon. I said to him, we should get together forgo it. You just let it go. That's the other thing. Water. I remember one of my dear friends who's a Mormon. I said to him, we should get together for a beer. He's like, I'd be happy to get

together for a beer of the root variety. That was very good. So how do you justify like when someone says to you, like in John, chapter two, Christ turns water into wine or Paul says, take some wine for your

stomach or your ailments. I think I got that reference right. But how do you say, how do you just, how do you justify not having alcohol when Christ is turning water into wine as a Mormon? I mean, there's an acknowledgement and I've heard this growing up too, that it was really just grape juice. You know, it's not wine the way that we know wine today with a strong alcoholic content. It's be more like grape juice, which, you know, I think that doesn't hold up. It does. When they're accusing Christ of being a drunkard, what is he? What are they claiming he's drinking?

Right. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, even at the wedding, right, he talks about how it caused joy. This is the best grape juice. You've saved the best grape juice to last. Interesting. Okay. Yeah. So yeah, there is some sort of attempts to diminish it and make it seem like it's not what it is. So why don't you have bread and grape juice? That's a good question. I don't know. So at the, at the sacrament meeting, they, you go through a prayer, which, you know, sort of like the confection. And in there, like it says water, it doesn't say wine. So

the prayer that said, says water. But you, okay, so you abstain from that if you feel like you're in serious sin. Right. Yep. Until? Until the bishop or whomever says, okay, you're good to go. So through like continual meetings and you guys walking through this together. And what is a bishop in the LDS Church? It's the pastor.

Okay. You know, so he's... So it's not like some guy somewhere. It's every ward has a... Every ward has a bishop. I see. Yeah. And he's part of the congregation, you know, so he may have just received this calling. His full-time job, he might be a doctor or a lawyer or a plumber. And so he's extended this calling and he serves in this calling for six to eight

years generally. And this is another way that the LDS Church functions internally, is that every member is called to participate by doing something. And it's almost inscapable. It's beautiful. Real great wisdom there too. I think so too, yeah. How better would our parishes be if when you join the parish, the priest said, how would you like to serve? Here are 20 options that we could recommend or you could suggest one. Yeah, like we, so you, you could be called to teach the four and five year olds, or you can be called to preside over this or that quorum, like the elders quorum or the teachers

quorum. Um, and those are just different leadership roles, or you could be called to be a member of missionary, which is, you know is somebody who teams up with the missionaries that are assigned to a ward, and you guys go and visit the unchurched or people who are inactive in an attempt to bring them back. So everybody's busy doing something. And they, you know, you get called to a calling,

you hold it for in one, two years, you're released, and then you could expect a new calling real quick. And so you're always busy, always engaged, involved doing something. Yeah. I just had a question and it escaped my memory. Fascinating stuff. All right. Gosh, what was it going to say? I don't know. Confession, bishops, priests. All right. So when you met your wife,

what did you think when you realized she's Catholic? It wasn't anything that she took serious ever. You know, at that point in her life, she's Hispanic. And so it was just, it was a cultural thing. But her family had always been very inactive. And so it was, it was just always an afterthought for her. And growing up in the, in the culture that we did, it was just, it was not important. And you know, like any young person going through high school, the experience is much more drawn in towards the world and wanting to engage in what high schoolers do. Were you, was it important to you that she become LDS?

Yeah, it was. I'm for, for one reason, probably the dominant reason was just acceptance into my community. And you know, so I was still really deeply rooted into the faith life. All throughout high school I did, it's called seminary, which is you meet in the mornings before high school begins to scripture study. I was going to church several, you know, four or five times a week, including the Sunday service for different meetings. Seminary in the mornings, I was involved with Young Men's Group, the LDS church had been really involved with the Boy Scout organization. And so like I received my Eagle Scout through the LDS church and I did all of these different activities, including like I received my Eagle Scout through the LDS Church and I did all of these different activities, including summer trips and camping trips.

And so it was just a huge part of who I was and what it was that I was doing and where I wanted to take my life and where I sought. How you wanted to raise your children. Exactly. And so she understood that and she appreciated it. And so she began taking the missionary lessons, which is, it's just a crash course. For her, was it more about being inculturated or was she trying to discern is what you're saying true? Is both. Yeah, without a doubt is both. So as you know, I would pitch the LDS church to her and say

like, you know, this is what this is why there needed to be a restoration of the gospel or this is why Joseph Smith is the true prophet or this is why the Book of Mormon is trustworthy as a testament of Jesus Christ. Did she have questions that rattled you or not really? No, no, not really. I mean, I knew my faith well enough and I knew how to respond to common objections and questions. Yeah. So, and she was ignorant enough about her own faith and what Christianity was and what

scripture taught to really refute anything that I was saying. Yeah. Yeah, and plus she was getting it from more than just me. So it was me, every time she came over to visit with my family, it was the life. Yeah. And even her own family had been exposed to it.

So one of her uncles was baptized and became Mormon. So she had some exposure to it. And to be honest, I mean, the, the faith life and family life of your average LDS person, it's strong. And I think that it's, it's, it's a shining light for most people that compared to the culture. They see how attractive it is. Yeah. And they desire it because it is, it is beautiful. And, you know,

we told each other that we love you and we cleaned up after ourselves and the house was tidy and we did what we were supposed to do and we had good relationships with our brothers and sisters and mom and dad. So what we had, it's appealing for most people, whether it's subconscious or not, I think they look at it and see the order to it and think like, this is good. This is a good thing. I heard that Mormons will do a game night once a week with their family or something. Yeah. Okay. So more, uh, they call it family home evening.

Okay. And it was, it was Monday was the designated day of the week where no outside activities. There's no Monday night football, you know, turn it off, spend the time with your family. And there, there's some structure to it. At least there has been in the past where it's, you know, this is something that should open with a prayer and there should be something done out of scripture and there should be some activity, a game and then a closing prayer to wrap it up. That's beautiful. It's great. I remember as a teenager, we had LDS adverts on Australian television

and it was this line they said, family, isn't it about time? Yeah. It was very inspirational. But it was funny as I think someone realized, well, we should probably add an Australian voice. And so they, so you have, but you had this American imagery, like it's very distinct. I don't know if you realize that, but you know, Australia and you see like American families, they look American, they don't look Australian.

And so it still felt a bit cheesy, even though I could tell it was nice and warm and fuzzy and inspirational. Yeah. I mean, there have been efforts to diversify, you know, so not everybody's looking like a American blonde. Yeah. Well, it wasn't just that. I mean, I think there were African Americans and all sorts of people in these adverts. They still just all looked very American. Sure. Yeah.

What can you explain to me what it was like when your wife got brought into the church? Even from the aesthetics, like, how does it what what it was like when your wife got brought into the church? Even from the ascetics, what does it look like? So at the at the stake center and in some of the different ward buildings, they have a baptismal fund. And so the baptism is something that will take place like generally in the evening, someday during the week, it'll be scheduled, it'll be announced, people will be invited to go. And so at the

baptism, and this is on the heels of her completing her missionary lessons. So when we took the missionary lessons together, I sat with her through all of them, and she was exposed to the church, just a real superficial movement of some of the more core tenants. You know, the first vision, the restoration, the plan of salvation. Like those are three of the first. It's not a long process like us. Yeah, no, no, no. No, the goal is to baptize as quickly as possible.

You know, so they were. You're ready. Let's go. Let's go. We'll explain the rest later. Yeah. Give me just give us a second. I think generally they try to challenge the investigator to be baptized after the third lesson. So if you've sat through three of their lessons, you met with them three times, they'll challenge you like, okay, like, how do you feel about this? Have you read the Book of Mormon? Have you prayed about it?

Have you received these what they would call the burning of the bosom? Yeah, just like warm inner feelings about. The truthfulness or. Exactly. That validates the truthfulness of it. And so if you're ready to go after the third meeting with them, so you could have spent a total of three hours

all told investigating the church. So you don't get into any of the history, you don't get into Joseph Smith, aside from the first vision, what sort of interesting shenanigans were going on and the various doctrines that have been altered or so none of the deeper stuff that that's just, it's not meant to be spoken about. And often, if, if the conversation moves in that direction, the missionaries will basically

abort, you know, so they'll, they'll abort by just reverting back to their testimony. moves in that direction, the missionaries will basically abort. You know, so they'll abort by just reverting back to their testimony. You know, I know that the church is true. I know that the Book of Mormon is true. And so there's this strategy of reverting to feelings. Like this is, this is, yeah, This is the way we feel about it and the feelings that come from it are always good And so, you know, I just I emphasize that I know that this is true And I know it's true because I can feel it and nothing bad Nothing wicked is going to stir up these sort of good feelings. So this must be good and it must be true

So that was I mean that's that's the way it was done. I think Tamara, my wife, had already known before even beginning the missionary lessons that this was the direction she was moving. So. So, OK, the night I want to is it OK. Is it like a event? Is it excitement? It's it's not It's not an event. I mean, we're surrounded by friends and family. And so it is treated as something special and something sacred. I think even Tamara's parents went and attended, which neither of them were happy that she was coming into the faith. But, you know, they're wonderful people and they support their daughter.

So, yeah, they showed up. The missionaries who gave her the lessons were there. And a number of our close Family friends from the ward also attended, you know to support and so The the baptism is done by full immersion And so there's the font you walk down into it and you do the formula and dip all the way underwater And then she came up and that was it. I mean, so there really wasn't too much to it And after that she began attending regularly. So no, I mean, it wasn't, it was, it was special in the moment,

but it wasn't something like grandiose, like a wedding ceremony or anything like that. I think a lot of Catholics don't realize that Mormons use the correct formula with regards to baptism and yet their baptism is invalid. Can you explain to people why that's the case? So, for those who might not know, every sacrament has form and matter. In baptism, the form is the formula, which you say, I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And then the matter is the water, right? So the washing of the water, the pouring over the head, or the immersion. And those two things have to come together in this particular way in order for baptism to be valid. And so this is why Protestant baptism.

I love that it's like two hours and 40 minutes into the interview. And all of a sudden people realize, Oh wow, he knows his stuff. Cause we haven't really even gotten to the fact that you're this like Catholic who's investigated the claims. Yeah. Yeah. That's wonderful. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I love that you were giving us this like little power and 40 hour and 40. I can count. Um, but yeah. Okay. Fair enough. So yeah. Yeah.

So some Protestants might have, yeah. So, um, the question like around the time of the council of Trent was, is the Protestant baptism valid? And it came back to this question, do they have proper form? Do they have proper matter? And the question was, yes. And so when the LDS Church became a thing

and the question was extended to, well, what do we make of Mormon baptism? Is it valid? They have proper matter, they have proper form, they're doing it in the right way. So if it's not valid, why? And so in addition to the form and the matter, there also has to be intent. The intent has to be in accordance or in alignment with what the church teaches. So an example of this is if the person baptizing has an intent contrary to the baptism itself, it's not valid. And so baptism can be done by a non-believer, you know, a

Jewish woman can baptize somebody and it could be perfectly valid. But interiorly, she still has to intend to do what the church does. Mason Harkness Yeah, generally. She doesn't even have to understand it. She says, I'm doing what the church does. David Plylar But if the intent is contrary, like this is not doing what the church does, it invalidates it. And likewise, the person has to, if they're of the age of reason, has to be a willing

participant in this, which is why you can't forcibly baptize somebody against their will. And so it boiled down to the question of intent. What is the intent of the Aldeus Church when they baptize? And so they looked real closely at, okay, what do they mean by the words that they're saying? And when you go through the Trinitarian formula, every single one of them is different. So the father is an exalted man who lived on a planet, who has a physical body and exists somewhere in the cosmos,

and he hasn't existed eternally, and he's not simple, and he's not almighty, and he's not, go He's not almighty and He's not, you know, go down the list. So that's a strike. The Son. The Son is not the second person of the Blessed Trinity. He's not the Word of God incarnate. He's not the savior of all of creation through His redemptive passion, right? And then the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit, according to LDS theology, is the third person of the Godhead who is a separate being. He's not the spirit of the Father nor the spirit of the Son, but he has his own separate being, his own separate person who exists ontologically. Mason F. Kennedy With a physical body? Chris Bounds No, out of the three, he's the only one that's not physical. And so, you go down the list, the Trinitarian formula, everyone is off. The intention behind each one of these words is mistaken.

And for that reason, the baptism of the LDS faith is invalid. All right. Good stuff. All right. Can we take a break? Because we haven't even begun. We got halfway into the we should do a break. This is so great. I am really enjoying this. Yeah. Yeah. We'll be back.

Any center. Any sinner is capable of being a great spinner, a great spinner, a great spinner. The secret therefore of character development is the realization of this power that there is in each and every one of us, for good and for evil. The good Lord would have us lay hold of what is worst in ourselves. Do not think that people who have virtue and kindness and other great talents just came by these things naturally. They had to work at them very hard. Any sinner is capable of being a great saint, and any saint is also capable of being a great A great sinner. The secret therefore of character development is the realization of this power that there is in each and every one of us, for good and for evil. The good Lord would have us lay hold of what is worst in ourselves. Do not think that people who have virtue and kindness and other great talents

just came by these things naturally. They had to work out them very hard. I'm going to be a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a

little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a back. All right, we are back. Okay, so this is this has been so fascinating. I've really enjoyed learning a lot from you. Okay, so we've gotten to the point where your,

what do you say, non-practicing Catholic fiance, you helped lead into the Mormon church, and now you're a married couple? That's right. Okay, so you're a married Mormon couple living in Utah. No, California at this point. In California. That's right, good. Yeah, so we had just been married

I'm going into the military by this point. I've already enlisted And so I mean do you want me to go into military stuff? It's sort of I think it ties in I think it pertains to the faith we should but yeah So I went into a career field called para rescue, which is the Air Force's special operations rescue community. So our counterparts would have been Navy SEALs and green braes in the Army and Navy respectively. And so it was a movement in towards an exhilarating, high energy, fast paced life. And so I went into that immediately, almost immediately after being married

and the training process, the pipeline as we call it, was three years long. And so throughout this pipeline, I was remaining active in the church and holding various callings depending on where I was and establishing friend group and community, just like I had been growing up in California. And my wife too, like my wife is really finding her faith

throughout this time. I'm gone a lot, so she's on her own, and the faith is something that she really rests on, you know, knowing that it's an anchor for her. And no matter where she is, she could find that community, be subsumed into it, and just be at home, be at peace with wherever we are, whatever was going on. And a lot of the training I did was dangerous stuff,

so airborne operations and free fall and dive school. And so there were times throughout our marriage, and being that early in our marriage, which were very stressful for her. And so her faith was something that was a great comfort. So fast forward, I finished all my training and I'm getting ready to go on my first deployment. And so I deployed to the Middle East and this is in 2014. And so we're going back into Iraq to respond to ISIS. And the conflict in Iraq had ended a year earlier. So the US's official engagement with Iraq had come to an end in 2013.

And here I am in 2014 getting ready to go back. And so in Iraq that there's there's no Support there, right? So we don't have any aircraft there We don't have any large infantry or artillery or anything like that. So I'm I'm part of a team. I'm attached to a team That's responding to secure the embassy and the airfield So a couple of years before this we had Benghazi So a couple of years before this we had Benghazi, the US embassy that had been attacked and the ambassador killed. And it was a huge black eye for American politics in the State Department when that happened. And so there was an urgency to make sure that that didn't happen again. And so ISIS as this new fledgling organization was was blowing up, you know, they had resources and funding and access to oil and weapons and vehicles.

And so there's sort of like this, this enigma of an organization, like how are they doing the things that they're doing? And on top of this, they, they have this publication wing like this propaganda wing that's putting out high quality propaganda recruiting pieces. And so the nature of these propaganda pieces was just the carnage that they were inflicting on the different communities that they were moving into.

So ISIS would, I mean, they were founded in Syria during the Syrian Civil War, and they begin rapidly taking over huge parts of the Levant, which is this geographical area between Iraq and Syria. And their trajectory is putting them back in Baghdad, like relatively soon. So we responded and went out there as quickly as we could. But when we got there, this place place was it was a ghost town. It was just it was me and like maybe a hundred other guys. Excuse me. And so we immediately start shoring up this this

place for this imminent attack that was going to be happen. So we're building DFPs which are these big like sandbag bunker shooting positions. And we're getting ready for this last stand because the war is not ongoing and officially we're not there, but we can't lose these two interests. And so the Intel reports we were getting, the propaganda that we were being exposed to, so it was just this crazy thing.

So we're seeing these maps of the ground that ISIS was taking and expecting them to be here fairly soon, and we would get these intel reports and then we would watch, you know, some propaganda piece that they had just put out and it's just slaughter. You know, just, it's the worst sort of imagery that you can imagine, you know. They're blowing up villages,

they're doing drive-by shootings, they're burning people alive, they're decapitating. They being you, of course. Right? The Americans. Are doing this? No, ISIS is doing this. I'm saying, was that the propaganda piece you're talking about? Is ISIS putting these out about Americans doing this? No, no, no, no. It's them doing it. Who's them? ISIS. no, no, no. It's them doing it. ISIS. So ISIS doing these things and disseminating these images in an attempt to bring people into ISIS. So you have, you know, angry, disenfranchised people, young men. Yeah, maybe it wasn't clear on my part.

So anyways, we're watching these propaganda pieces. And so, yeah, just, just to reiterate, these propaganda pieces are meant to bring more recruits to ISIS. They're being made by ISIS depicting what they're doing. And they're, you know, so I don't know who would be enticed by it, but you know, somebody who feels like this call to adventure, you know, but doing like the dark side of stuff. And so I mean, they're recruiting just, okay. Yeah. I thought you were saying that ISIS was putting out propaganda pieces about American soldiers doing this in order to rally

the truth. No, this is them doing it themselves. You know, so they're saying like, you know, come join us and you can take part in blowing up infidels and killing apostates. So, so anyways, we're, I'm a, I'm a brand new pararescuement at this point. I'm, you know, just I'm 22 years old on my first deployment and I'm in this space where every day, you know, I'm, I'm encountering this and I'm terrified, you know, just absolutely terrified about what is coming. you know, I'm I'm encountering this and I'm terrified, you know, just absolutely terrified about what is coming

you know, you have this 10,000 man death squad making its way down from Syria to me and so in this time I'm I'm trying to encourage myself trying to be brave trying to get ready for this fight that's coming And so I I took the what felt like normal steps at this point. Like I wrote letters to my wife and to my parents laying them down like, I love you dearly, I'm not coming home from this. And I mean, that was sort of the,

and what we were anticipating was that this was going to be a fight to the last man because we just, it wasn't the US military there. It was a few operators and that was it. And so part of this preparation was me wanting to, for the first time as an adult, seriously look at and the Book of Mormon and my faith and reconnect with God in a way that I hadn't been throughout the previous

three years of military training. And so I began reading the Book of Mormon and I encountered this part not too far into the Book of Mormon. It's in the third book where there's a condemnation of polygamy where God speaking to this polygamy where God speaking to this, uh, the civilization condemns it and even condemns David and Solomon for having practice, polygamy and calls it an abomination. And so as soon as I read that, I was like,

Hmm, you know, I don't know what to make of that because like here, here's God speaking very sternly against and prohibiting the practice of polygamy. And yet I know that we had done that. Like it was a big part of our past. And so that began a deep dive into the faith, like really wanting to get into the weeds of Joseph Smith, the history, the origin of the church, and how it developed over time. And, uh,

so over the next four or five months while I was in Baghdad, because of the amount of downtime we had as we were just waiting, it was, this was, this was all of my personal time was just dedicated to this. And I was, I was going in deep into it as I could. And I was reading biographies and one of those biographies is called Rough Stone Rolling, which is a biography of Joseph Smith, written from an faithful LDS person's perspective, but not shying away from some more of the problematic aspects of the foundation of the church and the founder of the church. And so it goes deep into explaining the extent of polygamy and how it

was being practiced and how it was implemented and, you know, the age of some of the women that Joseph Smith was marrying and some of the coercive ways that he was bringing women and families into agreeing to practice polygamy. And some of them were so extreme as him threatening women, you know, saying that God is going to send down an angel with a flaming sword to kill me if you don't agree to marry me. You know, so not unlike what he had said to Emma, right? And, you know, finding out that he had married

a 14-year-old girl, and some of the families, he had sent the husband away so that he could marry in secret his wife. And so just really sort of the dregs of how this was practiced. And even in Nauvoo when Pligami was in full swing, like the depravity of it, then it was just, it was a power play. You know, so if somebody was stepping out of line, well, we could just seize their family from them and their families can just be given to another man. And so it became just a way of.

Controlling. Exactly. Yeah. Dominating the religion. And so my eyes are just opening up wide to this. And I mentioned earlier in, um, in this conversation, the first vision account. So Joseph Smith describing the way that God, the father and Jesus had revealed himself. Um, in this book, Rough Stone Rolling tells me that there were actually four accounts. You know, so throughout the Justice Smith's lifetime, his account of having witnessed the divine had altered, like, and not in insignificant ways. It was who appeared to him. Like, at one point it it was just Jesus and another point it was an angel

and another point it was a host of angels and then at another time it was like the final version and it was God the Father and Jesus Christ there. And so you had this evolution of how the story began. And the same sort of revisionist history applied to a number of different things, like the establishment of the priesthood authority and going back and adjusting things in the timeline in order to make logical chronological sense of how this thing developed. But what the author of this biography was revealing is like, no, this was sort of just like piecemeal put together and things and so the church had done a really good job of tailoring

This story to make it a coherent Beautiful story that you could read that would resonate and strike you as being something of divine origin But just like with every other thing that's not of God It's mixed in with so much different error and personality and faults and weaknesses and sin. And so this clean, pristine, inspiring story that I grew up knowing and revering was just crumbling. Did it help your Mormon faith to realize that the person who was criticizing Mormonism was writing from a Mormon perspective? As in maybe I can reconcile this if this author can?

Well, so, so much of this is mingled with a sense of like trepidation, like I don't think I should be looking at this because you're inculcated with this, this idea from a really early age that there are enemies of the church surrounding you, you know? So like growing up, I believe that the Baptist in particular, we're like very hostile towards Mormonism and that Joseph Smith, just the origin story and the persecution sort of demonstrated the sort of hostility that the outside world has against Christ restored gospel and that the enemies of the church are going to continue to attack it.

And so this is my attitude. This is what I've been, you know, has been ingrained in my mind is that anything that smacks of anti-mormonism is very, very questionable and should be dismissed or just outright avoided. Like don't look into these things. But here it is from a faithful LDS historian who's documenting these things. It became unquestionable. Like, okay, I now have reason to believe what he's saying because I know his position in the church. I know his attitude towards the church. But as a historian, he has an obligation, a duty to tell the story in a way that's, you know, reflects reality as it really happened. And, you know, that reflection to me was just, I couldn't

sustain it. And so it was just bit by bit, you know, just one thing after another, the first vision polygamy, understanding like this, how and when blacks were excluded from the priesthood. And you know, that, that was sort of a later development because during Joseph Smith's time there were black men who had been ordained. And so it seemed like just, you know, somebody's own biases had worked its way into the church. And now, because somebody down the line was a racist, didn't appreciate blacks having access to the same sort of privileges had denied it to them and so understanding that and another big one that that struck me was in

LDS church buildings there's you know, we have artwork all over the place And one of the depictions that's that's very prominent and popular is this depiction of Joseph Smith sort of sitting at a table, the way that you and I are, with the golden plates down in front of him and the scribe sitting directly opposite him. And Joseph Smith is reading these characters, he's translating it to him, and the scribe directly across from him

is sitting there writing it. Now what Ruff stone rolling revealed was that that's not how it was ever done. Like not a single time was that how the translation method was done. It was, so digress for a moment. So folk magic when Joseph Smith was being brought up was huge, you know.

So something about that time and place, folk magic had really just taken root and it was it was a part of the culture. And so Joseph Smith and his family participated in it. And so Joseph, at some point, he was he was arrested and charged for being a con man, because this con that he was pulling on people is he had this stone, a stone that he had found while digging a well with his father. And since then, photos of this stone have been released by the church. So it's still in the church's possession.

And it's a really cool looking stone. It's like chocolate and black. But what he would do is he would take off his hat, put the stone in his hat, and then bury his face in his hat. And then he would tell the person who had hired him, if you go, you know, 50 paces out that direction and dig, you'll find buried treasure. And so this was a scheme that he was, he was pulling and somebody ended up filing a lawsuit

against him. He got taken to court and charged with glass looking was the charge. And so that was his method. As it turns out, that's the exact same way he dictated and translated the Book of Mormon. Same stone, same method. He would put the stone in his hat, bury his face into it, and then he would read out the words of the Book of Mormon, and somebody in the room with him would write it down. And so, I mean, seeing it that way and, and understanding, okay, well, why is it depicted this way in church? Like, why are they creating this false image? You know, you know,

admittedly it's, it's kind of goofy and you would see something like that and think like, okay, you know, this is kind of, kind of odd. And comparatively him sitting at a table in this sort of like normal manner seems a lot more official. Exactly. And so it was, it was things like that where the official story, I was beginning to tell that it had been tailored and polished and cleaned up in order to give a certain appearance. When he was arrested or charged of being a con man, was this prior to the alleged revelations? Yes. Yeah. So, no, sorry, no, it wasn't. So, he had received the revelations when he was a young teen, 14 or so, is when he saw God the Father and the angel Moroni. And so, it was

in between the time, and like I said earlier, that there were a number of years that passed from him reportedly having received these visions to when he actually received the Book of Mormon. It was three or four years or so. And so it was in that time. So he had seen God the Father, he had been told that he is going to restore the church. Claimed he did. Claimed he did. In that interim is when he's doing this con. Wow. And so nobody had heard these stories of First Vision account until this side of history. And so he's going back and he's telling the story as his religion is being conceived in his mind and put together. And so that his con is taking place somewhere in between those times when he's reporting to have seen this vision and

when he's translating. So it's, you know, to, you know, I don't, I don't want to be cynical in any of this, but it's, you have to ask yourself, like, this is the method he was doing to con people and that continued right over into his creation of this religion. And I think that, I think that every single person, maybe with few exceptions, if they could see it through this terms and see something like this happen in modern time for them to witness, would dismiss it offhand.

Like, this is crazy. He's a con man, he's conning people, he's been arrested. And the same technique, the same folk magic, use of seer stones and magic, it's what he's doing to create this religion. And so, throughout my time in Iraq, I'm learning all of these things. And so, and some of this I'm sharing with my wife. I'm not being perfectly transparent with her with where I'm at. And, you know, she had enough to deal with with understanding that I was in a very dangerous

place. And but shortly after I got home, I told her, I said, I need to talk to you. Like, can we sit down and talk? And she knew, she knew right away. She said, you're not going back to church. And were you engaging with other men? You know, maybe they were Christians. Were you running some of this, these doubts by them? No. So in Iraq, I was, I was extremely isolated. It was, um,

the dynamic of the team that I was with was really poor and sort of corrupted. And, um, and so, yeah, I felt, I felt very isolated, which you were going through this on your own, right? Um, which, you know, looking back on it, I can see, I can see God's hand, right? Like if these, if these, if this hadn't been established this way, if I wasn't in this place, given these circumstances with this amount of time available to me, I may never have looked into it. And so did you have a question? the claims of this rough stone rolling book? Maybe he's wrong. I had no reason to. And then everything that I was.

Why wouldn't you have a reason to see if I, if I was left alone somewhere and I started questioning my Christianity and I read Richard Dawkins, the God delusion, and I was losing something that was most valuable to me. I'd want to be like, okay, maybe, maybe he's a historian, but maybe he's wrong. So maybe I should be checking these claims with the church or with other more. So rough, rough stone rolling was one that I felt was, was basically on reproach and there, there were other sources that I was looking into, you know, things that had not

been approved and given the green light by the leadership of the church, you know, things that had not been approved and given the green light by the leadership of the church. So there were podcasts that I was listening to, and they're reassuring me that, okay, this historical witness given by this LDS historian is matching up with what secular historians are saying. So this rough store is it greenlit by the church? So they sell it in their own book, in their own bookstores. Why?

I think because they don't see it as, they don't see it as, um, what do you say? Uh, detrimental as it might just be a little bit of like risk analysis. Like it would it be, would it be better for us to hide this, hide it and pretend that it doesn't exist because that has bit them in the back before. Right. You know, with certain things like, different attempts to hide things in the past have really come back to bite them.

Like one example was there was a, his name is Mark Hoffman, and this was in the 1990s. He was a forger living in Utah and he was probably one of the best forgers who have ever existed. And he was reproducing insane documents, you know, claiming that he had found these in between like two glued together pages and this ancient book that he found in the back of the, and he had all of these different methods that he had come up with with to create these really old documents. And he was LDS, a disaffection LDS, nonetheless, but he, he had recreated some documents that he claimed were written by like

Martin Harris or some of the associates of Joseph Smith that made the LDS Church look really kind of silly. And the LDS Church very quickly bought those and hid them. Some of them they couldn't get out ahead of soon enough, but they had meetings with Mark Hoffman and they purchased some of these forged documents for really like exuberant costs, I think like a hundred thousand, four hundred thousand dollars, something like that. So that they could shuffle them away and hide them. And Mark Hoffman ended up he was doing the same thing with the congressional library in DC. He was bringing documents to them and like I think he was like making coins and had like letters that he had forged like correspondence between like Benjamin Franklin. I'm probably mixed up on some of the details but it was the extent of it.

And so, you know, things were starting to close in on Mark Hoffman and he responds to this, like people becoming more suspicious, like how is this guy finding all of these different things? And he had debts to be paid and stuff. So what he ended up doing was planting pipe bombs in a few different places in Salt Lake City and killing a couple people.

But there's photos, and to get back to my original point, there are photos of Mark Hoffman with church leadership members selling them documents so that they could hide it. And so that's one example of how it didn't pay off to be secretive like that. And so maybe that's the case with with this book. And also it's just an excellent historical piece. Like it's very well written. It's very well sourced. So I think it would have been a shame, I think, for anybody to take what the author produced and hide up. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So at this point, I went home, told my wife I'm not going back to the church.

I told my parents likewise. What happened, interestingly enough, is that by the time I had really come to a conclusion that I was not going to be going back to LDS Faith, internally what that led to, without me even being aware of it was a vacuum like now those fundamental questions those existential questions where did I come from why am I here what am I doing and where am I going like those questions no longer had answers to them and I mean it's a it really was an existential crisis having that give way and creating some vacuum with within my soul and Just desperately wanting to fill it with something. So what happened

Incidentally was as I'm as I'm moving in this direction moving away from the church All of you know all the various sites Kendall and Amazon and audible are recommending the new atheist books to me and and Amazon and Audible are recommending the new atheist books to me. And so I come in, the first one that I read after making up my decision was the Dalai Lamas, the universe and a single atom, which... And not familiar with it. Yeah. So in there, the Dalai Lama is just, it's basically, and I want this to be fair,

but it's sort of a concession by the head of Buddhism to scientism. You know, that what the physicists, what the chemists, what the biologists, what they're exploring, what they're demonstrating and explaining about the origin of the cosmos, where we come from, it's all true and it can neatly be fit into Buddhism. And so, I mean, it was a very interesting book, but it opened my eyes to another way of understanding my origin as possibly being one that doesn't require God.

I just wanna pause there and say, that makes complete sense to me. If I were in your shoes, the last thing I would wanna do would be to remain a Christian. If I came to the conclusion that this was all bull crap, switching from that to something that smacks anything like the thing I just rejected, I would not be into it all, at least for a long time. And I don't know if you can speak to this, but I would imagine that most Mormons who give up their faith either do permanently or for a good amount of time

become atheists. It seems that way. Yeah. And so my own experience and exposure to the ex Mormon community upon leaving the church was just that, was that Christianity generally, it's, you know, it's a facade. It's just a control mechanism. It's wish fulfillment. Exactly. You know, it's, it's a way of coping with death and you know, the, all of the polemics, you know, were something that were going along with what I was experiencing and what it was I was seeking to, to resolve just within my own, my own psyche. Um, so the universe in a single Adam by the Dalai Lama gave way to, um,

waking up guide to spirituality without religion by Sam Harris and God is not great by Christopher Hitchens. And so if I were to stack these two things up next to each other as good, plausible explanations of where I came from and their ability to explain and rationalize and justify why we think this way, why we believe this way, atheism and materialism win hands down. It's such a better explanation that has logic behind it and the ability to argue and evidential power, and empiricism and everything else.

Like we can- There's also something about it that seems manly in that you're like, you know what? I'm done being coddled by stories that I can't prove and that clearly seem to be made up to make people feel better. Right. I'm going to I'm going to be a big boy, put my big pants on, look the universe in the face, realize that all is meaningless. But I can maybe make my own meaning, but I'm going to die and that sucks. I'm not going to go to some bloody paradise. And fair enough. It feels manly in that sense, right? And in a sense liberating too, because there are moral constraints that you have to deal with, especially coming from an LDS background. Like, well, why can't we

drink alcohol? And why can't I have coffee? And why can't I use tobacco? You know, and then when, when the shelf gives way and you see that, okay, it's all manmade, you become very skeptical about, you know, the whole institution. Like, well, why, why did they prohibit these things from me? Like, obviously it's, it's not, it's not divine anymore. Like that, that doesn't make sense. So were your tattoos something you got after you left the faith? No, no, I started getting tattoos while I was in the faith. So you can be a Mormon and have tattoos then? Yeah, yeah, you can. It's probably not celebrated.

It's not, no, no, definitely not. But I mean, it was part of my community in the military. So it was something I was definitely immersed in. So how did your family feel about you? Stopped going to church. How did your wife feel? So my wife was more open to it and receptive. And it was important for me to not feel like I was bludgeoning her with this information.

So I told her upfront, I said, look, if you have questions, I'll be happy to answer them for you. And if you want resources, I can point you in the right direction. But I don't want to sit here and just break you down and beat you over the head with what it is that I found are my reasons for leaving. And in hindsight I think that that was probably the right move. I think that that was a good thing to do. Because she became generally interested, genuinely interested in it and she was looking into these things for herself and

By the time she had made up her own mind it was it was her decision and I think that that just um It allowed us to dialogue back and forth and and have open conversation about these these things and So I think it was it was a healthy way to go about it. My parents on the other hand, this was interesting because I expected that there was going to be a lot of friction caused by this. And on one hand there was, you know, they were not happy about it and I think they were fearful about the direction I was heading and the causes behind it. There's a desire to justify leaving the church, that is, by something enticing you, like it's

sin. The reason why they'reicing you, like it's sin. The reason why they're leaving, it's because they want to sin. Or they're leaving because they never believed it, or they're reason because they want to drink and they want to smoke and they want to live that lifestyle. And so that was, I was expecting to encounter that, but honestly I didn't really encounter it from them.

I think they did their best with what they knew to try to hold onto me. And I remember saying to them at one point, I'm not absolute on this. I think that there probably could be the right words put in the right order to convince me once again of what the LDS faith is. And I said, and I leave it up to you to try to figure out what that is, because I don't know on my end, I don't know,

but maybe you do. And so we engaged in one-on-one dialogue a number of times and we would just, we would pick some, some topic, you know, whether it is blacks and the priesthood or polygamy, and we would sit down and discuss it. But what I think happened was it became just in too, it required too much on their part for them to continue to engage in it. Like they would have to look into these sources and they would have to research and they'd have to find out for their own. So maybe there was a lot of work. Yeah. It's hard to argue with someone who becomes obsessed with something. Right. And I don't mean obsessed in a negative way, but like, I have a family member who's a nine 11 conspiracy theorist. I'm not interested in dialoguing with

him because I'm not interested in taking days and weeks out of my life to read dozens of books. And so you just go, we're not family. At some point, like my reaction may have been the reaction of your parents, like, OK, look, listen, I'm just not I just I don't want to talk about this. I don't want to put that on your parents. Maybe that wasn't it. But I mean, that's the way it came off. At some point, it was just it seemed like, OK, this is not as important to them as it is to me. And so that that was sort of the last tether. You know, at that point, when it became sort of tiresome

to try to arrange these sit downs and so we can discuss these things. And so I took it as, okay, it's not as important to them as I thought it was. They're not able to find answers that would satisfy me. So that was it. And at that point I completely separated. And in the LDS church, there's

a process you have to go through to officially resign. And so because they are so methodical in the records that they keep and the movements and the whereabouts of the members. Which is such an American way of doing things, like efficiency and order, you know? Yeah. Yeah, that's neat. Yeah, I mean, it is the American religion. And the word is resign, huh? Mm-hmm And how does one resign so you have to you have to send in an official letter to the the Salt Lake headquarters? Saying that you know, my name is such-and-such. I'm a member at this place

and I wish to have my name and records removed from the church and So once that's been meld in it seemed like I was waiting for like three or four months to hear back from them. And what they did was they instead of contacting me directly, they went to my local bishop and directed him. And then they put me in contact with my bishop. And so part of the process of leaving is one like last ditch effort of the church to resolve any problems that you have, see if they can make things work to keep you there. And so I went and I met with my bishop. This must be like when a Mormon comes to your door for a conversation, but on steroids. I mean, the thing is, is that most LDS people, I mean, there are exceptions, of course, just don't know.

You know, they don't know. They've never gone into the weeds. The superficiality that they get at the Sunday service, that's it, that's what they're exposed to. So they get the pristine package, but they don't delve into it at all. So that was my experience when I met with my bishop and I was kind of unloading these things on him

and he looked like a deer in the headlights. He's just like, and he looked like a deer in the headlights. And he was an FBI agent. And so he had his whole gig with a family and his career. And this is something that he's doing because he was asked to do it, but he has no training. He's not theologically minded. He's never dived into the history of the church. And so he couldn't answer those

questions. Which is interesting, because you would think that if you were part of the FBI, investigation would be something you'd be very much open to. Yeah, I think so too, but I think by this point, there was probably nothing at this point that would have kept me. So this is after talking to my parents and that falling through. I didn't have any sort of personal connection with this bishop I you know, I never met him before but

Because I was asked to do it. I went and sat down with him and went through the the process But that was it and then once that was done my my name was removed from the records and they they give you They send you a letter saying, you know, like one last time, like, are you sure? Because once you do this, your baptism is invalidated, your sealing of the temple is invalidated. Like all of the rights and benefits that you receive from being a member of this church are dissolved. And, um, and that was it. And then, so I was out of the church and I sat. And once you say yes, is there an official letter that you can hang on your wall and a golden frame?

No, no. Okay. Yeah. So, um, then at this point, I switched gears and I'm, I'm going in deep into, into new atheism, you know? So I'm, I'm reading the prophets of the new atheist movement and, and, uh, you know, just becoming enamored. Who did you like the most? Christopher Hitchens. He's the most likeable one of them, isn't he? Yeah. I mean, he would, I never saw his debate with William Lane Craig. I've seen it now, but at the, at the time I didn't. So my exposure to him was him just decimating Christianity. Quick side story. I remember getting into William Lane Craig because I was trying to respond

to my sister who's now a Catholic, but was an atheist at the time. And that was part of why I was listening to these debates. And when I heard that he had debated Hitchens, I said this to him in my interview. So maybe you've heard it, but I said, I was so afraid to watch it because I just could not watch a Christian get decimated. But quite the opposite happened. It was remarkable how vacuous Hitchens was. It was like, oh, rhetoric, no substance. I was shocked at how, what a bloodbath that debate was. Yeah, he was taken to task and he got,

he got exposed, I think, as just being a really persuasive rhetorician. Yeah. Yeah. With no philosophical understanding of what William Lakely was. Not at all. Not at all. Yeah. Yeah. It was like, be like if, you know, like a purple belt in jujitsu fought me.

That's what it would be like. I would just be destroyed and embarrassed and hopefully come out with some class. Anyway, people should watch that debate if they haven't watched it. It's OK. But yeah, so you were watching these debates with him. Just knocking these Christians. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So after. So this was 2015 ish. So I had another year and a half in the military. I had gone on another deployment. And throughout this time,

I'm just becoming more and more convinced of the materialistic claim. I'm reading and consuming as much as I can and just overwhelmingly convinced by it. And this came to a head, finally, I was having these ongoing conversations with one of my really good friends who's more philosophically minded, but he also had more agnostic atheistic leanings. And at one point we were having a conversation

and he brings up objective morality. He's like, yeah, so I mean, there is no objective morality. And I remember thinking at the time and calling him on it, like, well, of course there is. You know, like it was something that I had never really chewed on given like this new framework that I'm operating within how there could not be objective morality. And so he's like, well, explain it to me.

How can there be objective morality if this universe is just material in motion? How does that happen? And so the conversation ended, but it tore me up for like a week and a half, two weeks where I'm just, I'm struggling with this. I'm wrestling with like, of course, of course, rape has got to be wrong. Hurting innocent children has to be wrong.

You know, like, can you still man Hitchens response to that? Or else I will. No, no, please. I mean, I just would imagine it's something he seems to say things like we would not have gotten this far as a species if actions like rape and incest were allowed. And and then you've got the hit. You've got the more of the same Harris argument that says, well, if we begin really taking into consideration our human nature and there are certain I can't even do it. Yeah, I can't even do it. I'm with you.

Like I yeah, like if it's just bloody matter in motion that we've been coughed into existence by a blind cosmic process that didn't have us in mind, I don't know how you say that there are certain objective moral facts that exist independently of the human mind that that are binding upon us. Because even if you say they're evolutionarily infused, OK, well, once I realize that as a rational creature, then why am I bound to obey what evolution has infused? Why not?

Why not act contrary to that? And if you say, well, then people will because people won't like you, you know, because who cares? I just found Sam Harris's quote from his book on this. Please hold on. I just found Sam Harris's quote from his book on this. So this is Harris's response. Social morality exists to sustain cooperative social relationships and morality. Yeah.

to sustain cooperative social relationships and morality. Yeah. The washer. So cooperative social relationships and morality can be objectively evaluated by that standard. Yes. Harris sees some philosophers talk of strict private morality as akin to unproductive discussions of private personal physics. If philosophers want to talk about some bizarre, unnatural, private morality, they're just changing the subject.

All right. So as I tried to, I mean, I read Sam Harris's Moral Landscape where he makes his, he argues for his theory of objective morality. Another great debate when William May and Craig decimates him as well. Which came- You want those in the description. Yeah, that'd be great. Yeah.

He Oh my gosh, it was it was embarrassing for Sam. Yeah, even like there was a in that debate, someone gets up and asks some stupid question about homosexuality and Sam Harris just like, good job. Like he had nothing left. He had been completely obliterated logically and was just in a way I haven't seen him before, just resort to like childish tactics. Yeah. So the question of evil, the reality of evil, as I think I had to encounter and face now that I'm in the domain of morality.

That became a step that I was, I was taking and I was striving to develop my philosophical understanding of how do I explain things like this? How do I explain objective, right? Objective, wrong. If it's something I'm going to hold to and not just jettison and become a nihilist, which, which I was afraid of doing. and not just jettison and become a nihilist, which I was afraid of doing. I really tried to rationalize and make sense of it, which eventually I just, I couldn't do anymore. And so it threw me into this, into the state of being where I was really, like it felt like being on the cusp of a mental breakdown. You know, like the reality that I think I live in is not matching the reality that I actually exist in.

And so there's this incongruency between like, how am I and what am I? And it caused a bit of like shattering in my psyche. And I'm desperately just like reaching out to try to make something work and to fit it into this, into this operating system that I'm using. And I just, I couldn't do it. And then one of the things that, that came, became clear to me later on was the pre suppositions that I held onto from my

Mormon background, right? Where Mormonism philosophically, it's much more like materialism. There is no con, there's no concept of transcendent metaphysical reality. It's just, it's something totally absent there. I mean, I mean, it's, it's most evident when you talk about God, the father is being a man who has a body somewhere in space, toes and toenails. Right. And so the, without, without really understanding that this is the underpinnings of the way that I interpret the world,

materialism just makes, it makes more sense. And I think that that's the reason why so many former Latter-day Saints fall into it because it's just I don't have to wrestle with or expand my way of thinking into this metaphysical sphere and relearn. Joe Rogan just interviewed Stephen Meyer, Meyer Myers on his show. We've been in touch with Stephen. I think he's going to come on the show soon. And Stephen's a believer. And my point is it's such an easy game for the atheist to play. Like all Joe Rogan did in that interview was go, well, maybe one day we'll learn more. And it's like you just have to keep kicking the ball down the road and say, well, OK, all of your arguments are irrefutable to me right now, but we just don't have all the

information yet. And so as an atheist, you just keep getting to say that whenever you encounter someone's coherent worldview that leads, say, to Christianity, you can say, well, even if that is coherent, we're just so small and the universe is so big. And look at how we've changed our understanding of the universe over the last 100 years or something. And therefore, you know, it's a lot easier to tear down a position and to make one, I guess is what I'm saying. And beyond that, I think that like where we live in the, in the modern Western world is we see, we see the world through a lens of

scientism. I think it's, I mean, it's almost inescapable. And so when I, when I think of what Joe Rogan was saying and how he was responding to those, it's he's still, you know, reducing things to a scientific empirical way of, of epistemology. And so when, once you enter into religion, metaphysics, theology, you have to shift gears. You have to shift into a philosophical way of-

You're not playing a different game as a world. Exactly. Yeah, you can't keep playing the same game. But unless you know that there's another game to play, you don't know what you don't know. You know, so you, I didn't understand that I had to move from my way of, of understanding, which was scientific and empirical into something, something else. And so I think that this is the case for somebody like Joe Rogan. And it's the case for a lot of people,

is that we don't understand that, you know, we're operating with, we need another set of tools to get us to understand God, to understand metaphysics. 100%. And for me, I guess my door into that, like my breakthrough, was through Eastern mysticism. Okay. Yeah. So this really should have been a 10 hour episode. We're going to have to have you

back. Keep going. How much longer do we have? Well, I mean, let's see, what time does my wife come in from Florida? Just as long as I have to pick her up. Uh, let's just board it. We probably have to wrap up in half hour. I am so sorry. I would love to talk to you for so much longer, but we've already gone two and a half hours in the nuts. Well, I don't want to just push and rush through. So I don't either,

but I want people to know that you're a Catholic. I'm Catholic. See you later guys. Yeah. Um, whatever direction you want to go. I mean, I would love to do questions. We have so many questions. We have so much. Maybe we can have you on for a part two. OK, and we can go through like atheism

to Eastern mysticism to were you a Protestant at some point? OK, we can't do all of that. We cannot. So here's what we're going to do. Questions are going to be Mormon theology questions, so we should just take those. This is amazing. Real quick, I Googled Stephen Meyer. This is hilarious.

You'll both get a good laugh out of this. The second line of his Wikipedia page calls him an advocate for the pseudo science of intelligent design. I know. Don't even try to have a hint of objectivity there, do they? All right, so there's a lot of questions here. And so what we're going to do is we're going to have you back on if you'd be so kind to come back on and we'll do a part two and then we'll stitch the two together and it'll be

like the Lord of the Rings expanded edition where you can sit down and watch a seven hour interview. But let's do this. Now, a lot of these questions may have come up prior to what we discussed, so please don't feel the need to be exhaustive. Sure. In fact, I beg you not to be. And let's just take a, let's, let's try to hit these quick if that's okay.

Unless you want to spend more time on it. Let's try to answer them somewhat briefly. Uh, big thanks to everybody who is a local supporter. Thank you so much. Matt fred.locals.com. We've got a lot coming up. One of the things we've got coming up is a communal movie that we're going to watch together on Amazon watch parties. We're all going to watch a movie together coming up soon. Why do I find out about these things live on air, Matt?

That's how I roll, baby. So the other thing is we have a Flannery O'Connor five-week masterclass coming up, taught by Father Damien Ference, who has his PhD in Thomism at Flannery O'Connor. That's coming up first day of August. A lot more besides people seem to really enjoy it. Please go support us, matphred.locals.com. Here are some questions from our local supporters. Oh, one more thing. Yeah. Kyle is in the chat saying that Trent and Destiny are on whatever tonight.

Yeah, so they are. Watch that. And then we've got Trent coming on on Saturday and we're going to break down that debate. So anyway, the Schauss House, probably not his real name, says, what is the best objection to Mormonism? For example if I were to tell an LDS family member to look into one issue to possibly spur Conversation, what would you recommend? I would recommend going in the direction of Exposing the great apostasy as being a historical fiction

And so this this in the past was more difficult to do but as the scholarship of BYU continues to develop, there are things about historical Christianity that they cannot deny. And this has really, this has become objective in the book that was just published by Maxwell Institute, which is the publishing wing of BYU, which is the church-owned university. It's an introduction to the ancient church for the LDS person, and in there they take—and maybe I should just spend a little time explaining the great apostasy. So part of LDS doctrine is that at the death of the last apostle, the authority of the Christian church was completely removed from the world. And that for 1800 years from the time of the death of John the Apostle through the Restoration through Joseph Smith, the Christian church was totally

apostate. And so their belief is a universal apostasy. This new book by the Maxwell Institute acknowledges that that can't be the case because we have just mountains and mountains of literature and source material from the ancient church, from Ignatius of Antioch forward, describing this community that existed and persevered and retained and developed and grew and flourished and had, you know, conflict and overcome and councils and so on and so forth. And so their ability to say that, nope, there was no Christian community, that ground is quickly shrinking beneath them. So that book would definitely be a good place to start.

If you wanted to point something out to the LDS person say look This is from church church sources LDS sources that acknowledge that this apostasy. What's the book called? It's the ancient introduction. Yeah I got it ancient christians and introduction for latter-day saints. Yeah, and you don't have to go too far into it So it says this explicitly in the introduction to the book that the church's notion of a universal apostasy is not tenable. So that that's the direction I think is probably the best to go. Plus that gives you an ability to streamline the conversation into Catholicism.

The good fighter says, how do you tack? And, oh, well, I hate when people ask to be anonymous. Put it at the top of the commoner. But here's the thing. Who knows who the good fighter is? I'll go back to him. Oh, you said the first line. You can't. You're going to have to skip the question. All right. I might ask it on my own later on. Sorry about that. Kyle says I've heard from another ex LDS that there are a ton of explicitly Masonic rituals and

imagery involved in the temple. Is this true or is this conspiracy theory nonsense? This is absolutely 100% true. Okay. So, um, Joseph Smith, at some point around the time he was a Navu was initiated into the free masonry and he advanced pretty quickly through the ranks and he writes in one of his journals that he was he was inducted in into the ranks of Freemasonry and became a master Mason and so the what happens within the Freemasonic Lodge is mirrored really closely to what the LDS Church is doing not not necessarily in the baptism for the dead, but the other part of what takes place in the temple, which is called the endowment.

And the endowment is this initiation into the secret origins of the creation of the world and what happened in the garden and what transpired between Adam and Eve and Lucifer and God. And part of this, there are secret tokens and signs that are given, which is exactly what takes place within the Masonic Lodge. So there are there are handshakes, there are new names and passwords given, and so for the LDS person these things, I'm just thinking now maybe I don't want to continue on this vein offend somebody Because I mean that this is held as pretty sacred among the LDS people. So, okay

In short and sorry for that to derail but in short Yes, the connection between Freemasonry and the LDS temple rituals is very very close and where it came from was Freemasonry because Joseph Smith had been initiated into it. And historically, chronologically, the temple ceremony came post his induction into Freemasonry. Thank you for that. Mitchell Godfrey says, what is the biggest hope you have for current LDS members as it relates to finding their way to the true faith? Is there a hope?

Is there a movement within Mormonism that is leading into Christianity or no? Not that I can perceive. I'm sure that it's there. And I think that, like you said earlier, the tendency to throw the baby out with the bathwater when they leave Mormonism, you know, and just dismiss Christianity as a whole without giving it a second glance. I think that that's the dominant trend. And so what I think might stem that tide is, is to just be more forward with what it is

that we believe in and explain. Like there's another way of understanding Christianity that perhaps you weren't exposed to. Let me, let me talk to you about it. That might be the best way, but who knows? It could work. ZGH1 says, living in a mainly LDS area, how can I share my faith and beliefs without fully isolating myself? I would, if this is an opportunity that you have to invite them to pray with you, to let them know that there are people outside of this LDS community that love God and love Jesus.

And if you could just show that you do have a true, genuine relationship with our Savior, then maybe that might open their eyes to say, okay, what I have here, what I treasure about this Mormon faith of mine can be found elsewhere. Beyond that, if you do have, you know, an intact family, you know, and a strong family life and you're raising up children, expose them to that. You know, that outside of Mormonism, you can still find still find beautiful growing big families that are serious about their faith. Tasha W says does the Mormon slash LDS church perform exorcisms? So there is there is an acceptance of demonic possession and reality of demons and their interface with us, I don't think that there's a right or a formula

that has gone through because every male member, every adult male member has the Melchizedek Priesthood. And so they do anointings and laying on of hands. And so I imagine that if there were an exorcism done, it would be done in the same manner that a blessing of health would be given with an anointing of a consecrated oil and the laying on of hands and then invoking the power of the Melchizedek priesthood.

Applying Lewis's trilemma to Joseph Smith, was Joseph Smith a prophet, lunatic, or a liar? Liar. Yeah. I mean, there's, I think that it's also a very credible assumption to say that he was demonically deceived, you know? So, um, there's, there's some corollary corollaries between Mormonism and Islam. And even the prophet Muhammad, he has, Seems to be demonically inspired. I would say, I think there's parts of the Quran or the Prophet Muhammad, he has- Seems to be demonically inspired, I would say. I think there's parts of the Quran or the Hadith called the Satanic verses where he

admits as much, as much that there was some interaction between him and the devil. Yeah, I think in that first encounter, he seems to have come home thinking that that was my understanding. But I think, I think it's, I think we can both say we love, and you correct me if you think this is me going too far. I think we can both say that our LDS friends are people we can learn from, but we can also say that LDS doctrine is, I think, demonically inspired and propagated, and it ought to be crushed under our feet, and I'd be for the burning of Mormon books.

Strong words. I have done that. I don't disagree. Admit it. I'm just saying we shouldn't try to one up me all the time. Okay. Thursday. Yeah. Like in the same way that I would be okay. Taking a Jehovah's witness Bible, which has very clear intentional errors and burning it for the sake of eradicating it. I'm not talking about stealing necessarily people's private property and doing that, you see, nor am I talking about publicly shaming anybody.

Yeah. An attitude towards what the LDS Church is in and of itself and not directing any sort of that towards the LDS person, I think is appropriate to say that the LDS Church is massively deceptive. And since its inception has pulled how many people away from the flock of God, and their efforts to evangelize the world and proselytize, and their methods of doing it. And removing Catholics from the faith in South American countries by the droves.

And if a Mormon is offended by that, I would just say, but look, you think the same thing. You look at me and say, you've been horribly deceived, and you should come, so if you're offended by me, realize that you think the same thing? Like you look at me and say, you've been horribly deceived and you should come like, so if you're offended by me, like realize that you think the same thing and you're right to think the same thing, given your presuppositions. Can we get a really simple question that has not stopped talking about it? Are Mormons Christians? No, no, no, they're not. Why not? So we address this a little earlier in the episode. I mean, what it, what it is to be a Christian formally is to receive baptism and the Mormon

baptism is not valid. Right. And so if you miss that, you know, there's a portion of this conversation where we talk about it and we get into the form and the matter and the intention and why the LDS baptism is not, is not valid. that answers that question. Without a valid baptism, you're not a member of the body. I agree with that completely. I think that's the answer I would give. But one step even remote from that is,

if I say to you, I've accepted Jesus as my personal Lord and savior, and haven't yet been baptized, you might be close to like, okay, like, yeah, you're kind of like a proto-Christian maybe. But then it's like, what if I, by Jesus, I mean the guy who runs the, yeah, you kind of like a proto-Christian, maybe. But then it's like, what if I by Jesus, I mean, the guy who runs the Mexican restaurant, you know, he like, oh, no, that's the wrong Jesus.

And likewise, Mormons don't believe in the right Jesus. Yeah. Is that too strong? That's it. That's it. Exactly. Is that when talking about Christ, we're talking about two different people. This is a funny question. J.C. Chastain Chastain says, how has Mexican meatloaf changed your life? In big ways. Big, big ways. It's a game changer. Why is it a game? What is it? So imagine American meatloaf. And will your wife make it for me? Yeah, will she give

me the recipe or make it for me too? Yeah. It's a, so meatloaf, I don't know how I feel about, I don't, maybe Australian meatloaf's a little bit different. We don't have meatloaf, but I like meatloaf. You know, you kind of like douse it in ketchup and it's, it's not good. Mexican meatloaf on the other hand, it's superb. What is it? So imagine meatloaf, but just a lot better. So we make this like a chipotle aioli

and we make it into tacos. And so it's like ground beef, that's real tender and succulent. The same can be said about Mormonism. You know Mormonism? Imagine that, way better, Catholicism. That's the second distinction. All right, what is the best way to inspire a Mormon relative

to see the truth about getting disowned, says Al Solak. Being disowned, it's, my own experience, it's not something that is really prevalent for those that leave the church. This is one of the reasons I would I would object to people calling Mormonism a cult. I don't think it is. First of all, I don't think people know what they mean by cult. They just use it as a slur. But even if you were to try to give some definition, some edges to that word, I don't think Mormonism counts.

So, I mean, you have to acknowledge that there are cost, there's personal costs, there's social costs, sometimes depending on where you live, there's economic costs to, to any sort of major transition like this. So if, you know, if you're living in a, you know, Steubenville, Ohio, and you apostatize from the Catholic church, there's going to be ramifications. Like, you might not be able to retain your friend group if you become an obstinate heretic. And so, conversely, if you are living in the heartland of Mormon-dom and you leave the church, your friends and family are going to learn about that. Your co-workers and maybe your employer are going to learn about that. So there's definitely a cost of doing it. I just, I don't think that that cost extends so much into the family life, you know, with parents disowning children. But, you know, that exists, you know, within Jehovah's Witnesses and some smaller communities. But my own experience

is that it doesn't, that's not the case in Mormonism. Clint asks, Steven, you say that LDS people are in it out of sincerity because they believe the doctrines. However, it would seem that those who assume the mantle of prophet have to be insincere. I mean, they know they aren't actually receiving revelation, right? So how closely at the top is the secret kept? That's a good question. I mean, first, I think that those in the leadership roles do believe that they are real apostles of Jesus Christ. I think that they do.

And maybe there are those who have their ulterior motive and do, you know, secretively understand that they're not. But I think that that would be the minority. And there's a couple examples throughout fairly modern history of where apostles have deep-dived the claims of the Church and have run into these problematic things. I think his name was B.H. Roberts. I might begin that wrong. But he was an apostle.

He was one of the general authorities of the Church. He was commissioned by the Church to investigate the history of the Church and do some comparative analysis. And he was rocked by some of the historical claims of the book of Mormon, you know, so he's before, um, rough stone rolling, before any of the real scholarship had been done, he was running into the problems of anachronisms and translation errors that exist in the book of Mormon.

And even like where the book of Mormon is said to have taken place. Um, he couldn't answer those questions and he was rocked, but he still remains steadfast to the church. And so, yeah, I think to reiterate, I think that most people from the very lowest new converts to the highest general authorities, I think that by and large their faith is genuine. Mason- Jacob Voggs says, what is your response to the Mormons who think the altar in Yemen that has the letter NHM is evidence that the Book of Mormon is real also have you seen the band Mormon cartoon like Mormons were the ones who banned it if so is it accurate to what Mormons believe. So I'll answer the second question first. Yes, I watched that in Iraq when I was in Iraq. So there's an animation that you can find on YouTube. It was produced probably like in the 1980s.

It's an animation that has, it depicts God the Father with multiple heavenly wives and it describes how God the Father and his heavenly wives have created through coming together in the marital act, have created the spiritual children that will eventually inhabit physical bodies. And so it goes into the esoteric doctrines of Mormonism, who God is, what happened in the pre-existence, and it's done in animation.

And the title is Banned cartoon. I think if you find it, link it. I mean, I did send it to you already a couple of weeks ago. And you didn't watch it. I didn't watch it, but put a link in the description. It's interesting and it's good. And it's, it's also true. Like there's really nothing in there. That's not what is taught. Yeah. It's not what is taught. And then to the second question. So there Mormonism has its own field of archaeology. And if you go down into the South America and go to like the Incan and Aztec ruins, the church has a, the LDS church has a huge presence down there and tour guides that will take you through the ancient artifacts and monoliths and everything else and point to certain inscriptions or the structure

and say, make a claim and an argument that these were built by the Nephites or these were built by the Lamanites. And so they do this everywhere. They've done it in the coastlands of Israel where Lehi is said to have left and they do it in Yemen apparently, I hadn't heard of that. But yeah, so Mormon archeology is a thing. Yeah. And everything is meant to substantiate the claims.

Wow. Andrew Morgan says, I have a friend who grew up Catholic left for the LDS last fall and is now rethinking her decision and coming to me to bounce ideas around after feeling pressure from her ward to dive into quickly. Do you have any recommendations on how to gently guide her back to the Catholic faith? And I'm going to be so bold as to ask you, Stephen, would you be open to talking with this person? Yeah, yeah, definitely. So you can put us in contact.

Yeah, Andrew, if you post, yeah, how will we do this? If you go to pines with Aquinas.com slash feedback, right? And just get in touch with us that way. If she's open to chatting with Stephen, I'll put the two of them in touch. Sounds good. Yeah. Yeah. Is there is there like a catch?

I mean, no book answers everybody's questions about everything. But other than the book you've already recommended, would there be something you're about to put a book together? Is that we allowed to talk about that or no? Oh, yeah. I mean, I can't. I mean, it's still so very early in that project, but maybe part two. Yeah. So I think that the historical approach is the best because theologically there's that. There's there's a divide there.

The presuppositions are just massively different. And since she's coming from a Catholic background, that might not be the case. So she might have some grasp on Catholic theology and the metaphysics behind it. So maybe that's an option available to you. Just do a comparative analysis. What is the LDS Church saying? How does it run in logically into the problems of infinite regression and the infinite principles and is God eternal? You know, so that, I mean, that's one of the most basic attributes of God that we affirm as Catholics is that God is eternal. The Mormon can't do that. They can't affirm it, especially if you press them on the definition of what eternality is. Well, God has not always been God because he was once a man and

before he was man he was a spirit and before he's a spirit he existed as some sort of ambiguous form of intelligence without any sort of structure or personal identity and so you can just dive into the to the attributes of God and see what what the attributes of God from the Catholic perspective lead you to and what they affirm and conversely what the LDS attributes of God look like. I would also recommend Andrew that you share this video with your friend. Are there Mormon exclusive arguments for God's existence?

Because the normal theist arguments don't work, do they? Well see, the thing is, I mean Aquinas, as you know, is open to an infinite regress philosophically. So in that sense, it might be difficult to say, well, you can't have an infinite regress of God's and agree with Aquinas. However, Aquinas' argument does rest on the assumption that you have to have something that grounds this whole hierarchical chain of causality. And so I'd still want to ask the moment, what does that? Yeah, and maybe we, maybe I'm not, I don't want to misunderstand, right? But when Aquinas is talking about the infinite regress, he's talking about the

world, right? That the world didn't have to have started at some point in the past. It could extend, it could extend back infinitely. He disagrees with that because of Revelation, but he agrees with Aristotle that philosophically. And so I think it'd be good to distinguish that from the LDS perspective, which is not within creation, but within the divine, there's an infinite regression. Yeah, which that an infinite regression sort of necessitates change and yeah, change is.

It's contrary to eternality. Right. Sorry. Yeah. According to LDS theology, did I ever begin to exist? So the state that you're in now did begin to exist, but what constitutes you has existed forever. What does that mean? What constitutes me? So like my essence or no. So they, um, there's an idea that the two, like the only existing eternally components of reality

are intelligence and matter. So those two things alone are the things that are truly eternal. So any God, whether it's God the father of this world or his God or all the way back, haven't existed eternally, but what has existed eternally are those constituent parts that make up everything, which is intelligence and matter. And so you could think of, excuse me, you could think of, excuse me, you could think of intelligence as being, um, undefined consciousness and matter is

this, you know, like the quantum state, you know, something that emerges and brings out everything that exists materially. Okay. Wow. Um, Justin says I grew up Protestant, but for the past few years, I felt very drawn to Catholicism. What advice would you give to someone who feels apprehensive to explore any other faith traditions than their own? I would just say encourage a sense of daring and the openness to stepping out into the unknown. And if you accept the scriptural witness, seeing how many times that call has gone out, where have people been called by God to step into the unknown?

The story of Abraham, I think, is one of the most powerful examples of this, where you have Abraham, who late into his life, I think we could assume with a great deal of comfort and security with where he was, receives this call from God to go to a place that he's never been before, and he does. And I think that part of what faith means is being able to acknowledge the darkness

that's ahead of us, but stepping out in trust and hope that God's going to take us to where we need to be. And I think that that, it should be a motivating factor that if I'm discontent with where I'm at or something's not ringing true with me, and I know that God is my security and God is truth, I want to pursue truth, even if I don't know exactly what that means or what it looks like. That's part of the package. You don't get to know ahead of time. You come into it. Yeah, that's right. I often say, and I wonder what you think about this, to Protestants, that a prayer you could make if you're exploring the truth claims of Catholicism, maybe even

offering a prayer that Catholics typically pray or going to Holy Mass is to say, Lord, I love you and I don't want to offend you. I'm going here because I want to be obedient to you. If Catholicism is not true, please lead me away from it. Slam the door in my face. The last thing I do, yeah, because I could imagine that there's this fear, right? Of like, I don't, I don't want to offend you, but I also want to be open to you. And that's a strange place to be in yeah and leaving Mormonism that that sense of fear was Yeah, weighed heavily on me not to think that you know

There's a possibility here that I might be being deceived by the devil you know that that I mean that was that was something that Really weighed on me, but Again, I think that if that's the case and you're genuine and you're prayerful that, and God is, God is good. And he's going to keep us from falling into, into that. And you know, we also have the idea of divine providence, you know, that God's business is getting us to heaven. You know, when it comes to my relationship with God, that's where he's getting me. And so every, it is, yeah.

And it's something that I certainly rest on often. my relationship with God, that's where he's getting me. And so every- It's a comforting thought. It is, yeah. And it's something that I certainly rest on often, and I love to reflect on it, to think, you know, whatever happens throughout my day, even like the seemingly mundane, and I get cut off in traffic, well, there's something God's giving me to advance in the life of virtue,

or my faith life collapses as a Mormon, you know, and it leaves me with this existential crisis on my hands, even that is meant to bring me to where I'm supposed to be. And the ultimate destination of this one way or another, unless I'm refusing to participate with it, is in his presence. Spiker Carr says, "'My wife and I have had LDS missionaries over for dinner several times,

but even though we talk casually about religion, we make it clear that we're not open to converting. We're both strongly Catholic and my wife is the assistant director of religious air at our church. Is this helpful or something that we should gradually try to phase out? I don't know what she means. If she means that she continued to meet with the missionaries, I think it's useful. Um, and if it's something that's edifying for you and you enjoy it, you're at least exposing these young men to a different perspective, a different way of thinking about and speaking about God. So no, I mean, you, you may not

be able to convert them there in your house, but you may be able to plant a seed that could grow into something later in life. I can see there being something beneficial to to saying, listen, we're not open to converting. We understand you're not open to converting. So we're happy to meet. And if we both kind of agree not to argue about Mormonism or Catholicism, unless it's specifically stated in a a way it kind of takes the burden off. Like okay, it's upfront, I'm not going to convert, but you welcome over. I think so too. I think, I mean, in this era of social media, I think we're all kind of starved for just

good conversation. So why not? I mean, they're out there doing their job for the next two years and they're, they're personable and they're nice and they're polite, so why not talk with them? Mason. I like this because we brought it up, so it's probably worthwhile speaking about it. Harry says, is it true that Mormons have to wear special underwear and if so, why? Jason Bahlman.

So the garment, as they call it, it's a little tricky to say what it is, but I think in their mind, in the way it's explained is that it's a level of spiritual protection. So the body is a temple. It's this place where spirit and body unite and that to keep this thing pure, which is a reason for their word of wisdom, which is the prohibition on alcohol and tobacco and such, is that they see and understand that there is an interface between spirit and body, and that the body is not completely, it's not like a Gnosticism where this is just a shell,

a useless shell, but there is some sort of meeting place between this and I'm meant to keep this pure and holy. And it seems to me that the garment is just an outward expression, even though it's not manifested publicly. It's concealed underneath their clothing, but this is this is my this is my way of demonstrating with my physical body, my relationship. And correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't it also tend towards modesty? Because if I'm wearing an undergarment that I can't wear like spaghetti

strap shirts if I'm a woman say yeah no that's exactly right yeah okay this is an interesting question nine mischief makers says do you think the step from Mormonism to evangelical Christianity was easier or harder than from evangelical to Catholicism Do you think you could have made the leap from Mormonism to Catholicism directly in my personal experience? I found my move from LDS to Christianity Sorry, LDS to Protestantism harder than Protestantism to Catholicism. So there's there's some some ways that the LDS Church and Catholicism are are More closely related and one of those is ecclesiology.

To understand that there is a magisterium, they wouldn't call it that, but there is a body with authority to interpret and to teach. And there's a figurehead. So we have the Pope that represents the universal church. They have the prophet and president of the church, which is the face of the church.

So yeah, there's more ways to identify ecclesially the LDS church and the Catholic church. And there's also, you know, Protestantism, their notion of Sola Scriptura. It's also, it wouldn't relate, it wouldn't be as understandable to think that, you know, I can hand you this book and you interpret it Basically at your own discretion and so since that isn't something that's inculcated in them as believers in the LDS faith Our understanding of that there is an authoritative interpretation on this and you can interpret it but within a certain set of parameters I think that that that makes it a little bit more relatable. Oh, this is the final question. And if we have super chats, maybe we could throw some.

Do we have any super chats or no? Oh yeah. Oh dear. Do you want to, do you want to, I'll just pick through a couple of them. We always, we should do it at the, we always say we will, but we should start doing it at the beginning. Like the like disclaimer. Yeah. Yeah. I'll read through some of them. Could we go? Yeah. Could you go through some of them and maybe we could try to answer them quickly? Yeah, we'll do a lightning round. That's possible. Go for it. Elijah Rex donated $20. He's just asking for prayers for his vocation. Thank you for your $20. We'll pray for you. Thank you, Lord.

New Gloff gave $5. Thank you. He asks, is it true that the LDS are unusually good at basketball? Yeah, I think recreational sports, Mormons are really, really good. They come together as part of a community activities to do those things regularly. So they're practicing and playing more often.

Volleyball too, I think they'll probably crush it. Volleyball. Leslie gave $5.00, says she's an active Mormon Yeah, they're practicing and playing more often volleyball too. I think they'll they'll probably crush it volleyball Leslie is gave five dollars says she's an active Mormon and she says that the church's genealogical Records can be wildly inaccurate They're rough That's from a while back Mike quarter Irish gave five dollars was asking about Mormons and Christianity. We already addressed that. Uh, Joseph Clark gave $5 and asked if you've seen the South park.

Yeah. Musical. Yeah. Was it good? Was it insulting? I mean, yeah, I watched it as a teenager. So, I mean, I was, I was still believing and involved with the, the, the church. No, I wasn't. I mean, I thought part of it was pretty funny and comical, but it also sort of. Beat that autobiography or the biography to the punch. And that's exactly how it's depicted. I may have misunderstood. Are you talking about the musical or what?

Oh, the episode. Amazing. Could you put a link to a YouTube clip if you find it Thursday to that? Oh, that was damning. Yeah, for that's making about this, this the glass stone. Yeah. Yeah. So it's it's depicted accurately by South Park. Wow. One more. All right. Levi Rocks gave ten dollars and says he's coming into the church in. Came into the church in January of twenty twenty three. Sorry, I stopped being able to do math as a former Jehovah's Witness and says

it feels good to be home. Thank you for your donation. Praise God. Well, I want to finish with this final comment because it comes from a local supporter who has raised Mormon. And so it's a little lengthy, but you can stop me at any point because there might be multiple questions or points here and I'll just carry on after you've said something. All right. So this person says raised Mormon here. So many questions I'd like to ask. I was told to keep them short. I did my best. Mormons are against vain repetition and will always pray from the heart. Since converting to Christianity, I've really loved the rote prayers, our father, Hail Mary, et cetera, While still feeling somewhat uneasy with praying from the heart because it recalls Mormon spirituality and their sense of prayers as a dialogue. What advice can you offer on how to feel comfortable praying from the heart as a Catholic while avoiding the dangers of the of Mormon prayer life?

Do you resonate with that or not? At different points I have, yeah. So especially early on, you know, there is, even though there is the prayer from the heart, it's still from the Mormon person, it's still going to follow a general flow, right? It's going to begin with an address. You're going to go into thanks, ask for blessing and intercession, and then close in the name of Jesus, which we can affirm that as Catholics, you know that that that's the normal order and you can look at the Lord's prayer to see That that you know, there's there's a structure to it an address a blessing given to the father a call for for contrition, you know and then

Intercession give us a say our daily bread and so on and so forth. And then a conclusion. And so, no, I think that we should, we should be dialoguing with God as much as we can from the heart. And if it needs to be more of an internal, just opening up your heart to God and wanting to be orientated towards him, I think that that's good too. And let the words come as they come. But I think it's also very important to remember that we're seeking relationship with God. And so what sort of relationship would you have with your spouse or with your mom or your dad or your children if it was all just formulated? I think there would be something greatly lacking there. So if we look at our personal relationships with those closest to us as sort of an example

of what it means to be in a relationship with God, I think that it's going to serve us well to think that I love this person and I wanna express my love to them in a way similar to how I'd express it to my spouse or to my children. And that's to recognize their goodness, to appreciate and to acknowledge

them. And because we believe that he can do anything, ask him, you know, just ask him, not just on our own behalf, but on behalf of our neighbors and our loved ones as well. So I think that, yeah, if you're trying to restructure and relearn how to pray, the formula prayers of the Catholic tradition are wonderful, but I think you do want to restructure and relearn how to pray the formula prayers of the Catholic tradition are wonderful But I think I think you do want to break into Break back into personal dialogue with God I'm gonna skip some of these because they're all individual questions and some of them we've touched on In a sense Mormons are in the opposite way of the Protestants with their solar feed a in that the Mormon faith is entirely works based.

Can you speak to how the Catholic faith triangulates with solar feed a and the unadulterated Pelagian ism of Mormonism? That's a good one. Yeah, so I've wondered on that myself that can you be a Mormon just going through the motions and and achieve exaltation and I think if you were to candidly ask that question to an LDS person They would say no that belief is is still required But I don't know how to really delineate the two. Like, okay, because it is very workspace that there are these things that you have to do and it doesn't really prescribe a way,

an attitude or a disposition for doing those things. They just have to be done. You have to receive baptism. You have to receive the laying on of hands. You have to go through the temple and receive the endowment and the initiatory and temple ceiling. So yeah, on one hand you do have this really sort of Old Testament prescription of here's what has to be done. Here's how you do it. And the faith aspect is sort of left dangling without really being addressed. And so the question mentions plagianism, which the heresy of plagianism is this

idea that the need for grace is not really there, which I definitely agree with, that the whole conception of grace and what it is and how it functions is something absent in LDS theology and teachings. And so to understand that we are assisted and without God, you can think like metaphysically, without God maintaining us, we dissolve into nothing. Like we cannot do anything without God's continuous intervention on our behalf. And Christ in the gospel says,

without me, you can do nothing. And so that's one of the refutations against plagianism is that on our own, we simply can't. And so scripturally, I think that there's an inroads where you can talk about this with LDS person to say that it's not merely works and it's not merely what you can do on your own, but there has to be some room made for grace grace. Well, yeah. Well, how long have we been going for? 312.

I want to ask if you're a Mormon and you are going to convert or have converted because of this episode, tell us below. I truly believe in the power of these. Yeah, these these episodes, they really bring people to Christ. And I am so confident in that that I'm just going to go ahead and tell you to tell me in the comment section. And we did get one active Mormon in the chat who was mostly friendly who suggested some apologists for a debate. So if we could find somebody to do a debate. Yeah, I'd be more than happy to have a Mormon to debate on the show and

I'll find a Catholic. I would just offer this caveat. Like if you're like Mr. No Name from Utah with three subscribers and you're 16 and really don't have credentials, I don't want to put you up against a Catholic who will destroy you. I really want the best. Yeah, I haven't validated his suggestions, but he gave two that. Yeah, so I am very much open to that. And so you can give us suggestions in the comment section below. And thank you so much for coming on. and I can't wait to have you on the next Edition I suppose will be good like from Hinduism or from the east to Catholicism, but this has been really terrific Any pleasure any final thoughts or I don't know places you want to point people to or?

No, I think I think we've touched on I linked all the books. You're the man. Thank you, Thursday. Yeah. Ah, glory to Jesus Christ. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We're out.